Kelly Iko

speaker

390 appearances 9 recordings 1 series first heard Nov 2024 last heard 11 Feb

Kelly Iko’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 1.

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The Athletic NBA Daily · Booker scores 40; Suns scorch Clippers | Wembanyama 5x5 · 1 Nov 2024 podcast

Now it gets kind of – if you go back to – think of when the Rockets had Clint Capella and Russell Westbrook. It didn't work for a reason because – Late games, Rose wants to go downhill, Clint's in the way. It's kind of a similar thing, only that Alperin is most effective on the block.

But going small is like a tool in Ime's kit where even if you don't play the whole game that way, it's nice to have a strategy to go to switch things up when you want more spacing, when you want guys going downhill. And the key here really isn't really Alperin, but the key is Amin Thompson.

When he's that small ball destroyer in terms of rolling to the rim, downhill force, you saw late in the game he hit that tough mid-range floater in a time where they actually needed that bucket. Just being able to go small, EMA talked about he needed to get more space and he needed to give Fred and Jalen as much room to navigate as possible.

And the only way to do that is by taking off and out of the game.

Yeah, I do. I do. Obviously, the key to assists is your teammates have to make the basket.

And there are about five or six passes every game where he makes a killer pass and they either miss the shot or they weren't expecting it. But in terms of Al Prince processing speed, He could definitely reach those goals. It might take some time just because, you know, the biggest thing now for Jokic, he still has that three-point shot in his bag, right?

Even though it's not his, he won't rely on it, but he'll do it. He'll shoot if he has to. And you may try to get Alperin more comfortable with spacing the floor, taking those threes, even if it's only like two a game. As long as the defense knows they can't just wall up in the middle, knowing that you're able to step out and hit a three, that's going to be a big thing for him.

In terms of the passing, I think his passing is already pretty advanced for his size and his experience. But in terms of the overall package, like, for example, this season, He may have hampered down on him to become more of a screener. And I think last season, the Rockets scored about 10 points off of his screen assist. That number jumped to almost 17.

And adding Steven Adams, which is arguably the best screener of all time, is going to help a lot in that respect. But Alperin, he lost weight over the summer. He got stronger. And he really dug into the film and saw – Why screening is such an underrated skill in the half court and the angles he can create for all those guys.

So to your point, you know, even if you were to go late in the game, you could still go small with Alperin if he's facing the floor and cutting as hard as he can. So it's really give or take depending on the nightly basis. But I think he's in a great spot.

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