The Mismatch - Going In-Depth on the Raptors, Scottie Barnes, and the Future of the NBA With Samson Folk | The Void

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Welcome to ‘The Void,’ where Kevin O’Connor brings you deep inside the NBA with the people who know it best. KOC goes up north and brings on Samson Folk, a freelance reporter who covers the Raptors for Raptors Republic. (00:56) - KOC’s thoughts on Paul George’s return and the Bucks-76ers game (06:18) - The Raptors' unique offensive strategy (08:16) - Pascal Siakam’s improvement and what more to expect from OG Anunoby (14:49) - Describing Scottie Barnes (19:31) - How the Raptors used Barnes against Nikola Jokic (26:51) - Can Barnes grow into the primary facilitator? (28:47) - Rookie rankings and the case for each top candidate to win ROTY (37:09) - Samson’s favorite players not on the Raptors (41:18) - The NBA is as deep as ever and continuing to evolve Host: Kevin O'Connor Guest: Samson Folk Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the Icons Club. Hey everybody, thanks for tuning.

It's the today's episode of the Boyd. We're going to be talking about the rookie of the year race, the Raptors, positional as basketball, and just the overall direction of the league where it's headed. But before that, I want to share two quick thoughts about what we saw in Tuesday night's games. First up, if you've been listening to the mismatch, you know what I've been saying for months.

There's a possibility that Kauai Leonard and Paul George both returned to the Clippers this season. And here we are. George is back last night. First game for the Clippers against the Jazz. So we saw more of what we saw in the playoffs with the Clippers beating the jazz without Kauai.

It was a 25-point comeback with George scoring 34 points in his first game back after three months. Three months! Because of the elbow injury that he had. And as I told Verno on Tuesday, now that George was back, Kauai is going to get to see how this team looks with his co-star before he makes a final decision

of whether return. That's what's going to be happening here. I bet you Kauai liked what he saw. a team full of awesome role players, man, Hartinstein, Batum, a star in George. All they're missing is him. That's all it takes. It's Kauai coming back.

And then they become threats to win it all. I'm warning you, once again, don't sleep on the clippers. Second thought here. Yianas reminded everybody, including me, and Tuesday's win over the Sixers' what he's capable of. 40 points, 14 rebounds, six assists, three blocks,

and in just the last three minutes of that game, he caught a lot from True Holiday, totally unstoppable. He hit a pull-up two-pointer against the end, And then the next time up the floor, the Bucks ran the same play they did when they got the Yannis lob. And this time, the Sixers defended it better. They clogged the paint. But because of that, Drew Holliday was wide open for a full-up three.

And that's the Yannis effect beyond the block score. And back on defense, Yannis was in a Hardin's airspace on a lay-up attempt to influence that shot. And then, of course, he had the block in the final seconds against a bead on the putback opportunity. It was defensive player of the year caliber stuff. The Bucks are a half game out of first. Yannis remains in heavy consideration on my MVP. I'm undecided on that. It's close, still between him,

Yokic, and Embed, but I am gaining clarity on who I'm picking to go to the NBA finals in the East, and it's the Bucks. It's not just because of Yannis. It's not just Middleton, Sotch's Holiday, it's Brooke Lopez. Brooke Lopez is looking more like himself.

Yonah's called Lopez a cheat code last week, and I think that's a great way to put it because Lopez draws Embed away from the paint because of a shooting. And Lopez is also big enough to battle Embedonstein. And that allows Yonah, to just be constantly near the rim as I helped defender doing the stuff

that we saw him do down the stretch of that game. And Lopez just allows the Bucks to be massive and still have skill. They're my pick. And I'm sure I'll talk about Bucks on Friday's episode of The Mismatchel with Chris Vernon, but today we're talking about a team that's trying to build a roster

to compete with Milwaukee someday, and that's the Rappers. So I brought on Samson Folk, who's been doing a ton of great work for Raptors Republic and other sites he freelances for. He's really small, And though our discussion focuses on Toronto here and how that team actually has a chance to guarantee themselves a playoff spot, our conversation does move towards the big picture of the league stuff at the end. I love this talk and I hope you do too. Here's Samson, folks.

What's going on, Samson? How you doing? I'm doing well. Excited to hop on. As many young writers, Kevin O'Connor is a big name when you're learning about basketball and you're trying to keep up with the NBA from however long ago I've been keeping up with your work. It's pretty cool to be on The Void to be talking to you and getting some basketball work. Thank you, man. How old are you then?

How old are you? I'm 31. And so I'm 26. Okay. You're young. Yeah. Young-ish, you know? The pandemic is stealing our youth, you know, as a case for another people on our drink.

It really is. These last two years, all gone. I'm 31 now. I got all these friends getting married, all these wedding invitations this summer. I mean, what the hell is going on? Dude, I'm hearing about friends having babies and stuff. Do you have any friends having babies yet? I got a couple friends who have babies.

And especially, you know, growing up in a small town, they start having babies at like 21, 22. So, yeah. Man, yeah. I mean, it's tough getting old. But when I hear that, I don't feel old. Like, I don't feel like I've been in NBA media since 2013. Like, that was really my first year doing stuff.

But I don't feel old, but sometimes I have to remind myself, I am getting old. And you are a reminder of that. Actually, I had a really funny story when I went to work my first practice in Toronto and Eric Corrine was there, who I'm sure you know. Oh, he's great. I told him, I was like, yeah, I grew up reading your stuff. And he was like, thanks, dude. Thanks for saying that. Eric is really good.

