NBA Mailbag: Has Luka Doncic overtaken Nikola Jokic as best player in world? | Hoops Tonight

NBA Mailbag: Has Luka Doncic overtaken Nikola Jokic as best player in world? | Hoops Tonight

all right welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume happy Sunday everybody hope all of you guys are having a great weekend as promised our third mailbag today on Friday we hit the Western Conference finals and all the Fallout uh some stuff big picture with Luca and the Mavs and then also just looking forward for the Timberwolves uh you can find that on the feeds earlier Saturday we did an NBA Finals mailbag just some kind of preliminary stuff before we get into our real prep starting next week on Monday today all the mailbag questions that surrounded anything else stuff about the uh non-basketball stuff stuff about the rest of the league we’re fitting that into today’s mailbag you guys know the drill before we get started subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don’t miss any more of our videos follow me on Twitter atore Jason LT so you guys don’t miss show announcements don’t forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight and then keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason all right let’s talk some basketball so first question there has been a lot of talk about who the best player in the world is after this series it seems like most people would consider that to be Luca or joic what is your criteria for judging what makes one player greater in a vacuum than another do you compare basic stats like points per game rebounds per game assists per game Etc do you look at any advanced stats team success a combination of them all I’d love to hear about what your measuring stick is for comparing one player to another thanks for all the Fantastic content and for making the playoff watching experience greater for me this year thank you for supporting the show and for the kind words it means a lot to me again all all throughout the mailbag so many of you guys dropped so many kind words and I really truly appreciate it and all the support and obviously the performance of the show has helped me realize just how much you guys support me and it’s something that I greatly appreciate um best player in the world stuff everybody has different criteria and so don’t confuse me talking about who I think the best player in the world is as like the end all Beall you might have different criteria than me I keep two separate lists I keep two separate lists for my alltime players as well I separate perimeter players and bigs cuz I don’t really feel comfortable saying Tim dun’s better than Kobe or vice versa when the two of them played such profoundly different positions in the NBA their jobs just were not the same right and that’s kind of how I feel about this particular type of discussion to me there’s the in a vacuum who’s the best player if like I had a franchise with the number one pick and every single player in the league was a free agent who would be the first guy I’d pick to build a team around for That season from the start of training camp hopefully through the end of June who am I picking right that’s one debate then there’s like the bragging rights debate that to me has nothing to do with any sort of specific you know traits of a basketball player it has everything to do with the the uh the the the importance of winning for instance we play these games for a reason we play to win we don’t play for Instagram highlights we play to see who’s going to get the Larry O’Brien Trophy and to me that Larry O’Brien trophy is sacred when I grew up as a kid and I’d turn on the NBA finals and they’d have that long you know minute long kind of intro that they’d air with all the footage of like Magic Johnson yelling backto back and like Bill Russell and locker room and red hour back smoking a cigar and you know LeBron hunched over crying on the in the later years LeBron hunched over crying after winning in 2016 like all of the example anything’s possible Kevin Garnett screaming to the rooftops like that real to me is a representation of why we do this we do this for the Larry O’Brien trophy it’s all that matters there’s other stuff that matters but this is the ultimate thing that matters and so for me like I believe in referencing the best player in the league in these two different lists so that we can properly account for those two things for instance in a vacuum I think LeBron James was the best player in the world from about 2012 to 2020 if I was picking a Fran I was picking a player to start a franchise with he’s the guy I’m picking every single time from 2012 to 2020 I thought he was the best I didn’t think I thought a couple players got close but I never thought a player actually surpassed him right but in terms of bragging rights it’s different right like I I totally understand why some Warriors fans would be like hey what about Steph or KD or even Kawhi Leonard in 2019 right like that I understand why some fan bases feel like their dude had the bragging rights for That season that makes sense to me so that’s what the purpose of the two lists are how do we account for LeBron obviously being the best player in the world in 2019 cuz like what happened to 2018 and what happened in 2020 2018 LeBron was by far the best player in the world kicked out through the entire playoff run had like eight 40-point playoff games had a 50-point playoff game and then ran into the KD Steph Warriors when he didn’t have another top 15 player on his team and he lost right but he was clearly the best player in the world 2019 sprains is groin strains is groin and misses the playoffs right cuz he got hurt 2020 he comes back best player in the league start to finish should have won MVP team started 24 and3 dominated the playoff run had a crazy efficient high volume scoring and and playmaking and rebounding playoff run was also an elite Defender that year one Finals MVP was clearly the best player in the world right like he was the best player for that entire