The Ringer NBA Show - Ja Morant, Purdue's Jaden Ivey and Zach Edey, and Ayo Dosunmu | Upside High

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks begin the pod by sharing their reactions to Ja Morant's 52 point game against the Spurs on Monday night.() They then discuss the attributes of Purdue's Jaden Ivey and how his skills will translate to professional basketball after he's drafted.(8:00) After the break they talk about Ivey's teammate Zach Edey and debate whether his size can work in the modern NBA(27:31), and heap praise on the Bulls' Ayo Dosunmu and his role in keeping his team's ambitions alive during a particularly rough patch in the season.(34:00) Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Production Assistance: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's help everybody. I'm JJ John Gistramski. And I'm Jason Gough. And if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the big apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shottown with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests.

Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines. So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. basketball predictable but it's pretty good it's really good really damn good in my opinion and uh it's a beautiful day it's warming up here in louisville kentucky my name is j Kyle man this is upside high the show where we hone in we zero in on the young movement the youth movement within basketball we talk about young players and every week i am joined by a brilliant fellow the defense against the dark arts of the post professor jonathan sharks john john

How are you doing? I'm good. That was a good callback. And you changed up. I was wondering if you do the same intro the whole time or if you change it up. I guess you're starting to have variations. You know, you start with something and then you just kind of riff. I'm trying to riff a little bit.

Keep it loose. But, you know, when you said the dark arts of the post thing, that just, it stuck with me. It had a nice little ring to it. I liked it. Very Harry Potterish, I guess. Yeah, I kind of twisted it and made it a little bit of Harry Potter. This is one of my favorite times of the year. Like, you know, the weather.

It's warm down where you are all year, but there's a certain, like, hope that enters the air up here with us, people who freeze our asses off on winter whenever it starts to get warm and different, the college basketball is ramping up. I'm getting pretty excited. I was going to say, it's March. That's the exciting thing. We are almost at March Madness. It's the best. I love, that's like, I'll out myself. I was a fan of March Madness before I was a fan of the NBA. So for me, it's like back to the beginnings. Yeah, I was, I was an NBA fan pretty much. immediately. Actually, even before college basketball, I didn't really even get into Kentucky until like those, this is predictable, but like those late 90s teams, it was a fun time to jump in. But yeah, I mean, do you have any kind of March Madness? We're going to be, obviously, more March Madness content is going to be coming as that goes on. I think there's a lot of kind of draft adjacent things to talk about, and we will. Do you have any kind of like viewing traditions for March

Madness that you get excited about or what? I just watching as many games as I can. I think that's been like one of those things when you get married and you have a kid. It's like, oh, I actually can't watch every single game. I actually prioritize. I can't watch the 16 and the one or the 14 into three. I've got to actually just pick and choose the games to watch now. Yeah, I used to be like take off work and like on that for sure Friday and I would get like as many screens as I physically could get going and set them up like an iPad, a TV, you know. It's a it's a fantastic time. Around the NBA, I mean, there have been last last night. There were. couple just rattling off some incredible performances.

John Morant last night. Did you get to see John Morant go for 52 last night? I saw him dunk on Yaku Purdle. That was pretty impressive. That's for sure. Purdle is a guy that like is sneaky tough to challenge. Like he does a pretty good job in those situations. But yeah, Morant drew back and that was one of the nastier like it.

He didn't have like insane momentum. It kind of reminded me of like the Kevin Johnson dunk where he got Hakeem like off of like one or two steps. He cocked that thing back. Normally it's like on an angle at a seven-footer, but that was straight on, just right in his face. Yeah, it was almost like Vince Carter going over Frederick Vise. Yeah, 22 for 30 field goals. He was four for four from three. Surprisingly, only two assists in that game. Interesting thing about him is just that Morant has more of a scoring appetite than I thought. I was kind of thinking about what my opinions were about Morant coming out of college in the sense of like I have people ask me all the time about like how do you

process players like in terms of what's your what's your system I think everybody kind of has their own system the way that they go about it I was curious to ask you what like how do you project and this will this will kind of factor into somebody we're going to talk about in a little bit jaden ivy from Purdue how do you kind of size up what you think a player's ceiling is whenever you're watching a draft prospect. Well, I think with Jha, what I, interesting with him is in my head coming out of college, I had this thought, oh, like obviously everyone knew he's going to be really good. Like, he was not exactly, he was pretty solid the number two player in that draft behind Zion, I think everywhere. And the one thing I think I was held me back with him was I had this idea in my head, oh,

he's only 6.3.180. He's playing in a smaller conference. Surely he can't live at the rim at the same extent he's doing in, I guess it was the OVC back then, as he will in the NBA. Yeah. And I think that rule, I wonder sometimes if we overrate the NBA a little bit. How do you mean?

Well, because you'll think, oh, this weird physical archetype is not going to be able to work at the highest level, like it's worked at lower levels. But with the very best players, maybe that's just not the case. Like, Jough finished at a really high level, in college and he's finishing at a really high level in the NBA.

