Transcript of NBA Over/Unders, Part 1: The West | with Zach Lowe and Joe House

This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would, earn points on eligible settled bets, win or lose. Keep collecting points, level up, and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever, and it's with FanDuel. 21+ select states or 18+ DC or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the Zach Lowe Show with Zach Lowe, who's remote today, as well as, uh, Joe House, who you can find on Ringer Wise Guys as well as Fairway Rolling. And House and I have been doing over-unders I don't even remember the first time my podcast started at ESPN in 2007, and I think we started doing NBA over-unders at least that decade, and we've been doing it ever since. And, uh, we're about to do the West first and then the East. Wanted to mention new rewatchables went up yesterday. We did Friday the 13th.

Zach has never seen it 'cause he doesn't like horror movies.

Stop it, stop it. I have seen it and I look forward to the, to the rewatchables about it.

Okay.

It's been a while though.

Not a Jason movie.

I don't know what Jason does in that movie, but I know it involves kids at a campsite somewhere.

Yep, it sure does. Uh, and we should also mention, speaking of kids in a campsite, Zach Lowe is writing again. He's got content for kids on a campsite.

Look at that. The fingers work.

It's back. He's showing us. The Lowe Post newsletter, blog, uh, filings. What do you want to call it?

It's a newsletter. And I, do I regret it already? Maybe a little bit, but it's too late now. We're going, we're going to give it a shot. The League Pass rankings are coming up in 5 parts in the next week or so. So we're off and running, baby.

I thought that you're gonna take it easy on yourself, but then just decide to do the opposite.

Well, we're gonna spam it early and then we're gonna— let's settle into the season. Both spam it early, get people— give people a little taste, and then off and running.

Okay. Well, usually Zach would've come here, but he couldn't come here this week. He had family obligations. But thanks to modern technology, look at this.

We're here.

We're in HD.

Great.

The only— House and I are here.

The only thing—

Zach's on a TV.

He missed some, some stew. We had stew this week.

I don't wanna hear about the— look,

yeah, we had some stew.

I, I, my wife is away, so we're just ordering in.

Yeah.

So I had nothing, I had nothing as good as the homemade stew that you had.

So we're doing the West first. The East is more fun. We're gonna save that for a second. The East includes a lot of drama, too many playoff teams, and House's Wizards, as long along with my Celtics and the NBA champion Knicks. The West, which we'll get into in a second, is part of a bigger theme I wanted to talk about really quickly. It's something House mentioned. earlier about this next title and what this means for the season itself. Something— so I wrote back, like, going back to '84, '84 Finals, Celtics-Lakers. And then that next season, there was just a lot of energy around it, right? Jordan was in the league, Magic versus Bird, the Sixers were still around. It's just like, where are we going? Where are we going? 1991, MJ wins the title. Beats Magic. And then that next year, same thing. How far— where's this Jordan thing going? What do we have in store? The Pistons are there, the Nixons are there. 2000 Finals, Shaq, Kobe, they win. Is this gonna be a dynasty? Are they gonna control the decade? What does Tim Duncan have to say about all this? And it just felt like there was energy going into that year.

2010 Finals, Kobe's won back-to-back. LeBron has gone to Miami. We have a potential lockout coming. We have all these young stars that are coming into the league. We're all, we're just excited heading into '10-'11. And then I think this season qualifies as well, the '26 Finals where we have Jalen Brunson, you know, becoming a guy. We have the Knicks getting the monkey off their back, and then we have a league where it feels like, I don't know, 15 teams feel like they have a chance to make the Finals. So do you feel the energy, Zach Lowe?

I, I haven't been this excited for a season in quite a while. I have already blown past my personal record of longest time watching preseason basketball. I'm diving in, I'm dabbling, I'm flipping between games depending on what team is playing like a semi-real lineup. I can't wait for opening night at Madison Square Garden against the Sixers. It's going to be absolutely bonkers. Is it going to be the most expensive regular season game? I don't know, ever. I mean, what even compares to this? It's going to be insane.

Yeah, we have, and we have the Luka gets his own team. We have the Spurs potentially as villains. We have OKC trying to get back on the horse. We have Jokic trying to protect this incredible era he had. We have Durant trying to basically get shit together for his last year. We have the Philly situation. We have Giannis in Miami, Tatum with his own team. You could just keep going and going. House, what's your favorite thing, big picture about this season before we get into the West?

It's, it's definitely already the drama around the Knicks and the you know, capacity for that team to defend its title. I mean, I, I, I know we're about to sit here and spend 11 and a half hours going through the regular season, going over every single team in, in, but I'm ready for the playoffs already. Yeah. I want to start. I wish I'd like to fast forward. There's a small part of me that I, I just want to see Boston and Philadelphia and this New York Knicks team. I want to see Oklahoma City. I wanna see what becomes of Minnesota and I wanna see them all in the high-leverage playoff context. But the, the rich tapestry of the regular season awaits us. And to the point that, that Zach just made, the, the anticipation's at an all-time high, all time in my experience. Like there was no offseason, the influx of talent by way of that draft class. And the way that the Summer League went, and Zach just said it, these preseason games are nuts. People are dying to get into the preseason games. There's, there's great crowds for these preseason games. It's been phenomenal.

Jalen Brunson's on Saturday Night Live. I mean, the, the, the cultural icon that is Jalen Brunson and this Knicks team propelling us right in. I mean, let's go. Let's go.

LaMelo Ball has made the Timberwolves from moody to happy.

Moody to Giddy. I think—

We traded Moody for Giddy. They only traded 2 guys. So, and I'm guessing Nas Reid wasn't the Moody one.

Ooh.

Okay. We're gonna start with the Southwest. We should mention with the over-unders, there's an incredible, incredible, incredible variable this year that we have no idea how to calculate, and it is the new tanking rules. where basically the bottom 3 teams will have 2 ping pong balls instead of 3. 4 through 10 will have 3. And then after that, it, I don't even know what the rules are after that. But we will not have tanking in the same way we did. We had tanking for 30% of last season. We had 9 teams that did not care by mid-February. And this year, I'm not sure how this plays out. Zach Lowe, have you, did you factor that into your over-unders?

I think if you had asked me the same question you asked House, like, what are you most excited about this season other than the obvious headline teams that the players that have changed teams like Giannis. I think people are even underestimating what a sea change this is going to be in the NBA. Like, no one is going to be trying to lose on purpose. No one is going to be sitting guys for random games in February and March. In fact, it's the opposite. The bad teams, the worst teams have an incentive to try to beat up on each other to get out of the bottom 3. And then you have all these other complications we're going to talk about eventually when we get to these teams of like, Well, what if a team doesn't control its first-round pick? Does that sort of reverse the incentives a little bit because they don't care where it falls or they don't want it to be the number 1 pick? Because you also can't get the number 1 pick 2 years in a row and you want to be able to get it when it's your turn to actually use your picks.

And what if you're, what if you're 11th and you have no chance in the playoffs? Are we going to see a high-end tank, which we've never seen before? Like if you're Golden State and you have you're 30-40 with 12 games left and it's like, eh, what are we doing? Anything? Probably not. Hey Steph, how about some golf? Can we send you to New Zealand?

I don't think you have to ask Steph twice.

Southwest, San Antonio. We're kicking off with them. They made the finals last year. Not sure if you guys saw. They are, uh, 60.5 is the over-under for them. They won 62 games last year. They went from 22 to 34 to 62. Last 30 games last year, they're a 26-4 house.

Yep.

They are, uh, for the conference, +145, for the title, +270, 1 seed, +140. My big question for you, Zach Lowe.

Yeah.

Would the Spurs have been better off just not making the Finals last year?

In what sense? Like too much too soon? We're ahead of our skis.

Was it productive for them to go through that whole experience that seemed to rip some scabs and raise some questions that maybe wouldn't have been there if they had just had a feel-good loss in 7 in OKC?

Absolutely not.

Okay.

They made the finals, they lost, they felt pain. They felt like right away what it's like to be on the biggest stage. Victor Wembanyama somehow became a villain like overnight. My daughter, my 11-year-old daughter, referred to him just yesterday over, over dinners. We were talking about the NBA as the Jerkasaurus. That's her new nickname for him. So she's all in on Wemby.

Come up with that, House.

No, that— you need the Jerkasaurus. You need the mind.

And like, look, Wemby's ready. And so if Wemby's ready and the young guards looked pretty ready other than Steph Cassell's turnoveritis in the middle of the playoffs, particularly against Minnesota, I, I think no harm, no foul. Like, what, what's What's the holdup? Let's go.

