The Raptors are better than people think w/ Caitlin Cooper & Samson Folk

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Outside Looking In cast. Of course, this is the third year I've been doing this. I think I've perfected it this year. All the other years, too many people, too many reiterations of the same thing. And quite frankly, I won't say who, but too many people coming in not knowing enough about the Raptors. I said to myself, I'm only going to get people who I really trust this year. I trust nobody more than Caitlyn Cooper, who is in my estimation, in Rick Carile's estimation, and in other front offices and coaching staffs across the NBA's estimation, the best writer covering the NBA, the best analyst, Caitlyn. Oh, for listeners, I'm Samson Folk. If you don't know, we host a podcast together covering the Pacers. Uh, I write for Caitlyn's uh Patreon. We're good friends. We love basketball. Caitlyn is here to talk not really about the Pacers, but more so about the Raptors. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. I'm actually excited to get to talk about another team and to have you do all of the hosting responsibilities. I know implicitly you do a lot of the hosting responsibilities on my podcast, too. But I didn't have to write a monologue for this. I didn't send you an outline with a bunch of numbers. I just merely got out of bed and prepared to sit here and talk. And I also have prepared for everybody who is listening. I realize that you don't need another American coming on this podcast and being like, I don't get this. This is an expensive roster, yada yada yada. So, I am planning to do what I do with my own Pacer coverage, which is to simply look at this from a basketball perspective and a basketball perspective only.

The Raptors have a lot of interesting things going on from a basketball perspective. And also, you're right, it is the completely inverse relationship. Although I did think for a moment I was like, do I do a monologue? Should I try and do something like that? But then I thought, nah, that's we can do without it. And I just rambled along as I want to do. Caitlyn, the Raptors, broad strokes. We'll start there. We'll obviously get into the nitty-gritty as we often do, but what are you seeing? What does this team What's what does this team say to you when you look at it? It's a talented team in terms of their overall depth of the roster and I think that's going to be tricky for Darko in terms of managing rotations, lineups, minutes because there are a lot of rotation caliber players. And I promise I'm not going to bring the Pacers up a lot, but when they were exiting their rebuild, they had like 10 rotation caliber players and that was something that you had to balance going into training camp. And I think a lot of times, you know, it can get hung up in like this guy versus this guy. But in reality, competition is a good thing. It tends to it tends to make both players better. And also, I just think generally speaking, this is going to be a better basketball team than last year. I was one of the sickos who watched some of the late season games. I watched the one against Portland when guys are getting benched and things are happening on the court where it's like, you know, that's not really putting people in an advantageous position. So, when you're going that far out of your way to, you know, get younger guys on the roster minutes, yes, but also to not necessarily be as competitive as you can possibly be in terms of wins, dealing with a lot of health problems with regards to several players on the roster, including Brandon Ingram, who's yet to play a basketball game for the Toronto Raptors. I I feel pretty safe in saying that this is going to be a better team next year. I wasn't able to look it up, but I do think Brandon Ingram probably has the most consecutive games missed for a sprain ankle in the history of the NBA, which is just a function of what happened to him with a trade to a team that was in the unique position of we're tanking this year, but we want to run it back next year. Can you sit 32 games for me right now? Is like a not an odd proposition, but one that happened or at least I should say allegedly. Just something there. and everyone's trying their best. Brandon will come back, I assume, in great shape. Um, training camp is soon and we'll get we'll finally get a look at the guy. These out in the distance at summer league, seeing him get shots up was not really didn't delay a whole bunch of information to us. And when he comes on, he's like, "Yeah, I'm excited. I'm good at basketball." It's like, that's true. We need to see how it all meshes together. As you said, a talented team, as you pointed out, a team that definitely wasn't playing to win, was doing a lot of things. No better example of that, I think, is than Darko saying that he wanted Grady to guard all of the best players in the league last year. And I remember thinking to myself, because I asked him the question and thinking to myself, that's insane. The these guys don't want to win at all. Which is true. And this is where I want to ask.

He shouldn't be guarding Benedict Matin. tough scene. It's a tough scene. Uh Grady in in Well, we we won't start with Grady. We'll get into that later, but the Raptors are a team who when they first hired Darko and there was all this fervor around Darko's style and the fact that Darko's style was, you know, positioned as futuristic and forwardinking, which I think is true, but uh the conversation around it was, I think, very limited in just thinking that like just the scheme is what dictates the success of a roster. And so you and I and Evan did this podcast talking about coaching in the NBA and how that can happen. And we came away from it saying like the Raptors are not going to have a good offense just because Darko says they're going to make quicker decisions that there are very real limitations in fact and now you and I are sitting here after the roster is built a little bit better towards that and the players have a couple years of it under their belt. Where do you sit on the marriage between coaching scheme dark and the Raptors current talented roster?

I mean, you and I have talked about this somewhat privately, and I think after I did as much deep diving into the numbers and film as I could over like a 48 hour span, I slightly changed my opinion, especially on the overall edition of Brandon Ingram because I admit I was somewhat tainted because I heavily watched Team USA play at the World Cup when Tyrese was coming off the bench and Brandon Ingram was a starter. Eventually, Steve Kerr and Eric Spolster are like, "This isn't working. And there's too many isolation players in the starting lineup with Jaylen Brunson and Anthony Edwards and Ingram. So they moved Ingram to the bench group. And the bench group with Tyrese played very much like how the Indiana Pacers play now. Like >> heavily pass aheads in transition, playing a lot of random, free flowing. And Brandon just didn't really mix with that all that well until eventually he ends up not playing with the team anymore. >> I was tainted by that. And I'm thinking, you know, the Raptors also play a very egalitarian readbased offense to an extent. How is he going to meld himself to that? But after I watched more of what the Raptors were doing, and we can talk about how this will translate to the playoffs, because that's a different question, but in terms of just assimilating what Brandon Ingram does to what Darko, the coach, does in terms of system, I think it will actually blend better than I initially thought because the Raptors definitely have like specific cutting of movement patterns based around the direction of the ball. If that continues and you have a better weapon within it, I don't think that he's necessarily going to stall out that movement in the way that maybe just looking and being like, "Yeah, this guy has a little bit higher catch and hold time than the rest of the team and this guy pounds the ball a little bit more than the rest of the team." Even if that's somewhat the case, just the mere fact that he's creating more momentum toward the basket, then what they had off the dribble is going to unlock a lot of what they're doing. And that's that's really trending leadwide. Like if you watch Memphis, if you watched Cleveland prior to the playoffs last year, a lot of teams are running that wheel action. The Raptors call it Raptor. Like to basically to reposition heavy gap help teams. It's teams taking a guy cutting from the corner to the dunker and then the guy at the wing drifts into that corner to make make the guy at the nail really have to make a choice. Am I standing here or am I giving up a wide open three? The Raptors do that. If they're getting ice, they have a guy follow cut from the corner. Like these are automatics. If this happens, then this happens. So, I don't think guys are just going to suddenly start standing still because Brandon's on the team, if that makes sense.

And it is it's an interesting perspective because I felt this way almost immediately because I watched, you know, the Brandon Ingram thing, especially because they didn't give that much up for him. The the the price they're paying is the contract basically. And that was the calculus that all the other teams that were slightly in on the Ingram sweep stakes were weighing. I mean, the Pacers got that pick back. Like, the pick already went back to Indiana. It wasn't of that much consequence, although of more with this upcoming season potentially with with Tyrese. But Ingram gives the Raptors something that like on its face, it seems like they had, but they just they don't have it at all. And he's supposed to reorder the hierarchy to some degree and and put weaknesses in certain places by moving them, create strengths in others, and reorder things. I was actually going to ask you like, hey, for listeners who don't know about like these these sequenced actions, can you tell them because you already did that, which is great. Sequenced actions go a certain way and it requires the coach like tinkering and the the players actually doing this. But as far as the limitations of this roster, which despite Brandon Ingram joining, the Raptors very much still have, what do you see when you look at this roster and what you understand of the players? What do you expect to be the weaknesses there?

I think I still have some questions over Emanuel Quickley as a point guard in general and because of what I know from what I was watching heavily before the Pacers traded for Pascal is he tends to give point guards a pretty big piece of the basketball. Dennis Shruder had more of the ball than in a wingled offense. Some of that was still like on a per 100 touches basis quickly led the team in touches per 100 last year. So, it makes me wonder and because they don't really have anybody who can hit threes off of two dribbles other than quickly. So, pullup shooting still really matters. I'm I'm sure I'm going to find that out when Tyrese isn't playing this year for the Pacers. And it's a lot of Andrew and and TJ. Like, I think you still want quickly on ball a lot. And yet, Quickly is a player who I think from my time watching him with the Knicks plays a lot better into a tilted offense. Um, and I don't know how much of what his numbers dip was was health related last year. Certainly, he missed a lot of games. The floater stuff, I don't like it. I don't like when I see a number where a player's taking more layups in the half court than they're taking floaters. And the problem with him is, and I have looked up a number to prepare and and probably not surprise you with, but I do have it.

Well, just to reiterate um quickly, you said uh layups instead of floers. You mean the inverse, right?

Yeah. Who's taking more floaters than layups? Yes. I'm sorry, correct myself. So since since Quickley was drafted, he is fifth in floaters per 100 possessions. Jaw Tus, Trey Young, Jaylen Brunson, Emanuel Quickley. Quickly taking 4.045 floaters per 100. He's nowhere close to being top five in lob classes. Trey and Jaw are heavily high on that list. IQ taking 0.6 lobs, which he plays with Yakoba Purle now. I understand that. but he played with Mitchell Robinson and they barely were had a lob connection. So question back to you is >> why do you think he's like typically floater heavy guys really create a lot of indecision with potential skip pass a lob their floater? What is it do you think mechanically about quickly that he's not making any of those? And is there stuff the Raptors could be doing better or that you're anticipating with some of the roster moves that that could improve?

