The Ringer NBA Show - Closer Looks at Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham, and Scottie Barnes | Upside High

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks begin their journey at 'Upside High' by looking at some of the standouts of the 2021 draft class to see the highlights and development of Evan Mobley (03:26), Cade Cunningham and his slightly slow start (14:50), as well as Scottie Barnes and his ability to fit with the Raptors (27:58). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Did I tell you that we relaunched our TV podcast that is now called The Prestige TV Pot? We did it in time for Succession, which is launching in October. But there's so many good shows this fall. We got Yellowstone and Billions and Insecure. We have the shrink next door. Is Mayor of Kingston going to be good? We're going to be breaking all of it down. The morning show season finale. We are going to be here. Like, we're treated like we treat the NBA playoffs. If there's a really good prestigious TV show, we're breaking it down in this feed. Check it out. The Prestige TV podcast. from the ringer podcast network welcome to the ringer NBA show this is a special iteration that we are kicking off my name is j Kyle man i'm here today with jonathan sharks sharks how you doing i'm good i see using big words already iteration i'm just a texas kid i don't know all this fancy talk pal well yeah you were kind of chiding me earlier for being a bumpkin and i was like hey buddy take a look in the mirror there pal folks basketball is very very well

very good. And today is a great day to talk about basketball. And we're going to be reviving, sort of circling back, bringing back a concept that we did last year with the Ringer MBA University concept that Kevin O'Connor and Jonathan Charks and myself did. We're going to be reshaping that, honing that, dialing in on a show, and we're going to be calling that upside high. We're going to be talking about young players, players in the first, you know, three to four to five range of their years of their career, players who are heading towards the NBA and developmentally focused conversations, you know, the guys that could be stars, what do they have to do to get there, things like that, those are the things that get me excited about basketball,

like seeing who's coming, and what are the conversations relevant to that? What are the things that a young player? What is the buy-in price to sit at the poker table of the NBA? But we're going to be doing that on a weekly basis, upside high. You know, Steph is awesome. KD is awesome. But at a certain point, what more can you say about those guys? Right? We all know that.

It's always who's going to be next. We're trying to be hipsters, stay on the cutting edge. And I do promise to troll you about Kentucky basketball when I can sneak it in there. I deserve it, I would say, number one. So that's welcome. And I troll Kentucky fans, too. So I guess I kind of deserve to be. And sort of the hipster sensibility is a funny thing to hit on.

I think you're right about that. I've joked that, you know, in my life, the two things that I've been most drawn to are like the NBA draft and like indie music. And those communities have a lot of overlaps, discovering things first, you know, just sort of the printing the receipts on that front, very principled and very nerdy, both of those. So maybe that says something about me. But this class today, we're going to be talking about some of the finer points of this 2021 MBA draft class. a few individuals specifically. We really want to jump off, first of all, I'm talking about Evan Mobley.

Evan Mobley taken by the Cavs this year at three. You were a guy that kind of, you and Bill specifically have been taking some victory laps about Mobley. I mean, it's early. What are you seeing early on from Mobley that you like, that really makes your eyes bug? I mean, he's doing the same stuff he did in college,

but I think we're just seeing it on a different level. now. And I've been really excited to talk about Mobley with you just to get you on the spot right now. Are you right now saying he's better than Cade? Like, are you willing to take that L or are you going to hold off for a while? You know, Charks, my basketball existence is me famously slow thinker when it comes to basketball. I just kind of walk around in circles in my yard like a philosopher and kind of go back and forth and back and forth. I'm not a quick take hot take guy all the time. So I don't want to be reactionary. But I was on the Cade corner. This is a fair thing to corner me about, I think it confront me about because I was a big Cade guy for a long time.

And I kind of had a moment. You do this thing where like we're checking our phones constantly. I'm checking box scores to see if Zire Williams hit a couple threes and didn't go 0 for 10. Things like that. We'll talk about him someday. You make your big bets and you check on him, though. I think that's kind of what I mean, sort of like the stocks on your phone. For Cade, we'll talk more about him specifically later. In relation to Mowbly, I did have a moment where I was like, did I really whiff on something here? Is there something bigger and sort of like systematic about or systemic about the way that I look at players that maybe I missed or maybe I had a bias that was wrong? I think you kind of, if you're honest with yourself and you want to do a good job at this, I think you have to do those things.

