The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - SGA vs. Luka debate, why Warriors are struggling, Victor Wembanyama vs. Nikola Jokic | NBA Mailbag

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Jason answers mailbag questions from fans on a range of topics including who is better -- Oklahoma City Thunder MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic. He also breaks down how he evaluates two way players like Victor Wembanyama (San Antonio Spurs) compared to offensive geniuses like Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets), who is to blame for the struggles of the Golden State Warriors (and why it's not Steph Curry), and more. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hoops Tonight here at the volume heavy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Just a quick show for you guys today. We have a weird week with the holiday for obvious reasons. So we have no show on Wednesday and Thursday this week, but I wanted to give you guys something for Tuesday. So we're going to do a quick little mailbag based off of the mailbag questions that came from last week's mailbag.

We have some follow-ups from our Shay Luca debate and some other questions from around the league. You guys know the joke before we started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. So you don't miss any more of our videos. Don't forget to like this video that helps us a lot. And then if you want to get questions into our mailbag, obviously no mailbag this Friday because we'll have our Christmas Day reactions. But a week from this Friday, we'll go back to our normal Friday mailbags. If you guys want to get a question in there, drop them in the YouTube comments underneath this video and underneath all of our full episodes between now and then.

Right, mailbag with a colon, write your question. We'll get to our mailbag questions on Fridays. All right, let's talk some basketball. So our first question, again, our first two are going to be related to the Shea Luca debate. And then there's another one kind of centered around Wembe's comments about the best players in the world. First question, you're acting as if Shea winning with this OKC team is equivalent to Luca winning with this Lakers team. Shea is on the best team in the entire NBA and on pace for perhaps the greatest team ever. It's not if Shea wins the title again and Luca doesn't, then Luca needs to look at himself in the mirror.

That's such a stupid take. the Lakers need to get better first. These teams aren't on equal level. You can't make this an SGA versus Luca thing. This was always a gap year for the Lakers. Next season, let's see what Luca and Austin do when their team is built more athletic around those two. Okay, so this is something that I focus on in general

when I'm trying to talk about these sorts of things. Like we do our basketball player rankings every summer based on an in-a-vacuum ranking of what I would, would expect to be the best player moving forward from the beginning of October all the way to the end of June, right? And coming into the season, I did view Luca as the better basketball player than Shea. For this exact reason, I knew coming into the season that Oklahoma City was clearly a better team than the Lakers. I knew coming into the season that the Thunder had a far better chance to win the title this year than the Lakers did.

and yet I ranked Luca before Shea because when I looked at the two of them, I looked at Luca as a guy based on his 2024 season, the year he went to the finals. I viewed that as more or less every bit as good of a volume score in both efficiency and volume as what She did last year, but also a better playmaker.

And so the way I looked at it is like the gap between who they were as playmakers. I didn't think the defensive end was as much. much of a factor between the two of them. I gave Luca just a tiny bit of an edge over Shea coming into the season. But two different things have happened. One, Luca has failed to reach the level that he reached in 2024. He has been nowhere near as efficient, and he's been turning the basketball over a lot.

Those two particular things are hurting his efficiency. And then on the other side, you have Shea Gildes Alexander, who took a dramatic leap in efficiency this year. His true shooting percentage is skyrocketed into the high 60s, and he's cut his turnovers. So, regardless of what's happening in terms of the teams, regardless of what's happening, and by the way, if you want to get into the talent piece,

the majority of the data we have from Shade of this point is before J-dub joined the team. He's been carrying an enormous offensive load during this stretch. I do think the Thunder are better. I think that plays a certain role. We've talked about it. I've talked about it in my debates that I've had with the nerd sesh guys. I do think that life is easier for Shea that it is for Luca in this league.

But there is a gigantic chasm now between the two of them in overall efficiency in terms of how many shots they miss and in terms of how often they turn the basketball over. And so what had been a very close race for me in favor of Luca has now flipped to where now I have Shea in front. I look, I understand that you guys kind of just got to take my word for it and there will be people that don't believe me and it is what it is. but I can promise you that when I do talk about these things and I rank these players, I do my best to look at them in a vacuum because it is a team sport. And it is harder to win basketball games when you're surrounded by less talent. And I think that stuff is worth talking about. And I think it's too reductive to just sit there and go,

this guy's the best because he hoisted the trophy. Shea literally won MVP and finals MVP last year and I ranked him third. I don't move players up or down based solely on team success. I try to view it in a vacuum as best as I can. Next kind of counterpoint surrounding that. So Jason is just straight up ignoring true shooting. We're using field goal percentage now. So this is the trick.

