The Ringer NBA Show - The Evolution of Kevin Huerter, the Orlando Magic, and Luka Doncic's Post Game With Ben Taylor | The Answer

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

J. Kyle Mann is joined by Ben Taylor from Thinking Basketball to talk about some of the recent developments and movements around the NBA. They begin by dissecting Kevin Huerter's transition from role player with the Hawks to the "Red Velvet" playmaker he's blossomed into as with the Kings (2:41). Next, they dive into the decentralization of heliocentric players around the league, Nikola Jokic's overall basketball mastery, and the dominant size and youth of the Orlando Magic (19:37). They end the pod by analyzing Luka Doncic's elevated skill set in the paint this season (37:52). For more excellent basketball analysis and content from Ben Taylor visit thinkingbasketball.net Host: J. Kyle Mann Guest: Ben Taylor Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill finally gave the ringers Philly crew a podcast. I'm Ben Solac. And I'm Shiel Capadia. That's right, just a couple Philly guys with a new space to fire off some Eagles takes to get caught up in the Sixers, Chaos, and more. We'll be coming to you twice a week on Sundays and Thursdays, plus bonus episodes whenever we get breaking news or Philly drama. Plus when Hardin and Embed somehow convince you suckers that this year's going to be different,

our fellow Philly stands at the Ringer will have you covered on the Sixers and all your other favorite teams in town. It's Philly Sports Shield. What could possibly go wrong? Join the fun and follow the ringers Philly special now on Spotify. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, very good. And today I have a special treat for you guys. It's a personal treat to me because I have more respect for this guy.

I don't want to, like, build him up and then put a lot of pressure on him and make him self-conscious. But one of the smartest people covering basketball, his channel is literally called Thinking Basketball, and he does it so, so well. And a close personal buddy of mine. Ben Taylor is here, LG, 3.3. on Twitter, thinking basketball.net, which is, I got a glimpse at that. Ben did a trailer. Why don't more websites have dot net as the location if we're talking about basketball? My site was dime drop.net. I thought that that was appropriate. Meg actually suggested that. She was like, you should do net. Yet another example of me ripping off from you.

That's, you know, that's an exaggeration. But Ben, Ben is really prolific on YouTube. has done a lot of really awesome work with metrics, some of which he has created for himself, has kind of, you sort of massage the language of the way that you talk about basketball in a way that's really interesting. And you run things through a thinking process, I think, that is interesting.

It's why your stuff has caught on so much. But Ben, how are you doing, buddy? I'm good. I mean, that's a lot to live up to, that introduction. I don't know if we're going to let people down. Do you feel like a comedian at the beginning of a special. We're like, sit down, sit down, stop laughing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like, I'm sitting in the chair and they're still clapping, and I don't know what I'm going to say for the next. How long are we

going to do this? Eight minutes? Yeah, about seven, eight minutes. It's kind of a, it's kind of a, like the length of an Instagram reel is what I was thinking here. So today I brought Ben on, because I want to talk about two individual-driven storylines within the NBA, sort of evolutions of players within the NBA, and then one major team thing. The first thing I want to talk to you about is a guy that I think we both like a lot and have liked a lot. I don't know if I can't remember our specific conversations, but I know we kind of, I know our buddy Dave Dufour is also on board, but Kevin Herder with the Kings. Kevin changed locations this past summer, got away from Trey Young and is playing a lot better. First of all, what do you think is different? Have you

gotten to watch Kevin Hurder? Are you excited about him? And what do you think is different for him in in Sacramento versus his situation in the past in Atlanta. Wow, that's a lot of questions at once coming at me. Okay. First, let me, can I pull back the curtain on the fourth wall here for a brief second? I think this is the first time, like, you laid out a plan for this show. I think this is the first time we've ever done a show with a plan. So I'm feeling a lot of pressure that we are constrained by these navigational touch points.

We can go wherever the wind blows, man. We don't have to stick to a plan. But I just want, you know, some guidance. I've grown up a little bit since the dime drop days. I try to be focused, you know. I try not to be like Stephen Wright in our conversations. Remember me telling you that? Like straight line as much as possible.

No, I think that's part of the charm. But in this case, in this case, we've started with arguably maybe the most exciting topic in all of pro sports right now. And that is the difference between Kevin Herder, the mere mortal individual that used to play for the Atlanta Hawks and red velvet. That's right. That's the difference, Kyle. It's kind of like in Dragon Ball when you become a super saun or whatever that is, you sort of power up.

That's what's happened. I vaguely know about that. Yeah. That whole show missed me. It kind of passed me by. But I've seen it. You know, they power up and they get stronger. I know exactly.

I think that's what he's gone to Sacramento and he's no longer Kevin Herder. He is red velvet. He's moving. He's got, first of all, that offense. I mean, yes, I have been watching them. I love what they're doing there. They're fun. They're exciting.

I have some video work, I think, coming out on them soon on the Thinking Basketball channel. And it's like, what they're doing there allows him to harness his skills. He has a little bit of on-ball stuff, you know, handling with the basketball, playing pick-and-roll game. But it's just this constant movement where he's a great. shooter. He's a phenomenal shooter. He's got really good instincts moving into spaces and pockets and coming off screens. But then the speed and the flow with which they play with allow him to kind of blend those skills together with a little passing because he's a decent passer as well. So you put all this together. And I think the one I said last week was it reminds me a little of

Kyle Corver in Atlanta all those years ago where all of a sudden you can like kind of build your offense around the player, even though he's only averaging 14 points a game. And so Herder next to Fox, the way Malik Monk is playing, and then really that two-man stuff with Sabonis, all the handoff action and using him at the top of the circle as a passer, I love it. I can't get enough of it. It's just fantastic. Yeah, I mean, it's been a major, major uptick in like style for him, like the types of shots that he's taking. If you look at like the percentages, like the way the pie is divided up for him, like the actions that he's run. And this is his fifth year in the league, 24 years old. In the past, like dribble handoff actions, the biggest the pie piece ever got for him in that side of the

ball was 13.3% of his possessions. And this year, it is up to a whopping 25.7. So it is big. And he is getting 1.284 points per possession on those looks. A lot of those are sort of counters, right? Like it seems like, you know, or they'll get them in transition. They'll come down, but it's like the initial action. I guess a lot of the time. Have you noticed that? Is it something that they're like seeking to do or is it more this is like a counter within their offense?