And I think sometimes we assume, well, just because you're doing X in college, it can't work at the next level. But there's like all these other factors involved too, right? Yeah, Jaws going up against better defenders, but he also has better teammates. And I think for me, one thing I've really, in the last couple years, I've really kind of come around on is finishing in and of itself is a skill. And if you're an elite finisher, you're an elite finisher, regardless of the last, you're a the level you're playing at.

And that ties into something we were talking about with like Simons and like foul generation. It's like if you have that skill early on, it does seem to continue. I think job was like a 50% rim finisher in college. But he was responsible for a lot of offense at Murray. I was kind of wondering about my trouble was you're talking about like overrating the NBA. In that transition to the NBA, I was thinking, okay, he's, he like led the country and like points generated, whether it be like assists or offense. and I was just thinking, or points himself, and I was thinking,

I feel like the points are going to come back a little bit because I saw him as somebody with like the passer gene that might not necessarily want to have the appetite to score like that. But he's really surprised me. I think the mistake I had is just I was like wrong about his ceiling. I think I underestimated his ability to be like the offensive engine of a team. Yeah, that's kind of what I was saying. It's like just because he's taking so many twos in college and you think,

I remember thinking, well, probably if he'll be this efficient in the NBA, he'll have to become more of a three-point shooter. And that's always from the thought. It's kind of what you were saying. He scored 52 points, but he only took four threes. And it's like, well, maybe he won't. Like maybe he's just, he's that fast. He's such a good passer.

He's such a good finisher. If the floor is spread for him, maybe he can score a wheel at the rim in the NBA, and that's what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think something we've talked about before is I really think before we move on, just is I think the difference. between him and some of these other like hyper athletic guards is I think his playmaking feel is,

you know, he didn't really distribute as much in that game at call for him to score more, but I do think his playmaking feel is like way above those guys. Elsewhere in the NBA, like Scotty Barnes picked on an underhanded Brooklyn team at 28.16 rebounds. If you go and watch the footage on that one, it's just him chipping them to death, which is a thing. But, you know, Brooklyn's a little short-handed inside. Suggs at a good game last night, 14 points, 10 assists, 2 for 4 from 3. but this week I wanted to talk to you about you're riding something right now in the in the process of writing talking about like athletic players I think this is a semi smooth transition honestly because jaden ivy produce standout sophomore you know six for people who don't know much about him jaden ivy is six foot four about 200 pounds pretty long I think he's got a wingspan that's somewhere I've seen anywhere between like six seven to to like six ten ish round

range. So we're talking about a long, bendy athlete. Jayne Ivy, what are, what are you, were your first impressions of him in diving into the tape on Jay Navi? Yeah, I mean, he's a guy we've been kind of circling for a while. Everyone's been talking about obviously Jabari Smith, Chad Holmgren, Paolo Boncherro as the top three players in this draft. But Ivy's really right outside that range, if not in that range. So we wanted to get to him before March Madness starts because he's got a chance, I think, to really elevate himself

in the national consciousness in this March. And the difference, I guess the first difference between Jaden and those other three guys, the other three guys, they've been kind of predestined for stardom for a while now. They came into college as freshman, it's supposed to be a top three picks. They've been going back to their high school senior years.

Whereas Jaden's been more of a late bloomer. He was like a four-star. I think he was like number 90 as a freshman in his recruiting class. He had a really solid freshman year. And now he's exploded as a sophomore into like this top five discussion. And he's got Purdue playing. Purdue is like a good program. But now he has Purdue in the top five.

And they really have a chance to a national title. The first thing with Jay and Ivy is he's so fast. Like he's got that elite kind of we're talking about with Jha. Like he has like that one trait. when you're looking at a smaller guard, okay, he's only 6'4, but he has elite speed that will translate immediately

to the NBA. I watched a game where he had like 20 free throws, right? That tells you a 6-4 guard getting 20 free throws is just, that's absolute physical dominance. Like I'm putting my head down,

I'm going to the rim, y'all can't stop me. Only thing you can do is foul me, basically. Yeah. And that's what he does. And then he's had sequences as we were talking about it, he's had sequences where I was watching a game against Michigan where he dunked on the entire team on consecutive possessions.

Just like preposterous athletic ability. It's like the start for Jaden Ivy. Before we segue into like rounding out, his athleticism and the applications of his athleticism wanted to give a little more clarity on that. You talked about him being different than the other guys. Just sort of a year behind them, like we said, he's a second year player. He was number 87 in like the high school composite rankings. like he's an Indiana guy transferred his senior year of high school to La Lumiere, for people who don't know.

La Lumiere is kind of emerged as a basketball finishing school in Indiana. A lot of like really good college players have come from there. A few NBA guys like Jordan Poole playing for the Warriors now, Jaron Jackson Jr., playing for the Grizzlies. Like Tracy Jackson Jr. is a guy that plays for IU. I know our guy Matt Dollinger is going to cringe that we're going to be praising a Purdue guy on this show. But a lot of good players. But a key thing that you and I were talking about, something interesting that he has that's a parallel. This is like Bioblast type stuff.