I think I agree with that, but where do you stand, House?

I definitely agree with that. I mean, the part of the narrative of last season's playoffs was a lot of us old heads saying, yes, this San Antonio Spurs story is cool, and yes, they look absolutely loaded, but let's see them in some high-leverage situations. And that Minnesota series kind of gave us that original, that indication like, okay, welcome to the playoffs. They, they ran their way right through Portland, no problem. But welcome to the playoffs with this cast of characters. And they were up to the challenge. I mean, the games that San Antonio lost were, were Wemby missing the games half the game 'cause of the foul, the, you know, the—

You don't forget about 2 historic choke jobs

by,

by— Don't forget about all the, all the Harper Fox stuff that came outta that series.

Well, I mean,

don't forget about Keldon Johnson by the end of the playoffs basically being unplayable. Like I do think there are more questions that came out of Fox.

You're talking about the seasoning of the Spurs though. Yeah. And that I think, you know, net-net, that's all extremely positive for the development of that core.

I don't think the Keldon Johnson thing was positive. I don't know what— I didn't feel like he was playable in the Finals. And I think the Fox thing is a big referendum of where he's gonna be. And it's probably the thing to watch. How do they— I talked last week on my pod, you have too, Zach, about if Harper is just be— if this becomes a 1999 Kobe situation with Harper where they basically can't keep him on off the floor. What does that lead with the decisions they make at the end of these games? Do they just play 3 guards at the end of games? Is it 3 guards with Tobias Harris that we haven't mentioned yet? Or do they just bench Fox at the end of games and just brace for him being unhappy?

I mean, more options with talented players seems like a good problem to have. I, I don't know how well the 3-guard lineup will really fit. Mitch Johnson did not want to play it much last season.

Right.

I think he'll probably just have to play it more this season to get Harper on the court more. Tobias Harris is not a bit player to me. I mean, that's the antidote to Keldon Johnson being unplayable, as you put it, in the Finals. He's like a way better version of that exact player. More talent on hand. Harrison Barnes is still here as a safety net. Like everyone's back and they added Tobias Harris, who was like a 20-point-a-game scorer for a hot minute for the Pistons in the playoffs. So I think, I think they're, I think they're ready. I think last year was good for them. I see no downside.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And Cornette unplayable too was the other thing we learned.

Yeah, but you're just describing a particular matchup in the finals. Like, it's not linear. We're not going from the finals to game 1 of the regular season trying to win the finals again. What they're trying to do is build a team that survives this 82-game schedule and is ready for next season's postseason. And that will include experimentation. It'll include versions of these players that weren't available. Fox was hurt. Fox was hurt the whole playoffs and in the finals, and his effectiveness was definitely diminished. But if he's in, you know, combinations of players, they can experiment. They're good enough to experiment and still kick ass all season long. And I think that's, that's what we'll see. Like, I'm not prepared to bite down hard on anything that we saw from the, the OKC matchup or the Knicks matchup and say, well, this is, this is the, the challenge that's in front of The Spurs, no, I think that they're— it's organic and they will experiment. They learned some lessons and that's why the seasoning was so important.

The biggest challenge for them is going to be what they faced in the finals, the last 5 minutes of games, closing games. Who's going to have the ball? Who's going to create good shots and who's going to— how are they going to finish stuff? And my guess is that's Harper. And Honestly, it might, might've been Harper last year and they just didn't really want to rip the bandaid off and just do it. And that's, that's my question. What do you do when you're in the same situation you were in the finals last year against a really experienced team that knows what they're doing and you have a team that just hasn't had enough reps with it yet? LeBron or Tobias Harris? You want to talk that out for 20 seconds? Should they have made a run at LeBron? Would he have even been interested? if you're gonna upgrade with a veteran, why not go for LeBron? Would that have been bad for him? Would Wemby have not— did you do any reporting on that, Zach?

Not really, because it would never struck me as a real possibility that LeBron was going to consider it. And I'm not, you know, I mean, look, you have like LeBron's better than Tobias Harris. I mean, he's, he's an answer to the question that you're posing about who has the ball in crunch time as your lead decision maker. You know, are the Spurs the right team on their trajectory, given their age, to sort of upend everything for a year, 2 years to take like a detour into LeBron world. I don't know that they would really have been that interested in doing it, but I don't really know.

I heard they were not interested in even exploring it.

That wouldn't surprise me if it were true. I'm fine with the Tobias Harris add. And all of these things are wonderful problems to have. Is it worth noting that De'Aaron Fox was the Clutch Player of the Year like 3 years ago? He was supposed to be the answer. to this question.

And we were letting the beam back then.

And I think he will be part of the answer. Yeah. Like, I think we're letting an injury-riddled and below-average playoff run highlighted by one absolutely horrific decision at the end of Game 4 when he went for the layup and he didn't have to. I, this is still a, the guy made the All-Star team last year. He's not like a scrub that is on the way out of the league.

Yeah.

So that's the glass half full case. is De'Aaron Fox with a chip on his shoulder.

That's the glass.

There's no— De'Aaron Fox with a chip on his shoulder. Harper a year older, Castle a year older, and then Wemby now having tasted his own blood and going on a mission.

Well, I don't know. Wemby on a mission. What does that look like? That, that to me is the answer.

I don't know. What does it look like? He's already— he seems feisty already this year. He's like, not—

he was feisty in the playoffs.

He's not talking to anybody.

He's good.

He seems pissed off about everything, which I like.

I think that's the reason. that there was never serious consideration of LeBron. They have their own circus. They have their Wemby circus. They're very comfortable with their Wemby circus. They do a great job managing the Wemby circus. They go around stadium to stadium and everybody wants to come see the phenomenon that is Wemby. And by extension, this, this Spurs team, and they can live inside that skin. And Tobias Harris fits in seamlessly.

By the way, we have a lot of circuses this year.

We sure do.

There's a Philly circus comes to town. Yeah. We have the OKC, we have the Luka circus, we have Giannis in Miami. There's a lot of circuses. All right, 60.5. Instinctively, I wanted to just say, oh, that's, that's an over. And then you just start factoring how deep the league is and that there are no easy wins. Where did you go in this, Zach?

Oh, I get to lead off. Thank you. Yeah, it's a big number. They won 62 last year in a league that, as you mentioned, was super watered down. I do think they benefit a little bit from the West being a shallower conference than the East. I mean, that your schedule doesn't tilt comp tier conference as much as people think. It's still 52-30. But, but that matters on the fringes a little bit. And I just think like, I just think they're significantly better, them and Oklahoma City, than the next tier of teams below them in the West. And forget about it, the next teams below that. Yeah. So I, I, despite, you know, the new tanking rules and that wins are gonna be harder to come by across the board, they were 35-15 against above .500 teams last year. That's a number that I look at a lot for this purposes. Like how real was your season or how, how much were you just beating up on the dregs? I think they're hungry, they're deep, they have arguably the best player in the league. I went over despite the fact that it's a huge number in a deep, deep league overall and a good, and a good conference.

I went, I went over.

I am gonna predict House's answer.

Go ahead.

I'm a slight over and he's gonna do this.

I'm not.

Go ahead, House.

I'm not doing that and I might not do it the entire 11.5 hours.

Just a 0.5 whiff of an over.

They're over. And there are wins to consume in the West because there are teams that won mid-40s, you know, low 40s, mid-40s in the West that I don't think are anywhere near that this upcoming season. So I think that they will hoover up some of those wins. And I just think that the experience of, of making it to the Finals for this group and especially what it meant in terms of the development of the, the depth for that team. They're, they're loaded and I have no problem at all going over.

I'm a slight over. I always worry about the Wemby injury potential just 'cause he's super tall.

Yeah.

And you just never know. Totally reasonable.

He played, can I just state that?

71, 46, and 64 were his 3 games played seasons.

Yeah. That's fair. That, that's fair. I mean, I just wanna point out that you made fun of House for going slight over and you just led with not deadpan, like I'm going slight

Slight over. I think they're in the 61 to 62.

Okay. That's a win.

1 seed plus 140. I actually think they will not be the 1 seed, but the number I kept looking back at their last 30 games last year, 26 and 4.

Very good.

And even if you're throwing in some tanking teams, that's still 22 and, you know, 22 and 7, 22 and 8. Yeah. And they're gonna be, all year older and better. And I like the Billy Donovan ad too. I thought that was good. They really, they lost Kelly Olynyk. They added Tobias Harris. That's all they did. Those 2 things. And we didn't even mention, we didn't mention Carter Bryant, who I think I, I'm just intrigued by him as a little, little toy for them.

