The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA Power Rankings: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving & Ben Simmons make Nets dangerous

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

Jason Timpf breaks down the Brooklyn Nets ahead of the 2022-2023 NBA season. After an offseason filled with drama, how will Steve Nash get the most out of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Ben Simmons as Brooklyn seeks its first NBA championship. #Volume #ColinCowherd #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast.

From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The volume. What's up, guys? It's Jason from Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandual. Football season is here, and there is no better place to get in on the action than with Fanduel.

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1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and Virginia. 1-877-7-770 stop in Louisiana. 1-800-270-1-117 for confidential help in Michigan. 18778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y to 467-369 in New York. In Tennessee, redline, dial 1-800-889-9-97889 in Tennessee. Visit www.w.w.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandew here at the Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. We are continuing. continuing right along with our power rankings today with number six, the Brooklyn Nets,

a very interesting, very talented team that has enormous variance heading into this season, probably among the largest gaps between worst case scenario and best case scenario in the league right now. Before we get started, you guys know the drill, subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel, so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT, so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And last but not least, if for whatever reason you can't finish one of these shows, you can't get over to YouTube, you can always find them in podcast form wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. And on that note, let's talk some basketball. So last year, the Brooklyn Nets went 44 and 38.

They were swept by Boston in the first round. We are going to get into that. They were 10th in offense, 20th in defense, and Kyrie, Kevin Durant, and Ben Simmons combined to play 80. one game, so less than one full season from their three best players heading into the playoff run. And then obviously they had all of that James Hardin Drama to start the season. I want to spend a little bit of time diving into some of the ancillary topics with this particular team because they're so incredibly relevant to their potential success this season. You know, in all of our other videos or most of them, we've gone like brief synopsis and

whatever happened in their playoffs and then we head into what they did the offseason. We head into the depth chart and then we head into the X's and O's, right? and we are going to do that with this team, but the ancillary topics that bothered them last year haven't gone away. And there's still very much a factor heading into this season, and I think it's important that we acknowledge them and understand them in the way they could impact this team in this season. So I wanted to start with Kyrie, because, you know,

I'm sure from Kyrie's perspective, he feels justified in everything that he did over the course the last couple of years. I mean, by saying that the vaccine mandate is one of the most horrible. horrible travesties in the history of human rights. He has doubled down on the fact that he believes he was in the right last year with what he did. And he was available for both playoff runs. And so I imagine that would be his like rose-colored glasses, glass-half-full, advocating for his self way of expressing what happened. Like, okay, yeah, yeah, these things happened. But I was always there when you guys needed me in the playoffs, unless I landed on Janus Santanacumpo's

foot like he did in that second round series two years ago. But there. But the reality is that there was a huge direct impact from his behavior. And for the record, I'm referencing him missing a boatload of games because of the vaccine mandate. And then the previous season, the two, you know, leaves of absence that he took that were unrelated to injury and that he did so without even telling Steve Nash, basically just piecing out on the team for a couple of weeks. And those things, even if it doesn't necessarily impact their roster at the end of the season, it does impact their seating, and that does matter, especially in this particular season. You know,

they were banged up a lot of the season. Continuity was an issue. They were hoping to get Ben Simmons back towards the end of that Boston Celtics series, which means presumably he could have been available for a second or third round series. Who knows? But there were a bunch of question marks there around the team that could have been solved by some continuity and by some additional reps and allowing themselves a buffer to face somebody like the Boston Celtics, even just in the second round, even just buying yourself an extra two weeks, could have gone a long way towards that matchup. I think they would have lost anyway. But I think a big part of why they got destroyed in such resounding fashion in that first round series by Boston had to do with the

fact that they had to play them in the first round. And they didn't have a ton of time to get to the best version of themselves before they got there. That is a direct effect of Kyrie Irving's behavior that has to be acknowledged. And I think that's a big part of why Brooklyn was so ready to be done with him this summer. It's why they did not offer him the long-term deal and why they would have been quick to get rid of him had the Kevin Durant thing not gone the way that they hoped it would this summer. Now, to be clear, the reason why they're keeping Kyrie now is because they're in a win-now mode. And there's just no way they could have flipped Kyrie for comparable current talent, they would have had to do something like a Russell Westbrook or salary filler

elsewhere around the league, which just wouldn't have helped them the way that Kyrie Irving can help them. So I would imagine they view him as a necessary evil at this point, but unless his behavior and commitment to the team significantly improves this year, my guess is they'll be done with him after this season. Now, Kyrie is in a contract year. And because of that, I expect him to understand the gravity of the situation. He wanted that five-year deal last summer. He probably still wants it next summer. He's young enough and he's got a long enough career ahead of him

that that's still achievable for him. But he has to rehab his image. And the best way for him to rehab his image is to be at work every single day, committed to the team goal, playing hard on both ends of the floor. And I expect him to do so. Regardless of what you feel about Kyrie,

and I have my issues with him as a person off the court. No, no, I'm not talking about who he is as a friend and as a family member and a member of the community. I'm talking about in his commitment to the team off the court and the way he allows some of his off-court beliefs to take away from his commitment to the team. That's where I offer criticism to him. But the reality is that on the court,

he is a damn good basketball player still. I had him 20th in my player rankings, and that was factoring in some of his availability concerns. In terms of talent, he's right there in that 10 to 15 range. That's how good he is. His basketball skill is unassailable, and it's proven to translate to the playoffs. So if he buys in the season, I think he can rehab his image pretty quickly. But there's no mistaking the fact that his behavior did have a negative impact on the nets the last two years.