stretch he just got hurt in the middle and was on a different team that didn’t have enough Talent after the uh after he went to Los Angeles before the Anthony Davis trade right but like I understand why Kawai would have the bragging rights that year but if you were an NBA GM and you didn’t know that LeBron was going to get hurt and he had just had that 2018 playoff run you bet your ass you’re drafting LeBron James over Kawhi Leonard to start the 2019 season that’s kind of why I keep those two lists separate now the question is if the bragging rights one is more focused on team results and just and again just cuz you win doesn’t mean you get that in my opinion in my opinion it’s like who played the best basketball that specific year combination of all those things you just mentioned production in statistics team success degree of difficulty all of that to me gets factored in on the bragging right side of things when it comes to the in a vacuum side I’m actually less concerned about some of the statistical stuff it’s more like actually analyzing what that player is good and bad at because so much of the statistical output has a lot to do with what the team construct is it’s no different than joic being a better scorer in the 2021 2022 Seasons when he didn’t have Jamal Murray but then when Jamal Murray came back his scoring took a little dip as he offloaded some of those responsibilities like that doesn’t mean joic became a worse scorer it’s just a difference in the way the team was constructed right so like that’s kind of the way I look at the in a vacuum piece I’m more looking at traits now I wanted to rank the traits for the purpose of this question I wanted to rank what I think are the most important traits in a vacuum for a basketball player number one no question for me half court shot creation and the reason behind this is very simple defensively you can scheme an elite defense just look at Luca this year or joic last year both of those guys are doing a good job defensively but they’re not Elite defensive players but both of those defenses were Elite why because they were able to construct through coaching and a few pieces of good defensive personnel and effort execution attention to detail for an entire season those two teams built Elite defenses it’s a lot easier to do that than the opposite if you’ve got it is really really difficult to replicate what LCA donic does in the half court you can’t just scheme like Eric spoler can’t turn Tyler herrow into Luka donic sorry right so like for me the ability in the slow down halfcourt environment to consistently generate quality shots for yourself and your teammates that to me is the number one trade I look at when I’m evaluating basketball players in a vacuum specifically versatility what that means is different types of matchups require different forms of offensive attack so Anthony Edwards for instance through the first two rounds looked like one of the best offensive players in the world the Dallas start Denver started doubling him towards the end of that series he kind of crumbled a bit then Dallas presents some Rim protection and perimeter athleticism issues he completely crumbles right so uh I shouldn’t say completely crumbles he was pretty good in the last couple of games but like he was pretty bad overall in the series right so to me the versatility element says regardless of which type of opponent I play against can I consistently generate quality shots for myself and my teammates and that to me comes down to like can you attack in different ways can you function both as a playmaker and as a score if you need to can you deal with Hyper aggressive defensive schemes can you attack as an individual in different ways like out of the post out of iso out of pick and roll can you beat small guys and big guys can you beat Strong guys and long guys right those are all the different types of Versatility elements offensively that I factor in there but halfcourt shot creation is unquestionably the number one thing on the list number two I put size strength and athleticism at the end of the day you get into these playoff environments it gets super damn physical and being bigger stronger and faster than people matters last year or this year let’s look at Luca he’s bigger and stronger than the vast majority of the perimeter players in the league right Nicole yic bigger and stronger than the vast majority of big guys in the league Steph Curry again every time you look at Steph Curry he is the exception that proves the rule both in NBA history and in a recent context anything Steph does it just doesn’t make sense in the big picture so you just kind of have to pick Steph up and put him off to the side and discuss him separately right it’s we’ve been consistent about that on this show Giannis bigger stronger and faster than every forward in the league right LeBron James in 2020 bigger faster stronger than most forwards in the league except for Giannis right uh 2019 kawii Leonard bigger and stronger than most forwards in the league right 201 18 and 2017 Kevin Durant 7 foot shooter he’s just taller than everybody right and then obviously the Steph piece which is weird 2016 Le 2015 Steph again 2014 Finals MVP was kawhai that’s also a weird team they’re like the team version of Steph you just pull them out and remove them from the equation right LeBron the years before that Dirk was 7 feet tall Kobe Bryant was one of the freaky athletic two guards in the league right so like again the you have to have real physical tools unless you’re Steph Curry to win an NBA history that’s the second piece third piece I put defensive versatility there are a lot of problems that get presented in playoff series that only Superstar defensive talents can handle right like we’ve seen this a lot over the years but like when you have a superstar like Giannis that could show on a Devin Booker floater bait him into a pass and then recover and er Ras eighton at The Rim that is a play that Giannis and maybe two other guys in the world can make and