The volume. We're back with another week of football, and DraftKings Sportsbook is keeping us in on the NFL action with great offers. Every single game day. New customers can bet five dollars and get two hundred dollars instantly in bonus bets. Throw five down on any of this week's epic matchups and walk away an instant winner, and DraftKings isn't stopping there. All customers can take advantage of two new offers every single game day this September. Football's more fun when you're in on the action, so download the app now and sign up with code Hoops. New customers can bet just five dollars to get two hundred dollars instantly in bonus bets only on the DraftKings Sportsbook app, an official sports betting partner of the NFL with Code Hoops. That's Hops. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or visit www dot one eight hundred gambler dot net. In New York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. License partner Golden Nugget, Lake Charles and Louisiana twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. See Sportsbook dot Draft, Kings dot com, slash Football terms for eligibility terms and responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expires seven days after inch issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody hopeful. If you guys are having a great week so far. NBA Media Day was yesterday, and we had a bunch of a couple of teams go last week, but the rest of the teams went yesterday, and so today we're gonna do our six biggest takeaways from MBA Media Day. I've got one for each of the top six teams in my power rankings when we did the season previews, and then I've got four mail back questions for the end of the show as well. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight and any more mailback questions to keep dropping those in the YouTube comments. All right, first, biggest takeaway, this one has to do with the Golden State Warriors. No, it doesn't matter at all that Draymond Green has had personal beef with Chris Paul. Personal is not the right word, but basketball beef with Chris Paul in the past, or that Chris Paul and Steve Kerr have had altercations in the past, or that Klay Thompson and Rodney McGruder have had issues in the past. It just doesn't matter. And for the record, this is not the first time we've done this sort of thing. Lan Stevenson famously was a huge pain in the ass to Lebron and was his teammate in twenty nineteen and they were fine. This is a completely common thing that happens in the NBA and a really common thing with competitors. That Draymond Green gave a really well thought out quote about this. I encourage you guys to check it out if you go to the Warriors YouTube page. They have it in their they have it in with all their other videos they posted with the media availability. But he basically said, like, yeah, Chris Paul's a little bit of an asshole on the court, but he's like, so am I, and he's one of the best competitors in the league, and so am I, and that inevitably is going to lead to situations on the court where we butt heads. And it really is that simple. This is not a hard concept for you guys to get. Even outside the realm of basketball competitiveness exists. Being a little bit more of an asshole when something's on the line is completely normal. Anybody who's good at anything probably got good at it because they're competitive in some way, shape or form, and everybody there are different types of competitive personalities, to be clear, but it's totally normal to experience a negative emotion or have a negative interaction with somebody in a competitive environment. That doesn't actually represent the way you would treat each other off the court. You know, chances are Draymond Green and Chris Paul, if they met each other, just as buddies growing up, would get along just fine. But that doesn't mean that in a basketball situation when there are on opposite sides that they won't butt heads. Yeah, Klay Thompson and Rodney mcgriddor got into it a little bit. Klay Thompson said some stuff like you're gonna be out of the league. He probably didn't even mean that, but he's talking shit. He's talking shit. It's a thing that happens in basketball games. It's completely normal, and it's not even exclusive to basketball. So don't think it matters. If anything, I think it's a good thing because those types of interactions are, like Draymond said, an indicator of your overall give a shit factor, and you just brought in players that give a shit at a similar level to the way that you do. I can think personally, for me, I play with guys now that I've played against in the past and had negative relationships with. It's so nothing, and I don't think it's gonna have any sort of negative impact on the Warriors. In fact, I believe it's gonna have a positive impact. Number Two, Jason Tatum spent four weeks over the summer in the gym with Paul Pierce, and that might be exactly what he needed. So this was the very first answer actually that Jason Tatum gave in his media availability yesterday, and he said that Paul Pierce basically joined them for court work, and Paul Pierce himself, I guess, lost a little bit of weight in the process, but that they spent a lot of quality time not just doing basketball work, but also focusing on some of the specific things that are necessary to win an NBA championship. Paul Pierce just given some nuggets of wisdom from his time when he won the title in two thousand and eight. And the reason why I find this to be particularly encouraging is when I talked about the Drew Holiday trade, if you guys remember, I said that I looked at it more as a defensive upgrade. And the reason why is when push comes to shove, it's got to be Tatum that out executes Steph Curry in the NBA Finals, that out executes Jannis in a conference finals, Dame in a conference finals, if they ran into a Jokis led team. He has to be able to go toe to toe with the best guys in the league, and he had a little bit of a regression last year in some of his shot variety that made him easier to guard. And Paul Pierce was one of the best closers in NBA history because of that variety. He's a rising fire guy who can rise and fire from any spot on the floor, and he had a specific combination of like crafty hesitation, pull up dribble jump shots that I think would be good for Jason Tatum to add to his repertoire. So the idea of him spending four weeks over the summer working in the gym with Paul Pierce is really encouraging to me, because that's the one thing that's missing. Jayson Tatum is capable of being one of the best defensive players in the league. He is an outstanding rebounder for his position. He's put on muscle that's given in the versatility to bang with the bigger forwards in players that he has to go against in the NBA. Right he's become an outstanding shooter. He's an underrated passer. One of the biggest limited in his game right now is he's a little predictable in a slow down half court setting, especially against the switching defense. He needs to have some of that shimmy, a little bit of that what's the word I'm looking for, A little bit of that like shifty type of game where it's a little bit, a little bit unpredictable, a little bit improvisational. Jylen Brown's actually a little better than that, better at that than him right now, and so I think the idea of him working with Paul Pierce is a great sign from this past summer. All right. Number three, So Ruby Hotchi Mura has been working out with Lebron James, and I think that's perfect because they actually need him to be a lot like Lebron James. You know, we think of Ad and Lebron as you're four or five, and Ruby kind of slotting in as that three. Now. Darvin Ham has said that it's gonna be a lot of different guys this year. Might be Jared Vanderbilt in some matchups, it might be Riey Hotchamura in some matchups, and it could be you know, Torian Prince in a lot of matchups. My guess is that it'll end up being Jared Vanderbilt that ends up starting at the three. And the reason why, even though I think Ruy's a better player is they lost Dennis Schroeder. Now Gabe Vincent is every bit as good as Dennis Schroeder in different ways, but Dennis Schroder was a better point of attack defender. Now as a result of that, it's going to be even