The Ringer NBA Show - Luka Doncic, Coach K, and Top-Five Draft Prospects | Upside High

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks begin the pod by discussing Luka Doncic’s performance against the Utah Jazz on Monday night and coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last home game at Duke (4:40). After the break they each share and debate their top-five player prospects for the next NBA draft (10:26). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Production Assistance: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Folks, basketball, per usual, predictably, very good. So incredibly good. And it's a beautiful day to talk about it. It got cold. It's been very up and down, warm than cold, warm than cold. That's the way it is here in the spring. But welcome to upside high. My name is Jay Kyle Mann. This is a show where we hone in zero in on the youth movement in basketball. And I'm always joined by a brilliant guy, a guy that I like to call Johnny Kakamami. That's my new nickname for him. It's not his nickname. I just made that up in the moment. Jonathan Charks, how are you doing, John? I'm good, I'm good. It's actually sleeting in Dallas right now, looking out of my window. Yeah, you got a beanie on.

A little chilly down there, huh? It is. Turbulent weather. So anyway, yeah, this is a busy time for basketball. Obviously, there's a lot of stuff going on. The NBA, the seating race is chaotic in the NBA, as we know. There's a lot of shuffling. Every day, it's shuffling in the NBA right now,

and matchups are kind of moving into play. Some teams are kicking it into high games. year you said last night you were at the MAVs game had a good time at that i assume yeah i don't get a go as often as i used to but i do like to pop in when i can it was a big game for talking about seating Dallas and utah kind of right and neck and neck now for uh the number four seed they don't like each other a little bit of a rivalries brewing uh there was just a very long running luca gobert thing happening the whole game that was just hilarious yeah i mean he was you said he was basically after gobert for a moment one right well yeah

So Luca comes out firing and then Gobert gets a technical foul for elbowing someone in the first quarter. And then Luca blatantly tried to get a second T like two different times. So at the end of the half, Luca misses a shot. Gobert gets to rebound and then drops it in Luca's lap. And then Luca takes it and then chucks it back at Gobert. And they had to get separated. Then the refs only get the T to Luca. and then in the second half,

Luca passed on the bottom to Dwight Powell, and then he stands right behind Gobert as the pass happens, and Gobert doesn't know he's there, so then Gobert is running down the floor, and Luca hasn't moved, and he just flops to the ground and tries to get Gobert ejected.

It was fantastic. The rewatchables would have been proud. It was a total like Vince and Hanna, give me all you got, flop, grifting. It was an incredible. I pictured Chris Paul watching that on an iPad and just cracking up. It was a total like Chris Paul type thing, like just try to game everything.

Luca has been fresh on my mind. We're doing the top 25 players list that we do annually at the ringer. And I was writing my bit about Luca, just talking about the way he's been kind of turning it on. And his production just is crazy for players who haven't turned 25. And this stat was so interesting. We talk about young players. I'd still consider him young. For players who haven't hit their 25th birthday, but they have accrued over 6,000 points, 2,000 rebounds,

Over 1,500 assists. Only eight players have done that before their 25th birthday, and it's LeBron, Kobe, T-Mack, Janice, Kevin Garnett, Magic Johnson, Nikola Yokic, and Luca Donchich. And Luca has done it in dramatically fewer minutes. He's done it in 83, about 8,300 minutes. The next closest was Yokic, actually. So pretty insane volume of production for somebody this young.

He actually made the top 10 last night for all times. time MAV scores. Already. Wow. Yeah, we were joking about that. It's not exactly the Celtics down here in terms of making a list like that. Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess that counts. Anyway, Luke is phenomenal. Otherwise, in the basketball landscape, it's a crazy time, you know, even locally, you know, high school stuff. I've been wanting to get out to that stuff, but March Madness is gearing up, which is a great time. I feel like the NBA draft, you know, conversation dialogue really starts to bubble up and become a relevant thing for people. But, you know, in March Madness 2, I wanted to hit before we move on to that.

I wanted to talk to you a little bit about, did you get to watch what happened with Coach K's final game? Did you get to witness any of that pageantry or that thing? I was at dinner, so I was just kind of tracking along on my phone. But let me tell you, I loved every second of it. That was fantastic. How do you feel about, like, announcing farewell tours and then kind of going on then? What's your feeling on that? Well, I thought it was very interesting, him playing UNC,

because, you know, Roy Williams, he's a legend too, right? Roy Williams, maybe not quite as accomplished as Coach K, but not too far off. Three national championships. Three national titles, I think like 30, 40 years at two of the top programs in college history. Incredible run of success. Tons of great players. You know, after last season, he decided, like, it's it for me. I've had a good run.

It's time to go. just retired. He put out a press conference, put out a statement, and just walked away. All that to say, that's one way to handle it. And then there's the way Coach Kaye handled. Oh, okay. Well, I think by the inverse there, the absent inverse, you've kind of communicated your feelings there. I think back about like Kareem did like a big farewell tour when he went around the country and every arena had like people had like recline. Some of it was jokey. I don't know. Like Roy and I guess you can't totally fault people for just being who they are. I mean, me, I hate attention like that. Like any, like I hate birthdays. I hate birthdays. I hate birthday parties. I don't like being, I know this would seem counterintuitive. Somebody that like gravitates like hosting and writing things that are public facing. But it does seem counterintuitive. Like if I was at an arena and they were like, and ladies a gentleman, NBA blogger, Kyle, man, I would want to evaporate. Like I can't stay in that kind of attention. Well, that will definitely happen. So, give it time. You better get yourself ready for that.

