Jimmy Butler Just Dragged Houston's Soul With One Leg

it's tuesday, you know what time it is. Frontrunner podcast collective is back on the air. I am your humble, oh, vince, and today's podcast is all about playoff basketball and draft picks. That's what it's going to be about. Until something else happens, we don't have anything else to talk about. So we damn sure are going to talk about some NBA basketball, for sure. Now we want to talk about the Cleveland Cavaliers and what they did last night. I also want to make mention to the Golden State Warriors in the Houston Rockets game as well, and we're gonna finish it off with some draft prospects that are a little bit further down the list than your top five, top six. So that is what is on the table for today. But how we get there, how we get to this journey always entertaining, right. That's what we try to do here at front runner podcast collective for you, the people.

I want to take personal responsibility for the last podcast. It is all on me. I was the big dummy that did not set up my equipment correctly. I was the big idiot that did not Do this check and then get into the middle of it Instead of stopping it and going oh this sounds horrible, let's make some adjustments. That was on me, nobody else. Sirea is off the hook 100 because I make the decisions when it comes to this, so I do apologize. We tried to fake the funk on a nasty dunk with the ai situation. We just wanted the actual. The stuff we were talking about to me was so was so important that my voice even though I like doing it, and I did do it we wanted to get it out there. So it was a bad faux pas. My bad Never will happen again. I learned so many mistakes, just learned so many lessons on that situation, so I wanted to get that off the table, get that out of the way, so we can go ahead and discuss all the weekend basketball and we have to specifically talk about what happened last night.

The reason why we got to start last night is because there is things that you sit here and you don't quite understand, you know, until you until it is made painfully aware that this is what is going on. Well, we kind of had one of those situations in the NBA and what I mean by that is that we here at Frontrunner Podcast Collective, we ask the questions. Here at frontrunner podcast collective, we just we ask the questions. We ask the questions that a lot of people want to have answers to, and the one question that I wanted to have answer to was the whole was cle Cleveland good enough? Were they as good as what we were sick? Are we here? Is this what we kind of need to do? And last night he pulled it all out and showed us what the hell was going on Cleveland.

First of all, I want to start this a little hot, a little sweaty you know what I'm saying working hard. I don't want to start this. This is twofold. One A couple years ago, last year, we saw the Dirty as garlic situation. We saw the Broken jaw. We lost so much weight and then came back Right.

And sometimes these teams need to mature. Sometimes these teams need to mature, sometimes these teams need to marinate. Um, it could be a coaching philosophy. It could be just saying, hey, you know what? We've been trying to climb this mountain for three years now and I'm over myself and whatever it is that I need to do to make this team get over the hump, I'm gonna do those things in spades.

In Cleveland, we talk about playoff awards. All the time. We talk about how you can just look at a situation and go. Hey, this is where we are and Cleveland sweeping out the Miami Heat, who has been an absolute nightmare for teams in the past, and doing it in the fashion that they did it in, because that's the most important thing about this. And doing it in the fashion that they did it in, because that's the most important thing about this it was the highest point differential in the nba playoff history 122 point point differential between the cleveland cavaliers and the miami heat. That's no joke, right there, that is documented proof, documented history that we got to see over these four games. We got to see documented dominance. That's what we got to see.

How did we get here? How did we get here? How did we get to this situation? Is it coaching? Is it roster construction, master, you know master class? Or is it donovan mitchell understanding that less is more trusting his teammates? Is it the growth and maturity and the growth of the game of Evan Mobley? Is it these things? And the reason why we ask these questions is not just because we're just asking them to fill up time. We're asking them because we really want answers to them. We really want some, some sort of tangible Evidence that says this is what I'm seeing right now I can track this. This is something that is, that I'm watching in real time, and what have you? And what I mean by all of this Is that I thought still, even though We've given them a lot of praise Throughout the year, I thought the Cleveland Cavaliers, I thought the guard Were too small, I didn't know how it was going to act.

Now here's the thing. It is Orlando. Orlando cannot score. You swept out Orlando, but the impressiveness of how you swept them. We must dive deeper, and that's what we're here to do today. So what I want to talk about, and that's what we're here to do today.

