John Schuhmann's Reddit AMA: Expert NBA Insights Revealed

John Schuhmann has covered the NBA as a writer for more than 20 years. He sat down to discuss his weekly Power Ranking column, his thoughts on the league and more in this month’s Reddit AMA. Check out what he had to say. QUESTION Which metric do you trust most that fans usually overlook when evaluating how good a team really is? JOHN SCHUHMANN It’s never one thing. It’s a combination of things; it’s definitely efficient on both ends of the floor. Strength of schedule matters, point differential. I always look at quality wins, so your record versus the best teams, so when I am putting teams in order or ranking teams, it’s always a combination of lots of different things. It’s never one thing that is going to determine where they are. And of course, if two teams are ranked near each other in the rankings and one of them won a head-to-head meeting, that team will have an advantage. If you were to create a power ranking for anything besides basketball, what would it be for and what would the top 5 be? I would have to do 90’s R&B artists. 1. En Vogue 2. Keith Sweat 3. Whitney Houston 4. Mariah Carey 5. Boyz II Men (I am probably forgetting somebody, and I reserve the right to change these rankings at any point.) Which team or teams do you think will surprise people after the All-Star break, as we get closer to the playoffs, when flares start getting faded on here? For better or for worse lol. This team wouldn’t be a surprise, but they are due to play better, and that is Cleveland. They have been banged up and have had some bad luck in regard to opponents’ shooting numbers. It all depends on the health of Darius Garland going forward, and assuming he isn’t out too long. I think they are primed to have a strong second half. In the West, I think Houston still belongs in the tier right below Oklahoma City. I think they are right there with the Spurs, Nuggets, and Wolves as a team that can make the Western Conference Finals and give the Thunder a good series. How long have you been working on the power rankings, and what’s been the biggest surprise or change you’ve seen over that time? I think I started in 2007. The evolution of the game is fairly obvious in how it has become more of a 3-point shooting league and how we now have lineups where five guys can shoot 3-pointers, and when I started, it was 3 at most. It was rare to have a 4 or a 5 to shoot 3-pointers. Right when I started, the Suns had Shawn Marion, who would play the 4 and space the floor, but he was rare. But it’s definitely the spacing and the number of shooters the teams put on the floor at one time. I saw the stat in your power rankings that the West is 115-91 against the East this year. That’s not so bad for the East! Is the gulf between the West and the East starting to narrow? The bottom-feeder teams are pretty equal between the conferences this year, too – Brooklyn, Washington, Indiana (arguably a special case) against Sacramento, Utah, and New Orleans. So, the answer is no, the gap is not narrowing. There were two years, 2021-22 and 2022-23, where the East had a better record than the West. But the last three seasons, including this one, have been pretty dominated by the West. And over the last 8 days, the West is 24-8 against the East and 5-0 yesterday alone. Like, Portland is 22-22 and 9th place in the West, so you would think they are the hard luck team, but they would be 9th place in the East at 22-22. I think the tough part is the 6-7 range, like Phoenix, which is 7th in the West but would be in 3rd place in the East. The West teams are very good and are still fighting to be in the top 6, where they would easily be in the top 6 in the East. I wondered how much the expectations set by the fans and the media weigh on you at the beginning of a season when the teams start to actually play and overperform or underperform those expectations. Is there much “resistance” to changing things too much based on the first few weeks? As a Suns fan, the example I have in mind is Phoenix. It was predicted they would be one of the worst teams, but then they have been more competitive than most (including me) would have thought: how much “convincing” did you guys need to start having them climb the rankings? How much does that initial assessment weigh in comparison with the actual games? I don’t care what other people expect, and I don’t really pay much attention to what other people expect from teams. As far as my own expectations, I sort of let go of those by week 3. The Clippers, for example, I thought they were going to be a much better team over the first couple of months. Once they suffered multiple bad losses, they are going to be at the bottom of the rankings. For me, it’s all about results first and foremost. Like, they lost to Utah on opening night, and sure, that is just one game, but then a couple of weeks into the season, they lost 5 straight. At that point, you realize they are not a very good team. So, my own expectations play a role in where teams are ranked at the start, but once we get two or three weeks into the season, it’s all about results. The Suns went from being ranked 16th in Week 5 to 7th in Week 6. That’s when they beat the Wolves and the Spurs, so for a team like that, wins are one thing, but quality wins are another. Even 16 was much higher than where I had them at the start of the season, but once they put together multiple wins against good teams, it became a belief that they were a good team as well. Who do you think is the most underrated player, most underrated coach and most underrated arena? Underrated player, I would say, is Rudy Gobert. He gets a lot of flak, but he is just a really, really impactful defensive player. If you have Rudy Gobert on your team, you probably have a top 10 defense. Underrated team, I would say Detroit. I think they are really, really good, and because they are a group that has yet to win a playoff series, it’s hard to pick them to win the East. But with their win over the Celtics on Monday, the Pistons have the best record (12-4) in games played between the 16 teams over .500 right now. The next best is 13-6. And the most underrated Arena, there are still a few I haven’t been to, and this is one of my home arenas, but I love Brooklyn. I am super lucky to go to games in Brooklyn and Madison Square Garden. Who’s a player that has stood out to you the most this season? I would say Stephon Castle. Obviously, he won Rookie of the Year, so it’s not a surprise that he is a good player, but I have just been really impressed with him every time I watch. And that comes with his playmaking and decision-making with the ball, but also the force that he plays with and how strong he is when he attacks the rim. He is also a really good defender, so he is an absolute keeper for the Spurs. He is going to be an all-star at some point in the next few years. He is everything you want in a guard, minus the shooting, and I believe that will come soon enough. What team would you say has the most to gain from the upcoming NBA Trade Deadline? A few teams have played below their preseason power rankings (CLE, LAC) all year, while January’s gauntlet has raised some questions about contenders (NYK), so I’m curious who you believe could make the biggest move. I would think that Houston has the tools to make a deal, and they obviously have some flaws regarding their offense that they can address. What advice would you give to an aspiring writer trying to make it in this industry? Any specific memory you have from earlier in your career that you think back to? The one thing I always focus on is just giving readers a reason to read your stuff. You’re competing with a lot of people. If you’re covering a payoff game, for example, assume that everyone who might read you watched the game. Assume they are on social media and caught some of the postgame quotes. So now, what are you going to offer them that is going to make them want to read you? And then come back and read you after the second game too. And even with Power Rankings every Monday, I am trying to provide, for example, a hardcore Pistons fan with some little bit of information that they didn’t know, even though they have watched every single game and pay attention to social media and read some of the Pistons beat writers who are covering the team daily. I want you to come to Power Rankings every Monday and learn something you didn’t already know. It’s impossible to do that for all 30 teams, 25 weeks in a row, but that is the goal. Since you’ve been writing for 20 years in the NBA, a lot of people ask what’s been the biggest change, but I am curious what has been the most consistent trait or trend in the game of basketball over your career? Talent wins. The best players win. The best teams have the best players, and it’s rare when you get a team that doesn’t have a top 10 player on it that wins. In fact, the last team in the Finals before I started this job was the Pistons in 2003-04, when they won, and they were back there again in 2004-05. It’s talent, but obviously, there are a lot of teams that have talent. After that, it’s buy-in and a belief in what the team is doing, an understanding of how it wins, and execution of that formula for winning games. Just look at the last several championships. There are lots of different ways to win in this league. The Thunder won in a different way than the Celtics, and the Celtics won very differently from the Nuggets. There’s no one way to win Championships. You can win with different kinds of defenses and offenses, but talent, buy-in, and execution get you there. What was the biggest argument you ever had when it came to a power ranking placement?