Yeah, whenever my inevitable biopic comes out, it's going to be a thing that's going to happen. No, but, I mean, it was a crazy way that it unfolded. I was sitting at a Mexican restaurant waiting for some carryout, just like sitting at the bar, and it took a little longer than usual. So I was just sitting there and I had a beer and there were a bunch of people sitting around. And as that game was winding down, I mean, I could not believe how, like in the last 10 minutes of the game, UNC outscored Duke like 35 to 20. but Duke was really struggling to generate field goals.

And it's kind of the thing we talked about earlier in the year where I kind of worry about Duke in the first two or three rounds of the tournament having these kind of like offensive droughts because they have a lot of like quality secondary creators and this is going to be adjacent to something we're going to talk about in a minute in terms of like the prospect angle of this. But you know they have Jeremy Roach and they don't lean on him or get the kind of production

they need from him to like sustain and get through those. droughts. And I was going to say that, you know, as that game was winding down, now I live in a blue blood area, like Kentucky, obviously, you know, we have Louisville, we have Kentucky basketball, IU's not terribly far away, but people were just like high-fiving and celebrating. The bartender calmed my beer. People were thrilled. But what do you think about Duke? Do you think who's your, we talked about this, who's your national title pick right now? It's open. I think to kind of go back to what you were saying, March Maddo. is all about point guard play and Duke doesn't really have a great point guard or really a point

guard at all. They kind of do a point guard by committee thing with all their wings and that can be very dangerous if you don't have somebody you can facilitate control tempo of the game, get everybody to their spots. It gives them a much wider range of outcomes. I think Duke probably has the highest ceiling of anyone but their floor is low enough to what you said. If you can play a team that can control tempo with a good point guard, they got a chance to get upset. And it feels like this year, if you look at all the top teams, most of them don't have top point guards, which really opens things up. And I think the team I'll be pulling for. I actually took Arizona when we were out in Vegas at 20 to 1.

So I'm rooting for the, I'm rooting for the Wildcats this year, for sure. You literally bet on them, though. Yeah, like you went to the sports book. I like the odds on them because they had started like 10 and 0 and I liked their team. But it's the same thing. Like I don't trust Arizona's point guards. so they could go really far or lose early. It'll depend on the bracket this year more than in a lot of years, I think.

Yeah. Coach Kay's legacy in terms of, there's a bigger discussion about, like, whether or not, how much credit, how little credit do these guys get in terms of being basically like a weighing station? A lot of players just kind of in eight months don't really change a whole lot. You know, you can kind of angle guys in different directions or help them, like, for the lifestyle of the NBA. So I hesitate to say like, okay, he's not a great developer of talent. But looking at, you know, his roster of NBA players, I mean, he's got a pretty impressive roster in the NBA right now.

You know, RJ's kind of coming around. I was going to tie that into some of the recent things that have been going on. Last night in the NBA, RJ had a big game. He's continued to come on here, 29 points, 10 for 21. Field goals, three for six from three, eight rebounds, six assists, and a win over Sacramento. Otherwise, moving on from Duke, Tyler Hero, had a big game. game 31 points, six or nine from three. Jordan Poole had a big one and a loss.

Moses Moody actually has kind of been coming on. He had 30 points last night in that loss at Denver. And Cade Cunningham had a smooth one. I don't know. You were at the Mazz game, so I guess you didn't really get to catch any of those other games last night. Before we move on and start to talk about the top of the draft, which is going to be the meat of this episode, we're going to be just kind of figuring out what our top

fives are and debate that, go back and forth. we are going to take a break. So this is an evolving process, the NBA draft, as we go, the discussion, the dialogue, the discourse. And I think as the kind of college sample unfolds, we get a look at, I guess my first question for you would be, how much do you weigh March and big game scenarios into your thinking about draft prospects, charts? Not a ton. I think it's more about the whole season and just kind of the bigger sandals. What I look at in March more than anything is if a guy is matched up against another elite player at his position, that to me can be really telling.

And that's what I love most about March Madness, because especially as you get bigger and bigger guys who are forwards or centers, there's not a lot of high level competition they face at the college level. So when one of those guys faces another elite player in March, I take that of a lot of account. So a good example last year. I think the game with a tournament last year was it was Florida State, Michigan. It was Scotty Barnes v. Franz Wagner. And the reason I ultimately had Wagner over Barnes in the draft was because I thought Wagner outplayed Barnes.

He had a more complete game in that game. He showed a more complete skill set. And we'll see, obviously, because they both had really good rookie years. But I do really love those one-on-one matchups. We were talking about it a while back, like there was one year where like DeMontas Sabonis faced Yacquard. same kind of thing.

Like if you're going to play another elite guy at your position, I take that really seriously. But in terms of like, do you go to the Final Four or not? I think that's proven historically to kind of be awash. Yeah, in terms of, yeah, team success, I agree with you. That can be misleading. I mean, there have been a lot of famous examples of teams. I mean, draft Intel has gotten so much better.

I feel like over the years, I think back, this is reaching way back. But like in the 90s, I remember, like, you know, Miles Simon was a guy that got reached for because he would have He was like the most outstanding player in like the 97, Final Four, didn't really end up doing much of anything in the NBA. I feel like in the 90s we were really guilty of that kind of thing. Another one that came to mind was like the Fox Lanzo thing. That was another great one, yeah.