You were talking about it being like the thing that it's built around. It seems like it's sort of a thing in the second part of the shot clock that is, that has just kind of been a difficult thing for people to deal with because you're shooting 60% from three on drivel handoff actions the season, which is crazy, 20 for 33. Yeah, I mean, do you think it's something that's just kind of an added headache or can he grow into like a focal point of an offense or even for the Kings? I feel like I want him to shoot more. I feel like there are moments where he isn't pulling the trigger. And some of that can come with experience.

I mean, it's weird to go back and think about. But 10 years ago, Steph Curry should have shot more. And Steph Curry was already one of the best shooters the league had ever seen 10 years ago. and yet one of the things that happened between his release speed, his ball handling, the whole package, the way the offense was run when they shifted from Mark Jackson to Steve Kerr, is that he leveled up by being more aggressive and shooting more in those spots. And then he did it again in 2016. So when I see a player like Herder, and I'm not saying he's going to be Steph Curry or anything, but it feels weird sometimes to go, oh, this guy who takes seven threes a game shooting 46. percent from three right now, career 39 percent from three, should be shooting more. But there are actually spots on the film where you're like, he could pull that. It's probably just not him getting comfortable with the idea of taking 10-3s a game. And then to the part about building offense, the thing I love about the King's offense is,

one, they play with a lot of pace, right? A ton of pace. They have one of the fastest offensive paces in the league, the average length of their offensive possessions, I think is second in the league right now, just over 13 seconds. And that means when you come down, let's say Darren Fox is pushing pace and you come down, they don't have an offense that says, here's our first action if it fizzles out. We're stuck. Here's our first action if it fizzles out.

Let's pull it back out and get into a pick and roll or something like that. Their offense has a lot of flow and continuity where they push the pace and based on what happens, they can give it to Sabonis in the middle of the court and continue to move and cut and swarle off him. When you have Herder, even when you have Malik Monk out there, these players in those handoff actions can make decisions or shoot themselves. And that's where I think he's fit in so nicely and it's very organic. And so to a degree, especially when he plays off Sabonis, I think some of the offense is built around those skills. And to a degree, it's hard to do overnight. But I see room for even expansion there because I just I just think he's he's still got room to kind of grow into his

growth plates when it comes to the style of play we're discussing. Yeah. Yeah. The Subonis Herder combo specifically, no tandem in the NBA has done more dribble handoffs. I would say it's probably one of the hottest like, I wrote this down and I was like, it's the hottest action. And I was like, I need to ask Ben about hot action. That's something that doesn't really happen a whole lot in our conversations. But I would know they've been they've been really killing it. Where do you talk about him taking and being more aggressive in threes in terms of like on ball stuff he's down like across the board. So the pick and roll diet has kind of been there. And that's a different thing. That's a thing that's varied from his life with tray, which was like as we're

seeing you don't get a lot of ball movement. Or you don't get a lot of off ball movement with tray being involved specifically as we've come to see. So it's kind of the it's the I point at you. You speak offense like we've talked about, sort of like one of your NBA Twitter spaces you were describing to me recently. Where do you see him like expanding? I know for Steph it was like being aggressive further away from the baskets, shooting in tighter spaces. I know that was something that he really evolved with. Where do you see hurt or seizing more attempts? Because they're running, like they're really spamming the DHO right now and teams are probably going to adjust.

Where do you think he could be more aggressive in a pick and roll diet if they diversify in that direction? I don't even know if it's specific actions yet because I think the easiest thing for someone like that is just to get comfortable shooting more and then using that shooting pressure to open up the downhill part of your game. Right. So when you come off a DHO, if you're outside the three point line when you catch the handoff and the players are giving you six feet of space, start pulling the trigger more. And then that's going to turn into two and three feet of space. And then you're going to have a big man step. out on you and then you're going to be able to slip a little pocket pass to Simonis. And I think he has those skills. He shows it, right? He's comfortable with the ball. He's not Isaiah Thomas with the ball, but he's comfortable. And he's not Nikola Yokic as a passer, but he'll hit all these little passes. And so I think it's just about kind of naturally developing and getting more comfortable in those

spots. But to me, it starts with, hey, I'm this good of a shooter. Like there are situations where you watch him during the game and someone else like Fox or Sabonis will create an action and the kings are not, they'll swing it around the horn and it'll land on herder and you're like, he's going to pop that. He's made five threes in the game. And he'll like up fake and start attacking the close out and kick it to like Harrison Barnes or something for an open three. You're like, you're the guy who I want shooting that, not Harrison Barnes. So I think it's that kind of stuff for me. Okay. So you think his kind of space, spatial sort of balance, that he has a lot of room to, like, upgrade it.

Because it feels like he's been pretty aggressive shooting threes this year. I think there's more. I think there's another layer. Yeah. Well, they're going to probably they're going to be forced to, honestly, if you look at the way, if they're going to be playing the big boys, if they're going to grow into their big britches as an NBA, like a real competitive NBA team, like, that's going to be competing, you know, for a playoff spot or a playing in spot.

You saw the way the sons. Did you get to see the way the sons played him last night, the way they were meeting him on those DHOs? No, I have. haven't seen that game and I feel like you're you're pouring salt in the wounds it's on my I've heard it's lovely and it's on my list to get to they didn't get to shine the beam last night which was a shame they got the sun's got them 122 117 light the beam Kyle light the beam sorry I can't remember you know I I have a toddler man I forget I forget things I've told people my ram is like sort of compromise these days I do however remember like metaphors for like incanto and cars and toy stories so I'm good

for that kind of stuff. But no, they were being more aggressive with him off the ball, which is something that you kind of saw people do with Steph as he got better. Right. And the meeting like last night, Devin Booker, McHale Bridges, and these are teams that are qualified to bother actions like this.

