How EXACTLY Will Giannis Transform the Miami Heat?

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Thank you for making Lockdown your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the Lockdown NBA Podcast where there's no off season. West Matt and Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations, rumors and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Miami Heat added the honest under the coupou, obviously there are priorities of change this season, but how exactly does he help the team win? You are Lockdown Heat, your daily Miami Heat Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

1:04All right, welcome back to Lockdown Heat Westcover here with David Romil. We got a bunch to talk about today, particularly how exactly does Janus help the Miami Heat? You might be hearing that and be thinking what do you mean? Janus is awesome. He's great top five player in the league. You guys just talked about that this week. Yeah, obviously he's awesome. He's a major talent upgrade to the Miami Heat, but no, how exactly? Where are the specific areas on the court, on offense and on defense that Janus is going to help this basketball team? So we are doing a deep dive into who Janus is as a basketball player. And what are the things that they used to be bad at that now they are going to be good at, merely by getting Janus at Tenekompo. So we'll start with the offensive side of the ball, then we'll go to defensive side of the ball at the end. And in the next segment and then we'll wrap up with some final thoughts and maybe some thoughts on how Janus can help them off the court. But let's start with the offense. And I do think obviously the place to start David is at the basket right at the rim. Janus is Shaquille O'Neill when it comes to converting at the basket volume efficiency.

2:10The guy is unstoppable when he's by the basket. And when I say he's Shaquille O'Neill, that is not hyperbole. You look at the numbers, you look at the graphics that the Milwaukee Bucks would throw up over the last couple of years with Janus. It was always comparing Janus to Shaquille and the numbers were very favorable and very interesting. And here's some more numbers at the rim last year for the Miami Heat. They were according to cleaning the glass 16th in rim frequency. So that's the amount of times that they got to the basket and took a few gold times 16th bottom half the league. And the amount of times that they took a shot at the basket. They were 17th in field goal percentage at the basket. So they didn't get to the rim very much. And when they did, they were just met at actually converting those shots. I'll let you take a guess whether or not Milwaukee was better in their last season. Their last healthy season with Janus, which is two years ago. Is it better? They were better. They were certainly better. David, the last year that Janus was healthy. So two years ago, Milwaukee was fifth in field goal percentage frequency at the rim.

3:14And near the top of the league in converting at the basket. And that was all because of Janus. So that's the place to start, David, is we know how bad the heat want to get to the basket. Eric Spolz talks about it all the time. Heck, they made the terror. It was your trade a few years ago because they thought he could put more pressure on the basket. Well, I would say Janus a little bit better than terror. When he set away for 40 years and then six months into your business. Who you get down from a few years ago, you've gone back a beat and you did nothing that helped. No I could not say which end of it. I thought you weren't a surgically powerfullier player. лавidout technique hypologic flavor and said no to me back there. getting to the rim, not nearly with the same frequency or efficiency. And so we've, I don't know, we've ever seen anything like this, maybe shy of what LeBron James during the big three era. I mean, I don't know what the numbers represent,

4:14but even Dwayne and during his peak seasons, maybe something close, but Yannis, such a powerful force getting to the rim, he's going to create the structure of the offense, is just going to be built on the ability to feed the ball down low and get Yannis to score those easy buckets. You know what he's capable of in transition? It's going to be such a force for opposing defenses to have to deal with. And from there, it says everybody has to find a way to complement. You've got the shooters on the perimeter, you're going to be able to knock down those shots, when he is met at the rim. You've got somebody who can help. In the dunker spot, there's so many different options that we're going to kind of unlock Miami's offense and it all starts with Yannis at the rim. I think that also plays a factor in Miami's spacing with Yannis and with Bam. Because I think in today's NBA, in particular the NBA discourse, we think of spacing as 3-point shooting or no 3-point shooting and like, hey, newsflash, there's a bunch of space between the basket and the 3-point line. And that also counts as spacing.

