The Ringer NBA Show - Weirdos and Unicorns at NBA Summer League With J. Kyle Mann | The Answer

Episode Date: July 9, 2022

J. Kyle Mann joins Seerat from summer league in Las Vegas to talk about some of the more unique talent on display at the games, with a focus on Chet Holmgren and Kenneth Lofton Jr. They debate novelty vs. viability in regards to their respective physiques and dissecting the success of other "unicorns" currently in the NBA (9:33). Next, they analyze the performances of some of the other big men in the competition, notably Isaiah Jackson, Kofi Cockburn, and Jalen Duren (17:30). They end the pod by discussing Zavier Simpson, the future of the "microwave" style player in the NBA, and the anatomy of a true sky hook (29:50). Host: Seerat Sohi Guest: J. Kyle Mann Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the Icons Club. The answer where I do not have Chris Ryan with me today, but I do have the wonderful J. Kyle, man.

We are teaming up once again. We just couldn't get enough of each other. So peanut butter and jelly is back, is back. It's not the, what were you saying? What was a brand that you mentioned last time? Goober's. Yeah. Did you ever check that out?

Did you look into that? I don't think that they're available in Canada. But we're going to bring you the organic stuff here, you know what? Peanut butter out of the jar. jam out of its own specific charm. Exactly. It's a very long kind of thing. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Which one would you prefer to consider yourself? Are you more peanut butter? You know, that's a good question. You want to say peanut butter, right? But then I guess maybe if your self-awareness isn't at the right level, you might be jelly. You might be like totally empty

calories wasteful. I'd imagine I'm probably, that's where I am. I think I'm peanut butter, but really I'm like bad for you, not really doing a whole lot. I get in good situation just because I kind of, I can provide something. And I don't know. I don't know. What do you think? No, I think I think you're totally the peanut butter in this situation. I'm very happy being like the empty calorie sweets in this, in this situation.

Because look, we've got, we're really lucky to have you here because you're, you're a draft expert and Summer League is going on. So let's be, let's be real. Like, you're going to be bringing the substance here. I'm going to have a bunch of questions for you. most of them are going to be bad, but I think you can have fun with that. I've enjoyed just our preliminary,

like you vetting your takes, like you're just basic. Like, what about this? What about this person? I've just enjoyed you because there are compartments of the NBA discussion. There definitely are.

And I'm, we were, I mean, Charks was just like relentlessly making fun of my nerdery last night over dinner. And I just kind of take his abuse. You know,

I take a lot of people's abuse because I'm the guy that likes the thumb, This kind of like goes over every category in my life. I'm the person that likes to thumb in the area and like that other people might not. You know, I want to find something. I'm a nerdy, nerdy guy. So not everybody's is interested in the Summer League thing, right? People don't want to watch the boring basketball, but there's, there's nuance to be had there, you know?

It's kind of the high fidelity scene. It's like the high fidelity type NBA fan is at Summer League. I would say it's far from boring. in my opinion. We've had a lot of interesting stuff happen. We're going to get into a ton of that. We're going to get into some of my favorite curiosities, which are just curiosities in general,

NBA players who you see them and you're like, how? And we're seeing more and more of those guys than ever. It seems like GMs have more creative license than ever. I'd be curious on your thoughts on that. But, I mean, if we're going to talk about things that are exciting, things that are the opposite of boring. My most anticipated matchup has already happened. It happened in Salt Lake, actually.

A much less exciting place in Vegas, I imagine. But hey, you know, just different, different strokes. Depends on what you're into. Yeah, different strokes. Different strokes. But what we got, though, was Chad Holmgren versus my favorite player at Summer League, Kenneth Lofton, Jr., out of Louisiana Tech, who is probably like the one of the heaviest players in the draft.

I would say so. He wasn't measured at the combine. I couldn't find his actual stats. But he is an incredibly fascinating player. To me, he feels like the next step in this sort of, I mean, everybody who listens to this knows that I'm fascinated by the Draman generation of like all these players who just look like they shouldn't belong in the NBA. but they end up being really smart and they know how to use angles and they know how to use

their weight to their advantage and just get, you know, a player like Chet Holmgren, for example, out of the way. That was an awesome piece that you wrote. I remember that one because I've talked a lot about recently talked about like guys who almost act like invasive species like in an existing ecosystem because like the NBA as it follows trends becomes this sort of ecosystem that's like we have to do this to keep up. but then there are the interesting people who or player types that like zag and because the ecosystem has evolved to be a certain way we moved away from these like big brawny guys that played a certain way so then like a guy like kenneth lofton comes in it just is like a wrecking ball like there's no one that can can do anything with him because everybody's tall and rangy and skinny and Kenneth lofton's like hey man I'm strong I have good touch around the rim and he just eats like you were talking about against chet yeah yeah the guy comes off of a dribble handoff and it's like a bowling ball ball crashing through the lane.

