Saturday Slam N JamAndrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the NBA Headlines of the week including Paolo Banchero's injury, Nuggets and Bucks struggling and a Wemby 5x5. Then the guys discuss the Rookie of the Year odds and their favorite things from the week including their favorite players, quotes, and more. In part 2 Bryce Simon of the Game Theory and Pistons Pulse podcasts joins to discuss the Pistons and if there is anything from their early start that indicates good progress. Then in the final segment they play a fun and stressful edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a game show hosted by Alex Speers where Andrew and Bryce go head to head in Pistons trivia.Host: Andrew SchlechtWith: Alex Speers and Bryce SimonExecutive Producer: Andrew Schlecht Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What are the top NBA headlines this week?
Welcome to the Saturday Slammin' Jam. I'm your host, Andrew Schlecht. With me, as always, is my good friend, Alex Spears. Today on the show, we are going to go through some headlines. We're going to talk Rookie of the Year. We are also going to go through our favorite things. And then at the tail end of the show, we're going to have our buddy Bryce Simon come on to discuss the Detroit Pistons.
And of course... do some ridiculous trivia. That is very fun. Very much looking forward to that. But before we get to any of the trivia, any of the chaos, Alex, tell me about the top stories in the NBA this week.
Well, Andrew, the top story this week was our first 50-point game of the season. In a game against Indiana, Paulo Banqueiro bullied the Pacers, getting to the line 22 times en route to a 50-13-9 line. Paulo's 37 points in the first half tied a franchise record for most points and a half previously set by Tracy McGrady. Through five games, Bancaro is averaging 29 points per game for the 3-2 Magic.
Chapter 2: What is the impact of Paolo Banchero's injury?
Unfortunately, later in the week, we would find out that Paulo had a torn right oblique that will keep him out for the next four to six weeks, a significant blow for the young Magic team. Paulo, who averaged 4.4 three-point attempts per game last season, took nine three-pointers in that 50-point game, another data point in what has been an historical start to the NBA season from three.
Currently, NBA teams are taking more than 40% of their shots from three, the highest attempt rate ever. Owen Phillips noted in his blog, The F5, the rise in three-point attempts is largely coming from an increase in pull-up attempts from behind the arc. Take Anthony Edwards, for example.
Kevin O'Connor pointed out that Ant is taking 58.9% of his shots from three, a rate that is higher than any James Harden season. And that includes Ant taking nearly nine pull-up threes per game. The Bulls, the freaking Bulls, who used to be allergic to threes during the DeRozan era, tied a franchise record this week for made three-pointers in a game with 25. When will this madness stop, Andrew?
I can remember watching Monte Ellis go out there and shoot 36% on eight mid-range attempts per game, and I liked it, Andrew. I liked that. I thought that was good. I liked it, Andrew. I would yell at my TV. I say, give it to the Mississippi bullet and let him try some stuff. Now I'm watching these losers step back a couple of feet and shoot the same percentage as Monte.
And I'm barfing my guts out, Andrew. And speaking of barf. The Nuggets had one of the more bad good weeks I've ever seen. They ended up going 2-1 on the week. Solid result. But two wins. Both required overtime and were against two teams, the Raptors and the Nets, who are expected to be in the lottery this season. And of note in the Raptors game, Scotty Barnes sustained an orbital fracture.
He's going to be sidelined for at least three weeks. Now, for the Nuggets, they continue to be carried by Nikola Jokic. He's averaging 31-12-9 on 57-55-78 shooting. Now, it's only four games. This will change. But as of right now, per Cleaning the Glass, Jokic's on-off number is plus 38.9. Now, for reference, his previous high for a season was plus 24.8.
Jokic may be as good as ever, but Denver's bench may be as bad as ever. Dario Saric, one of Calvin Booth's top targets this summer. He said it was one of his top targets. We got to get this guy. We have to land Dario Saric. He played 39 minutes this season so far. The Nuggets have been outscored in those minutes by 30 points.
Well, at least the good news for Nuggets fans is, you know, Calvin Booth didn't give Dario Sarge a player option for next season. What's that now? Yeah. Breaking news. Yeah, that's a rough one. It does distract me a little bit from the Zeke Nagy contract, so maybe that was part of the idea. You know what this is?
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Chapter 3: How are the Nuggets and Bucks performing this season?