His mom was a WNBA player and was an assistant coach in the NBA, if I'm not mistaken, for the Grizzlies. And now she's the head coach for Notre Dame's women's basketball team. Yeah, he's a coach's son the other way. So it's like when you don't really hear a coach's son, you think, oh, he played for his dad. But actually his mom was the coach. His dad was an NFL wide receiver for a while. So he has that combination of elite athletic ability when you have two pros as your parents. Then he also has this cerebral got a good feel for the game because he's a coach's kid.

He grew up watching film. If you read stories about him, we'll talk about he kind of grew up in WMBA locker rooms, that whole dynamic. And so he really understands the game. He's an unselfish player too. He's not a guy who's just like jacking up shots. And we'll get into this a little bit. Like Purdue has a very, they're a very different kind of team in that they have two massive centers who they throw, play a lot through. So it isn't like Ivy just holds the ball the whole game and just jacks up shots.

Like he's part of a team concept. And he's really comfortable just throwing the ball inside, dumping it off to his big men. And he's a very like, he shoots a lot. But I would say he's ultimately a fairly unselfish player. I don't think he plays selfishly or anything. Okay. You talked about the cerebral part of his game, like the wide receiver thing. he has the body of like an NFL wider.

Like he seems like that type of player. The same type of thing when I would watch Jalen Green last year in the open court. Now, Ivy is built bigger. He's not as spindly as green, a little more solidly built. But his like open court speed is unbelievable. Like when you get into that like third, fourth step and transition, I would say like turning the corner. Would you say he's the best? Is he the best like corner turning guard, like getting to the rim?

like getting past his man in this draft. Is there anybody else that is in his category, in your opinion, that you've seen so far? That's a good question. I need to look up the draft to make sure. Since you asked the question, I'm going to hope you have an answer off the top of your head. I think he is. He has elite, like, corner turning. I was setting you up for me to spike it.

But the cerebral part, you've dove on him more recently than I have. Where do you see, you talk about him growing up in WMBA locker rooms and having the athleticism? Where do you see the cerebral part of his game bubbling up? up the most. What pop to you in that sense? Well, I mean, number one, so Purdue, I believe, has the number one offense in the country. They do. They're like an Uber efficient offense. And a lot of it to Ivy, he plays under that style. He pretty much doesn't take long twos. He either goes all the way to the rim or he's shooting threes. So he plays a very high efficiency style of basketball. He's definitely, because it's like he is their number, I don't know if he's in

their top score because their big man scores so much. But he's their primary perimeter score, but he plays in the flow of their offense usually. He doesn't really like hijack their offense too much to get his numbers. He runs around a lot off screens. And I think that part is going to be where I think the rubber meets the road with Ivy in terms of projecting him forward. So he's about 6-4-200 and he doesn't play a point guard for them. So they rotate through two other point guards. And they have another guard, Stefanovich, who handles a ball a lot. So it's very much in terms of handling the ball an equal opportunity offense. And I think that is the question for Ivy is projecting him is he's not a point guard really. He can pass the ball. He's great at

getting to the rim and then either the defense collapses and he finds the big or the shooter. But I wouldn't say he like runs much offense for them. He plays pretty free. He plays a lot off the ball. Then he'll catch the ball and just like can under the basket of full speed. And it's great. but the question I think for NBA teams in terms of where they're slotting Ivy is going to come down to do you believe he can be a full-time point guard because if he's not going to be a full-time point guard

at his size, that does create some complications about building a team around him. I think one of the things that's going to dictate whether or not he can do that is if he's able to, if he has inefficiencies in his game, I'm looking at his shot chart here. Like in terms of like where he takes his attempts,

you're right? Like he doesn't really, I think he's taken like under 15 attempts total in the mid-range this season. And then he's taking 108 attempts at the rim and 77 in the paint, 39% shooter in the paint at 67.6. So he's a good finisher, really wiggly. What do you think offensively would limit him from being like a primary initiator that's not going to hurt you? I think the lesser issue is like I do think you need to take some long twos if you're a primary. Like that sometimes the offense, you know, bogs down. You've got to create a shot. He shoots a little from his chest. So I do worry a little in like the 1820 foot ranked at six foot four. Can he get

his shot off there because of like his lower release? And the three point line doesn't really matter to me. He's just so fast that he creates space for himself to shoot. I think the bigger issue is like if you're thinking, okay, I can make Jade and Ivy my primary. It's such a mental game too, right? Like there's so much of all being a point guard. It's like the mental part of okay, who's getting the ball? Am I getting everyone their touch? how do I make sure the flow of the offense remains the same? That's just like the mental part of the game he hasn't had to have yet really. He plays very free at Purdue, right?

Purdue kind of weaponizes his speed, lets him get buckets, and then he'll make the pass with the bucket is not there for him. But moving him to point guard, that would mean kind of changing how it plays in some way because now he's just got so many more things to keep track of in his mind. I think that's the biggest issue. And, like, there's so many guys, you know, and you see it a lot. Okay, we're going to draft the 6-4 combo guard and then move him to point guard.

I think probably the best example of that is Victor Oladipo at Indiana, another Indiana guy, where the magic drafted him to be the point. You know, he played two in college. And it was a pretty brutal three or four-year stretch where he was learning the position. And the team kind of sucked as he learned it. You see that some. I mean, Donald Mitchell was a converted. He was sort of a one-two and then kind of went to the one.