So it's like they'll probably be forced to diversify. It's not going to like be such a like contain specific player development thing where we're like, oh, it'd be nice. It's like, no, I think for the Kings to improve, that's going to be something,

that they're going to have to do because they were they were also meeting him at the level of the screen like like he had somebody waiting for him there so that's something that's what you're right i think that's a whole other part of their offense that could evolve yeah um i have a i have a fun herder step curry play in my next uh my next video for the NBA app coming up which i where are we when we're we're at the end of november right now and i don't know what time is anymore i can never keep track i think at the end of i thought you were like talking to your producer like Robin on Howard Stern or something. You said that off in the distance. I was like, I've never seen the camera the other direction. I know you have a team over there thinking basketball. I was doing

the Roman Polansky turn my head thing to see who was in the rest of the frame. There's a group of people behind this monitor just flashing stats and talking points at me. The entire conversation is the only way. George Lopez, is he there with you? I know you're your basketball buddy. That was a very esoteric reference that you just made that most people won't get. Ben did a pod with George Lopez. it blew my mind. Last thing I needed is George Lopez wanting to come kick my ass. I don't know.

So anyway, Wait a second. We're talking about Kevin Herder, right? Yes, we are. We are. Okay. Well, there's the difference between him and Atlanta, right?

Yes, I wanted to ask, yeah, that's important. Yeah. Well, it's fascinating to me because I think what happened in Atlanta is you have this heliocentric offense run around Trey.

And then when Trey's not out there or occasionally when they switch to like a second side action or whatever, then you go, okay, Herder, you just run the same pick and roll. You run Atlanta likes a lot of staggered screens. So you have two guys up outside the three point line in the middle of the floor, two guys in the corner, this kind of spacing.

And it was like, okay, Herder, you just run those same actions. And you could see he was like okay at it, right? Like the ability to have that player start next to Tray Young as a shooter and then also be able to handle some of those on-ball pick-and-roll actions. That's a nice option. but he played in Atlanta for what, four years. He's 23, 24 years old. None of us kind of looked at that and said,

what you're going to get when he goes to Sacramento is Red Velvet. But instead, what's happened is a different offensive ecosystem and maybe something that focuses a little bit more on his movement. And that's why I think everything with him starts with the threat of the shot and being more aggressive with the shot and playing downstream from there. It goes back to my Kyle Corver metaphor, like, All of a sudden, now you have something that harnesses this guy's skills. And the question is, how much can you crank that up?

And from a development standpoint, it's really interesting because could you have done this earlier? Right? Could you have been in a position where he's getting those reps and starting to realize? Like, I haven't seen the game, but maybe the suns are coming much higher out on the pick and roll. And that's something that these movement shooters kind of need to experience and realize, okay, how am I going to counter this? How am I going to counter this with the way I cut? How am I going to counter this with the way I pass? How is my screening partner going to slip or roll differently?

So we punish these particular actions. It's that experience that you need to get in those positions. And maybe playing in a system like we saw in Atlanta, and it's no shade on Trey from my standpoint. It's just hard to see that and hard to maybe get that experience. And then you go somewhere else. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay, this is a different thing. Looking to get more out of this NBA season?

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1877-770 stop in Louisiana or visit www.W.md.md.md.md.md.md.md.md.md.md.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m.m. in Louisiana or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. 18778 Hope, New York or text Hope N.Y to 467369 in New York, 1,800 522-470-470 in Wyoming or visit www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. I wrote down here, and this is something Syrett and I were talking about Sirot Sohi, who is taking some relaxation time this week. We'll have her back next week. But I wrote this down, and this is something that I would,

we always joke about our like bong hit NBA conversations. And I wouldn't just throw this on anybody else. But I do see some sort of a like. Are you suggesting that I hit the bong when I watch basketball? Never. This guy's on the NBA app. No way. I was just thinking about like decentralized offenses that are harder to choke out

because they're not coming from one place. I know our buddy Moe, Doc Hill has pointed out that Atlanta is really predictable in end-of-game situations. And teams that have a really high-qualified helio guy often are because, and that's what makes them so brilliant, is because you know it's coming. Can you do anything about it? It's so effective. But like with these decentralized offenses, you know, we saw Miami do succeed with some of it in the playoffs a couple years ago. And these are all just sort of like jutting off of the timeline of the Kerr. I mean, Kerr obviously didn't, you know, pioneer these things. He pulled these things from his influences of pop and from, you know, all these different Phil Jackson. Are you noticing this is a thing that's happening more and more, you know, like decentralization within teams.

We saw the helio movement. I guess I'm kind of wondering, spur of the moment I'm throwing this here, do we think that they both are like, qualified to compete at the highest level. Like, we've seen Golden State do that, and how hard is that? Like, the Kings, you know, Mike Brown, I'm sure, has pulled a lot of the things that he learned offensively from his time with the Warriors. I don't know. Are you seeing this trend in this movement?

Do you think that we're going to see more teams like this? Or is this a polarity within the NBA where it's like, if you have these movement shooters that you can run actions with at the elbow, that's perfectly valid? Is one more effective than the other, I guess, is what I'm saying. Like, is the Golden State model replicable at the title level? Or does Ayanis still trump them if a Yonis is there with shooters? You see what I'm saying? You know in back to the future when Marty shows up at Doc's house and he puts that mind reading device on his head?

You know what I'm talking about? I feel like you've just done that to me. Were you thinking that as we were talking? Yeah, well, you're not trying to sell me subscriptions to the Saturday evening post and said you've actually successfully read my mind because I've just been thinking about this all year. And I'm probably, I'm figuring out like how to, can this be a video? Can you make a tight narrative structure around this? Because the general thesis that I've landed on that you kind of just described and talked around is it's harder to guard moving things. That's the general thesis.

And it really jumped out to me in the Celtics first round series against the Nets last year where Kevin Durant, he likes to kind of I mean, basically isolate a lot around the elbow pinch post area. But the thing that's happening in those actions that has evolved as part of this pace and space timeline, the modernization of the league, the three-point shot, all this stuff. Mike Prade has wonderful book spaced out, you know, describes this to a T. The thing that's happened is you give the ball to Durant. And 10 years ago, you know, the lane would be clogged and double team angles would be. And now it's all spaced out. And so you go, oh, okay.