Well, quickly he doesn't really have an eye for passing middle or getting the ball middle. He also, I would think, uh, is less malleable in being able to the read option aspect of the ball is going up above my forehead, corner, lob, floater. The best that we've probably ever seen is James Harden at this. And then you're looking at guy like Trey Young probably. And the mastery of that skill is really what makes the floater viable. It's great. As you said, the indecision or the that making a defense tense and weak to a bunch of different players. Quickly is extremely one note with his floater. And when he got traded to the Raptors, you know, halfway through that season with New York, he was shooting like 60% on his floers, but he really is getting into his shot motion pushing it for a floater. And there's not a whole lot of diversity there at this point in his career for that to be like a to all of a sudden, you know, show up as a huge feature of his game. I don't think so. Um, he is also he's a very score first mentality guy. The passes that he makes as a lead guard, I would say, mirror or represent more of the idea of like passing when I have nothing rather than passing to create something for others. And I think that does hearken back to the soloist isolation style basketball he played in New York which fit him very well as a six-man and obviously the Raptors play differently. He's still getting tons of the ball. The last guest I talked to, David Lee, he cited the assist percentage and like those types of things suggesting that Quickly was strong at it. And I think that's far more a function of the the offense overall. I think, and this is me, I'd be much more comfortable with quickly rather than, you know, he can quietly work on his onball stuff and see what he can bring to the table, but I would much rather see him work very hard to be the guy who is constantly moving into space to move the defense around, to open up things for others, but also to be the exclamation point at the end of plays by Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes more than anybody else because his propensity to float on offense hurts everybody because you don't want a man who quickly to be functionally like this guy gets the ball back, you know, 29, 30 ft away and he starts a second action. You want him to be dangerous scanning and moving across the three-point line to provide that punch at the end of where someone else created something. This is what Brandon Ingram is there for. The Raptors had a lot of guys who wanted the ball. They just didn't have enough guys who could do something with it. Ingram definitely can and when he draws the defense in quickly needs to be doing a CJ McCollum impression and shooting it roughly better or the same and it's yet to be determined if he can do that but that is the most important role or function on the as far as the offense goes that I think quickly can operate as now will Darko do that?

Yeah, that's my question.

I don't know.

And the thing is, it's a unique thing. There's not a lot of teams that run wingled offense and the Raptors would be doing it with two wings that don't shoot pull-up threes. And that's why I said there's a lot of push and pull tension here because Emanuel quickly blow by rate 33rd percentile percentage of his touches where he reached the paint 30th percentile. So to me when I look at that and think of like is there other actions that they could be doing that are advantageous here so that he can get an extra dribble because like you said if he is incredibly shoot first pass second and he's not making a lot of the lob passes and it's either like last year the floater rate dropped off so it's if it's either a clan floater or a deflected pass that's that's not like starting point guard stuff that you really want. So, I was looking and I'm like, you know, an easier way for him to get into the paint and hopefully find some burst is to run more flat pick and rolls. And yet, I found 30 total pick and rolls with Scotty as the screener up top for Quickly.

Because to me, you could be using Yakob in the dunker spot, not for the purpose of the lob, but for the purpose of screening out the rim protector.

That way, Quickley can at least get deeper. Hopefully, you're getting more layups. Hopefully, you're drawing more fouls. Maybe he can make the dump off pass a little bit better than floating it up off the lob in that situation. It wasn't a factor of the offense. Like it very rarely happened and I understand that that is partially because these guys didn't play a ton of minutes together, but it also seems like there's something else there that I'm I'm likely missing as to why that wasn't more of a feature because they would do it on occasion at the end of quarters. And I liked it, but Yakob isn't super active under the basket in ways that I think that he could be. like sometimes you can actually sandwich your own guy in the dunker into Quickley's defender and really help him get an edge there. I mean, Gorta screening's more prevalent than it's ever been in the NBA right now. So, that that's what pops off my head, especially because both of your point guards are kind of in the same position here. Like, if if Darko is going to continue to be like, you know, I like guards having the ball more because we want to be an uptempo team. We want to get into the offense quicker. Certainly that will be the case if you're doing it with quickly and shed, but they are both so floater dependent that I think this is why a lot of these other things, one is begetting the other because this is a very high cut frequency team. It's a very low cut efficiency team and if you're not like those motion patterns that I mentioned, if you're not getting deep enough into the offense and actually drawing the help, drawing the low man, then that cutter is going to be going up against defense at the rim. cuts should be the should be the highest like no dribble layup should be the highest efficiency shot that you're getting. Like the efficiency shouldn't be as low for as often as the Raptors are moving. And I think a big part of it is they don't have enough on ball creation to actually force those help rotations to the ball.

Yeah, they were points per possession the worst team in the NBA as far as on ball creation goes. They were extremely high is they're very prolific in offball stuff. They they knew what they didn't have and they constantly tried to skirt around it. Um, if we can just assume that Brandon Ingram is going to elevate that to some degree, uh, like the Raptors also, they short the pick and roll a lot because they have guys like they they like their wings or like RJ and Ochai or Scotty to have the opportunity to cut and to use Yakob as like he's sprinting up, shorting it, catching, making a cut useful off of the screen so that teams who load up or don't load up are in a worse position to guard those types of actions. It's just they're trying a lot of stuff. Now, let's assume that Scotty adds a little bit of something. Let's assume that Brandon brings a lot that wasn't there prior. The Raptors are still going to be dependent on more than Emanuel Quickley. There are a hodgepodge of guys who will exist out of this. RJ probably you're less interested in talking about. So, we're going to keep it with the glut of Grady, Ochai, and Jacobe who are all meant to obviously supplement what will be happening on the ball. How is Do you have any favorites there?

If we're if we're talking like the first day of training camp, like I'm I'm telling Darko, here's who I think you should play.

Yep.

Okay. So, I I >> Darko is listening. So, just >> I told you I think it's probably somewhat of a hot take. And it's not because I don't think that RJ Barrett I think RJ Barrett had a very good season for the Raptors. In fact, many people got mad at me during the run-up to the Olympics when I was watching Team Canada play because I tweeted something. I felt it was very innocuous, but I said I that R.J.'s been awesome ever since he's been traded to the Raptors because I thought he was >> That's because of all the all the Knicks fans who follow you probably.

They were very upset about this take. I didn't really think it was um that hot at the time. I thought he still played pretty well last year. I just think that the roster would make more sense. And I know we haven't really talked about the defense yet, but this is a high pickup point team. Damen Mitchell is not on this team anymore. If if it's me, by my eye, I think Ochai is the best option to be picking up and pressuring the ball. And he's not going to be a negative for you necessarily on offense in terms of just being a guy who can space around and make some, you know, intuitive cuts now and again around Brandon and and Scotty and Emanuel Quickley. So, I would probably lean toward actually starting Ochai and moving RJ back to the bench if it was me personally, but I understand that they're probably thinking these are guys that we've traded for. We need to see how they blend together before we make that type of of a move. And and it's entirely possible that OAI isn't in their long-term plans either. But like just from a basketball sense, that makes sense to me in my head. As far as Grady and Jacobe go, and I know I promised I wasn't going to make a lot of pacer references, but I'm going to be interested to see what you think of this one. It's not one for one obviously because the position difference matters here, but the two of them remind me a lot of Sabonis and Miles Turner. And it's much harder to be playing multiple centers at a time as it is to be playing multiple wings or guards. So, it doesn't matter that much, but I see Grady much as I saw so Bonus at the time as the better overall player between the two of them. I think he can do more things. And I see Jacobe kind of similar to Miles Turner and that yeah, there's probably some flaws there, but in terms of building with someone, not around somebody, it's easier to plug Jacobe into more lineups similar to how it's easier to be an Envision like Miles can probably play on a lot of different teams. So, for me personally, I would probably still want to be investing the time into Grady because I think that there's upside there that didn't really get to show over the backside of the season for some of the reasons that I talked to you ahead of the podcast about. So, for me, it would be not because I see Oai as a better player than the other two, and certainly for organizational reasons, you need to invest in the guys that you spent lottery picks on, but I would go Ochai just to make the starting lineup make more sense and to bring balance to both ends of the floor. And then I'd have Grady a little bit ahead of Jacobe if it was me personally.

Okay. Um, I'm going to go to bat for RJ a little bit on I know you weren't being down on him, but I'll go to bat for him a little bit.

Sell me sell me on him as a starter.

Okay. Defensively, and it is because I don't rate Ochai's defense that high. I think that he is active. I He's definitely better than RJ, especially at what the Raptors are asking.