He's super smart. All right. So let's get into our conversation about the Raptors here. one of the thoughts on my mind lately Samson is Scotty Barnes clearly, rugby of the year candidate but the thing I really like about watching this Raptors team is just how through

different points of the season different guys have really been handed the keys early on. We saw OG and Anobie, ton of ISOs, ton of pick and rolls getting heavy on ball reps. We saw Pascal Seacam turn into Point Seacca mid-year. Scotty Barnes has had heavy

stretches really handling the offense. It's just been enjoyable to watch different guys get different opportunities. Is that part of what they're trying to do to help develop these guys across the roster? I think it's kind of a process of there. You probably heard the term extend advantage as far as how teams attack, and the rappers are kind of like take advantage because they play all these six-foot-nine guys or six-foot-eight at a bunch of different spots on the floor.

They get a lot of mismatches. So their offensive process, they don't run very many pick and roles. Scotty Barnes isolates, I think, the second most among rookies, second only to Kate Cunningham. Pascal Seacom isolates only less than two players, Shea and James Hardin, and Pascal is not a similar player to either of those two. And Ogen and Obie is the number one post-up pub as far as possessions per game go on the Raptors. And so they're getting guys in the post.

They're initiating out of those sets. And they do a lot of pitch plays in the half-port, too. But they look for mismatches and they attack those. And then they make the pass to the open man off of it. So it isn't like this, you know, beautifully organized Phoenix Sun's offense where they have so many variations of like Spain pick and roll that they're constantly running throughout every game. It's more so read and react stuff.

And there's usually, whether it's Pascal or OG or Scotty, a guy who's, you know, at the 45 extended initiating in isolation. And so it's based on whoever has the best feel at the moment. And Pascal is, you know, if he had played the full season, would have a much better all-NBA case, but has been playing around that level since really getting back into the swing of things. So he's been carrying the offense for some time. But I think it's just a representation of what they tried to do offensively.

And it's not egalitarian truly, but it's like if you have the mismatch, we're probably going to find you. With Siakum, for a short stretch, you know, maybe even for like a eight month, 12 month period, people were down on him. You mentioned he's been playing at an all NBA level. He's borderline like on that level for third team. How have you seen Siakum's game develop over the course of the season to get better from what he even was prior? Yeah, so the big thing with Seacum is that he is a guy who doesn't do any one thing incredibly well except finish at the rim.

And that was his rise to fame alongside Kauai Leonard and Kyle Lowry was getting out finishing at the rim at like 74% and being able to create on his own too. The all-NBA season that he had, he shot 34% on like three pull-up threes a game. that hasn't been emulated anywhere else. That is a blip on his statistical page. And so what he's been working to do is make meaningful progressions in the middle of the floor as a playmaker and as a guy who makes shots from there. And steps were made last season,

even though it was a down year, even though the rappers were in Tampa and everything was kind of wild about that. He made steps as a playmaker, especially dealing with doubles and stuff in that nature and kind of working himself into more post-oriented stuff and face-up-oriented stuff from the 45 extended. It wasn't as much pick and roll or free-flowing shooting stuff

as it was in 2019-20. And this year is actually the first year where Pascal is taking more shots from short mid-range than he does at the rim. And this is a byproduct of the rapper's lack of spacing, but this is Pascal being forced into the home of stars, which for many people is the mid-range, and turning it into a hub.

For short mid-range, shot-making, where he gets deep on some players, draws doubles to play-make, either out above the break or to the corners for three or for layups for his teammates if they're cutting well like Scotty and OG. And I think in the short mid-range, he's shooting 48% this year. He's got a ton of counters and he's able to pressure the rim and draw free throws.

And I think the totality of what he's able to do on offense has come together in a really great package because as an offensive player in the NBA, it's really, really tough to figure out what's best for you to do at any given time, especially if you don't have a standout skill, Like a pull-up three for Steph Curry is the thing to do a lot of the time. But for Pascal, it was less evident. And so he's been mixing and matching really well this year and keeping defenses at bay with a better mix than he has in the past.

So it's an accumulation of everything. Isn't that kind of a skill in and of itself? The ability to mix and match and do different things, depending on what your team needs in certain situations, like that. Like if Scotty Barnes becomes a superstar or if the Raptors get a superstar a la Kauai from a trade, you know, Pascal Seacquan can be what his team needs him to be. Yeah, it's not easy to figure out. A lot of players have a really tough time figuring out,

and it's probably how guys like Chris Paul, outside of the shot making and the nice passing, when you know, and Kyle Lowry, even for the Miami Heat, these guys stick around in the league because they are finding little advantages and how to, you know, dictate an offense. And when it has pace, keep the pace. When it needs to be slowed down, find a mismatch.

or find a two-man action or a set action that works. And being able to go at his own pace, or Pascal Seaclmo was a guy who used to be able to get hurried up, and you'd see a lot of mistakes. Turnovers out of jump passes, blown handles and stuff like that. There is some Demarder Rose into his game and that he's just waiting around in the middle of the court, looking for advantages, and he's comfortable going to,

albeit a much shorter mid-range shot than DeMarleggs, but going to a shot that he's comfortable ending concessions with, whether it goes in or not. The development we saw from him on ball, maybe not going to be a key part of his game in the future, especially when he's sharing the court with the guys that he is. But it's nice to see Ananobe out of school.