it won them a Finals game like that is the type of defensive versatility that can shine through in a big way LeBron James is a guy like this Kawhi Leonard is a guy like this Kevin Durant is a guy like this right to me defensive versatility the ability to impact the game defensively in multiple ways LeBron James in 2020 switched onto Jamal Murray in the tail end of the series and shut him down like he can’t do that anymore but when he was 35 he could do that right that was a huge piece of his defensive versatility in his way to impact the game he could be a backline guy he could be an on ball guy right you know like that that to me is a an important piece of of that in a vacuum evaluation of players but it ranks lower than the other two pieces because it’s easier as a front office to get a joic and get an Aaron Gordon than it is in my opinion to get a Giannis and then to get a highlevel offensive player to compliment him and so for me that’s why I I rank that halfcourt shot creation piece number one I think it’s just the hardest thing to replicate on a team-wide basis whereas defensive versatility can be a roster strength and it can be it like elite halfcourt shot creation has only been a roster strength with the 2014 Spurs like generally speaking you need a superstar offensive player that can do that to address that problem so again hopefully that answers that question for you guys those are the rankings of the three things I look at in a vacuum in a uh in bragging rights and primar looking at production and team success and who just gets to brag for that particular season why does everyone just cut Giannis out of the best player in the world chat now he’s still on par with these guys to me I I think he’s in that tier but I think he’s firmly below Luca and Nicole yic for the exact same reasons I just explained I don’t think he’s I think he’s a good half court shot Creator but he’s not in the same Stratosphere as a halfcourt shot Creator as joic and Luca Some solid analysis as usual but the manner in which you jumped off joic as the best player in the world is a bit prisoner of the moment Joker’s shooting performance the decline as you put it against the Wolves was because they were built to defeat him and have the favorable matchups to wear him down conversely the Mavs have matchup advantages over the Wolves and the truth of that bore out you don’t lose the title of best player in the league because your team loses in the playoffs in seven games while you still perform very well a larger sample size is needed otherwise the moniker becomes whoever plays best and wins in their title run if next year Luca dominates and is better than Nia then I think it’s fair to then hand him the belt as Bill Simmons would put it as the best player in the world but right now it’s a bit premature one of your great strengths as a basketball analyst is that you generally are not reactionary don’t get caught up in this one let’s see if Luca can win the title and MVP how can the best player in the league not have at least one MVP and dominate once more in the playoffs before we declare him the best player over Nicole yic who has had years of sustained Excellence couple things what I said right off the top your criteria for best player in the world is probably different is clearly different than mine that’s okay it’s okay that I have different criteria so like I I I don’t care that luuka doesn’t have an MVP regular season MVP to me is like for me personally is an achievement that I almost just don’t care about like it’s just the problem with regular season MVP is it’s so much based on media narratives and like I believe joic deserves the MVPs he has I’m not trying to undercut the accomplishment just regular season MVP just doesn’t matter to me there’s too many examples like Russell Westbrook winning it like James Harden winning it there’s just too many Joel embiid winning it there’s just so many examples of a guy that’s clearly not the best player in the world winning MVP and that to me just makes it really difficult to to a to tie much success to that accomplishment even when Giannis won MVP in 2020 I didn’t think he was better than LeBron so like to me regular season MVP doesn’t factor in if you factor in regular season MVP more power to you I don’t care about that Joker Joker’s shooting performance the decline as you put it against the Wolves was because they were built to defeat him that’s not true he shot poorly all season last year in the regular season he was 1.17 points per jump shot this year he was 1.01 that’s a what 16% decline so a substantial decline in jokic’s Jump shooting from last season to this year in the regular season last year in the postseason for the entire postseason he averaged 1.21 points per jump shot in this postseason he was below 0.9 so massive sample from start of training camp through to when he got eliminated in the second round he wasn’t as good as a as a jump shooter that that’s that’s just a fact he did decline on that front he also was not as good defensively as he was last year that is a fact all you have to do is look at the fact that they couldn’t get stops against Minnesota a mediocre offense when it mattered in big games they had a 116 defensive rating against Minnesota in those four losses so like he just wasn’t as good and I think that has to be factored in there as far as like the uh the he needs to have sustained success for multiple years in the postseason by that logic joic doesn’t deserve it because he only did it for one year in the postseason L Lucas doing it for his first year in the postseason to me I’m giving it to Luca because in this particular postseason run Luca donic played better basketball and achieved more and so with for this season he gets the bragging rights in a vacuum I still lean joic a little bit and we’ll see how I feel about that when we get into the summer but for me in a vacuum if I was GM of the Charlotte Hornets and I had the number one pick going into a full NBA wide 450 player draft I’m probably taking