Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for April 9th, 2026. I'm Dave DuFour here with Zena Keita and Fred Katz. Coming up, we go deep with Fred on his all perimeter defense team. We break down why Derek White is actually the Celtics best center. And is Wimby right about defense being 50% of the game? Good morning, everybody. Welcome, Fred Katz. How you doing? Zena Kata's here.
Last week of the regular season, we're going to talk a little bit about Fred's all perimeter defense team. But Fred, man, welcome back to the show.
Chapter 2: Why do Nets fans feel hopeless this season?
Thank you for having me. I'm always thrilled to be a part of it.
Yeah, and I think I'm contractually obligated to then do your show immediately after this. We get this home and home.
Chapter 3: What makes Derek White the best center for the Celtics?
Which, by the way, if you guys don't listen to Cats and Shoot, great podcast. Had a fun time talking to Fred a few weeks ago about some of the particulars about the Knicks and the Eastern Conference in general. Really good follow-up conversation to the last time we were on the pod together.
Um, before we get into your all perimeter team, which, uh, I love the exercise and we, we talked a lot about it and I'm going to get into your process there.
Chapter 4: Is defense really 50% of the game according to Wimby?
Do you have any end of the season takes that you want to get off your chest?
I got, I got one take. Ooh. And I'm going to shout this out. I'm going to shout out my friend Wade, who is the only remaining Brooklyn Nets fan. Maybe I shouldn't say remaining. Maybe I should just say he's the only ever existing.
Shout out to Mike Smeltz.
And Wade. Oh, yeah. Wade is having a breakdown. Because the Nets were three games back technically, but really up in the tank on the Sacramento Kings. And they have accidentally won.
Chapter 5: How did Fred Katz select his All-Perimeter Defense team?
a couple of games and might are in danger of falling to maybe fifth lottery positioning after what was supposed to be a glorious tank season. After the whole pick swap deal with Houston and Wade, which means because Wade's losing his mind, I can confidently say the entire Nets fan base is the only guy.
Exactly. What did we do this for?
Remember that seven and three stretch that the Nets went on? It's right around the time that all the tanking teams got a little bit more competitive, like the middle of December. where I'm assuming there was some sort of secret memo that went out. It was like, hey, guys, clean it up. It's too early for this.
Right, right, right. I mean, month of January, they had like the number one ranked Defense? Defense, yeah. Close to it?
We were talking about Jordy Fernandez being an amazing coach around that time.
He's too good of a coach.
He is, of course. But he was on display for the country to see, and that was the problem. This should have been a secretive thing, but yeah.
They play hard. They run good sets, you know? You get guys out there who are just like dropping 14, 17 points who you've never heard of in the first half, and you're like, why? are the nets running this real set when the Pacers are just deciding, just, just actually fall over and just kill over like six minutes left tie game, keel over. That is the game plan here.
Okay. At least they're not fouling. Yeah. Seth Curry. No, no game where they have a lead.
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Chapter 6: What criteria did Fred use for evaluating perimeter defenders?
Come on, man. You're not, I mean, number one, you're probably not winning with him. But doesn't that guy need NBA minutes? I mean, isn't this the entire thing? I think that that actually is the most egregious part about the tanking. Dayron Sharp needs to play basketball, man. Like he is just not good enough to not be playing in games.
Well, he is. He is playing. Right. And the Nets are going to be fifth in the lottery.
Right. Maybe.
Wade thinks they're somehow going to fall to fifth in the lottery positioning. And then there are going to be four teams that enter the top four that were somewhere between six and 14. And the Nets are going to fall to ninth. And he is out.
He's out. His world is collapsing around him. I mean, the answer to that, Dave, I think is the same reason that folks have people that absolutely should be playing in summer league, not playing in summer league. And it's the injury thing, right? Oh, we don't want to risk anything, whatever. And it's like, these guys need to be playing in the summer league. They need these reps.
They need opportunities. But I feel like it's the same thing with these tanking teams.
I don't know. Listen, you're never going to prevent every injury. Fred Van Fleet tore his ACL in a in a pickup game, you know, before training camp. Right. Like this is just stuff happens. But not playing these guys in NBA games. NBA minutes are a premium. Right. There's there is a finite amount of them that you get. Period. And to not allocate them to the players that need them to develop.
