Isaiah scored 25 points in a quarter on a messed up ankle in a Finals Game. That was the most clutch performance in defeat that ever happened.

Hot take: The suns choosing to extend Quentin Richardson over Joe Johnson in 2005 is one of the most underrated horrible gm decisions and biggest what ifs in nba history. If the suns had a reliable shot creator in crunch time like iso joe, then they easily could have won in 2006 and maybe even in 2007 or 08.

The take about Kobe and Curry having the same level of influence is f-ing wild. Kobe might have had more cultural impact because he is charismatic Lakers player with some strong similarities to MJ, but Curry influence on the actual game is like 10000x greater.

Hot take: Jacob called me a hater earlier in the season during a Hot Takes livestream when I said the Kings would be a play-in team, and look at that, they finished as the 9 seed.

Loving how, on some of these second channel videos, there’s no intro, no typical KZfaqry speeches, just straight to the point. I also feel the quality and presentation on both channels has 100% improved in these last few months. Keep it up mate.

Hot Take: Trae Young and Dejonte Murray is who everybody thought Luka and Kyrie would be this year. Two ball dominant guards that can’t coexist on the court together.

Where did dames name come from on the all time point guard list💀💀

Hot take: Domantas Sabonis is probably the player whose box score overstates his actual value the most, if you look at his stats he seems like a top 15 player but if you actually watch him play he’s not even top 30.

John Stockton definitely doesn’t suck.

earned a sub from this Mavs fan. watching this made me remember how great the Mavs were this season and lifted my spirits after a tough Finals series. really wanted Mavs-Nuggets this year - would’ve been super entertaining but hopefully in the future we can see a Luka vs Jokic playoff series

Very Hot Take: The All-Overrated NBA Team PG: Allen Iverson (Inefficient offensively not to mention his defense ) SG: Kobe Bryant (Not top 5 in my opinion whereas some have him top 2-4) SF: Carmelo Anthony (Inefficient/Playoff dropper) PF: Karl Malone (Playoff choker and dropper one of the biggest sellers alongside James Harden) C: Wilt Chamberlain (Padded stats while sacrificing team success before joining the stacked Lakers) One reason they are so beloved is because they have iconic/cool names if Carmelo Anthony was named Tony Smith no one would care

Hot take: I’m sick of his Stockton slander!!!!! To not include Stockton among the best pgs is like not including wilt among your top 10. Yeah he ain’t THE goat but don’t minimize his greatness. His stats are unmatched.

Hot take: The 2018 draft class will go down as a top 3 draft class of all time ( The same draft class Rusty horribly evaluated coming into the league)

If anything the Play In has made the regular season more important. The end of the regular season is actually exciting with the Play In given that we have more teams pushing to get a place in for a chance for the playoffs. It's wild that anyone could think otherwise.

hot take: young youtubers put recent players like cp3 on top of their all time lists even if they didn't accomplish anything more than one mediocre finals appearence in his whole career rather than players who won or played well because they didn't watch any games before 2000s and media outlets along with nba sponsors told them he's the best 🤷

If I averaged 100 points for an entire playoff series and still lost I'd quit basketball.

Not-so-hot Take: Most NBA voters don’t even watch basketball. They just scroll Twitter and keep up with the narratives. For example, Stephen A recently said he feels good about the Knicks because players like Grimes have been ballin.. Grimes isn’t even on the Knicks anymore Chris Broussard once kept Avery Bradley out of his defensive teams because “Booker dropped 70 on him” when Avery didn’t even play in that game.. crazy!

This is probably a colder take compared to others, but Anthony Edwards is pretty much everything Andrew Wiggins should've been, and then some. An athletic wing that can create shots off the dribble, and a walking highlight reel with a dawg mentality. Yeah, Wiggins has a ring and all, but with the talent he had, he should've had at least 2 rings by now. Just goes to show that you need a top tier mentality to actually succeed

Hot take: If paul pierce was in Jayson Tatum’s position Boston would have at least 2 more titles because Paul Pierce was a more clutch and frankly better player in the Playoffs.