Not yet would be my answer. You know, Mowably charged out of the gate and kind of had an unfair advantage where Cade was hurt at the beginning of the year, turned his ankle, and he kind of had a hard time coming back from that. that. He's still coming back from that. But Mobley's impact is so significant that I think that he is, you know, at least a little bit ahead of Cade. I think you have to say that right now, but Cade's catching up. So to answer your question, no, I'm not ready to totally move on that because it's you got to let the returns come completely in, man. We don't want to overreact. I don't know. That's fair. I'll just say this. As someone who has had Mobley above Cade before the season, I'm certainly not going to change that my mind now about that after what we've seen in the first month.

And I think to start with Mobley, I think let's start here. I send you this thing the other day. If you look at how many points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and two point percentage, if you look at those five numbers, there's four guys who've hit the same benchmarks Mobley as hit as rookies ever in the NBA. That list of four guys is David Robinson, Tim. Duncan, Chris Weber, Powell, I look at those four guys, I see four Hall of Famers for all MBA franchise players, and I'm like, yep, that sounds about right.

Mowgli to me is that guy. I think, I mean, obviously you can't predict that kind of career yet. I think he has those kind of skills. I think he has that kind of potential. And I just think, you know, as Michael Jordan once said, the ceiling is the roof. Like, that is Evan Mowgli.

I mean, he's got a chance to be one of the top five players in the league, I think. And not like right away or anything, but like it's right there for him. I mean, I guess like I'll start with, okay, this guy's seven feet tall. He's a plus athlete. He has plus size. He's really freaking smart. And what stood out to be the most so far is how often do you see a young big man be this good at defense and plugging into a role right away. I mean, I remember I was even saying for this season, like I love Evan Mobley, but this is going to take some time because my comp for him was Anthony Davis coming out. And I remember AD in his first year, it took him a little bit of time to get going. But Mobley, he's just rolling.

I think there's some interesting kind of physical differences between, you know, Bill and I went wild and we're talking about like Garnett, AD, those types of athletes. On the stat thing, too, I'd be curious to see what like the per 75 possessions or per 36 are, since the eras are kind of wildly all over the place there. But anyway, he's, it doesn't, none of that diminishes the point. That's, that's sort of a push your glasses up, a retort there. But with, with those, good. I like that.

Put your glasses. The Conan O'Brien nerd voice kind of thing. That's kind of who I am. Anyway, my essence. No, I think that you're, you're right. I think when you start to kind of look at the athleticism between those types of guys, I was noticing that I don't, I don't think that Mobley is as like, twitchy quick as Davis, or like Robinson or he's not, he's a little different is what I was going to say.

He has a, he doesn't have the same kind of disruptive. If you go watch like Young Garnett when he was a rookie, there's a clip where he finally went nuts, I think against like the rockets. And he's just like really covering a lot of ground really fast. Mowgli doesn't have to do that as much. He's like very positionally savvy for his age. I think that this draft is really interesting because we have a bunch of guys

who I think have really high defensive upside and really high creation upside. I think that's something with the offense. We'll get to his offense, but defensively, Evan has this ability to, he has really mobile hips, number one, and he can react to ball handlers in a way that's really impressive. I sent you a clip of him from their game against Charlotte

where Miles Brown. And you can go on like these video sites and I'll try to post a clip of him like elite ball handlers attacking him like in open space on an island like Devin Booker, Damian Lillard. Miles Bridges was trying to attack him downhill and you could just see like Miles is a super athlete. And Evan was like reacting and turning in real time really quickly and not getting blown by, which which is really impressive for a guy his size. I think he just has this ability to play conservatively and not get out of position. You know what I mean? Like you'll see some of these really athletic guys just jump to the moon and get out of position like Nerlands, Mitchell Robinson. He's very advanced on that front.

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that talking about like comparing him athletically. And I almost look at like a lot of young guys. They come in the league and they can get to like a hundred. But sometimes it's like they're going fast, but they don't know where they're going. Mowgli, it's just like he's cruising on 80 the whole time. I think the best line for that, Charles Barkley always says, these young guys come in the league and they think, oh, wow, I can jump over buildings.

When they become good is when they realize, oh, actually, I can just take the elevator at the top floor. Like, I don't have to jump all the way. Mowgli already does that. Like, he's already got that ability to stop and change speeds. He's such a smooth player. And that's what to me, when I first watched them in college, I love the most about him.

I love watching smooth players, like your TMAX, your KDs. It's like they don't have to always go to 95 because they're going 70 constantly. And it's all they really need to do. And Mowgli already has that in his game. And the number that's crazy is I think it's something like his foul rate and his block rate are like identical, which like never, ever, ever happens. Usually it's like Jaron Jackson Jr. where he blocks a ton of shots and he has a ton of fouls. and he has to learn how to like block without fouling. Mowgli already has that.