Like, I don't really know what you're supposed to do in that situation. He's so good at faking them. It's awesome. He's really fun to watch. But to your point, though, the aspect of zagging is very interesting to me right now because everything kind of feels like a zag. Like, what to you is the bigger zag between like a guy like Chet, which, you know, like speaking in terms of his, you know, just his sheer physical profile is pretty much the

opposite of Lofton, like a skinny seven-footer. Also, just both of the. them, you watch them and you're like, how is this guy tripling the ball behind his back and setting up guys in transition? So there's more similarities there. Um, and sometimes like with like skill set stuff, uh, especially with like the creativity aspect of their games. But, um, yeah, like, who do you think is more of an oddity? And also I'm just, I mean, obviously it's a prospect, Chet, you know, is, is going to have, you know, I think we can project out more potential for success, uh, with Chet. But overall is like this body type and this, uh,

this style of player, I guess. Like, what type do you think is more promising? I think you have to differentiate between novelty and sort of like circumstantial oddity. I think like Kenneth Lofton Jr. is probably a little more of the latter. Like, I think he is somebody that like in the 90s, I mean, he's kind of like like a Caleb Swanigan type, RIP, that like is a bigger dude who has a, has a heavier frame that I think about like Robert Tractor trailer or another RIP. We have some Charles Barkley comparisons as well.

Yeah, there's that. Yeah. It's like, of course, Kenneth is, he has his own kind of questions. Defensively, I guess the big differentiator there are, the differentiators are obvious. I mean, that's a lot bigger, a lot longer. Much more agile. But I think the difference is, and I've spent a lot of time just at nauseam talking about this, that like over the course of the history of the league that, you know, when we see oddity

and when we see interesting things happen in the league, it's the result of body types. aspiring to skill sets that are atypical, you know, whereas in the past, we were like, the league needs to be this way because we're not shooting threes. If you're big, you need to know how to score around the basket. You don't need to be dribble in the ball. That was considered like a wasteful mentality because we weren't good at shooting threes yet. And that took a long people, took a long time for people to buy into that. I mean, if you go and the college game was a little bit ahead of that, like in like around the late 90s teams started to shoot threes, like Rick Petino teams started to shoot three.

and leaning on it as an edge. But I think in the NBA, as we started to shoot three is better, you started to see taller guys emulate skill sets that were more on ball. And I think Chet is kind of a weird result of that. And I think the reason that he's been able to, this has been kind of well documented is one of the reasons that he's been able to successfully survive like that is that his dad, Dave Holmgren, who famously the chill ponytail dude who films Chet's games with a camera,

quarter, a literal camcorder. He kind of went through weird growth pains and it kind of cut his career short. And he was ahead of it with Chet and got him in physical therapy. So he's like, just that's, I think that's why he's so rangy and like able to do what you were talking about. Like it defies your eyes. You're like, I've never seen a guy this big. And it's also a novel on some front, I guess, on the, on the basis of there just aren't many guys. Like as the filter for like coordination is just so narrow. like around like they're there like a million six-foot-one guys that can dribble and shoot the ball. It's like the most competitive job in the basketball world.

For somebody like Chet, he's just rare genetically. Like there just aren't many people that can do what he does. Like his hand-eye, his fluidity, his coordination. He's so, so unique. And he's been super, super fun to watch in Summer League. I think he's won some believers. Yeah, I'm really glad you bring up the injury aspect of it because it seems like that is what holds back most of the previous sort of unicorn generation. years and years ago, I did a story on this about how, you know, all the supposed

unicorns that we were supposed to have in the NBA just didn't really pan out because of injury issues. You know, Anthony Davis at the time was the headliner of that, like, that's not to say he didn't pan out. He has more than panned out. But as we know with him, injuries are the biggest question with him to this day. Christophs-Singis is another one. You know, after he tore his ACL, I just think that like his, mostly, it's supposed to

just kind of went down in a way that just impacted the rest of his game. and just he was never really the same player again going from like a guy that you're you know he's just like tearing up in Madison Square Garden you're wondering it was like this this guy like the second coming of Kevin Durant and now we're asking those same questions about chat and like it is really such a fragile balance of things because I mean when you look at him you kind of wonder like oh man like how is this really going to hold up but that's really interesting about his you know just getting ahead of it I feel I feel like that's that's a big part with with a lot of these guys And then like some of the guys who haven't panned out skill-wise, like you said, you know, like a guy like, you know, the nuggets tried to to put bull bull next to Yokic to try to solve their defensive issues right there, right?