Hot take: people will look back years from now and call this Luka mvp snub one of the worst mvp decisions in league history

Hot take: Luka is already higher all time than Damian Lillard

Hot take: Jared Butler will be the starting PG on the Wizards next year

Hot Take: birds prime from 84-89 stacks up against almost anyones and the only reason he isnt top 3-5 is because of longevity

Hot take: The NBA should add 4 expansion teams too the Western Conference and move the Grizzlies and the Pelicans in the East too make the East and West more balanced and too deal with how overly competitive the NBA has become compared to 10-20 years ago

It’s so funny seeing everyone switch up on the play-in. From the moment it was announce I was a fan of it because win or go home games are always fun. I think I was in the minority at that time. It’s refreshing to see people come around on it and recognize how much better it’s made the NBA season/postseason Same with the in season tournament. So many people shitting on it when it was announced and now that it happened and went really well everyone loves it People are way too averse to change. Sometimes the people running the leagues actually know what they’re doing lol

I feel like touching on wing players in the next main channel vid would be interesting, I know it was touched on in the PF vid, but I can’t help but feel like there could be more to talk about

The play in was a fantastic league format addition.

Hot take: The 2013 finals was better than the 2016 finals and it isn’t close. Everyone’s says the 2016 finals is better but that’s just because of the 3-1 comeback storyline. Every game game in the 16 finals was a blowout except for game 7. Where as in the 2013 finals 3 or 4 of the games in that finals where close. Also game 6 and 7 of the 13 finals were arguably 2 of the best finals series ever and Game 6 of the 13 finals gave of us the second greatest clutch shot in finals history only behind Jordans in the 1998 finals.

Hot take: Luka has been a top 5 player in the league since his second year. He was the best player in the first clippers series and at the time Kawhi was seen by many as the #1 player in the world since he had just won in the year before.

Hot Take: Tim Hardaway was just as instrumental to the ball handling evolution as Allen Iverson was. Hardaway was in the league for almost a decade before iverson and became one of the first guys in the league that had a go-to dribble move that always got him a bucket. If you hear people who played against him talk about him, they always say this his crossover was elite and hard to guard. He didn’t invent the crossover, but he was the first player to consistently use it in the league and popularized it for the next generation of players, including iverson

Hot Take: i think joker has the vurry effect when it comes to his team mates where he makes them look so much better then what they are they fit into the system so when it comes to free agency a lot of teams will spend big bucks on them only to under preform on the team the next season

I appreciate that Jacob answered my hot take. Yeah, I know it would be brand suicide to trade him. He's my favorite player, so it'd make me sad personally, but I'd also love him to get another ring and he's only got a few more years. Without position idk if we can get any notable help. Getting a superstar with those picks would be unlikely, but it'd give the Warriors a far better chance than Steph retiring, leaving the Dubs with only their picks. They're likely gonna be bad for a generation, probably more. Just hoping we can lower the odds of that happening.

hot take: if wemby was on the timberwolves instead of gobert, they would be the clear favorite for the chip. and if rudy was on the spurs they wouldn’t have gotten 20 wins.

Thanks for including my take

Play in play offs prediction pleaseeee. I ve got Suns VS Boston in the finals. Scott Foster refing the warriors?

Hot take: Killian Hayes should win MVP this season and if you don't vote for him you DON"T know ball

I usually watch Rusty when I’m folding laundry. I watched his ‘overrated player’ video on my lunch break and was looking for something to watch as i took my clothes out and found this. Used to pray for times like these 👌🏻👌🏻🙏🙏🙏🙏. Thanks for the consistency

Hot Take: Defensive advanced stats should basically always be discounted before analyzing player impact by watching the game. Defense is not accurately documented in statistics, and watching a game and seeing what the player does tells you MUCH MUCH more than stats do

Btw: the second best team in the west does not necessarily mean they have the best shot at beating Denver by default, its also how you match up with Denver.