The second thing I wanted to look at was KD in the series against Boston. Now, the dynamic with KD is super interesting to me because I think that Steph fans and LeBron fans, have used him as their punching bag. And the main reason why is pretty obvious. KD represents a direct threat to the legacies of Stefan LeBron. Him and what he did to LeBron head to head in the 2017 and 2018 finals, basically playing him to his stalemate. That obviously threatens LeBron's legacy.

And then obviously with Steph. And the fact that Steph won two titles with KD and has won, he has won obviously a couple without him, but those two, a lot of people attribute a great deal of that success to KD. So it's a direct threat to Steph and it's a direct threat to LeBron. And as a result, the vast majority of the discourse surrounding KD is trolling. And you're just not going to get that here. You're going to find plenty of KD trolling everywhere, even on major media networks. You're not going to get it from me. I'm only interested in talking about the basketball. Now, the reality of what happened in that Boston Celtics series is there were two areas where Katie really struggled.

His pull-up jump shooting, which is literally his best skill, he was 49% on 629 attempts pull-up jump shooting last season. That's literally incredible. In the series against Boston, he shot just 36% on pull-up jumpers. So his bread and butter offensive go-to move failed him. That happens sometimes. It's a reality of pull-up jump shooting. And in a very small sample size, four games, one week of basketball, that sort of thing can happen. And that's what did. The other thing where KD really dropped the ball was taking care of the basketball. Now, I watched hours of footage of Brooklyn this morning, including some footage from that Boston Celtic series. It was a physical blood bath. And I have seen KD handle physical

blood baths well many times in his career. He just didn't handle this one well. It happens. again, small sample size, one week of basketball. He had 21 turnovers in four games. You could tell he was struggling with that. First of all, I want to give some credit to Boston's defense. They were swarming from the opening tip of that series. I have been on the record saying that Boston was the best half-court defense that I have seen in this era of basketball. So give them a bunch of credit there. The reality, though, is we zoom out a little bit. Brooklyn fared better against Boston's defense than anybody by a lot. They averaged 115 points per 100 possessions against Boston's defense. Golden State was the second best team facing Boston last year with 110 points per 100

possessions. Now obviously Golden State's a much better team. They defend a million times better. That's why they have the trophy. But so much criticism and so much trolling is facing towards Kevin Durant and the job he did on offense against the Boston Celtics and the job that Kyrie did on offense against the Boston Celtics. The reality is that the ultimate goal is to put the ball in the basket

and they did that better than anybody else did against the Boston Celtics. To give you an idea, everyone considers the Dallas Mavericks as having eviscerated Phoenix's defense and they only averaged about 114 points per 100 possession in that series. So Boston had a harder time stopping Brooklyn

than Phoenix did stopping Dallas in that series. That just gives you an idea of how successful their offense was. The reality of what happened in that series is they were completely overmatched physically everywhere on the floor because they didn't have the athletes and the size and the defensive role players to hang in that type of physical series. That's why they lost. We all knew that going into the series. We just thought, oh, maybe Katie and Kyrie could overcome that. We knew it was a coin flip.

I think I picked Brooklyn in seven, if I remember correctly, just because I trusted KD in a way that he performed against Milwaukee the previous year in a very similar type of series where he was overmatched in talent because of the injury to James Hardin and the injury to Kyrie Irving. He was overmatched in physicality on the defensive end of the floor, and Milwaukee had better role players. Exact same dynamic. And we saw Kevin Durant make those pull-up jumpers

and take better care of the basketball, and he had a shot with one inch, if it was one inch further away, that would have won the series. That's why we were looking at that series with that type of optimism towards Brooklyn, but what happened in this case is Katie's jump shot did fail him, and things got ugly,

which is going to happen a lot of the time when there is that big of a talent disadvantage. Here's the way I'm going to look at this. a lot of you are going to take that as an opportunity to dig a great for Kevin Durant. And if you choose to do that, be my guess. I think that's a foolish gamble. I'm not going to overreact to one week of basketball. The reality is that was one of the best seasons, regular seasons, of KD's career.