So Durant has the ball at the elbow. It's really hard to guard because if we double from this position, he's learned you make this pass. If you double from that position, you make this other pass. If you stay in single coverage, he has space. If you sag off, he hits the jumper. Well, Boston guarded that fairly successfully because of how stationary it was, because over time, the defenses figure out,

I know exactly how to cheat the angles. At the same time that series was happening, you go over to the Hawks and you watch Trey Young. and the heat just basically choked him out, right? They shrunk the floor, they sat in the gaps, they knew all the pick and roll actions that were going to happen, so they knew how to cheat off of the corner and things like that. And it's being a little reductive,

but that's basically stationary. And so when it's stationary, the defenses have learned where to put the chest pieces. When you start moving and flowing and cutting, it's all counters, which is what you asked about at the top with with Herder. It's all dynamic. It's all read and react.

And even this season, one thing, you know, you asked about hot actions. One thing we're seeing more this season is when I run a spread pick and roll, don't have, it's not 2018 anymore. Don't have one guy in the corner, one guy in the corner, one guy on the wing and the spread pick and roll. Instead, have the two guys screen for each other. Have the guy in the wing cut at a 45 degree angle as the pick and roll is happening. Do anything.

Timing, huge. Yeah. Do anything to make it a little bit harder. So the defense has to think. So if you go back and you watch that Hawk series against the heat, they would, one of the ways they cheated, trying to use length, trying to understand where the driving gaps are,

block his passing angles, Trey's passing angles. But they would like cheat off the corner. They would like come up off the corner, man, like nine feet up. Because they know, like, I just need to block. this angle to the corner pass. But if that corner man is cutting on the baseline, setting a screen,

diving as the pick and roll is happening, now that defender has to figure out like, oh, crap. I got to keep an eye on this guy. Is he actually coming off a screen? Is he cutting to the basket himself? Is he setting a screen? So I think that's what we're seeing more of in the league because movement is hard to guard. And dot, dot, dot, the nuggets, the warriors, the he's heat a couple years ago, these kinds of offenses are now adding in all these baked in things that are automatic flow, read and react parts of the offense that I think are just really hard to guard. I think it's one of the reasons why we have an all-time record in offensive efficiency right now of like 113 points per 100 league-wide. It's just the offenses have gotten

smarter about the defense's latest counter. Yeah. I know you said in your, I forget which was it the Luca video where you were talking about time as a flat circle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because of the post-up, because of the circularity of the post-up, yeah. It's funny, I think that's going to be a nice segue here in a second that I want to get to, but I want to continue. I feel like our conversations always kind of go to this direction. But, like, you talked about Yokic as Yokic kind of straddles the two worlds, honestly, has kind of dual citizenship where he can play that way, can play as like a dominant score,

but can also flip the switch to playing within a cutting offense and like the high post. I mean, he's the ultimate version of that because he's your helio guy that is more than willing to flip and be the guy in the middle of the floor and pass over the top. I know your feelings about Yucats are strong. I don't even, and that's a dangerous thing. Did you want to, you want to just say something? He's everything. He's everything.

He can play every position. He has every skill. I'm just, I'm in awe. I feel like maybe because people get MVP voter fatigue and the controversy around that every year and how it's like a really hot button topic that everyone has to cough, cough, everyone has to start talking about in the second week of November for some reason. I feel like it's made people hesitant to really lean into how historically great he is. I think I said this on my last thinking basketball podcast.

Like, we are watching someone who you could look at every night and go, this is the best version of basketball ever played on the offensive end. That's a strong statement. I mean, I would say that's a really strong statement. No, I'm just saying, no, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that's the thing. That's lofty. Like, okay, so he's one of the best passers of all time,

and he does it in every different position. So he can play point guard, he can bring it up the court. He can play pick and roll. He is, especially because of his height, unreal at hitting angles on picket. Unreal. He makes passes other pick and roll players don't even think about making because of his height,

and he makes them to guards, all these inverted pick and rolls, little bounce passes over his head. He goes to the post. he abuses people in the post. Kyle, Kyle, he's shooting like, he's shooting like 61% from the mid range. He's shooting like 80% at the rim. He may be the best short roll, like score, passer, combination player ever.

Ever, I was going to say LeBron. LeBron would be really qualified in that area. Yeah, we actually talked about LeBron on that, on one of our pods many, many eons ago, and LeBron came up. But that could toggle between those two things. The toggle, yeah. You've got to be big to do that. Yeah. And so, you know, we don't have this on the agenda.

This isn't, we're not going to spend too much time on Yokach, I don't think. But the point of him entering this conversation is that it's not necessarily one thing or the other. It's the blending and toggling of those things that has now become sort of required for great offensive basketball. It goes back to Herder. It goes back to Steph Curry. Like, Steph Curry, in a way, he's so good off ball. people forget how good he is on ball. Like incredible handle, ability to make a series of pick and roll passes and reads.

For his size as a rim finisher, the touch and the creativity, like that in and of itself would make a very good offensive player along with the pull-up three-point shooting. And so Yokic's kind of only worth this year is that he's not shooting. He's thinking fewer threes, I think, than he has in a while. And he's in like, I think he's like under 30%. So he's not smoking. from three. But when you have a player who is an elite offensive rebounder, literally an elite

post player, the best passer from all these positions, a great mid-range player, a pinch post player, one of the best pick and roll passers and players in the league, it's like, this is modern basketball and he is, it just feels effortless for him at this point. Yeah, you were talking too about, well, I was going to comment on herder in the middle of the floor. He's shooting, let's see, 76% on runners this season. So his touch around the room is pretty good as well. I don't know. In terms of like the movements and like we talked,

we had Mike Prada on last week. And I know I messaged you about how the league is getting younger, faster in a sort of cruel way. Like the, and Siritt and I talked about how like the age has dipped dramatically. I think we're down like 30. We're like 90 something players over 30 years old. And talking about like,