That was a good game. That Kentucky team defensively was like built to defend better because obviously that UCLA team was like an incredible offensive team. But I still don't know, and this is me continuing on my like the Aaron Fox doubting thing. But people still bring that one up. They're like, oh, you know, Fox is dodging Lonzo. I still kind of prefer, you know, somebody who is better at the template of what they do as opposed to, you know, Fox blitzed him in that game. Lonzo has become as developed into a fairly high quality, like connective playmaker like we talked about last week.

So I think there are a lot of caveats. It's really dangerous, I think, is my ultimate takeaway. You can look at that and weigh it in. It's kind of like a separator. It's got, I view it the same way I do like measurements, like at the combine. I'm like, I'm not going to look at a guy and say, okay, 7, 6 wingspan, 10 inch hands, you know, 40 inch vertical and assume automatically that that's a player. It's a thing that I take into all the other data that I have and I say,

okay, this could be a differentiator for what this guy is physically capable of. But I don't take it as like a, wow, this guy beat this guy, this guy, this guy, and in a regional final, I'm ready to put him over him. I don't know. Maybe we differ on that. I think it's an important point which you kind of hit on where it's, there's like two separate things happening sometimes. Like the Diary and Lonzo is a good example where you're evaluating like who they are as players. And just as important you're evaluating what kind of players are they and how what kind of types of players are you valuing as you builds your team?

Because if you put Lonzo in the Deeran Fox role, I don't think he would go very well. if Lonzo is asked to carry an offense. But maybe that's not the role you want either one of them at, right? And that's where it gets so complicated. For sure. So at the top of the draft, typically, you know, with the, I think, year to year, we have this idea of like what the top picks should be. There's some differing kind of philosophies to what type of player.

And this is something that we talked a lot about when we were talking about Jabari and Jabari Smith from Auburn and Palo Bancaro from Duke, different molds being inherently more valuable than other molds. and if someone is better at their role, whether or not they're a primary, I guess what I'm trying to say is, does the top pick in the draft always have to be a primary? It's kind of the question. And we're going to go through pick by pick in the top five here and figure out where we're the same, where we differ. The first pick in the draft, who are you taking if Jonathan Charks is running X NBA team? Who's your number one pick and why?

I've been a Chet guy most of the year, and I'm still a Chet guy. I think if anything, he's gotten better as the year has gone on. So at the start of the year, he was playing more inside. And now in conference play, he's really stepped outside a lot more. He's really shooting the ball at a really high level now to where he's just an efficiency machine all over the floor. I get with Chet, Chet's a very complicated player because he's so unique, because we've never seen a player quite like him. But to me, I think he has the highest ceiling. and the highest floor of any of the top guys.

And that's what it comes back to for me. I see a really high-level defensive player. And I see a seven-footer who can have the offense run through him. I'm a believer in Chet's offensive game. I think we haven't totally seen it this season because of his role at Gonzaga next to a more traditional big man in Drew Timmy. Chet's kind of had to find his own way there, scoring the cracks, facilitating the cracks.

He hasn't a ton of offense run through him. And one thing I like to look at a lot with players is you have to always remember they can only do what they're being asked to do. And it's like, okay, Chet's in a smaller role than the other guys this year. But he's been absolutely dominant in that role. He's put together like an all-time great efficiency season. He's doing everything you could ask to do of them. And then to go back to the whole like types of players thing, the reason I had Evan Mobley won last year is I thought like, and I think it's played out this year as we're seeing. it, I think the league is moving back towards seven footers. I think the perimeter seven footer,

that hybrid post four man, like playing the top of the key free throw line extended area is the most important player in the game. I think Chet can play that role. And I think that's the role I'm looking for at the top of the draft because you're not going to get a player like that, but in the draft. A seven footer with Chet's abilities just doesn't come around very often. Yeah, it's that Portland thing of he's not going to sign with us and we you have a low likelihood of getting someone like that just in a vacuum like and unless you're like a big market team where they want to gravitate to I was curious to like the seven footer thing I almost feel like there's been a misleading thing with that like seven footers the number of like big guys that get drafted every

year I feel like it I made a graph of this one time in the first round that like it's continued to go up over time I think the migration of skill set across position has maybe created this feeling where it's like, oh, big guys are going away or they got less important, this, that, and the other. I think that they've kind of always been there, but maybe the high skilled guys are creating this thought that they're, or maybe their prominence within offenses is kind of entering a new era. That's a whole of discussion.

But Chet, we talked about him as like big Halliburton, basically, the center version of Halliburton, different skill sets. He's not going to be like a, I don't know. What do you think, like, assist-wise? Do you see him being like a high-level playmaker, or is he going to be a guy who just kind of creates connective playmaking within your offense? What do you think his playmaking ceiling is? I think he's a very unselfish player.

He's a very good passer. I think sometimes with Big Man, that gets underrated because the big man's got to get the ball from the guard, and he makes the pass, and then the pass should come back to him. But often it doesn't once he's made that first pass, the guards are all right, all right, you gave it up. Let me do what I can do now.

