The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Why Anthony Edwards is #5 on my NBA player rankings for 2025 | Minnesota Timberwolves

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Jason explains why he has Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves at No. 5 in his NBA player rankings—one spot ahead of Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry—and what Ant could do to catapult even further up the rankings. He breaks down Ant's strengths, weaknesses, and what he could add to his game. Then Jason goes through the peak (whether past, present, or future) of the stars in his second tier of NBA superstars, Nos. 5-14. #Volume See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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podcasts. The Volume. Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. We are continuing our player rankings today, moving into our top five in the final player in our second tier superstar tier. Number five, Anthony Edwards. We're going to be doing a deep dive on him today. At the table, into the show today. I'm going to go through every single player in this five through 14 group, the second tier of superstars. And for the younger guys, I want to talk about what I think their peak can be one day. And for the older guys, I want to talk about what their peak was. Look at the specific stretch of their career where they were playing the best basketball that they played and where

they stacked up in the league at that point in time. It should be a fun little exercise of the tail into the show. You guys know the show before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast fee wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, make sure you guys follow us there. And then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. We'll get to them in our Friday mailbags over the course of

the remainder of the off season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So it's funny because I put ants at number five last year. And that was probably in, if it was, was two things. It was the pick that I caught the most shit for. And I would argue it was one of the bigger mistakes that I made with that list. Again, the rankings are supposed to predict who will be the most valuable player in that coming season. And I thought Jason Tatum, in retrospect, after watching last year, pretty clearly was the fifth best player in the league last year. I thought, Ant, you know, in a lot of ways, took a big leap and in many ways moved up the ladder. But in the postseason in particular, continued to show some of the flaws that you expect

from a player his age, which are going to do a lot of talking about today. But in retrospect, that was one of my bigger mistakes last year was putting Ant up at five. It should have been Jason Tatum. But as I look at this season, I landed with Ant at number five. And I think it's the right spot for him in this coming season. He's the most reliable. He's the most reliable. player in the league by a mile in terms of availability, which we'll talk about in a minute. He took a massive leap in both scoring volume and efficiency last year. He's in a phase of his career where we can expect substantial improvement year over year. And I think in particular, his struggles against Oklahoma City were very informative for him in his player development. Again,

we're going to spend a good amount of time talking about that today. I think his playoff shortcomings are a little overstated because he's basically been amazing outside of the two Western Conference final series. And he's basically just struggling with the highest levels of playoff basketball right now, which is pretty typical for a superstar in his early 20s, the way that Anthony Edwards is. So like, those shortcomings made it a close call for me with Steph, but I ended up landing on Ant at the number five spot. And I feel pretty good about it this year. I was a year too early with it last year. But I think this is where he falls in the league's hierarchy at this point in time. Let's look at last season in review. Seventy nine games played for Anthony.

Edwards. He's played in 79 games three years in a row. He's played in at least 70 games every season of his career. This is a crazy stat. Here's a list of players who missed more games just last season than

Anthony Edwards has missed in the last three seasons combined. Excuse me. I am underselling this. Here's a list of players who missed more games last season, just last season, than Anthony Edwards has missed in his entire career.

Luga Donchich, Tyrese Maxi, Palaboncaro, Lamello Ball, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Zion Williamson, Cam Thomas, Joelle Embed, John Morant, Brandon Ingram, Kawhi Leonard, Brandon Miller, Christops Porzingis, Lori Markinen, John Collins, Jalen Johnson, Jaden Ivy, Dejante Murray, Emmanuel Quickly, Paul George, Jordan Clarkson, Jalen Suggs, Jared McCain,

Jonathan Gaminga, Mark Williams, Chet Holmgren, Aaron Gordon, Jeremy Grant, DeAndre Aiton, Aaron Knee Smith, Chris Middleton, and Herb Jones. Every single one of those dudes missed more games just last season than Anthony Edwards has missed in his entire career. And he's never missed a playoff game. So to put it very simply, he is by far the most dependable night-to-night superstar in the NBA right now. He reminds me of a young LeBron in the sense that like, you'll see him turn the shit out of his ankle. and you'll be watching the TV thinking, there's no way he's going to be good to keep playing.