Giannis has become so underrated and overlooked and it’s getting out of hand. The argument has become Luka vs Jokic for best in the world despite Giannis having one of the most efficient scoring seasons in NBA History while being a far better defender than either of those guys. Picking them over him by a small margin is fine, but it has become increasingly common for Giannis to not even be mentioned in these conversations. On top of that, ESPN seems to absolutely hate hime and whether they want to admit it or not it seems like the average nba fan and nba youtuber alike have talked about him less and less this season. Its as if he’s been forgotten by some and hated by others through no fault of his own. Love the channel btw!

Honestly the play in has made the regular season better, getting above a 7th seed is super valuable

I like the title very much

Me and my boi will keep walking to the awards as they keep discussing how they don’t love our 11 chips

Hot take: magic in the modern nba would be Ben Simmons plus 2 or 3ppg. Two big point guards with great playmaking ability and solid defenders.

Hot take: being able to read a double-team is the second most important skill for an offensive star

14:30 I think the NBA introduced the Play-in Tournament with an upcoming extension in mind. Probably within the upcoming 5 years we will see 2-6 new teams. Probably 6 Teams, one for each division.

Isaiah is easily the 3rd best PG. CP3 is nowhere near #3.

Hot take: there should be a certain amount of difference In the 9th and 8th seed to have a play in in that conference. Any team could loose one game and if a bad team beats a good team that could rob us of a good 1st round series

I like the play-in a lot. But i think there should be a rule where if a team is x amount of games behind they should not get in. for example this year in the east i think miami and philly should play between them for the 7th and 8th seed. In that way u reward teams for playing well in the regular season and not only consider placement (then the bulls and hawks would have to catch them to get in the play-in). I hope my point was clear😅

Hot Take: Rudy Gobert is a massively overrated defender and was a large reason for the Jazz never being a serious contender. By extension the T-Wolves are a first/second round bounce largely because of him. Wemby is 100% the DPOY, and it pisses me off that he’ll be put into conversations he does NOT belong in because of all the DPOYs he’s won. Ben Wallace clears him

My hot take was that mavs hot take. I honestly think it could be their year

Chris paul over Isaiah is crazy. Post season achievement is the most important legacy you can have. Chris paul is choker. You can be most talented player of all time but if you choke most of time in playoffs. You are not top 3 point guard of all time. you trippin.

stat and skill wise shouldn’t russ be the 3rd best pg all time. I mean he is the triple double king

Can someone explain to meet what makes kd a better scorer than Steph? Cause I feel like the idea of kd as a scorer is better than he actually is.

Josh Green is not guarding Jamal 💀💀 he might play less than 10 mins per game. It'll be PJ Washington or Derrick Jones Jr

Hot take: instead of using accomplishments to compare players all time the list should be based off just which player was more talented and an overall better basketball player.

Idk if this is a hot take but I’ve been thinking about the idea of giving players the assist when the person you pass it too gets fouled and actually makes the free throws. Idk it could be broken and abused. Just wanna hear other people thoughts about it

Hot take: Prime Tmac v Prime Kobe is a wash talent wise. Switch them and I think things go very similarly for them with no injuries. But peak vs peak, I think Tracy was on Kobes level.

We also have the best 3 point shooter to go along with the big 3 I think people have forgotten 😅

My brother thinks Play-off Jamal Murray is better than playoff harden, please tell us whos right 🙏

Saying third options today would be title winners 20 years ago is pretty hilarious considering Shaq and Duncan were the 2 best players in 2004. No third option guy on any team now is leading a team past those 2 guys

sizzle take: rusty is one of the most underrated sports channels on youtube 👑

Hot take: the talent discrepancy across the board is actually insane between right now and the very recent past. If you have 1 all star and some decent players around them today you are the 10th or 11th seed. Throughout nba history until like 2022 yoi could be a 3 to 7 seed with that same exact roster

hot take: the knicks will make the finals and the wcf between the nuggets and mavs will go 7 games and so will the nba finals and the ecf between the celtics and knicks

Grant williams is one of the most underrated modern day defenders

I think Chris Paul has definitely tarnished his career these past couple years. I still think he could be top 3, but most people won’t since it’s all recency bias. I can’t defend him fully though because he doesn’t have a ring and that matters. I think if you want to be one of the greatest players to ever play, you need to have at least one ring and not a ring like Tracy McGrady has.