Yeah, I think that that point you made is a really, really good one. And what you're talking about with smoothness, I think, is like you see like latency. I call it like info lag sometimes with big guys where they aren't understanding what's happening. And you see them get out of position. I would always like joke about like Nick Richards, who I root for at Kentucky. He was a guy who, there you go, there's your first one. But he's just an example of somebody who would be trying to process the game. And you saw this a little bit with Aiton.

People would be like, oh, Aitin's slow. Aitin's this. He's that. And if you really paid attention, you'd be like, no, he's thinking. He's just, but, you know, efficiency and mastery are kind of go hand in hand, I think, when you watch NBA players. Like when you watch Luca coming to the league offensively, he was very smooth because he was processing the game in real time. He wasn't confused. He never looked overwhelmed.

Mowgli right now is second in the NBA and contesting two. points shots. He's really raised Cleveland's defensive floor. He's been really impressive on that front. We could talk about him to the cows come home on that side of the ball. One thing I think worth pointing out, too, as you talked about that. And I remember thinking coming into the season, I wasn't sure how the Mobley Allen thing would work.

And because they're both not really floor spacing bigs. And that's worked really well. I think primarily because Mobley is so smart. Like some of the big did big passes he makes are absolutely. unbelievable. Like this guy is, there was a get, there's a pass against the bucks you sent me where he's dribbling it on his left hand and the left hand passes it to Allen in the lane. And it's like, this is insane. This is not something a 20 year old should ever be doing at seven feet tall. And on that front, he is ahead of Anthony Davis. I think as as a potential like his upside,

there's the there's a word, take a drink. I will say that one a lot. His upside as a creator, I think is higher than than Davis is. I think Davis is more of like a, a, a, a, a, score on his own island. Now, Davis can't pass. I just think that Mowbly has a lot of potential on that front. And little detail here, the person that he attacked with his left hand and made that one-handed left-hand pass was Drew Holiday. This guy is a big with a seven-four wingspan. I think you can kind of see how long his arms are sometimes on like in the way he shoots. He's got sort of an awkward load up, follow through. But he, uh, offensively, he's, he's been pretty impressive. Among rookies, he's third in scoring, second and total rebounds, but he's first in blocks.

I think you're 100% right about the Jared Allen and Evan Mobley thing. I think Lowry's interesting too. Their lineups are interesting. But you said you had a nickname for Jared Allen and Evan Mobley. What was that? The thin towers. Oh, Lord. Yeah, I mean, I've struggled to come up with a nickname for him. He's coming back from an injury. He had an elbow injury. He had an elbow injury. He's kind of been getting back. I like this Cavs team, man. I was watching them last night,

and it's like they're scrappy. You can tell that they're one of those teams that like teams that have cohesion don't go away because the NBA is kind of a game of movements and of runs and things like that. And they just kept coming. You know, like they obviously added Ricky Rubio and Lowry too. Rubio has been great for them. Rubio is like a CEO you bring into a startup.

That's what I always say. He's like a guy. He's a guy that you bring. bring in and he can kind of take you, you know, to the next level. And then like Chris Paul is a guy who, like, will take you public. That's always a comparison I made. But let's, before we move on to Cade Cunningham, let's go to a break. All right, let's move on to Cade Cunningham.

Cade Cunningham's, the guy that I have talked about for a while now. Cade Cunningham started the season. Me and, like, like I discovered Cade Cunningham. That's what that sounded like. You want to talk about hipsters? Just go for it. I discovered Cade Cunningham in a dirty gym in Texas and I was the only one there. And I said, that guy's going to be good.

No, no. This guy's been on the radar for a long time. Cade Cunningham, big playmaker. That's been the rub on him. He fits the mold. We can talk about that a little bit. Had a slow start to the year. You know, you were lighter on Cade than I was.

Let's just talk about why that is up front. Where are you on Cade now and why were you sort of hesitant to put him ahead Mowbly. I think the word you said best, slow start. Like, he's just not very fast. And that's, that is overcomable, but it's something that holds him back just off the jump. He's just not a super fast player. There was a, he played the Thunder last night, and Lou Dort just blew by him off the dribble. And like, Lou Dort's a good athlete, but there are just levels of athleticism K doesn't have. And I think everybody was, oh, it's okay. Luke could not a great athlete. And this is true. But I think off the jump, we got to kill all Luca comps for any young player.