Not even just at ball. I'm just like just ball pressure. Like I'm just pressuring the heck out of the ball up the court. very important because the Raptors are going to keep asking of that. Emanuel quickly said he really wanted to work on that heading into the summer. He said his conditioning was the number one thing he wanted to work on. I have to assume that the Raptors are going to look at him and that there the like the thing about these Raptors as you said it is they are talented especially for where they are and the players will have to do different things than what they've wanted to if this team wants to be greater than the sum of its parts and talented teams sometimes can do that if guys buy in. If Quickly is able to give that little bit of oomph as far as like giving a defending at the point of attack, then Ochai is less necessary. However, I don't really have an argument defensively. Ochai is better than RJ. He fulfills a role. He fits into the scheme better. Offensively, I think Ochai took the easiest shot always. He ran out in transition. He took open threes. He cut uh you know sequenced into the offense type cuts and he did good at it and he deserves credit for it. I think R.J. can be a more dangerous cutter by some measure. I think R.J. while he won't shoot as well from a standstill as Ochi did. And Oi did kind of diversify his three-point shooting a little bit as the season went on. I think that R.J. can hit open shots to help the offense function as a catch and juga. His pull-up is is beyond the pale. It's not coming. And I think that secondary action stuff can be important. I think the simplicity of Oi's game does on its face seem like it would give the Raptors a lot of offensively, but I think R.J. actually would give quite a bit more even though there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. And I'd stagger from there. That's the RJ Oai thing. Grady I want to ask you about if you're interested in him as a player. If you're looking at him and saying, "Okay, well, this is tough, but he's good." What are you trying to see this upcoming season? And you mentioned what we talked about prior to the podcast. Tell us why you think that stuff is important.

So, there's a Genius Sports, our statistical overlord, has added uh speed and fitness stats, and I was telling Samson ahead of time that you can look at how often a player is playing fast when they're on the court. So, I don't I think there was like 250 some players that played at least a thousand minutes last year. And of them, the reason this caught my eye is because Ben Shepard was playing a higher percentage of his minutes at fast, which is 14 feet per second than any player in the NBA, which makes sense because if you watch the Pacers, like he's the top candidate to be out running the pan of the camera to the corners. And that really matters for how the Pacers attack and transition. And he's very good at uh in between actions. While I was looking at this list, Grady and Jacobe and Jameson Battle all top 10 as well. And I know this because I talked to Samson about it early last season and it made remained pretty close to the same that Grady was also really high, top of the list at offball screens per 100 that he was running off of. the amount that they needed him to pull and tug at the offense in order to create any sort of driving lanes to be able to get people downhill more. Just it wasn't even necessarily about his shooting, although his shooting load in terms of the shot difficulty was quite high. It was about manipulating the offense so that literally anybody could be doing stuff off the dribble. And this is why I think in part is like when I looked at it like I like looking at teams that are better at things than they should be. and the Raptors very very good against zone because these types of principles are very effective against zone and Grady playing a really key part in that. So when I look at how much was asked of him from a conditioning standpoint, I don't think as much is going to be asked of him if he's playing and you're staggering Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes and hopefully quickly has a little bit more on ball juice. So, if he's getting more standstill threes as opposed to really high coming off of, you know, a stagger and having to swing out, fly into space type of threes or, you know, rising and firing off a handoff, which we can get into. I'll let people know a lot of that stuff doesn't translate very well to the playoffs anyways. Like, it's stuff that the Raptors had to do by virtue of what the roster construction was. It isn't stuff like I mean I looked at the NBA at large and I want to say that offball screening actions was like 0.9 points per 100 in the playoffs which was the worst of the actions that second spectrum tracks being like even lower than isolations like drives isolations picks handoffs off screens the worst and you and I actually did a little bit of that on a podcast because you were like you know what is a wide pin to you in the playoffs >> death of the wide pin >> and it's kind of like the Doug McDermott corollery because Doug McDermott had a series for the Pacers in the bubble where he shot two of 10 from three against the Miami Heat because the Heat packline defense switching everything. If you can switch a stagger against an offball shooter who can't put the ball on the floor, what what are they giving you in the playoffs? Grady can put the ball on the floor a little bit and Grady can do other things besides just flying off a screen. Point being is I actually think that's a reason for optimism because I don't think you're going to need him to be doing that much. And I'm guessing the Raptors probably know these numbers just as well as I do and are like, you know, we're just trying to make our team as competitive as possible last year given what the roster construction was. And hopefully you have a little bit less of that. So to me, his role locks into place a little bit easier. And I just I liked him during the draft process. He made no sense for the Pacers because I will say, and I told you this long before, I'm not high on the defense at all. I think it's quite poor, but the other things that he do he does are very compelling. Um I I don't see a lot of shooters who are able to use, you know, a stutter or rip and be able to go to a step back and and the one game I watched him play against Minnesota. Some of the moves he had against Rudy Gober, I was like, "Okay, I I watched quite a bit of you at Kansas. I wasn't familiar with this." So, um I I like Grady. I think he's a good all-around player, and I think people will see more of that this year. to support what you're saying. Uh the numbers 38% catch and shoot three-point shooting. Of course, that wouldn't account for movement. That's just you can a catch and shoot three-point shot can be far more difficult than a pull-up three-point shot depending on what precedes it. So that's why something like 42% spot up three-point shooting per synergy. Spot up means that he's catching from a standstill basically, right? That's it. It function there. Stuff can get always lost in the stats, but it functions basically that way. He was 84th percentile out of spot spot-ups and that includes attacking closeouts and drives. This is his scoring numbers, which is what you want and which is what the Raptors wanted from him. His standill or his unguarded three-point shots 46% last year. The simpler it was for him, he was shining, but he was asked to do extremely difficult things. His offscreen three-point shooting fell off a cliff. His pull-up three-point shooting fell off a cliff. And I personally, this can be cope, it can be whatever, you know, beauties in the eye of the beholder. I think it's because he was one of the highest task offensive players in the league in his opening sprint to start the season. He did pretty well. Fell off a cliff because he was no longer able to do the the JJ Reic impersonation. his passing. You watch him at Kansas, you know there's something there more than most movement shooters have. As you mentioned, the stutter rip. Bobby Webster, Darko Rakovich have both said that that's the part of his game that they think is very underrated. I personally think if he's allowed to play in simpler roles and the Raptors offense has more on ball punch that Grady will feel less pressure to be like, well, I'm catching off of a pin. this is supposed to be a shot because this is what the offense is designed to do. Maybe he'll be able with more talented players around him, less pressure on his actions specifically to tug and pull and create points per possession to incorporate more passing into his game, which he clearly has a knack for, but it hasn't really manifest at the NBA level. That's the hopeful pitch. Uh, do you agree with that? one, two, any defensive advice because we know what the worries are.

I mean, he does the little things do did show up at Kansas. Like you said, I don't know how much it is at the Raptors. His numbers out against closeouts were pretty good at the start of the season. And I one thing that I like is that he can stand in the left corner, catch the ball, rip it left, and make a pass with his left in the air and read that weak side chain. There's not a lot of shooters who can do that and continue advantage. Also, like I just remember in summer league, like the first game I watched of him, like a push dribble to the left to shed pressure in transition, like okay. Like it's those little things that it's like if you can pair that with the shooting and the shooting actually can get back to normal range because you have better players around him, it makes a lot more sense. I'm not I'm not super bullish on the defense coming around. I I mean, maybe you could make a case that if he can conserve more energy on that into the floor because he's not running like a madman constantly on offense, maybe that makes a difference. But I think his closeout technique can be cartoonish at times. You and I have talked about that many times. I still think he's pretty easy to pick on. Although early in early in the season, he had some okay >> gumption. >> He had some Yeah, he had some some okay. I think and this is why I said like in a case like if it doesn't come around and the defense is still the defense and you as a shooter is still shooting around 35% then Jacob's going to be there like >> y >> which I mean I guess isn't a bad thing like it's they both can play together but >> the the funny thing about Oi and Jacobe is that I think they both paper over Grady's weaknesses you know what I mean like there could almost be a symbi and both Oi and Jacobe are extremely limited in what they're able to do offensively. I know Jacobe can like pump and get middle and pump and get to the free throw line, but this there's not a lot to build out of that, especially without any dribble and not getting aggressive closeouts. However, um back to the defense point before we talk about passing and assists and all that. Uh basically there's like three major functions let's say for uh for a wing or a a large guard which is what I would say that Brady is maybe not in like muscle or whatever but >> you provide pressure or you shrink the floor. The reason why the 76ers were so good when they had Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris and JJ Reick and Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons was because a guy like Tobias Harris could while not being incredibly deaf at anything defensively had effort and had size and that compounding effect of all the size they had on the floor worked. Same with JJ Reic. They had a very good defense at that point in time. Of course, the NBA has changed a little bit, but Grady ideally defensively would have to be insulated so that his relatively large frame for a guard could be kept away from on ball actions and could be stepping into areas to provide that. And because he is a bit of a ball hawk, you create some, I guess, potential for on or off ball defensive playmaking. The problem is the Raptors are not equipped to do this. Grady is de really far away from doing what they want to do defensively and he just doesn't have the requisite strength. You can see him get turned like a turn style quite often. You can see if he gets bumped, he has a really tough time absorbing it and teams really like looking for him. He he is especially towards the middle of the season, he struggled so much defensively that teams actually said like maybe we'll go out of scheme a little bit and look for the guy if he can get everything compounds. If you can get stronger, maybe you get to a point where it's not as advantageous to look for you quite as often. Maybe you get to be hidden more often. then of it all.

The impact numbers on the whole might be able to climb up despite you making small steps as defender. It all correlates down the line, but there's a lot of work to even get to that point for Grady. But I do agree with you in that he does a lot of really interesting stuff for a shooter, but more important than anything, can't be 35%, man. It needs to be better. The Raptors are a team that passes a lot. They get a lot of assists. I had a video I did and I know you watched it. So, we're going to piggyback off of that where I'm disappointed or saying like, we don't talk about say really quick and pause and say for the listener Samson sends me his own video and is like I want feedback on this but when I asked him did you watch my podcast with Rick? I wanted feedback on this. No, I could not simply bother to do so. You didn't ask me for feedback. You simply asked if I had seen it. And I said I hadn't seen it yet. I have seen it. Since I watched it since I just >> Wow. You watched a basketball podcast. You were able to put yourself through an hour of that.