He has questions about his ability to shoot threes. He becomes a great, consistent, spot-up three-point shooter, and he's become over time somebody who can be relied on to attack closeouts, make the right pass, finish at the rim, in addition to becoming a ferocious defensive player with OG, from what we saw early in the year, especially when he was handing on the ball anymore,

is there any reason to feel a sense of optimism about his ability to become more of a creator with the ball on his hands? Or is he more likely somebody who is just still playing off of others? I think there is some optimism if you believe that the pull-up jumper can come around. And when I was looking at this prior to the season, you'd see OG go from like 15% on pull-up threes one year to 42 the next year. Like there's just these big jumps because it's such low volume. And this year, like during the preseason, he was shooting like 43% on pull-up threes.

And everybody was like, holy smokes, what's happening here? That didn't pan out. I think he's in the low 20s right now. But as far as how he drives the ball and his read for advantage as a passer going downhill, I actually think OG is a better downhill passer than Pascal Seacom currently is. And that means that you don't have to use him as an on-ball creator. When we think back to the bubble series where the Raptors were playing the Celtics, when OG was playing big on both sides of the floor,

he was a very necessary screener. But when he would short-roll, he could take it to the rim, he could relocate to find shooters around him, and he could find advantage there. And so there's a lot of stuff he does when advantage is given, that you don't have to worry so much about him turning into this big creator. But the post-up hub is a really interesting, aspect of it. That's something that he's worked

into his offense a lot, and it's something that Nick Nurse has commented on and saying he looks to make that happen, just to keep OG more involved. And there were some games, like the, I think it was January 13th or 15th where the Raptors played the Bucks, and they were blitzing a lot of the Fred and Pascal actions, and it didn't go super well,

but OG's empty side pick and roll possessions with either precious or, yeah, I guess it was mostly precious in that game because Kim was injured. They going all right. They were getting enough offense out of it. So it's Tim Hardaway Jr. played well next to Luke in the playoffs because he has a diverse

set of options that he can go to type of thing, but you wouldn't make him the main guy. I think OG is comfortably there, but if he grows, he grows and if he doesn't, he doesn't. With Scotty Barnes, he's another guy who can do everything. How would you describe Scotty Barnes to somebody

who, you know, they're a Raptors fan, hardcore Raptors fan, they wake up from a year-long coma. and they tune into the Raptors game and they ask you Samson, who the hell is this Scotty Barnes guy? How are you going to describe him? I wouldn't start by listing a player.

And I think that's what we typically want to do is be like, well, he's like this guy you've seen before. And Scotty Barnes just really isn't. He is one of the most fantastical players I've ever seen on offense because the way he attacks downhill is a guy who's constantly hop-stepping. And if he can mix in a long-step

here or there, sure, but it's not these short, direct, quick steps. He's kind of meandering his way down the court. I use the term the most muscular frog you've ever seen in your life in that big piece I wrote about him. And he does have like a very strange improvisational bent, but, you know, this was sports info solutions, get put out a graphic where they were measuring contested hookshots and Yokic is up there like above 60%. But Scotty Barnes is at 58% and Scotty Barnes is very self-authorized. in the way that he gets to the rim. And he completely beasts and feasts on smaller players. He is like a mismatch hunter, is what I would say.

And a guy who's comfortable shooting out of any situation. He is like an awake dragon. And I've used this term before, but it's like, we all think of a sleeping dragon, but he's just an awake one. He's a dragon. He'll attack. He'll do whatever. And there's nothing he'll limit and take away from himself.

If it's something that's available to be done on the basketball court, Scotty will try it out. And I think that this year is a guy who's trying a bunch of stuff is way bigger than most of the players who guard him, dominates physically and has an incredible touch. And rebounds the hell of the ball on the offense event. He's got a great nose for that. You pretty much listed everything a player could do.

That's kind of his thing. Yeah, like the shooting has to come along. I think he's at like 31% from three or maybe a little. Yeah, 31% from three. And that hasn't necessarily gotten better over the course of the year. He's still hovering around 30. Like in March, 28% from 3. Yeah, it's up and down.

He had that one really hot stretch where, you know, the pull-ups, he was hitting like one. He was taking like two or three a game because he had obviously, you know, we don't know what goes on behind the scenes. Like coaches can say whatever to players and we rarely hear about it. But somebody said something to him. So he started pulling. He had like a seven-game stretch where he's shooting 40 plus percent. And everybody's like, what the hell can't this kid do? that's what I mean.

I feel like watching the Raptors, there's certain points this year. I'm like, they're just experimenting. Like OG start in the year, ISO, pick and roll, ISO, pick and roll. Then that goes away a little bit, or at least it dips.

You see, Seacom become point Seacom midway through the year. And part of that's by necessity. But with Scardy Barnes, his, you know, early in the year, his usage like steadily went up, his touches,

steadily went up. And it's been more consistent, but there's been little stretches, as you said, where he's doing more. And I just wonder, when are we going to, like if the Raptors weren't fighting

for a playoff spot right now, if they were in the lottery, would we see Scotty Barnes take 20 shots, you know, 18 to 20 shots every single night, just to see what he can do? Because I don't know, I'm just intrigued by that with Barnes because he's done different things,

depending on what the coaching staff is asked them to do throughout the year, and that speaks to his potential greatness. It really does. Yeah, it should be really interesting to see how he grows in his career because a lot of the drives that he was taking early on in the year were just keeper plays on dribble handoffs. And that's still prioritizing another player's touch over his more than anything. But if you give that same guy like those dribble handoffs on the opposite side, if you give him a bunch of pick and roll possessions and say, we're giving you like 20 of these a game,

figure something out and see how often they switch and how often he gets to isolate off of that, how often he is able to find pocket passes or maybe like there's an exit screen on the other side and he's making skip passes that shorter people can't make because of his size. There's lobs. You know, you run Spain with him. You throw lobs with him. There's all kinds of stuff that you can do and get more creative with. And they're just on the precipice of doing that, I think.