Like probably just too much, too much fouling and the lack of offensive skills have just kind of not really allowed that one to come together. So it's kind of interesting. Like with Chet's specific skill set and the type of player he is, you have a whole bunch of. bunch of previous blueprints. And now you have this guy who's put it all together, or not necessarily put it all together yet, but lacks, I think, some of the issues that held the other guys back. As you were talking about the unicorns, you were talking that AD. I mean, it's hard to call AD a failure, right? Because, I mean, he did win a title. He's had success. The unicorn question in general, it's like, what are we, I'm going to do the, what do we talk about

when we talk about unicorns thing? It's like, is it, in your opinion, do you think it's just in Because it's something that we haven't ever really, I think Bill actually kind of coined that term or started making it popular the unicorn thing. I think it was Kevin Durant. Did Kevin Durant say it? I think I think KD called KP a unicorn. It seems like it's exclusively used for just big guys with unusual skill sets, right? Yeah, it's pretty broad. I think, you know, I think I've heard Carl Towns called a unicorn as well.

Just special. We don't really call six, six guys unicorns. You know, I guess it's just like the right. And I even wrote the thing about chat. where we talked about, I mean, I would consider Janus one. I think lower body flexibility is really important for like longevity. From everything that I've heard, Chet physically, like in like biomechanically, not to go way too nerdy here, but.

Oh, let's get, let's get into the sheds, man. Let's do it. It's waiting the shit with our, with our, with our, with our military gear here. From what I've heard, he hasn't flagged anything biomechanically that, that is troubling. like that so and there's a lot of weird misinformation stuff that went on with him i know around the draft which could not begin to unravel don't know why it happened i don't know but he does have an ability to get low and i think that that's an interesting thing like where you were talking about injury troll is it successful as he has been um he is his wastedness like uh the height of his

waist is different than somebody like shed or like janus i wonder if maybe that's part of it you know, and that's just me totally speculating here, but KP just didn't seem to have the same kind of flexibility. Like, you know, he couldn't get as low as either one of these guys. I think in that story, too, but I did, hip flexibility was a big aspect of it. And AD was trying to do these sort of, like, just exercises in water, you know, like to do a bunch of squats in water and have that be the resistance as opposed to weight. So it's like, you know, he's tried to get creative. And I think he has, he had the same trainer as Mitchell Robinson at the time who's much

younger and coming into the NBA. Who is another one of these guys that I think like, when I first saw Mitchell Robinson playing in Summer League, I was like, oh, this is how we've solved the space and space issue. Like, you just find a guy that's that big and he can just block every single shot. And like, that's what's so exciting about chat, right? like the implications that he can have for for the future of the game. Just because of how much space he can cover and how much space like team like the Thunder now who have, you know, surround like, you know, they've got Poku there, he's got Shay.

Like everybody there is like a plus wingspan. And, you know, got a team like the Raptors that are building the same way. But then like on the other end of it, like you've got a team like the Grizzlies who seem to have really fallen in love with this loftin type of player too. Like the other guy that they have in the first round they traded for was, was David Roddy, who is a much less dramatic form of like the Lofton body type, but probably somebody who's more, more fits into the NBA in a way that we can currently understand, whereas I think a guy like Lofton, you'd probably have to, like, he would be pushing, he'd be pushing it forward a little bit, right? And they've got, you know, they've got Xavier Tillman,

and he's a guy who went to Michigan State and, you know, like, you know, learned a lot from just watching tape of Draymond Green, right? Like, it's interesting how all these things evolve. and, you know, there's so many different ways that you can build a team. And it's not to say that the Grizzlies or the Thunder wouldn't take a look at the other type of guy. But I think what you see in drafting is that everybody just has something that they like. And they naturally sort of gravitate towards that. And the NBA, I think the implication is going to be really interesting because you're going to have two very, very different styles of defense. And I think they're both going to be really effective, too.

I'm just, I'm really curious to see how it all plays out. and like I guess I don't know if there's necessarily like one side is going to win out over the other by any means. I think a lot of that just comes down to personnel. But the NBA in general, like you talk about unicorns. Like is everyone kind of just a unicorn right now? Like I've never like I've never seen so many unconventional basketball players. I think we just, it takes all kinds, you know. If you're thinking about like the building a roster, I've noticed like there's been sort of a push and pull between.