But Ivy, I think it's not necessarily a ding against them that they don't shoot in the mid-range. I think, like you were saying, you could probably get away with being a primary and not being, I guess it's just a primary handler versus a primary score. I'm not totally sure about him as like a dribble pull-up shooter at this point, but he does have some touch from range. His shot kind of reminds me of Morant, actually, like where he releases it from and sort of, because he has that overlap of like awkward release but still has some touch from three do you kind of see that because i've seen i've seen some instances where he pulls up in transition and i'm like

it's not that bad well i think you've touched on two players that are good benchmarks and he talked about moran and talked about donovan mitchell and the moran comparison he apparently worked out with jaw which makes sense given that his mom coached ja that they would have a connection yeah and they apparently worked out some this summer. And you can see it in terms of the pure speed and the hair a little bit too. The hair is a distraction. That's like one of those aesthetic like tractor beam things. But that's the question right. So yeah, Jha has that pure speed. But Jha also mentally crazy smart player. Right. Like Jha's like a pure floor general on top of being an elite scorer. We have not really seen that from Jaden. I mean Jaden hasn't really had the opportunity

for whatever reason in the same way Jha did. And then that brings you to Donovan Mitchell. And I think that's a guy who I've been thinking about a lot with Ivy. And where it gets complicated, okay, Donovan Mitchell, so he is a guy like Ivy. He was kind of a combo guard in college. He played off the ball a lot. And there was his question to see a one or a two. And he's gotten to Utah. He's been a two pretty much this whole time in Utah, right? He's played with Ricky Rubio his first few years. Then he's played with Mike Connolly, the last couple. And he's been great as a two. But I think my concern with Ivy, if I'm thinking he's going to be Donovan Mitchell, is that Mitchell takes like 10 threes a game, right?

Like Mitchell is an elite shooter. And that's my concern. What I've been like projecting Ivy going forward is I do worry a little bit. It's like when you are an elite athlete athlete with an elite scoring ability, you do kind of have to fall in one of those two buckets. Either you've got to be an elite shooter too means you can play two guard, off a point guard, or you have to be the point guard and have the ball in your hand the whole game and distribute to everyone. But if you aren't doing either one of those things, that's where it gets

tricky. And that's my concern with Ivy. Yeah, you're right. Donovan Mitchell was shooting seven threes per game as a rookie at 34%. He's hovering in the mid-30s. I don't know that Ivy would get that kind of efficiency at that volume, especially like on the types of threes I expect them to take. But I have some faith in like in terms of like as a shooter this season, his percentages have been good. Like he's, he's had a pretty massive like efficiency jump in terms of his true shooting. And a lot of that has been because of his three point shooting. He, he went up a full 11% as a three point shooter this season over last season. And that number would be even higher. He's kind of had a rough February this season. It pulled his percentage down

quite a bit. I had that in front of me, but it was something like 12% from 3 in February, but up to that point. But he takes good shots. I guess the question is, could he exist as a guy who is sort of a secondary player playing off the catch, attacking with his speed, generating fouls, getting to the rim? Like we talked about, he's not like a selfish player. He makes good decisions typically, but he's not like a pure facilitator. I guess another question is, if you have a guy that has kind of conditional questions about like their efficiency if they can stay on the floor so that those things don't kill you one of the ways to do that is on the defensive bin and i guess like my question for you would be what do you see his role being because like a lot of times we'll look at these like elite athletes which i think he is he's super flexible decent size very fast very long could be like a corrective like erase mistakes he's like that type of disruptive player what do you see his defensive role being in the NBA. I mean, he's a pretty good defender for sure at Purdue.

And, like, he does a great job. I was watching the game where he blocked two jump shots. The guy was coming around a screen, and he just followed the guy behind and blocked it from behind. And I think that ability is speed and the wingspan and the tenacity. That means he'll be a decent enough defender, I think, for sure. The question is, okay, he's 6-4-200. and probably the game of the year in college basketball this year, I think in terms of scouting was this game against where he played Johnny Davis in Wisconsin.

And we'll talk about Johnny Davis as you get into March Madness. He's another probably lottery pick. I have my Big Ten limits. I can't go full Big Ten on one. I'm going to get like alcohol poisoning. It's like I can sip some Big Ten, but I don't want to end up in the hospital if I talk. It's true. The Big Ten, this has been the best year of the Big Ten probably like in a decade.

It's actually, it's been pretty rough. but this year's been good. And in that game, this is the game that made Johnny Davis probably a top 10 pick, is he just lit up Purdue for like 35. And he was just too big for Ivy. I don't think I've even guarded him that much because Davis is like a punishing 210, 215 player at 6'5.

And he could just finish over Ivy. And that would be the concern, right, if he's a two guard, he's giving up size. So then that gets back to the hole. If he's guarding point guards, that'd be great. But then you almost need to cross-switching with the guy who can guard two guards, but then that guy's got to be able to run point two. And that's where it gets tricky pretty quick.