And then he's ripping through the defense to the rim like 90 seconds later. It's a big upside for him on a list like this. Like we can talk about Anthony Edwards's ceiling, and we're certainly going to today, but he is by far the most likely player in the league to at or near his ceiling every night from October to late May or June. And that's a big feather in his cap on a list like this, and it ended up being the major differentiator

for me, especially with that debate with Steph, who I think is a better basketball player and the small sample still to this day. His averages last year in 79 games, 28 points per game, six rebounds and five assists with 1.8 stocks, 45% from the field, 40% from 3 and 84% from the line. Massive increase in his three point volume last year. One of the things that I did predict correctly with Ant last summer was that his newfound shooting stroke was real, and I predicted that he would shoot well that season, and he did. He just leaned into it almost comically so with just the sheer amount of volume of three three-point shots that he was putting up.

He was one of the top three three-point shooters in the league last year. He was number one in makes. If you were to include shot quality, volume, efficiency, there were three guys who really separated themselves from the pack as three-point shooters last year. Steph Curry, Malik Beasley, and Anthony Edwards. I would argue that Steph was the most impressive three-point shooter last year, especially considering in quality. I put Ant second and Malik Beasley third. So I thought it was the second most impressive three-point shooter in the entire NBA last year. There was a big leap forward for him in that very specific regard. That came with both upsides and downsides. Again, with the upsides and

the downsides, they both fell in line with my basketball worldview. He gained in the form of large sample efficiency. This is a concept we've talked about a ton on this show. high volume three point shooting, leaning your into that shot profile, you will gain in the form of large sample efficiency. Very rarely will you see a player massively increase their scoring volume while simultaneously increasing their efficiency? And Ant did. And the reason why is because of his three point volume.

He went from 26 points per game, 28 points per game. And he logged from, he went from 58% true shooting to 60% true shooting. So a substantial increase in volume. and a substantial increase in efficiency because of that increase in three point volume. Again, when you tilt your shot profile towards three point line, there is a lot to gain in large sample efficiency.

But as I always say, skewing heavily towards three point shooting makes you highly susceptible to variance. And in the Thunder series in particular, Ant had three duds. He had a one for nine from three game, and he had two, one for seven from three games. And the wolves lost all three of those games.

in fact, if you looked, if you kind of zoomed out from the wolves in their postseason run last year, there was a pretty clear correlation between his three-point shooting and his team winning. When he shot over 40% from three in the playoffs last year, they went 7 and 0. And when he shot below 30% from three, they went one for five, one in five, excuse me. I think it would really benefit from better balance in his approach. And we'll talk more about that later, especially when we do a deep dive into the OKC series, But one of the things that I'm counting on here for Mann is I do think he learned his lesson there. I do think we'll see more balance and enhanced shot profile next season.

Now let's look at the play type data. He was an excellent pick and roll player last year. He ran over 1,200 of them and got 1.07 points per possession, including passes. That was in the 81st percentile. Being over 1,000 reps puts you onto our high volume list as we go over every summer. He ranked 7th out of the 13 players in the NBA last year, to run at least a thousand pick and rolls. For a guy in his early 20s,

big accomplishment for him. He shot extremely well out of pick and roll. He was 40% on pull-up threes out of ball screens on massive volume. Trey Young was the only NBA player last year to hit more threes out of pick-and-roll than Ant did. And it was the only player in the NBA to attempt at least 200 pull-up threes in ball screens

and to make at least 40% of them. That's obviously going to be. drive up his pick and roll scoring efficiency. Then he has a really good floater. He only takes about once a game, but he made 49% of his floaters last year. Gets nice and close to the basket, uses it as a deceleration move. He'll get like downhill into the defender's chest and then he'll like sidestep into a little floater that allows him to shoot before getting to the rim protector, which has been vitally important for him in some of the spacing issues that they've dealt with with Gobert. Really impressive

scoring in the ball screen situations. We're going to talk about. talk a little bit about Ant as a playmaker today, but the truth of the matter is, is he's very much a traditional score archetype. Self-awareness is key. Understand who you are. When it comes to that top tier of