If you, I mean, if you look at Boston, Boston had a historically good defense. is still that wasn't enough for them to get over the hump. But if you look at the body types that were within that defense, not a lot of just like rangy, string-beeney, like Mikhail body types that were like ground coverers, you know, like can fly around. I always think of whenever you're talking about like a rim protector, the NBA, the way it is now and it's so spread out now, I always envision like the three-point line as like an enormous goal, like literally like a soccer goalie, like your defensive anchor needs to be like

a soccer goalie who's athletic enough to reach the top. of the backboard and they need to be fast enough to cover all that ground or at least bother it or direct traffic or things like that. Because not every room protector can be parked at the rim. Like Chet's an interesting example of somebody that has the fluidity and the size and the kind of positional intelligence. But if you look at if you look at like what Memphis is doing, A, I think if you have a player like Jha, who's their centerpiece, you probably need to put as many physical kind of positional defenders around them as you can. but they also are doing both. You know, Zyar Williams is not that type at all.

I mean, he's like 6'10 and is really thin and long. Maybe you just need a little bit of both because, you know, they also, Grizzlies also have Desmond Bain. Also, I mean, Jaron Jackson Jr. is a pretty like heavy, heavy framed guy. And then on the other hand, they have another fly-around guy like Brandon Clark. So it seems like you kind of need both. Like you don't want to be too skinny in the NBA because you want to kind of stop. Dribal penetration, downhill press.

is the name of the game, right? When you say, like, as much as you could stifle that, then you're kind of cut, you're cutting the water off for the stuff that comes after that, like spreading the floor and kickouts and things like that. Does that make sense? Yeah, definitely. I think defensive versatility, I think it's kind of proven itself to be one of the most important things in making a deep finals run. Bring up that Celtics team, right? Like, it kind of takes me to some of the questions that I have for you. Like, one of the things we talked about before the podcast. You're smiling. I'm a little worried. You had like a Cheshire Cat smile when you said that.

So I feel like I'm getting ready to get owned. But let's let's see it. Bring it on. No, no. I'm actually personally getting ready to get owned. That's why I'm smiling. So I threw a bunch of big men names at you essentially. And I kind of asked you, okay, like, what do you think about this guy panning out?

What do you think about this guy panning out? Because big men are just almost impossible to to kind of project where they're going to end up. Just because of how long development takes with. them. So I asked you how good of a player you think Isaiah Jackson can be. Oh, yeah. And it led us to this place of basically, like, you kind of made the point of like, you know, how many guys like him that are, you know, Pogo Stick 4 is, although I'd argue like, I don't know, I'd probably play him more at the, at the five that are defenders, but can't shoot can, you know, actually carve out rotation minutes on a great team. Because you had him as a guy.

who's going to get rotation minutes on a good team. And I think the question really comes down to how good they can be defensively. Because that's essentially Robert Williams, right? Like, he's just that good defensively that the rest of it, you know, is like lack of three point shot. It just doesn't really matter. And there are some players in the NBA, especially as we see more teams, you know, trot out these two big lineups that do operate that way.

Because at the end of the day, the other thing that's really important is also just having, like, you know, vertical spacing. you know, having a lob threat at the rim just to kind of, you know, keep defense as honest, I guess. And it's also still, you know, as much as we talk about three is, that is the single most valuable shot in the game. You can get like a big man, an easy look at the rim. Like, that's a great shot. Yeah, let's start with Jackson. Like, I'd kind of be curious for you to suss that out more. And then we can get, we can get into the stuff where you're actually going to own me too. It's Jackson's tough. He's a guy that like, um, I really like,

before he even committed to Kentucky. So I was like really excited. He played like high school basketball with Lamello, which I think you would be amused to go check that out on YouTube. And he played with a guy, Rocket Watts. They just had an absolutely chaotic high school basketball team that like was. Rocket Watts? Yes.

Do you know Rocket Watts? You ever heard of him? I don't. But like if I was, he has to be an explosive big man. Right. No, he was a guard. He was like a shoot first like five,

10. No, really. Okay. Yeah. He went to Michigan State and then ended up. transferring, but a huge digression there. But like Isaiah Jackson was a guy who kind of reminded me of Nerlin's a little bit. He's like incredibly fast off of his feet. Like one of the, one of the fastest like Twitch get to the ball quickly. His block percentage in college was like

up there with like Nerlins and AD. Like he's that type of like quick twitch closes gaps insanely fast. Kind of like the Mitchell Robinson type. The differentiator for me, I guess, to use that word again, is that like you talk about players in the playoffs who are that body type and you say you'd play him at the five. It's like I think he's a little bit different from me. And you know, who knows what he's going to be like when he's 23, 24? A lot of it will be maybe body type. Is he going to be able to be a guy who can come up and switch ball screens? Is he somebody who is?