But that's a, that's an example of the point I was trying to make about the depth. He got Yeah. Genuine playoff minutes, real highest leverage possible minutes. Yeah. And that's really good for where he is in his career.

Terrance Reed Jr. also getting like every single rebound in the preseason. I'm just, I'm putting it in my back pocket. Yeah. It's like if I need a 3rd center for whatever reason, like this guy looks like he's ready to sop up some minutes.

I think the bigger point we'll get to when we talk about OKC is there's 2 teams that are just way more talented than all the other teams. And to not go over with either of them, I think is pretty foolish. All right, so we are all over for that one. Next one, no locks by the way. Nobody wants to lock that down.

I'm gonna say I'm not locking it. 60.5.

Yeah, I'm sitting tight for a minute.

The Houston Rockets, their over-under is 48.5. It's been some action on that, Zach Lowe. It's been little bumps. It's been going up. 5-to-1 for the division, 14-to-1 for the conference, 27-to-1 for the title. Last year they were 52-30. They are bringing back Fred VanVleet. They added Marcus Smart. They added Bruce Thornton. And most importantly, they added bearded Reed Shepard. Bearded Reed Shepard. Uh, I don't— he just looks like he's the young dad in a horror movie that moved into the house and then starts going into the attic and there's evil spirits up there. He's just kind of a more dangerous vibe. I like it.

Yeah,

I think he might have needed facial hair more than just about any player in the league. Very excited for him. Um, my big question, I'll start with you on this one, House.

Okay.

Could any star flip his career legacy more than Durant if he carried the Rockets to the Finals this season?

Wow.

I'll give you some other possible legacy-flipping stars.

Go ahead.

Nikola Jokic winning a second title. Joel Embiid making it past round 2. Jason Tatum carrying a Boston team to the 1 seed and back to the Finals. Giannis rehabilitating, rejuvenating Miami and dragging them to the Finals. LeBron in Philly throwing the Sixers on his back. Or the one thing that will never happen, but I have to mention anyway, James Harden finally figuring out in year 28 and carrying the Cavs to a Finals.

Oh, poor James Harden.

What would be the biggest legacy flip out of all those guys for you?

It's, it's To me it's Embiid, even though, because

you've given up on his legacy.

Well, and, and he's never been to a conference finals like that. Yeah. There, there's no legacy. He, he is, he will, you know, until he actually makes it to an NBA finals, it'll be promise unfulfilled with that guy.

Okay.

And a league MVP to never make a conference finals or a finals.

What's your answer, Zach?

Well, I'll throw out some other names for you. You didn't mention Luka. What if the Lakers are way better than expected and he actually gets his first MVP after being like among the preseason favorites for 5 or 6 years. And I'm just gonna say, like, I'm just, I'm just gonna say it. What if, what if the Raptors make the finals again with Kawhi Leonard? What if Kawhi just has Toronto and then 8 years later another Toronto and all in between is planting trees and Boingo Wireless and all this stuff? Does he become like a, an honorary parliamentarian in Ontario by that point? So those are, those are, uh,

we just had to start a podcast talking about his legacy. Every episode is a new legacy chapter.

I am. I just want to say I am encouraged and heartened that I looked at my timer. We got over 20 minutes before the L word was dropped on this podcast.

And I have it in other spots too. There's going to be more legacy talk later.

And I was happy that it was about Kevin Durant because I do think it's a weird thing to say about a top 12 all-time player who's a 2-time Finals MVP. But he does feel like we've talked ad nauseam about it. he is a superstar in need of the right coda to his career. And I think this team, I don't know that anybody out of the West could make the finals other than the top 2 unless there's a major injury. But this team has a chance to at least be a very feel-good sort of coda this year for him.

Yeah, we have 3 puncher's chance if a bunch of things go right, West teams that I think could make it. And this is one of them. Durant, Since the 2018 Finals, how many playoff games do you think he's played, House?

Since what year Finals?

Since he went down in the, uh, I'm sorry, in the 2019 Finals.

So he played with Brooklyn and played in a bunch of playoff games.

Phoenix and Houston last year.

Phoenix. Yeah. Uh, you're asking how many playoff games has he played in?

I'll give you the answer. 32. Okay.

I would've guessed in the 20s.

He's had 2 playoff series wins in the 2020s. He has 17 straight years of 25 points a game.

Yep.

17.

Yes. All-timer.

He has played over 50,000 minutes combined, regular season playoffs, which makes him one of 23 guys ever. And if he has a pretty normal season, he'll be in the top 12 for that. And Zach is right, there's no coda for everything that's happening here. This is just kind of drifting along. I will say this team got rid of Finney-Smith, Okogie, and Jeff Green and added healthy Fred VanVleet, Marcus Smart, Bruce Thornton, and bearded Reed Shepard. I'm gonna say it again. Well, and, and they're just gonna be better. The vibes are gonna be better. They have actual guards. They can run an offense.

You can't just throw by the return of Steven Adams. You have to mention Steven Adams and the

healthy Steven Adams. Yeah. Should have mentioned that as well.

For as long as he's healthy. A healthy Steven Adams is crucial to this team.

Hey, Zach.

Yeah,

they have some draft pick shit that they can fuck around with here.

That's, that's another variable that you gotta consider with all these teams. Who's got the assets to make a win-now trade or who wants to be a seller and who, who would be motivated either way? They do, they can do whatever they want. I would like, as we do at our house, to institute a everyone hands their phones over at the door when we come to the practice facility policy for the Rockets. But

put them in a little cubby or something.

How many phones does KD have to turn in?

All of them. Does he get patted down?

He has an iPhone, he has a Google Pixel. The— so they have a Brooklyn swap pick that could be super tasty, right? That could end up being the number 1 pick in the draft for all we know. They also have an unprotected Phoenix pick, and Phoenix will— we'll get to them, but they'll, you know, they're gonna be somewhere between 35 and 45 wins. But they, they have capital, they have a couple expirings and things to do. They have Shepard, who I think would have interest. VanVleet's on an expiring, so they could make some moves. I factored that into my over of 48.5. I think, uh, to me this is a pretty, pretty easy over. I'd be really surprised if this team didn't get into the 49 to 53 range.

Yeah, I can't come up with a scenario. I'm actually just confused by this number. They won 52 games last season. They're regular season merchants. I mean, Ime Even with the enormously confusing effort to replace the point guard position last year after FVV got hurt in the summer.

And not getting DeSune Mu or Coby White, anything.

All those guys were available and this super weird end of game stuff where it was like they were playing hot potato. I never understood it. I never understood why KD wasn't just the guy closing games out. Even with that, they won 52 games. because the roster is mother-effing good and it got better. So it's an over for me and I'll go ahead and just say it out loud. It's a lock. It's an over lock. This number was like 47.5 until people started jumping into the market.

I am locking it down too, Zach Lowe.

The only, the only case against it is the offense with Fred VanVleet back and a healthier roster and all that is still amounting to like All right, there's 8 on the shot clock. Can Alperen Sengun like snowplow to the rim and throw something up and we can rebound it? But I would like to make it universal. This is an official lock over for me, no doubt about it. 48.5 is too low. The Rockets are gonna win a lot of games.

I, and the other thing we mentioned earlier, but the West just isn't good enough,

right?

And it, there's really only 5 teams I like in the West. So I, I just feel like if you look at the history of the league and the standings and Basketball Reference, anytime we have like a top-heavy conference, it's usually gonna be in the high 40s.

And I, I will add the addendum to my only case against it being the offense looking that way is if it does look like, like that, I think there's like, is there some Ime Udoka noise 20 games into the season? And what does that do? What does that do to the—

Is it a hot seat, hot seat noise or crockpot noise?

I can't remember which is worse. The crockpot is, is better, right? For the coach. It's simmering for a long time.

Yeah, simmering. The crockpot, it's simmering for a little bit.

It's on low.

I think hot seat noise, but I don't think that's gonna happen. I think they're gonna be an elite defensive team. an elite rebounding team, and a good enough offensive team. So that's also— lock it up.

Kevin Durant's on this team. His teams never have coaching issues. Dallas Mavericks, they're over-under is 33.5. They are +250 for the playoffs, +135 for the play-in house. Their 2027 draft pick goes to Charlotte unless it falls into the top 2.

Mm-hmm.

Which is conceivable because they could be in the 4 to 10 range, win the lottery or finish second and get to keep the pick. They have a new coach named Dusty May. We'll go into college stuff in a second. They were 26 and 56 last year. They were 7 and 23 in their last 30. The big question, Zach Lowe, what if Cooper Flagg becomes the greatest start of the year at 19-year-old? NBA player we've ever had for just that season.