So what I want to talk about is I want to talk about the defensive versatility under pressure that the Cleveland Cavaliers has, and what I am meaning by that is that Jared Allen can switch, evan Mobley can switch Max Drew Drews whatever you think of him, he does understand defensive assignments. You replace him with a DeAndre Hunter, you know? And the guards? The guards play a big role in this. You keep your man in front of you. This is a good time for all and it makes me happy. It makes a lot of people happy.

So what the Cleveland Calabasas just did to the Miami Heat. As far as that's concerned, I said Orlando earlier. I'm sorry about that, but the real takeaway is this it's the shot profile of some key individual dudes and you'll say, well, oh, we're going to talk about Donovan Mitchell. No, no, we know what Donovan Mitchell is. He's certified. It's these pieces that you pick up along the way. It's the Ty Jerome's of the world, the translatable shot making that he showed the whole entire series, uh, shouts out to what he's gone through in his journey going through the injuries and whatnot and getting back on the court and playing at such a high level.

Then the cleveland cavaliers they trade for DeAndre Hunter at the trade deadline and, mind you, this is a good trade. We call it a good trade when it happened. We think it's a good trade now and what he gives them is what Strews could not give them a six foot seven, six foot eight swing who can guard twos, threes, fours, very good defensive versatility. A guy that is what's the word I'm looking for. A guy that understands his role. He was with the atlanta hawk. He was a role player there. He comes here. He understands that. Hey, they have a pretty solidified team. I might come off the bench. I'm gonna do what I need to do to fulfill my role. I'm gonna do what I need to do to fulfill my role and he does. It does do that. He plays expert defense and he continues to show his physicality and he gives them something that they desperately needed. If you're gonna have Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland on the court together, you need a physicality that DeAndre Hunter can provide for you. So these are things that we look for when we start talking about roster construction.

Now the third thing is the thing that you can't expect for, but you hope for the best. It is the real-time growth showing increasingly two-way impact and elite defensive versatility, and that is one Evan Mobley. Obviously, he has shot the ball better from three. He has shown even more flexibility, becoming more of a menace when getting out to guards and wings out on the perimeter. He feels comfortable in space. Nothing seems to bother him when it comes to that, and you're looking at a guy who also became more assertive, asking for the basketball and understanding what his specific hot spots were on the floor and how could he efficiently get to those spots and be successful in those spots. So a lot of work has been done behind the scenes with evan mobley. So a lot of work has been done behind the scenes with Evan Mobley and he has taken that next step and has gone perfectly with everything that has gone on in Cleveland.

Soraya says this about DeAndre Hunter he's cost control, playoff assets, who fits across matchups. That's positional flexibility. Teams crave. This is this in the postseason. Can agree more.

The one thing that we always talk about is the six, six foot seven, six foot eight wing um. They, if they have the capability of being able to make pretty good passes or whatever they can see over the defense, they provide a certain uh release valve when you're getting blitz. It is just a better situation if you have one. And there is a difference between a six foot six and a six foot eight one. I'm sorry, there's just a difference and you sit there and I'm not Listen. Deandre Hunter will never be compared to Magic Johnson or LeBron James, but his ability to see over the defense, his athleticism, his physicality, that he provides for this team. It is so imperative and now we can get to the evan mobley of it. All the on-off splits on defense tell the full story. The heat shot 8.9 percent worse at the rim with evan mobley in the game. That's the impact that doesn't show in the box score, it just screams in the war rooms. This is what people who make decisions, who evaluate talent in the nba, that's what they look for. Those are the type of things that you can pretty much you'll you'll hear as far as like rim deterrence. You'll hear the words like that. You'll hear phrases like that speaking to people who work in buildings in the NBA.

Now, the one thing that I want to talk about with the Cleveland Cavaliers is this is that we did have a question. You know we move the goalpost right in podcast, in content, we move the goalpost. So basically, what I'm saying here is that we started off with we were very cynical whether donovan mitchell was going to stay. Well, he solved all that, stayed, signed a contract, he has a contract extension. The other part of the thing, when we say, well, what is this? Is this deemed successful? Do we think they can make a real run in the nba finals? The thing that I brought up, thing that other podcasters brought up how would they work around the size limitations of donovan mitchell and darius carter? Now we know you have the two big rim protectors back there. That's a help.