And the thing that stood out to me, so I was kind of looking at comparable players. And I'm looking at guys 6-5 and under drafted in the top 10 who didn't average more than 5 assists a game. So basically what you're looking at is combo guards who aren't point guards, who are thought of very highly. The last three years, that's Jalen Green, Jalen Suggs, Anthony Edwards, Kobe White. There's a couple other guys who weren't in the top 10 but a similar kind of player, Donovan Mitchell, Tyler Hero.

And then like what stands out with all those guys is they've all made their living or not as three-point shooters. Ant Man takes a ton of threes. Kobe White's come a three-point shooter. Hero, obviously, three-point shooter. Mitchell three-point shooter. And it's like, and I think the reason Suggs, for example, that's a guy who struggled this year, largely because the shots abandoned him.

And it's because if you're not a point guard, you've kind of got to be a guy who finishes off another point guard. You have to have that three-point shooting ability. And that is where I struggle with Ivy, I think, to go back to that earlier comparison. I've had moments where, and this is usually like an insult from me, but like, because I'm in my own circle, uh, fan. famously like a not a Russ guy. I get Russ vibes from him, like young Russ, where he like, his production, his numbers were like hovering at a lower level like where they could

leap and we're just basically speculating about whether or not they can. Do you want to like tack any other kind of like putting a bow on it thought about Ivy? I think you've summed him up pretty well. Do you expect him to go in the top five? Would you be surprised? No, I think for sure he'll go on the top five. My guess would be with Ivy. You would hope eventually he can transition to being a full-time point guard, but it'll be a slower process. So I did a piece actually about the jazz earlier this season where I said, I think the next step for them is trading Mike Connolly for a wing and letting Donovan run point full-time because that allows you to have a much bigger team. I'm always of the belief like I want as much size in the perimeter as possible. And so if I have,

if you have two smaller guards, I must affirm believe that's going to limit your team ultimately. you can have one small guard and you want much size around him as you can. So my suspicion is ultimately kind of like Donovan Mitchell. I think you draft Ivy, you give him the training wheels. And I believe he can grow. I believe he's already grown a lot. And you look at his background and makes you believe he'll maximize what he has. But it might be more of a slow build is my suspicion. Yeah. I think your point about building around smaller players, you made this on a previous episode actually that like you draft one smaller player and you're kind of out of the small player business because I think scheming against small players in the playoffs you automatically have like

a pressure point that teams can attack because there's a lot of big wings out there I thought the point two that you made about him with like bigger players too is interesting because we think we think and this is my just kind of last thought on him defensively is that we think of like big like disruptive long players is like oh he's automatically going to be a great defender but a lot of times they depend on that sort of space between the ball handler. Like you see this with Thibel a lot. Like he really depends on like trailing the play and then breaking it up or like things like that. NBA players are really smart.

Like if they have a guy who's like that athletic, they can kind of put them in jail and neutralize some of those things and like score over the top of them. And speaking of scoring over the top of people, really, that was a, that was like a Hall of Fame segue right there at Charks. I'm not appreciated it my own time. I want to talk about Jaden Avi's teammate Zach Eadie. and we are going to do that after we take a break.

So, Zach Eadie, seven foot four. I mean, he's, how heavy is he probably? 285. 285. Woo! Big boy, big boy. A guy this dominant at the college level, you would think, you would think that he could get a cup of coffee,

a latte, an espresso, an Americano in the NBA. Do you think that he will? Why or why not? So with Eadie, okay, oh, he's just a big guy, whatever. But then I'm watching Jay and Ivy, And then every game you watch Jade and Ivy, it's like your eyes are just naturally drawn to this absolute giant of a human being scoring at will. Basically every single game he plays. Like I think it's worth putting, you send me some numbers, Kyle.

It was like this guy's putting up like Shaq Zion numbers in college. It just literally scores a will every single game he plays in. It's preposterous. There's a great website that people should check out called CBB Analytics. They have great visualizations for college data. It's really great if you're like any level of following along, they have something for you. But they have this scatter graph where they were showing like players across the Power 5, players across the country, their efficiency.

And you can see the dots on there. And there's this one dot that's up in the upper right quadrant away from everybody. And it's Zach Eady with his like secretariat level efficiency. I mean, offensively, he doesn't do a lot of like stuff. Like he does some pretty basic things. I mean, he kind of, I've noticed a lot that he'll sort of like set a screen and then his guy will be behind him and he'll like just wheel right into like a seal, like he'll seal his guy and then do a baby hook. I mean, offensively, I don't really see him doing a lot at the next level because I don't think that he's taking a jump shot in like two years at Purdue, if I'm not mistaken. That's the thing.

Like, so I think for me watching Porzingis the last couple years has made me appreciate Zach Eadie. But you're going all the way the other way. If I'm 7-4-2-85, I can just score it well at the rim. Why would I need to do anything else? And he has great footwork. He can use either hand. He has a good feel for the game. Like when he's double, he finds the open man.

A lot of Jaden Ivy's assists is he'll get to the lane. And then just kind of the defense collapses and you just throw the ball up. And then Zach Edie's going to get the ball. He has just a match. Talk about cat, whatever like a, he has like a catch diameter. Get a catch radius. Catch radius is what they call it. Yeah.