I don't know if it's a hot take but I am from Europe and I have never heard of the sacramento kings. I know nothing about them they do not exist to me. Everytime I look at the list of NBA teams I am surprised by them. They need to up their marketing or something idk. Sorry if they're your team.

Hot Take: Small market and most longtime owners are the biggest problem in the NBA right now. Most of the messed up cap space shenanigans have originated from these owners lobbying the NBA to incentivize home grown talent from staying only to cheap out on the home grown talent (like when MJ lobbied for the supermax) and the ineptitude of these franchises doesn't boil down to having small markets but the owners not only refusing to invest in the payroll of the players but investing in cheap (and usually bad) front office personnel, scouting, coaching. These effects mostly just punish the teams that have been able to effectively run a team

People always forget how great Walt Frazier was. Arguably the greatest pick pocket in NBA history. Not mentioned enough over perennial chokers like Chris Paul and and one more title than the big O

Jason Kidd might be one of the most underrated players of all time

Not really a hot take but we need something like a 5 game max seperation in order to stay in the play in the bulls who are 7 games behind the heat shouldnt have a chance amymore. They even did this on the very different first year of play in

Hot Take: "Revisionist history" is rarely a thing. Usually, the mistakes come from people who didn't see the event (not fans yet, too young, etc.) who don't know the intangibles involved and just look at the stats.

Duncan Spurs, Kobe Lakers, Magic Lakers, Jordan Bulls, Nowitzki Mavs, Bird Celtics, Jokic Nuggets and if we go with championless players, Ewing Knicks, Miller Indiana

i think isaiah thomas was interdental to ball handling but he wasn’t the one to change the game. it was pete maravich. He became arguably the best college player of all time using his dribbling and shooting and a lot of other players emulated what he was doing. then you have guys like thomas and tim hardaway who iterated on it before iverson blew up the league and changed the game for good

Hot take: Cavs should have put Evan Mobley in the Donovan Mitchell trade instead of Lauri Markkanen. Lauri is a way better fit in the current Cavs offense and is just overall better than Mobley right now. Evan doesn’t fit with Allen at all and can’t space the floor consistently. But idk, would love to get your opinion on this. Love the content btw.

Queue the clip of unc going “YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD ISIAH THOMAS WAS”

hot take: Cavs should have never traded for Donovan Mitchell. The trade rushed the timeline for development of their younger players.

Hot take: the talent discrepancy across the board is actually insane between right now and the very recent past. If the 2018 knicks went against the 2024 pistons, the pistons would win 99/100 times and the knicks had a better record that year with their stat leader Marcus Morris being traded half way through the year.

Rusty you have to make a video on your Isiah Thomas take and why in general traditional high assist PGs do not win championships

Hot Take: No matter how good of a season Giannis has, he will never win another MVP because voters think that he isn’t good enough.

The Cleveland Cavaliers will be a title contender in 3-5 years, I like the potential of Mobley but Garland makes me hesitant.