So with Barnes, you're describing, you're describing somebody who can be the pick and roll ball handler who can set the screens and roll to the rim, can play off ball, can spot. can spot up, can do pretty much anything they want on offense. Defensively, he's also that type of guy with his ability to defend multiple positions. He can defend quicker guys on the guard and wing. We also saw him just shredding a defense against Niccoli Yokic. What do the Raptors do in that game against Yokic, particularly with Scotty Barnes, to give Yokic so much trouble in March?

Okay, so it's really interesting the way that he's used. We're seeing this as kind of a trend in the NBA with Robert Williams being a really popular example of it in Boston, is these rovers who are able to disrupt everything. We kind of saw it with, I guess, like the Andre Roberson and Paul George thing that happened in OKC. We see it a little bit with Matisse Tybal, but it's not as popular for Biggs to do. And Jaron Jackson, Jr., Robert Williams, those types of Evan Mobley as well, playing more of a rover role and using their size to, you know, gum up every action. that we see in a basketball court. Scotty Barnes is the same thing. Early in the season, I know you asked about Denver,

but earlier on in the season when OG Pascal and Scotty were all on the court, the Raptors switched a Chicago action at every single position. That's a three-man action, and they switched everything, and that's an incredible thing to be able to do on a basketball court. Can you describe for a listener who has no idea what Chicago action is, why it's so impressive to be able to switch all three guys?

guys. Okay, so a Chicago action is basically like a handoff with a screen right in the middle of it. And it's a corner action. And handoffs are really tough to deal with for defenses. Miami has been showing that, you know, they've had guys out all year. They've been struggling. But handoffs are a very easy way to create openings. And switching every single aspect of a handoff, the screen, the screen before the screen, and then switching to the corner when it comes back, it negates every advantage that you're trying to pull from an action. And negating advantages from actions, while teams can reset and keep it moving,

you take time off the clock. And if you don't give any discernible advantage when you're switching, it means that you're just taking time off the clock. They have nothing to hunt afterwards. And you're just moving them farther and farther down the shock clock. And that is just a tremendous thing to be able to do on defense. And then with Yokic, you know, Yokic is somebody who, O.G. Anonobi,

has been the guy defending Yokic for most of the Raptors games. He had that very popular seven steel game where they just attacked everything above the break. And I think that's still what the Raptors tried to do, just Sands O.G. And this is a team, same way they did with Mbid, is their principles on defense are to help and overhelp. And to make sure that if there's a star, if there's a big, they're going to crowd their space. And Yokic is a guy who can pass around an overhelping defense.

He can make tremendous things happen. But the Raptors did a hell of a job. And with Scottie being able to roam over to change passing lanes with height, because if it's Fred Van Vleet digging down, it's one thing maybe you get a steal, but Fred Van Vleet isn't going to change the passing lane that Embed or Yokch see. But Scotty Barnes digging down is creating this, you know, vertical press on what Yokic is able to do.

And depending on where he helps from and where the Raptors send help from, you can send the ball back up the port. You can send it to the sideline. close out with long arms and you can recover from there. You can make sure that Yokic has to put a little bit more air on the ball so that the rappers have more time to recover or even jump the pass and get a steal. It's a huge benefit to have him when he's on and when he's precise. And it makes the rappers more versatile.

The same way it does with Oji or Pascal, I think they all bring a similar verve to defense in that way. I mean, what you're describing with Boston, you know, with Robert Williams, all they're doing with their elite defense, other teams like Mowbly and Cleveland, as you said. Is there something to that with playing this style, or is there still a need for having a true big and a true guard on your roster, like Bamblite,

or like, you know, Marcosol was, like Jonas Valentuna was with Toronto. So I think this is really interesting because I think Van Blyte's shooting is more valuable than the true guard aspect of his game. Like, there are passes that Pascal and Scottie make that Fred can't. There are some passes Fred makes more often than those guys in good reads,

but Fred's shooting is the biggest thing offensively. And Fred's obviously a great point of attack player on defense. And his biggest defensive merit came guarding Steph Curry off ball and then on ball in the finals. But the Raptors have a democratic room protection kind of play style. Miami does this to some degree as well. But as soon as the guy is getting downhill, you dig in and you send from the corner. And that's why the rappers, they give up more corner threes than any other team in the league.