You probably don't want him play and drop. Can he become positionally savvy in the way like Robert Williams is bigger than him physically? Brandon Clark is another guy but the question I posed to you is just like he's like a Pogo 4.5 I'd say mostly like a mistake eraser defensively

would he get in trouble against like a big center I'm not sure about that a big physical team is the question though because you know the Pacers are in the east in the playoffs if he gets up against a bam is a bam going to just put him in the rim like under the basket I don't know

Joel and Bede oh yeah notable That's the thing about the rangey gap closes is if you take away the gap from them, what are they? Because if you look at like a Mikhail Luca dynamic was a good example of that, Luca was just like, nah, fuck your gap. I don't care. I'm taking you to the nail and I'm going to pick you apart. And we saw him getting neutralized.

For me, that's the question about Isaiah. I'm like, can he play as a five? I'm not so sure. And I can't think of another Pogo 4.5 in the playoffs that was super. effective. Can you think of one? Or in recent memories, like a Nerlin Z tie? No, I guess like no one in that in that tweener area has been able to rise to that level, right? Like you do kind of get scouted out once you're in that position because yeah, to your point, like he might not, he might not be quick enough to be that your switchy defender.

And then if you are playing him at the four, then I think your lack of jumper matters more. Although I guess that depends who the Pacers would have at the five as well. I mean, if it's still going to be Turner, maybe that works because Turner can provide some, like, more of that height and more of that, you know, just physicality too. So, yeah, it is. And also that's the other thing with Big Men, too, like the guy that you play next to really, really matters. Like, if you can kind of be each other's Ian and Yang, I think that can solve a lot of stuff for you. I see what you're saying with Isaiah. So I think he has a lot of promise as a shot blocker, though.

I really, like, I don't know, I'm curious to see what he does in his second year. I'm also just generally very high on the Pacers. You know, I think over the last, you know, two weeks or so, we've been talking a lot about the Pistons future. We've been talking about the Rockets future. But I don't know. I look at the Pacers and it's like you got Duarte and Halliburton. I think Matherin is just such a perfect fit around those two guys.

He's just going to eat, like a ton of easy buckets. They're going to be fun to watch. And this was actually their first, like Matherin was their first pick out of, outside of like the top 11 since, since Rick Smith. Isn't that unbelievable? That's insane. It's crazy how well they've threaded the needle for like ever, basically.

Like they just to me manage to stay. I don't know. And I think you're, you're right about that they're interesting and that they're a team that is like, is like trying to find a new path, but they're not totally blank. You know, we never went to like totally blank.

And I think that Mathorin, um, he does fit well. I 100% agree. Like he fits well with like the Duarte Halliburton. And like they lean defer a little bit. Duarte can get a little wild sometimes when when he's enabled to shoot the ball more. But he absolutely can pass.

But he's like a secondary creator. And then like that's a great spot for Mattern to come in and just like develop into a scoring star. You know, and we saw some glimpses of that this weekend already. Yeah. So tell me, tell me now why, why Kofi Coburn is not going to pan out because you basically, you basically laughed me out of our text message.

exchange when I wanted to talk about him. Well, I mean, God love Kofi. He is a huge MFer. I mean, he is a big dude. I mean, like really long arms. I assume you, did you do look up his combat measurements? I did. He's the heaviest guy in the draft, but he also only has an 8% body fat percentage.

He has giant hands and he is one of the tallest guys in a draft too. So just just from a sheer fit. physical standpoint. It's like, wow. Yeah, watching him and Zach Edie for Purdue, I don't know if you've watched him. He's like seven foot three, seven foot four, big dude, watching those two like bump into caught him while watching, watching Ivy. Yeah, they just like, they would just like ram into each other, ram into each other and somebody would, like my thing about Kofi is just touch around the rim, pretty brutal. He's, he's, he just doesn't really have great much of a bag around the basket. He can be a little just stiff with his finishing. I think,

He could be like a backup big that gets on a roster. I mean, I could see that happening. I see him being a little too slow to play drop. I've just seen him get kind of manhandled or just outskilled pretty easily by guys. He's, I don't know, Kofi's been around for a while. I mean, he's been kind of in the draft discussion for a little while. I mean, he went to the Hoops Summit a few years ago and got, there's another guy in Folly and Dante that played for Oregon that had like crazy measurement.