And what I look at with Chet a lot is I think a lot of offense can be run through him because he's so unselfish. You know you're going to get a good shot out of it. Like Chet doesn't take a lot of bad shots. And I think, too, the wingspan, the combination of wingspan and touch that he has. Everyone wants to talk about how skinny he is. And yes, he is crazy skinny. We've never really seen a player with his frame succeed before. But we've also not seen many players with his length with a 7 foot 6 wing span and his

touch. That's the thing that's so impressive about Chet is like he just finishes everything all over the floor and you look at him and you would think, oh, he'll struggle to score inside in the NBA. Maybe, but he also shoots like 70% from two in college. Like he just shoots over guys. And he's so good at finding spots to score at. Like he doesn't force anything. I just think the more Chet touches the ball, the more good things tend to happen. For sure. Commenting on like what you were talking about there with like his usage and things like, that in the past, I think I'm looking at Bart Torvix, like college basketball site, which goes back to 2008, which is where a lot of the advanced analytics sites kind of go back to is 08. But looking at

players who have shot over 65% true shooting and they have an assist percentage over 10% and a block percentage over 10%. Only four players in that time frame have done that. And that's Brandon Clark, Joelle Embed, Kenny George, who was a really interesting player for UNC. Kenny George is an absolute legend, but that's a different. Oh my God, I love Kenny George, but that's a different cover. Yeah, he was, he was a really interesting player. The last one is Ched Holmgren. You know, those other three guys, you know, George obviously had physical issues, so I kind of sit him to the side a little bit, but like Clark and Embed, Clark has kind of come back to Earth after like an incredible rookie year, but, you know, he's got like high efficiency,

he doesn't need the ball all the time, is going to provide you a lot of value, like ball reversal, like quick, like the ball moves through him. And I had another. at here that like, you know, Chet, the shooting is a thing that adds like an icing on the cake. Like, I think the defensive stuff is really great. He's like positionally, really savvy and smart in a similar way to Mowgli. He's honestly not terribly, I mean, he's not that much skinnier than Mowgli. I don't think his shoulders are as broad. But I wanted to say too really quick here, like, Chet is in the 77th percentile in the country in assist to usage, which is just talking about how often he assists related to how often the ball goes through him, which touches on what you were talking about.

And if he's going to provide defensive upside like that, if he's going to, you know, shoot the ball and if he can share the ball, I think I want us to differ, but to me, that's a number one pick. Okay, so you're on board. Yes. To me, that's a nice way of, like, you know, the family feud. It is the number one. I can't see any argument for any of these other guys going ahead of him in that sense. I'd hate to say it. I hate to agree with you.

I'd much prefer to embrace debate. Does it great your being? I'm just like naturally I always want to disagree. I'm just kind of a naturally contrarian person. I know. I was hoping I was hoping I could be on Chet Island this year. But yeah, in my opinion, I think Chet is in his own category. I think for this whole conversation all year has been Chet, Jabari, Paolo. I really do think Chet's alone. Jabari and Paolo are good. But I just see them having more holes in their game than Chet, not as well-rounded, not as big, just not as complete a player. I'm all about complete players at the top of the draft. There's also a thing where it's like you have more outs, right? Like there's just more things check can do. There's more avenues to help a team. I have a metaphor for you.

Okay, hit me. Hit me with it. As I was doing this, I was thinking about this. I used to work for Amazon back in the day. And I had a job that I didn't particularly love. I was a photo retoucher, which is hilarious. But I didn't like the job. And I had a friend who worked there.

His name to Andrew, he's out there somewhere. But he was one of those people. like you put him in a role and he had no illusions about doing anything else he was like he was going to be he was going to maximize his touches in that role and he was insanely valuable and he got promoted almost immediately and then he ended he's probably like overseeing some global brand at this point like he was that type of guy but me on the other hand i had delusions about moving on to like other like i was like i should be doing something else i don't want to be doing this so like i didn't make the most of my touches i just think about ched is that type of basketball player he's going to

to maximize whatever role you put him in, but then you talk about the growth plate of, he does have these offensive ways that he could develop into a star, high efficiency, high impact. That came to mind that my buddy Andrew from Amazon. Wait, so you did like Photoshop, you were photo retail, what does that mean?

Well, Amazon has like millions and millions of photos on their site. So we would be in this photo studio and they have tons of these and they would upload them to a server. We would download them. We'd go through each, in batches, we would go through each photo. And you had to like basically correct them make them look good. And I got like grandfathered into it when when Amazon bought us.

We'll have to have a Kyle's job corner. You like the most interesting man in the world. You've had quite an interesting journey. But that's, we'll sprinkle it into the pot of the next couple weeks. I don't know if I signed an NDA at some point. I may be going to life in times of Jay Kyle. Bayesles may be coming after me to end my life. Ultimately, like to put a pin in the whole chat conversation. Sure. I think number one, it's always harder to look at someone and not have a comp for them. It's always harder to believe in new things. So I understand the concern. I think there's definitely a higher range of outcomes than Mobley last year. I think Mobley was pretty safe. Chet, because there's so few comparable players, there's more risk, but it's also more

exciting for me as a basketball fan. I just want to see what a player like this can do at the highest level. And I think it's important, too, to point out, the only player physically, he even kind of remotely resembles is like Poku in the NBA. And like Poku obviously has been up and down. But worth pointing out, Poku was not really on the radar until like the year before his draft. No one had even really heard of him. Chet's been the top dog his whole career. He was the number one player in his high school class. I think he was the most outstanding player at the U-19 tournament last summer. Which we both weighed a lot, actually.

Talk out of both sides of my mouth. We'll talk about the U-19s, I think, later, because that's a really interesting window into a lot of the top players in this year's draft. Number one, number one, he's gone to Gonzaga. They've been the number one team pretty much all year. He's been great in his role. For as much as we want to doubt, Chet, and for much as the reason there is to Jow Chet, he's also always been the best his whole career.

He's always been able to overcome whatever limitations he has. and I'm just not willing to say he can't do that again the next level right now. For sure. And I think moving on, you talked about the separation between him and this next two. You said two, which makes me think that we're automatically going to choose. I'm curious to see if a player could penetrate this next group, or if there are only two players in this next tier. Who would you take with the second pick in the draft if you were a GM?