It was his third best scoring season ever. He shot 63% as a true shooting percentage, which was his ninth consecutive season doing so, which is literally insane over the last. the same span. I think Steph only did it five out of nine times if you're looking for some context there. Week three of the NFL season is here and the best place to practice your touchdown dance is on Fandual, America's number one sportsbook. Fandual is kicking off week three with a no sweat bet for everybody. Doesn't matter if you're a new customer or already have an account. You'll get free bets back if you don't win. Just log in and see for yourself.

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with a no-swebett during week three. Make every moment more with Fandul, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all,

embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying.

Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits. the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream,

this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that,

George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s.

To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you all know. I mean, at this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed correct. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really?

Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He also had the best playmaking season of his career. still is an impact defensive player. So if you guys want to write him off, be my guest. I don't think that that's a good idea. I will not be writing him off. I expect him to play like a top tier superstar this season. Looking at the offseason for a second. So they traded for Royce O'Neill. This was Utah's best perimeter defender, although that's not exactly saying much. He's a bit

undersized, but he's super scrappy and super physical borderline dirty at times, but a good defensive player at 6'5. He shot 38% on catch and shoot threes, and he fits the archetype of the player that they were missing last year, guy that can make open shots when the defense sends attention elsewhere, and that can actually thrive a little bit in the physicality and bring some of the things defensively that they did not have last year. They also signed TJ Warren. T.J. Warren's a super interesting player because he's barely played in the last two seasons, but if you look at what he did in the previous season, it was outstanding. In 2020, not just counting the bubble, but for the whole season, he shot 43% on catch and shoot jumpers,

45% on pull-up jumpers, both outstanding numbers. And also, I didn't watch him a tundering the regular season, but during that bubble run, he was a pretty solid defensive player. I'd like to see more of that over a longer span before I call him a good defensive player, but I know he's capable of it. But health is the biggest question mark. He only played four games in the two years since then, but he is only 29 years old, and he's taken his sweet time getting over this foot injury, so hopefully he'll be ready to go. They also signed Marquief Morris. We'll talk a little bit more about him later. They lost Bruce Brown. He signed a two-year deal with Denver that pays about 13 million a year, or 13 million total over two years.

And then they're getting back Ben Simmons, right, because he was unable to play last year, and they're getting back Joe Harris. Joe Harris is obviously one of the best shooters that we have in the league and is a great movement shooter. Ben Simmons is one of the best defensive players in the world. And he's also super gifted getting to the rim. He made 4.1 shots in the restricted area per game in 2021, which was fifth most among perimeter oriented players. He kind of fits into that Bruce Brown role and what they were using Bruce Ban for anyway, so that's why I'm not super critical of them letting Bruce Brown go for such a small number. I just, with what he can do, screening and rolling to the rim and the short roll and then some inverted pick and roll stuff,

and his ability to make reeds as he's barreling downhill to the rim, excellent finding three-point shooters all over the floor. I think he's going to be a huge, a piece of, and a great fit. in what they do offensively. Ideally, you want him after the couple of years he's been away from the game to be making his spot up threes now, at least to, you know, 30, 33% somewhere around there. But even if he's not, he's still a very impactful basketball player that is a huge influx of talent on this team, especially on the defensive end of the floor, and he fits a very specific need on this roster.

So I think he's going to help a lot. Looking at the depth chart, at the guard position, and Kyrie Irving, Joe Harris, Seth Curry, Patty Mills, Cam Thomas, and Chris Chioza. On the wing, Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, Royce O'Neill, T.J. Warren, Kessler Edwards, and Markief Morris. And then Biggs, really only Nick Claxton, but I'm throwing Ben Simmons in here too, because my guess is he'll play a lot of this season at the center position. It's hard to say whether or not he'll start. Their best lineup is certainly him at center, or Kevin Durant at center with him at the four.

But you never know, this team really struggled with defensive rebounding last year, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Steve Nash wanted to start Claxton. I personally think that would be a mistake, especially with Simmons's inability to shoot. I would start small. I'd go with Katie and Ben with Joe Harris and Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving. That's the way that I would go. Before we get into some of the X's and O's,

I did want to touch on the KD trade saga for just a second. That was one of the more confusing sagas that I've seen in my time following the NBA. After what Kevin Durant did, which is not just request to trade, but make it very clear that he did not like the coach and the GM. And then Kyrie also with his antics threatening to go to the Lakers and then openly pining for the Lakers to the tune of screaming at Laker fans that he'll be a Laker soon. With all of those things,

I just thought for sure Brooklyn's front office would want a fresh start. They had enough assets to rapidly rebuild around quality players and even to be relatively interesting in the immediate future, I just thought they'd try to bail out from this experiment because it hasn't gone well for them. I think it's important to, you know, differentiate the difference between the KD situation and the Kairi situation too. Like, KD was never the problem. But then, you know, like it was just injuries with him.