more important for Jared Vanderbilt to take primary point of attack assignments. And so I wouldn't be surprised, especially in specific matchups, if Jared Vanderbilt spends a lot of time with the starting unit as the three, which means Ruy's kind of gonna be the backup for the guy that comes in for Lebron when he subs out around the five minute mark. That's why I love the idea of him working out with Lebron. I don't think Ruby Hatchamura is a good perimeter defender. He's not going to navigate screens well or keep really quick guards or wings in front. What he is gonna do is he's going to be able to defend big, strong forwards well, and he's gonna be able to occasionally switch and guard a big man, and that's real value. That's a defensive role. We talked about the two different kinds of forward roles, the more big man type of four, the Aaron Gordon type of player where you're more guarding taller wings that are pull up shooters because you can bother them with contests and you can switch on to Biggs, but you're not gonna navigate screens as well. Whereas we have the skinnier forward, which is like the Jaden McDaniels type. They are great on the perimeter because they can sidle up over screens and they can bother players from behind with back pressure. That's what Jared Vanderbilt does best. And so I actually think Ruey makes the most sense as essentially a backup forour He's gonna play some three for the record, and when he plays three, they're gonna need guys like Austin Reeves to take primary point of attack assignments. But I think Ruey makes the most sense slotted next to Ad as the four when Lebron is off the floor, and inevitably Lebron's gonna miss twenty twenty five games this year, just like he has been for the most part in this phase of his career. That is the big benefit there. If Rui's been working out with Lebron, and we know Lebron is famously basically a gym rat, and I'm referring more to the weight room. Obviously, Lebron puts in court work, but Lebron is religious with the way he builds his body to be able to withstand what he needs to do at his position throughout an eighty two game season. That is good for Rui because Rui's physical build is a lot more similar to Lebrun than it is to a traditional perimeter defensive wing. Ruby can post up a small in a mismatch. Ruby can thrive on the glass. Ruby can't get going and transition and be a little bit of a freight train. Ruby can do a lot of those things, and so slotting him next to Anthony Davis as a four makes a lot of sense. And so attaching himself to Lebron and working out with him all summer is really encouraging, not just for the overall development of Rui, but where he's going to fit in this specific rotation. There are also some positives from Media Day about Anthony Davis. Lebron said he's the face of the franchise. That's a good indicator of just the amount of responsibility that the whole franchise believes Anthony Davis should hold. Austin Austin Reeves said in his Media Day availability that Ad looks especially motivated. He said in his interview with Zach Low that AD's been shooting really, really well, which is encouraging. And then Anthony Davis himself and his Media Day availability said that he basically went on for a little while about how he wants revenge on the Nuggets for them to sit, which, by the way, winner gets to talk shit that how that's how it works. But the way a competitor is supposed to respond to that is to get pissed off and want revenge. And that's what I'm seeing out of Anthony Davis. Also, for you Laker fans, tomorrow, we have a special surprise where having Yovan Buja from the Athletic the their lead Lakers reporter, is going to be coming on with us to give a full breakdown not only of some of the media day stuff that they talked about, but he's gonna give us some insight on what he saw from practice today. So we'll get to see some in some on the court intel from yovon tomorrow. All right. Number four, No, Damian Lillard is not as good on defense as Drew Holiday and it doesn't matter quote from Drew. He inevitably got asked about it on media Day, he said, I'm not gonna come in here and be Drew Holliday. I think, in my personal opinion, he's the best defender on the perimeter. He later went on to say I ain't a pushover, basically saying like, I won't be like Drew, but I'm not going to be an easy guy to score on either. And he's right, he's not Drew, and this move fundamentally changes the defensive identity of the Bucks. That goes without saying. He's also right that he's not a pushover. Dame is a good athlete. Dame is strong. Dame is a fire hydrant guy that can hold his ground and beat people to spots. But he definitely needs to make a greater commitment on the defensive end in this particular season. But I expect him to. You know, there's a reason why Dame wasn't super committed on the defensive end in Portland. Like, at a certain point, as a player, you have to make a decision about what the team needs from you. I'll use Lebron to make this example. Lebron in twenty eighteen that caz team needed him to do everything offensively, and the identity of that team was to outscore people, so he didn't devote as many resources to the defensive end. He'd focus on particular plays like a rim protection opportunity here, a transition chase down there. But he would like you concede threes to some players and not make extra defensive rotations at times because on that team, it actually made the most sense for him to have all of his energy devoted to becoming this great offensive engine. Then he gets to twenty twenty with the Lakers. That team's identity was defense. There was a lot more ball handling and shooting on that particular team than was on the twenty eighteen Caves. He had Rajon Rondo to take over possessions right, He had Anthony Davis as a guy, especially in the twenty twenty season, that he could throw the ball to and get quality offense out. So Lebron was a more dedicated defensive player. Lebron is one of the best defensive seasons of his career in twenty twenty, So that's a decision you have to make based on the construct of the roster. Those Portland teams were never going to be defensive juggernauts, and their best chance to win was get enough stops and let Dame just beat you with his unbelievable offensive skill. This Milwaukee team totally different. He's not the best player anymore. Giannis is going to be able to help a lot in those areas, and they have a bigger defensive identity than the Portland Trailblazers did, so I expect Dame to make a decision to devote more resources to the defensive end as a result, it's a no brainer at that point. Again, I think there's a difference between a guy who's a bad defensive player and a guy who's playing bad defense. I don't think Dame's a great defensive player, but there's no reason in the world why he can't do a job within the Milwaukee Bucks scheme, especially with their improtection. He's plenty athletic enough to do so, all right. Number five, Jamal Murray's gonna make an All Star team this year. We had a quote from Mike Malone on media Day. My goal for Jamal. My challenge for Jamal is to show that you can do what you did in twenty playoff games. Because what Jamal did in the playoffs was ridiculous. I want him to be the first time All Star this year. I want you Murray to be an All NBA player. He's got to do it in October. He's got to do it in November. He can't be the slow start. The guys that are on top of their game, they bring it every single night. Now, I want to be clear there. I thought Jamal started to take this leap in the bubble, and then, like a lot of players that came back from the bubble, they had a really quick turnaround, like less than two months to hop into training camp, and so a lot of those guys struggled. Even Anthony Davis, who was playing like a top five player in the world before he got hurt. Even at the beginning portions of the season, ad was a shell of himself. He averaged like twenty one points a game, and before the injury wasn't the same guy. Neither was Jamal. Neither were a lot of the players that came out of the bubble like that. That's typical from that specific circumstance. Then Jamal gets hurt, misses the rest of that season, in an entire additional season. Then he comes back