The Ringer NBA Show - Learning to Survive in the NBA as a Former Top 10 Pick | The Answer

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Seerat and Kyle get together to share their invigorating experiences trying to follow the blistering 15-game NBA TV schedule on Monday evening. Then they introduce their multi-episode theme of adapting to change in the NBA by detailing the career of Dennis Smith Jr. as an example of a player whose particular skill set may have been developed for a basketball world that doesn't exist.(6:12) They closely examine his journeyman career through the league to his current home in Charlotte and speculate on what lies ahead for him on the team and beyond.(28:32) Finally, they discuss other players around the league who could learn from Dennis Smith Jr.'s story,(41:19) and debate if Luka Doncic's astronomical usage rate is a viable pathway to success for the Mavericks.(53:58) Hosts: Seerat Sohi and J. Kyle Mann Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Ben Cruz and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O'Bomber, aka Kevin O'Connor. Wait a minute, you're not Chris Vernon. No, Kevin, sadly, I'm not as cherubic or as raspy as Verno, but it is I, Jay Kyle, man. And folks, basketball has been and continues to be so very good. That's exactly why Kyle and I are hosting a brand new basketball show on a brand new podcast feed, the ringers NBA draft show. We're going to have you covered every week as we go in-depth and deep dive in hopes of answering an ever-important question in the NBA. Who's got next?

Whether it's an international phenom like Victor Wynbenyama or the G-League Scoot Henderson. Or stars from Overtime Elite like A.M. Thompson, as well as a full-blown swarm of talented prospects from the promising 2023 NBA draft class. For sure, Kyle. And we're also going to get into players from the college ranks because this is a loaded class. for us to discuss prospects rising and falling, and we're going to revisit and redraft recent draft classes and get into how the league's evolution

could help inform what's valuable in a prospect of the future. This is a podcast for a fan of every team, whether you're losing and have high draft lottery odds or you're looking for sleepers later in the draft. We're going to be covering everything in the months that come, so please make sure you follow and subscribe to the Ringer NBA Draft Show. And hit us with those five-star ratings. The answer.

it's going. It's going great. You know, I'm kind of recovering from a really late night of basketball last night. I don't know how your days are, but mine are kind of broken up where I have my like daytime work hours and then I have my nighttime sit with a laptop kind of thing and 15 games last night because the, you know, of election day, which I, you know, applaud the NBA for doing that. But a lot of games going. I kind of had like a crazy screen thing going on. And I wanted to ask you, like what kind of a are you like a multi-screen person do you do you like even bother i'm kind of a i'm kind of a tech production nerd so i like to have like a couple screens going or do you like commit to one game do you how much do you divide your attention is what i'm asking basically

i really personally enjoy the story of one game you know the story of like that's such a writer answer it really is i also have a very hard time paying attention to even one thing at once so if I tried to multitask, it would just get really bad. Like, that's why I don't really check Twitter during games. If anything, sometimes I'll try to watch a little bit later. So I'm disincentivized from like even looking at my, like my phone. So yeah, I'm more of a one game type of gal, you know. Yeah.

I enjoy the thrill of having like the command center thing going. You know, like I have my computer monitor and I have a TV. And when we demote our TV in our living room, I'm going to move it in here. and my wife, her eye rolling was so loud. It could be heard from space. She was like, you don't need another TV in there. And I was like, I want one. But no, I agree.

Like monitoring Twitter is like the biggest, I think, like ADD distraction for me if I'm watching and like Synergy and stuff the next day is a way more efficient way to do it. But it's fun to be in the like, it's fun. I do like watching them the night of. Synergy the next morning is good if you're trying to figure something out. but I found that like my attention span really, really lowers if I, if I already know the outcome and if it's the next day, it just doesn't feel as urgent, you know? So it's a little,

it's a little bit more difficult. But I do like, I do like as a night goes on and everything kind of goes from like, okay, we're late third quarter. And now it's going to be the fourth quarter of one game, 10 minutes and five minutes left in the fourth and the other one. That's when I like going back and forth,

especially if the games are close. Yeah, like league pass red zone, kind of a makeshift league pass red zone. Pretty much, which by the way, by the way, Chris and I talked about this a ton last year. But why don't we have that yet? Chris, who's this? Chris, the guy that you've locked in the basement and the allowed to come out.

Yeah, you went from one pale bald guy to another pale ball guy. It's been a great, it's been a great arc for you with you podcasts or no, one of the best potters in the world to just some dude from Kentucky. Yeah. Did any games like last night? like jump out to you like in terms of like I know I mean there were some good ones I mean the jazz beating the piss out of the Lakers was pretty interesting I think that's pretty wild I think Michael made the comment about uh it's it's just really interesting that the jazz have more good NBA players than the Lakers um I don't know did anything like rock your world last night result

wise uh the end of Nets Mavericks was pretty interesting and we'll talk about that one later uh I caught caught the Raptors game which was just deflating one of those tiring nights Nothing really stuck out to me last night, though, honestly. I think actually last night I tried to watch too many games at once as well. Yeah. So now I'm just coming out here and like my thoughts are completely disorganized. We're lucky that we're not actually talking about the games today because you'd be carrying that. It's a lot.

It's a lot. Yeah. I mean, the Pacers taking in the Pelicans was interesting. Blazers going to Miami and beating the heat was interesting. You know, don't leave the strong side corner on a game winning play like that. maybe make whoever make make a tough shot there at the end but damian lillard yeah well i forgot who had the ball i was like yeah i think it well i thought it was dame but there's always somebody kind did dame had the ball and con when you watching um it's like believe me folks we're i'm that person right now

but yeah it was a lot it was a lot of basketball i think that like you're you're definitely right though that like focusing you can watch too many at once it's better to it's better to kind of pick a lane and stay there. And that was something that's something people, wiser minds told me once I started doing this. So we kind of pick your battles because you can do too many things at once. Yeah, if only I had tapped into my higher wisdom last night. At the last, I did not.