But, as we saw over the last couple of years with the cleveland cavaliers that there was something missing. There was just something just quite not right now you can say offensively. They obviously did not have the trust in the ball movement that they do now. You are 100 right. We have empirical evidence that shows us this. We have evidence in the analytics that show us this, because their assists percentages have gone up team wise, individually wise. We also see more hockey assists with them. We also see more just ball movement in general with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Now, if that's being said, you still did have this question and I kind of want to make this analogy and it kind of reminded me of the show that was on fx the bear.

Uh, the regular season, that's prep right. Round one versus the the miami, smooth service, but round two, when the tickets are flying, there's no sauce left. Four-quarter isolation, scrambles, chaos, service when you find out who really has feel for the game and who's grip. Donovan Mitchell have been in high leverage playoff games early into his career. Pretty much throughout his career he has not been able to get it over the top. Now you can say flawed teams, you can say flawed rosters. Roster construction will have you. Donovan Mitchell is the head of the snake for the Cleveland Cavaliers. As far as Donovan Mitchell goes, so goes. The Cleveland Cavaliers Doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't have help. Darius Garland is an absolute stud at point guard and provides not just point for production but just ease as far as ball handling abilities, getting them into the right sets, getting them into the right looks all of those very important things that people are looking for in a guard, in somebody who's going to be a primary ball distributor to your offense, a primary ball distributor to your offense.

But the bench resilience is something that I want to talk about. The Ty Jeromes of the world, the Sam Merrills of the world, the Dean Wades of the world Obviously now DeAndre Hunter being part of that these are guys that they built. These are guys that they player developed through their system. Yes, you can say, well, ty Jerome was with OKC and he was with the Golden State Warriors and this and that and everything like that, but you can't tell me about Sam Merrill and you can't tell me about Dean Wade. These are guys that they continue to roll out there for like the last couple years anyway, maybe another year longer, right, but they saw something and they said, okay, well, this is how we kind of want to play. Is there a way that we can diminish the liabilities that they have and accentuate what they do? Well, kenny Atkinson has gotten out of his bench.

These guys feel emboldened, they feel empowered. They feel empowered not just to keep the lead where it is, but to grow the lead, to make the lead even more robust, to make it even easier for your starters that are going to come in, who are going to be carrying the bulk of the minutes. By the way, donovan Mitchell is still around the same amount of minutes that he was in during the regular season, so nothing's changed for my guy Now. Also, what's been impressive about this whole situation is that the cleveland cavaliers has done this without garland for the last couple games, like garland's being out nursing a toe injury. So now you're saying well, that's the depth, that's the depth of the team. You're right, it's the depth of the team that shots out to Todd Jerome, sam Merrill and the boys doing it real big, handling the business and making it just fun for everyone. Because Todd Jerome is a blast. He is an absolute breath of fresh air. Uh, he's constantly moving. He is a thinking man's basketball player. He shoots the rocks so well. This dude is about to get paid paid big time money all over the place. As our guy pat mcafee would say, he's yeeting. He's yeeting all over himself, but he's probably about to get paid.

Orlando Magic, are you lurking? That's a team that needs some guards in a desperate way. But Cleveland has shown me two things. I'm very impressed. I'm very impressed with how they played. I'm very impressed with the demeanor that they showed. This is a game that they didn't have to go out and play hard. This is a game they could have went out lost and then took it back home and won game five, but it was so imperative. But it was so imperative to them, it was so meaningful to them To just go ahead and sweep the Miami Heat out of the playoffs. Now, mind you, this is not the Miami Heat team of old. This is not 2021.

Jimmy Butler Running around here Looking like a crazy man or whatever the case may be, just getting buckets and guarding the best you know players in the league? Not, this was a Jimmy Butler less Miami Heat team. You know, andrew Wiggins was out there getting cardio for the Heat players. Hmm, and that leads me to the Miami Heat. What do you do with them at this point? Like, what do you do? Where are you with them? Because it's kind of bleak. I mean, we saw andrew wiggins. We like okay, we also now saw andrew wiggins in the playoffs.

I'm like, oh, oh, okay, different story. And really, what do you have as far as asset asset management? What do you have for assets? What can you give up? Who can you absorb in? How much of your core do you have to give up to even start doing this? Are you worried about giving up any of your cores, especially after the 55 point beatdown that you took?