last year and it's that first year back from a significant injury, which comes with its own list of drawbacks as you're trying to regain confidence in planting hard on that knee and all those different hurdles that you have to get over, right. This is his first full healthy season, after a normal summer, after a normal training camp, after his injury, after his ascendance in the twenty twenty playoffs, when he showed what he could do in that series against the against the Jazz, and again against the Clippers, and again against the Lakers. So like, I expect him to play well enough. The biggest, you know, kind of hurdle was going to be, does he have a spot on the All Star team? Just with the talent at his position, But now Damian Lillard's out of the conference, So if Jamal comes in in shape and is ready to go, I expect. I don't think he just randomly gets better in the playoffs. I think he's just that good at basketball, So I expect him to come into the season and play that well. Making all NBAS a little bit tougher just because of the depth at that position across the league. But I don't see any reason at all why Jamal can't be an All Star this year. And I certainly expect him to average at least twenty three points a game for the season. I expect the best regular season of Jamal Murray's career this year. All right, Number six, No, the Suns do not need a point guard, but they do need their stars to take on a bigger role than they're used to taking on. We had a quote Kevin Durant was asked about the point guard position on the Suns and he said, I don't think you have a true position anything. I think a lot of guys can help play each position. Now we've been talking about the last few years positionless basketball. Book has brought it up, has brought the basketball up his whole career. Brad and myself have done the same thing. I'm sure it'd be done by committee, if anything. Referring to the point guard position, and he's absolutely right. What is a point guard's job. A point guard's job is to on the offensive end, on the offensive job, and the point guard's job is to get your offense organized. It's his job to bring the ball at the floor, navigate ball pressure if there is any, and get the ball to a spot where you have an advantage to help you run your offense. Nowadays, we're less running offense and more running action, right, So like we're not trying to run like five players in emotion, we're trying to get the ball at the floor to the right ball handler and then running a ball screen or dribble handoff or something along those lines. And then you might have a separate action on the opposite end of the floor to try to occupy help defenders. But a lot of times it's just two man game or three man game. It's not a five man action, right, And so a point guard is not as important as it used to be. It's more important to have guys who can make plays. How many guys do you have on your roster that can bring the ball to the floor against pressure and run a two man game or run a three man game and consistently generate quality shots. And the Suns have three of those dudes, so they're gonna be just fine. They do not need a point guard. However, what is the defensive role of a point guard? The defensive role of a point guard is to be your primary point of attack defender, usually guarding the other team's primary bell handler. And that's the thing is he says, we've got to do it by committee. If anything, I would apply that to the defensive roles as well. Kevin Durant's gonna have to help with rim protection. Bradley Beal in particular, is gonna have to step up his defensive focus and energy kind of the way Devin Booker has in recent years. They're gonna need all three of those guys to be bought into the dirty work because there will be fistfights along the way. There are gonna be teams that are all so good and talented that might be more committed in those areas. Remember the mail back question yesterday. Parody has made it so that those details matter more now because we have five, six really damn good teams at the top of the league. How well do you defend? What is your natural basketball chemistry, like you know, how well coached are you? What's your injury history? Those are the kinds of things that are gonna end up playing a role. And so, yeah, they don't need a point guard, but they do need guys to take on bigger roles, particularly on the defensive end of the four All right, mailback questions, So first one, this one, I'm not calling out any specific question I had the Warriors video yesterday, and I had a ton of guys bringing up the free throw disparity in that series, and so I wanted to point out an obvious fact Warriors fans, Yes, the Lakers shot a lot more free throws than you in that series. Also, did you know that the Lakers led the NBA in free throw attempts per one hundred possessions and the Warriors were dead last in the entire NBA in free throw attempts per one hundred possessions for the whole season. Also, did you know the Lakers allowed opponents to shoot the fewest amount of free throw attempts per one hundred possessions in the entire NBA and the Warriors ranked twenty third on that list. So all season for eighty two games, the Lakers were really good at drawn fouls and never fouled anybody, and the Warriors were absolutely terrible at drawing fouls and fouled too much. So it's literally impossible for those two teams to play each other and not have a big free throw disparity. If you're focusing on the free throw disparity, you're losing sight of all of the other things that are happening on the court. I also had guys talking about Andrew Wiggins's ribs, like Lebron was playing on a bad foot that cut his regular season points per game by six. You know, everyone's banged up. I'm not trying to say that like there aren't wrinkles and things that can happen in a series that sway the outcome, of course, but it happens to everybody, and it's a loser mentality to not accept the loss and identify where you can improve to make sure that doesn't happen again, versus making excuses. Because I promise you, if the Warriors go about this season thinking we're gonna win as long as we get a better whistle and as long as Andrew Wiggins's ribcage doesn't get ca, I'm sorry, you're just gonna lose again. So like I again, like I'll give you the Lakers as an example. You guys know I'm the Lakers are the team that I root for the most. They did. They lost in the Nugget Series because they were too unathletic in the backcourt, because Lebron James and Anthony Davis couldn't make jump shots, and because they did not have a playoff playable backup center. They had a great offseason, They addressed a lot of regular season depth needs. Did they get any more athletic in the backcourt? No? Did Lebron or Anthony Davis get better as jump shooters? We will see. Did they bring in a playoff playable center. Probably not. Now Bruce Brown is gone, so their athletic mismatches in the back court might not be as big of a deal. But here's the deal. The Lakers can blame. Like I saw Anthony Davis yesterday talk about, oh h we had to hit it hard for two months going into the playoffs. That's great, but you also had problems against the Nuggets. And so if you think just because we have a full training camp and we can have a normal season, we're gonna beat the Nuggets, now you're not beating the Bruce Brown piece will help you with your athleticism matchup in the back court. That's good. But if Lebron James and Anthony Davis don't start making damn jump shots, and if they don't find somebody that can anchor the center position with Lebron on the floor of Anthony Davis off, you're gonna lose to the Nuggets Again. You see what I'm saying. As teams, excuse making might offer you some sort of temporarily temporary emotional benefit, but reality is the only way you're going to identify your problems, address your problems, and make the necessary steps to win the next time you get there. That's what winners do, and I expect the Warriors to do so. I promise you the Warriors aren't going into this season thinking the Lakers beat us because of the refs, or the Lakers beat us because Wiggins's ribcage got caved in. I promise you that's not what they're thinking. They're thinking, we have to be better in these specific