But we have actually something very exciting to introduce today. We've been talking about it for a while, working on it for a while. So I'm really excited. But what we're essentially going to be doing is a series on change for the next couple of weeks. Or actually, to be honest, I don't even know how long this thing is. going to run for. I kind of feel like we could just keep we could just keep it going forever. The more we talk about it, the more facets. I feel like it's a thing that we pick up and we turn and we're like a stone and we're like, oh, there's another facet, right? Yeah, that's like another

part of it. Like, just change in the NBA. I mean, like evolution, adaptation. Adjustments. Adjustments. What it takes to survive because it's kind of like, I don't know. What would you say is like the cornerstone thing that like makes this such a relevant topic in the NBA. Like is it just, do you think that the league is just getting better fast? I've heard people talk about this a lot about like, you know, there's so much talent in the league. There's so much. It just seems like the info and the quality of info has just like skyrocketed in the past like 10 years in the NBA, don't you think? Absolutely.

And I think that that's actually made the rate of like the change actually faster as well. you know, changes happen more rapidly because I think we have more eyeballs on the NBA, on what's happening. We also have more stats to tell us what's going on. So, you know, the whole league is essentially about making adjustments. It's looking at what wins, what loses, and trying to adapt your team to that. Or if you're a player trying to cultivate a game that, you know, is going to be valuable in those circumstances, you want to draft for those circumstances.

So you always need to be mapping out what the future of the league is. And in a league that changes this quickly, that's very difficult to do. But it actually reminds me of a book I read a long time ago by this author named Stephen Johnson. And it's called Where Good Ideas Come From. And it's essentially, it talks about the settings that allow for evolution. And desperation is obviously a big part of it. And the NBA desperation is huge. But the other thing is just how many people are trying to solve a problem at once.

And that is something that has changed rapidly in the NBA. Now, in our larger universe, what he found was that at some point, during, you know, like the 1900s or actually probably earlier in that, the critical mass was pretty much formed. And any idea that is going to happen or that could happen exist in our universe is going to happen. you know, and he talked about this concept of the adjacent possible. And it is a space between the things that already exist and the things that will exist in the future based on the ingredients that we currently have. And, you know, one of the things he talks about is Darwin, the theory of evolution. If Darwin ever came up with a theory of evolution, somebody else was going to.

It could have happened 20 years later. It could have happened in a different setting. And the world would have probably looked slightly different as a result of that, but it was going to happen regardless. And now we're in this place. Like we see it, one of the biggest examples of this is probably when it comes to joke stealing in comedy. People are always accusing other people of stealing other people's jokes. Not to say that that doesn't happen. There are some pretty damning instances of that happening for real.

Or, you know, tweets. You know, somebody will come up with a viral tweet and right under it there will be like another response of, you know, of that tweet, essentially suggesting that it's been stolen. But in reality, we're all kind of engaging with similar stuff. So our brains are going to go into similar places. And those sort of ideas just happen organically for a bunch of people at once. Now, you know, like the world population has never been higher. And like more people than ever have access to all kinds of information from different realms, too,

which is a big part of his thesis, too, is that the more you kind of focus on, if you like basketball and music and you like to read and you're like, I'm just throwing out, you know, basically examples of things that kind of Kyle Mann loves to do, which is why he's always full of great ideas. Sure. Butter me up. Right. Yeah.

Always full of just incredible ideas. No, I mean like segueing that to basketball. I think that we, the quality of information and I just was the, the speed of iteration is kind of the thing that has blown my mind the most. You were talking about like desperation, which I think is a nice like segue to the first element of what we want to talk about here is that like, and I guess. we'll just introduce it. The first element here that we want to talk about is surviving in the NBA as you adjust, in terms of young players who are going from level to level. And what it takes

to, you know, and there are a lot of elements to that. Like when you come into the league, maybe you have an established identity and that gets shattered. Maybe there was something about the way that you were playing in lower levels that didn't translate. Maybe you were mis-evaluated. I guess to segue into the person that we were going to talk about, there was one person recently that has been really topical for this conversation that we both kind of picked out is Dennis Smith Jr. How would you describe Dennis Smith Jr.'s year so far? I mean, we're what 10, 11 games into the season?

What has stood out to you? You have a pretty thorough outline here. I'll let you just take it. Well, I think he's a great example of what you, would call a guy who probably went into the wrong developmental track based on what the world was going to look like, right? You know, I think in high school, we all saw the incredible highlight reels. He was basically just an aggressive microwave score that could get in front of anybody

and do whatever he wanted at the high school level. He's just incredibly athletic. This is a guy, you know, he tore his ACL and they found more ACL, right? Like, he's just... Tell that story really quickly. because I follow this stuff and I don't even know if I heard about this. I don't know how, but yeah. So there was this video around, that started circulating probably like right before the 2017 NBA drafts.

He tore his ACL in his senior year of high school. And I believe he dunked. I don't remember the exact time after, but he dunked like six weeks after. Because after tearing his ACL, they were just like, oh, okay, there's just more of it here. And he was just able to dunk. And it was just kind of one of those weird, incredible things. And, you know, it's somebody who's not like he hasn't had injury history. Like the injuries did come back and bite him later, but he had just, he continues to still have incredible, incredible athleticism and, you know, played football, played basketball.

So the options for him seemed kind of limitless. And at the time, I think the developmental track that he was on was to be a star, right? That seemed like the ingredients that he had. But, you know, by the time that he entered the NBA, and we'll get into, because he was on, kind of his trajectory and everything. But the thing that sticks out to me is he entered the NBA in a time where the small scoring guard was really going out of fashion, you know. So despite all the work that he put in to, you know, develop his game, like, unless he

was going to be John Morant, there wasn't going to be a lot of room for him to actually become a star. And, you know, Dennis Smith Jr., I think is somebody who ended up just not, being efficient enough to justify the kind of shots that he was taking. He was obviously just somebody who gets to the rim, but, you know, was also over-reliant on a jumper that, you know, that never really was quite accurate enough and kind of ended up in this in this no man's land. Yeah. I mean, if you think about like what the NBA was like, you're talking about the scoring guard, I'm trying to think of examples of guys like back in the early, in the 90s, in the 80s

in the early 2000s when the NBA like assist numbers across the board just plummeted. And we were kind of in the post Jordan ISO era, the post shack. So we just had a, the thing I always bring up is just that we had a league full of big, like a glut of big players who were being drafted just to battle shack because that was the standard that you kind of had to get past. But then you also just kind of had this ISO era that was in a response to the 90s. So we had a lot of just kind of one on one. The game was just different, you know,

getting off the ball and like ball movement and flow and things like that. It hadn't really, we hadn't hit that revolution with like the pace and space, the player control, hand checking rules, things like that, all those things that change the game. You know, offensive flow and shooting and efficiency, that kind of put, you know, I think that it put a strain on players like Dennis. And also I think that like as advanced stats kind of bubbled up like we were talking about, Some of those things kind of became more like obvious that like, hey, this is like maybe not a great way to play. Of course, if you can't hit a shot, you know, I think that that's not necessarily the toughest thing in the world to decode.