playmaking, that's almost always something that you're born with, that's like a natural kind of like processing thing with the way you see the floor. That's not a death sentence. There are a lot of guys in NBA history who have been great as primarily scorers. You know, we were talking about that with Kevin Durant,

other day, Michael Jordan is a example. That's why Aunt gets kind of compared to him a lot. But like for Ant, it's not about becoming some surgical playmaker. It's just about making the necessary strides to be good enough at it, right? He'll make nice drive and kick reads. In ball screens, you'll see him elevate and rifle an opposite corner past Jaden McDaniels for a good look. He has become a more willing passer over the years, but he's very much a reactionary passer. He's not going to anticipate things and pass people open. He's going to see openings and throw the ball reacting to the defense, reacting to him. And that's fine.

Because I think he has the potential to be a true, like a apex score in this league. And I also think he has the chance to be an all defense level two-way player. That is enough to make him a top-tier superstar one day. he just needs to become more surgically reliable as a score the way a guy like Shay Gilders or Alexander is and he'll need to reach that all defense level which we'll get more into in a little bit his one-on-one stuff wasn't great last year and this is where I think the three-point shooting really came back to bite him he ran 636 isos in post-ups last year including passes and got just 0.91 points per possession not good I just think this comes

down to a combination of two things. One, the Gobert problem, just in general, in ISO situations, you're not getting the benefit of Gobert as a screener. You're getting Gobert in the dunker spot. And Ant's not a particularly good lob passer. Gobert's not a particularly good lob finisher. It just creates some spacing issues there. The second piece of it is just Ant bailed on the midrange shot. Ant shot fine on pull-up threes in ISO. It's got 38%. Not as well as he did in other areas as a three-point shooter, but that's enough. Like, 38% from three is, like, I was, I had a comment on, uh, on the LeBron video where someone was like, why did he say 36% is good on pull up, uh, threes in ball screens?

36% on threes in ball screens is fine. That's well over a point per possession. 36% on pull up twos is bad. You would be correct about that. But when it comes to pull up twos, you want to be in the high 40s at a minimum. But when it comes to pull up threes, as long as you're going to pull up threes, as long as you're over 35%, you're getting enough points per shot out of it

that it's a good shot. And it shot 38% on a pull-up threes out of ISO. That's fine. The problem is he shot just 41% on twos out of ISO and just 31% out of the post. Now again, like, we talked about the spacing piece, but the second piece of it is it just bailed on the mid-range shot

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Podcast Network available on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2024, so the year before last, and had built out a pretty robust set of like short fades over both shoulders, little stepback moves, and he just generally leaned on his short range scoring way more. He ran 571 one-on-ones that year and got 1.03 points per possession, which is really solid one-on-one work on substantially higher. mid-range volume, substantially higher post-up volume. That's a part of his game that he just let go. And that's what really concerns me about what happened last year.

It shows a lack of emphasis on that part of his game. I want Ant to emphasize that as part of his development moving forward so that he's just more rounded. In 2024, Ant attempted to shoot out of the post 68 times. last year that dropped to just 35 times. He posted up seven times total in this year's playoff run. He did so 27 times two years ago. And guess what? He got 1.19 points per possession out of the post.

So he posted up to devastating effect in the 2024 playoff run like twice a game and literally went down to doing it like once every other game. that's abandoning a super efficient play type that is just about proven to be more impactful in the postseason because of the physicality than high volume three-point shooting is. Looking at short-range jump shooting in 2024, Ant attempted 210 jump shots inside of 17 feet. In 2025, that dropped to 136, so almost half,

and it especially showed in the playoffs. He took 40 of those short twos in the 2004 Western Conference for its finals run. He made 21 of them. That's 53%. That's 1.05 points per shot. He was getting great success out of mid-range jump shooting and post-ups in that playoff run. Physical aggression using his athleticism to get more consistent shot making closer to the rim. He went from 40 down to just 16 of those in this most recent playoff run. So in other words, despite making real progress as a short-range score and getting real, reliable results in that 2024 playoff run, and bailed on it in the name of large sample efficiency in the form of high

volume three-point shooting. I thought this difference in philosophies was especially glaring in the Western Conference final series against Oklahoma City this year. Two elite defenses going at each other. Yeah, I didn't like Minnesota's game plan picking up shape, you know, at half court that was something that I think it's more harm than good, but two elite defense is going at each other, two very different types of scores. Shea was able to get these

consistent bits of short-range shot-making that carried him in that series, and he bolstered it with the ability to get to the foul line. And, on the other hand, had several ice-cold nights from three, and he's not as good at getting to the line. as a result