Yeah, exactly. Um, we're going I'm going to let you kind of cook on hot ball a little bit, but the crux is that and if anybody wants to go watch the video, it's on the Raptors Republic YouTube channel. um where I'm talking about how we don't really because assists are like one of the main stats in the NBA >> like clearcut one of screen assists screens stuff that function in the same realm are not cited and people don't care about them the same way and they don't look at them and it doesn't convey the same meaning whereas like just assists will tell people like DeJonte Murray at 9.3 assists he's one of the best playmakers in the league he isn't grievous Vasquez has 9.1 assists per game. This guy unreal playmaker. It just it never con. And Emanuel Quickley, the Raptors, Colin Castleton has six assists. This isn't No. Watching these Raptors, I'm just like passing and assists does not convey what we think. It can, but the function of what it's telling us, I think, is less and less meaningful. you did a podcast where in motion passing assists and everything was really important and all these ethics were really important and so I want to get your thoughts on that video because the way I explained it I don't know if they necessarily clash aggressively but there's some clashing between ideas there and that's from a you know, hall of fame head coach and I'm a schlub so

I mean, I think that there was clashing of ideas yes but I mean if you listen to what Rick said there. He He said, "We have to play hot ball because that's the way our roster is set up." I don't think the Oklahoma City Thunder have to play that way. Clearly not. They just want a championship. If you have an elite elite elite as top as they come isolation score in Shaill Alexander, then it's not as important for you to pass the basketball. And that's in part how they were able to hack winning the turnover advantage so high. It's, you know, the Pacers are an extreme outlier in that they pass the ball as much as they did and barely turned the ball over. That's incredibly hard to do. Not a lot of teams can do that. And quite frankly, that's as I've called him. That's Tyrese being the immaculate exception. It it it really doesn't make sense. And I even asked Rick and he didn't have a great answer for why Tyrese is able to do this. He was just like he's special. So

I think I can't I the nickname I have for it I don't remember but it's like Tyrese is like perfect order of operations.

Yeah know just the way he's like solving a math problem. I mean that's that's kind of how the Pacers move within their offense. I think a lot of people think that they're like running off all these picks and just in constant motion and in reality they're not. It's more like okay if you have the ball here then we know that we take and form you and and form up here. Like it's going through a series of decisions at very rapid pace. But I mean, I I agreed with the premise that you pointed out and that I don't think that there's a strong correlation in either direction. That just because you pass the ball a lot is going to automatically equate to winning and just because you don't means it's automatically not going to equate to winning or vice versa. It's very much context specific and you could run through specific teams on that. But like I mean the Raptors and the Pacers both, you know, top six in passes per 100 last year, both very quick in their average touchtime, both top five. the Pacers themselves fastest in the last six seasons at doing this. But it's kind of like what I talked about with Rick at the end of that podcast when I get very frustrated when people think the NBA all plays the same. And just because those two numbers are similar for the Raptor and Pacers doesn't mean that they're making remotely similar types of passes. So for the Raptors, they're very high in the categories that are like handoffs, elbow entries, interior passes, and attacking passes. meaning not the player on the dribble who's attacking, but the player the roller or the cutter attacking the basket. And like I said, that didn't lead to incredibly efficient output for the Raptors because they were never fully putting the defense into rotation. Like those cuts are great and I think that they'll shine more if you have more on ball juice and hopefully that efficiency goes up. But those were the types of passes the Raptors were leading the league in. The Pacers are leading the league in number one. you know, very very high volume of pass aheads and hit aheads, which is what really aided the variability in their randomness and their initial pace and then their pace after being they were very good at skip passes and very good at kickouts. So, a lot of this is coming off of drives and and a stat that I think really bears this out is if you look at where the drives started, so for both teams, like starting

Above the break and beyond, the amount of drives that the Raptors had that ended in a shot or a kick out was bottom 10 in the league. The Pacers not taking a lot of shots that ended those drives didn't end a lot of shots either, but they ended in a ton of kickouts. And that's like 1.174 points per chance. So, if you're not getting deep enough to either be taking that shot, getting the layup, getting the fouls, or making the kick out where the defense might be in rotation, and you're moving the ball, making the next decision, it's not having the same overall impact.

So, yes, both of these teams, if you're just to look at the numbers on a box score, you think, oh, they're playing quite similarly. But in reality, they really aren't. And that's not me trying to bash Darko or the way he was coaching this team. I think he was doing what he had to do. It's just that like the DNA of the extra pass isn't necessarily going to lead to winning when the players you have on the roster are still the players you have on the roster, if that makes sense. Like not for next season, but what they were doing last season.

And I'll I'll also add because I do think it's a it's a uh somebody had a a critique that I shouldn't have gone with winning percentage or wins rather than like offensive rating. And I do get that to some degree, but I also having, you know, covered the Raptors and seeing the league at large, uh, the one side of the floor or one floor thing rather than two sides of the floor thing really sticks in my mind.

Some teams play offense according to their limitations defensively. And some teams play defense according to their limitations offensively. um passing decisions, how much you want to do so can really affect like we don't want to turn the ball over or maybe you want to be able to offensive rebound and that calculus affects how you get back in transition. And so wins uh because of play style now is not two sides of the floor. It's all one thing. It seems very close especially with like I mean look at the Pacers and the Raptors. They both have been picking up the frenetic pace everywhere they can because they want an overarching style. Um, but I I understand the critique and I I could just, you know, could just as easily go look at like offensive rating and see if passing has a higher correlation. But I did want to talk about that in that regard.

Stick >> are are you amenable to No, you go ahead. You go ahead. >> No, no, no. I'd like to say, are you are you amendable to throwing up the clip that I sent you? That's the >> the hurling packages. I think that this speaks to the the general differences here.

>> Okay. And what I think that you're laying out is why like especially if RJ's in the starting lineup, why you're seeing some optimism there that I might not necessarily be seeing on the hole.

>> I am optimistic about Mr. RJ offensively. Although you know them is the brakes. Okay, I'm going to play this and since you're better at uh what's teleustrating, I believe this term, I'm going to let you tell us, Kaitlin.

>> Don't play don't start playing it yet. I just want to lead it in and say that this is a play that Samson and his former co-host at Bouncing Around, Evan Gualberto, pointed out and like aesthetically this is a really cool play to watch and there are a ton of options in it. I like it. Um, I think that you asked Darko and he admitted that this is a Dan Hurley play from Yukon that he borrowed and took and it it speaks to several league trends here because I don't know if we'll get to this later on, but the Raptors are a team that more teams are using non shooting bigs to play through skip options and what they're able to leverage out of that. So, this play starting with a skip to Yakob and now you can go ahead and run it.

Okay, so right there actually you're gonna have to edit it. Go back to where the fake handoff's going to take place.

>> Okay,

>> so the skip happened. Okay, that's not Go further back. That's the fake handoff, not the hand.

>> Okay, pause it. Pause it. See how far Payton Pritchard is back from that's Ochi, right? I think coming off the fake handoff. This is like incredibly scripted from the Raptors where ideally

>> the option that you would want to get here, which I think would be the highest points per chance option would be to go ahead and execute that handoff. Like if we are to divorce ourselves from who the five players are on on the court and we're just looking and being like there, that's where the tension is. That's where you're going to get the best option. If you can imagine that he made that handoff, you're getting a twoon-one with YaKob rolling to the rim against Al Horford. And to be honest, Jaylen Brown's really, this is a preseason game. Jaylen Brown's not really doing his job. Grady's rounding the ban off off a stagger and he didn't go with him because he's just kind of spaced out. But what the Raptors are trying to accomplish here is creating an empty corner, meaning there's not going to be a tagger there if that guy's following Grady or whoever the shooter is coming off of that action. So, I told Samson after he shared this clip, I'm like, "The Raptors are making the wrong read out of this almost every time that they run it." And over the weekend, I went and looked for every single time that they've ran this play. And they've never executed this handoff. And yet, like because Samson knows and understands this team much more thoroughly than I do, I can ask him and say like, "Do you want to run a lot of handoffs with Ochai coming up out of the corner into two-on-one situations for him to make a pass to Yaka Purle as the roller?" Like, is that something that you would want?

>> No. Especially not going left. And and yet like every single time like I would like to I'd like to hope but it's not happening because Yakob's never looking at what Grady's defender is doing to decide like oh his defender followed him. This is going to be a dead corner. So therefore I'm going to make the fake handoff because I know I'm going to have an easy two-on-one. Most of the time he's staring at the dude that he's not making the fake handoff with. Which tells me that this is incredibly scripted. And just for everybody who's wondering like why is Caitlyn yammering about this? These are ATO's. Like no team in the NBA wants their top option out of an ATO to be a Grady or Jameson Battle pull up two. And that's not because Grady was I mean he's very easy. He slinks into these shots quite easily. That's still that's what you want if the other options aren't there. That's a great fail safe if you can't get the fake hand off. If you can't get Scotty slipping out of this type of screen to the rim, if you can't make that pass when Grady catches it, tremendous. But I think what I noticed after I had seen it all in sequential order is okay, they don't have enough drivers on the floor at any given one minute to actually be executing the handoff despite the fact that that's the better thing that they should be doing. If I'm imagining this and being like, oh well maybe RJ is coming off that fake handoff.