like that. And people were like, wow. And that was a case of like looking at the measurements, like looking at a spreadsheet and then looking, they both have to line up. Like the spreadsheet isn't enough. And Kofi, I just have some skepticism about Kofi making it just on those terms. Could you see him being kind of like a Bismack-Bionbo type of player? Do you think he just doesn't have the agility? Bejambos a little more agile than him for sure. I think you hit it. I think that if he improves on that front, I mean, he works hard. It's just the upside. is the thing. I'm not really, there's not a lot of growth plate there in my,

in my opinion, yeah. Okay, I got you. I got you. And then the other question I had for you is, is Jalen Duren actually what I think Kobe Colhorn is. I just think that they're on different planets. Like I just think that like Jalen is, you want to talk about like an incredible, just, I hate using this word, but he's, he's just an incredible, anomalistic, like, specimen of an athlete for his size. I mean, incredibly long. arms, like seven foot six wingspan. How high you can get obviously matters, but the speed at which you can get to how high you can get, Duren is like off the charts. Like he can, and we saw he had barely practice with the Pistons, and he's a guy that you can throw out there and he's just so physically

imposing, like crazy lob threat. I think, and he's young. He's very, very young. I think he hasn't even turned 19 yet. So Duren is. Yeah, he's 18. Yeah, if he had played another year of college, I think, I think that the Pistons stolen, basically. Like, I think he would have moved a lot higher because he's that crazy event athlete. Yeah, watching the Pistons core in Summer League has just been incredible. That team is just going to be so physically imposing.

Like, you've got, they kind of remind me a little bit of the Grizzlies. Mm-hmm. And I wonder if, I wonder if Jade and Ivy can almost, like, he gets some John Morant comparisons, and he's modeled his game after him as his mom, Neil Ivey was an assistant. with the grizzly. So he's got the jaw of Morant scouting report.

And it seems like he tries to take like full advantage of that. But he's just so explosive. And then you put him next to Kate, who was kind of the perfect player to put him next to you, just an incredible playmaker, cerebral, good shooter. Like watching during, come out of the game and then like you got Isaiah Stewart coming. And I was like, man, like,

you're not getting a break on the boards against the pistons next year. It's just going to be incredible. I thought it was interesting that I like to have, I like to have like a dunker spot four that can like float between dunker spot and go to that corner three. And I was pretty fascinated by the fact that Isaiah was tinkering with that. I'm sure it was on purpose. But like they, he took a couple threes and he's shown some signs of that. Like I, that surprised me.

I hadn't really considered that. Because whenever Duren came into the fold, I was just like, let's just go like put Duren with Kade. Like let's go put a bunch of skill players. But maybe they're not going to do that. Like Stu is definitely going to get his chances. And I think something that's interesting about the Pistons is that they're going to have this kind of duality. Their upgrade in a short amount of time is crazy. Like the way they've been able to, I mean, like one of the best, I think we maybe talked about this,

one of the best Piston Summers in like forever. They're going to have a really effective duality in the fact that you're going to have a half, half court chess player in Cade, who's versatile, who can go on and off ball. And then in transition, if you want to be physical, if you want to be disruptive, you've got Jaden Ivy, who you can just go spin him like a top and just be like fucking go just go be who you are you know it's like he's enabled but he's not over enabled which is what i'm happy about for him specifically like he's going to be able to develop but not not in a way that's going to be super wasteful like kate is an awesome running mate for him i agree okay last thing before i let you get out of here

is uh our guy Xavier simpson uh who is like six foot oh and skinny and And, you know, kind of gets by on having this incredible hook shot that he can kind of just like, it's fun to watch him because he kind of surprises defenders. It's such a strange skill set for him to have at his size. And he gets it off so quickly that you're kind of just like, what would happen? He got some NBA run last year with Thunder. I thought it was pretty interesting. Was better defensively than I probably expected him to be, which might be what allows him to make a way.

And I will say, by the way, like, this is all just sheerly, I like him because he's an interesting type of thing, right? Like, I couldn't really tell you much about him as a prospect. That's on you, Kyle. But this draft, though, there were no players under 6'4 drafted in the first round. And it kind of is in line with this trend that I think we're seeing over the last few years where, like, we always try to project who's going to go extinct, I guess. Like, what kind of player type is going to just not be a. as effective. And I think that the one that's probably suffering the most under the radar is like the microwave off the bench small guard score in the ilk of like, you know, Lou Williams,

Jamal Crawford, Jordan Clarkson. Granted, those guys, some of those guys aren't tiny by any means, right? But they are the score who's not going to give you much defensively and is a little bit one dimensional. And we're seeing less and less of that type of player find their way in the NBA. And I'm just, I don't know, I'm curious what you think of that and where you think it's going. I think you hit it. I mean, it's a, it's a game where the two, both sides of the coin need to balance each other for you to be able to stay on the floor. And it's like, it seems like maybe it's just a trend that like the microwave scores tend to be negatives on defense. And it's like, we've seen that like if you get the highest level in the playoffs, if you are pickable, onable at all, that's a problem.