SGA was able to score more effectively and I was digging into the numbers the difference was almost entirely short range scoring and free throws so Shay badly outscored aunt in that series he had 157 points to Ant having just 115 to 42 point gap

over the course of the series excuse me a yeah 42 point gap that's massive and it was almost entirely made up of short range scoring and free throws Shea made 29 twos outside of the restricted area. It made 44 free throws. That's 102 points right there.

It made 14 twos outside of the restricted area, so less than half as many. And just 22 free throws, half as many. That's 50 points. That 102 to 50 gap, that was literally the difference between the two of them as scores in that series. Ant's game built on three-point shooting failed him. SGA's game built on short-range scoring and the ability to get to the line, that did not fail him.

That's the change in approach that we need to see from Ant in order for him to jump from that second tier of stars into that first tier of stars. Again, like we talked about earlier, step one, self-awareness. Acknowledge the type of player that you are. Ant is never going to be the type of dude who averages 10 assists per game. A good portion of that playmaking talent is what you're born with. I think that Ant certainly could be a guy who, you know,

in his early 30s is around seven, eight assists per game, just because he becomes super experienced at making the reads all the time. But I don't see him getting into that Apex Playmaker tier. So Aance Apex as a player is basically best score in the league, dominant perimeter defender, the Michael Jordan archetype, that is his path. So step two is identifying this flaw in his approach. And I do believe that Ant will. I think we're going to see a massive increase in Ant in short range scoring this year. As soon as this season, at the expense of large sample efficiency, like, I am fine with Ant dropping a little bit in his true shooting percentage this

year. His post-up volume needs to skyrocket. I think he needs to lead the league and guard post-ups this year. He's built like a damn tank, and it's going to be something he can lean on in the postseason. Two, he needs to emphasize short-range shot-making in his ISOs. Work guys down closer, 10 feet from the basket, build out those short step-backs, both directions, turn around over your right shoulder, turn around over your left shoulder, maybe a left-shoulder hook, the advanced footwork, like step things like that short range scoring and then lastly the foul grifting i may hate that shit aunt strikes me as the type of dude who probably hates that shit too but if you could figure out a way to get to the line maybe one more time perhaps like maybe just adding pump bakes out of the post

or taking some more aggressive driving angles to get into defender's chests forcing the ref to blow the whistle but if you could find a way to get a couple extra free throw attempts per game i think that would go a long way as well. This is where Ant actually has the capability of one day surpassing a guy like Chey Gildes Alexander. Those of you guys who've been following the show for a while, might remember. I got into a debate with the nerdsetsch guys years ago. It was like two or three years ago about who had a higher potential ceiling between Ant and SGA. And the truth is, aunt does have more potential. He has to earn it. He has to actually get there. But his size strength and athleticism is an absurd tool.

He's built like an absolute truck. And he has the potential to build out a bully ball game that SGA could never build out. He has a quicker first step. He's far more explosive at the rim vertically. Ant has the potential to be a much better defender. But right now, SGA's better than him at all those things. SGA is a far more polished post player right now. He's better at using change of pace and counter moves to get all the way to the rim.

So he gets to the rim more often and finishes at a higher percentage when he gets there. He's a better rim finisher. He's better at drawing fouls when he gets there. And even though Ant has all this defensive potential, She's a better defender than him right now. He's more attentive off the ball. Ant would certainly be better than SGA one-on-one playing on an island.

But who's stupid enough to attack Aunt one-on-one? You run him through screens where he can struggle to navigate screens and you take advantage of his lack of attention off the ball. I think Ant has all-world defensive potential. But right now, Shea is the more useful off-ball defender because he's got good length and he's always in the right spot. He pays attention to the defensive scheme and where he's supposed to be and that makes him a more useful defender, a more complete defender right now.

