The Ringer NBA Show - Jonathan Kuminga’s Role With the Warriors, and Chet Holmgren as a Top Draft Pick | Upside High

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks open by discussing Jonathan Kuminga’s rookie season, his upside in the NBA, and his role with the Warriors (2:23). Then they finish by breaking down highly touted prospect Chet Holmgren's chances in the NBA, where he could fit into the league, and scouting him at Gonzaga (20:18).   Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, Plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Folks, basketball is very good and it's a beautiful chilly day, talk about basketball. But anytime I get to talk boots with this brilliant fella,

it warms my day up. My buddy, John Charks is with me. John, how you doing? I'm doing good. It's pretty cold in Dallas also. New year,

new weather for everyone. How chilly are we talking down there? Are we talking? I know you guys, are you one of those, like, freak out when it gets cold states? Yes,

I hate being cold. I'm not about it at all. But like, systemically, the state doesn't really handle snow well from what I can tell. I mean, I don't know if you remember last year, Kyle. I was going to say. Ice storm, Texas.

Have you heard about it? Didn't you guys kind of fall apart when it got a little cold? Yeah, it got pretty bad there for a sec. For sure. Well, yeah, it's a new year. And hey, if you're, you know, I don't think I did this last week. This is a newer show. Maybe you were with us last year.

We sort of rebranded it, repurposed it a little bit. This show is called Upside High. My name is Jay Kyle Mann. And what we like to talk about, and this is something John and I have talked about, even before I worked at the ringer. is we really like development. The draft, young players coming into the league. Who's coming up?

What does it take to succeed? What are the conversations around that? How is that changing all the time? Because I do think that it changes all the time. It's an evolving thing. And it's interesting to see those new players come in and we like to talk about them. So lately, you know, we were out in Vegas.

We came back. We were talking about some of the big headline names that are in this class, this class that just got into the league, these rookies. Now I wanted to, today I wanted to ask you about a couple different guys, one that's on the horizon, one that's in the league. Jonathan Caminga is somebody that we kind of brushed on briefly the other day. He's an interesting player who reclassed. I think he was the top of his class and then reclassed and was near the top again.

has been sort of, I feel like the fault line and the discussion on Cuminga has been, do you believe? Because there hasn't been a lot of like certainty. There have been a lot of reasons to maybe believe. And then a lot of people were really skeptical. I know I had a hard time getting on board with Cuminga. Lately, you know, we talked about him around the draft, things like that. I don't think we need to necessarily rehash that right now.

But lately, I feel like there's been some positivity bubbling up around Jonathan Cumminga. And probably in the past maybe month, John, why do you think that is and do you believe in it? Well, for one, he's getting to play. That's probably the main thing. So he's definitely been a beneficiary of all the COVID stuff, all the guys that have been called up.

And he's been a pretty big part of the Warriors rotation over the last few weeks. He had a game against the Raptors where they had COVID guys and they kept their veterans, they bench their veterans. He ended up playing like 40 minutes. So he had 26 points in that one. And then he had a lot of running Christmas Day.

And people were sitting to watch and play. And a lot of folks for the first time. And the thing with comming, when you watch and play, it's like, this guy is incredibly athletic. It's just you can't not talk about it. Who were your comps for him before the draft? I know I said some pretty borderline offensive comps just to kind of test the waters that, you know,

just like throw something against. the electric vents to see if it was on. Who'd you have? Because I didn't have a great comp for him. I said I had a particularly down night with him where I was pretty frustrated with what I was seeing. And I specifically remember, do not take this away and say that this is what my comp was. But in anger, I said this. I said that he's a rich man's Alpharouca Mnizu.

Do you remember that? That's not terrible. No, I don't keep track of this stuff. That's not terrible comp. There are different kinds of players. He's got like the 6-8-6-9 super athletic wing. I think with coming to where you want to start, Golden State's basically playing him like a center.

And I think that's where his value is right now anyways, because he really can't shoot right now. He's not a great perimeter player. He can dribble, but he doesn't have a great feel for the game, not really a passer. If he just getting the green light to shoot a lot, he's just going to shoot a lot. And he's best around the basket

where he can use his size and athletic ability to finish. side. And I think that's really his best use right now. In terms of play style, I feel like he kind of plays like Anthony Edwards actually in a way. Does that make sense? Where he's just like trying to get buckets at all costs and not really playing a complete game right now? Yeah, I think there's definitely like a blend of crazy athleticism, like cooking people sort of, I mean, he's leaning on that. He really leans on, and that's what he did before. You can see the game is going to have to slow down for him because players that play at that speed inevitably once they get to the highest level. It's like you filter out the guys who are like lesser athletes who don't

know how to play. You just keep like refining the competition to the point where it's like, okay, now we have great athletes and they know how to play. Those guys are going to be in the right spot. They're going to know tricks. Like I don't know if you've ever heard like Brian Scalabrini talk about like how challenging it is to play in the NBA, like how much work he had to do. even him, like one of the lower, you know, like a bench player. So it's just kind of like, that's what he's dealing with right now. And I was looking at the position here. It's kind of the war.