When you're looking at Luca and you're looking at the Lakers in general, actually, so let's just zoom out and let's look at the Lakers for a second. So one of the conversations surrounding the Lakers surrounds their three-point shooting and the fact that they are a relatively low volume three-point team and that they don't hit a great percentage. They actually generate the fewest catch-and-shoot threes in the entire league, which is a product of a bunch of different things. LeBron, Luca, and Austin all take a lot of shots while guarded.

It's kind of the way their offense is built. And most importantly, this is the team that generates a lot of free throw attempts. So, for instance, like, what's the whole point of generating threes? You generate threes because they're worth an extra point, right? So if I hit four threes out of 10 shots, I get 12 points. if I hit five twos out of 10 shots, I only get 10 points. So 40% from 3 is 20% more efficient than 50% from 2, right? So that's the dynamic that drives the conversation around 3-point shooting.

But if you actually look at the Lakers as they reflect on the rest of the league, the Lakers are an extremely high true shooting percentage team. They are second and true shooting percentage. True shooting percentage factors in field goals, three-point field goals and free throws. It factors all of it in. So the Lakers in the large sample are actually a very efficient offense

because they generate so many free-throw attempts. However, Luca is actually more reliant on the free throws than Shea is. When Luca doesn't get to the foul line as much in random games, so talk about the Thunder game where they did a really good job of not fouling the Phoenix Suns game where they did a really good job of not fouling. The first Suns game,

the one that they lost before the in-season tournament. When you kind of like zoom in on that dynamic, you go, oh, when it actually comes down to putting the ball in the basket, Shea's better than Luca. He's more efficient from three. He's more efficient from two. Luca's been really good on short range twos. He's been like right around 50% this year. Well, Shea's been 58, 59% on short range twos. That's more efficient. Shea has been more efficient from three. That means there's fewer missed shots. fewer missed shots and fewer turnovers means fewer opportunities

for the opponent to attack you in transition. So like, I think true shooting percentage is a valuable way to look at large sample efficiency and I do think that it's worth bringing up. But when you come into live ball play in things that are outside of your control, like the whistle, tend to go another direction. And by the way, Shea felt foul grips a lot too.

I'd argue Luca and Shea are two of the most, two of the biggest culprits in the league. But just look at the volume, guys. Luca is relying on getting to the foul line considerably more than Shea is at this point. And so when you look at the amount of missed shots between the two of them and the amount of turnovers between the two of them,

Luca's just having these, Carson from NerdSash, I thought put this really well. He said, Luca fails more. That's the way he put it. That's the way I'd put it too. I'd agree with him in that characterization. Like, when you fail on offense, it can trigger the opponent's offense.

That's why that efficiency is worth bringing up and it's not as just simple as just looking at true shooting percentage. You can have another way of looking at it is you can have a high true shooting percentage, but have more opportunities for the opponent to get out in transition because you're taking a lot of threes and you're getting to the foul line a lot. Because every missed three, even though in the large sample it's worth more points, every missed three is a long rebound that can trigger a transition opportunity. And every time Luca goes down the lane line and tries to grift and fails

and doesn't get the call and then stands they're complaining with the ref while they're running the other way that can trigger opportunities for the opponent. And last thing, this is the last thing I'll say about it. Like, I am emotionally invested in Luca being good.

I root for his team. I am not the kind of stand like you've seen in some of these, some of the behavior where like some of the, you've seen some of it with the Luca and LeBron stands lately where I'm not like, I want Luca to be great.

I think it's Lucas team. I have no interest in LeBron doing more statistically or Luca doing more statistically. or Luca doing more statistically, I'm only interested in the Lakers winning basketball games. That's all I care about. And, like, my perspective in the way I've discussed Luca is not centered around whether or not he's great.

We all know Luca's great. Luca's been less great than I've expected him to be this year, but he's still been great. It's just now we're talking about splitting hairs between the very best players in the world, comparing him to Shea, comparing him to Janus, comparing him to Yokic. That becomes much more of a nitpicking.

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So how did 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. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this.