Now, none of that is a death sentence for this rivalry. Shea is a solid three years older than Ant. And if you actually compare the season Aant just had to a season from SGA three years ago, Ant is actually considerably better than SGA was at that point in time. So Ant is technically ahead of schedule, but he's got a long way to go. SGA made massive leaps in those three years. Ant's got his work cut out for him. I get super excited about Ant because I think his potential is preposterous.

We talked a second ago about how Ant's defensive talent hasn't really had high-level impact yet, but he has the potential to be like a game-breaking defender. He could easily become one of the two or three best perimeter defenders in the entire NBA. if he just got better at navigating screens. And he's got the quickness to do it and the strength to do it. He has the strength to switch onto bigger forwards and switches.

And he is ridiculous weakside potential jumping passing lanes and protecting the rim if he can just become more attentive and smarter in the game plan. So I absolutely think it could be an all defense level player. That's not really in the cards for a guy like SGA, in my opinion.

And he's quite literally, just barely scratching the surface of his offensive potential, which feels crazy to say, considering he just averaged 28 points per game on 60% for shooting for a full season. When he starts to master, like, timing on his drives and change of pace, and just getting a little bit more methodical

with the way he attacks the basket, when he becomes a master short-range score, which I think is in his future, when he goes up just that little bit of an extra level as a playmaker, just from making the same reads, thousands of times. When he starts to figure out how to get defenders out of position to draw that extra couple of fouls per game,

he's got a long way to go. But I think Ant legitimately has best player in the world potential. I'm not sure SGA has that. He has the physical talent to be an indomitable two-way force. In the playmaking talent, like, when you're looking at these guys in this tier, you have got to be really, really great

at multiple things to be the best player in the world. Shea is transcendently great as a score, which is enough to move him into this top tier. But he doesn't have the defensive talent to be extremely good on the defensive end and he doesn't have the playmaking talent to be extremely good as a playmaker.

I think you need to check two of those boxes to enter into that conversation with like Yokic, who is a transcendently great score and a transcendently great playmaker. Ant has the ability to check multiple boxes one day. I think he could be a transcendently good score and a transcendently good defender. That is the pathway to him becoming the best player in the world.

I want to be very clear. I'm just talking about potential. There is a, I would argue it's more likely than not that Ant kind of ends up as just another guy in the top tier for the majority of his career. But that potential is there. It's going to take obsessive competitiveness, obsessive work behind the scenes, dedication and willingness to do the dirty work. But I do think Ant has all-world potential.

The ability to be remembered is one of the guys who took the title of the best player in the world at some point in time. and has the potential. In the meantime, I think number five is a safe bet for Ant in this coming season. He's going to play at least 75 games. He's going to average at least 28 points per game on at least 58% true shooting,

assuming he cuts down on his three-point volume a little bit. I expect him to invest more in short-range scoring. I think he did learn his lesson after last year. And I don't think it would be a bad trade-off if he lost a little bit of that regular season efficiency, but he became a more reliable playoff score. And again, like everything, I'm grading him on a curve here when I talk about best player in the world.

I mean, he's played 42 playoff games, made two Western Conference finals run, and he is a career, 27 points per game on 59% true shooting in the playoffs. That's the guy that we've all nitpicked into oblivion. Ant is in the unfortunate position of being a player in his early 20s, who is consistently making deep play. playoff runs and consistently facing off with experienced superstars. And those dudes outplay him.

This is causing everyone to hyper focus on his flaws when the reality is he's crushing it for a guy his age. In the meantime, I have a ranked at number five. But I am really curious to see if he can actually capitalize on that all-world potential. All right, now that we're done with our second tier of superstars, I wanted to take some time to look back at this grouping, talk about what they're absolutely. absolute peaks were, or for the younger guys, what their actual peaks could be. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news,

huge news? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a podcast. 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, well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes.

I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, 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. Keith Giamanka seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad, but secretly he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea?

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And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War. To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit, Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space.

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You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself.