The Warriors are interesting with the way they use their bigs. I mean, it's a 50 basketball reference has him 58% of his time is as a power forward. And then 17 is as a center. But I agree with you. It's kind of like you would think that the upside of him would be as a center. You would think that you've got this super switcher. quick guy that would give you like crazy defensive versatility. You know, the Warriors have been like probably an underrated defensive team, I would say

this year. Draymon's been incredible. You mentioned though that like his shooting and that like if he has it, he's going to shoot it. Do you think that they are, how do you think they're repurposing his like actual like usage in the sense of like play like the types of schemes, the types of actions they put him in? are they repurposing him in a way that is like setting him up to succeed? Is that kind of what you're saying? To a degree, I mean, I think Golden State is a very unique team in that they get a lot of their space.

I mean, Steph is spacing it, and they have a lot of guys who don't shoot on the perimeter. So they kind of invert a lot of the normal responsibilities. And I think it's just tough for him because he's competing. So a good example is recording us on a Tuesday. Golden State played Miami on Monday night. And in the first half, Cominga got the run, was very up and down,

lost guys on defense. He played like six or seven minutes. And the second half, he didn't play at all. And they played Juan Tuscano Anderson instead. And he's, I think where he's really going to have trouble in Golden State is,

and I think Wiseman, too, is the same issue. Golden State played his kind of funky Bruce Brown types, and JTA and Gary. Peyton the second. And those guys are such smart players. They're great athletes too. And they're good passers. They're just better fits for Golden State's system. I just not sure how many minutes when this team is healthy, Coming is going to get a really earned. Yeah, I think, and what I was

noticing too is, I mean, Miami is another team that has like a great scheme. They have, you know, they have a lot of kind of purposeful off ball movement. You notice that like a lot of Cummings, usage this year has been catching like off of off the catch off spot ups attacking in space after the ball has already been humming like we know the warriors the ball hums their offense is a lot of passes i think they lead the league and like passes per possession uh they've had the most i was studying this recently they've had the most like i think it was like 10 or more passes they've had the most possessions where there's been 10 or more passes which is crazy to think about the ball moving that many times in a 24 second clock but um he

a lot of it like that purposeful like clever cutting i was noticing last night that uh he you you would think that if he was clever to a certain degree that he would get a lot of easy ones um and for him i think that's really important he was kind of like a second like a second late or realizing that he could get open like a second late um have you noticed that like what do you think about his or do you think that it needs to be like uh like an off ball development and then we'll move to the on-ball stuff. And is he even going to get that at Golden State? When would he even get it on a good team? That is the real question, right? And I don't really, I think we're talking about development. It's going to be very fascinating to watch for Kaminga and Wiseman because they're

both such great athletes and they kind of, where they're lacking a little bit as basketball IQ and feel for the game. And so it's now that, now they're in the system where it's all about basketball IQ and for the game, where it's such a high IQ intensive system. You know, Steve Kerr loves his veterans. He wants, like, because they're in the kind of roles that Sean Livingston used to have, when Andre Godalo is better, David West. Those are the kind of players that fit Golden State system with Stefan Draymond's. And so can Kamingin-Wiseman learn that stuff?

Or are they better off playing freer in a system where you can just use your athletic ability? And there's less cutting, less passing, less thinking. Yeah, it's almost like some players need to be saved from themselves because whenever they're coming up, it's like we see these crazy athletic specimens. They're probably going to be growing up in a situation where they are the focus. They are the biggest fish in the pond. And therefore, they're going to get reps where they are set up to do that. And then they kind of get it in the, it may not be the most kind of productive way to go about it, I guess. It's inevitable, like I said, like in Anthony Edwards, like he's always going to have the ball in his hands, whereas

it might have been good for him to to be developing in a situation where he was getting those off-ball things because some of these guys like when they when they develop heavily on ball their whole life and they don't experience like playing with other good players or in a good system they just kind of go into low power mode like like like a robot that's been unplugged I mean we've seen that with Luca is brilliant a bass yeah I guess even what I'm my point is that like even high IQ players really aren't necessarily safe uh from from that that plight. But I think for him, like, you can't overstates or understate,

I would which way to do that, but you can't emphasize enough how important it is for a guy like Cumminga to get easy buckets. And like the Warriors are a great situation for him in that sense. My question, if you were a Golden State and you had to pick Cominga or Wiseman, who would you pick? Cominga. I mean, I don't even know.

Okay. You think that's no hesitation at all. Interesting. What do you, how do you feel about that? that. I mean, I think I would take comminga too, but I'm just a little surprised. Was that easy for you to say that? Well, I mean, I just thought Wiseman was just a bad fit for them. Now, I know some people had like Wiseman around the draft, like way down in like the middle

of the first round. I still think that there's a world where Wiseman is applicable to, you know, at least a good team. I don't, I don't think that that's in like a primary role. I think his like his kind of disabusement of being like a star. is going to be hard for him. Maybe his expectations as a player are going to come down. The problem I guess for Golden State is, are you even going to get, you know,

we always talk about like cents on the dollar for a player whenever we trade them. What are you going to get at this point? Do you think that they've improved? I'm assuming you're saying that they're going to move one of them or both of them. I don't even know. I'm just thinking big picture because I'm talking about

like, oh, if Caming does some play as a center, well, they already have a center. They're trying to develop too, right? So it's just like, it feels like Cominga and Wiseman both need the same role on this team. And so I just wonder if they'll have to prioritize one or the other when push comes to show. Yeah. Even before Cumminga got here, I guess the value conversations about Wiseman were already going on. Can you think of a better mentor?