But talking about his timeline, you said like he was a converted football player. We were talking about that he had like multiple college offers. We're talking about like an elite elite athlete who's had like really tough injury history too. If you go through and you look at like some of the stuff, his injury history that I'm looking at here, he had, you know, knee trouble his first year, sore knees, sore hips, sore ankles, still having ankle problems, had sore wrist problems in 2018, got hitting the tooth. I don't know the story behind that one. He's had a lot of unfortunate injuries. Yeah, yeah, but he's basically, we're talking about a hyperathletic point guard in an era when the NBA was changing, you know,

around 2014 to 2017. We know like the NBA changed dramatically. And guys, guys these like incendiary point guards. We used to think that you could just plug them in and it would just work. So he gets to Dallas, I think is our next step here, right? Well, let's start with, let's start with 2017, like the lead up to the draft there. Because I think one thing that's interesting is that just months before the draft, Russell Westbrook wins the MVP award. So it's not like, you know, Dennis Smith Jr. or the people around him are completely off base on his development, right?

So pre-draft, he works out with the Lakers and he went on the Hefe Island show this summer. Good channel, by the way. We want to shot that guy out. He has great interviews, underrated channel on YouTube. Check it out. Yeah, he gets guys to say stuff. He does. Yeah, I've checked his channel up before.

He had one with David West that was really good. I was like, I've never heard David West talk like this. Anyway. Yeah. So Dennis Smith, he tells, he tells us. Hefe Island here, that the Lakers are actually going to try to trade for the fifth pick in the draft to take both him and Lanzo ball in that draft. And that would have been a really fascinating alternate history where, you know, instead of going to the Mavericks the year before Luca got there, he actually would have been more of an off-ball combo guard secondary playmaker, which, you know, his lack of floor spacing at the time would have hurt, but at the same time probably could have led to a better shot profile for him and maybe a different trajectory.

for his career. This is like the Lakers team with rookie Kyle Kuzma, who is, by the way, rookie Kyle Kuzma was a goddamn sensation. Having dinners with Kobe. You know, you can catch him at Nobu Malibu. That'll be the next edition of the Lakers Hulu Doc.

It would be like, rookie Kuzma. Yeah, I don't know if they'll do the same numbers. The reinvention of Kyle Kuzma is also, that should be a fun thing that we get into one day. That would be an episode that won't be listened to. The Kings keep their pick.

They take the Aaron Fox at the fifth pick. Then he has, he's had two workouts with the Orlando Magic. So he thinks maybe he'll go there. They have the sixth pick. They've already got Alfred Peyton, Mario Hazzonia, Evan Fornier, Fornier. So they take Jonathan Isaac. And I think Peyton is actually a guy who kind of fit into this mold and was just a little bit later down the line.

And maybe he is somebody to kind of have in mind here as someone who could have gone down the path that Dennis Smith Jr. is currently sort of reinventing himself on. The wolves, they have the seventh pick. Tom Thabedo was enamored by him, but they trade the seventh pick on draft night for Jimmy Butler. And right away, we're already kind of getting a sense of how much dumb luck, randomness,

the decision-making of other people around the league, of the movement of other players around the league can determine the fate of a player. Because then right after this, He gets on a Zoom call with the Mavericks with Rick Carlisle, Mark Cuban, Donnie Nelson, Michael Finley. And they tell him they're taking him if he's available with the ninth pick. But they haven't really had any contact with him prior to this. I was love when that happens.

Yeah. Steph Curry said that that happened to him. He had no contact with Don Nelson. They were like, we're taking you. I'd imagine that's pretty jarring for a young guy. Yeah. And sometimes, you never know why these things happen. Sometimes it's like the fault of an under-prepared team.

Sometimes it's an agent who doesn't really necessarily want. that player to work out with the team. And also, you know, draft night is very random. You might have a guy fall to you. But Dennis Smith was in this range. You know, like this was not like a shocker. So if they were interested in him and they didn't take him, I mean, they didn't work him out.

Like, that's kind of interesting to me. So the next pick, Frankie Smokes with the eighth pick. And then the Mavericks take him. And of all the teams he could have gone on, gone and played with. He goes to the one where we find out, well, in an ESPN story after Carlisle been fired that he was pretty much actively trying to sabotage him through his rookie year. Pretty distressing stuff. And I think that that kind of fits, like, it supports the legend. Charks used to talk about this all the time that Carly was kind of infamously impatient.

I don't know exactly like what he saw early on that was like made him like not even have to think about it where he was just like, it seemed like it was a pretty quick decision like, this isn't going to work. And it's not, you know, it's not like, um, DSJ had like a bad rookie year. I mean, it wasn't horrible. He was productive. Granted, he had, you know, the ball in his hands a whole lot more. If you're talking about just, you know, his general overview, he posted the highest usage rate of his career. He was in the 98th percentile 31.5.

A little turnover prone, you know, some of the efficiency issues, I guess. But he transitioned, you know. Nothing glaring for a rookie, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just kind of the things that you see, 15 points a game. 3.8 rebounds, 5.2 assist, one steal, and he makes the all-rooky team. I think the biggest problem here is that a generational talent was on his heels in the next draft, and that kind of changed things for Dennis Smith.

Yeah. Second year, Dennis Smith Jr., trying to find a way to fit around Luca Donchich, who we now know, it can be difficult for a point guard to fit around Luca Donchich. We just saw Jalen Brunson and I'd go over to the Knicks in the hopes for having more touches, more of a role where he can showcase his skill. And, you know, from that ESPN story, we have this really weird instance where Donchage and Dennis Smith had actually formed a bond. Like, they were becoming friends. Luca really liked him.

And the on-court fit, it wasn't quite working out yet. But at the same time, it was very, very early. And Carlisle, essentially, in one practice, you know, accused Smith of being jealous of Donchich. Yeah. And it was something that, you know, the players didn't really consider it to be fair. You know, it characterized him as somebody who wasn't playing well, but was making an honest effort to mesh on the court.