And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice! Join me and my comedian friends as we riff rant and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream. Cream a chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hippocrat as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to start at number 14 and work our way up the list. So number 14, Joel Embed, I actually had a hard time with this one. I settled on the 2021 season. I understand that he won the MVP in 2023 and put up all those crazy scoring numbers, but that was a phase of his career where he was super banged up and he really struggled to get through seasons healthy, and he just wasn't very good when he would get to the playoffs every year.

year all banged up. In 2021, that was really the only year where he played multiple playoff rounds and didn't experience any sort of substantial drop off in his scoring or efficiency in the postseason compared to the regular season. In the 2021 regular season, Mbid averaged 29 points and 11 rebounds on 64% true shooting. In the playoffs, he averaged 28 points, 11 rebounds on 63% true shooting. He had some turnover issues, especially at the end of the Hawk series, but if you guys remember, that was the series where Ben Simmons, like, just completely shit the bed. And they probably advanced to the conference finals

and have a great shot to win the title if they get a better performance out of Ben Simmons in that series. I think at that point in time, even including the playoffs, you would have to consider Embed in that top five. Like, he was a consensus top five player at that point in time. He had some, like, best player in the world buzz in later years, like when he was competing for MVPs,

but mostly from a regular season box score standpoint in a lot of like Philadelphia 76ers fans. A lot of basketball people understood at that point that Embed was too physically beat up and too inconsistent as a playoff performer to actually be considered as one of the top guys. Back in 2021, I think that was the year where you look at him as a consensus top five guy.

Unfortunately, I think that will end up being Embedd's peak. I don't think he'll ever be able to get back to that level again with his knee troubles. Number 13, Quay Leonard. I think the answer to this one is pretty clearly 2019. I think he hit higher levels as a basketball player later on, but he was unable to sustain them

because of his knee troubles. Like if you wanted to pick like a very small window for a peak, I would look at his two playoff runs in 2021 and 2023 before he got hurt both years. In those 13 playoff games, he was like Robot Kauai at his finest. 31 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists per game

on 57% from the field, 42% from 3 and 88% from line with 2.1 steals per game. That's probably the highest individual peak he reached, but 13 games isn't enough to qualify for something like this. I think 2019 was like that mind-body skill peak

for Kawhi Lander. He wasn't quite as good as he was in the later years, but he was actually healthy enough to sustain it. He averaged 27 points and 7 rebounds on 61% true shooting in 60 regular season games. He played in all of their playoff games that year. He averaged 31 points and nine rebounds on 62% true shooting in the playoffs.

He hit all sorts of iconic shots on his way to a finals MVP for an awesome Raptors team and hoisted the trophy. I think at this point in time, he was the clear fourth best player in the world behind LeBron, Stefan, KD. Now, if you want to argue Kauai second because Kadi and LeBron were both hurt that year, sure, go ahead. But, I mean, LeBron literally went right back. the next year whooped Kauai's ass and was clearly the best player alive and won the title. So I don't, I think that was more injury related. And then I would argue that Kauai's ceiling has been higher than KD's ceiling post-K-KD's Achilles tear. But I thought healthy KD in 2019 was still a better player than Kauai Leonard at that point in time. So I think like Kauai peaked as like the

fourth best everyone's healthy player in the world during that particular season. Number 12, Donovan Mitchell. I think we're actually at Donovan Mitchell's peak right now. More or less the peak of his mind-body skill connection, like we talked about earlier. He might not be putting up the same numbers he did in 2023, but I think he's a much better game manager now, and he's a better defender now than he was there towards the end with the jazz. And he just put together a monster playoff run this last season.

I do think this is the highest Donovan Mitchell will ever get. I'm not going to say that he can't move up. I just don't necessarily think he will. He relies very heavily on his athletic advantages at this point in his career, but he's about to turn 29 years old. I think he may plateau here for a couple of years, but I would be surprised if he ever moved up substantial. Like, I'd be surprised if we were ever talking about Donovan Mitchell

as the fifth best player in the world. I think this is more or less the peak for him. But I don't get hung up on the number 12 thing. Like the league is super deep with talent. The bottom line is this year I considered him to be on the same level as the second-tier superstars in this league, which I think is an amazing accomplishment, especially for a guy who was a 13th pick. Number 11, Kevin Durantz. I think his peak was 2018. The numbers weren't super impressive because of the fact that he was playing on the most talented roster ever assembled,

but they were impressive nonetheless, 26.7 rebounds and five assists on 64% true shooting. A career high, 1.8 blocks per game that year. In the playoff run, 29, eight, and five on 61% true shooting. Culminating in what I thought was the best game he ever played. In one of the best individual games I've ever seen any NBA player in the history of the league. Game three of the NBA finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers. That was a game.