It was in his friendship with Kairi and what that brought that ended up being an issue. I think Brooklyn loved partnering with Kevin Durant. But because of the Kairi that came with that, and then right there at the end when he, threw the coach and the GM under the bus the way he did in his his demand to the owner. Right there, it made it so that even the partnership with KD had some issues. And so I really thought that they'd move on. And I was genuinely surprised that Josai was openly pining and politicking and advocating for them coming back. So I was really shocked when that resulted in him rescinding the request in him coming back. But

that's where we're at at this point. Training camp's going to be a little awkward. That goes without saying, like I said, everyone in the locker room on the team knows that Katie and Kyrie don't believe in the coach and the GM. That's going to add a little bit of tension. But the reality is that winning cures all. So if they come out the gates and they start beating everybody's ass, which is absolutely a possibility with how talented they are, pretty quickly that's going to erase any sort of animosity that lingers around this team. It's going to be important for them to to get off to hot start, but they're certainly capable of doing so.

So I want to move on to the offensive end of the ball, and you guys know the drill here. We're going to go through the offense. We're going to go through the defense. Not a whole lot of complexity to what Brooklyn does on either end of the floor. It's very brute force, but we'll get into that. And then we'll talk a little bit about what their best case scenario is, their worst-case scenario, and who their biggest X factor is. So on the offensive end of the floor, man, I poured over, again, hours of footage on Brooklyn

this morning trying to chart some of their offensive. sets and they don't really run a ton in the way of offensive sets, at least not in terms of frequency. They do run stuff. It's just, it's typically after missed or typically after made free throws and after timeouts, any sort of dead ball situation. The vast majority of live ball possessions result in them bringing the ball up the floor, setting up their spacing and Katie and Kyrie going to work off the bounce. That's the way most live ball possessions will, will work for Brooklyn. Get kind of similar to Dallas in that regard. That's not a, a bad thing. It's just it hurt. That's the kind of thing that will hurt you in the regular

season with your offense, but will help you in the postseason when brute force actually translates better than schematics and sets and things along those lines. So they run this like occasional like dribble handoff motion thing where they'll just kind of bring the ball up the floor and Kady will do a dribble hand off to Seth Curry and then Seth Curry will dribble hand off to Karee. Kari will come back to to KD who will then come off of like Nick Klaxen at the top of key or last year was a lot of Andre Drummond. They'll do that kind of thing. They do some stuff with, they do some stuff with Claxton at the top of the key where they'll have Kyrie and KD kind of in like a pistol set. So it's like four out and then one at the high post. And they'll both like run off faking like they're

doing a dribble handoff. And then Claxton will turn and KD will screen for Seth Curry coming out of the corner. And then Seth Curry will come off a Claxton. Obviously with all of those interchanges and with KD's defender being unwilling to help off of KD, Seth Curry gets. a lot of stuff coming off of those actions. They also run a ton of horns. That's the most frequent set that I would see. Typically, they'll have their big, last year it was drum, and this year it'll be Claxton or Ben Simmons.

They'll have their big and KD at the elbows. And then they'll have like Seth Curry drag over the top of both of them towards the side that the big man's guy is on. And then like Nick Claxton's man will have to show or a lot of times just switch out onto that. And then they'll flow from that into Seth Curry. KD pick and rolls. Now that Seth Curry is being guarded by a big man, he'll pass the ball to KD. KD will call for Seth to come set a screen, and it's just impossible to defend. It's difficult to

defend guard-guard-guard ball screens, even when they have the right types of defenders on them. But if they can come out of horns and get a switch onto Seth Curry, now you've got a big man trying to navigate that. They get all sorts of good stuff out of that kind of stuff. And then the other thing you'll see a lot of is various screening actions that attempt to get KD. to the elbow. Some of that is like horns, but then after Seth Curry comes off of that drag screen, instead of passing to Seth, they'll just have Ben Simmons in this case, or last year, Nick Claxor and Andre Drummond turn and cross screen for KD to try to catch at the elbow. He's just so good catch and shooting at the elbow. If, like, if Katie gets a clean look,

catching and shooting at the elbow, he's making two thirds of those. You know what I mean? And then if he doesn't get enough separation, he's really good operating out of the triple threat there because he's got such a good jab step jumper, one like fade away, he can turn his back to the basket, he can rip through and go to the rim. A lot of like just, sometimes it's as simple as just having Kyrie bring the ball up the floor. You know, Seth Curry and Joe Harris will be in the corners, and KD will work his man down to the block, and then they'll have Ben Simmons come over and set a pin down, and KD will come up to catch at the elbow. A lot of like just little basic screening actions to get KD to catch at the elbow. Every once in a while, you'll see like, you know,

double, double screens for a Patty Mills coming off for a shot or Joe Harris coming off for a shot. They do have offensive organization that they run particularly, like I said, out of dead ball situations or out of timeouts. But for the most part in live ball situations, it space things out. You know, last year it would be Bruce Brown or Nick Clackson or Andre Drummond in the dunker spot. You have your shooters in the corners, Kyrie on the opposite wing. And here comes somebody to come set a screen, usually one of the big men, to come set a screen for KD or for Kyrie. That was usually what they got most of their stuff out of last year. This concept of brute force offense, it works for Brooklyn for a couple of different reasons.