Now, maybe that fit would have never worked out. But the one thing that I kind of think about now in the heels of this season, where Luca Donchich is basically like on, on pace to break usage records. And the Mavericks are playing well, but they've won a love. of close games early this season on the heels of basically Luca Magic, right? Or sometimes Luca Magic honestly feels a little bit like Luca Math. That's kind of what it feels like right now. So I'm just kind of like, if we're going to do revisionist history, one thing I kind of

wonder is whether or not it was going to be Smith Jr. that kind of fit with Luca long term, would it have been a good idea for the Mavericks to force a young Luca to figure out how to coexist alongside another lead ball handler? Oh, do you think that this was going to, like this, this pairing, do you think that it forecasted things that were kind of inevitable for Luca down the road in terms of like how heavy a load he could carry? Is that what you're asking? I guess my question is, did this have to be so inevitable? But hey, the Mavericks, they decided to trade Dennis Smith Jr. over to the Knicks. Yes. Tom Thibbleau gets his second chance with him because he is now coaching.

Well, he ends up coaching Dennis Smith actually. I think halfway through his second year. So Smith is, he joins a team when Fisdale is a coach. And he has three coaches in two years there. This is one, another amazing thing from the podcast. So he goes over there. He has his first year there and it goes fine. And then his second year there,

the Knicks basically told the team to get ready for Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant to arrive. basically telling them to get ready to take a step back. So his role and everybody else's role, they know is going to shift. And they start bringing in these players, like they bring in Marcus Morris, like they trade for Julius Randall. They just start making all these really quick, almost like panicky moves in order to make themselves try to look like a team that could be competent. and attract those guys.

But they are basically, you know, changing course completely on the whim of the potential arrival of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, which we've now come to realize is actually something that you might not necessarily want to wish for anything. It's a tough thing to ride the whims of Kyrie Irving. We've learned that. If you're really depending on that, you might get a little seasick if you're trying to stay on your feet in that situation. Yeah.

That was a tough. and that little era where they started making like the one year signings thing. But, you know, a lot of this comes down to, and players coming into the draft, I see this all the time where I'll be like, this guy is like context independent. And this player is heavily context dependent. I've talked about that a lot with Shaden Sharp. I was like, he needs to go somewhere with a very solid, like, veteran infrastructure there with people that will look after him, who will motivate him, who will challenge him.

And sometimes you end up in a situation where you don't feel. fit, you're already getting packed up. It's pretty quick to get traded if you're a top 10 pick. Like in terms of like, that might be one of the fastest like punt jobs I've ever seen on a top 10 pick. He gets sucked into the vortex of the Knicks, doesn't have a fit, doesn't work. And then he gets shipped off. And I think as we move on, so I always refer to this as things fall apart slash the shift,

which is doesn't happen for every player, doesn't happen in every situation. I think before we segue to talk about when he started to get his career back on track and started to make sense with Detroit and then subsequently the Hornets. Before we talk about that, let's take a break. The NBA season is underway and it's a perfect time to download Fandul, America's number one sports book, because right now new customers get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. Plus, Fanduel is the only sports book that's giving all customers three months of league pass

when they make a $5 bet on the NBA. This week, I'm liking the, plus 300 bet on Luca Donchich winning the MVP. He is just pretty much Dallas's only option on offense and historically we have seen that the team that has

a player that they depend on the most usually is the one that generates the MVP. So right now that's looking like Luca Donchich. I also like taking the over on the Celtics against the pistons. Anytime the best offense in the NBA is playing the second worst defense,

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First online real money wager only. issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandul.com. Gambling problems, call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia. 1-800 next step or text next step to 53342 in Arizona. 1-8-8-889-77-7-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut.

909 with it in Indiana, 1,800 522470 or visit KSgamblinghelp.com in Kansas, 1877770 stop in Louisiana, 18778 Hope N.Y or text Hope and Y, 46739 in New York. Tennessee, 1,80089-978-9 in Tennessee, 1,800-2-470 in Wyoming, or visit at www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. So Detroit is pretty much the first time that we see Dennis Smith Jr. playing like anything other than the player that he was pegged to be, right? Or at least trying to develop in a different sort of track. And it kind of brings up something interesting to me about players like him

where sometimes when you're a top 10 pick and you were meant to be a star and you don't end up being a star, I think that fall can happen really quickly because it doesn't become immediately obvious what you should do next. It's almost like, okay, well, you didn't pan out as a star, so off to China, you go and try to do that now instead of trying to pivot into becoming a role player.

And I think sometimes the concern just becomes that the player won't necessarily want to do that. They've been treated and, you know, like, kind of groomed to be a star their whole life. are they really going to want to go and, you know, play defense and do some of the nitty-gritty stuff that, like, they haven't really been asked to do before? And it kind of reminds me of Michael Porter Jr. in a way where everyone's kind of waiting for, you know, him to rebel and this idea that, like, oh, is Michael Porter Jr. are going to fall in line? That's kind of always a narrative with him and the Nuggets. But everything you see when you watch him just suggest that he is fine with this.

Like, yes, like there is like the occasional errant bad shot and he's like he'll shoot early in the clock sometimes. But he is not like an active cancer in the locker room that's just like waiting to erupt if you don't like feed him his shots. Like, you know, he'll he doesn't even, he doesn't finish every game. And it's like for the most part, what you hear from him is that he's pretty much fine with this role. And I think Dennis Smith Jr. kind of fell into the same, same trap where there were sort of immaturity concerns with him before. And now that we kind of know what was going on with the teams that he was on, maybe the immaturity concerns actually had a lot more to do with the teams that he was on than anything with him in particular.

And I also think that, like, on dysfunctional teams, like, things just leak more and things everyone just looks a little bit worse. So he gets to Detroit. And I was texting with an assistant coach who worked with him pretty closely in Detroit. And he pretty much suggested that this was not a guy who had any attitude problems. He worked hard and he wanted to. improve and they were working on, you know, kind of new things. They were focusing on his strengths as opposed to his weaknesses. They were focusing on learning to read the game.

And this is kind of the first sort of turn that we see for him. And I would be personally remiss if I didn't bring up the Bruce Brown and the Gary Payton the second of this all, right? They have kind of, and Bruce Brown is 6-4, GP-2, GP2, Dennis-Mitt. junior, I think is 6-1, so he's smaller than these guys, but what he shares with them is athleticism and defensive potential. And he has kind of been able to repurpose his game, and it started in Detroit of, you know, really honing in on defense as opposed to offense, using his athleticism. In Charlotte, we've seen him be more of a screener even. He has improved his cutting. And we're sort of starting to see the beginnings of this new version.

of him. And I feel like those guys almost created a bit of a pathway for the small guard to be able to, you know, repurpose their game. Yeah, I think we've seen some examples of where you can go if you are a smaller guard that's not necessarily a knockdown shooter. Maybe somebody that can hit like a wide open three when it's called for, but you're not going to be like hunting your shot, that kind of a thing. We've seen Orlando. I mean, they haven't won many games at all. I think they very as excited as everyone is about them. They haven't been winning games. But that's kind of how they're using their smaller guards with bigger playmakers.

You know, Milwaukee's been doing this for a little while. Like they have their on-ball guys that are bigger. And just repurposing those players as cutters and on-ball defenders that can cross-switch and keep people out of the middle of the floor and things like that. Dennis Smith, though, I don't think came into the NBA thinking that that's who he was going to be. And that's kind of one of the issues we talk about like the league iterating fast. And it's like, you know, there can only be so many like, efficient how many, I just think the standard for being like an efficient on ball player in the

league is pretty high now. So like to eclipse that, you got to be pretty good. And he's somebody that I think, I think it can kind of come down to what a player is thinking when they come into the NBA based. That dictates how hard it's going to be to disabuse them of what, of their idea of themselves. And I was making the point to you that I think at youth levels when you're like a super athlete, like you're on ball and you can create a lot of separation and things like that. You're going to be ranked higher. You're going to be kind of deified as somebody that's like a big time score because you haven't come up against other people that can compete with you athletically.

And I don't think that there's always a precedent put on shooting as much. Some of those guys will end up being ranked higher maybe than they should be. And then we'll see skilled players kind of matriculate as they get a little bit older. But I think what I was going to make the point to you about is that, like, I think it's an attractive role. And that's why a lot of those guys seek that and they end up in that situation because the basketball world that we've built is one where you're rewarded for being a score. You get bigger contracts. You get more attention. Those guys get paid more. So for him, you know, I think efficiency, something I always say is that like efficiency is the most destructive when it's paired with like poor self-awareness. So it's clear that we saw some kind of a shift happen for him in Detroit, which I think led him on the path of where he is now with Charlotte.

Yeah, and maybe there was a bit of a hitting rock bottom as well, right? And that's hard to know. We'd have to ask him directly. And yeah, I mean, that's part of dealing with being in the NBA, right? Yeah. But he said that this summer he was actually training to be in the NFL. Like he didn't want to go overseas. And I think like that's kind of always been something that, you know, maybe has been in the back of his mind.

again, probably would have to ask him. But, you know, he was doing three days in the summer where he was, you know, doing NFL drills and he was doing basketball stuff and he was also just doing his regular conditioning stuff. But ironically, I think it's actually served him pretty well because, like, you know, some of the strength that you need to have in order to be a really good isolation defender in the modern NBA,

especially if you lack size is like, you know, a lot of those players look like football players in a way, right? Like Lou Dore, it looks like a football player. Ramon Green looks like a football player. And Dennis Smith Jr. is kind of like a smaller version of that. Mark is smart, kind of the same body type. Yeah. Even a guy like Desmond Bain, who, you know, because of his shooting projects out as more of a traditional, you know, shooting guard type.

But like his just how wide he is just gives him a ton of strength. You know, just to be able to, you know, not get easily backed down by isolation guys. So he signed with, Dennis Smith Jr. signed with the Hornets like, you know, in October. It wasn't like something that was, you know, set to happen. And I don't think he got a training camp. And he pretty much just was supposed to come in and, you know, back up La Mello Ball and back up Terry Rojier. Then, you know, Mello sprains his ankle, you know, the last game of the preseason.

We've yet to see him this season. And then Terry goes out two games later. And all of a sudden, Smith is starting. And now Terry is back and they're trying to figure out a way to kind of co-agre exist together. But what we've seen from him so far is, is not necessarily a star, but a player who is kind of figuring out a way to fit in the NBA. He's averaging six assists per game. He's shooting 39% from three, albeit only two attempts per game, but he's also shooting, you know, career high efficiency overall. He's only averaging 9.7 points, but, you know, at the same time,

he's becoming a guy who is finding ways to contribute to the game when he's not scoring. And I think that's just the biggest key for him and the biggest shift. Yeah, I think it's leaning into, you talked about like the cornerback body, he definitely has that. That's the position that he played in high school. We talked about like he had all, he had like high D1 offers, like Florida State wanted Dennis Smith Jr. to come play. Maybe they wanted him also come play basketball. That's like a move that they'll pull sometimes. You're like, hey, we'll let you play. You know, football schools will do, which I have, you don't really see that play out very much. But he definitely has the, the like in open space, strength to annoy like skill players. Like, I don't

know. I always hated when football players would guard me because they're just built differently. They work out differently. They have different strengths. I mean, his lower body strength, as we know, is really, really strong. But I think he's leaning into something that he can do and buying into pressuring the ball. This season, he's guarded like the second most drives in the NBA. I saw. He's basically just, and then you also brought up, he's so athletic that he's actually like a weak side disruptor too, which is pretty useful. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so you, you, uh, you for me that he was a cornerback and also explained what cornerbacks are, which I really appreciate.

Seared had no knowledge. It's pretty bad when me football novice is explaining football to anyone, but I was happy to help. Not a clue, but basically, you know, the last line of defense against, you know, against wide receivers and just a player who's kind of everywhere, I'm told, on a football field, which is quite large. So it makes sense that he's somebody who could go from one place to the other on the court

as well. He's had like a six-steal game. game. You know, he's good with deflections. He had three blocks last night. And he was starting to show that in Portland as well. We didn't really talk too much about his, his Portland tenure. But I think that's another part of it. Also, also just like, you know, we won't get into it too much,

but just a really unfortunate injury moment for him, too, where he was starting to figure out some things defensively. He was actually, you know, he guarded LeBron James and a game against the Lakers. And then, you know, he he dunks the ball and he basically, you know, he gets a, he gets what he's he's sent. eventually like a football injury. Like he tears, he tears a muscle on his arm.