areas to be able to beat the Lakers. All right, Next mail back question. This one's from Ryan. How much value do you see in the plus minus stat on a standard stat sheet? I know you like to deep dive on stats, but I look at the standard stat sheet during and after games, and I always find it odd when I see a player scored, say thirty points in their team one, but they are minus five on the stats, even though I know they needed their points to win, but technically they lost those minutes they were on the floor. So plus minus is one of the most convoluted stats in basketball because there are tons of things that can poison the data, so to speak. Right, Let's say, for instance, Nuggets fans going like, ah, we always suck with Jeff Green on the floor last year, and it's like, yeah, but you were always terrible with Jokic on the bench in general, and it like in your offense falls apart. Right, Lebron at center units for the Lakers, they got destroyed, but they didn't have a backup center, so like those units were not physically equipped to win basketball games, and they had to use them against really good playoff teams, and so Lebron's plus minus was all messed up because he would just get his butt kicked in the bench group and then he'd come back and look great when he was playing alongside Ad. You get the point. But like anytime I'm looking at any piece of data, I want to look at the bigger picture again. We like, my whole thing with analytics is not it's useless. It's just another piece of data. And you should never watch the games without looking for the production that backs it up. And you should never look at the production without walking watching the games to see what happens they are It's a symbiotic relationship between all those pieces. You can't just look at any one piece. You have to look at the full picture. I've said this before, but like even play type points per possession, like, oh, you know this player had a bad pick and roll per possession? Okay, what was his spacing? Like what was his roleman Like? Like Damian Lillard was killing teams in pick and roll last year with poor spacing and bad roleman Like, I would imagine his points per possession and pick and roll is gonna go up this year playing alongside Giannis as a screen partner. Right, So like again, there's always contexts and stats plus minus. I think there's use in it. I try to look at it in a larger sample size, like in the whole season versus one game. But even then, lineup structure can have a lot to do with it. So we're gonna look at that data. I'm gonna present that data, but never just take it at face value. Always look at the bigger picture. Analysts often talk about players being soft with respect to getting coached. As a former player and current coach, have you noticed a shift in the way coaches communicate with players now, so every coach has a different style, and I played with coaches. I played for coaches that were very emotional and highly energetic, and then I played with coaches that were more chill and always kept an even keel throughout any situation. Doesn't mean there's a right or wrong way to do it. I do think that there's a line to cross, like when you start hitting players that can be rough. But I also think it's important for coaches to be hard on players. And one of the main reasons why is, like, like Draymond said, you're gonna run into assholes on the court, and so I think it's valuable to have a coach that's willing to be a little bit of an asshole to you because we can talk about like society and mental health and all these things all we want, and those things matter, but on the court, it's it's ruthless. They don't care. Like they might sympathize with your personality type and the way you handle tough love off the court, but if they know that if I talk some shit to you, you're gonna crumble, they're gonna talk shit to you on the court, and so I think it's valuable to have a coach that's willing to poke and prod you a little bit. It because it tests out those emotions. It builds toughness so that when you're in the game and you encounter some of that same adversity, you can respond to it better. And so again, like I think, I don't think coaching is becoming too soft, but I do think I see occasional comments about coaching that are ignorant to that fact. Yeah, and I in an ideal environment, we could compete and it'd be all sunshine and rainbows. But that's not how it works. Everyone's looking for every tiny little edge they can get, and it's a significant edge when you can get in your opponent's head. The mental warfare is a big part of the game. All right, last mailbag question. I remember you going over your fascination with Star Wars and have your other podcast on Star Wars two Suns. I want to believe I'm fairly new to this amazing series, and I know these mail bags are mainly for basketball, but I wanted to hear your take on who do you think is the most powerful character in Star Wars canon or legends? Great question, So, yes, I do have a Star Wars podcast later tonight. Actually, I'll be breaking down with my buddy Luke, who lives here in Tucson with me, doesn't literally live with me, but lives here in Tucson. Him and I do a podcast together where we cover the Star Wars and we're gonna be covering Ah Soca in the season finale tonight. You can find that on YouTube under Tucson's Podcast. But I am a general, like in general, a Star Wars nerd, and not just Star Wars but all fantasy. So big Game of Thrones fan, big Lord of the Rings fan. Big I've been liking that Rings of Power series in general. I'm a big sci fi fan. I'm just like I love Alien Invasion movies are like my absolute favorite. I want to go see this new movie, The Creator that's coming out that's based on artificial intelligence. I like sci fi like fantasy. I like any show or movie or book that has like deep lore. I've always appreciated like really good storytelling in that sense. Star Wars. I'm gonna go who's the most powerful character in Star Wars canon the legends? Obviously there are a lot of powerful characters in Star Wars lore. I am gonna go though with this particular question with Darth Bain. There are three Darth Baine books. They're technically legends, although Darth Baine has been canonized in the Clone Wars TV show. I actually am going through the books right now and we're doing reviews on them. We're gonna be doing a review on the first Bane book probably next week. But Darth Baine is basically the Sith lord that came up with the Rule of two and so like, there were all these Jedi and all these Sith, and there were like thousands of them, right, but the Jedi were like teammates and they all wanted to work together for the greater good and all this stuff. In the Sith, It's like the Sith ideology is very selfish and like trying to be ambitious and get all the power you can, and so naturally, if you have a thousand of them, they'll kill each other. And you know, you might have one guy who's super powerful, but two weaker guys will team up and kill him, you know, that kind of thing. So Darth Baine was a Sith a thousand years before the Phantom Menace who kind of identified this problem and was like I'm not gonna let this happen anymore. And he literally killed all of the Sith and then started the order himself with just one apprentice who he trained, and then the apprentice would take a spot and take a new apprentice, and that's how things passed down. And that Bain line, or Bain's Grand Plan as he called it, actually culminates with Darth Sidius or Emperor Palpatine overthrowing the Republic and killing all the Jedi. Right. So, like Darth Baine is literally the guy who killed all the old Sith, created the modern version of the Sith, and started the plan that culminated in the Star Wars movies that we watched. I think he's one of the coolest Star Wars characters, one of my personal favorites. The books are really good. Drew Carpishen wrote them. He also wrote Mass Effect. But they're very straightforward. It's not a lot of fluff. It's not a lot of bouncing back and forth between plot lines. They're short books that are just all action, really really good reads. They're very dark, a lot of diving into syth ideology and stuff. But big Star Wars fan highly recommend the Darth Maine Books. Make sure you check out my Ahsoka breakdown with Luke after I'll put it up tonight, probably right around like a thirty nine o'clock specific standard time, but yeah, so if you want. But basically a lot of all my non basketball content is going to be on that particular channel. All right, guys, That is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume

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In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling called eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. License partner Golden Nugget, Lake Charles and Louisiana twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. See Sportsbook dot Draft, Kings dot com, slash Football terms for eligibility terms and responsible gambling resources. Bonus bets expires seven days after inch issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. All right, welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody hopeful. If you guys are having a great week so far. NBA Media Day was yesterday, and we had a bunch of a couple of teams go last week, but the rest of the teams went yesterday, and so today we're gonna do our six biggest takeaways from MBA Media Day. I've got one for each of the top six teams in my power rankings when we did the season previews, and then I've got four mail back questions for the end of the show as well. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight and any more mailback questions to keep dropping those in the YouTube comments. All right, first, biggest takeaway, this one has to do with the Golden State Warriors. No, it doesn't matter at all that Draymond Green has had personal beef with Chris Paul. Personal is not the right word, but basketball beef with Chris Paul in the past, or that Chris Paul and Steve Kerr have had altercations in the past, or that Klay Thompson and Rodney McGruder have had issues in the past. It just doesn't matter. And for the record, this is not the first time we've done this sort of thing. Lan Stevenson famously was a huge pain in the ass to Lebron and was his teammate in twenty nineteen and they were fine. This is a completely common thing that happens in the NBA and a really common thing with competitors. That Draymond Green gave a really well thought out quote about this. I encourage you guys to check it out if you go to the Warriors YouTube page. They have it in their they have it in with all their other videos they posted with the media availability. But he basically said, like, yeah, Chris Paul's a little bit of an asshole on the court, but he's like, so am I, and he's one of the best competitors in the league, and so am I, and that inevitably is going to lead to situations on the court where we butt heads. And it really is that simple. This is not a hard concept for you guys to get. Even outside the realm of basketball competitiveness exists. Being a little bit more of an asshole when something's on the line is completely normal. Anybody who's good at anything probably got good at it because they're competitive in some way, shape or form, and everybody there are different types of competitive personalities, to be clear, but it's totally normal to experience a negative emotion or have a negative interaction with somebody in a competitive environment. That doesn't actually represent the way you would treat each other off the court. You know, chances are Draymond Green and Chris Paul, if they met each other, just as buddies growing up, would get along just fine. But that doesn't mean that in a basketball situation when there are on opposite sides that they won't butt heads. Yeah, Klay Thompson and Rodney mcgriddor got into it a little bit. Klay Thompson said some stuff like you're gonna be out of the league. He probably didn't even mean that, but he's talking shit. He's talking shit. It's a thing that happens in basketball games. It's completely normal, and it's not even exclusive to basketball. So don't think it matters. If anything, I think it's a good thing because those types of interactions are, like Draymond said, an indicator of your overall give a shit factor, and you just brought in players that give a shit at a similar level to the way that you do. I can think personally, for me, I play with guys now that I've played against in the past and had negative relationships with. It's so nothing, and I don't think it's gonna have any sort of negative impact on the Warriors. In fact, I believe it's gonna have a positive impact. Number Two, Jason Tatum spent four weeks over the summer in the gym with Paul Pierce, and that might be exactly what he needed. So this was the very first answer actually that Jason Tatum gave in his media availability yesterday, and he said that Paul Pierce basically joined them for court work, and Paul Pierce himself, I guess, lost a little bit of weight in the process, but that they spent a lot of quality time not just doing basketball work, but also focusing on some of the specific things that are necessary to win an NBA championship. Paul Pierce just given some nuggets of wisdom from his time when he won the title in two thousand and eight. And the reason why I find this to be particularly encouraging is when I talked about the Drew Holiday trade, if you guys remember, I said that I looked at it more as a defensive upgrade. And the reason why is when push comes to shove, it's got to be Tatum that out executes Steph Curry in the NBA Finals, that out executes Jannis in a conference finals, Dame in a conference finals, if they ran into a Jokis led team. He has to be able to go toe to toe with the best guys in the league, and he had a little bit of a regression last year in some of his shot variety that made him easier to guard. And Paul Pierce was one of the best closers in NBA history because of that variety. He's a rising fire guy who can rise and fire from any spot on the floor, and he had a specific combination of like crafty hesitation, pull up dribble jump shots that I think would be good for Jason Tatum to add to his repertoire. So the idea of him spending four weeks over the summer working in the gym with Paul Pierce is really encouraging to me, because that's the one thing that's missing. Jayson Tatum is capable of being one of the best defensive players in the league. He is an outstanding rebounder for his position. He's put on muscle that's given in the versatility to bang with the bigger forwards in players that he has to go against in the NBA. Right he's become an outstanding shooter. He's an underrated passer. One of the biggest limited in his game right now is he's a little predictable in a slow down half court setting, especially against the switching defense. He needs to have some of that shimmy, a little bit of that what's the word I'm looking for, A little bit of that like shifty type of game where it's a little bit, a little bit unpredictable, a little bit improvisational. Jylen Brown's actually a little better than that, better at that than him right now, and so I think the idea of him working with Paul Pierce is a great sign from this past summer. All right. Number three, So Ruby Hotchi Mura has been working out with Lebron James, and I think that's perfect because they actually need him to be a lot like Lebron James. You know, we think of Ad and Lebron as you're four or five, and Ruby kind of slotting in as that three. Now. Darvin Ham has said that it's gonna be a lot of different guys this year. Might be Jared Vanderbilt in some matchups, it might be Riey Hotchamura in some matchups, and it could be you know, Torian Prince in a lot of matchups. My guess is that it'll end up being Jared Vanderbilt that ends up starting at the three. And the reason why, even though I think Ruy's a better player is they lost Dennis Schroeder. Now Gabe Vincent is every bit as good as Dennis Schroeder in different ways, but Dennis Schroder was a better point of attack defender. Now as a result of that, it's going to be even more important for Jared Vanderbilt to take primary point of attack assignments. And so I wouldn't be surprised, especially in specific matchups, if Jared Vanderbilt spends a lot of time with the starting unit as the three, which means Ruy's kind of gonna be the backup for the guy that comes in for Lebron when he subs out around the five minute