One, in order to run a brute force offense, you have to have outstanding advantage creators. That's why it works for Dallas, right? You've got Luca Donchich, and obviously Jaylen Brunson had a great season advantage creating out of pick and roll last year, and Spencer Dinwoodie had a great season out of isolation last year. It's that same kind of concept. If you don't have the personnel to run brute force, then you have to run a lot of sets. You have to run a ton of screening actions off the ball and stuff like that. But because they have KD and Kyrie, they're uniquely equipped to run this type of offense. And like I said, brute force translates to the playoffs because scheming and scouting make it so the teams can get ahead of your sets. Like, guess what? You're not

going to run Seth Curry off of like a couple of interchanges in a dribble handoff and just get wide open looks for an entire playoff series. That's not going to happen. They're going to find ways to get in front of that, or they'll play personnel where they don't have big men on the floor and they'll just switch things. They're going to find ways to shut your actions down. But they can't stop brute force without a simple decision of either leaving you on an island to try to make you score or sending help. There is no like magic schematic fix for Kevin Freakin' Duran or for Kyrie Irving. It's brute force. It translates to the playoffs. It's a proven method. I believe in it. And again, let's look at that Boston Celtic stat.

We're talking about a team that lacked off ball role players that could consistently pass dribble and shoot. You know, obviously they'd have Seth Curry out there doing really well, but it's a lot of Bruce Brown, it's a lot of Andre Drummond, some somewhat limited offensive players, right? So even despite of that, even despite the lack of continuity, even despite how poorly Kevin Durant shot, despite how poorly Kyrie shot towards the end of the series,

despite the turnovers, despite everything, despite the lack of offensive sets, despite the, you know, rudimentary high pick and roll repetitively and that kind of stuff, despite all of that, they scored more than anybody against Boston. That's the reality of brute force offense. And it's a reality that we have to acknowledge, just because it's not as pretty as some of the other offenses we see around the league doesn't mean it's not as effective.

So looking at their brute force offense, I wanted to just kind of dive into each player really quickly. So Kevin Durant, among 17 players who registered at least 200 ISOs last year, KD was fourth in efficiency at 1.1 points per possession behind just De Marderoza, Karl Towns, and Luca Donchich. Among 79 players, you registered at least 200 pick and roll ball handler possessions. He was third in efficiency at 1.04 points per possession. Among 39 players who registered at least 80 dribble handoffs, KD was seventh in efficiency at 1.04 points per possession. So he's still the best in the world at what he does,

which is create shots for himself off the bounce. That's always been what he's. better than everybody at, and that's what he's still better than everybody at. That's his best skill. Kyrie Irving, last year, volume was low, obviously, because of the, because of the vaccine thing, kind of had a rough season in terms of efficiency based on these specific scenarios. 1.01 points per possession in ISO, 0.98, and pick and roll 0.88 in dribble handoff. But all three of those were way, way higher the previous season in 2021, almost KD-esque with his production in that previous season. So I'd attribute most of that to him just being out of rhythm from not being around the team enough last year. This season, I would expect him to be back around

where KD was with his numbers there. Seth Curry is also really good with the advantages they create for him in his offense. 0.96 points per possession and pick and roll. 1.05 off screen, 1.08 in dribble handoffs. He shot 53% on catch and shoot jumpers, which is just absolutely outrageously good. Like, it fits the test of when you're watching Brooklyn and every time Seth Curry gets a good look, you just feel like it's going in. He also shot 43% on pull-up jumpers. And then T.J. Warren, like we talked about earlier in the show, 43% on catch and shoot jumpers and 45% on pull-up jumpers in the 2020 season, the year of the bubble. So they're even adding to this another wing that's extremely gifted making jump shots off the

balance and off the catch. That's just going to make them even that much more dynamic offensively. and most importantly, Ben Simmons factoring in as that short roll, screen and roll guy, inverted pick and rolls, everything under the sun that he can do. We'll kind of go one by one through these. So in the short roll, I expect once again that he should be their starting center, even if he's not, he will close at the center position. In the short role this year, you're seeing Kevin Durant and Kyrie come off these screens and hit Andre Drummond with a pocket pass.