We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

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Jason, I was wondering if you could share your take on how to evaluate two-way players. A few days ago, Wembe said Yokic is the best offensive player in the world, but not the best defensive player in the world. He said the best player in the world is himself, Janice or SGA. I think he, along with many NBA fans, don't understand that elite offense is more important and more valuable than elite defense. Is Yokic an elite defender? No, but his overall positive impact is still vastly superior to Wembe's and clearly superior to Yonbi's, and clearly superior to Janice's and Shays, what are your thoughts on this

and how we should correctly or accurately evaluate two-way players versus a one-way offensive goat like Yokic? I think you broke it down really well yourself, and I want to give you some credit there. Like, the way I look at it, your value to your basketball team is unique to what your team needs from you, right? And so, yeah, like if you are the type of weak defender

that can be really difficult to build in a, elite defense around, that's problematic. But even if you are a below average defender, if you can at least do some things well enough to where they can build a functioning elite defense around you, then your offensive gifts become dramatically more valuable than a guy who's an elite defensive player, but that cannot impact the game at the offensive level. The reason why is because you can schematically through good game planning, through mixing up coverages, through attention to detail, through habits and consistency, through having good supporting role player talent, you can build an elite defense without needing an elite defensive superstar.

It is very difficult to be an elite offense without an elite offensive superstar. I argue it's impossible. you need fundamentally a player that can break the defense over and over again and create the types of advantages that will drive success consistently on the offensive end of the floor. So where I disagree with Wembe is like, give me Yokic and a good decent group of defenders around him versus Wembe and a good group of a decent kind of league average offensive players around him, I think Yokic is going to be able to break San Antonio's. defense with his supreme offensive gifts and be good enough defensively with the talent he has

around him rather than if you look at San Antonio in that example, it doesn't matter if the four other offensive players around him are all solid if Wembe can't break the defense down to the extent that a guy like Yokic can. And that's kind of like the way that I've always looked at it. It's just it's easier to build a good defense around a offensive-minded superstar than to build a great offense around a defensive-minded superstar. I've dealt with this personally since LeBron aged out. And, you know, LeBron's always been good in his old age, but he's not been a defense-breaking offensive engine,

not since he was, not since like 2021. Really, ever since Solomon Hill dove into his ankle, we've only seen very brief spurts where LeBron's actually been that type of legit, awesome offensive engine, like very briefly last year surrounding the trade deadline for like a month, right? but it's been rare. And so before then, it was fine with AD, but then all of a sudden, like,

AD could be this, I thought he was the best defensive player in the world before Wembe came around. But it didn't matter because they weren't good enough offensively because AD and LeBron at his old age were unable to break defenses down the way that they needed to in order to capitalize. So like, another really simple way to look at it is like,

the 2023 Denver Nuggets were an elite defensive. in the postseason, despite having Yokic and Murray. The 2024 Mavs. Now, they ended up running into an awful matchup for them, a Boston Celtics team that could truly spread them out and really target Luca's point of attack defense at a higher level. But, like, we saw other matchups like the Clipper series in the first round of that year,

where Lucas' defense was fine because they didn't have five elite shooters on the floor. And so they were able to offer the help when they needed to help. That was a unique kind of matchup problem regarding a Celtics team that had five good shooters on the floor at all times, which is not something we really see in the NBA anymore, right? Like, that was kind of like a unique kind of flash and a pan kind of thing. Dallas constructed a good defense through that entire season post-trade because they had good defenders around Luca,

and then they had this supremely gifted offensive player that can push them over the top. So, like, that's why I've always been geared that way. I just generally think a defense-breaking offensive weapon is the hardest thing to come by in the NBA and kind of like a fundamental need if you want to win a championship unless you have a supreme talent advantage. Like you have $530 million players

like the Boston Celtics, right? Or you have Oklahoma City last year. Like I think She is a considerably better offensive player this year than he was last year in terms of just game flow, late game stuff, the over the top shooting like from the three point line is even more efficient from short range twos, right? But the reason why they won the championship last year

is they had this all-time great defense, right? Like that was a unique trait. It wasn't any one defensive breaking weapon. It was just a bunch of really good defenders working together, right? I just generally think that that defense breaking offensive engine is the hardest weapon to come by in the NBA. Who do you think shoulders the most responsibility for the Warriors' disappointing season? The players, the coach, or the front office? Who do you think shoulders the most responsibility for the disappointing results of the years since the Warriors' last title in 2022?