And then he's out with the, with the Blazers. And, you know, this is, that's how he, he lands in, in Charlotte.

So a very long and winding journey for, for Dennis Smith Jr. And we're going to see, it's still going, by the way. We're going to see how it goes. You know, when Labello re-enters a lineup and,

and Smith, Jr., then heads back to the bench or maybe we'll see some three-guard lineups. I could see him playing really well off of Lamello, cutting. Maybe that's kind of the role that they had in mind for him. Just, you know, pair a really athletic guy next to, you know, a generational transition passer to see what happens with that. It could, it could be fun when, uh, when mellow's back. But yeah, that's, that's a story of Dennis Smith Jr. Can I attack something else on? I was going to say, I wonder if they could do some like PJ

at the five and use Dennis as a screener, which I think is pretty interesting to maybe if you want to get smaller lineups out there. But I was going to add on the offensive thing before we move on. I think it's important to talk about, like, they were finding and simplifying his role in a way that he's obviously accepted that, like, he's, like, per drive, he's passing the ball a lot more than in the past, that he's at 0.442, which is a career high for passes per drive. And then also, like, he's just taking smarter shots. I think you correctly pointed out, like, his efficiency. He's shooting fewer threes per 100 possessions, 3.533. You know, that's way down from like what he was shooting as a rookie, which was 8.3.

So we're talking about like just choking out the wastefulness in his game. But that he's shooting at a lower heavy contest rate too. So he's taking way fewer like heavily contested shots. And that's up to his efficiency. He's almost shooting 40% from the three. So I think just talking about like what young. players do, like pivoting into something simple that he can do, maybe like side pick and rolls where he's just like, you know, making a simple pass, simple play, getting the lane, and just

taking good shots and guarding the ball. So anyway, sorry, I wanted to just tack that on. Yeah, actually, I could see him and he's done a little bit of this, just been like the dribble handoff guy. And it's, it's a little bit deceptive because you see him dribbling up the lane and you think that he's going to be the, you know, the initiator of pick and roll there. But then he just passes a ball off and he is like the screener in a triple handoff. And I think he could actually be really dynamic in that role, whether he's going to pass a ball off or maybe he could just like turn and explode as well because he still has that in his game. So moving on here, what we want to talk about next is basically just getting through a few players here who we think could learn a little bit from from Dennis Smith Jr. or, you know, what we've kind of talked about today could inform parts of their journey. Yeah, there are a few. And I sent you a project. And this is the thing that I've monitored over the years is like top 10 picks, like when they relocate, when they go to another location, can they be salvaged? And kind of the conclusion that I came to is that like usually no, usually no. If you relocate, it's usually not good. Like the precedent for players like rebounding and getting there, like you're not going to be a star. Like I would say almost 100% of the time if you relocate. Like if you were going to be a star, you're not. It's the open for a reason, traded for a reason thing.

you know, so like I've monitored some of these. And one of the ones that like going again by like box plus minus, Dennis was like close to zero as a rookie, but some of these guys that are like bouncing around the league, who do you want to start with? You want to start with Knox? That's one of the big ones. So Knox in 2018 was a top 10 pick and a great draft. His, you know, didn't really, he never just kind of, it was a failure to launch kind of a thing. He was on that young Nick's team. He projected, the thing that's always killed me about. Knox is that like when you look at him, you see this guy who is another converted football player. I was telling you he had to quit football because he was a running quarterback who grew to 6'9, which doesn't really work in football for another bullet point there. It's just, he seems like somebody that's like a bendy long athlete who seems skilled, but it's just never come together for him, right? Yeah, I mean, also like just a guy that they kind of tried to turn into a score as well. I remember did a story on him on 2019, on 2019.

and they were just trying to get him to work on that floater over and over and over again, right? And I think he's kind of in the same, a similar position where he is just not efficient enough for that to be his main skill set. And he's also, you know, he's with the Pistons this season. And I think, you know, being in a rebuilding situation is probably going to be good for him, just in that he'll get the touches and, you know, the opportunities that he needs. But he needs to find a way to repurpose his game, too. I think he only averages, you know, six, six rebounds per 36 minutes.

And for somebody who doesn't do a lot else, like he's, he's got to learn how to use that height. And I think that's a place so you can definitely find a way to contribute. He does nothing else. I'll make it, I'll put it bluntly. He does nothing else. And that was it, that was my worry. I mean, I watched him, you know, being a Kentucky guy, I watched him during college. And that was my worry with him.

I was like, he's not going to create for himself. You have to call his number. They'd run those little pin downs for him where he'd shoot the, the floaters. He shot one of those in Detroit. the other night. They're running literally the same plays they used to run for him here. My thing is, like, if I was going to pick a prescription for him, is just put more pressure on the rim. Like, his, like, percentiles for his position in terms of getting to the rim are abysmal.

I just, I think he needs to attack the basket more. I see him, like, I just don't know that I believe in the shooting anymore is the thing. I kind of, like, he takes, he has a lot of arm in his shot. A lot of his shots are long, I've noticed. I know confidence has been a thing for him from people who have told me that no. And I kind of wonder his interest level in basketball makes you wonder. I'm worried that he's not going to be in the NBA any year. I don't know.

I don't know that he's kind of one of those aesthetic bias people where I'm like, you just look at him move for his size and what he can do and you think this should work. It's sort of like Austin Day. Did you ever pay much attention to Austin Day? Same kind of thing. It's like it should work and it just doesn't. He has a right body for it, but just. Yeah.

Perry Jones. that's another guy. Oh, yeah. I was just like, that guy's going to be a good NBA player. And it just never worked. And he just kind of slid out of the league. Should we move on to another Pistons player? Yes, go for it.

All right. So Killian Hayes is kind of, you know, we're in a place with him where I don't really know what happens next. More like killing you when he plays. Am I right? Oh, wow. Fire me into the sun. So as far as confidence goes, it feels like he is just at a low right now. Like he is hanging his head after every miss shot, which most of them are right now.