I was thinking about this. Can you think of a better mentor for Jonathan Cumminga than Draymond Green? Like, could you cook one up in a lab? I mean, do you think that, I honestly think that Dremont, I don't have any direct information on this. Like, his impact on Wiggins, I think, in their system on Wiggins has been huge that, like, he's getting the right type of, he's getting the right kind of cultural kind of influence and the right kind of coaching. I mean, it does seem on paper like Dremont is like the perfect sort of mentor for Comingo. What do you think? I don't know because one,

Draymond's, you know, one of the best players in league he's trying to win a championship. I don't know how much time he really has for that right now. It is not like he's in the mentor stage of his career. Two, Draymond don't shoot anymore. I think Wiggins is a good shooter, so it works well. Dremont can set up Wiggins for shots. Well, Draymond don't really shoot anymore.

Kaming is not really a shooter either. So it's kind of the same spots in the floor. So I'm not sure. I think Kaminga needs to play. I think Wives needs to play too. And that's something else I'm very curious. I think Golden State will be really interesting to watch over the next couple of years beyond the fact that they're awesome. It's just how much does playing matter for these guys?

Will they be able to develop from the bench? Do they need that burn in games? Will they stagnant without playing time or will they actually get better? I don't know. Yeah. And if they do get better, what is the best for them long term? I guess just kind of you talked about the shooting right now. I mean, on the season, he has been a 29% three-point shooter.

He had like a five-game stretch around Christmas, which you were talking about, like, the COVID beneficiary thing. It's always weird to say people benefit from COVID, but that's any crisis, you know, there's going to be somebody's going to benefit in some way. But during that, he had a 10-game, like a 10-day stretch where he was averaging 11 points, shooting 64.4% true shooting, 50% from 3. As a shooter, do you believe in him as a shooter? Do you think the upside is there?

I mean, he doesn't have like a broken shot or anything, but I'm not going to believe in anyone who shoots free throws like he shoots. So right now he's at 56%. I don't think he was very high in the G league last year either. Let me look this up. I can't remember anymore. Yeah, in the G league last year, he shot 62%. And this year he's shooting 54.

the NBA. So anyone who chooses that from the free throw, and I'm not going to believe in the three-point shot, pretty much as a rule. Yeah, I have a hard time getting behind the dribble creation for him, like him creating his own. I can, I can believe that in some world, I mean, like Golden State has had... I mean, he can straight line drive for sure. He can definitely do that, like straight line drive to the rim and dunk it. If he can be a switchable active defender, which I think that he's shown more activity on that, on that side of the floor in this short sample with... And that, that was kind of what I was kind of what I was. I was getting at in terms of like, this is great for him just because he's in a place where just

even if Draymond doesn't say a word to him all season, if he's an impressionable, impressionable ambitious person, he's going to at least get some positive influence there. But if he can be a switchable five, and we really think that he can, I mean, he's a crazy athlete, he can guard all five positions. He's really flexible in his hips. He's super strong. You don't really usually get that combo all the time. but then if he can hit catch and shoot threes and be a straight line driver like you said

that's a valuable player don't you think yeah i mean i would love to see him as like a role man they don't do a lot of pick and roll in this offense too much i think they're like the lowest pick and roll team in the league or something but i think that's where his value's going to be early in his career is pick and roll cut into the basket setting up one two dribble finish the rim i think that's where you're going to get your money from Camingo right now. Yeah. And I think once the, once the ball goes to him right now, it's just kind of like he is the end.

He's a finisher. He's somebody that he's not a chef. Like that metaphor I've used in the past. He's, he's a patron. He eats what's in front of him. And it's like, you can see that from his, you know, this is one of my favorite stats, the assist of usage, 0.15, which is one of the lowest for somebody that has a lot of promise. Okay.

You want to break that down. It's a good stat. break it down to people. Explain that a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the people, a lot of people probably know, maybe some don't, but this assist usage is just like, how many assists are you getting, like how past first are you as a player, basically? How much? Okay, so your usage rate divided by your assist rate?

Is that what you're doing? It's assist rate divided by usage rate. I'm pretty positive as the way community class does it. But it's, it just kind of gives me a feel for how wasteful of a player you are a lot of times, you know, Like how quick, it's a good sort of measurement of quick decisions. I was joking about like Candace Parker on the broadcast, the NBA TV broadcast last night was talking about Draymond's ability to like quickly make a decision while barely having the ball. Yokic is another example of this.

Like players that just, they don't stay on the ball quickly and they still make good decisions, which is harder to do than I think people realize. But, um, Kaminga right now, he's just, he's at square zero on that front. And I think what I like about that step, that is ultimately basketball is a zero-sum game. There's only one ball and there's five players. So when you have the ball a lot, I just watch Spider-Man, you know,

great power, great responsibility, blah, blah, blah. When you have the ball a lot, you have the responsibility to move it as well. You can't just always hold it. So like for me, if a guy's high usage, I want to see a high assist rate too because that means he's playing within the team concept, not just jacking shots.

