Top 10 Contenders: Thunder are most UNDERRATED NBA Finals contender | Hoops Tonight

Top 10 Contenders: Thunder are most UNDERRATED NBA Finals contender | Hoops Tonight

What’s up everybody thanks as always for supporting the show it would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel and then follow me on social media on Tik Tok Instagram and Twitter

So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball number 10 I have the Oklahoma City Thunder so my my my thunder pessimism and I’ve said this a million times and I I have to say it as a disclaimer just

Because of the way that uh um sometimes people act the way the internet is yes uh I love everything about this Thunder team I love Shay I’ve been super high on him for a long time Jaylen Williams was talking about him this morning he had a couple of nasty

Um uh uh stepback threes the other night against um God who was it I can’t even remember but I was I was watching him you know you know he’s actually been the second best pull-up jump shooter in the League this year like minimum 200 attempts there’s like 44 guys James hard

Is number one Jaylen Williams is number two he’s getting like 1.18 points per pull-up jump shot it’s completely outrageous and like and he’s like just got that in combination with real downhill Force I love Chad I love not just how good he is now but what his

Potential is and what his demeanor is like and his competitiveness um Lou dorts one of my favorite 3 andd players in the league huge Thunder fan this is just simply based on my overarching basketball opinions which is or philosophies whatever you want to call it in my opinion if you are small and

Young you’re not going to win in the late phases of the NBA Playoffs specifically last year’s conference finalist the final four teams all four were top 11 in defensive rebounding in 2022 the Mavs Warriors and heat were all top 10 the Celtics were 15th 2021 all four uh conference finalists were all in

The top 11 in defensive rebounding percentage I think a big part of it is when you you get into that phase kind of like we saw in the Cavs Nick Series last year those physical advantages actually just get overemphasized when you get to that point there’s a reason why no

Rebounds no rings is a is a saying it’s actually a big big version of why I have some skepticism surrounding the Clippers um in my opinion the Clippers are just a better version of the Thunder I know they don’t play schematically the exact same way but in terms of the way that

They’re constructed as like these kind of two-way perimeter players I just think Kawai and Paul George are better versions of that than Shay and Jaylen are especially at this phase in their careers so like I I I really like Oklahoma City I would be is barring some sort of weird thing

Where like Shay decides he doesn’t want to be in the Thunder anymore and Demands a trade I don’t think that the Thunder are going to go through this era without winning a title I think they’re going to I think they’re too good not to I just

It to to me in a field this stacked I would just be so surprised if this super young super small team somehow ended up with the trophy at the end of the day tell me why I’m wrong Sam okay so look I say this is somebody

Who had the Thunder at like seven or eight or something like that right so I am not drastically higher on the Thunder than where you are for this season’s playoffs uh the highest I think you can reasonably get them right now is probably fifth or so I think they are a total ass-kicking

Team on offense uh and on defense they bring some real schematic point of attack issues that cause all sorts of problems in terms of halfcourt execution on top of that they are the best transition team in the NBA now I typically don’t love transition basketball in the playoffs I think it is

Much more difficult to execute than just being an elite level halfcourt execution offense having said that with the Thunder where the transition adeptness helps is if you decide that you want to try and attack the offensive glass against the Thunder and you want to go for that they’re going to kill you in

Transition even in the playoffs like if you decide hey we’re the Lakers we want to crash with ad we want to crash with uh really just ad I guess LeBron as well would be your idea if I’m the Thunder I’m saying be my guess we’re still gonna get probably 65%

Of those like even if we’re the worst defensive rebounding team in the league we Pro like even if we like go even worse than the worst defensive rebounding team in the league and we get 65% of the offensive re or the defensive rebounds and you’re crashing multiple

Guys we’re going to beat you in transition more than you’re going to beat us on the offensive glass so I would invite that if I’m them now the question with the Lakers the question with teams that like can really get downhill Rim pressure is what will Chad look like in the