Game four, you got tyler hero out here popping his gums off, saying we ain't going, we ain't going out like that in game four. Oh yeah, you did. You went out just like that. Actually, you went out worse. You went out just like that. Actually, you went out worse. And I'm going to tell you right now, your homeboys in the Memphis area are so excited for you Because they had the worst point differential in the game. But now you do the Miami Heat. Miami Heat did historic things last night. They got down by 60 plus with Pat Riley, alonzo Mourning and the brain trust in the building and that's the performance you put out.

And Bam, out of bio after the game, said this he said that that, uh, that silver hair gentleman, oh, he doesn't like this and expect changes. We can all expect changes forthcoming. That is what bam, out of Iowa, said, and he's right. This is gonna leave a real bad taste in Pat Riley's mouth. Now you can tell me you didn't get a lot back for Jimmy Butler. Then you can also tell me how could you have gotten a lot back for jimmy butler, knowing that he was on the last year of his skill, knowing that he's basically been pounding in miami the whole time, this, this past, this past season? And now you give him love, you get andrew wiggins back, a couple other pieces and draft pick, whatever, but it's not a haul. It's not a haul at all.

So again, where do the miami heat go to make that next step? Where they're not a playing team, where they're a top 16, is there a trade out there for them to get? Is there somebody for them to acquire? Basically, we can, we can hope, speculate, we can do all these things, but really what it's gonna, what is basically leading us to, is the draft. But before we get there for the miami heat. You got hero now. Hero was excellent in the regular season.

The playoffs is a different animal. It exposes weaknesses. I've told you this. The playoffs are the true, the true truth seekers of the NBA. All flaws will be exposed in the playoffs and tyler hero can just put into every pick and roll for a team that was just like yo, we. We don't respect you and we don't respect your game.

Then jovich and jaime jaquez took steps back this year. The jaime jaquez thing was more draft, was more drastic, because he's just kind of falling off the face of the cliff and he just forgot how to shoot. Weird, not happy about that one. Weird, not happy about that one. The heat are loaded with wings but they lack creation. That's a positional scarcity that they will fail. It will fail them and front office know you can't survive without two elite shot creators by round two.

I don't disagree with saraya's statement there. I do not. This off season for the miami, he's got real, real one. What does pat riley do? Where does? Where does he align the stars and get the people In the building? And who does he get? Is he taking on bad Money In the sense of Maybe my problem, for your problem, because that's not going to help.

Is this some sort of Luka Doncic s trade about to happen, where your somebody's just sick of the superstar and they're just give me, you know, 25 cents on the dollar? You hope not betraying your things? That happen now. I don't know some things. I used to sit here and go, oh, this totally makes sense, this does you know. Now it's like, yeah, I don't know.

Now back to the cavaliers. Um, I want to talk to them. I want to talk about them as a contender and tender and, like I said, being skeptical leads you to asking questions. They can probably get you a more clarifying answer. So I did that and this is where we put on just our GM lenses and start trying to see what they have. They have defensive versatility with Mowgli Hunter Allen. They want to dust off a coral. They can.

Donovan Mitchell can play some defense when motivated, but it's the bigs. And Ken Strews also provide enough whatever moxie that he has, you know, to the starting lineup. But at the end of the day it does not matter. It doesn't matter unless you have these bigs. These bigs are it, and there's two of them, both the same height, both move around pretty well. Both play excellent defense and seem to care about it. The shot profile and the usage efficiency of Donovan Mitchell this year has been absolutely amazing. We talked about him taking a step back. We talked about him understanding that getting more out of his teammates is going to help him in the grand scheme of thing, which is to try to get yourself in position to win a NBA championship. That is the most important thing, especially to a guy like Mitchell at this point, who's done it all. Now, if Darius Garland does stay out for a while but doesn't seem like this is a long-term situation they their playmaking, is going to be challenged by somebody at some point.