And you can be a guy who's high usage and low assists, but you better be an Uber, Uber, Uber efficient score, right? Because what it comes down to is you got to make the most of your opportunities because they're saying baseball where everybody can say I'm on a chance on the plate.

It's all even. Like, no, basketball, the ball has to move. And if you have the ball a lot, it's a responsibility. That means somebody else has it less. It means you've got to make the most of your time with the ball. Either you're passing it or you're scoring very efficiently.

So Cominga, showing a lot of promise. Like we said, the returns are early. They've been positive, but, you know, we want to see more. We're eager to see more. But it's been, it's been nice to see him flourish and kind of maximize his limited role on Golden State. And I'm eager to see what he does forward. But John, the point you were making about making the most of your usage in a limited

role is a great setup for the next guy that we want to talk about. Chet Holmgren. But before we do that, we're going to take a break. So, Chad Holmgren is a guy who got famous. I feel like people, casual basketball fans and, like, really into, he has an overlap. He fascinates the people who are hardcore nerds, and he's an interesting player. But, Charks, you wrote a really, he's a unique, interesting player. You wrote a really great piece the other day on Theringer.com.

What a great website about, about Chet. And in it, you said that he was, we, We unintentionally, I think, rehashed the conversation that we had about a player not too long ago. You said that Chet is a seven-foot Tyrese Halliburton. What did you mean by that? Okay. I guess to go back a little bit, most people at this point know about Chet. Chet first got famous for crossing up Steph Curry in an all-star game.

I think he was like 17. He was a high school junior. He was like 7 foot 150 or something. and he just like doing up Steph gets the rim and dunks it is all over Sports Center and everyone's like what the heck is this? Like who's this weirdo like pencil man's crossing up Steph Curry

and then the legend of Chet is built ever since he was number one player in his class in the last two years he was the guy and everyone was kind of looking up to him he's seven foot one so literally doing that this summer he wins you 19 gold

he's the MVP of the tournament goes to Kanzaga So he played basketball with Jalen Suggs in high school in Minnesota. So then he follows Suggs to Gonzaga. Now he's at Gonzaga. He's going to be a top three pick pretty much no matter what. And now it's like everyone's trying to figure out what he is at the next level. Hey, he's such as a fascinating player.

And I guess so the Halliburton stuff, the point I was making was that. So at Gonzaga this year, it's interesting because Gonzaga is his powerhouse team. it's not a team where a freshman can come in and just be the guy. Gonzagas had a lot of guys who are good. They pretty much always have two or three NBA props on their team. They share the ball really well. Look at Jalen Suggs last year. Suggs is like maybe the third or fourth option over the course of the season.

He wasn't their primary score. And now this year, been the same thing for Chet. So right now at Gonzaga, and I talk about in the article, The best way to think about Chet at Gonzaga is Gonzaga has a big man named Drew Timmy, who's the man there? He was an All-American last year. He's a junior. He's a traditional post score. He's actually from Dallas.

So I've got to give Timmy some love. And Timmy is kind of like DeMontes a bonus. He's a power forward post-up guy, needs the ball, not a shooter, not really a defender. And they're kind of using Chet like Miles Turner. and they're having Chet compliment to me and Chet's not really getting to be the man. Chet's kind of have to find his own way,

create his own offense off his own hustle. And I called him a seven foot Tyrese Halliburton because what's happening this year at Gonzaga is he has a very small role, but he's uber, over, over, over efficient. His true shooting is off the charts. He don't take a lot of shots, but the shots he takes he makes,

he doesn't hardly ever miss either. So you want to run through his numbers, Kyle, because his numbers are ridiculous. Yeah, you said true shooting, 68.5 true shooting. He's 35.1% from three. I want to talk to you more about that. But the thing that you were talking about with a big guy, especially, the assiste usage for him, 0.7. Very good for how little he's touching the ball and his role at this point. For a reference, a year ago, Evan Mobley was 0.62.

So he's and Drew Timmy like you were saying very dominant. They're like a very post-dominate player, 46.3% of his possessions. And he's not a great pass-out guy. That's kind of one of the dynamics I really wanted to talk with you about. Okay, hold on one second. Yeah. I think the number I wanted you to say what you didn't say is, okay. So here's a good comparison.

Well, I'm sorry. So right now, Chet, well, thank you for apologizing. I appreciate that. So chat right now is shooting. 76% from two point range. That's your favorite number lately, 2% number. Yeah, I'm all about it. It's absolutely preposterous to shoot 76% in two point range.

The only people who shoot like that are pretty much, it's like your Mitchell Robinson, guys who literally just catch and dunk, pick and rolls, catch lobs, and finish. So as like for Chet, I think, a good comparison point. So the other top guys in this draft is, is Paolo Boncherro at Duke, Jabari Smith at Auburn.

So Chet's shooting 76% from two. Palo's shooting 54% and Jabari's shooting 46%. And it's not to dunk those other two guys. The point is just that's how efficient Chet is. It's like a magnitude higher from the efficiency. He's dunking, not to like, overwhelm people to death here, but he's dunking 41.1% of the time. So you're right.