And, and it's going to be like, I guess. the smaller players. I mean, Steph's like what, 6-3. Jordan Poole survived in their system. It's about 6-3. If you're like a high-level movement shooter within like a defensive structure that can hold you up and protect you in certain lineups, maybe you can get by. Maybe you can survive. Some of that is like pretty circumstantial. Like I don't know how many like elite defensive teams out there are going to be able to protect shooters like that to that level. Yeah. And system two. you're right we do we do try to figure out why guys or who's going to go extinct i mean the the only thing that we know for sure is that like the player types that have gone extinct are

big physical guys who are unskilled you know big physical guys who are skilled are then are really in like we were talking about with the grizzlies um just unskilledness has gone away that's extinct and i think just being under five foot i don't know where would you say the threshold is. I can't remember the last six. It seems like six foot oh is like kind of the threshold now. Chris Paul, I mean, has made a lot of hay, but we're talking about like hyper, hyper nuclear levels of ball skill level, which is super rare. Also, he's heavy too. Yeah, solid. Yeah. Like a guy like like Kyle Lowry, Fred Van Bleed, those guys can make it work. Yeah. Then if you get like the skinnier players, I think that's where things start to, you know,

you have a lot more questions. Yeah, you can get your body in front of a driver. I think that that in and of itself is really underrated is that like athleticism when it can't move is less athletic and it's like if you play against someone that's really stout um you're going to be negated i know like lob threats become a little less of a lob threat if they can't run to the spot where they can jump if you have a guy who's like now horford who's maybe not as explosive but he can get in the way of a hard roller who can get high up in the air um they're neutralized a little bit so i think you're right line line like the body type like you'd better you'd better be able to like be point of attack pressure like Marcus Markus Marks not huge but he's like strong as an ox and and can get in

people's way um I don't know the guys that the guys that are like exceptions to the rule have like really really extraordinary skill sets like we've seen so in order to do that you have to be like off the chart skilled it seems like right do you think yeah it seems like it I mean like the ones that we've seen are just kind of like trade young like you got to be trade young that's kind of, he is kind of like the best example and is also maybe the exception that proves the rule. But I like what you said about systems too, because like you look at a guy like Steph and Steph has done so much work to improve defensively. And I think Jordan Poole is also just like his wingspan lets him get away with a couple of things too and he's athletic. I think he'll

probably figure it out as a defender as his career goes on. Like those guys are still a little bit bigger, I think than the guys that we're talking about. But then you have another guy that has similar dimensions to Steph, to Steph Curry, right? He was in the system that wasn't going to cover him defensively at all with the nets. And, you know, even with the Sixers, too, like he was somebody that the Sixers defense was, was very solid and was, you know, he was surrounded by a lot of really good perimeter defenders and obviously Joel, right? And it still was able to be exploited.

And that's kind of the thing with having so many good, maybe he comes down to this, right? there are so many good isolation players now and most isolation players are very strong, like the ones that are solid at it. They use their strength really well. So, you know, a guy like Seth or, you know, a guy like our guy Xavier that we're talking about or, you know, a lot of these guys are just, it's just going to be really easy to push them out of the way. And there's so much space on the court right now too where, you know, even if you are surrounded by really good defenders, it completely depends on how effective your system is at, you know, providing help and then

rotating. And at the end of the day, like that's still, that's, that's a liability created by you being on the court. So you have to make up for it somehow. Yeah. And some of that scheme, like you said, it does hit a wall at some point. Some of that scheme, some of that's communication. Like you have to be, you can have the best scheme in the world. But if your team does it talk, you're not, you're going to fall apart at some point. But on the cover, unlike the subject of Xavier specifically, I think, A little small, doesn't really have a plus plus skill, like was a really good college player. He's just really solid. And I think the novelty that you pointed out was, I mean, the hook shot.

The hook shot isn't a really unusual shot for somebody his size to have in his bag. He's a guy that's going to hang around in Summer League, I think, annually. He's just kind of kind of be on the fringes unless he develops, you know, some plus plus skill that gets him on a roster. I would imagine. Like here, here's, here's what I've got in my mind. The year is 2026. And the,

the Thunder are playing in the Western Conference semi-finals against, who's, who's in the playoffs? Are the Rockets, are the Rockets in the playoffs? At that point? Yeah.