Until a young player is the MVP of Europe at 16, I don't want to hear the Luca comp. It's just not fair to him. Luca is an absolute freak of nature. You're going like religiosity with Luca there. He was an MVP at 16. He was MVP at 18. Are you increasing the... Put your glasses up.

Put your glasses up. No, that's not a nerd thing. That's me calling you on your Dallas folklore stuff. He was the MVP at 13. No, it's just going to keep going. That's kind of like the Jason Tatum is 19 kind of thing. Fair enough. So the point is,

yes, for sure. The point is, like, because he is slower and then what Luca has that he doesn't, Luca has just got, in terms of like, he is unbelievable touch around the basket as a score. Luca was always shooting in like 55% from two point range. And that was a thing for me when I was looking at Cade in college, that was like, this guy is not Luca, this guy is not better than Moblius. two-point percentage. He was at like 46% in college. He's at 45% now. Like, he's a good score, but he doesn't have the burst to get to the rim. And he's not like this unreal guy who can

just score over the top people really easily. Like, he has that ability. To me, he's just not like, I don't think he'll ever be a guy who's going to get 25, 30 points a game. I don't think that's his game, really. And I think that's why if I was going to put Cato over Mobley, it because he could score it will on people, what she can't do. Yeah, you're kind of walking around a point that I wanted to make, you set it up pretty well here. And I've watched him as he's leveled up, I do think that he's kind of worked on his body type a little bit. Like he's, you're 100% right about his speed. And I've kind of been wondering, do you, he has big shoulders in a big frame.

First of all, like his height has kind of been a subject of, or it's kind of been an issue of discussion because he's listed at 6'6 now. There were people talking about him like he was 6.8. which makes it's not an enormous difference, but it does make a difference. And do you think that he should kind of lean towards a more solid body type, like a Luca type body type? I don't know that he can get as big.

I don't know what that would do to hit. But I think that he has more impact as sort of a pace player, sort of a start, stop, keep you on the hook, just a bigger body kind of guy. Like, I don't know that the lean body type is going to work for him. If he's not going to be fast, he probably at least needs to be a little bit more.

immovable. Does that make sense? Yes, strong. He should be strong if he's not fast, basically. I think I would love to see Cade. And I think for me, I think we got to move off Cade as like the Luca Lamello type. I think those guys are in our own little worlds. I see Cade as more, gotta give a shout to my guy, Dean on draft. He called this early last year. He thought Cade was more of the Chris Middleton type.

And I think that's exactly right. Like to me, if I'm trying to maximize Cade, to me is more of the Chris Middleton, and Paul Pierce type. And I think that's important because what I want to see Cade do a lot more of is mid-range jump shots. I want to see him get to 15 feet, shoot over guys,

play out of the mid-posts. I think in Toronto, in Detroit, because Dwayne, Casey's more of an analytics guy now, it's like only threes, only rim shots. To me,

Kade's got to live in that mid-range. That's where he can really get his money. I mean, the two examples there, Paul Pierce and Chris Middleton are two, like, pretty exceptional ISO scores.

I don't know. That's kind of Apple's, and oranges for me. I think the point, though, is correct. The comps aside, I think that he is, that's been a big question for him. You and I talked a lot about before the draft. I think we were very cognizant of the fact that him being like the engine, like a helio player who could carry a team with his scoring and could do that efficiently enough. A, I don't think he has the preference to do that. I don't think that he necessarily wants to play that way. He's not, he's not like a Luca or a or I don't know pick any example a guy who's just like I'm going to go out there

and humiliate you by me scoring. I don't know that he's necessarily wired like that. But another thing that's killing him is, you know, he's he's just not scoring off the bounce in the pick and roll. He started the season in the pick and roll four for 23 from the three point line just in those play types, 17.4%. In college, it wasn't that much better. I mean, he was 32%, but he needs to just kind of develop a dominant scoring mode like you're talking about. I think that that's definitely true. And something that's not helping him is this Pistons team is historically terrible, like shooting the ball. Like it's one of the worst three point percentage.