And he can make plays out of there when he's got his head on straight, but he also makes a ton of mistakes. Bruce Brown's somewhat limited. Now imagine that's Ben Simmons, who's one of the most gifted passers in the league when it comes to finding three-point shooters when he's barreling down the lane. So that's great. And he's just a much better athlete than both of those guys. And like we said earlier, in the 2021 season, he was fifth among perimeter players in getting to the rim and finishing in the restricted area. So I expect him to be a much better short roll threat than any of the players they've had in recent years. Inverted pick and rolls. We talked got this a lot with Nicola Yochitz when we did our player rankings. This is something that Denver

does quite a bit. Essentially, the idea there is when a big man is a ball handler, or in this case, Ben Simmons is operating as the big man, it will be guarded by a center. You can imagine if Ben Simmons is starting at center and you're playing against the, you know, let's say you're playing against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Like, that's Rudy Gobert. That's going to have to be navigating screening actions. It's not even a good example. Let's talk about like, you know, the Atlanta Hawks, you know, or a team like Boston where it's like a Robert Williams or a Clint Capella. Those players struggle to navigate screens. It's just the reality of that situation. When you put them in a situation where they have to navigate screens, it's just difficult for them

because they're big, they're lumbering, they have high centers of gravity, they're easy targets for screeners. It just, when you put yourself in a situation where imagine Kevin Durant is setting a ball screen for Ben Simmons, and he's being guarded by someone the likes of Clint Capella. As he comes off of that screen, Katie's man is going to have to hedge or switch because if he doesn't, Ben Simmons is going to go right down the lane and dunk on your entire team. So chances are they're going to hedge or switch it, which is going to give Kevin Durant an advantage as he pops to the three point line to either have an opportunity to attack a Clint Capella on a switch or there's going to be a delay in the interchange as, you know, Capella is fighting over the screen and as Ben Simmons has been

man is hedging, in which case Kevin Iran's going to get catch and shoot threes all night long. That's kind of how inverted pick and roll works, and I think with Ben Simmons on the roster, they can run a bunch of stuff like that. Again, it's not inverted in the sense that Ben Simmons is a big, but it will function as an inverted pick and roll because

he'll have to be guarded by Biggs with the way their lineup goes together. The other thing to do there is Ben Simmons in general is going to draw defensive players that specialize in help rather than isolation. Even when they're playing him a alongside Claxton, which I think is a bad idea for spacing.

But even in those situations, like, who are you going to put on Ben Simmons when you're getting your matchups put together? Like, you're going to put better, you know, perimeter defenders on KD, on Kyrie, on Seth Curry, on a T.J. Warren, if he's out there, right? Or on Patty Mills. So Ben Simmons is going to draw slower-footed players that defenses can trust to rotate to the rim in help because they don't worry about Ben Simmons as a shooter. So now you can imagine putting that guy in on-ball situations

in the way that that would cause teams to struggle. Matchups are going to be a nightmare with the Brooklyn Nets. Make no mistake. Another spot I expect Ben Simmons to help a lot is in transition. Brooklyn was efficient in transition last year, but really low volume. Ben's going to add a new dynamic there because of the way that he can grab the rebound and run up the floor, allowing Kevin Durant and Kyrie to run the wings, allowing Joe Harris and Seth Curry to run the wings and get shots out of there.

he'll be in the dunker spot a lot, but Brooklyn's used to having a body down there, and Katie and Kyrie are immune to spacing concerns relative to their peers around the league because they are specialists shooting over the top of the defense. To put that simply, you can imagine if you're a LeBron James or you're a, you know, Russell Westbrook or any other player that specializes in going downhill to the rim, or Yannis, for instance.

Excuse me. In those situations, teams are just going to collapse. the paint. And they're going to ignore your Ben Simmons and your Nick Claxton's and just try to put bodies between you in the rim. But if that's Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, like, they're so comfortable just shooting over the top of the defense. So they don't necessarily care who's waiting underneath the rim. So Ben Simmons in the dunker spot hurt Philly in a way that it won't hurt Brooklyn. And so that's another fit piece there that makes sense. Then last of not least on the Ben Simmons front, rim pressure. Like we talked about earlier, this guy was getting to the rim almost seven times

a game back in 2021. That is going to be the type of thing that, or I shouldn't even say getting to the rim, attempting shots at the rim, seven times a game. So because of that, we talked about rim pressure and all the benefits there. It just collapses the defense and opens up offensive rebounding opportunities. Rim pressure has all sorts of positive impacts that follow it. So kind of zooming out a little bit from Brooklyn on the offensive end of the floor, what do I expect?

If they're healthy, they'll be a top five offense and they'll be contending for number one. Again, even with just 81 combined games of Kyrie and KD last year, they were a top 10 offense. So you can imagine if it's a healthy season and with the addition of T.J. Warren, with the return of Joe Harris, with the Ben Simmons fit as an improved short role player, it's just going to make them significantly better on the offensive end of the floor. I still think Denver ends up getting the number one offense that I see Brooklyn in the running there. And then again, it's about playoff translatability. Like even if they finished as the fourth or fifth best offense because they're not as, you know, set heavy during the regular season, they will translate to the playoffs as the number

one offense. I believe if healthy, this season, Brooklyn will be the best playoff offense, no matter what. So if they're good enough on the defensive end of the floor, they have a chance to get the trophy. It's that simple. Um, like, and with Denver, it's, you know, I, I view them as the best regular season offense. A lot of their stuff can be planned for in a playoff series in a way that makes things more difficult. Not that they won't be a good playoff offense, but less so than Brooklyn. The one last thing I wanted to touch on really quickly as far as the offense organization thing for Brooklyn is they rely really heavily on pull-up jump shooting. They led the league in pull-up jump shots attempted per game last year. They were second inefficiency, which is to be expected