5:16It's maybe not optimal spacing. It's not five out offense, the way that, you know, Celtics and the Hornets and these teams like to run their offense. But it is space. And you mentioned the big three comparison before and I think that's a good one because the space that somebody like Chris Bosch, we always think about Chris Bosch as this like evolutionary 3-point shooting. He wasn't taking a lot of threes. Those early days in the big three. It wasn't even really until LeBron left that Bosch really started taking more 3-pointers. A lot of his work was in the mid-range, right? Even that for somebody as talented as LeBron James and Dwayne Wade was enough space. It was enough space for them. And that's the difference. When you need space to make average players look above average, you need those guys spaced out to the 3-point line. But if you have somebody like LeBron, Dwayne Wade or Yannis, they don't need that much space. They just need a little bit. And I think Bam with his free throw line jumper is a little bit of space. And that's all Yannis is gonna need because if you're trying to get in front of Yannis and send help towards Yannis and if Bam's guy is trying to shade off of Bam and Bam's over there at that free throw line,

6:16which is his bread and butter shot and has been for years and it's in the Scouting Report. If you're trying to shade off of Bam to help on Yannis, Yannis is just gonna flip that right back to Bam at the free throw line and Bam's gonna hit that wide open free throw line jumper more times and not. And then if you're the defense, then you have to worry about like, well, if we leave Bam, now he's gonna hit that free throw line jumper more times and not. So now you're making the defense think, do I leave Bam or don't I? And that is a really important part in terms of the spacing but it's only made possible because you have that rim pressure element from Yannis. That's not something that Bam ever could play next to in the past, right? Like the closest thing that he would get to that is Jimmy Butler in the post and just looked a little bit different. And even before that, maybe Goran Draugich on the drive but that was so early in Bam's career that Bam didn't really have the free throw line jumper quite at that point. So this will be unlike anything Bam has ever played with and obviously for Yannis, it's not broke low-peds spacing from three, but it is something and I think it's enough and I think it helps Bam a lot too. The other area that Bam is gonna help

7:18or Yannis is gonna help them on offense, obviously the free throw line. We know Yannis gets the line a ton. Milwaukee was third in the league at free throw attempts and Yannis's last healthy season, almost four more per game in the heat average last year when they were 13th in free throw attempts per 100 possession. So just having Yannis parade to the free throw line, that'll also be a dramatic improvement for the heat. We saw the important that was during the Jimmy Butler years and that obviously went away after the Jimmy trade. They're gonna get it back now with Yannis. Yeah, I mean, it's a factor. You can change the game. You can get those points occasionally. You can, it's almost like it's a go-to move offensively that you know he's gonna be able to draw a contact and something like that. But I am concerned about his ability to knock down those shots even more regularly than he has. He's obviously never been a very good free throw shooter. I don't know that he's gonna make that evolution this year, but it's still something. It can't be largely ignored. And you know, because defenses will have to find a way to try and stop them more often than not. One of the best ways to stop it

8:19is just simply fouling them putting them on the line because he is that kind of unstoppable force as we were talking about. So it's certainly a factor to consider, you know, you'll be able to generate something that won't be a lot of wasted possessions with Yannis on the floor because it's either gonna result in the free throw or again, an easy bucket at the brim. So I think that's a big part of it. Just again, Jimmy was able to knock down a lot of those shots. He was a high free throw, a volume free throw shooter. You just, Miami's been a team over the last few seasons that has taken a lot of free throws and has been able to knock those down pretty regularly. You would just hope that Yannis can improve ever so slightly in that department. Yeah, 65% from the free throw line last year, 62% of year before that, 66%. I mean, he's always sort of hovering around that area. The year away, the one that's title, he was at 72%. So there's that. He also, remember, he made like all of his free throws in that last finals game to help the Bucks clinch the championship. But yeah, he's gonna need to improve, I think, on balance. The last part here from Yannis is just overall,

9:22Miami is shooting efficiency, right? Like last year, Miami got a lot of headlines because of their pace. They were playing so fast that they scored a lot of points, but they weren't an efficient offense. They were still sort of bottom half of the league in terms of offensive rating. So they took a lot of shots, but they didn't make enough of them in other words. Yannis also changes that. Miami was 18th in effective field goal percentage last year. Milwaukee was third in Yannis's last healthy season. Just Yannis getting to the basket and converting it a high clip, that is a bread and butter version of your offense, a high efficiency version of your offense. And it's what the heat of not had in the regular season in a very long time. Even in the Jimmy Butler era, like Jimmy became the most efficient offense with his sort of short mid-range jumper in the playoffs, that became sort of like a Michael Jordan-esque efficient shot for him, but it just wasn't for whatever reason in the regular season. It wasn't something that he would go to very much. But for Yannis, it's just always there. The fact that he is seven feet tall and able to dunk everything all the time, that doesn't go away regardless of what month