Nico yic first that to me is separate from the bragging rights title which to me Luca has at this point because he just took the team that beat didn’t just beat Denver but shut down their offense which is jokic’s strength strength Luca eviscerated them he averaged 12 additional points per 100 possessions against that Minnesota defense than jic did he deserves it for now in terms of bragging rights that hopefully will kind of explain where I stand on those things and you’re right like kicking me kicking a player off of the vacuum list that’s going to take a lot more sample size for me but the the bragging rights list is very much a year-to-year thing I had Luka donic 10th in my bragging rights list last year 10th do I think you Luca is the 10th best player in the world no but he missed the playoffs last year and Jimmy Butler took his team to the finals Jason Tatum took his team to the Eastern Conference Finals LeBron James took his team to the Eastern Conference Finals like all those guys accomplished more last year so they just were higher in their bra in the bragging rights list for me we’re this close to crowning a new NBA champ and with the action heating up on the court it’s even hotter at draftking Sportsbook an official sports betting partner of the NBA there’s only so many games left and draftking Sportsbook has you covered with same game parlays live betting odds boost and so much more don’t miss out or you’ll have to wait until next NBA season to place your bets it’s super easy for first- timers to get started try betting on something simple like picking a team to win go to the DraftKings Sportsbook app select your squad and place your first bet it’s that simple the odds for the NBA finals are up on DraftKings right now you can get Boston at minus 220 to win the title Dallas is at plus 175 new to DraftKings listen up new customers can get a no sweat s bet up to 1,500 bucks just deposit at least five bucks and you’ll get a bonus bet back equal to your first bet if it doesn’t hit download draftking Sportsbook app now and use code Hoops that’s code Hoops h o o PS for new customers to get a no sweat bet up to 1,500 bucks if your first bet doesn’t hit only on DraftKings the crown is yours I don’t have a question I just want to say I’m a real hoop head and when I found you a few years back when you were just getting this thing going I was super excited to hear someone talk about the game in a way that I had been waiting for and to see how far you’ve come is just great to see I tell everyone about you bro thank thanks man keep doing you bro this comment meant a lot to me um when I started this show I had this you know I I I I had this like belief system in place where like I wanted to talk about the game the way I wanted to talk about it but I was worried that it might not perform Super well because it’s a little more right it’s a little bit more in the weeds and I wasn’t willing to do the stuff that so many other shows out there do in terms of like just countless LeBron MJ debates and who’s under more pressure and like all those like classic first takey type of headlines right I didn’t want to do that and I was really nervous that I’d have a hard time getting the show off the ground because of that and to see me start this show and to not compromise on any of that stuff like does my team behind the scenes package and make thumbnails and titles that are a little click baity yeah but that’s just smart business I’ve never built a show like that that’s just smart business that they do that but like to me the actual show I’ve never compromised on I’ve only talked about the game that I want about the I’ve only talked about the game the way that I want to talk about it and to get to see it have success and to see where we’ve gotten to is has just like literally been everything to me because that means that my vision for what this show should be like was actually capable of being a real show that actually had a little bit of a following and so what it means to me is that there’s a lot of you guys out there that love basketball as much as I do and that that is that’s that that to me is incredible because I love the game so much it’s literally gone everything that I have came from basketball like I got my school paid for by basketball a lot of my travel over my life has been because of basketball my knowledge and understanding of the game most of it comes from playing basketball right like every my love of basketball has given me everything I have and so like to see that get returned in the form of of the support of this show is just meant everything to me and to hear comments like that and to know that you guys wanted to hear analysis like this it m it makes me feel Vindicated for uh for believing that this is the way that the game should be talked about so just thank you all for supporting the show and like again I I just I can’t I I can’t uh put into words how much I I appreciate you guys for helping the show get to the point where it’s at right now hey Jason love watching your analysis I wanted to ask with all of these rumors of the Warriors trading Wiggins do you think it’s the right move with all these Elite guards lurking in the west to give up on the only point of attack Defender who has been able to keep the uh the force of Luca at Bay or should they put him in the Jaden McDaniel’s lud Dort role move him to two and add a big who can shoot to add size so um I’ve seen a lot of Warriors fans talk about potentially trading Andrew Wiggins and I disagree in the sense that for two reasons one I think Andrew wiggins’s ability to defend on the perimeter is a profoundly valuable trait his athleticism in general is a profoundly valuable trait and lastly for all of his struggles his trade value is not very high so like it’s not likely that you can actually get much back for Andrew Wiggins that would replace the things that he’s pretty Elite at so I would look for moves on the margins and I would try to not include Andrew Wiggins as far as playing him at the two I think