This guy literally can catch anything. around the basket. He's going to score. Yeah. And then, okay, yeah, you think in the NBA, that wouldn't work, but why not? He'd be the biggest player in the NBA, too. And he's so strong. It isn't like he's not, even like the strongest player in the NBA, he'll be able to bang with those guys at his size. Yeah, it was cracking me up when like the Kofi Coburn and Zach Eady matchup I was joking with you. It was like, it was just, it was like a Pacific

Rim sequel basically to watch, to watch Kofi Coburn like wall him up. But to Eadie's credit, he was, He was like walling him up on his left shoulder and Edie was just like, okay, I'll spin right shoulder and baby hook on him. Well, because it's the thing. So this guy, Kofi Coburn, he's 611 300. Like his whole life, he's been the biggest guy on the floor. He just dominates guys. And then he plays Zach Eady.

It's like, oh, not anymore, man. Like, you're kind of a small guy now. Yeah. Right? He makes a guy who's 611 300 look small. He really does. And I guess somewhat around. I remember, to go back to the Bobon thing.

I'm thinking, oh, okay, he'll be in the end. he'll be a Bobon type. But then I looked at it, Bobon didn't become a player until he was like 25. Like Boban didn't even get big minutes in Europe until his mid-20s. Zach Eadie is straight up

dominating college basketball at 20. And then it forces you to ask the question. Like, I feel almost blasphemous asking this. And maybe this is a stupid question. Like, could he be Yao Ming? I don't know. I mean, he's big as Yao Ming. He has Yao Ming's touch.

Maybe I've forgotten a good Yao Ming was. I don't know. I think you have forgotten what Yao Ming was. Maybe. It's possible. I love the question, though. I text you back. I was just like, I just love the question. I'm glad that you, that's just so chalksy to ask. But I think, no, I mean, Yal Ming had like a lot of passing touch. He had like face up game. His body broke down, obviously. But I mean, he was like, had a very broad skill set. And he was bigger. Not by much. He was same size as the exact ed. Like we're talking 7475 300. It's about the same size. It is. I guess it's split in Harris. But I, I guess it's split in Harris. But. The thing for me, I think that the differentiator, like the filter for players that big, we talked about like Taco Fall can, like, get a chance in the NBA. I know Zach Edy can because Edy is like way more skilled. And actually like passing out of the post, I had a number in front of me earlier that like he's,

he hasn't popped at all. Like we said, there's no face-up game. He's rolled to the basket on, let's see, 93.3% of the pick and rolls he's been involved in. Usage 34.1, true shooting 69.1. The question is, like, the filter for guys that big is defense. Like, and we're talking about could he play in, like, a fourth quarter crunch time playoff scenario.

He can't switch in the NBA. He's going to have to be, like, a drop guy. He doesn't block a ton of shots either. I think the best case scenario, I think he's just kind of be, like, an obstruction. He's going to be, like, a disruptor, a big guy. defensively what do you think of him really quick for we move on well i mean that is the question right is he'd have to be living in a drop and then is would his offense be good enough to justify living in a drop and you almost have to have like yokech level offense to justify that on a good team that is like

ultimately the question and i don't think he'll have yokish level offense but oh you don't i don't know though that's two blasphemies in one pod from you i just kidding i I said, I don't think so. But just like, he'll probably stay in school. I dad comes pro this year. He's not getting much buzz. All this to say is you're going to want to watch Jaden Ivy. But when you watch Jaden Ivy, there's going to be this other guy.

You're just going to have to see for yourself. Like, it's just fun to watch a guy that big get buckets, in my opinion. It's inevitable. We always go through this every season of the people who are dialed in on NBA and then they drop into the college world into our world. We live in the dark. They're just tourists. No, when they come and it's inevitable to see the tweets.

People are going to be like, this guy's fucking huge. And I'm excited to see it. Zach Edie is like a really interesting novel player. Before being the show, I wanted to talk about somebody probably has more common. There's like a nice transition, I think, between Jaden Ivy and this guy. Iodosunu, I guess the question I would want to ask you is, what is your level of surprise to how well Iodosunu has played? Because in this past month, he's kind of made the most of like some opportunity.

Like the bulls obviously have just been like ravaged by injury. They've had a lot of guys out. I think Lonzo being out was probably the biggest thing for Des Moomu. Well, Caruso too. Yeah. Yeah. What have you made of Desun Mu? What's, what's pop for you about him?

I also want to point out that here we go. To tease the next segment, you went with we're going to talk about a guy who literally none of people in this pot have heard of. And he just totally Barry. talking about this very high profile rookie for a high profile team. It just says something about my priority. Your segment teasing is just that is truly an elite skill you have. I'm the man of the people, the little guy.

The voice of the voiceless. I'm Kyrie. Oh my gosh. Let's let's let's reel it in right now immediately. You reel it in. You insulted Yao Ming. Anyway, go ahead. So Iyo, he's been really good from the start of this season.