If you guys remember, Stefan Clay both went completely ice cold and basically no-showed the game. And Katie went for 43 points, 13 rebounds, and seven assists on 15 for 23 from the field, and 6 for 9 from 3. And the box score doesn't really tell the full story. I thought he was masterful from start to finish. I thought he completely controlled the flow of the game. He hit the dagger over LeBron to end that game

from like 27 feet away from the basket. That was KD's peak, in my opinion. Now the question is, where did KD rank at this point in time? You know what's funny is, at the time, a younger version of me almost a decade ago, I thought KD was better than Steph at that. point in time. But it was a long time ago. I was a much younger basketball fan. I didn't really understand basketball the way that I do now. I didn't understand advantage creation the way I do now.

So I now feel pretty strongly that Steph was the best player on that team. So at that point in time, I would have put KD third behind LeBron at one and Steph at two. I just think Steph's advantage creation was the actual thing that made that team go. Steph was a little bit susceptible to variance. and yeah, like KD was saved their ass, but that's what made it a sweep. Like, Steph was going toe to toe to with LeBron without Kevin Durant in the couple of years before that partnership. I think Steph was a better player than Katie at that point in time. But that to me, like, it's interesting because I do think KD reached a higher point in the league's hierarchy earlier on. Like from 2012 to 2014, he was the second best player in the world behind LeBron.

I just think KD as a basketball player was better in 2018. Steph just had surpassed him at that point. There's no shame in that. I think Steph is the fifth best perimeter player of all time. That's just what happens when Steph Curry comes into the equation. Number 10, Anthony Davis, this one's easy, 2020. 26 points and nine rebounds with four stocks per game on 61% true shooting that season. An absolutely ridiculous playoff run.

28 points and 10 rebounds per game on 67% true shooting. shooting, became an absolutely deadly jump shooter in that playoff run. He shot 47% on all jump shots. He shot 62% on long twos outside of 17 feet. He was 31 for 50. He had a game winner. He was a dominant defender the whole year from start to finish. It really answered the question of like, what would it look like if you had the best defender

in the league, but also a guy with a deadly jump shot? And that guy, in my opinion, at that point in time, was the fourth. best player in the world. Now, unfortunately, as with Embed, I just think AD is too far gone in terms of his injuries and the weight that he's put on and the age that he's at now. I don't think he'll ever pass that ceiling again. But 2020 was the peak of Anthony Davis's career. Number nine, Jalen Brunson. Similarly to Donovan Mitchell, I think we're experiencing his peak right now. By the time you guys see this video, he'll be 29 years old. So he'll begin to experience some age-related decline in athleticism. But I do think you'll hang.

at this level for like similar to Mitchell, I think it'll plateau here for a while before he goes, before he goes down. But we're in a three years span. We're in the playoffs for three consecutive seasons. He's averaged 30 points per game on 57% true shooting with seven assists. That's one hell of a run from a guy who's now entered into that second tier of superstars. Again, we were talking about this with like Shea at the top. Like the problem with guys like Mitchell and Brunson is they're not transcendently. great at scoring the way that Shea is, and they don't have that, I'm awesome at several different things tier. Like, Brunson's a better passer than Donovan Mitchell, but Jalen Brunson still is not an elite passer, and he still is not a guy who can impact the game defensively. And so they're both

really good scores, but they just don't have the versatility element to their game to crack into that top tier. And if you're going to crack into that top tier without versatility, you got to be like, a guy who's going to average damn near 34 points per game hyper efficiently, and that's just not what you're getting out of those two guys. So I look at Brunson and Mitchell as more or less at their ceilings right now. Number eight, LeBron James. Peak for me with LeBron was 2018. It was unfortunately one of the worst rosters he ever played on,

but he still managed to drag them to the finals. He averaged 28 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists on 62% true shooting that year. went up a massive level in the playoffs. One of the best individual playoff runs you will ever see in the history of the NBA. He averaged 34 points, nine rebounds, and nine assists without a dip in efficiency. Stated 62% true shooting. He coasted on defense in the regular season, but he was great on that end. In the playoffs, he had eight 40-point games in that postseason run.