that you need another shot Creator and so if you moved him at the two it to me that would that would require you to have a three out there that can really run offense what you can’t do is go back into next season where Steph’s the only guy on the team that can create his own shot that to me would be a disaster how often do you attend live games and are you planning to attend the finals stumbled across your vids as postseason love the work you put into them so not going to the finals but we are planning on trying to attend more games next year I think our plan is to at least go to the inseason tournament next year my guess is in the long run we’ll go to more games like when we talk about like 5 10 years in the future but so much of it just has to do with like the volume’s growing really fast and we’re still kind of working through all of that like I’m still recording the show in my guest bedroom so like we’ll see how that turns out in the long run right so like again I uh right now this is kind of the format that works we will go to more events not going to the finals this year but in the long run we’ll see if we end up at more stuff what did you think of Sam prey’s comments on trading for Gordon Hayward do you believe more GMS should uh do do you believe more GMS should take accountability like this more great content keep up the great work so I uh uh the comment from s prey basically just said he missed on that Gordon Hayward trade uh one of the things that I appreciated about it there’s this I didn’t even really realize this until I started in this business there’s this belief I’ve seen it from fans there was like this there’s this expectation that basketball is just easy to figure out and that the solution is just obviously right in front of you and and that you should just you know if you make a mistake it’s a sign that you’re incompetent I could not disagree more like sports has such a variability element to it right as a Lakers fan I experienced this personally all year long ruy hamuro was better than torian Prince and I advocated all year long to play ruy more than Tori and Prince and it was the right decision all year long until the Denver series when ruy was terrible and tan was good right like is that just the weirdness of basketball or am I incompetent you know what I mean like that’s where it’s it gets really tricky right like s prey is regarded as one of the best GMS in the league and he can make a mistake I think he was just looking at a player that he could potentially slot in for Josh giddy in those lineups as kind of like a connective piece that would just be a higher level offensive player and it turned out that it was better for him to go with Isaiah Joe or Aaron Wiggins or even maybe even some big looks with uh with Jay will right it just turned out it wasn’t the right move right but you got to take you got to take chances you got to take shots you got to take risks and I always will advocate for people doing that sort of thing and inherently there are mistakes that can be made in those processes hey Jason what have we learned this playoffs about which types of defensive players are the most valuable perimeter Defenders wings or rim protector centers how does that influence team building thanks so much for all that you do again for me it’s the versatility element it’s the guys like Aaron Gordon that can guard on the backline defensive rebound and guard on the perimeter Jason Tatum can do that too right PJ Washington has showed some of that it is the versatile defensive players Derek Lively is a great example it is the versatile defensive players that can do both that bring the most value a big strong athlete that can hang around inside and defend on the perimeter is by far the most valuable type of Defender that you can have do you think that the Bucks are still top tier contenders I feel their entire defensive system revolved around what Brook Lopez could do and drop which was only enabled by Elite screen navigation by Drew without that Lopez’s defensive flaws are magnified and I don’t think they have the assets to fix the issue I know the offense has been poor but all the pieces are there Giannis just needs to be more familiar with how to roll with Dame agree with everything you said I agree that the point of attack defense was an issue in terms of uh complimenting Lopez in drop coverage 100% agree about Giannis and Dame just kind of needing more reps figuring out how to play together I would use Dallas as an example of optimism if I was a Milwaukee Fan Dallas missed the playoffs last year but they have two superstars or two a superstar and a star that both compliment each other really well and they made some tweaks to the roster now they’re in the finals that’s what you got to look at look at if you’re Milwaukee you have jannis anen Kumo the third best player in the world in a vacuum in my opinion and you have Damen Lillard a guy who’s in that like you know top 12 top 13 right so you are capable of making a similar pivot and all it is is you got to hit on a veteran minimum signing or two you got to hit on some sort of other move in the summer whether it’s a signin trade or it’s a mid-level exception deal and you got to hit on a trade or two between the offseason and on the deadline if you hit on those deals you have the top tier talent to build an elite team around them you just have to uh uh to make the appropriate tweaks to me I would go in on athleticism I think this is a team that needs to be very very fast and long and athletic I think that especially since Brook Lopez like that was part of the issue last year you just too slow everywhere and I would pivot in the direction towards length and athleticism especially considering to get out of the conference you’re going to have to deal with a Knicks team which is going to come at you with overwhelming layers of physicality in size and length and uh Boston’s going to come at you with a ton of speed and spread you out on the perimeter to survive that conference I think they need to