the way, I guess that's what interests me about this, like, helio offball kind of movement is that, like, if those types of players are all entering the league, I kind of always assume that there's going to be, if you have, like, a guy who can, like, run, you know, heavy, heavy touches. I know you hate usage, but, I mean, just the center of an offense, sort of the tray style offense, but with a big player, I don't know, how long that'll continue to be a thing as these players, like, you know, enter the league. Let's transition over to Luca. You made a video about, did you, do you want to add anything else about like on the paradigm shift thing there or like where we are? I think you had a

completely natural segue to Luca right there. Yeah, because you land in this place, I think of the magic and what they're doing in Orlando. And you and I, starting a couple years ago, have talked a lot about big playmakers and ball handlers coming into the league. You have a video on the Ringer channel about who do you, you have Janus in that video. I think you have Luca in that video. Do you have Cade? He wasn't in the league yet. I was talking about, I mean, I forecasted that Cade could be that type. He's not quite as big. He's like right at that threshold, but big. But I think it was like, I was really focusing on like downhill pressure that phenomenon because people were like, hey, why wasn't Yokic in there?

I was like, Yokic doesn't really start with drive. It's more, it's a little different. But I mean, I agree that he does check a lot of those same boxes. But those were the guys that were on the video. At the time, it was like Harden, Luca, LeBron, Janus, were like leading the league in offensive rating, basically. Yeah, yeah. And so you connect that to like the players coming into the league

compared to what players were trained on. Mike Prada has a great term for this, spaced out native. And I feel like that's right. I feel like that's what the younger generation is. They're growing up with this modern style of basketball. They're growing up where if you're tall, you're not told to go into the post. You're not sent to post up jail, basically, if you're tall, right? You're not relegated to the mic and drill for the quarter.

Yeah, which man, the mic, did you have to do that? I was a guard and I had to do that. Dude, I grew up in a small town. I was like six feet. That was like six one in like the eighth grade. So I was doing that mic and drill all the time. Yeah, they thought I was going to be a power forward. I was not.

I didn't grow another inch after that. But yes, for anyone under the age of 50, he was wondering what the heck we're talking about. You had to go on the block and pick up the ball and sweep hook shots off different sides of the glass back and forth, toggling back and forth between the block. But today, now you look at the magic. And their latest thing is just like, how much bowl, bowl can we get going on in the, in the offense? Just give it to bowl and get out of the way.

Talking about spamming things. They were already big. They were like, let's just sprinkle this seven foot two. Let's just throw that out there and put him on ball. Why not? He's doing some wild stuff, man. So they have two players in particular that I think really jump out as part of this development track. And there's the on ball side and the off ball side.

If we could dichotomize it, and maybe it's a false dichotomy, but for now I'm kind of thinking about the skill set that you need to have to be able to run pick and roll actions, handle the ball, make reads, get downhill on your own. versus some of the offball skills that we talked about earlier with Herder. So with Orlando, you have Paolo Boncaro, who is like the biggest human being ever created. He looks like he looks like an oversized human being. He's an action figure. He's like 610, but he should be 6.5. I can't figure it out. He's bigger than everyone.

I was talking about that play last night where he had Durant on him, which Durant, you know, has, when he's interested in defense, he's kind of like LeBron. Durant picks these little things, these times where he's like, he's like all right i got a i got to dust it off i'm gonna block that i was joking there was a there's this advertising book i've read in the past where david ogleby would say he every once in a while he would jump out in the bullpen and show him that he could write still the kids i feel like durant does that and lebron does too where they'll just situationally be like all right i got this kid is coming i need to make a point he was guarding palo and palo just from the three point

line backed him all the way into the rim like it was nothing and scored he's huge is what i'm getting it. He's huge, right? So that is a player who in the past, historically, would never be in a position, especially as a rookie, where all of a sudden he's handling, like, I think we had a little of this at Duke so you could see this kind of skill set. But literally the magic are like, okay, you know who we really want running the offense? We would like a lot of palo, sprinkle in some bowl, and Franz Wagner, you're our other 610 point guard. And it's like, this is a new. thing. And these kids coming in and these kids, I showed to get off my lawn. The young guys coming in now, having these skills is is extremely new. And it kind of changes the game because what do you need to

be able to do in today's game that's different than 15 years ago? You need to be able to shoot really well. Like that's just that's just a kind of table stakes requirement because shooting is a huge part of basketball. And when you're a non-shooter, you better come in with something else. usually you need to be able to handle the ball because you need to be able to attack closeouts if you're not a shooter and then after that we can get into the more advanced skills that the great players have

but it's like older generations especially players over 6-6 who would survive on defense or athleticism or quote-unquote athleticism slashing to the basket it's not there anymore the post-up game for most of these guys isn't there anymore so you're coming in with these skills

you're coming in with the mindset of understanding how to play in space, understanding when to time a cut, understanding what a low man rotation is, understanding a skip pass into pick and roll. When LeBron came into the league, you're like, wow, there's this 18-year-old kid like slinging pick-and-roll passes into the corner.

It was weird. And it's like a standard NBA draft skill for me now. I watch ball reversal. Like, I'm always, I always get excited. If you can throw live dribble stuff, like it's become standard. Yeah. And by the way, when LeBron did it,

it wasn't for three. It was Eric Snow spotting up from like 17 feet. on the way. It looks so weird now. But they all have this. And I think, you know, if I had to put forth a hypothesis, it would be that is that. That's the reason why we're seeing a shift in age. Whereas in like the late 90s, I think it went the other way. The game got so slow and slow, so kind of muscular and gummy and dragged down that you

had these old players hanging on longer. They were bigger. They were more experienced. They knew all the tricks. Now it's the opposite. Now the game is exploding in a different direction. and it's like waves of young players coming in, kind of kicking out these dinosaurs. Yeah, it's one of the themes that I honestly, we organically have kind of uncovered it, I feel like.