>> Or maybe Emanuel Quickley is because you're able to move people around in different spots with Brandon and Scotty. Maybe you do still have Grady coming up and rounding the bend. Maybe in hybrid lineups you have one of the other shooters. Maybe that's Jacobe. fine and dandy. I think that they're going to be able to get to more high percentage percentage options when they have more guys on the floor. To avoid repeating myself for the billionth time, more on ball juice is going to make these plays shine more than they could because the offensive design is good, but the players on the floor are making this incredibly fluffy. And this is something that you and I talked about when we did my podcast where I just kept looking at plays and being like, this is the Jane Austin novel of offense. you're adding stagger on stagger on stagger onto these things where sometimes it's guys just not making the right reads but other times it's like well we kind of have to because we don't have the guys to cut corners in ways that maybe some other teams do.

Well, also say just when you watch this, something is clear, especially in the disparity between when you talked about there are stats that suggest that the Pacers and Raptors play very similar and the Pacers are built out of this like anyone can attack and make a choice out of anything. Whereas the Raptors, there's attacking options are passing them by and they're like, "No, we have to get to the end of the play so we can do the play." And it's like plays are supposed to be stacked in sequential order of decision- making that can create like increasing and decreasing variations of advantages. And the Raptors are just being like, we really want to get to the one thing. And as good as it looks when you play this first one, which is why it popped off, everybody's like, this is gorgeous uh set design, right? Like this is a funky play. Uh it is. And shout out to Dan Hurley and Darko for repurposing. Uh but the reason why it was cooked up in the first place was because of what you said like that handoff there. If Ochai is a capable player who can take that and make decisions with that twoon-one, you can have Yakob slam Payton, you can create a twoon-one going downhill. You can maybe make Jason Tatum step in

>> that Scotty slipping. Yeah,

>> exactly. And Scotty can slip. And what better than to have Scotty Barnes moving to the rim with momentum on the catch and instead we have uh I love watching Grady pull up but mid-range pull-ups it's it's not the uh the thing it's not the ultimate option.

And then the other thing that bugged me which I won't make you play it again but there's like two or three times where I'm like why is Yakob setting this so shallow? Like why aren't you wanting these guys to be able to curl into a pull-up three rather than the two? But also like just sometimes the timing was off which you know with a rebuilding roster that's pretty intricate play calling and also it is play calling like eventually teams are going to be able to sit on some of those plays which is another difference because the Pacers very much play conceptual we are playing out of triggers. If the ball dies in this zone and we're going to reignite it we you know we're going to play out of this action. We're going to go go screen against a switch or if you know Obi or Seakum catch it at the wing and there's no advantage. It's like lightning quick. we're going into toss and chase and that's how we're going to reignite. They prefer to play that way. That's why I said like it's it's random not only with their pass aheads and what they do against a broken floor in transition, but also like yes, we have these little actions that take like next to no time and if the ball stalls out, then we know, you know, it's random to us watching it. It's not random to them playing it. They know what the rules are in terms of how we're going to get to the next thing very quickly and we're going to create dominoes out of that. A lot of what the Raptors are doing is there's a lot of play calling here and there's a lot of and again I don't mean this in a derogatory way. This isn't me bashing Darko, but there's a lot of cookie cutter movement patterns around the pick and roll that I think will work really well in the regular season. I don't think some of this is going to work in the playoffs because you and I covered a series against the Cleveland Cavaliers where >> those movement patterns got taken completely away because the Pacers were like, we're just not going to help in the gaps. So now you can't really do that against us anymore. That's talent can really shine through. And just as when I talked about the passing and assists in that video, I mentioned how different the Pacers are in their ethic, what what drives them forward. And there was a comment that said I was glazing them.

And I will say yes, because it is unique. I just covered that team and they weren't favored in a single playoff series and somehow they ended up in game seven of the NBA finals against a historically good team and nearly won. Something's happening there and there's no father to their style. This is the Pacers are the first actualized team playing this way. It's different than the beautiful game Spurs. Of course, there's similarities there in some of what they're doing, but >> this when somebody brings something and somebody adds something and it's able to buck the culture of NBA or the strategy of NBA and certainly because the Bucks were supposed to beat them, the Cavs were supposed to beat them, the Knicks were supposed to beat them, everyone was like, "Oh, the cute Pacers in the finals. Can't wait for them to get swept." All of a sudden, everyone's hair is on fire. Something's happening here that people are having a tough time identifying. They're different. As far as play style goes, they deserve to be set aside as like this is unique and different than what we're seeing. That's my uh glaze thing. So, the Raptors defense

>> on on the passing thing. I will say this as a closing thought that somebody asked me when did you think that the Pacers were going to the NBA finals? And I said, well, Samson and I felt pretty good about their chances against the Bucks and the Cavs. liked how the bracket was setting up. I didn't know that Boston was I didn't know Jason Tatum was going to blow his Achilles. I didn't know that that's how that would end up there. But I was confident when I watched the Knicks and the Celtics play after Tatum had blown his Achilles because the Knicks struggled to guard the Celtics when the Celtics were stacking more actions on top of each other because they had to because they didn't have their isolation option. And I was like, if they're struggling to guard that now because they have no experience switching, it's going to be a lot more difficult for them against the Pacers. So, I guess what I would say to tie a bow on it is unless I have, you know, a Shay what Jaylen Brunson has done in past playoff series, a Luca, which I mean Luca is obviously a tremendous passer as well, but I would tend to heir on the side of more passing being better than less. But I do agree with Samson that there's not a direct correlation. And and one thing for the Raptors too is if they're not playing this level of hot ball for these reasons, their turnover rate 25th, you know, the Pacers were top five, like I said, in a way that doesn't make sense. That might help them game the possession a little bit more if they're not committing as many live ball turnovers. But that's just where I wanted to to wrap that up at.

>> And and my closing statement around this is the same that it was in the video in that I'm not advocating for less passing.

>> Yeah.

>> I'm advocating for a more uh nuanced understanding of passing rather than just people blindly saying like yes this yes that defense

>> okay

>> the Raptors defense it was pretty good to end the season and Grady Dick didn't play the last 20 games is there something there I don't know but they were good to end the season does that matter to you see the principles you probably see quite a few things that match what you saw with the Pacers well at least a How do you feel about the Raptors defense?

>> I think I have once again brought some numbers for you.

>> Yeah. So, the Raptors against the top 12 playoff team, so six and six in both conferences with Scotty Barnes on the floor gave up 1.192 points per possession, which ranked 20th of all the teams against those top 12 teams. When they were against the lottery teams other than themselves, they allowed 1.042 with Scotty Barnes on the floor, which is absolutely elite number one

>> bullies. So, so very very good defensively against the lottery teams, not great bottom 10 against the best teams. So, I guess my question to you, because I did watch some of the late season games, not all of them, as you did, is is this just simply a correlation between how frontloaded their roster was and that's why the split is as steep as it is, or was there something midway through the season that they started doing differently? like was there something schematic that I'm not seeing here that it's like this is what turned it around in addition to the fact that they were playing a whole ton of teams that were actively trying to lose games.

>> So I think it's a it's a couple things. Scotty being avail like the way their uh schedule bore out

>> is very frontloaded in difficulty.

>> Yeah.

>> Scotty missed games. Uh Emanuel missed games. Yakob missed some games too. uh we're looking at and then Scotty played a lot of the end of the season and the Raptors they had they played a lot of young players like a lot of young guys or or guys with less experience you know shed and battle and all these guys aren't so young they were able to I guess I think hone their defensive chops to some degree play with more unison and having Scotty Barnes is the biggest swing for this defense I I think Scotty Barnes has reached all defense level defense. There can be agreeance or disagreement there, but watching and watching a lot of the rest of the league, I think he's there. Guys can exist there and never get picked. There should be three teams, it's two, whatever. He when he's on the floor, other teams miss more shots. They take worse shots. They turn the ball over. They rebound less of their misses. And they get to the line less. He just Scotty Barnes steps on the floor and papers over or was able to paper over a million things that the Raptors were doing defensively. His inclusion matters a lot. The fact that he maintained his effort and the fact that towards the end of the season the Raptors are playing a lot of young guys who are trying there's no lazair there, right? Everyone is trying to establish themselves. There's no, you know, Anthony Simons who's just kind of like, eh, there's no anything like that on their roster. Everyone's gunning. Everyone's trying to play the best way. And with that pep and some real defensive chops on the roster, they steamrololled the back end of the last third of the season, which included a lot of weak teams and included a ton of effort. I do think there's some real things there that carry over to the next season, though. And I do think that they have some real defensive talent on the roster as well. I think that my biggest concern is I can look at ways that this roster can put out very good offensive lineups and I can look at ways that they can put out very good defensive lineups. I don't know how often they're going to be playing either of those two types of lineups. It's going to be more of a hybrid between the two and they are a team that wants to play with the very high pickup point and yet I don't really know who is doing that at an elite level and even if Quickley comes back and he's much better at it. The key to why the teams that are good at that and what really, you know, partially turned the table for the Pacers with their ability to do that is you got to have buyin from everybody. It can't just be Emanuel Quickley picking up 50 feet because you know what's going to happen if it is? They're going to be like, "Well, we'll just have somebody else bring the ball up then. Is Brandon Ingram going to pick up 50 feet? Is is RJ Barrett going to pick up 50 feet?" Like, then I have my doubts because teams that have multi multiple ball handlers, like they're just going to go around that as an obstacle. Whereas like and Rick talked about this to an extent and you and I talked about it during the Eastern Conference finals against Boston. I didn't like Pascal and Obie doing it at all. I thought it was quite poor against Drew Holiday and Derek White and it was leading to very easy oddman advantages. the two of them really committed themselves to it and I won't say that Obie improved vastly but Seakum did like Pascal's buyin and their ability to do that like I mean Miles Turner was doing it in Paris against picking him up the full length of the floor like it's got to be everybody which means it's a good thing that the Raptors have as many rotation caliber players as they have because your ability to do that requires you to play more bodies but I don't know if I'm looking at their starting lineup and thinking like oh that lineup's going to execute that at a super high level and it's and I don't have questions about Scotty Barnes as a defender. I think it's possible that he could be all defense level at some point in his career. I don't really have a lot of questions about Yakob Purle. They play Yakob pretty high in their defense, but you can do that when you have Scotty Barnes as a sweeper behind him. Um, so I don't have a lot of questions about those two, but the other three I do. And like I said, I mean, you can play lineups where like maybe it's maybe it's Ochai, maybe it's Scotty, maybe it's CMBB, maybe sometimes it's mobile. I I don't know. Like I can see that you have good defensive pieces. I just don't know how often any of those people are going to be playing at the same time.