mark. That's why I love the idea of him working out with Lebron. I don't think Ruby Hatchamura is a good perimeter defender. He's not going to navigate screens well or keep really quick guards or wings in front. What he is gonna do is he's going to be able to defend big, strong forwards well, and he's gonna be able to occasionally switch and guard a big man, and that's real value. That's a defensive role. We talked about the two different kinds of forward roles, the more big man type of four, the Aaron Gordon type of player where you're more guarding taller wings that are pull up shooters because you can bother them with contests and you can switch on to Biggs, but you're not gonna navigate screens as well. Whereas we have the skinnier forward, which is like the Jaden McDaniels type. They are great on the perimeter because they can sidle up over screens and they can bother players from behind with back pressure. That's what Jared Vanderbilt does best. And so I actually think Ruey makes the most sense as essentially a backup forour He's gonna play some three for the record, and when he plays three, they're gonna need guys like Austin Reeves to take primary point of attack assignments. But I think Ruey makes the most sense slotted next to Ad as the four when Lebron is off the floor, and inevitably Lebron's gonna miss twenty twenty five games this year, just like he has been for the most part in this phase of his career. That is the big benefit there. If Rui's been working out with Lebron, and we know Lebron is famously basically a gym rat, and I'm referring more to the weight room. Obviously, Lebron puts in court work, but Lebron is religious with the way he builds his body to be able to withstand what he needs to do at his position throughout an eighty two game season. That is good for Rui because Rui's physical build is a lot more similar to Lebrun than it is to a traditional perimeter defensive wing. Ruby can post up a small in a mismatch. Ruby can thrive on the glass. Ruby can't get going and transition and be a little bit of a freight train. Ruby can do a lot of those things, and so slotting him next to Anthony Davis as a four makes a lot of sense. And so attaching himself to Lebron and working out with him all summer is really encouraging, not just for the overall development of Rui, but where he's going to fit in this specific rotation. There are also some positives from Media Day about Anthony Davis. Lebron said he's the face of the franchise. That's a good indicator of just the amount of responsibility that the whole franchise believes Anthony Davis should hold. Austin Austin Reeves said in his Media Day availability that Ad looks especially motivated. He said in his interview with Zach Low that AD's been shooting really, really well, which is encouraging. And then Anthony Davis himself and his Media Day availability said that he basically went on for a little while about how he wants revenge on the Nuggets for them to sit, which, by the way, winner gets to talk shit that how that's how it works. But the way a competitor is supposed to respond to that is to get pissed off and want revenge. And that's what I'm seeing out of Anthony Davis. Also, for you Laker fans, tomorrow, we have a special surprise where having Yovan Buja from the Athletic the their lead Lakers reporter, is going to be coming on with us to give a full breakdown not only of some of the media day stuff that they talked about, but he's gonna give us some insight on what he saw from practice today. So we'll get to see some in some on the court intel from yovon tomorrow. All right. Number four, No, Damian Lillard is not as good on defense as Drew Holiday and it doesn't matter quote from Drew. He inevitably got asked about it on media Day, he said, I'm not gonna come in here and be Drew Holliday. I think, in my personal opinion, he's the best defender on the perimeter. He later went on to say I ain't a pushover, basically saying like, I won't be like Drew, but I'm not going to be an easy guy to score on either. And he's right, he's not Drew, and this move fundamentally changes the defensive identity of the Bucks. That goes without saying. He's also right that he's not a pushover. Dame is a good athlete. Dame is strong. Dame is a fire hydrant guy that can hold his ground and beat people to spots. But he definitely needs to make a greater commitment on the defensive end in this particular season. But I expect him to. You know, there's a reason why Dame wasn't super committed on the defensive end in Portland. Like, at a certain point, as a player, you have to make a decision about what the team needs from you. I'll use Lebron to make this example. Lebron in twenty eighteen that caz team needed him to do everything offensively, and the identity of that team was to outscore people, so he didn't devote as many resources to the defensive end. He'd focus on particular plays like a rim protection opportunity here, a transition chase down there. But he would like you concede threes to some players and not make extra defensive rotations at times because on that team, it actually made the most sense for him to have all of his energy devoted to becoming this great offensive engine. Then he gets to twenty twenty with the Lakers. That team's identity was defense. There was a lot more ball handling and shooting on that particular team than was on the twenty eighteen Caves. He had Rajon Rondo to take over possessions right, He had Anthony Davis as a guy, especially in the twenty twenty season, that he could throw the ball to and get quality offense out. So Lebron was a more dedicated defensive player. Lebron is one of the best defensive seasons of his career in twenty twenty, So that's a decision you have to make based on the construct of the roster. Those Portland teams were never going to be defensive juggernauts, and their best chance to win was get enough stops and let Dame just beat you with his unbelievable offensive skill. This Milwaukee team totally different. He's not the best player anymore. Giannis is going to be able to help a lot in those areas, and they have a bigger defensive identity than the Portland Trailblazers did, so I expect Dame to make a decision to devote more resources to the defensive end as a result, it's a no brainer at that point. Again, I think there's a difference between a guy who's a bad defensive player and a guy who's playing bad defense. I don't think Dame's a great defensive player, but there's no reason in the world why he can't do a job within the Milwaukee Bucks scheme, especially with their improtection. He's plenty athletic enough to do so, all right. Number five, Jamal Murray's gonna make an All Star team this year. We had a quote from Mike Malone on media Day. My goal for Jamal. My challenge for Jamal is to show that you can do what you did in twenty playoff games. Because what Jamal did in the playoffs was ridiculous. I want him to be the first time All Star this year. I want you Murray to be an All NBA player. He's got to do it in October. He's got to do it in November. He can't be the slow start. The guys that are on top of their game, they bring it every single night. Now, I want to be clear there. I thought Jamal started to take this leap in the bubble, and then, like a lot of players that came back from the bubble, they had a really quick turnaround, like less than two months to hop into training camp, and so a lot of those guys struggled. Even Anthony Davis, who was playing like a top five player in the world before he got hurt. Even at the beginning portions of the season, ad was a shell of himself. He averaged like twenty one points a game, and before the injury wasn't the same guy. Neither was Jamal. Neither were a lot of the players that came out of the bubble like that. That's typical from that specific circumstance. Then Jamal gets hurt, misses the rest of that season, in an entire additional season. Then he comes back last year and it's that first year back from a significant injury, which comes with its own list of drawbacks as you're trying to regain confidence in planting hard on that knee and all those different hurdles that you have to get over, right. This is his first full healthy season, after a normal summer, after a normal training camp, after his