This is an MVP rope-a-dope, is what this is. He knew what he was doing. He is decreasing the bench level to increase this number so that we can throw it around and get Jokic another MVP. That's all this is, everybody.
We call this the Samaj Christian tactic. It was used very successfully in 2017 when Russ won the MVP. Well, another former champ who isn't looking too hot is the Milwaukee Bucks, who have now lost four in a row. They sit at one and four, tied with our Detroit Pistons. Now, some of those losses, understandable, a competitive loss at Boston.
But the Bucs have also dropped games against Chicago and Brooklyn, two teams you would expect them to beat. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Bucs currently have the 23rd-ranked offense and 26th-ranked defense.
Chris Middleton remains out, and the upcoming schedule doesn't do them any favors, as their next two games are against the 5-0 Cavaliers, one of two remaining undefeated teams in the league, along with the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Cavs' last two wins included an impressive win at MSG over the Knicks and a complete blowout of the Lakers in Cleveland.
The Thunder continued their winning streak with a home win over the Spurs, a marquee matchup for the brewing Chet-Wemby rivalry that got an extra boost this week when ESPN analyst Michael C. Wright said that Wemby, quote, will not even say the man's name. referring to Chet. That sounds more than a rivalry.
Now, maybe he should try saying his name because whatever he did do to prepare for the Thunder game did not work as Wendy was held to a career low six points in the loss. But don't feel too bad for him because in the very next game against the Utah Jazz, when be recorded the second five by five of his career, putting up twenty five, nine and seven with five steals, five blocks.
And just for fun, four threes, the most three-pointers ever recorded in a 5x5 game. He was one three away from a 5x6, Andrew. We've never even seen that. He became only the third player in NBA history, along with Hakeem and Andre Kirilenko, to have multiple 5x5 games in his career, and he did it by year two.
Another crazy stat from that game is that the Spurs were a plus 43 in Wemby's minutes and a minus 26 when he was off the court. Finally, this week, we say farewell to a Hooper. Rudy Gay announced his retirement from the NBA. This week, Rudy played 17 seasons in the NBA, accumulating over 17,000 points in his career.
I'll remember Rudy mostly from his early Memphis days, where he was averaging 20 points per game by his second season. And early on in his career, he felt like one of those guys who was always just about to fully break out and make the leap to All-Star status.
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Chapter 4: Who are the top contenders for Rookie of the Year?
I think there would probably be more than one offer and probably a lot more than $20 handed over to Steve-O.
Now we move on to our favorite stat this week, and mine is the CP3 effect, which the guy's 40 years old, but it's still happening. If you don't know what the CP3 effect is, it is that when CP3 comes to your team, he dramatically changes the pace at which they play. Yeah.
I'm just going to go through his entire career, okay, talking about the teams that he went to, what their pace was the year before he came, and then what their pace was in their first year. So, for instance, when he went to the Clippers from New Orleans, they went from the 13th fastest-paced team to 27th. The Rockets, when he went there, went from the third fastest to 13th.
The Thunder went from the sixth fastest to the 21st. The Suns went from the ninth to the 24th. The Warriors went from the first, the fastest team in the league, to the 11th. And now, through five games, the Spurs... Third fastest team last year, currently 23rd.
And I just think this is a really interesting thing to track going forward, because if you look at something like the percentage of their plays that are in transition last year, very common for like a young team with a bunch of young guys, athletic guys running up and down the court. They were second in the percentage of their plays that were in transition and currently they're 21st.
So I'm just really interested to see how that affects someone like when Benyama, who obviously had an amazing game against Utah, but before that kind of felt like he was getting off to a little bit of a slow start. at least for a lot of people who drafted him number one overall in fantasy basketball. But they were rewarded last night.
So I'm just interested to watch this CP3 effect and how it affects a young team. Because usually when we're thinking about CP3 going to a team, it's usually a veteran team. I mean, all of these other cases were CP3 going to a veteran team. So now he's going to this young rebuilding team.
And for a lot of other teams, getting out in transition is always like a big thing for them because it's easy buckets for a lot of these young guys. And so now we have CP three at the helm. They have not been great in the half court so far, but of course it's only through five games, but just something I thought was interesting and, and want to pay attention to going forward.
Yeah. My stat of the week was this. I was shocked to see this. These are the bottom five teams and opponent field goal percentage in the restricted area. So what teams are shooting at the rim against these particular teams? So not not a lot of surprises here. So coming in at number 26, the Utah Jazz opponents are shooting 73 percent at the rim. Seems pretty good. Makes sense.