I looked it up since like 1998, there's only been like four teams that have dipped below to the depths that they have. Yeah, and their effective field goal percentage is the low. lowest numbers since 2015-16 Lakers. And, you know, I think they're going to be kind of tooling this team

around him as he goes. He has a lot of kind of potential assist that he leaves on the, on the floor. I had a moment where I was just like, and I had people ask me, they were like,

is this kid a bus? He's not a bus. I don't think he's a bus. I think that he's being optimized right now. And I don't think that he's enough of an individual score. Now,

he played excellent last night. But a lot of his stuff is kind of off the cat. scoring things like that. The passing, the defensive instincts, those things are all showing up, all the things that I expected from him. But when the people around you can't score, it makes it a lot harder. To go back to what you said, I think was a good point about how he's not super into just like one-on-one duels holding the ball. It's been kind of funny him and Jalen Green, where Jalen Green keeps trying to make this a thing about like who's number one pick. And there was that game they

had. And I loved Cades quote after. He was like, just for the cameras, people talk and doesn't matter. Like, we're here to play basketball. And like, that is for sure how he views the game. He's not super aggressive. He lets the game come to him a bit. And I think you're right in that he doesn't need the ball in his hands all the time. And that kind of makes the rest of the teammates around him more important. Because if Cade's not going to have the ball, who else is going to have it on this team? And I, you know, it's like with the pick and roll. Like, we can talk about Killian Hayes in the second, but actually what stood out to me the most is Isaiah Stewart. I don't think Cade and Isaiah Stewart actually fit well together because

Stewart doesn't pressure the rim at all. Like, Cade's got to have guys who pressure the rim around him. And when you watch Detroit sometime, it's like, you have him and Hayes, he's two big, slow guards dribbling in circles, you have undersized center and Isaiah Stewart. And then Grant and Bay are not really dreading threes right now. The whole team, it can be really miserable to watch sometimes. Yeah, offensively,

they're really rough. And I think when we talk about the comps to Luca, you just have to be really careful. Like, all we're talking about is a template. Now, like, Luca, is the highest version.

Luca and Hardin are the highest versions that we've seen in a while. And I think in the NBA, whenever we're, like, looking for the next players, we see what's in front of us. And it can be sort of a fallacy where we think that,

it's a reverse thing. Sometimes we'll see things and assume that they can't happen because they've never happened before or sometimes we'll see something in front of us and assume that it's going to happen again. Like you were saying, I think you just have to be really careful

to give Luca his due for how generationally special he is. But in the NBA, we haven't really seen a player. The players that can do that, like, heliocentric model and carry a playoff team to the highest level,

LeBron might be the best heliocentric player on both two ways that we've ever had, and he needed All-Stars on his team. So it's like it's something that Kate is going to have to be optimized. He's going to have to play with players that fit. He needs rim pressure. Right now he's playing with bigs that are below average finishers. You can go look that up if anybody wants to, not you, Jarks. But right now it's just a tough situation for him because if he's not going to be

scoring efficiently and the people around him aren't hitting shots, like you said, Sadiege Bay has been anemic. He's been terrible. Killian is a whole podcast that we could talk about. Maybe we could have COC come lay on a couch and talk to us. KOC's like synonymous with Killian now. He loves it though, I think. But yeah, among pick and roll handlers, like with over 100 possessions,

Cade has the second highest turnover percentage. And that's not necessarily his fault. That's measured by guys hitting shots. So it's going to be a work in progress. But I'm not really totally discouraged by what I've seen. No, I mean, he's a good player. He'll be a good player. He's definitely not a bus.

And I think, I'm glad you brought up the template thing. I think this is a good transition to the next time we want to talk about. I think also what was going on the last year in the draft. And I think what people haven't quite, the turn is happening. It hasn't quite turned yet is I think the last era of the NBA, it was the big wing creator. It was LeBron, Katie, Kauai, Hardin. These big guys who can play. play point and have the ball in their hands the whole game. And that was the guy who kind of

determined everything. Like in the famous line is like either LeBron or the guy who guarded LeBron was the finals MVP for the entire decade. And I think people kind of got on cake. He said, okay, he fits this mold. He's the next one of these guys. I think what got missed is that the game is changing. And that was the other thing where I was like, I got up Mobley won. to me, the game is moving from the big wing to the hybrid big. I think the most important position in the game now is not the one three point guard. It's the four, five, hybrid seven footer. It's almost like point guard skills are like moving up the chain, right?