Playoffs I think Chad is an outstanding competitor I think Chad is somebody whose mentality is going to translate exceedingly well toward the playoffs I worry a little bit in terms of foul trouble in the playoffs for Chad if he gets into foul trouble what is their combo breaker what is their counter they

Don’t really have one question mark uh it’s going to be entirely reliant on chat being able to play 35 minutes A Night in the playoffs and I say that thinking Chad is their third best player but he is probably their second most important player in terms of playoff

Success behind Shay now part of my thunder optim ISM compared to your being a thunder hater which is what I will be referring to you as from now on Jason uh I think Shay is an absolute dude and I think he is going to be able to wreak

Havoc on opposing teams and in part the reason for that is you have to guard them now five out the big underrated unsung trade Edition that a team made at the deadline if he can be healthy is Gordon Hayward because previously what teams have done

To kind of gum up the works for Oklahoma City on offense is play your Center on Josh Giddy and then be able to try and filter Shay toward the help in the middle and then leave Josh gdy literally wide open from three that’s the way the teams have had success against them this

Season with Gordon Hayward you cannot do that he will kill you from three he will beat you as a shooter from distance and he’s bigger than Isaiah Joe which was their other like combo breaker counter whatever you want to call it Isaiah I think is a smart Defender but he’s

Somebody that you can attack a little bit too often on defense with Hayward I think that you’re not going to be able to attack him as much which leads to a circumstance where they can play Genuine five out offense force all sorts of issues as trying to stay in front of

Shay gilis Alexander who is the best paint touch guy in the NBA right now I think you would probably agree with that he can beat he can beat people off the dribble he can beat anybody in the NBA off the dribble then on top of it you have Jaylen Williams who I

Think is still underrated League W I don’t think people understand what Oklahoma City has in Jaylen Williams this this is not like your run-ofthe-mill like potential second star at some point he is going to be an all-nba you were the one who gave me the Jimmy Butler

Comp right it was you that gave me that right yes love that that is literally what I’m going to next yeah he is like Jimmy Butler for this coming era he is huge he is physical he’s 6 foot6 with a seven foot two wingspan the biggest thing though is he’s a genuine

Three-level scorer how many teams right now can you point to that have two legitimate Elite and I would say Jaylen isn’t maybe not like Elite of the elite but he’s damn close three level scorers right now I would not say Giannis is a three-level scorer I would not say

Anthony Davis is a three-level scorer uh I would say that the Nuggets certainly have multiple three level scores I would say the Clippers have three level scor even George The Rim the way that Shay and Jaylen do 100% that ability to constantly pressure the defense from multiple

Angles I think is enormous you can constantly pressure the defense from multiple angles on the court from all three levels while having three other additional guys on the court that are spacing the court I think they’re actually an impossible guard in the playoffs if they don’t have to play Josh

Giddy it’s totally reasonable I loved the Gordon Hayward edition if for nothing else I’m just excited to watch Gordon Hayward play in big playoff games I don’t know about you but like I feel like I feel like we haven’t gotten nearly enough of that especially after what he was like in college

Um specifically with Shay you and I had an argument on the phone the other day and I want I wanted to kind of get that on the record here so basically what I said to Sam on the phone and and you think he’s James hard where your take is

I I use James Harden as a cop at to make an example of about playoff defense but I I uh I’ll accept it so basically this is the this is what I I said to Sam for the record I do not think Shay is going to be James

Harden but one of the things that happened to James Harden uh is he was a guy that had the basketball in his hands a lot and did a lot of attacking specifically from the same angles on the floor out of ball screens in an isolation and one of the things I noticed with

James Harden is he was a guy that was gifted at beating people off the dribble but was not a supreme athlete at his position which is what I would describe Shay Shay to me is a very good athlete but he is not Anthony Edwards okay he doesn’t bring like incredible Force to

The position he is Shifty with the way that he beats people off the dribble amazing with change of pace and footwork and all the like kind of Weir he’s got kind of like a weird old-fashioned game in a lot of ways with his ability to beat people off the dribble with

Hesitations and in outs and and he’s really good at protecting the basketball while making aggressive moves um but what would happen with James Harden is by game five by game six by game seven of a series an elite perimeter Defender would see his dribble package and see his hesitation moves dozens and dozens