Front offices love teams until they hit a matchup. They hit a matchup with friction. The Cavs next round will be a test. The roster construction logic in real time. Can their parts fix problems under pressure? It is a question. It's still the question. Itty bitty guards against like regular size guards. Where we at cleveland fans are you so confident that your team is just going hashtag? Let them know. Hit me up on twitter at front runner pc. Also at rea underscore bunch frpc. And then blue sky. For me is the same, for Rhea is different because she's fancy. So for blue sky, for her it's FRPC hyphen Rhea dot b sky, dot social, and for me it's just front runner pc, lock it up, get it. Cleveland's depth is not just good, it's cost controlled and it's scalable across the next couple years. I don't think they're really in trouble as far as money is concerned, because I think everybody's basically being paid, so they're good there. All right, I Want to get to something real quick. We don't talk about Jimmy Butler. We're gonna show Jimmy Butler a lot of love.

But I have this, this friend in my life, and he swore up and down to me that Jalen Green was him when he got drafted, when the struggles happened the first year hell, even into the second year. Let's blame the coach. I'm not saying the coach didn't play a part because he did. Let's blame the coach, not saying the coach didn't play a part because he did. Um, my guy was 10 toes down for jaylen green and I just didn't quite see it. I just don't know, because the one thing that I like to see out of a guard or or a swing whatever you want to call jalen green is that at some point there's a light bulb that comes on the great ones and I was told I was trying, somebody was trying to sell me a bag of goods on that he was going to turn out to be listen, I'm not saying he's going to turn out to be Michael Jordan or anything like that, but when I think of hey, are you a top two guy on your team? Are you bringing them to like deep playoff runs, things of that nature?

I can never get there with Jalen Green. I can never get there. I thought the drives to the baskets don't have the purpose that they need to. There doesn't seem to be a plan most of the time. Um, he's so athletic, he's so giftedly athletic. It is foggling to me that there is not a floater that is consistent or a layup package that is consistent from him. It is amazing to me for him to be that athletic. The jump shot is is less than consistent. And, bro, if you take eight shots in a game and you want to be the one you know, you ain't the one you know, you're not the one. When you taking eight shots, bro, I'm sorry you got steph out here running around with his head cut off, basically trying to get open to take threes every second. He on the court, basically, and you can't get more than eight shots off against golden state of all teams. Okay, all right. Well, that leads us to this warriors 109, rockets 106. The warriors take a three, a commanding three games. Three games to one lead over the houston rockets, the number two overall c in the western conference.

Jimmy butler couldn't even lift his leg last night. That's not an exaggeration. He said he was still skews, he was still scooting down the court and still still he outscored Houston in the fourth quarter. This is playoff DNA. This is what it looks like, this is what it smells like and this is what you want from Jalen Green what you saw out of Jimmy Butler, who is an absolute dog. He's an absolute dog. Who is a absolute dog? He's an absolute dog.

Serea had this to say about Jimmy this man dragged Houston's soul. He couldn't run, he couldn't elevate, but he could control the fourth quarter Like he had cheat codes. They're not just skill, that a mythology in a warrior's jersey. I don't disagree, because everybody on the planet knows jimmy got one move, the pump fake. And, just like pavlo vian's dog, those young, young Houston Rockets bailed for the pump fake every single time that dude got to the line in the fourth quarter like it was nobody's business and he was doing his thing.

Jimmy finished with 27 points on 7 of 12 shooting. Here's the key stat 12 of 12 from the free throw line, 5 rebounds, 6 assists Plus 2. And the plus box plus minus. He played the entire fourth quarter On one leg 14 of 27 points in the fourth quarter. He was responsible for 52% of all other points, five clutch free throws in the final minute and he sealed the game with a rebound over the Goliath that is steven adams. So this wasn't jimmy just playing hurt, this was jimmy weaponizing pain. He was controlling the tempo, he was drawing fouls, he was doing all of the playoff jimmy things that we know that he can do. And here's the thing if Dylan Brooks would have kept his damn mouth shut and left that man alone, you probably don't get this four-quarter performance. But Jimmy seemed tentative early on in the game. He seemed very like okay, I'm gonna try to, you know, act as if, but I'm just gonna be kind of a ball mover and kind of a decoy. And then Dylan Brooks got in that man's face and you could just see there was like a shift and he was like okay, so, and when it was all that was it. And Jimmy, jimmy Butler, is going to take a challenge and he's always going to be very confident that he's going to be able to succeed in whatever that challenge is in front of him.