It's not like he's like dunk everything. He does have some touch around the rim. I'm curious, I think going forward, what do you think his like, does he have a primary, like, implied mode of offense going forward? We're talking about him, like, making the most of limited touches. I think that he would probably thrive more and get more easy buckets if he was playing with a five that could get him some easy ones. Because like we were saying, Timmy is pretty much, he's a really efficient post score. And you can see why Gonzaga wants to win a title. They're trying to get over that home.

They're probably not going to, you know, say, hey, Timmy, take a freaking hike. Their best bet, probably, even though Baylor kind of humiliated him defensively last year and they might do it again this year. We'll see. What do you think if Chet were left to his own devices on a team, maybe a lesser team in college, what do you think his primary mode of offense is going forward? Like, what would it be at college and then what do you expect it to be in the NBA? Well, that's what makes it such an interesting conversation. because so I talk about in the piece,

it's a hypothetical off a hypothetical. We don't know what it would look like. And there's not really a great example in the NBA because Chet's such a unique player. So even if Chet wasn't a primary role in college and he was dominating, there would still be a lot of conversation of, would this work in the NBA?

How many 7 foot 1, 200 pounds centers are there? Right. It doesn't really make sense. So even if he was the primary guy, people would still ask a billion questions about, can this translate? Except now he's not the primary guy at all. So you're having to guess what he would be in college so that you can guess what he'd be in the NBA. So it's like multiple levels of guessing.

And that's the thing. It's like, I don't know because there's not really a comparison for him, right? Like the kind of things Chet does, what's the comparison for Chet? Like there's not one, right? People talk a lot about his body type. Porzingis is one that comes up a lot. Do you like that one, dislike that one? No, I don't.

I think Chet's got a way higher feel for the game than Porzingus. Porzingis is kind of more in that comminga line where he gets his buckets and that's kind of it. He's not really a passer or a field player. Chet's a very, very high field player. Very smart. It's funny to watch just the trail of negativity for Porzengas because in New York City, it was just like they were ready to build a statue of him

on the top of Madison's Creek Garden. Like that's where Jesus is coming back. Like that's the most holy place on earth. And then when he leaves there, everybody's just like, fuck him, hate him, get out of here.

He sucks. And then it's, and then the same thing, Dallas people, not to get up towards anything's thing here, but Dallas people. That's, yeah.

I can't even. Come on, baby. And now your, your negativity. I don't have the energy for it. I don't have the energy for it. KP's been great this year.

That's a whole different conversation. It is, it is. But I think the physicality is a question. Like, I mean, whether or not he's going to be able to put, he is very, very skinny. And even, like, physically, you know, at least KP has put on some muscle. We were talking about the difference between, like, it's hard to tell with skinny guys when they're skinny at 17, 18, what they're going to do when they turn 25. We were talking about Jalen Green to, like, people wanted to say Zach Levine.

Well, Zach Levine is like a truck now, but he has, like, that lean muscle. And he didn't lose. It's just hard to know if you're going to be able to put on that lean muscle. like Anthony Davis, very skinny in college, broad shoulders, put on a bunch of weight. He's stronger now. Maybe a little too strong now. He's a little immobile injuries could be part of that too. I guess the weight thing is that going to, because I mean, he's as skinny as Poku.

And Poku doesn't look like he's put on an ounce since he's been in the league. Maybe he has. But is, do you think that like the speed and the physicality of the NBA, I think the Duke game was kind of, they have a lot of kind of sturdy athletes that are really explosive. of do you think that's, have you seen anything this year that's going to make you think that the physicality is going to be an issue for him going forward, especially at his position? Well, yeah, I mean, I talk about in the piece, he really is blue chip Poku, right? It's the same kind of frame except Poku never really did anything for the NBA,

whereas Chet is like five-star, super pedigreed, dominated his age class, his whole life kind of thing. So it's the same, but it's also different. And I don't know. I kind of want to believe in shit. I find myself the more I watched them because before I did my article, I'd watch them, obviously, but I hadn't like watched them, watched them and deep dived in them. Okay, so this is going to sound stupid, but bear with me. I will. So I started playing basketball again after going through chemo. And I can't move anymore after going through that. Like, not that I was very very fast to begin with, but I definitely can't move anymore. And all I have now,

So I'm six foot four. So when I'm playing pickup, I'm usually the tallest guy on the floor. So one thing I'm pretty good at, I have a decent enough handle. So I can get to the spots where I want to get to shoot. So what my game is now is I've realized if I'm taller than you and I can dribble, it doesn't really matter how fast I'm going. Like it doesn't. I can get to my spot and shoot over you.

And if you double me and I can pass, then I always have options. point being, I think Chet at 18 already knows this. Like, Chet knows he plays at his own pace. He's got the physical advantage and he has the skill set. So I don't know. I think everyone assumes that, oh,

there's no way to us can work in the NBA because we've never seen it before. But to me, that doesn't mean it can't work. I wonder if, and to me, I go back to that U-19 game, what he took over against Wendanyama. And this is an example of, so Victor Wenbenyama, he's a seven foot three kind of next Rudy Gobert. Most people think he could be like a top two pick in the 20203 draft.