He hung 50 on the Warriors in the finals. He hit multiple buzzer-beating game winners. He won multiple series as the underdog. To put it very simply, not only, only was LeBron the best player in the league in 2018. I think 2018 LeBron is the best basketball player to ever play in the NBA. Number seven, Victor Wemanniam. Obviously not too much to dig into here.

Last season was his peak. Not hard to see why it was his second season. Obviously predictable leaps across the board. The question is, what will Wemby's peak be? And the answer is, I think he will be the best player in the world someday. I talked about Ant today and how he had the potential to, one day become the best player in the world, but it's far from a guarantee with Ant. I actually think it's a safer bet with Ant that he cracks the top tier of superstars, but never actually

claims the top spot. I personally would be surprised if Wembe never actually took the top spot in the NBA. He's already the best defensive player in the world. He's very likely to get even better on that end in the coming years as he gets better at reading and reacting to modern NBA offenses. I think he'll become, he's already the best defender in the NBA. I think he'll become, he's already the best defender in the NBA, I think he'll become far, far, far, far, far in a way, the best defender in the NBA in time. But I also think it's almost a certainty that he'll eventually average 30 points per game on 62% true shooting or so, probably in the next like two or three years. So, like, I think he would require an injury or for Wemby to like just straight up not figure a lot of basic

shit out for him to not eventually become the consensus top player in the world. Two more. Number six, Steph Curry. I think his peak stretched from the end of the regular season in 2021 to the time he hoisted the trophy in the 2022 finals. I think that 2022 season was the one time in Steph's career where I think he had a really strong, really hard to refute case as the best basketball player alive. Like, I disagree with Warriors fans.

I think he was better than LeBron during LeBron's prime. I, you know, it gets to be a debate with him in Janus in 2021. I had Janice as the best player in the world in 2021. He won the title. Kind of feels like you have to give it to him there. Yokic, I think, snatched it for good starting in 2023. 2022 is that one season in Steph's career where I really do think he had a strong case to be the best player in the world.

At that point, Janice regressed a little bit off of his title winning season in 2021. Yokic hadn't really peaked yet. Maybe because of his rosters, but still we'll just, you know, he hadn't made that successful deep playoff run where he just alpha dogged everybody like he did the following season. LeBron was never the same after his high ankle sprain in 2021. Luca and Shea Gilders-Alexander weren't ready yet. I think that was the window in time where Steph had that best player in the world belt. 2021, the second half of the season, that was insane. Steph's last 43 games that year.

Despite the entire league throwing everything at him because KD was out, Clay Thompson was out. He was getting the most aggressive coverages in the world. He averaged 34 points per game on 67% true shooting for 43 games. That is far in a way the most impressive scoring and efficiency stretch of his career. He did battle a slight shooting slump in the following

season, but on a better roster, he recaptured his touch in the playoffs, made the run at the end. Iconic game and game four on the road in Boston gets that title that legitimizes everything and shuts the haters up from the previous titles. Lastly, number five, Anthony Edwards. I'm going to go with the 2024 season, so two years ago.

Obviously, he had a much more impressive regular season this year with his high volume three-point shooting, but I thought that he was more surgical and more physically aggressive as a score in 2024. And I think that made him a better point. player in the playoffs compared to the following year. Now, as I said earlier, I do think

Ait has the potential to be the best player in the world someday, but I think it will require a lot of things to go right for him. I think he needs to maximize his defensive potential and become a much more reliable possession to possession score. And he just has a long way to go to get there. But I do think he has that potential. All right, guys, it's all I have for today.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back on Friday with a mailback. 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 care where you hear it. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs.

We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was harmed. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that Game 7, Marquis keep coming to, he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHeart Podcast presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet. Hey. And we have been joined at the hips since high school. Absolutely. A redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip.

Just a little bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? Oh, they had a bogo. Well, then you got them. Listen to soccer moms on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast.

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to fupas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman, my age, want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turn, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter.

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