All right, welcome on to a belated top 10 prospects in the NBA this season.

We usually do this in December, which is a little bit more fun to get super excited about

some of the rookies, but I can't say my excitement over any of this rookie class is diminished

in the intervening month.

So we got a lot to talk about here.

The way we do this is we're going to take the top 23 or top players

in the NBA 23 and under and basically decide who we would rather have on our team for the rest

of their career. That's the criteria. And so the reason we chose 23 is because that's basically

the last year can be like, and he's doing this and he's only 23. Amazing.

The sky's the way for this guy.

Once he's 24, obviously they have no further potential, right?

Like Denny Optia, for example, just no improvement at 24.

They just, they just completely stop in their traps.

So that's our universe.

That was John Hollinger, who just heard,

Danny LaRue joining us for one of our three-man pods that we like to do.

The other one being top 10 players in the NBA later on in March or so.

So let's get rolling here.

Danny, when you think about this,

what kinds of things are you considering in terms? Because it's not only about what these guys are doing now. It's about a bunch of other factors, how you project what they're going to do into the future.

It's a lot of different things. And it, for me, you could start with the basics of does this player have best player in the league, best player in the playoff series equity? Is that something that they could do? And how likely is that? Because it's not, you know, having the potential for it, but how likely a chance they have. And that's a key differentiator, especially at the higher echelons. And then the other kind of key components that I like to think about is what kind of player, what is, what rules does this player

fill in the better versions of themselves, what they could do? Because the fun thing about prospects is, we're not saying what they are now. It's what they could be, what they, what they will be. And then the other is, well, what if that doesn't? What if they aren't that, you know, the 80th percentile come or better? How does that player fit in on a successful team, on an unsuccessful team? And because those are

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