>> Yeah, they're I think it makes sense they might be able to strike a balance with a small front court and having pockets of games where it's like maybe it's Scotty and CMBB are the front court and you're able to really you can cover any type of ball handler up the floor. you know, mobile can also step in for for offensive sake probably instead of CMBB, right? Um, and you'll probably be able to get away depending who else is on the floor for Ingram quickly with some form of decent offense. However, there's not a lot of combinations that make sense. And you're totally right. They they there's really no way for them to play all their best guys or quote unquote best guys and to be able to do this defense that they want to do. Which makes me think maybe they'll be a team that says we just want to move the ball out of the first guy's hand and then we'll go from there. Like it's possible. It's not the same, but it's possible. And they could look at that as like we're achieving something here on every possession and that will help. They have to get the ball back to him to run some of their actions. We'll see how that goes. But there's a lot of what defined their good defense, I think, was activity outside of ball pressure and

>> and I think that's important and that can stay. The ball pressure, I understand it's the big thing that people talk about. I've talked about it, of course, and it stands out because every possession starts with that pickup and everybody watching knows exactly what they're seeing. But the quicker step in the gap, the heavier help stepping out on guys, more stuff at the front end, and the willingness to protect on the back end, that type of buyin is always going to lead to better defensive numbers. I don't think you can create an elite defense out of that, but I think you can certainly take steps and then evaluate who on the roster is succeeding and and uh I guess missing the rotations, not bringing what you want. But

>> I think they could be a top half defense.

>> I think part of the reason why the ball pressure, I mean, and I we did my silly popsicle podcast two summers ago and I was like, I don't think that rim protectors can be the strongest link of a defense anymore. I think rim protection matters. I don't think it can be the strongest link. And

>> I think part of why that has happened isn't just because they want to get teams later into the clock and wearing teams down. I think it's because like some of what I was talking about with, you know, the Raptors, the Grizzlies, the Cavs played very directional offenses. the most important guy terminology that the Raptors use and why that's shifted out to a guard is because it becomes even more important that you have to control and dictate the terms of the direction in order to limit some of what they're trying to get into based on, you know, is the ball moving toward the two-player side? What movement pattern are we unlocking from that versus if it's going to the single side? So, I think that's why the ball pressure has taken on to the extent that it did. Last year was the highest average pickup point in the NBA in the last 12 years. I I don't think that's suddenly going to turn around. Although I'm sure lots of teams are thinking about the fact that that was a thing and how are we going to counter for that this year. A lot of times I think we and media are sometimes a step behind. We look at here's where the hockey puck has gone instead of teams have to think about where's the hockey puck going and what do we need to anticipate from there. But um I think it still matters. I think Scotty's capable of plugging a lot of holes, but it does bring me some degree of pause that they were still 20th even in the minutes when he was on the court against better teams. That doesn't necessarily matter for your regular season win total, but it's kind of some of the questions and things I brought up that it some of this will matter if if they are a playoff team next year, which I think that they have to be hoping that they are. Like if if you're not after what moves you've made, you're you're not in a good place. Things have gone very arai. If they're not in the playoffs next year, it's a huge problem.

>> Yep.

>> And it immediately what people will start saying, and deservedly so, is where is Scotty Barnes playing in year eight of his career? Like that that will come. That would be there immediately if they don't playoff next year.

>> Bad like at that point. I mean, this is very hypothetically speaking. I want to be clear to the Raptors listeners. I am not saying this is a thing, but at that point, I think people would think he's probably playing in Toronto for quite some time because you're probably not moving his contract.

>> If it was that dire, I think you'd have bigger issues.

>> So, if the if the Raptors aren't a playoff team, your your knee-jerk reaction is like a decent amount of this is on Scotty Barnes. Like, he's healthy, he's playing, they've not reached these heights. You look there and say, "How is this not happening?" That's the first place.

>> He He and Ingram for sure. I'd be questioning the move to get him and I'd be questioning. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. When you're making that much you question it initially.

>> Oh, I I still I I want to be clear. I have decided to approach this podcast in ways simply from basketball. If I wasn't approaching this podcast from basketball, I would have many of the same annoying American question marks about things that are going on here.

Well, that's well that's what got you in trouble was that you suggested that Pascal was better than Ingram.

>> And then he only went on he only went on to be, you know, the Eastern Conference Finals MVP and to be like an absolutely essential part of a game seven Finals team. But

>> said, I mean, first Brown has been the gift that keeps on giving. And I, you know, his contract has got the Pacers an all-star, might get the Raptors an all-star as well. Who knows?

>> Well, this is what I was going to say. I forgot to say it because it's just a funny aside, but the Raptors can shore a lot of this up if the Pacers are looking at this lost season.

>> Just trade Andrew Nehard to the Raptors then.

>> I mean, he would make a lot of this make a lot more sense on both ends of the floor to be honest.

>> Yeah,

>> we'll see. I mean, I've told people many times as supportive as you and I are of Andrew Nemhard, I think that Andrew Nehard's workload is going to be absolutely absurd next year depending upon what ways they're able to help him out on both ends of the floor. And the phrase that I use most often is the Pacers don't have an Andrew Nemhard for Andrew Nehard. And I think that matters a great deal. He's not going to have Tyrese's gravity. And Tyrese always benefited from I have a secondary ball handler who can also take on the opposing team's best player. Andrew does not have a secondary ball handler who at least in the starting lineup is going to pressure the ball 50 feet like he does. So um he's going to have a workload ahead of him in addition to I think that they're going to see a lot more unders. The Pacers when Tyrese was on the floor led the team led the league in unders per 100. And if Nemhard and TJ are your starting points, I expect that volume is going to continue. So, we'll see. But I do think he would he would if they were able to have drafted him, he would have he would have um reduced some of my doubts that I have here if you had him at point.

>> They needed Thaddius Young on the team, I suppose. Uh

>> non-negotiable. I think I love the pairing of Tyrese and and Andrew and you and I have loved it for a long time and longer than other people. Very early on that train that analysis um the the bedrock of basketball she wrote or at least one of them

>> they it really I love it because it reframes people's ideas of what a back court is supposed to look like.

>> Yep. And uh I remember I can't remember how long ago somebody said like they needed to be split up or whatever and I was like no dude like I want to see them play together for like eight years. Like I really I love the way they

>> The fact of the matter is together

>> there was no reason for the Kings to break up

>> De'Aran and Tyrese offensively. The reasons and rational for doing it were defensively and with Andrew you don't have those same question marks. I'm very very pro. The Patriots were a better team with two point guards on the floor than just one. and that applied to any of the three of them. I'm very pro multiple ball handlers and it makes a big difference for the Pacers in a number of ways, including plug my piece that's coming out about people keep asking me, do you think the Pacers will still play fast next year? Do you think they would want or should they play fast next year? A big part of the why they were able to do that is because they had multiple guards who rack up the pass aheads. The ball moves faster in transition off the pass than the dribble.

>> That lended their randomness a lot. So, um, guards are pretty cool in my opinion. Having multiples of them that can make good passing reads is pretty great

>> and and like and I was looking up because I was like, I wonder how much difference it will make if you know Brandon's getting doubled and like what the double team rates were. And I think probably the best stat that I think reflects Tyrese as I often call him and refer to him as negative art is I looked this up. the Pacers 29th and the percentage of their p the touches that they were doubled on 29th and they took the fewest contested threes in the NBA, heavily contested threes. So, they're moving the ball so quickly that they're rarely getting double tethered, mostly because of his insane um decision-m splits, which Tom Whitehead shared a a chart on that of how far seconds were

>> and um how that creates open threes for them to the point that they weren't taking contested ones and how much their shot making mattered in the playoffs. Um, I think that speaks to Tyrese does a lot even when it looks like he's doing nothing. And I think that that gets lost sometimes. And that's probably why I am a little bit more uh amendable to thinking of what Scotty can do and like the whole conversation of like, well, he's not a number one option. Okay. Well, I watch Tyrese sometimes and I've seen him score nine points in a game and he's dominated that game. Sometimes I've seen him score 20 points and he hasn't been as good. Um, Scotty has some qualities like that where sometimes you're not going to necessarily see what he's doing even though he's still doing it. If that makes sense.

Well, I'll say I think the difference between of course besides the many differences between their games, but

>> what happened with Scotty last year where he was kind of pushed well maybe he wanted himself, maybe he works with it with his trainers, maybe his idea of who he is as a player is different, but he leaned into a lot of the aspects of his game that like weren't strong for him and became a guy who was trying to like shore up weaknesses and create and do things differently because Scotty is a vastly different player. If last year is who he is as a player, he's vastly different than what what his strengths were, especially offensively when he came in. Tyrese really never had to do that. Of course, he's papering over his weaknesses over time developing, but he is a guy who is ridden with his strengths and has gotten to.