Seems to me there's plenty of blame to go around, except for the first. step at this point. Thanks. Love the show as always. I agree with you fully. Like there are certain guys. I think Moses Moody generally has reached his potential and has become a player that, you know, based on where he got picked, has exceeded expectations. But when you look down the rest of the list, like I'd argue, you talk about the since 2022, I'd include this into this season because of what they did last summer. The ownership group and their unwillingness to let go of Jonathan Kaminga. And the fact that he was clearly a bust

relative to where they picked him has set this franchise back because they had an opportunity to trade him two years ago for a guy like a Pascal Seacomir, or an OG and Ninobe, and they refused. That was when he was at his peak value.

Now he's nowhere near worth that much. But at the very least, they could have turned him into Malik Monk this last summer. And everyone was like, no, you can't include Buddy Heald. How much are you guys leaning on Buddy Healed right now? How much is Buddy yield vital to your success right now? You guys could have used a guard who could break the defense down off the dribble, beat people off the dribble and generate quality shots when Steph was off the floor.

Still this year, 119 offensive rating when Steph is on the floor, according to cleaning the glass. They can score when Steph's out there. They just can't score when he's off. Now, it gets a little deeper because the defense hasn't been as good. We'll talk about that in a second. But I think that the front office and ownership group, mainly the ownership group, deserves the majority of the blame for the circumstance because they were unwilling to admit

that they busted on Kaminga and they needed to move him earlier on in the deal. And so as a result, now they've got him in this weird distressed asset situation where his value is probably lower than it's ever been. And that's just kind of the predicament that they're in. I wouldn't say it's quite as low as it was last summer because now he's no longer a restricted free agent.

And so he's technically an expiring salary too. There's a couple other elements to it. but like, to me, Jonathan Kaminga should have been traded two years ago and then should have been traded this summer. And just every opportunity that the Warriors have had to do so, they've just not done it. And so they haven't been able to flip him into a piece

that they can actually use when they're trying to win basketball games. Down the line, it gets tough, right? Jimmy Butler, although he's been better as of late, hasn't been good enough this season compared to the type of salary that he's getting paid, right? Dream on Green hasn't been nearly as good defensively as he's been in years past. I think he's been a considerable drop off there that has affected the team on the defensive

end of the floor. That's why they aren't dominating Steph's minutes like they have in years past. And so I think it goes down the line. Like some of the old guys are starting to age out. Jimmy wasn't as good as he needed to start the year. I think the schedule played a role too. They just got ran into the ground. Like there's this weird thing that happens in the NBA where if you get off to a great start,

you can easily handle like a three and eight stretch. But if you start the season and you have a three and eight stretch early in the season, and it can be like devastating to your entire kind of vibe in the locker room, right? And I think the Warriors kind of dealt with a front-loaded schedule that kind of beat them into the ground. But you might have had a better chance of surviving that if you flip Jonathan Caminger before the season for a Malik Monk that helps you on offense. If you have a better start to the season from guys like Jimmy and Draymond, like I think there was a version of this story that could have ended better than it actually did. Do you think the Lakers would be worse if they traded Reeves for Men Thompson and Reed Shepard?

I know you said you wouldn't consider training Reeves unless you're sure number two next to Luke or just a better player. But I don't know, the more I watch Reed, I feel like he can eventually be something close to that at least. So here's the thing. This is my, I was wrong about Reed Shepard in the early part of the season.

Early in the season, I viewed him as like completely overmatched when he was on the floor. I didn't think he shot the ball well enough for the types of looks that he was getting. I didn't like his on-ball reps. And I thought he was a bad defensive player. We've seen a much larger sample now. like the shooting is legitimately awesome. And this is where I got to credit Sam Bacini. This is why I

trust Sam so much. Sam is like a guy. Whenever I have like an opinion on a young player, I always like text Sam and I'm like, hey dude, what do you think? And I like texted Sam early this season. And I was like, dude, I just don't see it with Reed. Like what's the deal? Like I don't understand what all the buzz is about. And to Sam's credit, the one thing he kept hammering was like the dude can shoot. Like he can like really shoot it. So like he's going to start making shots and that will help this team. and Reed has taken a significant leap in that department to where he's knocking down shots, not just on the catch, but off the dribble at a really high rate. He's like 21 for 51 this season on off the dribble threes.