Yeah, this was one of the toughest, this was one of the toughest lines for me. And Mahoney and I were talking about this team yesterday and we said, but like, Kyrie's back. He looks very good in the pre— in his one preseason game that I've seen him play. One would assume there'll be some rust coming off an ACL. Maybe they'll give him days off now and then, but still, if they have to—

It's been 18 months since the ACL though, or maybe even 19 months. Yeah. So he might be 100%.

If they, if they have 2 of the top 25 players in the league, is that not grounds for an over all on its own? And is it just everything after that is just overcomplicating a discussion? Because I do think Cooper Flagg is going to be that this season. He keeps growing. I guess he'll shoot better. He's just an awesome, awesome basketball player. The context of this roster is a little better for him with Kyrie around to take some of the ball handling load to be an elite, elite, elite off-ball shooter when Flagg has the ball. The rest of it's a little mucky. I'd feel really, really good. if like I knew anything about Derrick Lively's prognosis at all, and I, I don't. But that the case for the over is just, is it just as simple as 2 of the top 25 guys play on one team that's generally like a .500 team?

And even beyond that, if you look at the '24 Mavs blueprint that made the Finals, 2 elite offensive players, some fun role players, and just, just kind of in, in games every night and then able to take stuff in the last 5 minutes. It feels like a play on team to me, House. It feels like an easy 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 trade partner because you look at all the stuff they have, like, you know, Morris Johnson's gonna be, I think, good right away for them. They still have PJ Washington, they still have Najee Marshall, they got Aldama, they rolled the dice with Richauchet, they have Max Christie, they have a lot of wings.

They do.

They have 2 centers. And if Kyrie plays 70 games, you know, I, I, I find it hard to believe they're not gonna win 34, but it comes back to Flack because he was 23-7-5 last year. And if you're just talking about best guys heading into a 19-year-old season, it's basically Luka and LeBron and Wemby are the 3 that put up like pretty crazy stats when they were teenagers for at least half the year. So if he's 27-7-7 this year, basically a LeBron season, which I think is possible.

You said 27 points a game?

He's 23 last year.

My goodness. Yeah, but I mean, that was end of season, 50—

He's gonna have the ball a bunch. All right, well, let's give him 25, 7, and 7.

Okay, that makes me feel better.

Um, and I don't know why they would necessarily tank because there's, there's no tanking in the same way. And if anything, they want to be in the 4 to 10 range. So why wouldn't this be an over?

I was super relieved to hear Zach say that this number gave him a hard time because this is exactly the way I feel.

I changed my pick 5 times.

I think that Dusty May doesn't want to show up and they didn't hire Dusty May to come in and lose games, right? They're going to try and win and there's too many, they're too deep. There's too many professional basketball players now. The—

Well, not only too deep, but they have a guy who's going to really give a shit every night in Cooper Flack.

Yeah.

He's at the stage and he just wants to prove that he's really good at basketball night after night.

And isn't the version of Kyrie that's in Kyrie's own best interest, the version that is helping set up Cooper to be the best version of Cooper, the guy that is a tremendous facilitator, a leader, right?

Well, you mentioned this on the pod yesterday with Mahoney. This team could barely get into an offense. They, they, for the first 2 months of the season, they were using flag almost to just like, take all your lumps now. It'll all pay off for you down the road. And now they have like a real guy who will be able to dribble the ball up and get into sets and all kinds of things. And this, I gotta say, I'm kind of excited to watch them too. I wanna see Flagg and Kyrie together. Uh, I wanna mention the college coach curse though.

Uh-oh.

Yeah. Last really good, successful, I came in right away and was good at coaching was Brad Stevens. And that was 2013 where he just came in. It was like, oh, this guy has it. Donovan came in and took over an experienced OKC team. Mm-hmm. That was 2015. And Quinn Snyder came in in 2014 and did okay. But we've also had John Calipari, we had Rick Pitino, we had Tim Floyd, we had your guy Leonard Hamilton.

Oh man.

Who I think was the worst Wizards coach of your lifetime and mine since I've known you.

It's not on him.

Lon Krueger, Mike Montgomery. We had Mike Dunlap going from Loyola Marymount to the Bobcats. Fred Hoiberg, the immortal Fred. And we had John Beilein, who was our last college-to-pro coach in 2019. This has not happened for 7 years, and there's a reason for it, because this league's really good and it's really deep and there's a lot of talent. And it's always good to have— like, you'd much rather have like a Sean Sweeney who's been in the war, who's gone against all these dudes, who has a reservoir of other people. And, you know, to just come in blind to this, Zach, What are, what are you hearing on this?

I think, you know, the buzz on Dusty May is all good. There is a learning curve, no question about it. They drafted one of his players in Marez Johnson Jr. It's not my biggest concern. I think a coach is a coach is a coach. I mean, you're going back way, way back with some of those names that, that failed transitioning to the NBA. It has been a while since John Beilein. Remember the story about John Beilein calling his, naming his plays after animals and the, and the players laughing at that?

Yeah.

Zebra. Zebra and Panda Bear. I don't worry about the Dusty May factor. I worry about Derek Lively and I worry about the, the, a lot of the supporting cast you mentioned. I like a lot, a lot of them play more or less the same position. Yeah. And the shooting is iffy and just like, we like the top 2 guys a lot. The drop-off to the 3rd best guy on the team is like pretty severe. Yeah. And so that's the, that's the downside of all the depth is like, Who's the third guy? I think this is actually a really, really tough line. I, I, I was a little bit surprised how much I struggled with it.

So where'd you go?

I'm gonna, I think, zag from you guys and go under by the teeniest, teeniest, teeniest of hairs. I, I don't feel good about it. I wouldn't bet it. 33.5, it feels, it feels low to go under. You, I think you actually nailed the tanking incentive. I think they actually are incentivized not to tank to try to get their pick. pick into the best possible position to be the 1 or 2 pick and keep it. But I think I just have to hedge against some possibility of a Kyrie sell-high trade to a contender at some point in the season. I don't know if that'll happen. I don't think there's any plans to do it currently. It just feels like something that's gonna be potentially in the ether. So I gotta hedge against that. I'll take the under.

What do you think Patrick Dumont wants to do?

But as, as

he's assessed this and analyzed it,

One of the more awkward-looking owners to ever just populate the NBA sitting courtside. Yeah, I was proud of him for giving an interview, I think to The Athletic this week, in which he just did not embarrass himself. I thought that was a step in the right direction.

It's always good when somebody running a team, you're psyched that they didn't embarrass themselves.

But I don't feel great about this pick. I couldn't be higher on Cooper Flagg. I like a lot of the fringe moves they made in the offseason. I still am going to take the under. I don't feel good about it though.

House. Oh, don't change your pick. Don't be a coward.

I already wrote it down. It's an over. I'm gonna play— I'm not gonna say that this, this, this, this, this, it's so close, but 34 wins is attainable.

I am a slight over because I think Kyrie is incentivized to have a really good season. He has a player option next year for 42, but if he plays well this season, that could end up being high 40s, maybe even low 50s for 2 years. And he hasn't played basketball in a year and a half. I like the stuff I've heard about him. It seems like his head's in a good spot, and I think it's gonna be really fun to watch him in flag. But that, the big thing to me, this is a bet on flag. I just think this guy has a chance to be really special. And the history of the league is if somebody's really special, even, even at a young age, they're gonna start dragging you to some wins. And that's the difference between 30 and 35. I have them in the mid-30s. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. We are spending this 2-part extravaganza trying to figure out what we actually believe with this NBA season. Who's winning the title? Who's the best MVP pick? Which teams are going over? Which teams are going under? Which predictions are we gonna pretend we never made by February?

FanDuel has a reward stack built exactly for all of these questions and thoughts. You get a stack of rewards to use on NBA futures. So while we're sitting here and talking ourselves into teams, And outta teams for the rest of the show. You can make your future picks along with us on FanDuel. You can trust us. You can put your reward stack to work on NBA futures with FanDuel. So check it out in the FanDuel app. Make this your most rewarding season ever. 21+ select states or 18+ DC or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. A team everyone's too high on, the Memphis Grizzlies, over 30.5, playoffs +420, playing +200. They do not— oh, they have, uh, their own pick plus the second-best first of Utah, Minnesota, and Cleveland. They were 25-57 last year, but they were 7-33 in the last 40. And, uh, the big question, Joe House, Mm-hmm. 'cause Zach and I have already talked about this team on our podcast. Is everyone too high on this team? Is the bandwagon too filled? All the basketball pod people, all the nerds.