He is finishing 27% at the rim. And, you know, coming into the NBA, he was supposed to be a guy who could create for himself and create for others. But he has not been able to really create for himself very much, which makes it hard for him. to create for others. I look at his game and I think still, like the most promising part is his passing. But if you can't get anybody to focus any attention on you, like,

how much is your passing really going to matter? You know, and I think that's kind of the thing that he's struggling with. I think, you know, there's been some chatter about maybe she should go down to the G League. And I think like on a team like the Pistons where like they have a lot of other players who you're going to want to give the ball to in terms of giving them reps for creation,

that might be, that might be the next path for him. Yeah, I think a prescription, not to go back, Hoops Hospital on this, but I think if you're somebody that needs to grow as a creator and initiator, I think like low-scale, like low-stakes reps in volume or the way to go, I think that he's somebody that needs that. You were talking about he was projected as like a three-level score. And I put in our outline, he's a no-level score. He doesn't score efficiently from anywhere. And I think you're talking about the passing stuff. That stuff's not going to be allowed to kind of peek out and develop if teams you know no one is going to everyone's going to stay home when you drive because they know they can just single cover you in every situation

not even necessarily aggressively and you're not going to score efficiently that passing stuff's just not going to be there on the end I just think that would be a good move for him if he's willing to embrace it something else about Dennis Smith that we did talk about was that like he asked to play in the G league this is the guy who wanted to play so you know I think just not having an ego and not being, it's a tough, it's a tough thing to manage and navigate. But that would be my thinking on him for what he should do. Another good pastor who just like really couldn't create any attention for himself on, on the offensive end was was Kyra Lewis Jr. as well for the Pelicans.

He is currently rehabbing a torn ACL. But, you know, he like, this is a situation where I think the team situation changed so much that it's going to kind of leave him in the dust a little bit. So his rookie season was not great. You know, just under six points per game, 2.3 assists. Didn't get to the line enough, especially when I think the biggest thing that was advertised about him was his quickness.

I think the idea was like, you know, put him in an open NBA court. And I think that we only really saw that bear out in transition. And a half court, he just really wasn't an effective player. Doesn't really have a jump shot. The Pelicans picked up his option, so they have him through 2024. for, but this is now a rotation that since his injury, you know, has gone from a team that was

rebuilding to then, you know, just making this incredible playoff run and now having a really great start to the season and they have Zion back. They traded for C.J. McCollum, Jose Alvarado has emerged. Devante Graham emerged, you know, to like... Alvarado passed him. Yeah. I mean... Yeah, exactly. So I just don't know, you know, how much space they're necessarily going to have for him, especially on a team that's trying to win. Yeah, it's the thing if you're developing, you're losing thing. And they're not losing. I mean, they lost last night to the Pacers, I think, which is not something you want to do. But I guess they're in a situation where they have such an embarrassment of riches where they might be able to move him to a home. It might not be as much of a red flag of like where his career is going necessarily if they do move him and find another place that would be a better developmental situation for him. Yeah, I mean, what, so the. the prescription for him, like, getting to align more. I mean, using that speed, I guess, like free throw generation, shooting.

Is there anything else that, like, prescription-wise, you would write for him in terms of, like, pivoting to become a valuable NBA player? I mean, I think, those are, you pretty much hit on them. I think he probably does have the potential to pivot into more of a defensive player. And, you know, size-wise, he's in the same sort of DSJ zone. So maybe it is that Bruce Brown, Gary Payton, theification of his game that could help. but I want to end on a slightly positive no here. One player who, you know, was kind of tapped to be a star, saw himself as a star,

is Cam Reddish, who has pretty much been knocked off that perch from the, like, from, you know, the moment he went to Duke, and then R.J. Barrett decided to go to Duke, and Zion Williamson decided to go to Duke, and now he's all of a sudden the third guy. He gets drafted by the Hawks who have, you know, Tray Young, John Collins, Kevin Hurder, DeAnde Hunter, and, like, already an embarrassment of Richie, on a team that just has, you know, just, there are only so many shots to go around on a court. He was not very happy with the situation in Atlanta,

wanted more opportunity, wanted just to be more showcase. Scott traded to the Knicks last season. Now he is coming off the bench and he is, well, he is shooting a career low 6.2 times. He is also shooting 40% from three. And in the last two games, he has started. He has rededicated himself to the defensive end. And that is an end on which he can be an absolute monster if he wants to.

Yeah, you would think so. That's one guy to monitor. The better defense he plays, the more Tom Thibodeau is going to trust him. We'll see, you know, just this one, I think is just going to kind of come down to Cam and how willing he is to play this role. You're right. I mean, it's kind of been a decline of like, I'm sure he and his mind from everything I've heard and read that he has not been like knocked off. And he's still his confidence. He's a confident guy.

I don't think that he's like Kevin Knox. I think he and Knox are actually kind of similar in terms of like what they do and like their offensive profile and their efficiencies and things. But the difference is that like Reddish hasn't budged at all, I think, in his self-belief. And we've seen him kind of come on lately. It's been interesting to see him in like for me to see him in like late game situations play better. But, you know, he's somebody that can help the Knicks. I'm not I'm not off the, I'm not off the wagon with him at all yet. I'm skeptical, but I'm not giving up on him.

Yeah, I'm pretty much right there with you. I think the role that he had in Atlanta was actually probably the right one for him, where he was coming off the bench and he was getting to create and try to lead that second unit, but he was also playing a bit with the starters too. And I think like for any player that's not going to go out and be Trey Young, you have to kind of learn how to do both of those things. And that's kind of what he's doing with the Knicks now. So we'll see how that one continues to go.

Yeah. You know, best of luck to all the. all the guys out there that were drafted high. And I was, you know, the point that I think I meant to say earlier, but I didn't really get efficiently to saying it is that it's not these guys' fault, you know, that they get drafted in the top 10. And the expectations that get pegged on them are really stressful. And I think that, like, for you to, like, reinvent yourself the way that, like,

Dennis Smith, we're early in the season. We'll see if he can do it for a whole season. But it's been really encouraging to see that happen. And a lot of it comes down to, like, the adults in the room. You know, that's something I was saying to you that like the people around you that can kind of keep you grounded and help you pivot so that you don't just spiral when things don't go your way initially. Wandering in your 20s, Syriot, it's not, it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world, you know, to figure out where you're going. No, it's not. And, you know, on the other end of it, too, I think sometimes the people around you, they put more pressure on you when things don't go well.