get faster on the perimeter do you believe that it would be better to include Vanderbilt into the trade package if you’re getting a role player like if you’re getting a player like male Bridges rather than trading him for another guard like dejonte I feel like he’s the third most third or fourth most valuable player on the team 100% agree in the sense that he feels a very specific need Jared Vanderbilt is the only Elite perimeter Defender that the Los Angeles Lakers have under roster control so if you’re going to include him in a trade you damn well better get back a real perimeter Defender I personally would like to have at least two if you look through the uh let’s just look at the conference finalists Minnesota had two of them right they had Jen McDaniels Anthony Edwards just in the starting lineup right if you look at the Dallas Mavericks they had two of them Derrick Jones Jr PJ Washington I even argue that Kyrie can guard on the perimeter right you can say the same thing about Mike Conley for the record Boston has four of them in the starting lineup Indiana even if you look at Andrew nard and Aaron n Smith those are two very two very good perimeter defensive players seaka is a guy who can guard on the perimeter as well so like you got to have multiple guys that can guard on the perimeter so like I would I would if I was the Lakers I would not include Jared Vanderbilt unless it was a team demanding including Jared Vanderbilt and you were getting back a highlevel perimeter Defender that I prefer to keep him and I’d prefer to use trade chips like ruy haimura Gabe Vincent other mid-level contracts that do not involve including Vanderbilt and then I but I I I like the idea of going after a male Bridges a Jeremy Grant a dejonte Murray that sort of thing but I try to keep Banner built if you can do you eat before and or after you play a game of basketball if so what do you go for from James uh I prefer to eat two to three hours before I had a late night run that I played on Wednesday a private run here in Tucson and I went to dinner with my wife beforehand and we had dinner at like 6:30 and the Run started at like 8:00 and I didn’t eat my food until like 700 and it felt like I was playing with a cannonball in my stomach was literally the worst so like preferably a long time before preferably lighter I prefer to have stuff like like usually just like some rice and chicken like that I Chipotle is like the best pregame meal of all time because it’s just rice and chicken right I just uh don’t get beans in it for me personally but like again like that it’s really just something light two three hours before I’m a big believer in loading up the day before I do a lot of like heavy protein carb loading in the in the day before um to try to prepare for playing the next day hey I’m wondering about your perspective on the Star Wars franchise I like some of the shows that have come out but I also feel like some are getting away from what Star Wars was originally about I think they should release less content and focus more on quality rather than spitting out a new show every few months what’s your take on where they should go I don’t think that there’s a uh uh I don’t think that they’re inundating us with content it’s not like there’s a ton of it I actually think that especially when it comes to Dedicated teams like as long as there’s oversight dedicated teams can do a quality job it’s not like they’re cutting Corners there to me it’s more just focusing on the right kind of Storytelling to me Star Wars what makes it great is there’s a Bas a very basic good versus evil and then there’s deep lore building it’s the same thing that makes all those shows great right like what is Game of thr what makes Game of Thrones great you know who the villains are you know you’re rooting against Cersei the whole time you know you’re rooting against you know uh uh U Ramsay Snow you know you’re rooting against the night King right like you you have your clear antagonists and there’s an obvious like good versus evil type of thing going on and then there’s deep building everything is connected and Disney has just gotten really sloppy with the lore like all over the Skywalker Skywalker Storyline by making it about Palpatine at the end like they literally destroyed the entire Skywalker Storyline by reincarnating or saving Palpatine and making it about Ry and Palpatine right like that that was stupid that was that was all over the lore right they stupid things like for cool special effects they’ll have uh like uh the Millennium Falcon hyperspace jumping in between buildings like in Revenge of the or in Rise of Skywalker when literally in A New Hope in the very first Star Wars movie in 1977 there’s a scene where Han Solo is talking to uh to Luke and Luke goes why don’t you just jump the light speed and H goes if I don’t calculate first there will be bits of us scattered uh all over the Galaxy like because if you travel at the speed of light and you run into something something bad would happen so like why is it that that was established in 1977 and then it’s like oh but it’d be cool for CGI if the Millennium Falcon just appeared right in between some buildings flying around like that’s the kind of stuff that Disney’s dropped the ball on if they get back into the deep story building and into the lore and into the good versus evil I think it could work which by the way I saw I’ve seen some people dislike Ahsoka I enjoyed Ahsoka it’s a slow start season one was slow but it’s no different than Game of Thrones season one was really slow right give that story some time thon’s a really interesting character they’re going to keep building him out there’s all that interesting stuff going on with Bal and skull and Ahsoka and all them in that other Galaxy like Ahsoka season 2 I think is going to be more fast-paced and a little bit more interesting right this acolyte series is something I’m super super excited for it did Dives back into the good versus evil thing I saw I had this theory that I put out on my other podcast I have another podcast it’s called the two sons podcast you can see the the the link for or not the link but the logo for it right there I do it with my buddy Luke here in Tucson we cover all that stuff TV series movies all that kind of thing Star Wars is a major like Star Wars is my like favorite bit of of uh non-fiction so that’s what we spend a good amount of our time on but like we’re going to be covering every single episode of the acolyte starting next week we’re going to cover every single episode of House of the Dragon we’re recording tomorrow an episode that’s covering the end of bad batch as well as we’re doing um uh we’re going to do there’s a book that we both just read called Revan so we’re going to do like kind of a summary reaction to the Revan book uh that’s obviously Legends but it’s another Star Wars a bit of Star Wars content so like make sure you check out the two suns podcast hop over there if you guys would subscribe and support that show I’d really appreciate that uh but I was talking about the acolyte with my buddy Luke and in that show I was hoping for them to get into some of the history of the Sith which is by far my most interesting element of the Star Wars Universe I’m really fascinated by Palpatine’s a grand plan to overthrow the Republic right I find it super fascinating it dates all the way back to Darth ban destroying the Sith going into hiding and trying to take over the Galaxy with Sutter fuge rather than through Force of Arms right that’s if you’ve ever read the Darth Bane Books you know what I’m talking about but the acolyte I think is going to Target that concept and I had a theory about that and then I saw an interview yesterday that the Star Wars Instagram feed released where Dave filon was interviewing the director and he’s like so tell me about the accolate and she’s like I’ve always been fascinated by The Sith in the idea of an apprentice who craves their Master’s power and needs to go find a new Apprentice so that they can do that and I was like yes like this is exactly what I want from a Star Wars shows I’m very very excited for the acolyte I I most importantly now that Dave filon is their creative director Dave filon is someone that I think has the appropriate amount of respect for what makes Star Wars great and so I think that we can kind of take the 2015 stretch to now and all of the stuff that they botched with the sequel Trilogy and some of the weird stuff they’ve done I think we can kind of just put that to the side Now Dave Fon has real authority to fix stuff let’s see if Dave filon can can write the ship here you said early in the season you would not change the Nuggets starting five after losing to the wolves do you still believe it should be those five and what changes would you make overall to the team come back better next season I would try to run it back they were up 20 in game seven you win that game I I think they beat Dallas and I think they’re in the finals and I think they would have beat Boston don’t overthink it you got a bad matchup and you still had him on the ropes you just blew it and Jamal Murray didn’t play well he was also injured and yic had a bad shooting season and wasn’t as good defensively I think both of those guys are going to come back way better next year I think they’re going to come back as the hungry team so like I wouldn’t tweak anything that said there’s some of realities of the roster situation it’s very possible that cavius Kwa Pope ends up being poached by another team we’ll see if they do uh then obviously what you’re you’re slotting like a Christian Brown into that spot but I’ll be curious to see if they are able to kind of replace him with a a more of like a League average type of replacement player that said in terms of who I should who I think they should be looking to add I think the main piece that they need is they need another offensive player that can compromise the defense through dribble penetration one of the issues for Denver was they initiate through two-man game and through jokic’s ability to impose himself physically in the post Jaden McDaniels and Anthony Edwards erased Jamaal Murray from that series for the most part and Nicole yic was just getting overwhelmed by size on the inside another way to compromise the defense is through dribble penetration Denver just didn’t have a guy who can do that last year they had Bruce Brown they didn’t have that this year so like I would be looking for a an an athletic guard that can beat somebody off the dribble because if he can beat somebody off the dribble that’s just another way for them to have some more resilience on offense what’s up with the Sun sunglasses new style so I’ve had sunglasses on for a couple of these episodes just holding my hair back to make a long story short I’ve never had hair this long and I’m trying to figure out how to do [Laughter] it I it’s my hair is super curly thanks to my mom and I have literally no idea what to do with it so I’m learning the sunglasses they just hold it back for right now I I don’t know if I’ll end up I’m not going to get into the specifics but I’ll try a few more things but something that uh that’s like something about me I am very much a practically minded person practical like I’m I’m obsessed with practicality I want things to be convenient I like things to be easy and my hair is irritating the out of me I’ve been growing it out for like nine months though so I’m not about to cut it right away I’m going to try to see if I can make it work but like if it’s a few months from now and I’m still struggling like I’m going to cut it just because like I I hate dealing with with inconvenient like constantly having to do stuff with my hair but yeah the sunglasses I’m just putting them on my head to hold my hair back uh I I’m aware that it’s tacky I’m trying to figure it out just bear with me as I try to work through this new phase of of hair problems you touched a on a couple videos ago that every series should be looked at in a vacuum how do you think the