This has just become a sexy, sexy, sexy lottery team, basically. What do you think?

So the market reflects the sentiment that you're sharing. This was in the 28.5 range.

It went up 2 wins. Exactly.

It's all the way up to 30.5, and I think we've reached peak market. On this team, because I, I look at this roster, I know what they're gonna do, which is they, they have a roster that is going to play hard as hell and they are going to try and win all of their home games because they— Memphis and Utah, you know, very quietly under the radar because they were tanking the last couple years, tremendous home court advantages. The, the fans in those 2 cities are really, you know, passionate and do that. The team does response to it. Um,

you're just taunting Russell Westbrook right now.

Um, I just don't know if I can get there even with all of the proper enthusiasm for Boozer. How is this team going to score? And is Zach Edey going to finally play 65 games?

So he's the swing guy.

Yeah.

If he plays 20 games, this is an under. If he plays 65 games, I think it's an Right. West playoff locks for me, Zach: OKC, San Antonio, Denver, Minnesota, and Houston. And then we'll have a Pacific team TBD. And there's this next group here where we're gonna have 2 playoff teams from this group. It's gonna be, let's say the Lakers are the Pacific team. Phoenix, Dallas, Portland, Golden State, Memphis, and Utah. We will have 2 playoff teams outta that group. My guess is Memphis is gonna play hard and be frisky for a while before they decide what to do. But I think the dudes they have on this team are all gonna give a shit. Even like I talked, I went on a group chat 2 weeks ago and I was talking like they just kind of ended up with Jeremy Grant and you go, oh man, Jeremy Grant, bad contract. It's like he averaged 19 a game last year. He's a real player. They turned Caldwell Pope into Jeremy Grant. That's an upgrade. They added Cam Boozer, who's gonna be 19 and 10 every night, who can— you can run offense through him. You can go to him in crunch time.

They added Isaiah Stewart for basically nothing. They're gonna have size, toughness. I don't love the point guards, obviously, because they really don't necessarily have a starting point guard. They have Ty Jerome and Pippen, but there's a toughness and a grit and grind, old school throwback feel that I just, I got seduced by. So for me, it's an over 30.5. What do you, what do you have, Zach?

I would, I'd like to apologize for, I think, contributing to the start of the Memphis Grizzlies hype train, if not actually starting it like 2 months ago by saying when it was 28.5, I, I would just absolutely hammer the over. I think this team is gonna be—

You're zagging on your zig.

Not, I'm not, I'm zagging. I think— You're zagging. That's a term you would use.

Zag.

They're, they're like 18 deep. They had to waive guys like farewell D'Angelo Russell to just, just get the roster in order. They're gonna be super annoying to play against. Eady is a complete game changer when he plays. I don't know when he'll play. I couldn't be higher on Cam Boozer as like an immediate win-now, high-impact rookie.

He was the guy I knew you were gonna love heading into the—

he's heading into the draft.

He's a total Zach Lowe guy.

And then I watched their first couple of preseason games, including a win over the Hawks, and I was like, ooh, there really is just like a lot of Ty Jerome happening. And when there's a lot of Ty Jerome happening, it's a lot of like floater, floater on the way down, leaning floater, tilting floater. And they go in at a crazy rate, at least until the playoffs, 'cause Ty Jerome is really good. But you nailed the shot creation issue from the perimeter that I think they're gonna run into. And just like, is there a top 50 player in the NBA on the team? I think Boozer and Edy, like, like one of them being available all the time, it could be, could be a facsimile of that. But you know what? Sometimes you gotta own your own words. I just feel like they're gonna be deep and annoying and have a good home court advantage, and they're gonna make up for a lot of these deficits in, in different ways. I like Izzo as a coach. Fuck it. Over 30.5. Over. Fuck it. What do, what do I have to lose?

Nothing. Zach Lowe over Bill Simmons over Joe House.

I'm not going against Verno. I can't do it. Verno and, and Memphis deserve What kind

of analysis is that?

Well, you— I,

I'm not going against Verno is your analysis.

I offered my opinion at the top. I mentioned the home court advantage. I mentioned the depth, uh, and, and that they, I think, identity-wise, are a team that Isolo wants. This is like the version of, of, uh, you know, roster construction. And you guys mentioned some of the crucial additions.

I like the Quentin Post addition just as a 10th man, right? And if

Lopez gives

them anything

And they've, they have prepared pretty as well as you could possibly prepare for like, all right, Edie's probably gonna miss 30 games and play 22 minutes a game when he plays. Let's stock up on big guys. Boozer can play some 5 for them. I, I'm, I think we are a little over our skis, but I will still take the over. And I do, I do think it's worth asking like, what does an over mean for Chris Vernon's legacy? If we're gonna talk about legacy talk, I mean, what, what's Verno's legacy to this point?

What, what are his 25 job ranch jerseys on eBay right now? I mean, for his legacy. Listen, if we had the old tanking rules, this would be an under for me, just point blank.

Sure.

I think the new tanking rules and the fact that being in the 4 to 10 is desirable and where you want to be means all these teams are going to give a shit, um, for a month and a half longer than they would've. So it's an over. I have a bonus question for you. Top 5 2027 teams most likely to be in a massive brawl this season. Here are my rankings. Number 1, Memphis. Why? Number 2, Phoenix.

Oh, interesting.

Dylan Brooks just by himself makes them number 2.

And Bridges alongside of him.

Number 3, Detroit.

Yep. Still Ron Holland.

Ron Holland is still there and he is upset that he's not in the top 2. Number 4, Orlando. Kind of get dickish in games. They'll get it. They'll get a little feisty.

I don't think they want that smoke though.

Eh, they're a little dickish. And then number 5, Houston, just 'cause Steven Adams is back.

Draymond Green would like a, would like a word here at some point. Just, just over— overlooked again. Draymond Green.

Has Draymond been in a bench-clearing brawl?

I mean, if bench-clearing, no, but—

Or like a 5-on-5, like whatever happened in Charlotte-Detroit last year. Has he been in his version of that? I feel like no.

I guess not.

He usually kind of escalates it, but it never actually happens.

Yeah, he escalates to the point where he gets kicked out and so there isn't any, any actual risk to him getting punched right in the face.

Yeah. Memphis though. I mean, E.D. Boozer, Grant, Coward, and Jerome. That's just my kind of league pass team,

right? I get it.

Isaiah Stewart, Wells, Spencer, who was really good last year, Pippen, Post, G.G. Jackson. I like this team. This is a fun league pass team.

Over. All 3 of us over. All right.

Last but not least, and last but least, the New Orleans Pelicans, 28.5 is the over-under. They are +650 for the playoffs, +310 for the play-in. 2027 draft pick, kind of interesting. They could keep their pick or they could just switch it for Milwaukee's pick, which I would recommend right now. And then Atlanta somehow ends up with the worst of those 2. They have a new coach, Jamal Mosley, who for some reason got snapped up right away after a very strange Orlando season. They were 26-56 last year. Notable, in their last 40 with nothing to play for because they didn't have a pick, they went 17-23, which could give us a little foreshadowing of, uh, of where the league is going with the non-tanking stuff. Um, they're gonna start Missy, Zion, Murphy, Herb Jones, and Dejounte Murray. They're gonna bring Queen Bey, Mathurin, and Fears off the bench, and the artist formerly known as Jordan pool. My big question for you, Zach Lowe: will Zion hold this team hostage for the entire 2020s? Is this just going to be like a kidnapping show on Apple TV but with a basketball player and a franchise?

I mean, that would imply that he has the power and stature at this point in his career to hold any team hostage other than by being, as you put it, in the Zion Zone, where he's—

That's where I wanted to get to.

Too good to trade or, or too risky for a team Too good to trade from New Orleans' perspective, too risky to trade for, for another team.

Bermuda Triangle of NBA. It's the Zion zone. We can't give you up and nobody's offering anything for you. What do we do?

He only has one more non-guaranteed year, partially guaranteed year left on his contract, so it can't last that long. And I do think— I don't know. I like literally have no idea what's going to happen with Zion if he's just by inertia going to be on the Pelicans on like a $30 million a year deal after this one expires. I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen to him. I tried to find like what pseudo contender actually makes sense as a, like, this guy is a mid-season trade acquisition for us. Or is it not a pseudo contender? Is it like a middle of nowhere, going nowhere, middle of the road team that's just like, screw it, we'll get— I have absolutely no idea.