More offensively talented, Gober, yeah. Yeah. But the same kind of thing is seven foot three elite defensive center. Yeah. And Chet just did him up when he came down to it because he ran him around screens. He caught the ball at 18 feet, dribbled twice, used the baskets to protect him, caught the ball, like played on off the ball, move the ball. And it's like the things Chet is doing at lower levels as 7 foot one guard, I'm not sure can't work in the NBA. Like obviously it's different because you can't say for sure because we've never seen it before.

But I'm also not willing to say that it can't work either. Yeah. I mean, we're coming back to that Black Swan fallacy thing that I've talked with people about in the past on other shows. But like we think that we because we haven't seen it that it couldn't happen again. And I think that the starting point for Chet, you were talking about his pay. I think in your mind when you think about somebody that that's that is that tall, and you think about them dribbling, it's just like basically it just comes down to like measurements at some point where you're like if he's going to dribble like that, you assume that he's going to be

really vulnerable, he's going to get out of control, things like that. I'm not seeing he has like an elite handle, but I mean, for his size, he is a very good handle and he doesn't get sped up. It's functional, right? Yeah, he doesn't really get sped up. He gets low to the ground. He handles contact pretty well. The only time I ever see him kind of looking like contact might be bothering him is when people kind of like shove him under the rim. You know, you see that happen sometimes? He'll just get out of position because he's too skinny to claim his space. And the other thing that we didn't mention is that, man, he is a seven foot six wingspan. And positionally, I think defensively, that's big because he's not as, he doesn't really fly around and get out of position. He seems to have a really

good sense of the value of his link if he plays at a certain conservative kind of style because people, I was checking the post up numbers again on him. Like they have tried, let me see, I have this written up. Teams have tried to post him up over the course of the year and it's been basically, it's been an abject failure. I mean, because he just, he knows if he goes vertical, he can just swallow people up. So, but the point I was going to make, though, is just that, like, you're right that we are assuming a lot, but it's, like all the starting points there if you want to be optimistic and you want to say like upside at the top of the at the top of the draft we want to pick like this guy could be a superstar we haven't told the problem is that we haven't totally seen it but the starting point for a lot of these skills are pretty good like i could believe him being a pick and pop shooter i don't know how much about him being like a self-created shooter what do you what do you think about the shooting because i feel like that's one of the big if he turns into a pretty good shooter um i mean

that that's a pretty is there a disaster scenario for chet like without the shooting no i don't think so and i think that's what makes a good prospect to go back a little bit so you're talking about like his 7 but 6 wingspan and the number when i was breaking down evan mobley last year and the number i realized really told the tail was that he averaged more blocks than fouls that is truly remarkable like that should not happen yeah like basically most young big guys men, if they're going to block a lot of shots, it's because they're fouling a lot, too, because they're super aggressive. And then there's also guys who don't block a lot of shots.

Also, they don't get a lot of fouls because they're not aggressive on defense. And that's bad, too. The best of both worlds, guy who can block a lot of shots while also being able to avoid fouls. Because that means he can be aggressive and also be under control. And so I went and looked at from the article, like the last 10 years, the guys drafted top three in terms of the time. of block to foul ratio.

And it was Davis, Chet, and Mowbly and a massive drop-off. Wow. Everybody else was like below one, basically. So Cat, A, and even M-Bid. M-B's a good example of this. Embededed got a ton of blocks in college, but he also fouled even more, which made sense because he just started going to play basketball. And that's the more normal trajectory.

When you have a guy like 80, Chet, or Mowley, who's blocking a ton of shots without fouling, that tells you he knows how to play basketball. He's just a really, really smart player. He knows how to use his length. And so to me, with Chet, the floor is very high because of his defensive ability. Even if he can't be a traditional five, I think he can guard smaller fours. He's not like he's fast enough. He's smart enough.

He can contain those guys off the dribble. So that gives you a lot of different outs in terms of how to build around it. That makes sense. Yeah. And I think the high floor point is a really good one because this draft in particular when you start to think about the people at the top and we're going to have more and more conversations about this and parse the sample to try to hone in on who we who we think is going to go number one things like that when you think about the haliburton effect of like this guy maximizes

limited touch limited touches and he's like very efficient i have a hard time thinking that this guy's going to be a bad NBA player like i have like you were saying i texted you last night was saying I've warmed up to him more in the past couple weeks just thinking about this thing. Looking at the statistical profile, there's only like one other player, and it's Jay Huff, who played for Virginia last year, who had like a similar game impact, not nearly the same. Like, I think the passing upside could be there. His passing touch is actually not bad at all. I can see his passing craft get good with either hand.

I feel pretty confident. I wanted to ask you something really interesting is just the teams that are going to be at the top of this draft. Yeah, maybe somebody gets. up into this order. I doubt it. But we start looking at some of these fits. There are some really fascinating fits at the top of this draft. Is there one that jumps out to you? Is there a place that you

see and you're just like, Chet would be amazing on this team? That's an interesting question. Let me look at that for a second. I probably should prepare for this. No, it's okay. I've blindsided you with a little bit. But I mean, I'll go and tell you there's a couple that really stand out to me.