You would hope, given their timeline, right? Like, fourth, you'll have fourth year, Jalen Green. I'd say it's probably the Grizzlies, right?

It'll probably be a battle between the Thunder and the Grizzly. The Thunder will be trying to come up and, and, and usurp the grizzlies at that point. I think the grizzlies will become, they'll stop being the usurper and become the man, and then the rolls will flip. So Oklahoma City will be trying to unsee.

We're just predicting what's going to happen. Okay, I like that. That seems more accurate in the simulation. And, you know, you got, She goes down with an injury. And Simpson just wins them a game off of hitting, like, seven hook shots over Desmond Bain, who is like, you know,

by all means, like incredibly strong and can stay in front of you. But, hey, if you can just get off the, like, the weirdest shot in the world and, like, turn it into a running floater from seven feet. It's technically the shot that you want the defense or as a defense you want the offense to be taking. But, you know, that's the beautiful thing about the playoffs, right? Like, a lot of guys can hit those shots. I didn't expect to be partaking in, like, OKC fan fiction with you here today. But, I mean, I'll allow it.

I did want to make sure. Isn't that what Summer League really is? It is just okay-C fan fiction. It's like, it is definitely like, what if this? Well, this is cool. It's all wishful, hypothetical kind of imaginative thinking. But more I wanted to say, we talked about this, that like more some more like imaginative thinking

or just wishful thinking on this front is the fact that people think that what Xavier does is a skyhook and it is not. It is not a skyhook. And I feel passionately about this, that people are mistakenly labeling hook shots. skyhooks, running hooks, jump hooks, baby hooks, they are not sky hooks. Please get it right. Go out there and study what it actually is, folks, and respect, just for the, on the basis of disrespecting Kareem, you know, I don't want our history to be lost and I'm kind of a defender of history a little bit.

Like, let's not lose side of what was special here. Not a hook shot. Well, we've got you here. So let's, let's get into it. What is the difference? It's all about if you see an arm coming up like this, like a, like a trebushie, if your arm's extended and you are lifting it like your arm is going clockwise or counterclockwise. That is not a hook shot. A hook shot is a sky hook is a telescopic movement of your arm. The power comes from your body. So, Kareem used to generate a lot of power with his left leg. And he would, as he spun, his arm would go up like this. And then when he telescoped it to the very top, he would flick it. He didn't, he didn't like, he didn't like go like this and throw it like a, like a,

You know what I'm saying. He didn't like serve it up like that. It wasn't like a scoop. So, okay. So basically for the listeners here, we've got, we've got Kyle in his hotel room doing fake sky hooks versus fake baby hooks for me, which I'm just so thrilled about. Have you heard anything more on brand? I think. But I think basically what you're saying is that like a running hook or a baby hook, you're kind of more so drawing a circle with the, with the, with the, movement of your hand, essentially, whereas with a skyhook, you're kind of going straight up. And then at the end, there's a flick. Okay. Yes, yes. The key, if you don't generate enough power, you get to the top and you, and you just try to flick it, you're probably not going to get the ball there.

And a key thing that, like, is so hard to replicate about it is the fact that he was huge, like seven foot one and had super long arms, like had like a Scotty Pippen body type. So when you get to the top and you would flick it, you're probably not going to be able to do that if you're like six foot one. That's why it's like just probably not going to happen. And right if you want to see like a true like running hook, it's like Cliff Hagan guys like that who would like sweep and kind of throw it up like a hand grenade basically if they were throwing a hand grenade over a wall. Got you. And the reason he shifted that is so it wouldn't be blockable. So like he would he he kept it real tight to his body. So it was like unblockable. So anyway,

that's the sky. That makes a ton of sense. Well, Kyle, thank you so much for the education on this and any number of topics today. I really enjoyed having you on. Hey, it's a two-way street. I learned something every time I come on this show for sure. Well, I don't believe you, but I appreciate that. Ernest, I mean it. Well, I'll let you get back to Vegas and Summer League and we're going to have a ton of coverage. We've got a ton of people down there. Who else down there? We've got KOC, Berno. They did a podcast earlier. I think they got into some of the more main mainstream matchups. I got into Apollo versus Javari Smith.

Check that out. We're going to have tons of good stuff for you guys. So check it out. Kyle, thank you once again. Thank you, Chris, for producing. And we will be back next week. Thanks for having me. Joy to be here.