>> Yeah.

>> And Scotty didn't get to do that last year. And both players ideally, and you can see it in their games, Tyrese more, but are defined by quick decision- making, rapid processing of the floor, and really strong passing. And of course, Tyrese tops out higher in each one of those than Scotty. But Scotty does represent those things. It's been very clear in this game. He is a guy who outside of last season has made the right play, makes the play that the viewer doesn't see, makes the play that a lot of other players don't see. there is a special quality. He just needs to be in a position to maximize that aspect of his game. And last year really not. And he and not only did he lean into that at the best of the coaching staff in the franchise, but also the whims of what he wanted to do on a play-by-play basis, which resulted in what, 52% shooting, maybe the worst high volume creator in the league per the numbers. And you just have to hope, hey, that was a step of development and clunkiness and the Raptors will be able to streamline some of his strengths and let him shine this year because what you said about Tyrese and and impact and helping things out, I do see Scotty that way.

Y >> um in the same vein and that's why I think

>> he could be an allNBA player. I know people see a wing player try and take the step and see that drop off in efficiency and say this is the death nail for stardom of any sort. With Scotty, I don't view it that way. And it's not because I'm a Scotty fan or a Raptors guy. I if Scotty were on another team, I would feel similarly.

>> Yeah. I mean, I think he can have a booing effect on both ends of the floor. And I don't think that it has to diminish him if if the reality is is maybe it's not Brandon Ingram long term, but hey, we need somebody else who can get their own shot and be that isolation guy because something that the Raptors will really have to their advantage is, you know, part of the reason why I always told you like I expect the Pacers to lose this game against the Raptors is because they can run four five pick and roll and the Pacers weren't good at guarding it. They got better in the playoffs because they started letting Miles switch on some of it. But a lot of times it was like, well, Scotty's going to feast against this drop while Pascal gets caught on a screen and like some of it was situation dependent. But now it's like, hey, if it is a team like the Pacers where that's going to be really advantageous for Scotty run a ton of those four, five pick and rolls. And if it isn't and it's going to be a team that's going to switch more, let Brandon Ingram go to bag work and let Scotty play off the ball. And if he draws a double, then you're getting those attacking passes and it's Scotty catching them. Um, rather than Scotty having to constantly be the guy on the perimeter trying to do stuff. I don't think that that necessarily has to be a diminishing thing. People would ask me that about Tyrese a lot. Well, what does it say that the Pacers need to have two point guards on the floor and he's a starting guard? It doesn't say anything. Like, why why does that say something? Like, what it says to me is this is a guy who's so dominant in the way that he picks apart the floor and is already taken a peek over his shoulder, knows the lay of the land that teams have to pick him up full court. It makes sense for Andrew Nehart to bring the ball up the floor. And then Tyrese had to be a guy, which I'm sure some of this applies to Scotty as well, only in a different role, is he had to learn how how can I dominate as a shooting guard now. How can I place myself to maximize four situations? How can I place myself to get free and and get sprung free in shooting guard types actions? It just made him more a complete player. I always said if he could become a better role player, he could be an even better star. And I think some of that would apply to Scotty playing next to Brandon Ingram. And it doesn't necessarily have to diminish Scotty that like, well, he's not a number one option. Like, you know, how many guys are a number one option that can win a championship? We're talking about like five people.

>> Like, you got to build in different ways. You have to learn to maximize a roster in different ways. And I think if anything, that might be what like I I don't believe in grand theories of basketball. Like just because the Pacers and the Thunder made the finals, I don't think everybody should start trying to play like the Pacers and the Thunder. But in the sense that like hey the cap makes it a lot harder you know unless you have behind the scenes deals that you get to players makes it a lot harder to be playing through to have funnel all the touches to two heliocentric guys and the Pacers found a way to play 10 or 11 deep and play the more egalitarian basketball like I do think that that element of it might be something that needs to continue to grow and using the four full depth of a roster and in that way there are some similarities here between how the Pacers build a contender and where the Raptors are at now. Although maybe perhaps to the last version of the Raptors, maybe more so than this one. I promise I wasn't going to talk about contract numbers. It might be a little bit harder for them to do that based on some of the contract numbers, but we'll see.

>> For any Raptors fans who last year started out putting themselves in the same tier as the Pacers and saying it's the same level of team and took for granted what the Pacers were good at and papered over what the Raptors were weak at. Uh just at a glance, don't compare yourself to the finals team cuz you'll probably be disappointed. It's tough. It's tough in the NBA.

>> Where where do you have them? Let's talk about this because I bet I bet we'll be similar. I don't know. Where would you have both teams this season based on where the Pacers are at and where the Raptors are at?

>> 678.

>> Both of them in the 678 range. I think so.

>> Okay. So, we're not completely similar then.

>> I Well, I'd love to hear I I am teeming with excitement to hear.

>> I think that I am in the middle where from what I've read and understood. I think I'm higher on the Raptors after what I've looked at than what the general national media consensus is. If this was a lottery team, I'd be absolutely shocked by that. Like, and that would be a terrible thing. And I don't foresee that happening. I think they could be like one of the surprise teams in that like expectations are quite low and I wouldn't be surprised if they're hanging around at like eighth, seventh, maybe sniffing outside of the plan. I think that they'll be at the high end of the plan. I think that the Pacers will likely be in the playin as well. Although like the East is pretty weird right now. I honestly don't know what to do with teams like the Sixers at all. I I don't know. But um I think that it's entirely possible that the Raptors finish with a better record than the Pacers this year. Um I would

>> that would be that would be my bet.

>> I Yeah, I think it's entirely possible that the Raptors finished with a base better record. And in part like there was other contributing factors, but I can't I can't shed the fact that the Pacers started the year 10 and 15. And the main contributing reason why that was is because Tyrese wasn't himself. And despite the fact that he wasn't himself, they were still benefiting from the fact that he was standing on the court. He's not even going to be standing on the court anymore. So, I'm just reimagining some of those possessions where like it was so good in the Cavs series that Nemhard was the starting point guard and it was Nemhard and Turner and they were one of the top pick and roll combinations and it's like, yeah, but look how much room they had. And like now, not only is that there, but like, you know, I watched them play the Hawks and it was Andrew having to guard Trey Young and Andrew being guarded by Dyson Daniels. And I watched Tyson Daniels duck under not only the screen, but also the screener, ducking under two. And what Andrew had to do to get around that and like trying to find a way of what which way are you helping him? Are you helping him because somebody else is picking up the ball four court or are you helping him with somebody else's secondary ball handler? And they have ways to do that. But um there's just going to be a lot of things that are different for them that I think are going to lead to adjustments and Pascal and Andrew were already being asked a lot of last year and they're going to be asked of even more this year only in different ways. So, um I have a hard time I don't think that they're necessarily going to be as dire as what some of those games were, but I wouldn't be surprised if um I I I wouldn't say I'm lower than consensus on the Pacers. I still believe in this team's long-term outlook, but I think that it's going to be tougher than people think for the reasons that I said. Sometimes people like to look at a box score and be like, Tyrese was two of seven and he only took seven shots. It's like, yeah, but they just had better than the highest efficiency pick and roll offense at passing out of a blitz against the Denver Nuggets because that's what type of team they are. So, um I think it's possible. I think it's very highly possible that the Raptors finish with a higher uh record. And I will say this, if both teams were in the playin tournament, which one would you bet on getting out? If

Only one could.

"You're in a play-in tournament."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Even though everybody on this roster has been to back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals, you're taking Darko over Rick Carlisle in a one-game elimination?"

"Yeah. Players could. I don't think I could."

"Well, this, well, this is funny because I think over, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, the tale of the tape would say it, but I think I've been higher on the Pacers generally than you."

"And maybe some of that comes from my, oh, I'm just a hopeful guy from Saskatchewan like attitude and the fact that I am typically an optimist. Let me rephrase and say I wasn't saying that it's a one-game elimination between the Pacers and the Raptors because the Raptors create matchup issues for the Pacers in several ways. I was just saying both teams are in the play-in tournament. We don't know who they're playing. Only one team's getting out."

"Because I, I like the Raptors' advantages pretty well against the Pacers for the most part."

"Because they are, they are a heavy tagging-up team, which matters. That matters when you play the Pacers."

"Okay. I thought you were saying head-to-head. Like..."

"I was just saying, I was just saying like they're both in the play-in. Only one's getting out."

"Uh, yeah, still probably the Raptors, I guess. Because like, it, I'm, I, every, like, again, I like Rick. I've met Rick. Rick is great and he's an excellent coach. I have had a seat to your analysis of Rick's work not only as a viewer but as sitting next to you. Uh, listen, I really appreciate it. However, coaching is never more heralded than when players are really great, and it's never more like, Pacers fans have asked for Rick to be fired."

"You know, Raptors, Raptors fans asked for Nick Nurse to be fired, and Nick certainly hasn't had as easy a transition to another team as Rick did. Of course, I think he's not as good a coach, but Nick Nurse was the genius boy of everything when he had Kyle Lowry, and then suddenly, oh, things are tough and basketball isn't so easy. Players really make it go. So, that, that would make me go with the Raptors. I think it's a more talented team now. You know, the Pacers, I still like them. There's a lot of things there that I like. I think Jay Huff is closer to Myles Turner in impact than some people might think. And that doesn't mean he's there. I just think closer. I also think that there's some upside for the defense to be more potent in some areas with Tyrese off the floor. Even though Tyrese did improve, but as you said, you can't get away from the fact that Tyrese, uh, just bleeds points per possession on offense. And by bleeds, I mean it just oozes out of him. Like it's just he gifts it to people around him. An effervescence, if you would."