Yeah.

Oh wow.

I theorized 2 weeks ago that he would be the greatest 6th man of all time for the 2027 playoffs. You just get him, get him for 8 minutes a half, just come in, we're gonna run our entire offense through you and fuck the other team up, and then you're gonna sit.

The incredible thing with him last season, in addition to him playing 62 games last season, which is incredible. Yeah, kind of quiet. How infrequently he shoots from the mid-range and 3. The numbers are astonishing. All he does is he's a 60% shooter because he just goes to the rim and goes to the rim and gets to the paint and goes to the rim. That feels pretty goddamn valuable. in the modern NBA, this iteration of the NBA. If you thought you could get 60 games from him, I think there's a bunch of teams that would be interested and the price should be right.

It's decent, like $40 million. That's movable.

You do have to send out real stuff just because of salary alone. In most cases anyway, if you're a contender, if you're a good team, you're probably gonna have to send out good players to get him. And you know, part of the first half of this season will be like, do we have any faith that his durability last year was a real thing or was it a mirage?

I do not. We've— this is our, I don't know if you guys wanna celebrate in any way, but it's our 25th New Orleans Hornets season. It's year 25.

The Hornets-Pelicans?

The, when, when they started as the New Orleans Hornets when they moved there.

Got it.

Can we take a, can we take a Spotify Ringer road trip to New Orleans for like a good 2-game homestand? It's like—

Tickets are available.

Go to Harrah's, just eat some food.

Harrah's is one of my favorite places on the earth. I love going to Harrah's.

What is the case against doing this in like a, you know, for me, for me in the Northeast, for house on the East Coast, let's go somewhere warm in December for a couple games all gathered. What, what's the case against that?

Great call. That sounds, sounds wonderful.

Crab boil.

Would you like to guess how many playoff series wins they've had since they became the New Orleans Hornets in the '02-'03 season?

I will go with 2.

I feel, I agree. It's under 5.

It's 2.

Yeah.

Yeah. I can, I know which ones they are. So that 2.

My big fear with this team, other than the new tanking rules,

your big fear, you have one

big fear and the organization and the medical staff and the ownership, other than that, their franchise guy, I have no idea if he's gonna play 60 games. This is just, everybody on this team is in the trade machine at all times. And that's always a weird vibe for like, I guess Fears would not be in the trade machine maybe, and Queen, and those are their 2 keepers. And then I'm prepared for anything else with any other guy. And also DeAndre

Jordan, who's just, I think he signed a 7-year deal in the offseason

because of the Joe Dumars misunderstood the rules and then claimed afterwards that he didn't. So, and I have this email from Alex in Florida. who wants to know why we assume the NBA intent tanking rules will solve tanking. Because teams will want to be in that 4 to 10 zone. And New Orleans is one of the teams I wonder, are we gonna have like a logjam of teams that want to be 4 to 10?

Hmm.

That's 7 spots, but we might have 11 teams jockeying to be in those 7 spots once we get to, uh, To March. Anyway, lottery-level teams, if we go Sacramento, Dallas, New Orleans, Clippers, Brooklyn, Milwaukee, and Chicago, that's 7. There's 3 other teams that might just say, oh, we had a couple injuries, fuck it, right? Like Charlotte's an example. Charlotte's already had a couple hamstring calf things. They could start out slow. Maybe they have one more injury in December and, you know, they're 28-40 with 14 games to go and they might just say fuck it. So just trying to factor that in with a team like New Orleans that does seem so poorly run to begin with, I don't know what to do. Zach, what do you have for this?

I, I will add to that that again, I think it's if a team has a real chance at a play-in, I, I, it would be pretty unusual for them not to at least try. And the new tanking rules also give Adam Silver even more latitude or make it clear that like he's gonna bring the hammer down on suspicious crap like, oh, you took this guy out in the 3rd quarter after he was healthy. Right. This is a 28.5. When I first saw this weeks and weeks ago, I thought, well, that's gonna be an over. Like they just have too much talent on this team. The wing combination of Herb Jones and Trey Murphy, that's a legit starting 2-3, 3-4, whatever on a good team. I am going to go under because I just think there are too many questions about who's gonna be on the team long-term. Too many guys who are just defined by the need to have the basketball at all times and don't really know how to function. without it. And I mentioned the stat that I like to look at. You know, they played much better with Dejounte Murray when he came back briefly last year that I think they had a +1.5 net rating, which for a 26-win team is a real thing.

Then I went back and looked like, let's see who they played when Dejounte Murray was available. And it was mostly crapola. And to that point, this team was, let me find them, 9-45 against .500 or over teams last year. and 17-11 against below .500 teams. I am going to, despite the fact that there's a lot of raw talent here, more than should be for a 29-win team, I'm going to go under.

It's an under for me as well. 2 observations. If there's any franchise in the entire NBA who unintentionally fucks up and find themselves in the relegation zone, this was an elite candidate. Like, they don't have to try to tank. They don't have to do anything nefarious. They just have to be who they are. Oopsie. We're one of the 3 worst.

There were new rules this year.

Yeah. Um, the Jamal Mosley hiring is so curious. He, I think, would be an appropriate hire for culture setter, except for what culture are you trying to set with, with this group of guys? 5 of these guys make sense much more sense on, on teams other than this team.

It's an under for me as well because this team breaks one of my many rules. If at least 4 of the guys in your 9-man rotation would openly welcome a trade, that makes me nervous. Like if you've truth serumed, I don't know, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Dejounte Murray, And maybe even Zion and probably Ben Mathurin, who just signed there and is already like, I hope they trade me. I just feel like this is not a long-term home for a lot of these guys. I also have the 2027 Can't Stay Out of Their Own Way Team Rankings.

Wow. You really came prepared. A lot of different rankings here.

Yeah. Sacramento 1. I know you're feuding with Sacramento, Zach, but they're unfortunately, they're 1. I have New Orleans 2 and I have Milwaukee 3, and I think that has to be the top 3. And if you're gonna say there's a couple teams lurking, I would have Brooklyn and I would have Golden State.

Sure.

So you're, but you're just naming bad teams. That's all you're doing.

Not naming bad teams as much as teams that I just, they just can't stay outta their own way. Like Golden State just couldn't resist rolling another bite of the poor Zynga sap.

Can't figure out how to do it.

Another $20 million for Porzingis, to the point where they had to have a story come out this week about— it actually wasn't about Porzingis as much as the trade exception number for the contract. It's an asset. Really? That's why, that's why you signed Porzingis? Because it was a $20 million trade asset.

Yeah. He's not gonna play.

That was your plan.

It's amazing. It's amazing that all it took was a coaching change and more importantly, a managerial change. And the Dallas Mavericks who traded Luka Dončić in the dead of night are just out of this category. But, but you don't see— Mike Schmitz comes in, they're out of this category. They, they, They are the ultimate got in their own way. They ran into a wall that they constructed on their, of their own and just ran headfirst into it.

'Cause the league gave them the first fucking overall pick with Cooper Kupp.

Oh, now you make Zach uncomfortable.

I mean, let's not.

No, I'm not uncomfortable.

Jesus.

I mean, let's, I was there.

Let's not sugarcoat it for Christ's sakes.

Well, we're all under on the Pelicans and that brings us to the end of whatever that division is called.

Can I, can I interject as we get to the end? I just wanna note I'm keeping score here. I might have to start zagging more. Yeah. 5 teams in, we only have one disagreement and it's me going under on the Mavericks. I think I'm gonna have to start zagging it up.

I would say that, that I thought was the easiest division of the 6. Good for me.

Okay.

I think it's gonna get harder and you're about to find out right after this break. So the NBA is so close to being back. FanDuel has you covered all season long. I wanna walk you through how I would potentially use the FanDuel NBA Futures Rewards stack. All right, so there, there's 5 Profit Boost tokens. You have the advance to X playoff round. I would, I would use the Pacers probably for that to make the, make the Final 8, because I think the odds are pretty good on that. You could also just use San Antonio or OKC to make the Conference Finals. Regular season wins, you can pick any regular season wins bet. You want. I would probably lean toward OKC just getting into, you know, 62-20 range, and you're good with that. Make-miss playoffs, you can pick a make-miss playoff bet. I like the Pacers for that one too. Division winners, pick any team to win their division. It's got to be the Lakers. They have the easiest path for the Pacific Division if Luka gets healthy. And then last but not least, pick any Finals win bet. So for something like this, Keep it simple.