I mean, I've gone back and forth on this one. I would say tier one for me is Chet, and I'd put tier two in kind of a bigger chunk. I don't think they're just much separating Paolo and Jabari from a couple of the guys below them but I also think they're really safe picks I hate to be the guy like to go one, two, three of those top three guys

but I also kind of think they're the top three players in the draft unfortunately. I would love to have some like out there take about how the number two player in the draft someone we're not talking about but for me looking at Paolo and Jabari and I think this for me is a philosophical thing a little bit too. What I could come back to

when I look at Paulo and Jabari is like the higher you get in the draft, the more I value shot creation, the ability to be a primary. And I just think Palo gets easier shots than Jabari. That's where I separate them a little bit. They're both 610. They're both combo forwards. I would say Jabari's probably ahead of Paulo defensively. He's obviously a better jump shooter.

But I think Paulo creates easier shots for himself. He knows who he is. He goes to the rim. he's so powerful. And I think he's really showing some passing chops. And that's the thing I've been impressed about over the second half of the season with Paolo is you look at his assist. They've been rising all year.

He's doing a better and better job of incorporating other teammates into his offense. And I think that's where he has more, I would say go back to like outs. I think for sure he has more room to grow offensively, I think, than Jabari, just because he's more physically dominant. more able to get his shot, so then it's easier for him to create for others. When I look at Paolo and Jabari, I see Jabari is a guy, I think, who have an easier time playing off others. Like, if you have your primary number one, Jabari is a great number two as such a good jump shooter, such a good defensive player.

But to me, where I look at Paolo is like he could be a guy who just uses a huge load on offense and then as grows his assists in time to where maybe he'll never be like point forward, but I could see him being an elite score who gets like four or five assists a game. That's just a very valuable player, especially when he can be pretty solid defensively, too. Yeah, I would agree with you. I think something else. So you're palo number two. We're rubbing off on each other. We were worrying about the danger of that. I think we'll start to differ more as we get going past this pick. But I have over time, I meant to make that more of a ceremony there, like drum roll, yes. But I've gone back in four, too. And I think that the, the, We were talking about this on a chat with like Kevin and Billy the other day that I really think that handle begets playmaking.

I think that they go hand in hand. And I think that like there is a sort of a limitation there for Jabari. Jabari's more like a Clay Thompson, Michael Porter Jr. type of a guy who's like a very specific tool that's going to be used with a playmaker. Like he can create his own shot without much, you know, he doesn't need to penetrate. But it's like, and that makes me wonder, I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but we just haven't seen much like downhill penetration. and playmaking and things like stemming off of that. He's been very like face up, pull up, settle, heavy. Now he makes a lot of those shots.

But Paolo, I think another thing to consider too is that like we said at the top of the show, he's like not optimized correctly on this team. And we're seeing a stress on him as a playmaker. And over time, in the beginning of the year, I kind of, I cooled on him a little and I was like, I don't know. I was like if he's going to be like a stubborn primary and I was even bringing up some comps that were probably a little bit insulting. but over time I think he hasn't been frustrating in the like ram your head against the wall

type offensive player I think there are things that need to come around like I think the shooting is a question for him but he's also not an athlete that I think is going to like come back to earth because he's so physically dominant like he has great physical tools I think he's pretty poppy I've noticed this year like there are like draftisms like draft phrases that kind of pop up I've noticed people saying juice on the ball a lot this year have you noticed that I've heard a lot of people say that one. I like that. Juice is good. Palo's got a lot of juice. I mean, you got to have juice, man. You got to have it. I like it. Yes. You got to have juice on the ball. But like another one was like if he shoots it, that was one you heard a lot. But Palo is just like twice the

handler attacker off the bounce that Jabari is. And if he was one of those like just blow you away with his athleticism type guys, I would worry about him coming to Earth a little bit. But I think the and he totally like spams the like, like we said, like the stutter rip move. I think that his upside as a playmaker is higher. And I think that if he had been on a team this year where he wasn't being forced into a primary, more of a primary role, all of you guys, honestly, would probably have looked a little bit better. Yes, yes, because efficiencies probably would have been a little bit better. If they had a point guard, yeah. I think, and what's an important point here, and this is what makes the draft both fun and inherently unknowable is, it's hard to, you never,

it's difficult to put ceilings on such young players, right? So, like, Jabari is not a very advanced ball handler right now. That doesn't mean he can't grow in that. Where I look at it more is I try to say, okay, to add this to his game, how much would he have to change his game to incorporate it? And I think that's where it gets tricky or sometimes too a lot is you'll see guys talking about if he shoots it. And it'll be a guy who like loves to get to the rim a lot.