It started as point guards. It's gone to wings. And now my bigs can run point. Now my bigs have point guard guard skills. Janus, Anthony Davis, Mobley. To me, that's now the most important player in the game is your four, five. These are all guys who play as four at the start of games, but are probably going to finish games at five. And I look at like Janus and AD. I'll just say it, AD was the best player three

years ago on that Lakers team. I don't care. Yonness and AD. That was the best player in the last two championship teams. That was a center who could guard point guards, who could switch one to five, who could defend wings. Like they both guarded Jimmy Butler in the playoffs and shut them down. Because they're like, we're seven feet tall. We can guard a six, seven guy who, cares. We can do that. And then it was like, okay, I had the seven footer, but I'm not going to bully ball him in the block. Yannis and AD, what they both did. They did it differently, but they could both catch the ball at like 15 feet and go to the basket. Because like the bully ball, I think the bully ball block days are over where you like shack the ball at the three

at three feet drop step dunk because the game has changed. There's zones now. If we had shack though, he'd still do his thing. But yeah, for sure, it's over. That is over. Yeah. So you catch. So you What the game is now is you catch the ball in that mid post, mid block, and you go to the basket. Because that is still something you can do. You don't have to back somebody down three dribbles. You face them up, dribble once get to the rim. That's the thing Mobley can do. That's that four or five position.

And I think that brings us to the next guy we should talk about. We'll probably end the pot on this. We should. Can I tack a stat on that that you were just talking about, like to speak to your point. And I think this could be a projection for the future. the Cavs allow the fewest points per chance in the NBA on switches. And I think a big part of that is Mobley's versatility defensively and the sky's the limit on that front. But yes, that does bring us to a guy that we both like a lot.

Scotty Barnes is the guy that the Raptors took. They surprised people. They didn't take Jalen Suggs. I think, you know, Ujiri is kind of looking savvy on that front now. I think he's kind of had the last laugh. He fits this. we're talking about molds and templates. I guess he fits this stereotypical

Raptors guy who is long, rangy, muscular that can move and has immense switchability. Talking about switchability, Scotty Barnes has defended point guards as much as he's defended centers. Literally 21.3% of his possessions he's guarded a point guard

and 21% he's guarded a center. Why do you think that is? Why do you think Scotty's able to do that so fluid? Well, I mean, in a lot of ways, I feel like Scotty is a smaller Mobley. He's got, he's not quite as athletic, not quite as big, but he's also really smart. He's still 6.9.2.30. He can move pretty well. And I'll take the L on this one. Unlike you, I'll go ahead and take the L right now. I was definitely sleeping on Scotty Barnes. You were texting

me all last year about him. And I was like, I don't know, what's his jump shot like? And it doesn't seem to really matter. He just makes things happen out there. I think you have to take a lot of things any consideration when you decide where you're going to land with these guys. If you have just like a player who is like a stubborn kind of knucklehead type guy, we won't name any names or give any examples on that front because it would be offensive. But if you have somebody that is like kind of like role stubborn has like low self-awareness, there are plenty of these guys in NBA now, self-awareness paired with inefficiency is is the worst thing that you can have. And I think Scotty is the opposite of that. I think Scotty is

somebody that is high-motored physically and mentally side-by-side here. He can harass point guards with his speed and his length. He is a long wing span. He was measured as having an immensely fast and high second jump so he can kind of jump repeatedly and bother at the rim and just make repeated second, third, fourth efforts on defense because that's a lot of what defense is.

It's just how long are you going to stay after it and get after it. on the shooting front, I think it's a valid concern, but speaking to taking the bigger picture in, Scotty is just one of those, you saw like the clip where KD gave Scotty props. And to me what that said was, you sort of get into that sort of real hooper kind of crossover discussion thing where I think Durant,

what he sees in Scotty is a guy that just is driven to get better. I think that he is wholly consumed with it. I had moments where I was kind of frustrated with him, I thought that he wanted to be a Cade type where he had like the ball in his hands all the time and like getting to the rim. Because if you watched him in EYBL, he would like be pounding the ball like in the pick and roll.

But he had enough self-awareness, I think, to develop on that front and not assume that that's who he's going to be at Florida State and in the NBA. He's like accepted his roles. He's a guy who like embraces little things and does them and just plays a winning style of basketball. He strikes me as somebody like an Iguodala,

player who's going to impact winning at the highest level, I think. I think that the odds are good that he's going to be on some very good playoff teams, hopefully in Toronto for the Raptors fans, but maybe not as we go. But his shot looks better, though. Have you been paying attention to his shooting? Yeah. It's been a lot better than I thought. And I think what I missed in the draft and what I'm seeing right now is I'm looking,

I think the number I've been obsessed with this year is two point percentage. I feel like that's the number we should always talk. talking a lot more about. Because to me, field goal percentage, it means nothing anymore because how many threes people take. So you can have a low field goal percentage and I'd be taking a lot of threes. It means nothing. And people will say, okay, look at true shooting percentage. But to me, that's too broad a number because it's like, where are those true shooting percentages coming from? It's like, what's your split of twos and threes? What kind of shots do you take? I'm looking at Scotty Barnes. He shot 56% from two in college. That's 11 points higher than

Kade. And I do think Barnes is not like, I wouldn't say he's an elite athlete, he's very good. I wouldn't say he's an elite shooter, but it's like, okay, those are real concerns. But if those are really concerns, they should show up in his two point percentage. The fact that at Florida State, he was scoring that efficiently around the basket, in spite of whatever I was worried about, should have told me, okay, this will probably be fine. And that's what's happening in the NBA now, too, is like he's shooting really well from two. And to me, I think, like, I think to go back to what we were talking about how with Luca, I think Steph has ruined a lot of people because everyone's like, oh, a three-point shooter.