They want things to go a specific way, right? Like, they have these expectations that they think are going to happen because of things that they want out of you. Like, like, I know personally when I don't really have a great podcast performance, like, I'm just avoiding you for the whole week because I just, you know, I know what you're thinking. I know you're thinking about your career and how, like, my poor podcasting is going to impact you down the line. And, you know, you're trying to showcase your game right now and I'm just chucking all these shots. So, and I just, I just want you to know that, you know, much like the Luca and Dennis Smith Jr. situation, I'm trying. You know, I'm trying. I really appreciate that. Hopefully, none of us doesn't get traded. So I appreciate that. We got a question. And we encourage people to send us questions. We're going to make this a segment where if something comes up on the pod, that's sort of adjacent or there's something you guys want to know or there's a question about us.

Send us your questions. Send all personal questions about Kyle. Sure. We just, we need to just unfeel the layers. I would fire that right back at, at, at CIRIT. No, we got a question. This is from Jude. This is going to be called questioning the answer.

That's the name of the segment I came up with. So Jude Lamb, Jude L marketing on Twitter, asks us, first he said, love the pod. Thanks, Jude. I mean, I appreciate that. I just want to make sure we get that in. He had a question. Luca becoming 1980s Jordan. Usage wins 40 to 50 games, the odd playoff series win and Godlike outbursts,

but he won't get over the hump until he adjusts his game towards his team and gets a Hall of Fame teammate. Is Luca becoming 1980s Jordan? I think for people, most people probably have a vague idea of what 1980s Jordan was like. In the 80s, Jordan did not yet have a supporting cast. Jerry Krauss hadn't come in there and kind of surrounded him with more talent which he eventually did but there was definitely a time where he was carrying

some of the highest usage rates in the league and carrying a huge offensive scoring load. I pulled this up. This is Jordan scoring 60 in the playoffs against the Celtics and Larry Bird saying that's not Michael Jordan, that's God or something. I can't remember what the quote was.

Yeah, disguised as God. That's God disguised as Michael Jordan. That old quote. just to refresh people. I feel like most people have seen that. Larry Bird, the poet. So I pulled up some of the heaviest. I always like to go by box plus minus.

It's not a basketball reference. It's not a perfect stat. It's kind of relevant to what we're going to talk about with young players here today too. But, you know, I pulled up some of the heaviest, like offensive load seasons of all time. The top five is pretty interesting. So last year, Yokic posted the most,

the heaviest offensive load season of all time. And the fact that he's a center is pretty wild here. And this step favors on ball people at 13.7. Number two is 0809 LeBron, which is another team, very similar to what he's talking about with Luca, crazy, heavy, offensive low. Did you get to really watch LeBron 0809 much? Yeah. So we're talking about guys who elevate their team, basically, with scoring and production and playmaking. And then the other one, number three, is 87-88 Jordan at 13 pretty high.

and then 2021, Yolkich, 9091. The common denominator here that I pull up, you know, Steph is the only one. 9091 Jordan and 2015-2016, Steph are number five and number six on this list. And those are the two guys that produced a lot and also one. I guess the question is, what is the threshold for this player's carrying too much? I mean, just looking by this list here, 13 seems to be the line, because Jordan and 88, LeBron and 09 were both two guys that were like right on the precipice of having enough help and they kind of step back.

Is it a question, do you think of Luca adjusting or is it a question of he just hasn't gotten the right help yet? Would be my first question for you. I would almost look at 2015-2016 Steph as a little bit instructive. Now, obviously those warriors play very differently than the Mavericks do. But at the same time, that was a season where Steph's regular season, Heroics, were so, incredible that we almost ignored how much of a load he was bearing and then, you know, come playoff time. They're chasing that record and everything.

Come playoff time. His body starts to break down and that's the year that they lose in the finals. And I kind of feel like a similar thing is happening with Luca where they're playing so well right now and, you know, the Luca centric offense is great for regular season wins, just kind of in the same way that a lot of hardened centric offenses have been. but at the same time, like, when you go fast forward to the postseason, I think we're going to see a pretty familiar story with just, it's going to start to wear on Luca.

And you can see it in the regular season, too. You can see it in certain games. Like, he's been fatigued in certain moments. He looks a little bit more frustrated than normal as well. Got shots that fall short. So I just feel like, as amazing, as he is, and it's incredible that he's able to bear this load. It's, you know, not a criticism necessarily of him. Aside from the fact that he's got to find a way to make his game coexist

with other dynamic players. Yeah. You would think that he could exist as like a spot up player with another creator. And we have seen it work. I mean, we've seen Brunson and Dinwiddie. We've seen the three of them. I guess the idea here is like, you know, picking up Christian Wood gives them another guy who could add like a big wrinkle, a big silo of offense for them. But I think the thing that these teams run into is that like without other major sources of offense, you just end up with these more, the best and most sophisticated defenses at the end of the year are sitting there waiting for you and they're ready and they're ready with all different types of ways to scheme and slow you down and things like that.

I think it's a little bit of both. He needs, he needs more talent around him. I don't know how they're necessarily going to do that because one of the problems I've talked about before is that like if you have an 09 LeBron, if you have, you know, a 20-22 Yokic, those guys elevate every team that they're on to, you know, even average players, they elevate those players to the point where it's hard to build through the draft because you're always going to be a certain level of good. I don't know. And Luca has all kinds of kind of separate questions about like his relationship

with other stars and things like that that you could get into. is he becoming Jordan in the sense I mean it's similar it's a similar pattern that's what I would say I know it's like I don't want to get struck by lightning and blasting him and say that but it's almost like the reverse Jordan pattern whereas his career went on he found ways to make his teammates

well not Luca definitely makes his teammates better but just found ways to play off of his teammates more and with Luca we're seeing his usage right now is a career high and what was the number again it was in the 40s right? According to cleaning the glass yes but the NBA stats have it closer to, I think, 38. I pulled up for you the all-time usage numbers, too.

I thought these were pretty funny. 16-17 Russ, 41.7% usage. Woo-hoo. 2018-19 Hardin, 40.5. Tell me if you notice a pattern among these names. 0-506 Kobe, 38.7, 14-15, Russ, 38.4, and then 86, 87, Jordan, 38.5. 8.3. None of those players won anything. I think there's definitely a point where a player can have the ball in their hands too much.

It does seem like. Anyway, so this was a first installation of this series. Please, you know, let us know what you guys think and let us know if this has brought up any questions for you. We'd be happy to tackle them later and just, you know, send us your questions in general. And we'll see if we can get to them. Yes, we would love to. We'd love to do that. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, everybody, for listening.