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Chapter 5: What improvements have the Detroit Pistons made this season?
Okay, this is a good one. Hooper is the name of the Pistons mascot. He is a horse, which is a reference to the horsepower in a car. What bodily function can a horse not do? So I'm going to name you five bodily functions. One of them a horse is not able to do. Okay, so here we go. Sweat. Vomit, sneeze, cry, or cough. Once again, that is sweat, vomit. Bryce, I have terrible news. Horses can sweat.
They do it to cool themselves down. Similar to humans. Andrew, so you get to guess the other possible answers. Vomit, sneeze, cry, or cough.
Vomit,
I'll say cough. I don't know. No, not cough. Not cough. Cry. I don't know.
That's really cool. When you change the answer, I was like, oh, my gosh, he's going to get the right one. But you got both of them wrong. You picked two wrong ones. Horses cannot vomit. Really? They can't do it. Yeah. Yeah. I remember we had a question a while back about rodents, because no rodent can vomit either. And I learned in researching Hooper that horses can't vomit as well.
All right, Andrew, the board is yours.
You really could have went easier. You could have just asked me the name of the Pistons mascot, and I still would have missed that.
Oh, really? Would you have known the Pistons' former mascot before Hooper? No. No. OK, because I didn't know that you started following in 2020 because I really wanted to use that as a question. But I was like, oh, he's a Pistons fan. He's going to know it for sure.
No, no. Like, yeah, I probably wouldn't have got Hooper.
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Chapter 6: What are the major weaknesses of the Pistons?
Yep. Yep. Sadiq. Okay. Bryce, the board is yours. You're only down by one. Four. Question number four. Tobias Harris was brought to Detroit in part for his shooting. And while he's currently shooting three of 20 from three better days are surely ahead. What is the most amount of three pointers Tobias has ever made as a piston? Now you get to choose who answers first. Okay.
So you can make Andrew answer first and then you can go higher, lower, or you can answer first and then Andrew would go higher, lower. However, If you make Andrew answer and he gets it exactly correct, he would get a bonus point. So this is the most amount of threes Tobias has ever made as a piston in a game. I will let Andrew guess. All right, Andrew.
If you get it exactly correct, you'd get a nice little bonus point. Six. All right, so Andrew has set the bar at six. Bryce, would you like to go higher or lower than six? That's a really good bar, Andrew.
Thank you.
Because if it was five, I definitely would have went over.
I'm going to go over still. Over. Andrew, you were within one of the correct answer.
I think I did this last week, too, where I was within one of whatever it was.
You got it wrong last week, but this week you also got it wrong because it is seven. So Bryce gets the points. Look at that. And Bryce pulls ahead. He's now up three to two. Three questions left, Andrew. Five. Question number five. In honor of the Pistons theoretically getting more shooters, let's name the top 10 in franchise history for total made threes.
So how this works, Andrew will give me a name, then Bryce will give me a name. We'll go back and forth till one of you stumbles. So franchise history, total made threes as a Piston. Okay. Chauncey Billups. Chauncey Billups, number two. Over to Bryce. Joe Dumars. Joe Dumars, number one. Back to Andrew.
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Chapter 7: Who is the player to watch in the Pistons lineup?
He was a stretch four for a minute. Yeah. Okay.
Wow, he's actually really far down. Any other guesses, though, for fun? For fun? Just for fun? One player had 95 of his first 133 games, double-digit rebounds. Whoa. And that player was Carl Anthony Towns. Oh. And the other two guys were DeAndre Ayton. And Joel Embiid. Joel Embiid.
Feels like cheating. Embiid feels like cheating.
I thought you might go back to the DeAndre Jordan well.
It crossed my mind. It crossed my mind, but I know that he was a third string center for the Clippers for a long time. Very smart. Yeah.
Even Rudy. Rudy had 44. Okay, Andrew, this is the final question. You get it right, you win the week. You get it wrong, Bryce will have a chance to steal and tie the game, sending it into overtime. Oh, boy. Cade Cunningham has scored 2,886 points through 143 career games. Which active former number one overall pick scored the most points through their first 143 games with 3,583?
So this is an active player, former number one overall pick, most points scored total through their first 143 games.
Active player, former number one overall pick.
That is right. Okay. Okay. Is it just LeBron James?
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