I feel like, I don't know, like one of those true crime podcast people, I was researching one thing and this other thing has just sort of, it's just sort of crystallized in front of me. I feel like through conversations we've had this year, you know, you and I've talked a lot about like paradigm movement and things like that within the game. But the age thing is just really, really interesting. Before we move on, I don't know we'll get to everything we wanted to, but I do want to talk to you about Luca. Before we do that, we're going to, we're going to talk about an evolution in Luca Donchich's game, somebody who's relevant to this whole thing. And we're going to talk about him after the break. All right. So Luca Donchich is a guy. We have both been excited about for, you know, I don't think that that, I don't think we're in the minority on that one. Luca is very fun to watch. You kind of know what you're getting on a nightly basis with him. I don't check in on.

him as much with league pass as I used to. I remember when it was kind of like he was ascending and it was clear this guy was going to be like a generational superstar. It was more frequent. But lately, talking about what you expect to get from him, we've seen a big evolution in his game. And that is the embrace of the post-up. My first question for you, Ben, do you think that Luca is simply choosing to employ a post-game? Like, is this something that he's improve to the point where he wanted to do this? Or is this something that was so closely sort of adjacent to the things he already did? Like, is this an actual development or is it just something like a choice, do you think? Could Luca have done this from moment one in the NBA?

Wow. That's really philosophical. I feel like we need to go in the woods and take some mushrooms or something and think about this. A lot of drug use comments from you today. What's that? A lot of drug use comments from you today. I don't do a lot of drugs. And I'm not saying advocating going in the woods, going in the woods and doing mushrooms either. You're getting me in trouble. I am.

These are metaphorical. Yes, these are metaphorical comments I'm making here. The reason why I have that reaction is because I do think it toes the line of like, this guy is organically using his body. And especially in playoff situations, like last year in the run, it was run to the conference finals that they made. There were just moments where it was obvious that he's going to either back you down

as sort of part of one of these slow motion pick and roll actions. He's going to spin one way, spin the other way. It's not, when I say back down, we're not talking about your father's backing down. This isn't Charles Barkley isolating on the wing, Mark Jackson pounding the ball, sticking his butt in you and backing you down. It's more of a, I go a little left, I go a little right,

I spin, oh, look, I'm six feet from the back. basket and then he's like a magician down there. I always say Luca Burroughs. He doesn't drive or he just sort of, he works his way to the basket, but he's also not trying to get the lowest possible position, it seems like. He's kind of comfortable not doing that,

maybe for offensive fouls, things like that, I guess. No, but I think in his timeline of development, he, you know, really jumped in 2020, but 2021, 2022, he's bigger. He's got more size. He could probably be even a little, leaner in terms of fitness, just like the evolution we saw with Yokic, where you retain a lot of your power and you're really big. But he just bullies, he bullies like most of the league. And when he gets

big men down there is, again, this isn't even a traditional, I'm turning my back to the basket and I'm posting you up. It's just he's so good with tempo, so good with control, so good with subtle hesitations, microfakes, all the things that I talk about as like soft athleticism, not your traditional athleticism. He's so good at that that once he's in that space near the hoop, especially, as I said in the playoffs, he's having success with just like, remember the one he gave to Rudy Gobert, the like, you look this way, you go that way. I was at that game. Yeah, he was just toying with him. He has everyone on a string like a puppeteer. And so I think that's the part that's really organic and is kind of float.

I think you even have his numbers that you pulled on his post-up stats. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. what are those? Because those have spiked a lot, right? They have, yes. And I think another interesting thing, we were talking about him not like trying to get the lowest possible position. I think is because a lot, and we, you know, we were talking about

Paulo posting up from the perimeter. This is a movement, talking about movements in the NBA. I think, you know, the post up, you had a really interesting stat that I saw that you pulled through like play types since, I guess it was like 2010 or something like that or I forget how far back. No, you went back to like 05, I think. You went way far back. So, I mean, it's been a big, what was the number? Do you know off the top of your head? Like, league-wide post-per-game average? What was it? I remember it being roughly halved. So I want to say it was like 20-something percent in that range when Synergy starts in the mid-2000s. And now they're under 10 percent, right? It's like a relatively small percentage of plays are categorized as post-ups now.

Yeah, I think I was thinking it was per game. Maybe it was a percentage, but I feel like it was like nine. It could have been per game. It's nine now or something. It was 20 then. But anyway, it's way down. But something interesting that's kind of happened here is that like it is still valuable to get your big person in the middle of the floor, whether or not that we're talking about the big playmakers in a big way that they did that was downhill pressure. If your big guy can dribble the ball and get to the nail basically, get to a central vantage point. In that situation, though, you know, if depending on who you are, if you can't score if you get to that vantage point, it's, it's a.

a little bit harder because they're going to be able to send, you know, help your way or stay home and eliminate those passing lanes and things like that. But Luca is dribbling into post-ups. And we see, we see Yocch do this a lot. And Luca's leading the league this year in post-up points, as you pointed out. But in 2018-19, he did 42. The next year he did 43. And in 2020, so Carlisle was still there. He did 140. So this is clearly something that they were like, we're going to do this, you know, it's a choice. And then this past year, he did 200. 145. So huge leap and he's going to break it this year. I think he's on track to do like it's a lot. He's going to, he's probably going to break it. So he's on track for over 300. Yeah,

I think it comes out to 340, 350, something like that post-ups for the entire year. So that's a huge shift right, from from 40, which is like every other game you throw in a post-up to 140 to on pace for 350 this season or something. Yeah, yeah, anyway, keep going. Well, do you think that we were talking about the predictability late game of Trey, do you think that this is an intentional late season counter development thing that they're choosing to do earlier in the year? Because they're not premeditated.

That's the thing about these posts. It's often he is seeing, and this is my observation, you tell me if you agree or disagree with this, but it seems like they're not coming down and just saying, let's dump it in there. It's usually there's some kind of action. And then Luca is like, okay, I'm going to reposition myself, usually on the baseline because he's sitting in that with his back, his butt to the corner. And he can see the whole court. He's a monster, as we know. But it seems like they're not premeditated post-ups, right?