Hot take: I feel like Giannis is probably the most weirdly discussed player in the top 30 of all time. When people talk about him, they start with his shortcomings (there are evident, but I think that makes him even greater if you think how much he’s dominating despite them). Also, they fail to mention that in 2022 Celtics series, Middleton was injured and Brook Lopez was coming off an injury (and was bad). Not mentioning that Jrue Holiday was horrific. They also fail to mention that he got badly injured in 2023 against the Heat, which affected his performance in the series. I have no issues with Jokic and Doncic which I love, but when they are missing players or are injured, seems like they get more passes than Giannis. Just my thoughts 💭

even if he thinks 10 teams is too many to have a chance to make the playoffs, expansion would solve that problem quick. Don’t gotta worry bout that for long

This take is from @whatshorts but I did kind of think of this before he made a video about it. Coaches are almost useless in the nba when you’re coaching a legend like Lebron James or Kevin Durant, Giannis(etc). Lebron knows more how to win than a rookie pro coach and most coaches in the nba so what makes you think he’ll even listen to them? You can also have the best coach in the nba like Greg Poppovich but he won’t take a team like the pistons to the playoffs no matter how good the coach is. Any other pro leagues, college or high school need a good coach but at the highest level of the nba, ego and talent makes coaching inneffective.

Hot Take: just want to add something about Dallas. They have been a completely different team since the trade deadline. Since then, they are a top 5 defensive rating, and they have the 2nd best record in the league. I could easily see Dallas beating Denver

Hot (or maybe ice cold) take: If Wemby got caught gambling, even after just giving out a lifetime ban to Porter, Wemby would miss 1 year max.

If the OKC core stays together in the early 2010s they replace the warriors dynasty. Harden doesnt reach the level he did in Houston if this happens, idk about him being in a ginobli role or not though

KZfaq comment impossible challenge : don't use the word "overrated" under a NBA video. 99% of people fail

Tell me a shooting guard in the league today better than Kobe or a power forward better than Duncan Dirk or KG. Please

Minnesota is Denver’s biggest opponent. Are they the second best team in the west? No probably not, however I feel they matchup against Denver far better than any other team in the association. If Denver falls (and I don’t think they will) it’ll be to Minnesota.

Assuming all playoff scenarios, the knicks can make the ecf. The play in teams should be pretty easy minus the 76ers (embiid, known play off sinker) and heat (play off jimmy) but other than that it should be good. The pacers and magic shouldn't be a problem and the only ones I can see giving the knicks a problem are the bucks and celtics assuming giannis pops off and the celtics don't fumble

Not my take, but a co-worker told me Domantas Sabonis deserves all-NBA because 19-13-8 is “better than what Tim Duncan was doing in his MVP years.”

hot take: jalen brunson has been the 2nd best play in the east behind giannis. i think tatum is a better player overall but in terms of individual season it has to be brunson. he should get that last al nba first team place.

Hot Take: John Wall will make the hall of fame. Even though he was a 5 time all star, there have been players who have been an all star a few times like 5 for instance and I think he will make it in.

I 100% agree with the John Stockton take, I dare ANYONE who thinks otherwise to go watch a single highlight video of this man play during any point of his career, go on, do it... people will bring up his personal accolades, like his assist titles and steal titles, meanwhile the truth is that 90% of his assists came from setting up wide open guys in a set offense, or finding wide open rim running bigs or setting up transition lobs in the open court, as for his steals, and this might admittedly be a hot take, but, you cant convince me that players in the 80's and early 90's knew how to dribble the ball, ok?💀🙏 No shit my mans was getting steal titles when the offensive player is dribbling the ball like its his first time playing the sport...also, its not just Stockton's numbers that are inflatted because of the era, blocks, steals, rebounds and assists were all CRAZY inflated up untill pretty much the late 90's because of be it rules or player skill level...like, ever wonder why NO PLAYER ever averages 16 rebounds anymore? The last guy to do so was fucking Rodman back in 97'...or how no player has averaged 12 assists since Stockton in 95'?...how no player has averaged 4 blocks since Mutombo in 96'?...or maybe how no player has averaged 3 steals since Alvin Robertson in 91'

Rusty need to watch some zeke highlights

Hot Take: Ray Felton is a top 3 pg of all time

I had a laker fan tell me that bron is better than Luka at the beginning of the year so glad Denver sending them home 😂

Rusty talking alot about disrespecting ATG PGs while not even mentioning Jerry West once

Is this video about the mavs or about Isaiah Thomas