Just it's completely backwards to me. But I understand you got to lose to get that pick. It would help if the Nets had hit on any of their draft picks last year. I think like to be a Nets fan, there's not like what is there to hope for outside of, hey, maybe this is the year that we get number one.
They have a lot of draft picks. What do they have? 13 picks over the next six years or something like that. They have, they have a lot of draft picks, which kind of gets overlooked. They have cat maneuverability. I think they'll get something for Michael Porter Jr. That's why they held on to him because they want something for Michael Porter Jr.
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Chapter 7: Why are defensive stops often overlooked in discussions?
I do too. I like Dioman. I was going to say, he has potential to be something bigger than what he is right now.
Yeah. Had a strange, never seen a guard get called for so many defensive three-second calls.
Hmm.
Wanted to write a note on this for my notebook all season. Never did it. Never seen a guard get called for so many defensive three-second calls. The Nets in general just get like a ton of defensive three-second calls. Never seen a guard get called for so many defensive three-second calls. Just constantly in the paint. That's like a Nets defense thing.
Yeah, well, that's one of those things that's like fouling, right? They can't call three seconds every single time. So why 2-9? You know what I mean?
Just call it on the rookie. Call it on the rookie. Call it on the rookie guard. And it just happens like, I don't know, probably 10 times this year. The dude's had a defensive three-second call. But yeah, Yeoman's good. He's had some... Really nice passing games. He's got height. He shot the ball way better than I expected him to this year.
I actually found the three-point rate to be simultaneously concerning and encouraging, where I'm like, okay, he shot the ball really well, but I'm also like, can you get to the rim a little bit more? Can you use your dribble to get to the rim more? Can you not rely on that to the degree that you are? But I like him. The other guys are like, I'm not going to have German all rookie though. Right.
Like, even though it was a top 10 pick, I, in an, in a, in like a, like last year, I would have had, if he, if he were in last year's draft class and had this season, I would have had him all rookie. This year's rookie class is too good. It's absurd.
This is the only podcast, by the way, talking about the Brooklyn Nets. The last week of the regular season. That's why you guys listen to the NBA daily.
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Chapter 8: How does the positionality debate affect defensive player awards?
No, we're going to start with, we're going to start about, talk about Yegor Dioman defensive three second goals.
It's amazing. Guys, stick around after the break. We're going to talk about Fred's all perimeter defense team and how we got there. All right, Fred defense in the NBA. It's funny because there are people that know it when they see it. And there are people that just think that it doesn't exist. And perimeter defense is, in my opinion, it's disregarded in favor of rim defense.
Like you see these guys like Victor Wiminyama, Rudy Gobert, Bam Adebayo, Chet Holmgren. They're going to be the front runners for defensive player of the year every single year. We do not recognize the job that these guys that guard on the perimeter and at the point of attack do. And you do. And so I appreciate the amount of work that you put into this stuff every year.
You and I had a conversation about it on the phone. I want to go into a little bit. Like, how did you get this team set? Like, how much film are you watching to do this, man? Like, this is detailed, right?
A lot, a lot, definitely a lot. I mean, I, I know the guys who I'm going to focus on throughout the year. And I obviously know the guys who are great, but like, you know, I do two teams. I do a first team and a second team. And the reason that it takes me a long time to write these stories. And the reason why it takes me a long time is because like, I think I had 66 guys on my initial list.
And then I was like, okay, I think I just named every perimeter defender in the NBA who's not a minus. I kind of have to cut this down a little bit. And I take out the guys where I'm like, okay, you know what?
Because something about me, I don't know, there's something in my brain, my internet brain, makes me feel like if I just put them in the Google Doc, then the commenters will know that I gave a shout out to their guy. when they say, why is my guy not on your team? Why is he not there? Then in my brain, I can be like, I put him on the Google doc. You should know that. He's there.
You really should have seen that. I can show you the Google doc. And so I just, I kind of go through it. I also use it as a good exercise to kind of prep myself because I'm a real awards voter for the real awards. And so it's a good exercise to kind of prep myself for like being the most knowledgeable actual voter that I can be. And, you know, in this case, I kind of narrowed it down to like,
maybe 15, 16. And, and I, you know, just kind of what I had watched all year and whatever else. And then I started watching a lot of film on all the guys and studying numbers and really seeing where everything came up to. And some of them are just like guarantees, like obvious, like I, I obviously Derek White was going to be there.
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