That's going to be a huge boost to an offense. And it was basically how they beat Denver on Saturday last week, right? So like that part has popped. However, there is a gigantic chasm between Austin Reeves and Reed Shepard defensively. Like Austin Reeves is bigger considerably. and stronger considerably. So, like, even though he can get targeted sometimes, and I think you've got to have, like, a more nuanced conversation

when it comes to guards, because there are, unless you're a professional defender, or you're like, I mean, even Anthony Edwards, who's an apex athlete, struggles sometimes in off-ball defense and attentiveness and can struggle to navigate screens because he has so much attention and energy being devoted to the offensive end of the floor, right? Like, outside of role-player guards that specialize in defense,

almost every team has a guard that's going to get attacked in action. So like everyone always is like, oh my God, look at Austin. He's getting picked on. It's like, Steph Curry gets fucking picked on. Like, literally, everyone's targeting Shea Gildes Alexander on the Thunder in action as much as they can. Like, if there is a skill guard on the other team, you're trying to attack them in action. That's how it goes. And there's a big difference between like, this guy's getting targeted and this guy literally can't defend. And like, Reed was getting mercilessly picked on by the Kings down the stretch of that game. DeMarter Rosen was targeting him. Dennis Schroeder.

targeting him and he looked completely physically overmatched because he's so small. And so I really like Reed and I think he projects well to be like a good sixth man in this league in the short term. And maybe in the long run, he improves enough defensively by putting on some muscle and just becoming more scrappy and physical to become a player that can become a dead serious like top five guy on a championship level team like a legit starting five, closing five kind of guy. But right now I view him is a guy that is not up to the task just because of his physical limitation. So, like, to me, like,

I don't think Reed is on track to become, like, a guy who could be a number two for Luca on this timeline. Maybe a different young star guard at some point in the future, but I don't, I think he's two years away from being two years away, so to speak, from being, like, good enough defensively

to be able to hold up in some high, like high leverage lineups in big spots. All right, last question. How can Janus and when be, be on this list. This is regarding our top 10 list with as much time as they have missed. I'm a Knicks fan, but where's Jalen Brown? Where's Jamal Murray who's having an insane year? Where's Austin Reeves? So this was in reference to my top 10 list. And again, like that was not like a who I think is the 10 best, who are the 10 best players in the world. Like for instance,

I had anti-Edwards at 10 on that list. I had him at five before the season. If you ask me where ranks in the league, I'm still ranking in five right now. I'm not about to change my mind based on, you know, a couple of months of basketball, of regular season basketball, mind you. That list was strictly meant to indicate who's had the 10 best seasons so far. And again, you're splitting hairs. Like, how are you going to bump a guy like Jalen Brunson off that list? Like, Tyrese Max, he's been freaking awesome. Anthony Edwards just, like, won a head to head against Shea.

Like, the guys on that list were all really good. So I said this in the show, but I mean it, like that list is longer. There's like 13, 14 guys that you could really consider. And like Alper and Shangoon, I could easily argue, you could easily argue has had a top 10 season this year. Jalen Brown for sure. Austin Reeves, up until the recent stretch, he struggled before he got hurt.

I did think he was about the eighth or nine, like the ninth or tenth best player to start the season. Donovan Mitchell, I'd argue, could be in that conversation. Jamal Murray, we've had a lot of guys who've been playing at a really high level. It's a small sample size. As the sample size gets larger, we'll circle back. you know, we had a slow week last week because of the in-season tournament.

There wasn't a lot of games, right? So it made sense for us to do something like this to kill some time. But, you know, things are going to get busy. When we circle back in the summer, it's a much more complicated conversation. We'll have an entire 82 game slate for all these teams. We'll have a playoff run.

We'll have so much more data to really kind of parse out who goes where. And even then it gets tough, guys. Like, dude, the top tier and second tier or stars could very well be 17, 18 players deep when we go next summer. This last year, it was like, I think it was like 14, if I remember correctly.

So like a lot of this is just how talented the league is. And you start throwing out that like, oh, this guy's a top 10 guy. This guy's a top 10 guy. And it's like, start making your list. Who are you kicking off? A lot of these dudes are really good at basketball. It's a lot harder than it looks on the surface. All right, guys, it's all I have for today.

As always, this sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Again, I hope everyone has a happy holiday and that you enjoy the next couple of days with your friends and family. We'll be back on Friday with some Christmas. a reaction. I will see you guys. 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. Nice. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't 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.

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