"I think it's funny because we, you and I both generally agree that like, I view coaching as being a jockey and that you can help or hinder a horse in winning a race, but a horse still wins the race. I still fully believe that. But I just, I think about all those playoff series we just watched and being like, oh, like what a tremendous difference it made in Game 6 at home when they made the surprise decision to pull back that pressure. And like, I just think that they would cook something up in a one-game setting that I'd be like, 'Yep, they did the thing.' And that would be enough. Like, I would, I would just, I would just, I know enough of them that I think that I would give them the benefit of the doubt there. Even though for the most part I generally say the opposite. And I'm like, 'Yeah, the coaches helped, but the players still did it.' Like, I just, maybe my, maybe it's skewed when I'm thinking of just like a one-game curveball and that's all you need to do is just come out with the one thing that can skew that game."

"It's, it's definitely possible. And if there's one coach I would bet on to be able to do it. And you know, part of that, that is that the roster has always been accepting and capable of enacting that."

"Yeah."

"Um, which is really important. Um, but this is, I mean, maybe we get that hypothetical. They probably will both be around that, you know, area. But I, I think I'm a little higher on the Pacers over the course of the season than you are. Cross my fingers for that. I mean, I'll be covering them. Uh, and I'll also be covering this other team."

"I didn't get to say any nice things about CBB. So, really quick, I will say my one CBB thought because I told you I didn't get to see his really good game at Summer League and I didn't, I didn't do any draft coverage this year. There was no headspace for that and the Pacers weren't going to have a lottery pick. So, I did not watch."

"You mean to tell me that I told you I want to do this podcast with you and you didn't watch and track all of CBB's possessions in preparation? I should..."

"Unprofessional. Unprofessional."

"I know. But I will say this, that he intrigues me a lot in one particular way. And that the Raptors were one of the foremost tagging-up teams. And what I mean by that isn't just their attack of the offensive glass. It's literally running at the backs of matchups, scrumming to push those matchups in. So that it's a transition defense scheme as much. If you get an offensive rebound, great. But it's more about the transition defense. But I asked you and Lewis a mailbag question, which was not completely a fair mailbag question because all those things were interrelated in a way. So why CBB interests me is he's, he's, he's got the putback stuff in his bag, as you showed in your video emulating his putback style. So, um, if he could be like the poster boy for tagging up, I feel because not only can he crash and potentially create those 50/50 opportunities and generate putbacks off of this, but the other benefit of doing that is you're automatically setting up your pressure. And when I said earlier, like, okay, so let's pretend Quickley's better at it and they just move the ball. Like, who else is doing it? He can legitimately do it. So like if he's running to scrum the matchup and then he's picking up like that's a really cool player. So in that one particular aspect I look very much forward to watching the CBB experience and I sincerely, sincerely hope that he's at the top of the rotation at the beginning of the season for the Raptors because otherwise that, like, I'll have to have a lot of questions about like, what are we doing here if he isn't. But, um..."

"Well, that's..."

"I think that that aspect's cool as long as he can remain restrained. Because I will say when I was watching the Raptor Summer League team, I'm like, wow, this is awesome, they're generating a lot of turnovers, but I really don't think that this is going to translate because they're like helping in some of the ways that like you could not help at the NBA level and also racking up a ton of fouls while they were doing it. So like, as long as he's not overshooting the matchup, I think that he could really aid a lot in that particular aspect of what the Raptors are trying to do. I think the, the two guys who, the way they defended more or less could translate the easiest to the NBA level was Jonathan Mo and CBB as far as like how Summer League went. The guard stuff, cool, 'cause he can switch out and he still impacts passing angles. Like that's the one thing like people talk about like, oh, Bam's so mobile, he can switch out. Like a big part of what makes Bam so good at switching is the fact that he takes away the passing angle because if you give up the passing angle and a guy switches out, then you're screwed at the rim. The pick's nowhere near and you're making yourself vulnerable, um, on the offensive glass. But that's what Bam does and that's what, that's what Mo does pretty decently too in the games that I've seen."

"And you and I have talked about how the defensive numbers, even if it is a hyperspecific defensive number, can be pretty limited by what the defense is doing behind them."

"Yep. Uh, however, I, having watched all the fact that Jonathan Mo does present as one of the best switch defenders in basketball, uh, and it matters what's happening behind him, but I do think that's an accurate portrayal. I think he is one of the truly talented forwards at like stepping out on guys. His, the way he's able to move his feet and like flip his hips and stay in front and he's strong as hell. Uh, he's remarkable. Now, got to be able to do something on offense. My fingers are crossed. The Raptors have like four guys who are incredibly unique. And that's the last thing I'll say before we get out here. It's an hour and a half, by the way. Or that's the last thing I want to ask you. Who do you like on this roster? You don't have to go long. Just who do you like?"

"Like the most to watch or the most is like a player that I would want to pluck to put on a different team?"

"Nope. The players are staying here. You, okay, listen. You already got an Eastern Conference Finals MVP for nothing. All right. You just pick a guy to watch."

"I like watching Grady quite a bit, but what we were just talking about generally, like when I'm like, I'm going to write a really cool article about X, Y, or Z. I found that often times it's like, you know, Andrew Nembhard pulling the chair on that drive is like, it's very rare that somebody has a signature move on defense or what he does on a tip shot. Like that stuff gets me more excited. So, um, it's never going to happen, but like if you got to see a defensive lineup where, uh, Scotty and Mo and CBB are all playing at the same time, like there would be so many interesting things to write about from that. Like, you would have infinite, infinite possessions that you would want to clip and talk about on a Saturday film room. So, um, I, and it might just be, it might be me skewing it, too, because I haven't seen much of CBB because, like I said, I haven't seen him in college. He's the shiny new lottery pick, but, um, I think he's the guy that I'm, I'm kind of most excited to see more from on the."

"I think it would be like, I, when I did Kevin, uh, Kevin O'Connor's podcast, I was detailing a Chicago action or zoom that the Raptors guarded with Scotty, OG, and Pascal."

"Okay."

"And how that, and how they were able to just completely dead it and not only dead it in keeping it and pushing it out, but like pressuring and creating a turnover out of it. And how special this was. Uh, and that was obviously during 2021-22, the actual good season for the Raptors. And I think Mo, Scotty, and CBB has, uh, obviously much less offensive potential, but the potential for defensive terror is extremely high. But like, what are the chances we see them playing together? Somebody's got to shoot the hell out of that basketball to see that. Somebody's got to dribble the hell out of that basketball. Um, Caitlyn, thank you very much for giving me an hour and a half of your time. Uh, if you ever want to write a piece for a public, uh, figuring out how Grady Dick doesn't, uh, pull the chair on somebody else, but how he's falling into a chair in his defensive stance, uh, feel free. What do you want to say to the people before we get out of here?"

"To close out, I have brought a prop with me."

"Okay."

"I would like to say as I close out this pod. What is this? Is this like a Saturday episode or am I filling in for Trey? What am I doing?"

"It'll come out on Saturday."

"Okay. So, it's not technically the Pull-Up Trey episode then. So, in support of both Samson and Trey, I have brought Mountain Dew with me."

"Let's go."

"And I would like to appeal to the marketing executives at Mountain Dew and say that this is the best Raptors podcast. I feel very strongly about that. And the Raptors are going to be a better basketball team. How much better? I don't know. But they will be better. So, don't you want to get on the ground floor of that and ride this on the way up? Like, you can be the sponsor of the Pull-Up Trey pod. So, that's my appeal to Mountain Dew. And then my appeal to everybody who's listening is you obviously know that Samson's good at this or you wouldn't be listening to the episode right now. I, of what I have said, I wholeheartedly think is true. That's why I recruited him to come do coverage with me during the playoffs. And I'm very lucky that he makes extra time for me."

"During the playoffs. You have told me I'm a full-time beat reporter before. You've, you've said only during the playoffs."

"Well, I meant that you were doing it full-time with me during the playoffs. I have to share you during the regular season. This is your main gig. So, if, if on the off chance that anybody clicked this link because they're like, 'I would like to listen to Caitlyn. Try to talk about a different basketball team and see how bad she is at it,' hopefully you've listened to Samson and you've decided that you're going to subscribe and hit the like button and leave a nice comment telling him how good he is at his job despite the fact that he's not going to accept the compliment. Um, because I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it was true and he knows that. I don't just offer up compliments when they aren't earned. So that's my closing thoughts."

"Only only merited compliments."

"Right?"

"Yeah. Everything on its merits, the Caitlyn Cooper way. Listeners, uh, to reiterate a portion of what Caitlyn said, uh, comment, like, and subscribe."

"You're gonna say to reiterate a portion, I am the best at this job."

"No. Uh, that would be tough to get out of me. Uh, the, listen, Caitlyn is the best at this. Uh, you can support her and I guess by extension me by going over to the basketball she wrote Patreon. It's the best coverage in the world. Um, it may be about the Indiana Pacers mostly, but it is about basketball in whole. And not only do I learn things, but I know many people learn things. And you can subscribe to the same Patreon that, uh, players, executives, coaches, the biggest names in media, all those people do. Um, the best work around. Caitlyn Cooper, thank you for coming on. Listeners, thank you for listening. And whether you got into this in the morning or at night, have a blessed day and goodbye."