Take OKC or San Antonio, whoever, whoever you think is gonna win, or take last year's champs, the Knicks. Put 'em all together and knock yourself out. We have an amazing NBA season ahead. FanDuel has you covered right now, all season long. Listen to all of our future picks and get in on the action yourself before the PBT pack expires end of the day, Sunday, October 18th. We're back and we're on a terrible pace. My fault. I had— who, who did I have? Dan Quinn organizing the rundown.

We're talking about this at a great pace. We started this whole goddamn show with how much America is dying for NBA basketball, and we're sitting right here

giving them basketball.

2 of the greats and 1 big dummy giving America basketball.

All right, well, we're good. That was the most interesting division of the 3. We're going to the Northwest. Oklahoma City, 61.5 is the over for the 1 seed there, -110 house, a bet that I have in bold. Because I do think they will be the 1 seed. They were 64-18 last year, +130 conference, +240 for the title. They lost Lou Dort, Isaiah Joe, and Aaron Wiggins, and they added Adae Mara. Adae Mara? Adae Mara? Adae?

Adae.

I'm gonna screw that up all season. I look forward to that. Adae Mara. I'm just gonna call him Mara or the tall guy. And Bennett starts. And, uh, all right, the big question: was last year just a crazy lightning-in-a-bottle aberration loss to the Spurs, or is there a Wemby kryptonite issue with this team? Zach Lowe?

Uh, I think somewhere in between. I mean, Wemby is going to be kryptonite for pretty much every offense in the NBA. One thing that would help, uh, defang that kryptonite would be to have all your secondary ball handlers healthy, and they did not have AJ Mitchell or Jalen Williams healthy for that series. So a little bit of both, I think. Look, they're, I think they played 12 times last year and it was 8-4 Spurs. That's a real thing at that point. There's no question about it. It's the best rivalry in the NBA. It's going to be even more interesting this season with particularly like, I don't think they played till mid-December, which is like, why, why do I have to wait so long? What? I can't wait to see Chet Holmgren's response to seeing Wemby in his face again. I think it's going to be awesome. I think it's a little bit of both, but I would be a little more optimistic than just saying straight up Wemby is the kryptonite and that's the end of the story.

I agree with Zach Lowe and I would even go further. I think last year was just a crazy aberration. They didn't have their second best player as one of the best 15 guys in the league healthy really for most of the season. House, they were 72-18 heading into the San Antonio series. They're over-under 61.5. I don't see how they lose 20 games or more this season, even with the new tanking rules. I just can't get there. We have Rocky III Chet, spent in the gym with Duke.

He put on £2.

He put on £2.

He put on £2.

They have Hartenstein back, they have Mara, they have a healthy J Dub, and I'm not that worried about the kryptonite thing. I went back over kryptonite teams in history, like the Magic Lakers had the '86 Rockets, and then were very fortunate when that team completely fell apart. Shaq Kobe Lakers sort of had Duncan Spurs. There were a couple years there where Duncan could really take them toe to toe. Bird Celtics had the Pistons who they beat in '87, lost '88. Jokic Nuggets recently with Minnesota, I think was a kryptonite team.

That's a good one.

Duncan Spurs had that one Z-Bo Grizzlies era that just was— Z-Bo and Gasol were just a terrible matchup for them for a couple years in a row. So this does happen.

You didn't do MJ Pistons? I mean, they literally had the Jordan rules.

I know, but he ended up kicking their ass and breaking up the team.

Yeah, but it took a while. They, they took a couple years. Yeah, but they beat his ass.

It's a good one. I mean, they just were a way better team.

Yes.

So I think OKC's gonna be fine. I think they're the favorite and I'm pretty bullish on them. How about you, House?

It's an over, it's a lock. I have no hesitation or reservation around it. The aberration that you're describing is also to me just regular old NBA variance. Guys get hurt. It is this, you know, modern world of the NBA. And I do wonder, to one of the big theme observations Zach made at the top of the show, if all of the teams are playing hard and all of the— none that nobody's really incented to tank, where are we gonna find the rest for these guys? Because there have been now these studies backing up the notion that the players are running more, that the running is more intense, that the— so we've been—

yeah, we've been talking about this for a couple years.

We better be finding ways for these guys to get some rest, to go ahead and load manage if we want the best versions of these teams to be available in the playoffs.

Well, that's why they need Mara at Sturdy. it's Sorber. We're gonna have to see this year. Topic, Zach's guy.

Great. Let's see 'em all.

And then Jared McCain, who just fell into their laps last year, which was huge. Mitchell will be healthy. I just think they have a lot of options, looks, lineups. They can give guys nights off. How intrigued on a scale of 1 to 10 were you with the Myra highlights in the preseason, Zach?

I don't think it's just highlights. I, I, I watched a couple of their games and I was like, oh my God. I mean, look, it's preseason, right? But yeah, he's had multiple block on one end, dunk on the other end sequences that are like, okay, this guy's like, he's gonna be something. He, he, he, he posted up a couple switches and like easy peasy hooks. Like he's gonna be able to play minutes for them. The case for—

He's at least not a bust. I think we could just tell from the preseason this guy will be something. And I don't know if he's gonna be somebody who can play in the 4th quarter of a Spurs Game 4 in San Antonio, But he's not nothing.

Oh, they shouldn't— if they're healthy, they will not need him to play a second against San Antonio in the playoff series unless he's so good that he has earned that time. The case for the under is it's a huge number. Again, there's not gonna be anyone tanking. Are they gonna try to be careful with their best players and rest them more? And well, I mean, in J Dub's case, even if they rest him, he'll still end up playing more. than he did last year. And I think for both them and the Spurs, you have to think like, how much does either team care about getting the number 1 seed and having Game 7 at home? The Spurs already beat Oklahoma City on the road in Game 7. I don't know the answer to that, but I just say, and obviously they lost 3 key depth pieces and one of them being a starter in Lou Dort. I'm not really worried about that. I think a full season of McCain is huge for them in that regard.

Amazing.

I think Mitchell and McCain off the bench, I mean, they are gonna go on like 20-4 runs against these opposing second units who are like, what's happening? These guys are like all-stars playing against us. I am going over on 61.5. I just think they're too good.

I, so you're locking this?

Yeah, I locked it.

I couldn't lock it only 'cause I don't know what 62 wins means in this new NBA where 25 to 28 teams are actually gonna care most of the season. I didn't know how to factor it. Like, if we were the old tanking rules, to me this would be a 69 to 71 range team. I just don't know what's gonna go on.

I'm less fearful because I just think they'll kick everybody's ass. Like, there aren't any rosters that I'm worried about when I go through it.

As you know, I love nothing more than going through preseason features, interviews, and comments from star players and interpreting them and making too much of them. I have like some of the SGA stuff. About, about how much last year hurt and looking at the championship ring and, you know, the, the does seem like he's pissed off that basically they had a chance to go back to back. They didn't. The Knicks supplanted them as, you know, the team. San Antonio supplanted them as the sexy team in the West everyone wants to talk about. And I think he wants to get his, take his corners back. It's a little Marlo season 5-ish.

They also must know on some level that, and this is nothing to take away anything they accomplished, but the Halliburton injury in Game 7 of that series inevitably changes the way we all remember that series. And I think they know if we want to win, we want to win over everybody's best shot. And we kind of didn't get to do that.

Minnesota. A lot of buzz on them, and yet their over-under keeps going the wrong way, House. It's down to 46.5. They are 27-1 for the title, -550 for the playoffs. 30-1 would be the 1 seed. They do not have their first-round pick. It goes to either Utah or Memphis. 49-33 last year. They were 17-13 in their last 30 games. My big question to you, in May, you're either gonna be right or wrong about LaMelo? And I don't have a question, it's just a comment. It's, it's now you really have to pick sides on this one. This is not— you can't— I'm not just saying you, I'm saying everybody. Yeah, this has now turned into the most fun. I'm on this side or I'm on this side with the trade, with what LaMelo is going to do with Minnesota, the whole thing. So where are you?

I've never been a LaMelo guy. I don't think he's a serious basketball player. I think he is incredibly talented. I understand the flair with which he plays. I know why he's so appealing to a couple of generations of basketball fans younger than me. I just want none of it. I, I'm not interested in any aspect of it. There have been a lot of smart people who've made the observations around the offensive engine he was for that Charlotte team last year, but he still commits turnovers, you know, inside of some of the advanced analytics at a rate that's, that's not really sustainable. But at the end of the day, there is no evidence that he's a winning basketball player. And so that's my verdict. And, and as a result, Minnesota's an under for me.