10:22of the calendar it is. So the efficiency of Miami's offense, I think, is just going to take a huge leap this year. Absolutely. Last year's pace was masking my Amherstian efficiency. Like they were taking all those shots and just being able to push the pace as much as possible and take all those shots was because, well, they just didn't have anybody consistent. It was why Norm Powell became an all-starver's because he was able to thrive in that kind of a type of offense. But with Yannis, he's an offense onto himself. He is the system. And so as a result, he's going to create so many more shots for others on the team. And I think you're going to see that bounce have very quickly how much everybody's going to improve. It's just we keep talking about the Yannis impact and to see what he's going to be able to do to unlock the offense is such a thing that I'm looking forward to in terms of just watching him play and having everybody else find her offense a little bit more steadily and just be able to knock down those shots with a higher efficiency. It's going to be great to see because we haven't seen it

11:24since a long time. Miami's offense, even during their most successful seasons during the Jimmy Butler era, often aggrined. We let playing in the mud. It's like, no, you don't. You have to play in the mud because there are no other options for this team. And last year, we got a taste of something different. It's like, wow, they're putting up a lot of shots. Didn't necessarily translate into anything more effective or more wins, obviously. Now I think you've got something that takes this offense to another level and will be a palatable impact as far as creating more offense and actually winning more basketball games. And then obviously with all this stuff in the paint and everything that Yannis is as a threat at the rim, that opens up the three point shooting. It makes Clay Thompson's life a lot easier. He's talked about that. Wiggins is going to tap on Mitchell. All these other guys, their jobs are going to be a lot easier if they're able to hit these open threes in Yannis. The stats are there too. Just over and over, one of the guys in the league generating the most open threes every single season. That's the offensive side of the ball. Let's talk about how exactly Yannis is going to help on defense coming up next.

12:26Today's episode is brought to you by Odo. Running a business couldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, somehow none of them talking to each other. Well, that's where Odo comes in, because Odo is an all in one business management software that brings every part of your business together in one powerful platform. From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, everything works in one place. Odo is one platform to manage, grow, and scale your business. The best organizations know that success isn't just about talent. It's about having everyone work together toward the same goal. And that's why Odo is such an important part of making your business that take it to the next level. We're talking about Yannis, the kind of impact he can have. Yannis is your Odo, because he's helping to unlock everything that can work for Miami's office next year and just to take that team to the next level. The town is there, but having that one start, to kind of tie everything together, that's where a system like Odo can really help

13:27unlock what your business is looking to accomplish, to make it more successful. It's not just about the talent, it's about having everybody in the same page working together, because great organizations win, because operations matter, and that's why you should get Odo. Odo is one platform to manage, grow, and scale your business. Try for free today at odu.com slash locked on. That's od.o.com slash locked on. We'll be right back. Shout out to the Cookie Gang. Everybody who makes locked on heat there, first listen of the day, help us out. We're on the road to 21,000 subscribers before training camp. Help us out. Hit that subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on your favorite podcast app. Talk to the offense. We'll talk about the defense, David. I have three more numbers that I want to share with you in terms of how he honest is going to help this defense specifically. Number one, we got to start where we start an offense. In the paint, Miami gave up the 21st most, or they were 21st in the league on the bad way,

14:31in terms of points allowed in the paint last year, giving up 52 points per game in the paint. Milwaukee and the honest is last healthy season, seventh, giving up just 47 points in the paint per game. That is a five point difference, which is a big difference when you're talking about a season. So Milwaukee was always one of the elite teams in terms of paint defense. Miami, the last couple of years have slipped a little bit because it was basically bam and no other elite level defenders with size. Well, that just changed in a big way in getting bam and Yanis. And it wasn't just Yanis in Milwaukee. It was Yanis in Brook Lopez at their best, but hey, give me bam over Brook Lopez, even as a rim protector, as an overall defender and a guy who can wall off the paint, switch on to perimeter guys when he needs to, all that kind of stuff. I think Miami's paint defense is going to get a lot better than it had been. I think it's what we've seen from bam in recent years, this is ability to erase possessions. You might not get more blocks per game, which is a set that everybody wants to point to

15:32in terms of rip protection. But the number of shots that will be so much more difficult as a ball handler slips using a screen, gets into the painted area and all of a sudden, you've got not just one, but two bigs that can defend and contest those shots more easily. You're just not going to take the shots as often as you might. And so it's not the same kind of deterrent to say a Victor Webiniyama certainly, but I think you're going to see a lot of the power of the two bigs that can switch and kind of just pick up a ball handler and erase those possessions. I would expect Miami would probably be tops and shot clock violations next year because we're going to see a lot of those kind of, oh, here I am, I can get past that original wing defender and then all of a sudden you've got bam, you've got Yannis. It's like, well, I better get rid of this ball because I'm not going to be able to shoot it to rim. And so you want to kicking that to the three point line and having the hoist of shot as the shot clock expires. So I would imagine that's probably going to be a big part of Miami's defense is having those two bigs there.