And they're like, oh man, if he adds three points shooting to his game. But it's like, well, yes, but those are like not connected skill sets. that's very important talking about how like ball handling leads to playmaking so it's like yeah if he becomes a three point shooter yes but now he's he's changing who he is as a player and that to me is much harder much rarer for guys to change there are certain like fundamental parts of a game and then like you're looking for a kind of guy who he has these couple fundamental things and then there's natural add-ons and there's natural progressions he can make so for me like going back to Paolo Jabari is yes, if Jabari really develops as a handler, starts playing more downhill,

getting to the rim, he becomes a different player. And he could do that, but it's just not that common. Because I look at Jabari and I say, okay, this is the guy who's an elite shooter, his instincts are to shoot. He's such a good shooter that if he became a downhill player, those two skills don't really like go together, being downhill and being a great shooter. So it's more likely he's going to improve more as a shooter. shooter and prove more as a defender. So I just can't like, oh, for sure he'll develop this ball handling

ability. Like, maybe he will. I can't say that he won't, but I can't say that he will either. And then it starts to simmer like over the course of his career and you see a guy like Gallo is like a great shooter. I think that Jabari is probably going to be a better shooter than Gallo, which is that would be a great player. But I'm just saying that like there are different trajectories is the point, I guess, that like the mile markers for me when I look at guys when they're like 19, you look at like the KD, the Paul George. Like I said, even I went back and watched Paul George at 19 at Fresno, and it was like his fluidity and smoothness. The shooting hadn't come around, but you could see where it could.

And when I'm talking about, like, for people that wonder when I say, you know, handle begets playmaking, it's a twofold meaning there. It's like literally you get to spots on the floor and create angles. But for me, it's more processing load. If you think about like on your IMac when you open it up and you look at like the CPU usage, you're like, why is the fan running so hot? like Jabari when he gets in the middle floor his CPU is eaten up so that lowers the quality of your decisions so that's why I'm saying like bigger guys can move into that primary role like a

paul george like a kd like a jason tatum because they have that handle and i just wonder about jabari's limitations with that at the same age uh i think that we've revealed that we both have him in number three i have him at number three yes i absolutely hate what i would look at with jibari and i think the one thing we haven't seen this year and this would be really interesting is because at Auburn he plays with this absolutely Goliath of a man named Walker Kessler like kind of like Leviathan he really is he's like this monster incredible shot blocking center so Jabari's playing almost always as a four if Jabari is going to end up better than Paolo or maybe even Chet I think it might be as a five we haven't really seen that very much

and kind of him playing more of that small ball five role really kind of more of that Chris Bosch role. Yeah. I don't really think he'll be Chris Bosch because Chris Bosch, and see, in a lot of ways, Chris Bosch has kind of been, was the opposite of Jabari, in that he was always a two-point score,

developed the three much later in his career. So, whereas for his Jabari, he's already got the three, he has to develop the two. But that, I think, is the lane for Jabari to be the best. I think it's a possible outcome. And what makes draft so fun is if Jabari could be a stretch five, opening up the floor and playing really elite defense,

which is possible, but I don't know. How do you see Jabari's defense? That's why I think where he could separate against the other two guys. It's good. I was going to tack on there that I think Palo probably is a little bit more like Chris Bosch, honestly, because he could wheel between that. I love players that can, you know, Yokic is like a really high level of this. Embed, obviously these are true fives, but we're talking about like guys who can

wheel between face up into back to the basket games and then attack off the balance. I think Palo is way more of that type of guy. I mean, I don't want to downplay like who Jabari is. It's been a tough process for me to get to this point because he is a great team defender. Him is a five. It'd have to be a really conditional situation for me to even see that happening defensively. Like he's smart. He's really clever.

Like we said, comes from like a basketball family. Paolo does too. Chet does too. Defensively, he's good. But I think we need to move on to the rest of our top five here. Who would you have at number four? I'm going to go with Ivy. We talked a lot about him in last week's pod.

I'm finishing with the piece on him right now. I think Ivy has some upside in terms of being a primary compared to some of the guys ahead of him. But I just look at Ivy and then I think the fit and him only being 6 foot 4, not being really a point guard. I just have a harder time putting him above the three guys ahead of him. But this is where I'm like, I'm just going to take the talent.

I think the talent at this point at 4 is Ivy. He's very talented. To me, this is really close. To me, the four or five spot is between him and AJ Griffin. I know this is kind of like reeking of consensus here, but I mean, I even flirted with like moving Jalen Duren. If Jalen Duren can be like a high level like quote unquote small ball five, a guy like a BAM auto biotype type guy, I've kind of wanted to creep him up into this vicinity. Jalen Duren plays from Memphis.

Let's talk about Jalen Duren for a second because he's really fascinating. Yeah, Duren was, you know, he reclassified. He is playing for Penny Hardaway. Memphis. Memphis has had a horrible year. You could read into that. I'm not going to, there's a lot of stuff attached to that. But, you know, he's a super athlete. But when I watched him, he was ranked number one for a while. I don't know if he ended up number one in the composite stuff. But crazy, like long wingspan. I think he's got like a seven foot five wingspan, huge hands. But spatially, his spatial sense around the rim, he's pretty raw. Like he can catch lobs. He can run, jump,

dunk. I think the difference between him and Bam is Bam had a lot of those and like Onyke Okongwu is another guy that I throw in there. Those guys had a lot of those, like, micro skills of, like, playing within, like, ball movement offenses. Like, I don't see Duren making quick passing decisions. I don't see him, like, being a clever cutter. He's, like, a really kind of a simple proposition right now. A crazy athlete that can catch lobs and can get up and just kind of snuff out, like,

defensively, the upside is as higher than the offensive upside for me with Duren. So I hesitate to move him that high. But I might by the end. I have to point out one thing. Yes. He's 611-250. Like the nothing small ball about Jalem Durrne. He's a freaking giant.

Where are you getting that? Well, I know, no. This is me laughing at like the parlance of our times. Like you said earlier that like big guys have gone away. They have not gone away. It's like comical. They're just they're moving into different roles. We're in a new era.