injury, after his ascendance in the twenty twenty playoffs, when he showed what he could do in that series against the against the Jazz, and again against the Clippers, and again against the Lakers. So like, I expect him to play well enough. The biggest, you know, kind of hurdle was going to be, does he have a spot on the All Star team? Just with the talent at his position, But now Damian Lillard's out of the conference, So if Jamal comes in in shape and is ready to go, I expect. I don't think he just randomly gets better in the playoffs. I think he's just that good at basketball, So I expect him to come into the season and play that well. Making all NBAS a little bit tougher just because of the depth at that position across the league. But I don't see any reason at all why Jamal can't be an All Star this year. And I certainly expect him to average at least twenty three points a game for the season. I expect the best regular season of Jamal Murray's career this year. All right, Number six, No, the Suns do not need a point guard, but they do need their stars to take on a bigger role than they're used to taking on. We had a quote Kevin Durant was asked about the point guard position on the Suns and he said, I don't think you have a true position anything. I think a lot of guys can help play each position. Now we've been talking about the last few years positionless basketball. Book has brought it up, has brought the basketball up his whole career. Brad and myself have done the same thing. I'm sure it'd be done by committee, if anything. Referring to the point guard position, and he's absolutely right. What is a point guard's job. A point guard's job is to on the offensive end, on the offensive job, and the point guard's job is to get your offense organized. It's his job to bring the ball at the floor, navigate ball pressure if there is any, and get the ball to a spot where you have an advantage to help you run your offense. Nowadays, we're less running offense and more running action, right, So like we're not trying to run like five players in emotion, we're trying to get the ball at the floor to the right ball handler and then running a ball screen or dribble handoff or something along those lines. And then you might have a separate action on the opposite end of the floor to try to occupy help defenders. But a lot of times it's just two man game or three man game. It's not a five man action, right, And so a point guard is not as important as it used to be. It's more important to have guys who can make plays. How many guys do you have on your roster that can bring the ball to the floor against pressure and run a two man game or run a three man game and consistently generate quality shots. And the Suns have three of those dudes, so they're gonna be just fine. They do not need a point guard. However, what is the defensive role of a point guard? The defensive role of a point guard is to be your primary point of attack defender, usually guarding the other team's primary bell handler. And that's the thing is he says, we've got to do it by committee. If anything, I would apply that to the defensive roles as well. Kevin Durant's gonna have to help with rim protection. Bradley Beal in particular, is gonna have to step up his defensive focus and energy kind of the way Devin Booker has in recent years. They're gonna need all three of those guys to be bought into the dirty work because there will be fistfights along the way. There are gonna be teams that are all so good and talented that might be more committed in those areas. Remember the mail back question yesterday. Parody has made it so that those details matter more now because we have five, six really damn good teams at the top of the league. How well do you defend? What is your natural basketball chemistry, like you know, how well coached are you? What's your injury history? Those are the kinds of things that are gonna end up playing a role. And so, yeah, they don't need a point guard, but they do need guys to take on bigger roles, particularly on the defensive end of the four All right, mailback questions, So first one, this one, I'm not calling out any specific question I had the Warriors video yesterday, and I had a ton of guys bringing up the free throw disparity in that series, and so I wanted to point out an obvious fact Warriors fans, Yes, the Lakers shot a lot more free throws than you in that series. Also, did you know that the Lakers led the NBA in free throw attempts per one hundred possessions and the Warriors were dead last in the entire NBA in free throw attempts per one hundred possessions for the whole season. Also, did you know the Lakers allowed opponents to shoot the fewest amount of free throw attempts per one hundred possessions in the entire NBA and the Warriors ranked twenty third on that list. So all season for eighty two games, the Lakers were really good at drawn fouls and never fouled anybody, and the Warriors were absolutely terrible at drawing fouls and fouled too much. So it's literally impossible for those two teams to play each other and not have a big free throw disparity. If you're focusing on the free throw disparity, you're losing sight of all of the other things that are happening on the court. I also had guys talking about Andrew Wiggins's ribs, like Lebron was playing on a bad foot that cut his regular season points per game by six. You know, everyone's banged up. I'm not trying to say that like there aren't wrinkles and things that can happen in a series that sway the outcome, of course, but it happens to everybody, and it's a loser mentality to not accept the loss and identify where you can improve to make sure that doesn't happen again, versus making excuses. Because I promise you, if the Warriors go about this season thinking we're gonna win as long as we get a better whistle and as long as Andrew Wiggins's ribcage doesn't get ca, I'm sorry, you're just gonna lose again. So like I again, like I'll give you the Lakers as an example. You guys know I'm the Lakers are the team that I root for the most. They did. They lost in the Nugget Series because they were too unathletic in the backcourt, because Lebron James and Anthony Davis couldn't make jump shots, and because they did not have a playoff playable backup center. They had a great offseason, They addressed a lot of regular season depth needs. Did they get any more athletic in the backcourt? No? Did Lebron or Anthony Davis get better as jump shooters? We will see. Did they bring in a playoff playable center. Probably not. Now Bruce Brown is gone, so their athletic mismatches in the back court might not be as big of a deal. But here's the deal. The Lakers can blame. Like I saw Anthony Davis yesterday talk about, oh h we had to hit it hard for two months going into the playoffs. That's great, but you also had problems against the Nuggets. And so if you think just because we have a full training camp and we can have a normal season, we're gonna beat the Nuggets, now you're not beating the Bruce Brown piece will help you with your athleticism matchup in the back court. That's good. But if Lebron James and Anthony Davis don't start making damn jump shots, and if they don't find somebody that can anchor the center position with Lebron on the floor of Anthony Davis off, you're gonna lose to the Nuggets Again. You see what I'm saying. As teams, excuse making might offer you some sort of temporarily temporary emotional benefit, but reality is the only way you're going to identify your problems, address your problems, and make the necessary steps to win the next time you get there. That's what winners do, and I expect the Warriors to do so. I promise you the Warriors aren't going into this season thinking the Lakers beat us because of the refs, or the Lakers beat us because Wiggins's ribcage got caved in. I promise you that's not what they're thinking. They're thinking, we have to be better in these specific areas to be able to beat the Lakers. All right, Next mail back question. This one's from Ryan. How much value do you see in the plus minus stat on a standard stat sheet? I know you like to deep dive on stats, but I look at the standard stat sheet during and after games, and I always find it odd when I see a player scored, say thirty points in their