And it's been fun to watch him because he started the year. there was so much perimeter town in Chicago. He's playing behind DeRosen, Levine, Lonzo, Caruso. He's pretty much never getting the ball. And he's like he's a spot-up shooter, playing really good wing defense to get on the floor. And then they have their big raft of injuries. And with Caruso out and Lonzo out, basically Iyo's running point. And he's been running point for the last month.

He's looked really good doing it. And I think that's been the most impressive thing is he's just been able to very, you talk so much about rookies and how like rookies need a role in the NBA to get comfortable. I.O's role has changed and he's thrived in both roles. And when you're a role player on an elite team like Chicago, that is like the most important skill, is to be able to like find a way to get on the floor. And that's what he's done on a really high level. I think more than anyone expected.

And I think with Iyo is kind of like another guy you wrote about Herb Jones and your rookie report a few weeks ago. And I think sometimes what happens in college is like these guys who stay three and four years, you kind of get in your head that they're one kind of player. And you just kind of like you stop watching them. Not even, you don't stop watching them, but like you stop evaluating them in a sense. Like they become old news. And like they make subtle improvements in their game and it gets kind of overlooked. And now I think like you look at Chicago's front office, New Orleans. That was a, those are great picks, obviously.

Yeah. He's a hometown guy. And like we were talking about where they were ranked. He actually was ranked 32nd in his class to give people who don't know anything about him. Played at Illinois last year, two years. Three years. Isn't he three years? Maybe he was three years.

Yeah, I think you're right about that. But I think something that's interesting about IEO is last year, you made a point too about, like, evaluating people and we stopped. We talked a little bit about this when we were out in Vegas at the G League showcase. I do think that it's important to, and I have to remind myself this, is that like the eval doesn't stop when somebody's 18 or 19. You do need to circle back and circle back again because depending on a player's opportunities, they may have to change the way they play and some guys do. But Io has been interesting because last season, I feel like whenever the national stage, people were high on him, but whenever the national stage came around and was paying more attention

to him, he broke his nose late in the season, the college season last year and had to like switch to a mask. He's wearing that mask. Yeah, I remember that. And then he had a tough game in the tournament. it. They got upset in that like famous game against Loyal is Chicago, but people kind of got a little down on him. That's the way these things ebb and flow. But Chicago, the way that their team is set up, I think that his skill set, and it's a credit to him that he's gotten on the floor with the defensive stuff, because they have a lot of guys with a lot of different skill sets that fit what they're doing, but Chicago has these stars, these bucket getters. They have basically three bucket getters, because I would say Vooch is a guy who can get his offense and the pick and pop. He's a roller,

or things like that. But then you have like these guys that are like all world ISO players and Zach Levine and DeMar de Rosen. And the thing that like was working for them was that Lonzo is this fantastic connective playmaker. And I think the experience that Iyo got in college on the ball was good training for him in this way because I don't think he's like an elite manipulative playmaker, but he's very good at making the correct simple decision frequently.

Like he consistently does it. And like if you look at his like assist numbers, they're pretty crazy. Like in February, he's been averaging 6.5 assists. And his assist to turnover ratio is actually better than Josh Giddy in that time frame. I mean, to be fair, he's assisting, as you just said, like when you're assisting DeMar, Levine, and Vooch, like you can rack up some assists that way pretty easy. Yeah. But I think I think the point with A.O.

And this is something I might be like lying to myself as a college basketball fan. But I do think there's a lot of valid. you and he got to have three years as the man right like he had the ball in his hands the whole game at illinois basically illinois is a big time program it's followed very closely it's it's it's high profile in its own way right it's not an NBA team but you aren't just like at illinois doing your own thing and nobody cares what happens like a lot of folks care what happens this isn't like weber state yeah it's like it's a it's a high major program yeah so like all that to say is like when you're got the ball in a high major team

You're going to have ups and downs. You're going to have slumps. You're going to have defenses like game playing to stop you. And then you have to figure out how to beat those game plans. And you just have so many reps on the ball. And that's, I think, what college gives players, right? Like, there's all this talk about how, you know, with the G League Ignite and overtime and how NBA teams are grabbing guys younger and younger.

And it's like, yes, that works for the very elite top five guys. But I think what makes college great is for a guy like I.O. So he, Iyo, for as good as he's been in the NBA already as a rookie, he's probably never going to be a franchise player in the NBA. I don't think I'm going too far on a ledge there, right? No. But he already was a franchise player in college. So he got all those reps as a franchise guy.

He comes to the NBA. And it's like, yeah, in the NBA, you have to rein your game back in. But at least you have the experience of pushing your game to its limits. And I think especially for guards, that's very valuable to push your game to the limit. that's what Iowa got to do in college. And I think that's really paying off from now in the NBA. Yeah, and I think a couple things to jump off of that. Like the first thing is it depends on the player.