with how good they are. That's effective field goal percentage weighted for threes. But the reality is is pull-up jump shooting is inconsistent, even on your best day. Kevin Durant would be the first guy to tell you that. Kyrie Irving would be the first guy to tell you that. Like sometimes no matter how hard you work at it, sometimes no matter how skills you are, sometimes you just go out and you shoot three for nine on pull-up jump shots because sometimes you just are leaving them an inch short on the rim

or whatever it is, there's just an inconsistency there, a lack of dependability. And in any sort of small sample size, missed pull-up jump shots can cost you a playoff series. We saw this with Boston or Brooklyn last year. We saw this with the clippers in the bubble in 2020. It's a legitimate risk that comes with any team that relies on pull-up jump shooting. I could even extend that to jump shooting in general.

Ask the 2016 Warriors when Stefan Clay went cold for a series and a 73 win team ended up losing. It's just something to keep in mind. It's more likely than not that it won't be the thing that beats them, but it's always a risk when you play offense with that specific style and structure. So moving on to the defensive end of the floor. So last year, they were the worst defensive rebounding team in all of basketball. They allowed the fifth most fast break points.

They were middle of the pack depending the paint. They were middle of the pack depending the three point line. Some of that is, like, what do I always tell you guys? When you're a bad transition defense and when you don't rebound well, these are all and you don't take away the paint or the three point line. Like if you don't prioritize one of the two for analytics purposes, that always points me towards the coach. and we'll talk a little bit more about Steve Nash here in a minute,

but just reading those numbers, you start to see a little bit of where Kevin Durant's coming from. If this is a team that does not depend on offensive structure because they're brute force and they're not well-coached on the defensive end of the floor, what is Steve Nash doing? Now, the flip side of that is it's way too early in Steve Nash's coaching career to make sweeping statements about the type of coach he is. I would prefer to reserve that type of opinion

for a few more years, but there's no question that in the areas that are typically attributed to coaching that this Brooklyn Nets team is not doing particularly well. And one thing I'll say in Steve Nash's defense, they are completely overmatched physically last year. That will be different this year, so maybe it'll be a better gauge of what he's capable of. Lots of new defensive players. Like I said, Ben Simmons, one of the best defensive players in the league. He's an awesome weapon to throw at a star in a playoff series. I can't tell you how many times I've seen on tape Ben Simmons, like, legitimately flummocked. the best players in the league. I've seen him give LeBron issues. I've seen him give, I saw him

once like completely shut down Damian Lillard in a game to the point where Dane was struggling to get shots off. Like that's the level of perimeter defender that Ben Simmons is. He wasn't healthy last year, so I didn't bring him up. But when I'm talking about the best perimeter defenders in basketball, and I'm talking about Jason Tatum, and I'm talking about Andrew Wiggins. Like when healthy, Ben Simmons might be better than all of those guys. That's the level of defensive talent that he is. Royce O'Neill, scrappy, physical, decent perimeter-contained guy. That's an improvement at the position compared to what they had last year. T.J. Warren, like I said earlier, he has had good stretches of defense.

I wouldn't say he's been consistent enough to call him a good defensive player, but he certainly is capable of being an above-average defensive player. Markief Morris, I covered him with the Lakers in 2020. Really good post-defender and a good help defender, plays hard, knows what to do on the offensive end of the floor, too, is a decent spot-up player. But he does struggle to contain on the perimeter against really quick guards and wings. So it's important that the players around him are better at perimeter contained. Overall, this is a significant increase in defensive talent in athleticism and in care and giving a crap about getting stops.

So from that standpoint, like, I just think in terms of the physical mismatches that they dealt with on the defensive end of the floor last year, they're going to be vastly improved in that regard. In terms of their offensive or defensive structure last year, it was pretty in line with what you saw from the rest of the league in terms of what they're schematically trying to do, switching a ton one through four, drop coverages with Drummond and Claxton.