I said this to KOC on his show. Houston is the one. What stands out in you? Houston, to me, sounds awesome. Like, I could see him being, I could see him playing in lineups with Shingun. I could see him supporting Dailen Green in the right ways. He gives you some more, I mean, he gives you length on defense. I think eventually if he grows into a spacer.

I think that's a really fascinating fit. Did you have one that jumped out off top of your head? I think Chet fits anywhere. I'd love to see him with Cade. I think him and Kay would be awesome together. Houston would make sense too. I mean, really anywhere, I'd see him in Oklahoma City playing with Shea and Giddy.

That'd be a very, very long high IQ team. Oh, yeah. I think that makes a ton of sense. I don't know that. I mean, really check go anywhere. I don't know that he's going to be able to, I don't know that he's going to be, okay, so he's going to be able to get up there to get him

because they can't seem to be bad enough to get up there. That's been their problem. I mean, it's all luck anyways. I mean, one of those top, bottom eight teams can get it now. There's not really much you can do about it. With this set numbers, you're right. Yeah, I mean, Cade hypothetically gives him the kind of partner that he needs. That would be pretty fun.

I actually think that, like, Portland is a sneaky team. Like, if for some reason teams prioritized Jabbar or Paolo over him and somehow Portland, like, that's an interesting thing because he's a Pack Northwest kid, you know, throwing Minnesota in there. But that's an interesting one. Orlando, too, right, play with Jalen Suggs, the old high school connection again. That might be fun. Yeah, that's a fun one. And I do like the OKC one. So really, really quick before we wrap that up, like, how do you feel just putting him on this, putting you on the spot here?

How do you feel about Chet going number one? Right now, I mean, I have not, like, I've got to really break down Jabari. And you're doing a big Jabari Smith piece. Maybe we'll talk about that pretty soon. I've got to break down Jabari and Powell the same way, to be fair. I mean, what I've seen from Chet, I've loved. and if right now if I had to pick, I'd pick him one. But I also have not deep dive into those guys.

Like I've died in the chat. There's definitely sometimes where the more you watch a guy, you kind of start to fall in love with him, you start to believe in him. I will say this though. So when you were out in Vegas, and when I was talking to NBA folks about the draft and talking about Chet, talking about comps,

and the name that kind of hangs around him, people will say, well, he's not Evan Mobley. He kind of has Evan Mobley's role, but he's not as good as Evan Mobley. And I said, yes, this is true. Evan Mobley is like, you know why I feel about Evan Mobley? He's the truth. I think what gets missed in that conversation is, let's not forget people who were sleeping on Evan Mobley all the last year.

He went three in the draft. And maybe people are sleeping on Shet for the same reasons because there are similar types of players. So just because he's not as good as Evan Mobley does many camp, number one player in this year's draft. Because if the bar is, yeah, because Evan Mobley, then pretty much nobody ever is going to jump that one.

Yeah. And we sort of have a way of praising players who come into their college situation and take over and that they are dominant and they want the rock in the last minute and things like that. And it's like, maybe there is some virtue in just blending in and being malleable to a team concept.

I mean, it's kind of we do have a tendency to talk out of both sides of our mouth with that kind of thing. So it's going to be, it's going to be a really fun draft discussion. I love that this stuff is starting to like heat up because this is my favorite like us figuring this out. Okay, actually.

Yeah. I think one thing with Chad, we should talk about for you get out of here. Okay. You kind of ask me about his offensive role to go back to that. I do wonder, and this is something I'm really starting to believe

more and more as time goes on and maybe I'll write up this at some point is I do think when you've got a tall jump shooting big man, the temptation is to make him a three-point shooter and I don't think that's actually the way to go. So as a Dallas guy, you want to know how many threes Dirk took in his NBA career. It's a lot fewer than you would think.

Well, the game changed a lot over that course of time. Of course, he was a pioneer. I'd be curious about, like, relative to the mean how many he took, but how many did he take? But his highest ever was 4.6. He was like 4.9, 1 years. He never took more than 5 a game. And yes, the mean accelerated.

But I don't think putting Dirk further and further away from the basket would have done him much good. I think Dirk was great because he had that mid-post game. Like Dirk went a lot of ways. He was a taller Carmelo Anthony. Oh, yeah. That's what made him so great. It wasn't shooting threes. It was, I'm getting the ball at 15 feet backing you down and, you know, the Dirk fadeaway shot.

That's the area of the floor, I think. Because I think when you're seven feet tall, seven foot one, KD2, KD don't shoot a ton of threes, right? You would assume, right, okay, he's going to shoot threes every single time. It's the same kind of thing. Katie has always resisted taking threes. And I think that's because Dirk and KD are like crazy smart players. They know how to leverage their skills. And what makes them great is at seven feet tall, they can, like,

because when you're seven feet tall, the mid-range is that they open to you. Oh, yeah. That's the thing I think people understand. When you're that tall, the mid-range is like a layup because you're just shooting over, guys. There's no one in the way to you from the basket. and then you can leverage your size. Okay, if I'm a mid-range shooter, then you play up on me,

then it's one dribble to the rim. And I think sometimes a guy like cats, an example for me, I feel like cats sometimes, which is weird to say because I remember I read a big article like a couple of years ago and I was like, Katz's great three-point shooting feature of the game.