I think they're middle of the pack in what percentage teams shoot there. But they've decided that since they have this smaller roster with guys like Preciouss, Chua, Camberch, and Chris Boucher and Pascal Seacom operating as the low man a lot of the time, they're going to send help so that they spend, teams spend less time getting to the rim. And they are in the top half of the league as far as making sure that teams don't get there, but they're still bad at defending the rim when teams do get there. And so did they jump the shark to some degree? Are our fans, our teams happy with the payoff of getting corner threes for who knows who's shooting it,

but instead of looks at the rim, I think the Raptors are pretty happy with their defensive process. They've been a top 10 defensive rating team for, I think, since December 28th, since they kind of stepped out of that COVID stuff. and it's been interesting to see but also when we're thinking of Fred and missing out on a center they've had meaningful progressions from guys this year

like Freshly Situa is heavily heavily correlated with better defensive numbers for the Raptors and then yeah offensively they have these lineups where they don't play either Gary Trent Jr. or Fred and I wrote a piece about it I called them the Funk Fest Quartet because it typically involves like four of the rappers

longest players and then maybe Delano Banton or something. Banton's got length too, man. He's long, yeah. Yeah. They rebound like 40% of their own misses, and they create a bunch of turnovers on the other end. And it's this idea that you present enough length

to shrink the floor defensively and enough length to kind of extend it offensively. And that's the philosophical thing that the Raptors are doing. I don't know how long that'll work. The lineups have been really, really good in short sample sizes. They're a change-ups. You can throw at teams. I think that's something that could be game planned for

and kind of game planned around if they were doing it for these really long stretches and Fred still has the most positive on-off numbers as far as what they're doing. So there's a bunch of good stuff happening and they're discovering some interesting aspects about basketball while they're doing it. But there's also, they very clearly lean

on some of the traditional aspects of basketball that they have less flair for, let's say. Sure. That makes total sense there. Particularly with Brand Bleet, as you said. So it's the biggest differential for on-off. With Scotty Barnes, can he grow into that where he is like that primary initiator, the guy who's doing isolation scoring, fourth quarter, end of the shot clock, primarily being the guy to run pick and roll, or at least run elbow action,

be the primary facilitator? Is there a path for Barnes to reach that point to be the primary rather than the do-everything type of guy, if that makes sense? yeah, I think that there's, you know, primary is a pretty diverse thing in the NBA. It can mean a lot of different things. Yeah, like LeBron James is, and I'm not saying Scott is LeBron, please, for the love of God. You know, like, LeBron James succeeds. New Rastrous fans are nuts.

Yeah. But LeBron James succeeds despite not having the same type of pull-up three that Donovan Mitchell has, for example. and it really depends what you can leverage from the defense, what other opportunities open up. And Scotty, for the most part this year, has been leveraging in single coverage. He has afforded that opportunity largely because of Fred and Pascal. Like Fred and Pascal both get doubled a lot.

Pascal is creeping up near the top five in the league, actually. And Scotty doesn't get doubled that much. And he's had trouble in some games where he's navigating, where teams are playing packline defense. Everybody's inside the arc. They're not that worried about other. shooters, and they're creating very small gaps to punch through. So there are many things he has to get better at, screen manipulation, a pull-up jump shot,

at least to some degree. But the reads he makes, I think, are quite inspired. I think that he makes really impressive reads as a ball handler. I think that he'll be able to see the floor as a top-down guy. He can play make to the outside. He can play make to the middle, and he can do so under duress. It's just about what points of the floor can he manipulate from and how consistently. But I wouldn't close the book on that.

I would actually be, especially considering that I think he's already well on his way to becoming a guy who will score a lot of isolation points in his career. I think that I would feel very confident about him picking up other scoring and passing craft. What's your top three for rookie in the year right now? Okay. So I will preface this by saying that I think Evan Mobley, offensively, has the easiest job. Cade Cunningham has the hardest job, but Scotty is currently the season over doing the best offensively amongst the three of them. And I would put Cade third. I'm with you.

I'm with you. And Mowgli's defense is really, really hard to overlook because Mowgli is staunchly a good defender in the NBA already. Not many rookies do that. Scotty isn't even there yet. And I do rate Scotty's offense this season a fair bit higher than Mowbys as well because he's self-authoring. He creates his own looks way more often. And then Mowgli has a pick and roll engine like Darius Garland to help him out with his offensive production. But if I had to say one thing, I'd probably say this is a coward's thing.

But Mowgli is 1A, Barnes is 1B. But there's time to close that gap, I would say. One thing you said in there is Mowgli is ahead of Barnes. on defense, but offensively, the gap is more significant with the self-creation, as you said, which is why over these last couple of weeks, last 10-ish games, my gut tells me I'm going to end up voting for Barnes. That's what my gut tells me. That's going to end up being Barnes. What is the argument for it to be Evan Mobley as the rookie of the year? Well, I'd much rather be quoted, given the Barnes case, but Mobley is just,

Mowbly Mowbly the case is... Mowbly the case is defense. Barnes has hit nearly as high of highs as Mowbly this year, but that's on a game-to-game basis. And that's like, you know, he's played,

like there was one game against, I think it was December 10th against the Nix where Barnes was the low man. He had, I think, like 15 rebounds. He changed, I think, well over 12 shots at the lame over the game. He was awesome. And they limited the Knicks

to less than 90 points. That was a tremendous example of what type of defender he can be. But Moby has just been better throughout the whole season. He's affected more shots. He's been in a position where he's way more helpful

than Barnes typically is. And he's a longer, bigger guy and long big guys affect a lot on defense. And Mowbly has definitely had a better defensive game. And then offensively, you could lean on, now this isn't a rookie of the year case,

probably just like into the future. But Mowgli has shown some self-creation, not at the rim, but he has some means, like he has a jab series. He has, you know, little faders and push shots in the, you know, maybe like 14 to eight-foot range that he can get to and make plays from. And there's maybe a little bit of ball craft from beyond three. But yeah, you'd lean hard on defense to go Mowgli.