team one, but they are minus five on the stats, even though I know they needed their points to win, but technically they lost those minutes they were on the floor. So plus minus is one of the most convoluted stats in basketball because there are tons of things that can poison the data, so to speak. Right, Let's say, for instance, Nuggets fans going like, ah, we always suck with Jeff Green on the floor last year, and it's like, yeah, but you were always terrible with Jokic on the bench in general, and it like in your offense falls apart. Right, Lebron at center units for the Lakers, they got destroyed, but they didn't have a backup center, so like those units were not physically equipped to win basketball games, and they had to use them against really good playoff teams, and so Lebron's plus minus was all messed up because he would just get his butt kicked in the bench group and then he'd come back and look great when he was playing alongside Ad. You get the point. But like anytime I'm looking at any piece of data, I want to look at the bigger picture again. We like, my whole thing with analytics is not it's useless. It's just another piece of data. And you should never watch the games without looking for the production that backs it up. And you should never look at the production without walking watching the games to see what happens they are It's a symbiotic relationship between all those pieces. You can't just look at any one piece. You have to look at the full picture. I've said this before, but like even play type points per possession, like, oh, you know this player had a bad pick and roll per possession? Okay, what was his spacing? Like what was his roleman Like? Like Damian Lillard was killing teams in pick and roll last year with poor spacing and bad roleman Like, I would imagine his points per possession and pick and roll is gonna go up this year playing alongside Giannis as a screen partner. Right, So like again, there's always contexts and stats plus minus. I think there's use in it. I try to look at it in a larger sample size, like in the whole season versus one game. But even then, lineup structure can have a lot to do with it. So we're gonna look at that data. I'm gonna present that data, but never just take it at face value. Always look at the bigger picture. Analysts often talk about players being soft with respect to getting coached. As a former player and current coach, have you noticed a shift in the way coaches communicate with players now, so every coach has a different style, and I played with coaches. I played for coaches that were very emotional and highly energetic, and then I played with coaches that were more chill and always kept an even keel throughout any situation. Doesn't mean there's a right or wrong way to do it. I do think that there's a line to cross, like when you start hitting players that can be rough. But I also think it's important for coaches to be hard on players. And one of the main reasons why is, like, like Draymond said, you're gonna run into assholes on the court, and so I think it's valuable to have a coach that's willing to be a little bit of an asshole to you because we can talk about like society and mental health and all these things all we want, and those things matter, but on the court, it's it's ruthless. They don't care. Like they might sympathize with your personality type and the way you handle tough love off the court, but if they know that if I talk some shit to you, you're gonna crumble, they're gonna talk shit to you on the court, and so I think it's valuable to have a coach that's willing to poke and prod you a little bit. It because it tests out those emotions. It builds toughness so that when you're in the game and you encounter some of that same adversity, you can respond to it better. And so again, like I think, I don't think coaching is becoming too soft, but I do think I see occasional comments about coaching that are ignorant to that fact. Yeah, and I in an ideal environment, we could compete and it'd be all sunshine and rainbows. But that's not how it works. Everyone's looking for every tiny little edge they can get, and it's a significant edge when you can get in your opponent's head. The mental warfare is a big part of the game. All right, last mailbag question. I remember you going over your fascination with Star Wars and have your other podcast on Star Wars two Suns. I want to believe I'm fairly new to this amazing series, and I know these mail bags are mainly for basketball, but I wanted to hear your take on who do you think is the most powerful character in Star Wars canon or legends? Great question, So, yes, I do have a Star Wars podcast later tonight. Actually, I'll be breaking down with my buddy Luke, who lives here in Tucson with me, doesn't literally live with me, but lives here in Tucson. Him and I do a podcast together where we cover the Star Wars and we're gonna be covering Ah Soca in the season finale tonight. You can find that on YouTube under Tucson's Podcast. But I am a general, like in general, a Star Wars nerd, and not just Star Wars but all fantasy. So big Game of Thrones fan, big Lord of the Rings fan. Big I've been liking that Rings of Power series in general. I'm a big sci fi fan. I'm just like I love Alien Invasion movies are like my absolute favorite. I want to go see this new movie, The Creator that's coming out that's based on artificial intelligence. I like sci fi like fantasy. I like any show or movie or book that has like deep lore. I've always appreciated like really good storytelling in that sense. Star Wars. I'm gonna go who's the most powerful character in Star Wars canon the legends? Obviously there are a lot of powerful characters in Star Wars lore. I am gonna go though with this particular question with Darth Bain. There are three Darth Baine books. They're technically legends, although Darth Baine has been canonized in the Clone Wars TV show. I actually am going through the books right now and we're doing reviews on them. We're gonna be doing a review on the first Bane book probably next week. But Darth Baine is basically the Sith lord that came up with the Rule of two and so like, there were all these Jedi and all these Sith, and there were like thousands of them, right, but the Jedi were like teammates and they all wanted to work together for the greater good and all this stuff. In the Sith, It's like the Sith ideology is very selfish and like trying to be ambitious and get all the power you can, and so naturally, if you have a thousand of them, they'll kill each other. And you know, you might have one guy who's super powerful, but two weaker guys will team up and kill him, you know, that kind of thing. So Darth Baine was a Sith a thousand years before the Phantom Menace who kind of identified this problem and was like I'm not gonna let this happen anymore. And he literally killed all of the Sith and then started the order himself with just one apprentice who he trained, and then the apprentice would take a spot and take a new apprentice, and that's how things passed down. And that Bain line, or Bain's Grand Plan as he called it, actually culminates with Darth Sidius or Emperor Palpatine overthrowing the Republic and killing all the Jedi. Right. So, like Darth Baine is literally the guy who killed all the old Sith, created the modern version of the Sith, and started the plan that culminated in the Star Wars movies that we watched. I think he's one of the coolest Star Wars characters, one of my personal favorites. The books are really good. Drew Carpishen wrote them. He also wrote Mass Effect. But they're very straightforward. It's not a lot of fluff. It's not a lot of bouncing back and forth between plot lines. They're short books that are just all action, really really good reads. They're very dark, a lot of diving into syth ideology and stuff. But big Star Wars fan highly recommend the Darth Maine Books. Make sure you check out my Ahsoka breakdown with Luke after I'll put it up tonight, probably right around like a thirty nine o'clock specific standard time, but yeah, so if you want. But basically a lot of all my non basketball content is going to be on that particular channel. All right, guys, That is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume