NBA Mailbag: How Kuminga gets to next level, did Kevin Durant save Steph & Warriors? | Hoops Tonight

NBA Mailbag: How Kuminga gets to next level, did Kevin Durant save Steph & Warriors? | Hoops Tonight

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So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball all right let’s move on to our mailbag we have four questions today have them on my phone today first one offensively what does Jonathan kaminga need to work

On in the offseason besides ball handling and three-point shooting become a legit number two option so again to become a legit number two option offensively it’s a lot more complicated than just one specific skill right like ball handling and shooting are vague Concepts too like shooting could mean

Just catch and shoot shooting shooting could mean movement shooting shooting could mean off the- dribble shooting right ball handling that could mean attacking Closeouts that could mean working in ISO and postup situations that could also mean running ball screens right A big one too for Golden

State which is an important part of this discussion we got into this in the mailbag yesterday but just the difference in the different kinds of offenses right so like the kinds of skills you need in a four out one in offense versus from a role player versus

The kinds of skills you need in a uh a five out offense right and just all the players on the perimeter so in a five out offense specifically the way Golden State plays read and react is a huge part of the skill development what that means is like the ability to quickly interpret

What’s happening in front of you and make these decisions so it’s kind of like option routes in the NFL so like if you remember in the NFL like you might have a guy that like reads the linebacker out of the tight end spot and if the linebacker’s here he quick turns

For a hitch if the linebacker’s there he might run a five yard out instead right like these these are read and react plays for the tight end where he’s coming off the line reading what the linebacker is doing and then making a decision it’s the same kind of thing in

Five out basketball like you’re setting up for this screening action but it’s very read and react in the sense that like if if your guys top locking you you back door if your guys trailing you want to curl right like if your guy ducking under the pick you want to flare like

There’s all these different things that you’re reading and especially in three-man actions you might you know change your mind on who’s coming out of the screen right or you might slip out of it entirely there’s so many different things that you do read and react basketball in in five out basketball and

So some of that is not even skill development it’s just reps and like johnan kaminga just needs lots and lots of reps playing alongside Steph in this five out system to just kind of learn how to be better at and reacting but like if I had to put it simply to be a

Legitimate second side Creator or I should say a second option on a championship team you have to be truly transcendently great at something now to me for Jonathan kaminga that’s going to be an isop poost thing his best skill right now is he is so freaky athletic at

His size that most of the players that are big enough to handle him are too slow and that are fast enough to handle them are too small right and so he can get Defenders out of position he can draw fast he can get baskets he’s a good

On the on an island scorer There’s real value there now to push it to the elite level where he needs to get he needs to be a great playmaker in those situations so again the ability to read the floor identify where the help is coming from a

Lot of teams bring late help on kaminga after he puts the ball on the floor but once he can read those things he can be a truly Elite isolation and postup player because you can run that action 10 15 or like you know 5 10 times a game

And in those 5 10 possessions you’re going to get cons cons great production regardless of the coverage that he faces right but in addition to that he also has to be able to play in the flow of the offense that’s one of the big things for for kaminga right now is he’s good

On an island not so great in the flow and so that’s going to be H where his areas of improvement are from there it’s going to be about like ball handling specifically ball handling in traffic ball handling in ball screens so being able to oh what that means is like let’s

Say he brings his man up the floor but he’s got a good perimeter defender on it as before he comes off a ball screen he needs to set him up meaning like he needs to make a move to one side of the screen and then do a retreat dribble to

Get the defender into a trailing position on that side before he goes and uses the ball screen that’s a intricate part of ball handling that he’ll have to figure out right then once he’s coming off the screen making those reads okay the defender’s in a deep drop I want to

Get a head of steam going to the basket okay oh the defender’s a little bit higher and uh the on ball guy is trailing behind me I need to use my size to put the defender in jail keep him trapped behind me start working slowly down the floor until something develops

In front of me and the the developing part that’s making the reads reading the low man okay I brought the screen Defender up which means the guy in the dunker spot’s open hit him or I brought the screen Defender up and they rotated out of the corner I got to make this

Skip pass right all these reads that he has to get used to making those are reads that if he wants to be in the five out coming off of those dhos and coming off of those impromptu ball screens that he’s going to have to get better at

Right but again to me to be the legit number two he needs to be the best possible version of the iso postup player that he is which primarily is a play a playmaking thing at this point and then to be able to function normally in their five out offense so that he can

Maintain his impact when he’s not being super aggressive on the ball and then from there just you know making the defensive improvements that we we know he needs to right like he’s a good on ball guy right now but he can be a little unfocused off ball so like we uh

Uh there’s lots of areas of improvement for a player this young but to become a legit number two that’s just kind of a little breakdown of what he needs to do offensively all right next question Cavs fan here I obviously know there’s a defined second round ceiling

With them assuming this happens what do you think they should do this offseason personally I think making Moy bulk up and move to the five and replacing Allen with a wing who can shoot and move his feet is a good start so uh one of the things I I I really find this

Interesting because it actually falls very similarly to some of the issues that I’ve been dealing with uh as a c as a Lakers fan right so Evan Mobley is in this awkward position right now now where like to play the four he needs to make a significant Improvement

Offensively right just in terms of his skill ball handling shooting all that stuff but to play the five he might have some issues in terms of his overall physical bulk right even if he puts on muscle he might run into similar issues to Anthony Davis now Anthony Davis when

He was at the four and had some success with the Lakers in the 2020 and 2021 Seasons he was a much better offensive skill player right a guy you could throw the ball to On the Block and he was going to isos score and hit a bunch of

Jump shots and all this kind of stuff right then what happened was is he had an offensive Decline and as that offensive decline happened in 2021 2022 all of a sudden it became untenable to run Anthony Davis next to a five because if you ran him next to a five you were

Physically imposing but you didn’t have the skill you needed at the four spot to make it work right that was the issue they’d have because you’d have like ad who can’t shoot next to some other shooter uh Center who couldn’t shoot right and like even when they did have a

Center who could shoot a guy like a you know guys like Thomas Bryant briefly there with the Russell Westbrook team or like a Marcus Saul they weren’t teams that uh like they weren’t guys that teams were like really guarding out there right and so the issue is If

You’re Gonna Play Evan Moy at the four you’re going to deal much better physically with teams because Moy at the four next to a legitimate Center like Jared Allen you’re going to be really physically imposing at times although they did get a little bit overwhelmed by

The Knicks last year but that only works if Evan Mobley makes the strides offensively that what ended up killing them wasn’t just the physical stuff that they dealt with with Mitchell Robinson but their inability to score in pick and roll because of Jared Allen and Evan Mobley operating in the short rle and

Out of the dunker spot they just couldn’t score effect effectively out of there I want to say Evan Mobley was like 0 for 10 shooting out of the rle last year in that knck Series right so like offensive skill is a prerequisite to play the four now but if you play the

Five you’re going to run into a lot of issues in terms of his overall physical book so uh bulk right so that’s really the the turning point for the Cavs is like is Evan Mobley going to develop offensively or is he the next Anthony Davis the guy that like has offensive

Moments but for whatever reason just never develops in terms of his skill set the way that he needs to and and that’s up to Evan for the record like I I mean I I even feel like with with Anthony Davis like from what I’ve heard behind

The scenes like the dude just out of the Season just takes like two straight months off and like that’s one of those things where like skill development in particular is literally a lifestyle skill development is a 12mon thing and so like it is a it is something that

Like Evan Moy would have to commit to and really spend the time to make those improvements to be good enough from from an offensive standpoint at the four if not if you slide him to the five then your four has to be super physically imposing you’re going to need somebody

Of Aaron Gordon’s ilk at the four to put next to Evan Moy because of his size limitations right that’s what makes the LeBron ad front line still functional defensively against most matchups Al albe he’s had his issues against those big body centers like we’ve talked about

But it’s LeBron James he’s a really big Center and so when LeBron is really engaged defensively the two of them make for a really physically imposing four five so like that’s the way I look at it the crossroads is Evan Mo’s offensive development if he becomes a gifted

Offensive player you keep him at the four if he doesn’t you have to put him at the five and you have to put some sort of big bodied four next to him all right next uh we have two questions and then we’re done no Jason we need you to address

Zeke disrespecting Steph Curry on draymond’s pod love the show by the way thank you for supporting the show um so there’s two things that I wanted to hit from the Draymond Green Isaiah Thomas interview first the idea that like Kevin Durant saved them when he went in 2017

Here’s the thing do I think if Kevin Durant did not sign with the Warriors in the summer of 2017 that the war that uh that the war uh still repeat and go and win back-to-back titles in 2017 2018 no I don’t think they repeat but they were

Still one of the very best teams in the league they would have been they would have been every bit as likely to win the title as the Cavs in 2017 like I I my best guess is that if you play that same setup again without Kevin Durant going to the Warriors the

Cavs split it they probably get one more and the Warriors probably get one more in the 2017 2018 stretch so like yeah Kevin Durant put them over the top to being completely unbeatable and they won two titles but that doesn’t mean that that Warriors team wasn’t good that’s

Ridiculous they won 73 games the year before it required absolute heroic basketball from Kyrie Irving and LeBron James to barely squeak out a seven game win in Golden State in 2016 so like pretending as though they weren’t a championship Contender without uh without KD that’s just something I I I

Completely disagree with like Katie doesn’t sign with golden state goes somewhere else the Warriors win one of those two titles in 2017 or 2018 in my opinion that’s just how good they were so like I I I don’t really buy into that revisionist history like even when we

Evaluate Steph like no KD I still think we look at him as a three-time champion and probably a two times finals MVP and should have been a three-time Finals MVP so like I I I don’t really buy into that line of thinking on the uh point guard front this is something that I

Incredibly silly because everyone wants to associate point guard with one specific style of play which is like the guy who brings the ball up the floor and makes all the decisions but like that is really a Dying Breed these days you don’t really see that very much in the

NBA in general as a matter of fact the guys who bring the ball up the floor and make all the decisions now are the James Harden James Harden 2020 2021 it kind of or 2018 2019 I mean kind of stretch and then it’s like Luca donic and like Trey

Young and it’s like that’s not even like a positional thing that’s like a heliocentric play style kind of thing the truth of the matter is is like the the positions in the NBA more have to do with who you can guard right like can

You guard a guard can you guard a 65 two guard can you guard a lanky Wing who scores on the perimeter like a Paul George can you guard a power Wing like an Aaron Gordon or a LeBron James or ruy hotmer or whatever in the front Court

Can you guard a big bodied Center can you guard a skinny skilled Center those are the positions but like saying Steph Curry is not a point guard is not fair because there’s like not that many point guards in the NBA by the traditional mold like what Isaiah Thomas was anyway

And by the way just go back and look at why that position archetype was a thing back then the vast majority of forwards couldn’t dribble and most hubs were centers and forwards so you needed a a a like a ball handling point guard that could bring

The ball up against pressure and make a postentry pass or if it’s a wing scorer if they run an action to get that Wing scorer positioned somewhere on the floor you needed the point guard to get the ball to him nowadays the level of ball handling that we get down the roster

Including at the forward position is so insane that you no longer need a point guard to make a postentry pass and so as a result of that like that point guard position it’s actually better to have like a guy who can run pick and roll and score right or do more

Highle playmaking but like the highle playmaking at a pick and roll piece we literally see every position do that including centers now we see Giannis and Nicole yic running inverted pick and roll all the time now so like to me that conversation is completely pointless the bottom line is at Steph’s archetype

Which is like your primary offensive Hub guard which is more or less what the point guard is now in the modern NBA he’s been the best at it in this era no one’s done it better at the guard position so like the fact that he’s off

Ball more than most players I is is irrelevant to me and by the way if you ran a spread pick and roll four out one in system and you just spammed ball screens with Steph like Trey young he would just be a better version of Trey

Young Steph can do that too if you if you let Steph play the way that t uh Trey young plays he average 35 and 12 but the Warriors wouldn’t be as good Steph Embraces five out off ball basketball the way he does because it makes the Warriors a better team it

Makes them more versatile and then what ends up happening is when push comes to shove what does he do he runs pick and roll when when they when the Warriors pushed the Lakers to six games last year they were the lesser team in a lot of

Guys who weren’t playing as well as they did last year and so everything fell on step Lakers were playing the best basketball they played since they won in the bubble and they were playing incredible defensive basketball and the only reason the Warriors had any chance to win that series was Steph with the

Ball in his hands barbecuing them in pick and roll I rewatched every game in that series over the summer and like it was appalling going back just how helpless the Lakers were dealing with him in pick and roll that’s all point guard bring the ball up the floor and

Make decision stuff he can do that he chooses to play in this five out system ball because it makes the Warriors more versatile if they can run that 30 minutes in a playoff game and he only has to spam ball screens for the other 15 minutes it gives him a better chance

Of holding up physically it gives him a better chance of not being repetitive and easy to guard so like yeah I I disagree vehemently with both of those opinions from Isaiah Thomas from that interview uh last question in your opinion how do you think teams adjusting to playoff pressure will affect their

Play and what major teams do you think will be playoff risers or chokers whether due to game plan or roster assembly do you think of any playoff chokers that can overcome their weaknesses in an extended Series so I’m not going to get into specific teams and players in this particular part just

Because it’s a mailbag we will get into that when we get into our playoff previews in early April but the main kind of theme behind it is in my opinion experience tends to be more resilient in the playoffs strength and the ability to hold up under physicality uh tends to be more

Resilient in the playoffs teams that score a lot in the paint That’s resilient in the playoffs and then a diversity of shot creation well that means is if you’re a team that relies solely on ball screens to run your offense you’re going to run into issues

Look at the Cavs last year the only way they could score was through Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell ball screens and when they had issues scoring out of the rle their entire offense fell apart right but when you have versatility right like that’s the thing like the Knicks like Jaylen Brunson just

Is an incredible mismatch attacking switch ISO guy right Julius Randall in theory when he’s healthy can do that kind of thing right so like if you have a versatility in your shot creation if you have the ability to be like hey this isn’t working let’s try this instead

That to me is something that makes a team more resilient when we get in the postseason we will when we get to our playoff previews talk about which teams and players I expect to play better and worse when we get to that point I just didn’t want to hit it in today’s mailbag A

Jason Timpf answers listener questions during an NBA Mailbag segment including how Jonathan Kuminga can elevate his game to the next level for the Golden State Warriors, if Isiah Thomas was wrong for telling Draymond Green that Kevin Durant saved Golden State, and why Steph Curry is the perfect example of the point guard position evolving.

Timeline:
00:00 – How Jonathan Kuminga can get to next level
05:30 – What should Cavaliers do this offseason?
09:30 – Isaiah Thomas says Kevin Durant “saved” Warriors
11:26 – Steph Curry & point guard evolution
15:50 – Which players will elevate in playoffs

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