They're kind of counters. Well, I think there's both. I think there's both. The other side of your original question that I was saying is philosophical is the Mavs do have actions where they're using him in more like the pinch post, which is a little higher on the floor. near the elbow. And those actions are, they go back to our earlier conversation about the evolution of the league and movement and not being stationary. If you throw it into a guy like Luca Donchich who can pass really well in that area of the floor, you can then run movement action. And I have this in the video, right? You can then run movement action where he's amazing as a passer. But it's not

like Draymond Green with the Warriors or even Bam out of bio at the top at the elbow with Miami. Like, you literally at the same time have the threat of him just turning and scoring himself, whether he has a little fade away, not the greatest fade away in the world, I think, in terms of percentage, but he has a fade away. He can just start backing you down. And then the spin move sometimes. I mean, if you're not paying attention and you're the on-ball defender and you're like, God, okay, Golden State split cuts, here we go.

What do I do? I sag back. I'm supposed to play. You're thinking that through in your head, right? And as you're thinking that through, he's already spun off the other shoulder and gone by you for a layup. And so I think it's both in the sense that you have a weapon in those situations that sort of supercharges the action because you can pass into those off ball movement plays as a hub and you can turn and score yourself. And this is heliocentrism in like a more physical sense. It's why Yokic is sitting in the center of the court and having players swarm around him.

It's why Bill Walton even back in the day, you know, having the ball in the high post and having cutters swarm around them, that is much closer to the actual metaphor of orbiting around one star. And I think I think you get that in spades when you run those actions. So I think it's both of those things together. You do have, to your point, plenty of times, especially late game, where it's like, if you give up a switch, Luca just immediately goes, okay, I'm going to back you down and you're going to see how you handle this because I'm seven inches bigger.

than you or you know, this is totally the wrong primary defender. So you have to react in some way. And, yeah, teams, it's not the old days, Kyle. Teams can't throw entry passes anymore for some reason. So maybe just backing. It's just talking about skills entering the league. That one left the league. Maybe backing into your post-ups is a more organic, safer way to, more effective way to do it.

And then once you post up, because it's not as common, teams don't have, I think, quite the same double team sort of habits down pat. I think Mo Ticiel was telling me who I do the NBA Twitter spaces every month with. He was always lamenting, and we talked about it last time, the fact that they're, I don't think he's seen a baseline double team

for the post all year. He's like, no teams have figured out that you can double the post from both sides of the ball because this is not a common thing these days. Yeah. And it's, it's it's interesting because what you're talking about is we've seen you and I talked about the draymond offensive thing like the evolution of that and like um you know draymond basically just does the equivalent of like the quarterback pull it pulling the hand off and and sneaking

and scrambling for 15 yards kind of thing to do a rare football comment from me but i mean that's kind of the equivalent that's the extent of it and we saw when we saw the jazz doing it in the late 90s with Malone, it was a lot more potent because you had, you know, you saw a little remnants of that. He would take the advantage if he liked it. Luca is a whole other animal because he's one of the most, like, where does he rank in terms of players who are unbothered by single coverage? I mean, it's Yokic, it's LeBron when he's rolling. It's, I mean, the basic, like, big offensive powerhouses. Luca is like playing, he is playing that second line of defense because you pointed this out. in your video about him is that it's usually you can see what's going to happen in a play

if you watch it in slow motion. The remarkable thing about this is that he is doing it in real time super quickly, which is talking, we have talked about like processing load. If you play basketball, like your ability to like think fluidly with like no latency about those things, it's just super impressive. But I can't think of anybody else in the league that is a so unbothered by single coverage, but also just consistently playing on that, that outer part of it, like that second help defender. He's trying to move that guy that's zoning on the opposite side of the floor. Who else is even on that level? I mean, we know Yokic is. Who's in that category right now that's scoring at that level and playing the help defense like that? From that spot on the floor or just in

general? Just say from that spot on the floor, what do you think? Yeah. God, it's from that spot on the floor, I feel like those guys are probably in a class of their own. I mean, Embededed is an amazing score, but he doesn't have the passing kind of manipulation element to it. I'm struggling to even think of other players who like to live down there and also kind of have that level of passing and scoring because they both use no look passes, head fakes. You talked about micro fakes. I've never heard you say that one, microfakes. I like that. What's a microfake for Luca Donchich and how is it effective? Well, there's a play in the Luca Dantisch video that I put out that we've been referencing. He takes Bull Bull under the hoop, backs him down.

We're back on our friend, Bull Bull. Backs him down. That's right. The Mavs point guard just completely like steamrolls the 7-2 bowl under the basket. It's a bowling ball just rolling with a broomstick in front of it, basically. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. He uses that low center of gravity.

I mean, imagine being 6'8 having someone say you have a low center of gravity. but he backs him down and then right before he takes a little fade away and little here is not poetic. I mean, it is barely a fading action. And so you think like, why is Luca Donchich able to turn and shoot at the basket right over a 7-2 bowl bowl? It's because right before he shot, he may think of like Hakeem Ilajuwon with the dream fake, you know, like sticking the ball out with one arm. But instead of an actual full fake motion, it's just this little. like syncopatic tempo. I'm backing you down.

I'm backing you down. Okay, there's the bomb. No, I shot. It's that thing right before he shot. That's a micro-fake. And what that did on that particular play is it just brought Bull-Bull up on his tiptoes, thinking he had to jump at the direction of the first shot. That creates the space for the second.

He is an absolute God at using just these very subtle changes of pace and hesitations and changes of direction in tempo when you combine that with how big he is as a dude. I think that's what makes this whole kind of song and dance work as he gets closer to the basket. Shooting, shooting by the way, I just looked it up. He is shooting 72% at the rim, according to our friends over at play by play stats. That's in the 73rd percentile in the league. And then 52% from midrange. And a lot of this stuff comes from what we're talking about, where you're either turning as you dribble and you're kind of burying your way in or slowly backing down spinning and backing down, or you're coming downhill. And the other thing, as you know,

that he does so well is he stops. He's coming downhill and he stops right in front of the basket. And then he just picks up his dribble and he starts sending people in different directions with ball fakes and things like that. I don't know other guys that kind of play in that space, play that instrument, if you will, right now in the league. See, I got back to music for you, Kyle. Thank you for that. Yeah, if you look at like, and he does it on either block, I was going through something interesting that you talked about was like blending shots into passes. And I know this is like a virtue in playmakers that we both have gone wax poetic about

on and on and on, but like extending passing windows, the blending of a shot into a pass. So I went specifically and I was just looking at the types of shots that he takes from either side of the floor in the pinch post. I mean, we've seen him. He really loves to go to the right shoulder fade. He usually spins and goes to the basket if he does a left shoulder. But how does he – I'm trying to think of the different windows that he creates because they are sort of – you can sort of like itemize the types of shots that he likes to take. It's like if he goes and – one example I've seen is if he does sort of that MJ Kobe, like I'm going to go to the fade and then I pivot and step through when you jump.

the MAV's getting an open three on that move. I don't think there's a way to look this up, but it has to be like 95% of the time. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, talk about that, like blending. What shots, what things, do you see any patterns that he consistently like kind of spams? Or what about the blending shots into past?