But again, like there's some 10 games left, and Barnes is really streaking. And he's found something. and the Raptors are actually, you know, targeting him more often and set actions to break him off as a score. So who knows how close this gets. What is the argument for Cade Cunningham? Okay, so Cade rocks, first of all.

Like, Cade is so good at basketball. And I think he's one of the players I've seen over the past couple of years, who's the easiest to tell stats bad player good. Because you watch a game, you watch a game, and he's getting double. And he's, you know, using the escape cripple, evaluating how the backside is responding to the double and picking guys out.

He's getting downhill, drawing help side defenders, and picking out, okay, is it a dunker spot guy? Is it the weak side corner? Is it above the break? And his craft, as far as a guy, to get to his own shot, he has so many combos that he's comfortable getting to. The rim stuff hasn't returned like positive numbers yet, but he can get downhill.

He puts himself everywhere on the court. And the pistons, sure, they run. a pick and roll with Corey Joseph and run an exit screen for Kate, he gets it free every once in a while. But this is a guy who's mostly being asked to just do everything on the court all the time. And you can see just incredible strides as a high level manipulator where if there was a better play finisher on the opposite side of these plays, it would help not only free him up for better looks, but it would also mean that his assists go up to. So he's on the press at this, man. He's so good. Yeah, Cade. Cade's unbelievable. Even when things weren't going great, you can see the way

his mind is working, as you said, where if you're focusing on process over results, you're like, oh, my God, Cain's going to be great, as long as the results catch up, which they have begun to the last two-ish months or so. Between Barnes, Cunningham, Mobley, we got Franz Wagner, Josh Giddy before he went out, was crushing recently for Oklahoma City. Jalen Green's really coming along. The top guys in this draft class are great. There's good role. goal players, Herb Jones, Iodo Sunmu. If you're looking into a crystal ball in the future, five

years from now, and you're old and 31 years old like me, entering their second contract and beyond, who do you think is most set up to be the best player from the straff class? I'm going to

take the homer pick. I'll let you know right now. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. I really don't. It's not a homer pick. It's, it's, there's logic. Yeah, so I'm going to use Jaron Jackson Jr. as an example of what Scotty Barnes can help emulate defensively. And so Mowbly is good defensively now. Mowbly, how good at defense he becomes, who knows. It'll be awesome.

But Jaron Jackson Jr. was a prospect who many people thought was going to change the game defensively. The moment he stepped into the NBA, but he started flashing way more offensively than defensively to start. He fouled too much. He was out of place. He was still getting timing as a helpside defender down. And I think that Scotty Barnes, despite being smaller, offers a lot of similar upside as far as defensive playmaking and defensive stopper stuff. So I think even though he started out slowly defensively, relative to what was expected of him, Scotty will get to a similar impact point as far as providing really, really high level defense. And then his offense, the self-creation, the little flashes of off the dribble stuff for his own jumper and the offensive rebounding.

He's too much to contain for a lot of players. And that is something that just translates really well. Because once you're in the NBA, you can't go up another level. If people can't contain you in the NBA, they're like, this guy's big. He's mobile. His touch is fantastic. Like, you swam out past the buoys and he's swimming laps around him. You're lost, you know, wading out in the ocean.

He's doing that way too often and in such a variety of situations that he's my guy. and probably, you know, Caden, Caden Heaven can be second. You know, I don't really care how you place them. But Scotty, I feel so strongly about his star equity, let's say. He's going to be there. He's got the personality too. I think there's some leadership qualities within him,

the tone he sets, the energy he plays with, very vocal, likable. He's the type of human being that I think can grow into, oh, he's our guy, he's our leader. There were some comments about like from Maasai and Bobby saying, you know, this kid, he's going to help the locker room. Scotty Beans, you know, like this kid can do anything on the court, walks in, you got the infographic up top saying his favorite food is baked beans. It's like he's a meme in himself. He's just got so much goofy.

He's got a goofy quality to him, but he'll dunk on. But he looks back at people and then dunks on fast breaks. Like he's an absurd player and an absurd personality. He's so lovable. I mean, Raptors fans, I mean, look, whether your team sucks or your team is stuck in the middle or whether your team is competing for a championship, there's just so many good players right now, dude. Like for every fan base across the NBA right now, who were some of your favorite guys to watch at the moment across the league? Okay, so I love when guys reclaim their status, let's say.

So, Pascal Seaccombe was a guy, Raptors fans were not happy with early. on in the season. There were trade rumors and stuff like that. I really enjoy watching Pascal because he once again is a guy who doesn't look like a lot of players. So fans, analysts don't have a frame of reference to think that he has something to fall back on. This guy looks like this. The guy I'm referencing went to this to get better. Pascal is just a funky dude who succeeds in his own way. Deandro Russell, the defender, I think, is a very interesting progression. I'm a lefty myself and watching left-handed players succeed in the NBA

is kind of awesome. Not Ben Simmons. He's not righty. He's a righty, exactly. How do you feel as a left-handed person that he claims to be lefty? How does that make you feel? Are you offended?

Should we cancel Ben Simmons? I'm not offended, but it's easy to tell when you're a left-handed person or you pay any attention to like biomechanics. You're like, look at the feet. You know, like Mike Conley, he's also right-handed. There's a reason he goes to the right-handed photo so much. It's like, look at the feet, man.