95% of the time, if you're going to be a primary option, it has to be based on your two-point percentage, right? Like, it's basically impossible unless your Steph is to, like, have all your shots be threes and you'll be efficient as a primary guy who makes other guys better. To me, like, with Barnes, he gets twos really. really well. He gets to his spots. He gets like 12 feet raises up. He finds ways to score. He doesn't hold the ball. So when like there's nothing there, he just passes the ball, right? He doesn't take bad shots all the time. And I think, I do think the one thing with Barnes, what I've been watching in Toronto,

is, and I think this is where it does hurt a bit is the lack of the three point shot. I do wonder long term if Barnes and Siakum are going to really make sense. Because Barnes was better when OG was there. OG takes like eight, nine threes a game, spaced it for Barnes. But it kind of feels like Siakum and Barnes want to go to the same spots on the floor. Yeah. And I think maybe I couldn't speak to this because I'm not around their team on a daily basis, but I think that their developmental paths might be similar because if you watch early Seaccham with the Raptors,

they sort of eased him into his on ball reps to the point now where I do think that you're right, that there is a little bit of dissonance between them. you'd like to see them all kind of play together. Of course, on the nether front, there's this thing of like, Seacum has entered sort of a contract, echelon level, whatever you want to call it, where he expects to be a certain thing, and maybe that'll be in Toronto.

There's been all kinds of speculation about him moving on, being in potential deals. That's a nice luxury that Toronto has, that they have this guy that they don't necessarily have to have because Scotty has such upside there. It is, again, drink. But I think that, Scott, you're right about, like the implied offense thing. Like you want to start from, it's just very hard to have like an

individual like self-creator that depends on the three point line. Usually it's the opposite. It ripples from implied offense and out. He does get around the rim. I think that he's like really, really worked on his shot mechanics to kind of make them more fluid. I was joking with you about like every young player now wants to have that one motion shot. That's another impact that like Steph has had. but the game is so fast and closeouts are so fast and sophisticated now that you've got to get your shot up quicker so that he's improved on that front and he's not taking bad ones. So I think that Scotty as a playmaker,

I think that he has a lot of upside too. Another guy that falls in that category, I don't think that he's like elite, but he's definitely somebody who maps the floor when he doesn't have the ball and makes he can kind of overpenetrate sometimes get in trouble. I watched a lot of his turnovers. That was something I noticed with him. He'll figure that out.

I don't put that past him. Where do you think Scotty's upside is? Do you think that there's a world where he's better than Cade? Yes, I'm not sure. I think with those two guys, I'd put on the same tier-ish and Mowbly above them. I think with those two guys, it's definitely about the roles on their teams.

I think Scotty, the path, is kind of on your Draymond band path. I think he's a four who can play five. So probably you want to have a stretch five so that he doesn't have to pay too many minutes and like, you know, regular season, going against Nurkich, going against Valanchunis. Not the best use of his time to bang with those guys for 30 minutes. So you have a stretch five.

And then in winning time, you move him to the five. And then he's playing in a more spread system with like wings around him and shooters. I think that's the goal. Because with Scotty, I was talking to a Raptors writer. And they're like, oh, well, Scotty could shoot more threes. He could, yes. But I don't think that's really where his money is going to be made. Like, I don't want Scotty spotting up with the three-point line.

Because if I'm the defense, that's a win for me no matter what, basically. I'm like, I'm happy to have you take that shot. I want Scotty playing with shooters instead of being the shooter. Definitely. Mike Prada, who is a really good basketball mine on Twitter. People should follow him. He made a comp that I thought was really interesting. He called Scotty Barnes, In Shape, Boris D.

What do you think about that? Ooh, I like that a lot. I like that a lot, actually. My comp for him coming in was like, Kyle. I think Kyle's like the floor of what Scottie could be instead of. But I think those kind of, we're talking about six, eight, six foot nine big body guys who can defend multiple positions who are very smart, right? Those are the, that's kind of the general template for Scotty Barnes.