Well, I don't know if it's spamming. So the way I would read that. Hitting one of them more, having a success rate, basically. Spamming, not. Spamming kind of does like an indulgent, maybe not necessarily. organic. Wrong word. Is there one that they hit more often? Well, no, because where I'm going is I think it's pick your poison.

Just like in the pick and roll read, if you overplay the role, man, they hit the corner and punish you that way. Just like in the Golden State offense, if you play the cut too hard on their splits cut, the three-point shot pops open. It's like, when he's down in that position, he's waiting for as long as possible to figure out how the defense reacts. And so this is a natural scoring move. If there's no defense, now I have a really easy, comfortable shot. If the defense reacts as he's turning kind of up and under, jumping in the air, holding the ball, it's so natural for him to pass in that same two-handed or

one-handed motion as he would shoot. And so he just, to me, it's just to pick your poison. He's just reading what the defense is choosing, waiting as long as possible for what they choose. And I actually think that's why on the plays he ends up passing, it's an open 3 99% of the time because he wouldn't pass it if they didn't make that choice as a defense. Yeah, I think that circling it all the way back to the philosophical go in the woods and take mushrooms and think about Luca thing that we were talking about, whether or not this was something he actually evolved into. I think he just had a, he had a skill set, I think that just was like there. Like I think that he developed a skill set specifically the way he plays pick and roll because he plays at different.

than anyone else. Like if he if he comes off of a picking a screen and burrows his way into the lane off of a pick and roll as we've seen he does so frequently, he ends up, he ends up, I don't even know if we could time this. I don't know if the second spectrum has this, but like possessions that end with like a long touch time in the lane coming off of a pick and roll. I think Luca has to like be the all time leader in that. Like he's the person like that comes off of a ball screen and gets in the lane and just sets up shop. And I think that this is just sort of another version of that. And I think that's why he's probably so comfortable making those passes because he's making those shots. This is just sort of removing the screener.

And he likes a matchup that he has. And he just goes, it's all kind of different forms of the same thing, right? That's kind of the point I'm making. I think he's had this skill. And it's just been sort of a choice, honestly, a formality. Yeah, I think so. I've really appreciated this change of direction in this conversation because you and I never talk about Luca Donchish. So this is really, really nice to be able to get to sort of bat around some ideas about him while we're recording.

We don't talk about Luke. I feel like we talk about him all the time. We talk about him every time, Kyle. We do. So you were making a joke. And I'm just so. I was making an attempt at humor and it clearly failed. I don't know if that's because of your, you know, you have a toddler around and things like that.

Or if I'm just losing it, just slipping. It's maybe a combination of both. I don't know. Dallas, we should mention, though, where, you know, we're praising Dallas. Dallas stinks right now. Well, they have a lot of things that... I disagree. They have a lot of things that need to unravel.

You know, it's like a Christmas lights thing that's in the shed. And it's like, this lights up, but it's not, we need to, you know, they're nine and ten right now. They're nine and ten, but it's results for its process. I think they have a lot of indicators suggesting that they're plenty good team that, you know, they've had some bad shooting lock on defense. They've, you know, their schedule hasn't been super easy. I think they're okay. I think they're okay.

I think 20 games in, people can overreact. What am I saying? The internet can overreact. It's like if you're 12 and 8 right now and you're in the fourth seed versus being nine and 10, that's a lot of noise early in the season. So I actually think they've been okay. Maybe because you go to the conference finals in the year before, there's a spotlight on, you know, who should be playing more? How are you going to handle this?

Should they be running that? Christian Wood? You know, as long as they continue to play like this, I think they'll actually be okay. And, of course, you can figure out some stuff, as does every team on the margins as you go through the year. Yeah, with Luca, you can, and it's same thing with LeBron. Same thing with you. It's just kind of like they are such floor raisers that it's like at some point, something is going to work to a point that's going to be difficult to stop. And it's going to be, because if you look at the metrics, and this is the last thing we'll wrap up.

But look at the metrics. I think you're right. It's kind of like the Nets thing you were talking about where you saw some indicators in their defense and you predicted that it would kind of regress. And you said like bad shooting luck. If you look at them, I mean, they're middling and like their 12th in offensive rating, 11th and defensive rating last and pace. A lot of that's just kind of the Luca thing. But leading the league in ISO, post points, pick and roll. So they still have things that work. And, you know, I think they've had some regression from Tim Hardaway Jr. There's, there's all, I think, I agree.

I think they're going to be fine ultimately. Yeah. All right. Well, Ben, thanks for coming. Do you anything coming out soon that you would like to promote here or you got you've always got something in the pipeline what's up um we've got a new video i think coming out the beginning of december on the nba a app that'll be a fun one um thinking basketball youtube channel and of course the new thinking basketball dot net especially for stats and data heads out there who we the idea behind the new site um in part just but besides updating the site was to create this area that that you can share the tools. These are the tools that I use every day when I make videos,

when I research stuff, when I set up for podcasts. And so we're just trying to make them available to subscribers. So, yeah, that's all the new stuff going. Just lots of watching basketball, Kyle, until the eyes bleed. And then you have to make videos about it. If your eyes bleed, just dab them and keep going, basically. So it works. Yeah, if you're into stats, if you're somebody who's dabbled in, like,

cleaning the glass. And if you like thinking about basketball from that perspective, this site, thinking basketball is for you. Ben, thanks so much for coming on, man. I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me, Kyle.