Your body organizes in a certain way. You have to relearn it. It's just like, yeah, look at the feet. Oh, yeah, but the trio, this is cheating of Tyrese, Maxie, James Hardin, and Joel Embed. Embed has been one of my favorite players for some time. I do not subscribe to the free throw merchant allegations. They foul them because they can't contain them. and watching Maxi work in the space after Embed and Hardin have already compromised the defense,

he is so rapid. He is so good at getting his spots and he's so good kind of attacking downhill that watching that trio work is just like such a joy. So those are guys I've super enjoyed this year. What do you want to see from that Sixers team to have any level of confidence in their ability to win the entire thing, the entire NBA finals? Because there's still so many people that are skeptical of them. because of Hardin's history, because of Embed's injury history,

and the lack of depth for that matter, too. And Doc Rivers has blown 800, 3-1 leads in the playoffs. There's a lot of issues, but sorry. Besides that. Yeah, that was kind of like Philadelphia is 76ers fans. We're in a position where they're like, if we get depth for Ambide, like if we get a guy who's even all right to cover the 10, 15 minutes where Ambite is on the bench, we're going to win the chip because M. Bede in the playoffs is just you win his minutes.

No matter what is happening, you win M. Bid's minutes. And adjoining hardened to that and Maxi's ascendant star that is currently rising, I would pick them as my favorite if I get to guarantee that they're healthy. I think that they pose so many problems in just a row-taft court setting for so many NBA defenses. And obviously it's not going to look like that one game where I think it was Harden and M.D. combined for like 36, 38 free throws and did it mostly out of just a spread pick and roll. Like here, see if you can defend it, see what happens. But Hardin, I think the worry is that when Hardin, when they really overload on MD

and Hardin is left to his own devices, whether he keeps up even just a decent level of isolation scoring. And I'm willing to make that bet that he does. The burst, like the first step isn't at where it was for a lot of his career, but he's still got enough tools in the tool bag. I still believe enough of the three-point shot that they'll find enough answers. And then MB's ability to impact the defensive end. And Tybal, I think, you know, they probably won't close with him in the playoffs, but he'll give you enough minutes, you know, in other, you know, parts of the, like the second and third quarter,

let's say, that he can impact a lot of stuff too. But I would actually probably pick them if I get to guarantee health to win the championship. Last thought here, we've talked about a lot of different players. The league is so deep right now. Is it deeper than it's ever been in your lifetime? Because I think it is for me. I'm just curious about your thoughts. Am I too in the moment when I say that? Or is it just as deep as it seems?

I don't think so. There's a reason you see guys. Like, you know, you can know, there's the Dennis Rodman's story of like he was, you know, doing this stuff and then suddenly he's, you know, he's playing basketball. Suddenly he's in the NBA. And that wouldn't happen. Like, there

just isn't, it's kind like Dorian Finney Smith. Imagine what Dorian Finney Smith is in 2008. And then imagine what he is now. I like to kind of play that game and what is asked of him, what he has to be good at now, that there's no way he would have had to be good at back then.

And even Jose Alvarado is like a guy who is just a tremendously fun player and fits you know, you talk about Herb Jones fits in so well next to Herb and like that really funky Pelican style. But Alvarado is a guy who comes in and shoots like 30, you know, 30

percent from three, and that scene is like a major detriment. But that didn't even used to be the case for point guards. It's like you have to be the best small defender in the league. You have to punch up at Fred Van Fleets to the world, and you better start shooting. Otherwise, we don't know where you can fit. And we see, you know, like, whether it's Mobley or Barnes or any other matter of big guys who are starting to emulate guard skills, the league thought they were trending towards small ball. But really, it just took a couple of years, and then suddenly it was just big guys are more skilled now. And that is as much a vote of confidence to the depth of the league as any.

It's the bakes that are changing. I mean, the term I've had in my head a long time is we shouldn't be calling it small ball. We should, like Mike D. and Tony said we should call it skill ball. I think we should just call it long ball. Take from baseball. I worked with home runs. Like, it can work with length, versatility and three-point shooting in the NBA. It's really the long ball era that we're about to enter here.

Because of the amount of great bigs, you got, and this year's, Draft Flash, Ted Holmgren, Paulo Bancaro, Jabari Smith. There's other guys mid-late first round, Victor Wenban Yamada, France next year, among others. There's such a wave of players who grew up watching guys like Steph and say, I want to be like him. You know, they watched Dirk. They watched all these guys.

And they're like, I can do this perimeter stuff. They're watching Janus when they're 16 years old. And now they're in college. They're playing professionally. They're seeing, oh, I can do those guard drills. when I'm in elementary. Like it's, this is what the game is going to be forever now.

It's just bigs that are migrated to the perimeter. That's what it is. It's beautiful, really. But poor Zingis was a unicorn for like six months. And then it was then it was obsolete. Like it was like, oh yeah, there are bigs who do this now.

Because there's all of them. Yeah. He almost have to now. It's wild. Do you like the state of the game right now? I love it. I did a, Mike Preda is coming out,

you know, I guess I'm plugging his book, but he's coming out with a book. on how defense has changed in the NBA and how it's been revolutionized by the three-pointer. And I love the NBA, and I actually kind of resent

there's no defense or that, you know, there's no defense being played because the solves that defenses have to come up with are pretty ingenious as far as defending NBA players on the offensive end. And like, as far as LeBron James

coming into the league and being able to facilitate and skip pass from his site and also threatened as a driver, kind of changed how defenses responded to skip passes. And now a skip pass from a 6'7, 6'8 guy to the corner is like, ho-hum. That used to break defense.