And like you were saying, like, that's a very, very much a winning player. I remember I was on group chat and they were asking me, they're like, okay, Scotty versus Suggs. And I said, you know, I like Suggs more, but who am I to say Messiah is wrong? I feel a very, very risky thing to do to say Messiah made a mistake. And tip my hats and Messiah, he had the whole thing figured out. Like, that guy knows what he's doing. And he did another home run hit with number four pick.

Yeah. And I think that the Raptors can throw some really interesting. I wanted to say, too, I had it written down here that I love the golden black Toronto Raptors jerseys, big fan of that. I just like the Raptors looks in general. But I think that the Raptors are, it just shows how deep the east. East is. The Raptors are, they've lost seven of their last 10. O.G. being out doesn't help. That was the main thing. When he's out, they've just fallen off. Yeah, a lot of big expectations for him this year. I know. Do you, you said you had some kind of concerns about OG, like, long-term.

You were talking about, like, big athletic wings with injury problems. I know he has, it's a hip issue, I believe. Can you speak to that? I mean, I love OG, but he's been hurt a lot. And the guy I've been thinking about it's him and DeAndre Hunter. And he's both six, eight guys, two 30, two 35, excellent athletes, play really hard, really hard players. And they're like really pretty skilled. They're developing skill-wise. But then I'm like, Hunter, missed the year of college. Been hurt a lot in the NBA. OG, missed the year of college. He missed that playoff run two years ago when they had Kauai. Now he's hurt again. And so, I mean, what are you going to do ultimately? But I am a little concerned. And it's like when you're that big and that fast, I think, and you're only 6, 8, 6.9,

I think there is a concern about that, especially when you have the track record of injuries. Another guy that is interesting for the Raptors, I know, like, well, Malachi Flynn hasn't played well. I mean, that's a guy that we can talk about another time. But I think one of the most interesting players on the Raptors is Delano Banton. Oh, my gosh. Of course you'd go to Delano Banton talk on our first podcast. Well, let's, let's just educate people on who he is. Delano Bant is this oddity who came from Nebraska.

He was, I believe, a three-star player coming out of high school. But the rub on him, well, when he comes in, he's just instant energy. He's instant energy. He's all over the place. He plays with this confidence where you're just like, this guy thinks he's like, he thinks he's the dude. But he had a big growth spurt. I just wanted to throw that in there. He had a six-inch growth spurt near the end of high school, and then he'd go three more inches in college.

So he just kind of jumped on the radar. And of course, the Raptors would monitor that. But have you gotten to watch him much? Yeah, I've seen some Raptors. I mean, he's definitely 6-9. He can pass and handle. He's basically their backup point guard. He pretty much took Goran Dragach's job.

He said, you're done. Like, I'm the backup point card. Flynn, too. Flynn's like, you're behind me. And I think that would be like, my one concern with Barnes is like he needs shooters around him. Banton is not a shooter. So it's just a matter of,

it's kind of like Draymond, where you have the one guy who never shoots. So everybody else got. to shoot. So I think Bannon's going to stick in the league. I don't know if I'm, Toronto obviously loves your long, athletic guys, you can switch, but ultimately you've got to balance that with shooting. So to me, you're Toronto, you've got Barnes, you've got OG, big Gary Trent guy, he's a pretty solid piece. Fred Van Vleet's great. I think that's your core. I think Siakum, the good thing is you ain't going to trade Seaccom today or even the summer, but I think in the five-year window, he's getting mood for a

shooter who can play defense, I think ultimately. Well, there's going to be a lot more rookies to talk about. And it's not going to be limited to rookies on this show. We're going to be talking about guys in the first few years. There are a lot of guys kind of even orbiting this conversation that we could have gone down paths on. And we're going to be talking a lot about guys coming towards the draft. As we get closer to the draft, we'll ramp that up.

But reach out to us if you have players that you want to hear about, you know, in a way, we're sort of the podcast that serves. We're the voice of the voiceless to quote Kyrie. We are both in flyover country, right? So all these coastal elites, they focus on the big stars. We try to dig down a little bit. There won't be any city shaming on this podcast or, you know, I'm from rural Kentucky. I'm not, I don't condescend anybody on where you're from.

And anyway, on that note, we'll be coming back. We're going to be doing this weekly. And we'll be sort of rounding a lot of those things and polishing, sharpening those things. Charks, always good to talk to you and catch you next time. Yeah, that was fun. Have a good one.