Now we got a tactical impact situation in this game which I thought was awesome. So the Warriors leaned small late closing lineup Pazinski, butler, draymond Green, no bigs whatsoever. They even use our guy GP to Gary Payton II. Uh, they went smog ball. They want microscopic ball and Houston could not match their. What's the word I'm looking for? Houston just couldn't match the energy now when the double bigs lineup was in there. Very effective, and we'll get to how they got rid of that double big lineup in a second. But you're looking at a team right here. They outscored the Houston Rockets in clutch situation by five. Houston has zero fast break points in the fourth quarter, which they lived on through. Three Butler scored or assisted on nine of the final 12 points and Adams was a negative 13 against small ball.

Well, that's because Steve Kerr did something really smart. They saw that their offense was being just stymied by Stephen Adams. They just said oh okay, double K thing is working. How can we get ourselves out of this situation. We're going to hack a Stephen Adams. He's going to hack him up. We're going to hack a Steven Adams. He's going to hack him up. Steve Kerr sat there and said hey, we're not going to be able to strategically do anything with Steven Adams in this lineup. They're going to get a ton of offensive rebounds. You saw it late, we'll talk about that later but you saw it.

He just imposed his will onto this game and there was nothing that the Golden State Warriors could do about Steven Adams, except for what he's a terrible free throw shooter and E-May knew it. And as soon as they went to it, e-may took him off the game. He didn't even wait till he can get into free throws. As soon as they went to it, he took them off the game. He didn't even wait until he could get into free throws as soon as they said, oh, we're going to intentionally foul you. Basically that was it, and they brought him back later in the game. You know, when crunch time was on, they got him back in. The game was on, he got him back in the game and it took a superhuman effort by Jimmy Butler to get us to this point where the Golden State Warriors are up 3-1.

What I wonder is we will see more double bigs, more rock fight type lineups as we get into game five. This is why gold state made that bet. It isn't just a box score value. This is just. This is strategic. This is what they do. They prepare for everything. They don't leave anything under. You know on earth, they try to take care of it. If this was the regular season, he'd be out for a week or two. What is the playoff? Jimmy is never gonna sit out for as long as you think he should.

He's a rare player that adds value. Even when he's hurt, he makes everyone else the value show up. Yes, he made gp2 look like a real basketball player. He even made quentin pose look like a basketball player. That's a top tier playoff trait to have. It's just basically to, in a sense because of your aura, because of who you are, it elevates the role players on your squad like you, giving them five plus extra or whatever.

Just overall, because you just showed up and he was a maestro, dropping dimes, hockey assists, making the right passes, getting people to foul line. It was great. It was great to see and jimmy deserves his flowers. So, jimmy, thank you for playing with a broke ass. Basically, you know, bruise, a contusion on your pelvic bone is nothing nice, nothing nice. So the next thing we gotta get to is jaylen green. And jaylen green again. I'm gonna ask the question of houston rockets fans are you at the point of when you see numbers like eight points on three of eight shooting, one of five from three point range, five turnovers in 25 minutes, zero touches inside the paint in the second half, three turnovers from ball pressure alone? He wasn't just ineffective, he was removed. Buddy Hill GP2 pressured him full court and they had to take him out. Houston used him as a second side trigger man. The problem is is is that green green not a decision-maker as of yesterday? One little guy in a five option environment, and it worked well.

Here's the thing that I want to bring to other people's attention. Here's the thing that I want to bring to other people's attention, anyway. So here's the other thing that we need to talk about, jalen Green. I know that everybody wants to make him out to be this budding star or whatever, because he was drafted very high. There was all this confliction about whether he was better than Cade Cunningham because they came out in the same draft. Whatever the case may be, cade Cunningham is a point guard One. He's also 6'7", 6'8" Okay, so he's got physical tools that just allow him to be better. He has great court vision, nice touch on his shot, which he had to work on. I'm not saying that jaylen green is not a hard worker, I'm just. I want to see the fruits of the labor when, like you, you can tell me last year, you can tell me about that incredible run and everything like that.

But a lot of people will also tell you that march and in early april are probably the easiest time to get buckets in the calendar year for the nba. We've had a lot of like last month, you know, superstars, hall of famers, whatever you want to call them, and then the next year, you know, maybe to get a big contract, because somebody remembers that prior, that last month of the season, and they're like oh, remember when he went off. He's crazy. He finally figured it out, get him on squad. He, back to average, is seven. What's going on? Not great, not great.