That used to be like, what the hell? You know, like it was like an asteroid game over top of your head. You didn't see it that often. But now it's like, players just do stuff like that all the time. And even the reimagining of the post into not as much of a scoring hub, but a way to invert the floor and defensive principles, and you play make from there. You know, Yokic obviously helps a lot with that,

that you see what the, that 100th percentile of that can look like, but guys like Siakum, guys like Sabonis, and, you know, Janus even, making plays out of that instead of just being, you know, hard post-up, bounce, bounce, bounce, bigs is really cool. There's an endless amount of styles.

Like, people talk all the time about the amount of three-pointers that are being taken. Well, not everybody plays like the James Hardin and Mori ball rockets. They're not getting those threes in that way. They're getting their threes by playing a dramatically different types of styles. Defensive way teams are playing dramatically different types of styles to defend these wide range of styles on offense. And sometimes teams are doing it differently on a nine out basis. Sometimes they're switching everything.

Sometimes they're playing drops. Sometimes they're blitzing. The amount of variety in the league right now just makes every team in every game that I turn on enjoyable in some way. And every game feels different. that's why I think I love basketball more than ever right now. It's just great. It's wonderful. Yeah, if I could, there was just a quick thing,

like how ingenious NBA teams are coming up with fixes. The Raptors and Hawks played, and the Hawks won this game, but the Raptors played three, sorry, four different styles of pick and roll defense and found success with pressures that you are. They played drop. They played at the level of the screen. They blitzed, and they even did a switch to blitz, which is kind of all the rage right now.

But what the Hawks decided to do was to just not give Trey any screen help and had him isolate for the better part of two quarters. This is the number one pick and roll engine in the NBA. The Clint Capella pick and roll is so good in the halfport. The drag screen John Collins pick and roll that they run is second only to like the Gobert, Donovan pick and roll as far as like points per possession. They went away from that stuff to beat a defense that figured out their pick and roll game. And it's like, this is what's cool about the NBA is just this. like it's punch counter punch it's so cool and it's going to be even better in the playoffs with the amount of potentially loaded teams uh i'm i'm fired up for for the type of uh game planning

in game between games that we're going to see with some of these some of these teams uh dude i appreciate you coming on man this is fun thank you sandsen hey man i i super appreciate you having me on it's been you know an absolute blast sometimes interviews don't go that well you know what i mean but i think i think we did pretty good no this one felt good it's it's the type of thing Sometimes you get off. It's like, yeah, it's pretty good. This felt like it was rolling. So I'm excited to have you on, man.

Thank you, Samson. I appreciate it. Thanks, Ted. One more note before we got out of here, and that is about Cade Cunningham, who scored 34 points. I don't want to ignore you, Pistons fans. I hear you, I see you,

and I definitely am watching Cade Cunningham. We recorded this podcast in Samson last week, held it for this week to have kind of a Roppers deep dive. But I just had to say something about the Pistons because with Cade Cunningham, this dude, what amazing progress he's been making over the course of the season it's nuts last month and a half or so he's like a 23, 7 and 6 guy in full command of the game

scoring with greater efficiency getting to the rim getting to the mid-range manipulating defenders this guy doesn't look like a rookie and I asked samson during this pod who are you picking the next five to 10 years from this draft class I understand the Barnes pick. I mean, Barnes very well might be the guy. When you're, when as we talk about Barnes is sensational.

But Cade is the center of the solar system for the Detroit Pistons. And anytime you have this level of playmaking and the ability to orchestrate and create for yourself and for your teammates and to play really good defense. I don't know, man. Cade was the number one pick for a reason and he's still the guy that I'd be picking for the next five to ten years, regardless of what happens in the rookie of the year. race. I know Pistons fans, Cavs, fans, Raptors fans, even Magic fans with Wagner are like, what about my guy? I don't know who's going to win. This year is loaded. I don't know who I'm

going to vote for. All three of those guys, Mobley, Cunningham, and Barnes are sensational choices. And ultimately, any of those guys can end up being the best guy from this draft class. I don't know who's going to win rookie of the year. I don't know. I don't know who I'm going to vote for. I'm still deciding. This year is closer than anyone that I've been voting on. I believe this is my fifth or sixth season voting. True for MVP, true for rookie of the year, true for defensive player of the year.

All three of those are excruciatingly difficult to determine. And I'm honestly stressing out about it. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I just want to let you know that thought about Kate Cunningham because I am absolutely loving watching this dude play. And I demand, I demand that Chris Vernon and I talk about the Pistons on Friday. I'm going to text him today and say we're talking about the Pistons on Friday, no matter what's been happening in the NBA between today and then we're talking about Cade.

Friday on the mismatch. I promise you Pistons fans. We're talking Cade Cunningham with Chris Vernon, and we're going to talk about the rookie of the year race a little bit more. Anyway, thank you for listening to today's episode of The Void. Thank you to Samson Folk again for joining. I thought he was really good. He's great. That guy is super smart. He has a good way of explaining some complex basketball things and ways that are easier to understand. Thank you to Jesse Lopez for producing today's episode and thank you to you as well for listening. I hope you have a good one.