Like if somebody is just like a bottomless pit, like they're out there playing the game for them. Like there's a difference between playing the game to win with your team and playing the game of like, what can I get while I'm out here? And you can kind of see that between players. I never got the vibe that Iowa was that type of player, like he, that he was like just trying to get his. you and I were talking about the other day the value of those on ball reps specifically in pick and roll because I think

pick and roll basketball is a game where you've got the primary thing going on and then the thing that ripples out from that is like the off ball movement things like that the secondary stuff and I think for a wing which I kind of consider him somewhere between like a wing and a primary hand

like an initiator it's good to get those reps because when you're playing off the catch whether or not it doesn't necessarily matter if you are a pick and roll player going forward. I think that if you're playing off the catch, it really helps if you have that experience playing the like two-on-two game in the middle of the floor. And I think that whenever you watch Iyo, if you see a lot of the training that he's gotten, I think, is a simple training,

which is what we talk about drawing to. Like if you catch the ball, let's say Iyo is not initiating. He catches the ball off of like a tomorrow, and this happens all the time. A DeRosen drive or a kickout. He has a defender coming at him. He's a defender. He's a defender. He's fast enough that he frequently draws to, and then he makes a good decision off of that. That's what I've kind of noticed for him. And that's like the value for him, I think. Really good over-the-top passer, I've noticed. He throws like one pass frequently.

And it's that like touch kind of two-hand pass over the top, but frequently making really good decisions for the Bulls. Well, it's kind of what you're saying, that connector, right? He's connecting. Like he's not a primary in Chicago, obviously. his job is to connect the primaries they have and to make the smart play to move the ball and he's doing that at a very high level and i think that was my question for him was like because he spent so much time on the ball at illinois was would he be comfortable in a smaller

role because a lot of guys they become they need the ball so much they become ball dominant and then like they're not comfortable in a smaller role right they get out of rhythm but he's been able to like slide back and forth really well. I think the other thing with Iowa looking back on it is you look at his college career, he got better every year. I think that's important too, is that's telling you he's going to the gym, he's working hard, he's proving it. He's not just resting on what he's done and he's working on his game every year. And that's obviously a very good sign for any player. Yeah. And I think that the Bulls have kind of gotten a rough deal here. I mean, if you kind of gauge they lost last night to Miami by a decent margin.

Actually, I turned it off what was over. They were down big, but they're second east technically right now, eight and five in February. The Bulls have had kind of, for a year where they've technically kind of exceeded expectations, I think. They're the number two seed. They've obviously exceeded expectations. Things have sort of oscillated a little bit here.

I mean, like, I think that the East obviously got a lot better, and you can kind of sense a little bit of a malaise among Bulls fans, like, damn it, we were good. and then this like hasn't broken the way that maybe they thought. I don't think that they're done. I think that they obviously have some things that they could do to be, continue to be. Of course,

this all had to play out. But I think that Iyo has been a guy who has kept them from like the bottom falling off. Like he's come in and like stem the tide and been a nice connector. I love, I love that. How would you, you kind of described a connective before we wrap up? For people who don't like follow basketball super closely,

what would you say the difference between a connective playmaker and a primary playmaker? is to sort of like do a glossary here. Well, so primary, you're the one initiating the offense, right? You're making the first move. You're creating the advantage. You're beating your guy. You're finding the crack in the defense. And at the NBA level, more often than not, even if you get that advantage, the defense will rotate, right? Okay, they've rotated over you've created the advantage. You've got to pass the ball to someone else. And then a connector player, that's a guy who's able to keep that advantage going, right? So, okay, so the defense is rotating towards him.

He's going to drive the ball into the crack, then make the next pass. So then maybe the primary guy might not get the assist, but the connective guy gets, it's like the hockey assist, they call it. And hockey, two passes gets you an assist instead of just one. So two guys get an assist for every made goal. The connective guy in basketball, that's the guy getting the secondary assist. So the primary guy beats his man. defense rotates.

The secondary guy gets the ball. Defense rotates again. The secondary slash connective guy. Then he makes the next pass for the shooter. Because in the NBA, especially as you get in the playoffs, a lot of times you have to make two or three plays to beat a defense. Yeah. And that connective guy is making that second or that third play.

Yes. And a lot of the best offenses for people who are interested, like historically to go dive on this thing. A lot of the best offenses ever have had connective players. Like I think one of the best connective playmakers in the league is drag. Ramon, a guy who can like catch a pass off of advantage created and swing it to somebody. You made a really good point about like keeping the advantage going. And I think that's a fantastic point.

But check out I.O. He's been playing fantastic. Charks is working on his Jaden Ivy piece. We're going to be coming back like we said with more and more March Madness driven content. Was there anything else that you wanted to tack on there for the end of Iyo before we, before we head out? No, I think we got that. I also, I have a piece coming on Thursday about like my medical situation. and all that and being a dad. And so that'll come out on Thursday for anyone once.

Yes. Is that going to be on the ringer? Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. We'll keep an eye. Eye out.

And what about your video project, Kyle? Is that coming along? Ongoing. Ongo. We're still on it. To wrap it up, thanks for joining us. If you're a new listener, we're doing this every Tuesday. We're produced by Chris Sutton, doing a fantastic job, as per usual.

And subscribe and listen to all the other ringer NBA shows on the feed because there are a time. We come at it from a lot of different angles. and there's something for everybody. So thanks for joining us and subscribe and all that and say hey to us. John, it was good to see you, buddy. As always.