In those drop coverages, their guards and wings died on screens a lot, so it did result in switching a lot, but I actually prefer switching anyway. But everything they did was just sloppy. And you watch them on film and the types of mistakes they make are almost hilarious sometimes, kind of confusion and communication related. I can't tell you how many times watching Boston film where you'd see, you know, one player think it's a switch and the other not, and next thing you know, two players are running off

a ball screen with Marcus Smart of all people, right? Or like guys tripping over each other because they're just like unaware of where they're supposed to be on the floor. They're just sloppy because they didn't care as much. Some of that's on Steve Nash, some of that's on the stars, some of that's on the rest of the personnel. In general, they're going to have to be way better on that front to contend this year. A huge part, and I'm really interested to see what Kevin Durant does here. Because I have been critical of Kevin Durant in his career for inconsistent defensive care. And the problem there is he's so damn gifted physically that even when he's barely caring,

he's an impact defensive player. He's an above-average defensive player just by putting his shoes on and running out there. That's the reality of Kevin Durant. When he cares, he's one of the best defensive players in the league. And we saw that in 2017 with Golden State. I'm really interested to see what we get out of him

on that end of the floor this year. Because with the influx of Ben Simmons, with T.J. Warren, if Kyrie's there and healthy, they won't need as much from him offensively as they've needed the last two years. when he's carried such a massive burden. If he could relocate some of his resources,

reallocate some of his resources towards the defensive end of the four, they could be a top 10 defense. You can imagine a universe where Ben Simmons is locked in and KD is locked in on the defensive end of the floor and their ability to clean up messes on the back line that are created by Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving. They are capable of being a good defensive team. They will have lineups that they'll have access to

where they can play Kyrie Irvin, with Joe Harris and Royce O'Neill, Ben Simmons, and Kevin Durant. And they can be a good defensive team. Kyrie Irving, when he's engaged, even though he struggles guarding bigger players, can slide his feet on the perimeter and compete and contain on the defensive end. I'm really curious to see Kevin Durant and Kyrie, the tone that they set this year in the way that trickles down the roster. If they are a top 10 defense and the number one offense in the league,

they're going to be right there in the mix with everybody. So what's the best case scenario? If they get off to a hot start, that'll be vitally important to erasing the drama from this off season. Like I said before, winning Cures All. Staying healthy is obviously a key. Kevin Durant has had issues with health. Kyrie Irving has had issues with health. Ben Simmons had issues with health physically and mentally.

That's all stuff that they're going to have to deal with. T.J. Warren and his foot issues. Lots of health question marks there. Kyrie Irving being bought in. It's a contract year, so I expect him to do so. Overall defensive buy-in. Ben Simmons and Royce O'Neill are not going to be able to clean up all of these defensive messes. They need Kyrie and Kady to dedicate themselves to the defensive end of the fore.

If they do all of those things and they stay healthy, they will be a top tier contender. Not just in this, you know, if things go right tier, they will be a top tier contender if those things go right. And that's what the whole purpose of this tier is. Like I was saying yesterday with the Phoenix Suns, they have all this talent, but the question is whether or not their top end talent will hold up their end of the bargain, right? With Brooklyn, it's the opposite type of effect. I can count on KD and what he's going to bring this year. When he's healthy, I can count on Kyrie. It's the drama stuff. It's the Ben Simmons thing. It's the T.J. Warren Health thing. It's the Steve Nash thing. There's all these question marks surrounding Kevin Durant

that makes this team and if things go right, contender. But in terms of talent and fit, they are every bit as good as the top teams in the league and you would be foolish to underestimate them i absolutely think they're capable of winning the NBA championship make no mistake if you find yourself in a playoff series against a healthy Brooklyn Nets team that cares about what they're doing on both ends of the floor you will have to go down against lineups with kairi irving joe harris or kairing set curry joe harris ben simmons and kevin duran and that's going to be really damn hard to beats four times out of the a seven. It's just don't write them up. Don't make that mistake. Worst case scenario, obviously,

they get off to a rough start, which exacerbates all of the drama stuff surrounding the team. All of those question marks I just referenced go south. This could be a situation where they're blown up before the deadline, and Kyrie and KD are on different teams by March. So that's how far things can go south. Like I said, a really wide range between outcomes here for this particular team. The biggest X factor is Ben Simmons, in my opinion. Obviously, as major, health concerns both mentally and physically. Obviously, he's got back issues. His mental health reared its, reared its had again in the late series against Boston last year when he said he wasn't going to play. And then obviously, he's got offensive shortcomings, particularly when

he loses confidence. When Ben Simmons is confident and he's bringing the ball up the floor and spraying the shooters and attacking the rim aggressively and just playing free, he has the winning impact of a top 10 player because of how good he is on the defensive end of the floor. But when he loses his confidence, he becomes borderline unplayable because he doesn't want to do anything with the basketball. He wants to get rid of it. He won't even attempt shots when things get tight at the end of games. He has a very wide range of outcomes, and that's why he's the X factor for this team. There's a version of this story where Brooklyn wins the NBA championship. And in that universe, Ben Simmons is a top 15 player.

And that's what they're going to need out of him in order to get that Larry O'Brien trophy. It's absolutely within the realm of possibility. It's going to be on Ben Simmons to hold up his end of the bargain there. I think he's the biggest X factor for this team. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We've got one more show this week. Tomorrow we'll be back with number five,

the last of our if things go right contenders. You guys could probably take a wild guess at who that is. As a matter of fact, I bet you most of you could probably figure it out. I sincerely appreciate you guys rocking with us and we'll see you tomorrow. 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with athletes,

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