Okay. So I think with Duren, what's worth pointing out, I think Duren is a guy five, 10, 15 years ago would be in the number one discussion because he is such a great. athlete. 611.215.50. It's almost like Dwight Howard-esque. He looks like he's like 25 years old. It's unbelievable. Like physically. You know what they always say is like the getting off the bus team. Oh man. When you see Jalen Dern getting off the bus, it's like, oh my gosh, where did this guy come from? And he's just an absolute insane athlete. And I think what separates him from the guys we have at the top of the draft. And I'll have Jalen Duren really high, too, is that I think for a big man to be in a top

pre-discussion, he's got to have ball skills. He's got to have, we talked about like, the skill to be a facilitator, the skill to kind of play out of the high post, and just create his own shot off the dribble. Duren is much more of a traditional in terms of this is a guy who physically can match up with any player in the league. He's a guy who can body up Embeddied, body up Yonis. He's that kind of athlete. He's that kind of athlete. I would say with Duren, it's kind of more, how would you stack him up to like a James Wiseman? I think that's going to be the comparison because they obviously both went to Memphis. Wiseman, he's a better overall athlete, like twitchiness, link, speed.

Wiseman has a little bit more like post-up stuff in his bag. I mean, it's simple. But I think that I could see his defensive upside being a little more versatile as well. I guess I've been kind of down on Wiseman lately, honestly. Just thinking about it, I know we talked about the war. Warriors recently. But I could see him moving up. I thought about a guy, like, comparing him to a guy like Isaiah Jackson. He's a little bigger, like a lot bigger physically than Isaiah Jackson, but like he's basically a man compared to Isaiah. But I Jack shows some like upside offensively

in terms of like someday I could see him shooting it a little bit and he could attack facing up. Duren is just insanely, we use this word raw. Like raw assumes that someone is going somewhere. Duren has been playing basketball for a while. I don't know the exact time. But like he's He is just like he's not a good post-up player. You see him get like because he doesn't have a great, he's one of those like I'm going to power through you and dunk it or it's going to be ugly type players right now. But for me, I'm going to lean AJ Griffin at four right now

just because like super, super shooting. Like I believe in the shooting. I believe in his contributions. I think that he's going to be a good defensive player. For me, the difference with him. And I do think that it could get there is like the on ball juice. Like you want to see him create. He's suffered a lot, I think, from them lacking a bit.

playmaker like in my opinion Griffin has suffered a whole lot. I lean him more over Ivy. I love Ivy a lot. I would have Ivy at five. Who would you have at five? I loved Griffin this season. We talked about him a couple of pods ago before he kind of got moving to starting lineup. And I was like, this guy's got a lot of star potential. And it's been disappointing as he's been a starter. And it might just be like the role on this team where he's pretty much just, he just stays in the corner and he spreads the floor. They have a bunch of other NBA prospects. All of them are ahead of him in the packing order. His job is pretty much to just spot up off the ball and let those guys, especially Paolo, let him cook inside. And I think AJ's at a very high floor. Okay, so I'm going to

like going on a little bit of a rant here. One thing I hate about the draft, and they'll always say this. They'll say, well, the draft really falls off after five or the draft really falls off after four. And it's like, well, yes, of course it does. That's the whole point. We don't have 20 number one picks in the strategy. Also, the whole thing is like, yeah, if there was a player at five or six who you thought was as good as the guys at the top, he would just be in the top tier, right? Like, that's the whole point.

Like, obviously, at a certain point a draft has to fall off. It doesn't mean there isn't really good players. It means the players left, there's more question marks. they didn't produce as much at the college level. You're doing way more projecting. You're having to guess a little bit. And I think for me, one of the things I really tried to avoid is I spent a lot of time in the past. And you'd be like, okay, here's the top tier guys.

Who do you like best? Here's the second tier guys. Who do you like best? And you're like, you're kind of accepting the frame of draft coverage in terms of the tiers. Whereas I think this year more than ever, I've been trying to be like, hey, look, who's are the good players? Who do I think is good? Who do I think is really good? And I'm going to work backwards.

So I'm just going to fill in from like one, two, three, four. If I only get to like eight, I don't get to eight. I think there's like eight good players in this draft. And I want to be like really locked in on those eight. And then it kind of falls off from there. All that to say, I like AJ Griffin a lot. I think the one player out of the top five, who I'm pretty sure is going to be really good in the NBA. And this is the name to store away, Tari Easton, and LSU.

That to me right now is the guy I love. I might have him at five when it's all said and done. Five, man. What's the argument for Tari Isson at five? Go for it. I think he could be this year's Scotty Barnes or Patrick Williams, where he comes off the bench. And he hasn't been talked about a lot

because he's been a sixth man most of the season. But his numbers as a sixth man. So he's a guy he transfers from Cincinnati after his freshman year, kind of up and down. And he's been at LSU. he's just been a dominant player as a sixth man. He's 6-8-215, and he's just incredible athlete, just like really powerful, 7-foot-2 wingspan.

And he has kind of got this, like, Kauai-esque ability, just take the ball from people. Like, if you have the ball around Tari Isson, he might just take it from him. Like, guys will be driving past him on the help side, and he'll reach out and just snatch the ball from him. I haven't written down in my notes, snatchy hands.

He really does. He's powerful hands. He's really progressed as a shooter. And I think he's a guy at 6-8-215. He has the physical tools to guard the best players in the league. And he's really good offensively. He's really developed as a three-point shooter. He can get to his spots.