And dozens and dozens of times and he just wouldn’t be able to get as much separation as the series progressed all I’m saying is I am curious to see Shay in his first playoff series as a number one option simply because he is a guy that relies a lot on change of pace

Hesitation type of stuff to beat people off the dribble I’m curious to see if we see an Elite perimeter Defender not solve him but figure out a way to kind of slow him down a little bit I I’m just curious to see it I personally think that Shay

Will eventually solve that himself in his career even if he does encounter that problem I just think he’s way better than I I think he will be way better than James Harden ever was but I just think and that almost feels mean to say with how good James Harden was at

His prime but I I I I want to say I believe in Shay longterm I’m just curious to see if there will be an adjustment period with him as it pertains to playoff basketball here here’s my counter to that James Harden never had a mid-range game that was nearly the level that

Shay’s mid-range game is Shay is shooting something like 52 to 53% uh from between 10 and 23 feet right now so even if you do stay in front of him where Harden struggled was deciding okay I’m just going to step back into the mid-range and find a way into that

Shot he had to get all the way to the rim he had to rely on fouls right Shay has the body mechanics and that shiftiness to be able to stop and pop in the mid-range and be able to just shoot over the top of a tough he can create

Highish not super high but like highish efficiency looks from the mid-range in a way that James Harden really couldn’t at the end of the day and I think that it’s much harder to sit on Shay’s moves in that way particularly knowing that with Harden it was okay I either need to sit

On the step back or I need to be ready to stop him at the rim and we need to have body coming over with Shay it’s I have to be available for the step back three I have to be available basically at every single step along the line

Toward him driving to the rim I have to be ready that he’s going to stop and pop ahead of me and I think that that makes it a lot more difficult to guard him than what it was to guard James in the playoffs at the end of the day when you

Had seven games to adjust throw different looks at him throw different counters at him and on top of it seriously like Jaylen Williams is waiting on the second side once the defense is bent and he can score from all three levels too he’s a 50 I think

He’s shooting like 54 45 82 or something right now so like he’s a 180 shooter on the other side just in a different you know mechanical way that he’s going about it uh in terms of the numbers so man I think this is a really good

Team dude I think that it really does I think your points are entirely valid about what do they look like terms of physicality if Chad can’t stay on the floor they have a real chance to lose in the first round that that is a fact of

The matter if he proves that he can stay on the floor I think they can make the finals like to me the swing is all him and I don’t know the answer to that yet I don’t think anybody does in terms of the way that like his game will be

Officiated as much as anything like I trust the person like the human being to bring it I’m just really interested to see the way he’s officiated in the playf I’m excited to see what happens to be clear I’m rooting for them this is not this is not a a a negative like thunder

Type of take it’s just it’s just uh I I am I I think this can work to my detriment sometimes but I lean heavily on my basketball philosophies and they just kind of it land into some of those boxes He

Jason Timpf is joined by The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie to debate whether Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren, and the Oklahoma City Thunder are ready to make a run at the NBA Finals. Jason shares why he is pessimistic about the Thunder’s title hopes, while Sam makes the case for OKC to make some noise, despite their youth.

Timeline:
00:00 – Why Jason is not buying a Thunder title run
03:04 – Why Sam thinks OKC will make noise in playoffs
07:45 – Jalen Williams is massively underrated
09:44 – Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ready for playoff basketball?
14:19 – Why Chet Holmgren is the difference

Follow Jason Timpf on social:
Tweets by _JasonLT
https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/

Shop the hottest gear in all of sports podcasting: https://thevolume.com/shop-all-new

Follow us on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/thevolumesports
Tweets by TheVolumeSports
https://www.facebook.com/TheVolumeSports

@thevolumesports

Learn more about the Volume:
https://www.thevolume.com

#nba #thunder #oklahomacitythunder #okcthunder #shaigilgeousalexander #chetholmgren #nbaplayoffs #playoffs #nbafinals #basketball #sports