So I want to bring a couple numbers to you. Anthony edwards in his game four performance, he had 34, 8 and 5 with a true shooting percentage of 60 percent. Now, these are all guys that are a little bit bigger than him. So well, no, anthony Edwards, same size. So you compare that to the 8, 3 and 1 in the five turnovers and you can talk about. Well you know, look at the team that Anthony Edwards has. Well, really, who has better team? Who has better team? Really? Yes, they got they have Edwards. Yes, they have James McDaniels. But I've heard all this depth that Houston has, all this depth. Now you're not gonna beat out our guy and Edwards, but what we would like to see is those numbers be comparable.

Jalen, in eight shots in a playoff game, dog, I would rather you shoot 17 to 20 shots and be like they just didn't go in, but next time they will. That's the type of guy I want to see from you. I can't see you be a shrieking violet now. You out here doing wing stop, commercials, painting your fingernails, all that you think and listen, I do not care what you do. What I do care about is what you do on that court. I care about that and you not showing up for your team and you say, hey, well, vince, you're getting real rough. My god, eight shots is not a lot of shots not from the number one option supposedly? Is not a lot of shots not from the number one option supposedly? So? Then that also base question if you're not the number one option or the self proclaiming number one option, well, how does your team see you?

Because they're gonna be some people on the market this offseason so you might want to lock in your performance situation very quickly. They basically the Houston Rockets need to get some more like slasher, so like some cheeky twos, and maybe have a jump shot as well. They need some guys who are low cerebral. When they see some like blitz in the basketball, they know exactly what spot they're supposed to go get to, and then the guy who's throwing the pass knows exactly where the ball is going to as well. So, with all that you know, you're trying to figure out what he's going to be and how he's going to be it.

The problem is is that jaylen green has never been a number one or a number two. He possibly might be a number three on a really good team if you got some real strong number one and number two situations. But houston, can you, can we finally put this experiment to bed? That, no, he is not gonna chase down Kay Cunningham. He is not gonna be the number one option on your team. He is probably gonna have to play a more subsidiary role and he's gonna have to understand that.

Whoever is the guy who is going to get the 22 to 25 opportunities a night, he is going those opportunities because you failed to do what you needed to do. It's okay because listen, your tremendous talent, nice jump shot, all of that complimentary player, all of those things these are great things. You're just not a 60 70 million dollar dude, that's all. 60 million 60 70 million dollar dudes take live shots and they damn sure don't take eight shots, even in a game where the physicality and whatever is what it is. You just don't do that. So now get some water. That's right. We gotta get to that draft for us. You know why we gotta get to that draft for us because we've got some interesting talkers to talk about when it comes to the draft. You know we got to talk about this real life situation that's going down.

I want to ask people and I'm not a big like, hey, you know, this guy's moving up, this guy's moving down the draft, all this other stuff, but do you care where people are picked, like, if it's your team and y'all have a top five pick? Let's say, for some reason you got like a secondary pick and that secondary pick was like the eighthth pick overall three years from now, the fifth pick. He's good, he's alright man, somehow you hit on that 18th pick, this dude doing all the Nike commercials. He on all the McDonald's ads. He's doing dude. He's doing stuff of coach Gucci, travis Scott doing collabs with him. Everything is happening. Do you care whether he was the 18th pick overall or the third pick overall? Do you care? Good question ask yourself. Because the question that I had was this was like I've looked at a lot of ace bailey film and I looked at some vj edgecum film. I need to do a little bit more work. There's no doubt that ace bailey is a six foot ten, six foot 9 freak of nature. Athletic tools, out the yin yang star ops, upside scorer with space creation flashes. Uh, the space creation. You can create space, you just can't facilitate. Uh.

Some of the questions about Ace Bailey are the handle issues. The decision making are like the big one shot profile volatility. He loves shooting, it doesn't matter where it's from. He likes to take tough shots and he likes to consider himself a tough shot maker. Now Edgecombe is a freaky athlete Compact frame for elite explosivity, high level, two-way impact and motor, better passer than expected. That's true. High ceiling on that I am.

People keep telling me that there are things that Ace Billy could potentially do, like he has great athleticism and that can manifest itself in like 3 or 4 ways. They'm like, oh, that's great. They say, well, the handle could get better, because you know he can get stronger. Wrist gets stronger, the handle gets tighter, whatever case may be, like, okay, that could happen, right, okay, okay, okay, so what else? And then you know they hit you with like, oh well, you know I work on the shot, go, you know on the shot, get the shot together and everything should work out fine. I've never seen all three of those things hit on an NBA prospect. I just don't. You either have it or you don't. And for my guy, ace Bailey, is it going to turn on at some point? Are we going to see defensive pressure? Are we going to see you in the passing lanes grabbing you know grabbing shots. Take them the other way before it's done. Those are the questions that I have, because edge cone looks like a dog. He gets to the basket whenever he wants. He kind of reminds me of kind of like a pocket yannis a little bit. Now.

Another guy that we need to talk about is cayman Molly. Walk out of Duke. Molly Ock is a seven foot two mobile. Sarah runs the floor block shots. He does all that. He does have some touch around the rail. Flashes in the mid-range questions are raw offensive skills. Limited high level reps, long rebuild timeline all depends on who you are. Common is an international swing that could a beautifully um or test your development program. Uh, limits, this is true. He's so good, he's so so tall.

My whole thing with the draft and what, what is going on. It's twofold. One, just like with the NFL draft. The NBA drafts has this like Certain things like they believe in, and then it just becomes cross germinated with everybody else. Right, you know, you got this thing. You're like what, what's going on? I Got this like Superman curl thing going on on my head and I'm trying to get rid of it. It's crazy anyways curl thing going on in my head and I'm trying to get rid of it. It's crazy anyways. You're sitting there and you're trying to pick these dudes up and try and pick these guys.

And Kamen Malak is a freak athlete, stupid, stupid, big, great hands, rim roller, all of these things. And then you see a guy like thomas sorber, who was like flirting with the top jam for a while, then kind of fell back to earth. I don't know why. D defensive, well, rebounds for his position, underrated, shot blocker, for sure, low-key. And I am just bewildered by, like, just people. I see other people who are in like you know whatever with the draft and things of that nature, and I kind of go, oh okay, you have him there, all right, well you know. And then you just want to hear why and just just wish there was more. Just wish there was more. That's where came in he's mobile. He blocked shots, he competes his ass off, but right now he's a big with unproven feet, limited decision making windows against, uh, elite defenses. They let him have the ball as much.

So then we talked about, so we talked about some of the things he could do. He's just super smart too. Um, I like him a lot. He's not flashy, he's just solid, and teams crave reliable defensive anchors that can plug in in a year or two. They just love those type of things. He's going to be interviewing well, testing strong and in the mobility drills if he can hit a decent percentage of the threes and he's gonna gonna make a lot of money. He're gonna move up in the draft. So we have talked about draft picks. We have talked about the Cleveland Cavaliers. We have talked about the Detroit or not. We talked about the Cleveland Cavaliers, the gun state warriors and the houston rockets. So, uh, we have exhausted our time here today and I want to thank serea for providing all the stats and notes. I want to thank the rest of the crew for doing what they do. I can't do it without you and I promise.

I promise that this is going to be a live audio. It's going to have real robust sounding vents Probably some other sounds that you don't want to hear, but my voice will be on there as well. So, with that being said, the best part of you is you surround yourself with people not only that are going to support you, they're going to champion your causes. They're going to be in your corner when you need them most. And if you have those people and you recognize that they are doing these things and haven't shown these characteristics, appreciate them, acknowledge them, hug them, text them, dm them, let them know that you are there for them as they are they, as they are there for you. Because here's the thing if you've got somebody like that in your life, who's in your corner, like that, need to hang on to those, and that is that's the type of squad you're trying to build. Well, there's always a seat for you here at front runner podcast collective, because it just means more when it's full of love, support from real ones.

You know, I'm saying and, with that being said, we are out of here, we'll see you on Friday. We're going to give it to you. It's going to be a feel good Friday, and that's all you really need to know. It'll be a Friday Extravaganza. Stay tuned for it For Sarea. I am Vince Deuce.