He's just a really physically dominant player. And I think if he had been starting on a more high-profile program, he'd been talked about all season. This to me is a really, really good player. Yeah. And he's kind of one of those guys that gets like, between buckets. He finds ways to score. He was kind of reminded me a little bit of like Justin Jackson at UNC, the way he just kind of pile up buckets in all these different ways. He's got an

odd shot. He shoots it sort of like to the right of his head. I think that's going to have to adjust. But that's not unusual. Like Scotty Barnes adjusted his shot, not that it's totally worked. But I think that he is an interesting comp there with Scotty and like Pat Williams. I don't know about like at five. It's, it's an interesting question. I was curious, We'll probably have to go in and discuss guys like Mennedick Matherin and Johnny Davis at Wisconsin. I know we keep putting that off. And some of these players that are kind of hovering in this range that could compete with like that 5-6-7 spot. Tari, you know, is like a transition pusher too.

And you were talking about like him being disruptive. He has like a great steel percentage for somebody who's 6 foot 8, which is something you like in guys that big. So he's just generally kind of disruptive. So like here's this crazy about Tari. reason. He's in the top 10 for national defensive player of the year while coming off the bench as a forward. That just doesn't happen. That just tells you how dominant he's been defensively. So next week, we'll have been Selection Sunday. We'll be getting into March Madness. We'll get more into these guys in like the 515 range. I just think one thing to be aware of. And I like,

I like Johnny Davis. I like Keegan Murray at Iowa. I worry a little bit about players like that. they're getting max to the limit on their teams. So Iowa, Wisconsin, these are like well-coached, disciplined big 10 teams. And they're like, we've got an NBA player. We're just going to max him out, ride him until his wheels fall off, basically. And he's going to score 25 plus points a game, hold the ball the entire game. And it's like that's not a role they're going to have in the NBA most likely. So you have to be careful about the high usage player sometimes.

if you're not going to draft him the top five, he's just not going to be that high-eastern the NBA. And to go back around to Easton, that's what I love about Easton is that he just finds ways to be productive without dominating the ball. Like LSU's got a lot of like fringe NBA players. There's a lot of the ball moves around a lot,

a lot of guys who create their own shot. It isn't like Wisconsin or Iowa where it's like all at Kegan Murray, all Giant Davis all the time. Like Tari-Eason finds ways to be productive in a smaller role. and when you're drafting guys out of the top five, that's super important because you're not going to have a big role in the NBA almost certainly. You're going to have to find ways to be productive.

Yeah, I've kind of witnessed that kind of percolate in your draft philosophy recently. I feel like I don't know how recently it is, but just like the production to usage kind of argument, which I think is you made, you make really good points there. And I think as we get selection Sunday behind us, we can circle back as a upside high youth interested family. we can kind of pinpoint potential, you know, first round matchups and things that are going to be of interest, but then also down the road, things we would like to see. I have kind of similar questions about Johnny as well, but those things are all going to be, I mean, it's just a, it's a fucking blast. I'm excited. I'm excited. I would, I even agree with your F bomb there. Normally I would not approve of that, but March Madness is worth an F bomb. It's the best. Watch it. It's just so much

fun. I'm, I cannot wait. I cannot wait. Yeah. And I, and I, I was going to tell you, man, I loved your piece on the ring of the end. People should go read that. Does my son know you? John wrote an incredible piece about his situation with his cancer. You know, we joke around and tease each other, but I read that sitting next to my son. And I don't know. Somebody told me before my son was born. They were like, it's going to rewire your brain. And I was like, sure, you know, you hear all that stuff before your kids are born. But it's totally true. And, you know, I just love that piece. And wanted to tell you that, you know, pulling for you, man. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you, man. Go check that out. And I want to say, like, I've gotten a ton of feedback from all kinds of people. It's been really overwhelming, really touching. And, yeah, I'm glad I could share that. And it's always as a writer to hear people say that it impacts them. It's, like, very meaningful to me.

So it means a lot the response I've gotten. And I appreciate it. You have an economy of, like, you just have a way that you parse through things really quickly and, like, very, like, succinctly that works. I mean, it works for basketball really well. But in that situation, just to, like, witness you. and that's a kind of intimacy that you don't just you just don't get to have a lot i think as a writer like an honesty and you know we we often hide behind because as we know people don't always

want to hear about our personal lives and things like that so that kind of intimacy i think can kind of be lost in blogging sometimes but um that that that was that was an incredible piece and i encourage everybody to read it uh so yeah come back and subscribe to us and listen to all the other i'm doing i'm doing one of the one of yours you did this to me when we were talking about the cancer stuff and you like pivoted right back to basketball. I just did. I just pulled the Charks. Charks was like,

hey, here's this real serious news. Oh, I had one other thought about Chad Holmgren. Well, that's the really serious. I was like, you son of a bitch.

This is what's really important. You like got me all serious. No, sometimes people are like, oh, is this made you change your priorities and reflect? It's like, yes,

but also prioritized draft boards. Oh, yeah. The most important. Oh, man. Anyway, yeah, let's circle back and just talking

at the ringer at large. Listen to all the other. We come at the NBA from all sorts of angles and talk about from big to small. We're more on the young players side of things and it tends to be smaller markets, but we do it all. We do the pop topics and things and all types and natures of discussion

and check those out and subscribe. John, it was good to see you as always. As always, and next time we're talking, we'll know about Kentucky's bracket. We can really get into it. I'm excited. I'm nervous, excited. As many as, what, 10 games left and as few as two.

that's what I always start thinking at this time of the year. It could be over soon, which my wife will probably appreciate it. But anyway, thanks for listening to Upside High. We'll catch you next time.