I think he takes too many threes. Because with cats, you watch him sometimes, he'll pump thick off to three and it's just really long, lumbering thing to the basket. it's not very graceful. You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, I mean, he's more agile than he should be, but you're right. It's not like the most efficient, effective thing for sure. Like, it's not necessary. You're seven feet tall. Either shoot a 12-foot shot, take one dribble and shoot a layup. It's all you got to do. Yeah.

And I guess to bring it all around, that's where I'd want to see Chet make his money. Kind of what Mowgli does now. Mowgli takes like two or three-threes a game. Even he's playing with Jared Allen. And I think, and for as high as I was on, I didn't think he'd be this good with the traditional center. But I think if you're a great touch and you're a good passer,

you can make it work in tighter spaces. Yeah. And I think Chech can do the same thing. I'd want to see Chet playing at 15 to 18 feet and going to the basket. Yeah. The dual big thing works if you have, if you can space and kind of complement each other with the passing, like, get the ball can come through you or you can space for them.

A couple, just a couple notes to sort of put a bow on this. You're talking about the shooting. It's not quite there yet because even off of like in spot up situations where he is shooting with no dribble, he's four for 17 on the season. So he's more of a hypothetical shooter than I can believe. I don't have his like earlier high school or like I think he was like an underarmor circuit player. I don't have those in front of me. But another thing too is just being open to expand because KD and Dirk both well, one because of the other, Dirk was open to adding that physical midrange game.

I know you've written about this in the past. And then KD actually mimics. that later on. So you do need to kind of have everything in moderation, you know, you have to be, if you can't be leaning too heavily like cat on one thing, because if they take it away, you've got to have any answer in the playoffs. It's like, Yonis is kind of running into that. So anyway, Chad Holmgren, I mean, super fast, any player. So John, before we go, you know, you've had a hell of a year. I mean, you, you had talk a little bit about your journey, you know, for people that don't know, John got diagnosed with, uh,

a form of ewing sarcoma, right, which is a rare type for adults. Yeah. People ask a lot. They want to know how you're doing. Give us an update. How you're doing? Okay. Yeah.

So it's actually, it's a Ewing's like sarcoma. Oh, okay. So Ewing sarcoma is its own thing. What I have is even rare than that. I was diagnosed in, I guess, late, late April of 2020. I did a six-month course of chemo treatment. I finished that in November. And I'm feeling pretty good.

So when I was diagnosed, I had like, they said, I was, it's called stage four because it had spread throughout my body when they found it. So they had, they called it an innumerable number of tumors. So I went through my chemo treatment. They said, we're going to stop for a while, see how it went. I got re-scanned again right after Christmas. Unfortunately, I've had a few come back. which means I'll be going back into chemo pretty soon.

I don't expect it'll impact much with the pod. We'll see. I will keep you all informed about that. But I'll be going back into chemo in the next couple weeks and going, I think, at least for another four or five months, have another round of treatment. All right. Well, you know, obviously we're pulling for you.

Love talking hoops. You're one of my favorite people to talk hoops with. And I enjoy doing this show. And, you know, if I'm sure, you know, reach out to sharks and, you know, we're all pulling for you, you know. And I know my wife and I are praying for you and thinking about you guys all the time. Oh, is that right? Really? I appreciate that.

I know you know much for praying guys. I appreciate it. Oh, Jesus. Well, literally. I knew you were going to do that. Well, you said it. I wasn't going to say anything. Anytime we get, we broached that.

You always do that too. Oh, God. I'm like turning... Well, it means a lot to me yet you would. And I definitely appreciate tons of folks have reached out, said they're praying. It means a lot. I've gotten a ton of support. More than I really expected

through this whole process and it does mean a lot to me. I appreciate it. However, you channel the positivity of the universe throw it John's way. And we appreciate you guys listening and subscribe and listen to all the ringer NBA shows. Stay tuned.

They're going to keep coming because basketball is really going to be ramping up here in the spring. And it's very good. and we appreciate you. You follow me on Twitter, follow our work on Twitter, on Theringer.com,

and we will catch you. Oh, one more thing, I think, before we close off the Chet, I think, I forgot to mention this. Should I just redo the whole outro? No, no, no, it's fine.

What's hard with Chet, too, on top of everything else, is Gonzaga's now moved from non-conference play where they play all the elite team, basically. Now they're into conference play in the West Coast Conference.

So on top of it, it's going to be even hard to evaluate Chet because their big games now are like BYU, St. Mary's, University of San Francisco, just not schools. A lot of NBA prospects, a lot of NBA big men. So that makes it even more complicated. With Chet, really, it might be the NCAA tournament before we really get to see them against the league competition again. So that's just one more variable to keep in mind. Like, you'll be watching Chudney ESPN. He'll be playing people you never even heard of, most likely. You can watch them for many months.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, or if a school has like a COVID cancellation. I've heard some discussion of that. Maybe even Kentucky, that'd be pretty fun. But yeah, maybe even the tournament. So there's, there's your homework to look forward to on chat. And, but yeah, we will be back next week to talk to talk upside, to talk prospects, to talk to rookies, what have you.

And, yeah, we'll catch you later, guys. Peace. All right, thanks, show.