Lakers would have fared if they would have been the eighth seed instead of the seventh would they have dethroned OKC Dallas and Minnesota I think they would have beat uh I think they would have beat OKC I think that they presented similar challenges to Oklahoma City that Dallas did right I think that a specifically one of the things that the Lakers could have done to OKC’s front line that even Dallas couldn’t do is Anthony Davis can just bully his way around the basket against that front line and I think that that would have caused a lot of problems I think the Lakers would have beat OKC by the way I was consistent about that all season I thought I thought the Lakers were the fifth best team going into the postseason run and I thought that they should have I thought that they would have beat Oklahoma City Dallas is tough Dallas is a matchup that the Lakers have struggled with pretty consistently over the last two years I would have picked the Lakers over Dallas if Jared Vanderbilt was healthy but he was not he wasn’t healthy so with Jared because Jared Vanderbilt was the one guy the Lakers had that could actually bother Luca kind of fits into that big strong forward type that you need like an Aaron Gordon like a Jason Tatum type of player but Jared Vanderbilt was out so I think the Lakers would have just lost to Dallas now in a fantasy world where Jared Vanderbilt was healthy I think they would have beat OKC it would have been roughly a coin flip to beat Dallas I probably would have picked the Lakers but it would have been close and then Minnesota I think the Lakers would have beat Minnesota because I think Minnesota would have struggled against the Laker defense for the exact same reasons that they struggled against the Dallas defense but the Dallas matchup is just really tough the Lakers have struggled with LCA pretty consistently uh and because Vanderbilt was injured I think even if they were the eight SE they would have lost to Dallas a lot of Team USA players didn’t go on a Deep Run in the playoffs for example LeBron Steph KD Anthony Davis embiid will that rest help Team USA absolutely not just the rest but also the competitive motivation not being able to compete for a championship will make them want to compete for this uh uh this Olympic trophy I have a feeling that the Team USA is going to go on a crazy run I think that they’re going to dominate and I think they’re going to win the gold I think that this is going to be an opportunity for the American basketball players to prove that even though the world is catching up that as a country individually they are still Head and Shoulders Above the Rest of the teams individually now if you I think if we combined all the players of the world into a single world team against USA that’s where it gets tricky right because now we’re talking about Luca joic Giannis like that that could get really tough really fast sh Shay Shay gild Alexander is on that team right but uh but like and that would get complicated but in terms of individual countries no country in the world can hold a candle to to Team USA and I think they’re going to demonstrate that this year should Anthony Edwards start over Jason Tatum in Team USA no um I think Jason Tatum should play the two I would go Steph Tatum KD Lebron Anthony Davis that would be the lineup that I’d use and then in specific matchups against really big front lines guys that like uh joic and in uh Serbia that’s where I would play embiid because I think embiid matches up better with joic but I think a alongside other stars ad is a better player and I think Tatum’s better than Anthony Edwards in a vacuum but especially within the context of playing alongside the other stars I think Tatum would be the route to go but I mean Steph Tatum KD Lebron ad they should beat the out of everybody that’s that’s a legendary team I’m very lucky the volume sending me out on Wednesday in July right before the uh uh right before the summer league to see a scrimmage for Team USA versus the uh Canadian national team very very excited for that I think that should be a fun game especially if Jamal Murray plays because it’ll be Shay Jamal Murray Dylan Brooks like that that should be a really fun uh um game to watch all right guys that is all I have for today and uh we’re going to be back on Monday morning covering some the first side of the ball for the NBA Finals we’re be covering Boston on offense film and everything then we’ll get into Dallas on offense on Tuesday and then we’ll get into some interview stuff on Wednesday as always I sincerely appreciate you guys for rocking with me and supporting the show I’ll see you on Monday [Music]

Jason Timpf answers listener questions during an NBA Mailbag segment. Jason discusses whether Luka Doncic has overtaken Nikola Jokic as the best player in the world following the Mavericks’ run to the NBA Finals vs. the Celtics. Later, Jason discusses if the Nuggets should make any major offseason moves following their loss to Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves in the NBA Playoffs, whether Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are still top tier contenders, and what trade options LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers should pursue.

Timeline:
00:00 – Introduction
00:51 – Jason’s criteria for ranking players
13:28 – Is Giannis in best player conversation?
13:50 – Is Jokic still best player in the world?
19:50 – Thank you for listening
22:32 – Should Warriors trade Wiggins?
23:46 – How often Jason attends live games?
24:27 – Sam Presti on Gordon Hayward
26:21 – Which defensive players are most valuable?
27:03 – Are Bucks still top tier contenders?
28:53 – Lakers trade scenarios
30:30 – Does Jason eat before games?
31:23 – Thoughts on Star Wars franchise right now
36:35 – Should Nuggets make changes?
38:24 – Jason’s new look
39:39 – How Lakers would have fared as 8 seed
41:27 – Will rest help Team USA players
42:29 – Should Ant start over Tatum on Team USA?

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