16:32Yeah, Yannis is sort of this roving shot blocking threat. It's how we won defensive player of the year a few years ago. He had broke Lopez on the interior and Yannis just helping off of the weakest offensive player and just swatting shots and being a factor there and a big factor there. And the heat can do the same thing. They can have bam at the basket and they can have Yannis said, by the way, they can flip that. And they can flip it, play to play. They can go from one play where bam is at the rim and Yannis is roving to the next play. Yannis is at the rim and bam is roving because what's bam's signature defensive play of his career? It's the off ball block on Jason Tatum at the basket and the conference finals in the bubble. And we haven't gotten a chance to see a whole lot of that. We saw a little bit of it when they add PJ Tucker in certain matchups. Well, they just upgraded from PJ Tucker in a big way. I'll do respect to PJ Tucker. I think this is something that they will absolutely do. And I think that's already on Eric's bolsters radar is the ability to kind of flip their assignments because they're both so high IQ defensively that they can do it and then imagining

17:34what that means to the offense. Every time they come down, they're like, okay, so which ones at the basket, which ones roving? Right? And by the way, they can ditch that and just switch everything if they wanted to because they have the defenders on the perimeter now to switch one through five if they want to go that way also. So I think Miami defense is going to be multiple and I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be one of the best three units in the NBA. I think it's going to literally power them to wins as opposed to just keep them in games. Is this the best two-man tandem defensively that Miami's ever had? I'm kind of inclined to say yes. The idea with Jimmy and Bam was supposed to be that way and certainly was a fantastic defender and Bam continued to develop in that regard. But I don't know that even Jimmy at his best is the kind of level of defender that Yanis is in that. Yeah, I would have to, like the big three was like LeBron and CB. This is better. We forget how good they were though defensively. Like CB's ability to show on the perimeter and really just like wreak havoc on passing lanes was and get back to the basket in time. I'm tempted to say a lot of morning at PJ Brown.

18:36Well, that was my next question to you. Yeah, who would you have considered? I guess it would have been PJ Brown would have been Zos second best defender or best defender that he played with, I guess. Absolutely, but I mean, not the same level as Bam and Yanis. I mean, he's the only guy that like Zos wanted a defensive player to defend the player of the year. He's Yanis has a defensive player of the year. That's the end of the list. Heat guys who have won defensive player of the year. Wrongly, right? Marcus Smart has a defensive player of the year that should be in Bam's possession. But in sort of Jarnjacks and Junior for that matter. But yeah, maybe so this is two defensive player of the years. Right? Yeah, this is the best. There's been good ones. I think this is the best, which kind of brings me to my next point. This isn't like a Yanis stat, but I did look up teams with two elite rim protectors last year where they ranked in some of these core stats. Oklahoma City, I would put Chen Homegrown in Isaiah Heart and Stein. I don't think those guys are as good as a tandem as Yanis and Bam, like holistically. But in terms of just being two elite rim protectors, they certainly qualify. They were second in points in the paint allowed.

19:37So they didn't give up points in the paint. And then Cleveland, with Jared Allen and Evan Mobley, was fist in points in the paint allowed. So now you have Yanis and Bam, it's not just the two of them together. It's the fact, and this might be even more important. The fact that you always are going to have one of them on the court, right? Because we've talked about for years, how Miami's defense became such a problem when Bam went to the bench. It doesn't become a problem now when Bam goes to the bench if you still have Yanis out there. So you have this elite rim protection presence for 48 minutes. That is such an underrated part of all of this. We're so focused on how Yanis and Bam are going to play together. The fact that when they're separated, it's just going to be one of them on the court all the time. What that does for Miami's defense might be the biggest difference of all between the last couple of years in this one. And I think the backup biggs are going to help too. Just having one of them out there is going to be enough, but that makes the job easier for Bobby Portis, for Gikoyovic, and for Nick Richards, who's a bit body who can alter shots too.

20:37So all of those guys are probably going to see their defensive possessions be slightly improved because of the fact that you have these two elite defenders out there. It's a trickle-down effect that's going to have such a positive impact on what Miami does defensively, which is why so many people were so bullish on the acquisition of Yanis to what they would be able to offensively. I think that's underselling what they can do offensively as we discussed in the first segment, but defensively, they should be a monster that no team really wants to deal with. I have one more stat for you. It's related to how Yanis will help this team instantly off the court. We're going to talk about that next. The problem of finding clothes that you can live it all day, be comfortable and do whatever you need to do, whether it's just chilling, go into meetings, playing golf, being on the move. That problem has been solved by Kozirth. The everyday polo is the answer. It's lightweight, built to move with you. Just easy to wear wherever I've got it on right now, and it's fabulous. Plus, the Kozirth essential socks,

21:41they're exactly what the name suggests, soft, supportive, comfortable enough that you stop thinking about them halfway through the day. Plus, Kozirth backs everything with a 10-year warranty and hassle-free returns. So if something isn't quite right, you're covered. That makes trying them for yourself an easy decision. I've got the Kozirth everyday polo in blue and in black. Check them out at Kozirth.com. Use the code Lockdown for 20% off. That's right. Lockdown for an exclusive 20% off. And if you see a post purchase survey, please mention, you heard about it right here, kozirth.com. So David, we've talked about how Janis is going to help the heat, exactly on offense and exactly how Janis is going to help them on defense. What about off the court? And I have one more stat to share with you. It's 20.

22:41And that's how many more national TV games the heat have this year because of Janis. We've talked about this a ton already. But there has been an update since we last talked about it. The heat have 25 national TV games when you think about the big carriers. Since then, they've actually added a handful of NBA TV games too. So there are going to be NBA TV isn't quite national TV because it's not part of those national TV packages, but it's still available for a lot of people. And so there is clearly an initiative by the NBA to feature the Miami Heat. We know that they're playing on Christmas. I mean, just the fact that Janis has helped that he'd get a national TV, I think this means a lot for guys like Bam. I think guys who maybe go under the radar, like Dave Jan Mitchell and Pelowlarson, I think you're going to see all of their Q ratings go up just because you have a star like Janis on the court. 100%. I mean, they made two runs to the finals during the Jimmy Butler era. And at no point in time did they have this many nationally televised games. And such a thing.

23:42And their whole thing was like we're still anonymous. And they were. And they were. They were a fun team. They were like that real good niche team. The term that we use recently, talking about the network, you know, like the NBA hipster. Everybody loves watching the heat. The zombie heat. You would have people talk about the team once they made the playoffs. But you weren't watching them for 82 games. You didn't see what Bam was doing, which is. Casual fans are not tuning in. Absolutely not. I love seeing those commercials after the bubble run with Jimmy Butler and Bam at a bio advertising the jungle ride or whatever that movie that came out a while ago with the rock. And it was like, yeah, something like that. I don't remember where it was. But it was like, wow, they got a commercial. Like does anybody really care? Like I was very curious and seeing it at the same time. But with the honest, you've got. Like he's filming commercials now. He's got, he's such a superstar and not just a national, but an international level. Like this is a team that has an identity as superstar in the way they haven't had since the big three era.

24:43And people are going to be curious about watching with his team and it's a trickled down effect again. In the terms that everybody is going to be, oh, you know what, that David Mitchell guy, maybe he's not as bad. Maybe he might be as bad as as bad as a lot of people expected to. Oh, Clay Thompson, he's still got it. He can still produce at a high level. You know, Bam at a bio. These are pretty good defenders, despite what we haven't seen over the last six years. So I think it's such a huge impact on everybody else and this team getting the exposure that it hasn't had for a long time. I will go so far as to say that if the heat had Yannis instead of Jimmy Butler, just because of Yannis's star power alone, Bam would have a defensive player of the year award. Oh, yeah. Yes. I mean, they were talking about those bucks teams. Like they had multiple defensive player that you're can't, it's not what Brooke Lopez and- Brooke Lopez was getting defensive player of the year votes and I'm like, in what world would you defend Brooke Lopez? Very good player. Nothing against Brooke Lopez. There was never a year where he deserved anybody's vote over Bam instead of Bam's, right?

25:44Like Bam should have gotten all those Brooke Lopez. It was crazy. So yeah, it's the kind of the tide that raises all ships. That's Yannis, right? Like he helps everybody. He's gonna make every, it's why players always all so wanna play with guys like Yannis or the Bronner or anything like that because your exposure gets to such that if you deliver, you get paid. And that's the other big thing too. It's like, oh, we all know who you are. And I get a little bit of that shine. I'm gonna go make some money when I'm a free agent again. So Yannis helping in all three facets. That'll do it for us today. Thanks so much for making Lockdown Heat. Your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the Lockdown NBA podcast where there's no off season. Wes Matten Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations, rumors, and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube.

26:45Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day.