Year 7 for him. He's played 2,100 minutes once in a season. He's never played in an actual playoff game. And yet Zach LaVine's never played with anyone like Anthony Edwards.

Few have.

Few have.

I would push back on the no evidence that he's a winning player just because Charlotte has always been way, way better when he's on the floor and not in a fake way where like, oh, the bench sucks and the starters suck less in a real way where like they're awesome on offense in particular and really crappy without him. I'm going over. And I, this line is too low at 46.5. The 2 guards, Ant and LaMelo together offensively, Rudy is a top 10 defense all by himself. The floor seems pretty high if they're healthy. The bench worrisome and inexperienced, but you know, there's some upside there. And I don't know how much of you guys have caught in the preseason. One of my real actual, like I'm taking this away in a real way and putting it in my pocket for the regular season. I think Jaden McDaniels is gonna level up. up as a player, particularly on offense. And I just, I think 46.5 is too low, so I will take the over. And we have another disagreement finally.

I was a slight over until I read this quote from Chris Finch on LaMelo Ball. He's always in a great mood, always comes in smiling. He and Anthony have a shared quality. They're really hard to stay mad at, and they do some things that want to make you get mad. They have a reflective joy. We referred to ourselves as a moody team in the last couple years at times, and it probably got in our way. We've traded moodiness for giddiness. I'm an over.

Oh joy.

I, I actually think they're— I think this number's 2 to 3 wins too low. They're gonna shoot a ton of 3s. There's gonna be nights when it looks awful. There's gonna be nights when it seems like they could have beaten any team in NBA history. There's gonna be a real flair and happiness and joy to them. them as a regular season team. I have no idea what happens in the playoffs and I don't have high hopes, but I agree with what Zach said about McDaniels. Ayo, Shannon, Barringer, if they can actually get something outta him. The only thing I don't—

Barringer, Barringer, Barringer.

Sorry, I call him Barringer like Tom Barringer. The only thing I didn't like is Kuminga and I know why they did it. The price was the price. I just don't think he's a winning basketball player. I don't like where he fits in with this. I don't think he's gonna have the ball enough, and I don't see how the Kuminga piece of this works.

Just to be clear, you, you think 40% of their starting lineup are losing basketball players and you're taking De'Aaron over?

I don't think LaMelo's a losing basketball player.

Okay. I just wanna be clear. It's— I'm just trying to be clear.

Joe House said that.

Yeah.

Joe House right over here said that.

I feel like the record kind of supports it.

It's not—

my issue is he propelled Charlotte to great— okay.

My issue with LaMelo is this, it's a durability thing. I talked about this when they made the trade. I don't trust that he can play 2,300 to 2,400 minutes, which I think if you're gonna trade all the stuff they traded and you're gonna rely on him the way they're gonna rely on him, I need you, I need to know you're playing 70 to 73 games and you're gonna play 30 minutes a game. And Charlotte very smartly last year pulled his minutes back and put him at 28.

Yeah.

And agreed, we're basically treating him like they were on a cross-country drive. I'm losing my voice. They're on a cross-country drive just going 60 miles an hour on the highway in the middle lane with him when I think he wants to go in the left lane and I think he wants to floor it and he's going to do that.

He sure does. He does want to floor it. And I wonder, people of Minnesota, look, they should have an alert for when he gets behind the wheel of a car. Literally, he wants to floor his

car. I think his car takes up multiple lanes. at the same time.

Yeah.

So you can tell when it's LaMelo.

But here's the thing, they have insurance for him if he misses 10 games.

They do.

And that's why that, that made me comfortable with the over 46.5. I thought about locking it down, but I just wanna see how this looks. And by the way, I get why they did the trade. I just didn't like it. I thought last year I would've gotten rid of Randle. I would've kept Naz Reid. I thought last year they were injured.

They were injured.

They were a team that made 2 straight conference finals and I thought had a foundation of something.

They were.

And I would've bet on McDaniels getting better and

yeah,

I just would've gotten rid of Randle would've been my move.

How many locks are we required to, to post?

You can do as many as you want.

I'm not ready to lock this one yet.

Oh, I, I would, I would love to be on the other side of it, of, of a, of a Zach lock.

So they got rid of Randle, Naz Reid, and Mike Conley, and they added LaMelo and

Good. Best of luck. That's, that's—

and hopefully a McDaniels level up because of Randall and the attitude and happiness.

Sick. I love him.

House, do you wanna do a challenge lock? You, you lock the under, I lock the over.

Well, it's just a, a bet between the two of us. Let's not lock. I don't wanna lock anything with this. Okay. All right. Okay. You and I can have our own separate gentleman's Minnesota waiver. Listen, we'll come up with a fun name for it.

I don't understand. Why did you turn down his lock challenge?

Because I'm not locking an under for this team. The ceiling is high. They, what, what if it works? I'm not locking it. I mean, locks are precious.

This team probably had no chance of beating San Antonio and OKC healthy in the playoffs the next couple years, and at least they have changed the variance with the threes.

I don't know why we're so certain of that. They— if, if Anthony Edwards—

that was the Randle thing.

If Anthony Edwards was healthy, like what he does in terms of, you know, overcoming some of the shortfalls that we saw out of Randle, the, the Randle um, Nas combo was a genuine frontline that could compete with—

Thanks, buddies.

With San Antonio. They won 49 games last season and they got rid of those 2 big bodies and replaced them with, you know, Clowny McFarty Pants, the, uh, you know, who should be in an Uber at all times, and, and, and, and,

and

Kuminga.

Clowny McFarty Pants.

And Kuminga.

I mean, good luck.

That's all. Good luck.

They have to—

So you won't lock an under on a team with a star player you nicknamed Clowny McFarty Pants?

I don't like his game, but he, I mean, what if he goes off? What if Anthony Edwards unleashes him, unlocks him? It's possible.

If we can get a, if we can get a Bill Simmons colonoscopy t-shirt made, can we get a Clowny McFarty Pants t-shirt made

with a picture of, of LaMelo? Sure. I bet, I bet it would work.

Zach, do you think if they hadn't floated Randle's name in the trade deadline so egregiously and spun him into the funk that he went to after that, that this was salvageable for them? Or do you think they were dying to get off him regardless?

I think they were ready to just move on, to your point, to a different vision of like, we need to do something that's our unique thing to have any chance, and maybe this will be it.

Well, they built the team to beat Denver and they did, but it didn't lead to making the Finals.

I'm willing to acknowledge that Anthony Edwards could unleash him and he might start playing the the first moment of his basketball career, some serious basketball. I'll acknowledge it. It's possible.

I do think this will lead— this team will lead the league not only this year but all time historically in most times a guy makes a 3, staggers away from the 3-point line with a prance, has a teammate come over, and then they double prance and stick their tongues out at each other. I think this is going to be the league leader of all time. I'd say it happening 3 times a game.

But particularly if LaMelo and Bones Hyland are on the floor at the same time. Oh God. Just, they have, they, they have the most audacious and, and they're committed to them. 3-point celebrations.

You mean the rejuvenated Bones Hyland?

Yeah. I'm ready for the Bones. He was good last year.

Their bench is kind of fun. If, if they can get anything from Tom Behringer, I think this would be, this would be great.

Todd, Todd Benzinger.

All right, right. All right, 2 overs and an under for house. Denver Nuggets, not even fun to talk about because, you know, Zach and I are both going over. Their over is 48.5. They were 54-28 last year.

Got the shirt.

Last 4 years house: 54, 50, 57, and 53 for wins. And Vegas is saying those, those times are over. 9-1 for the division, 13-1 for the conference, 27-1 for the playoffs. Their first rounder goes to OKC and it is top 5 protected. Zach Lowe, the big question: is there a 2022 Warriors run lurking in the ether for these guys?

Uh, the 2022 Warriors run was amazing and magical, and one of the things it required was a kind of injury-forced gap year for Denver and the Clippers, who on paper were going to be way better than that— way better than those Warriors teams. So if there's no gap year for Oklahoma City in San Antonio, I think the answer is unfortunately no, despite the fact that Jokic is Jokic.

Sadly, that's my answer as well, House.

Is there— there's no moves they can make now? They're— they have no more moves. They're right up against the second apron.

Yeah. And they, they did acquire that 31 unprotected Cleveland pick, which I think they will try to do something with. It's just like what What salary are they attaching to that pick that has any positive value for another team to get them back something even better than that?

We have the salary.

Well, can I walk you through the 2022 Warriors scenario just so we have it? 3 seed, they get OKC in round 2, a team that I think they've looked pretty comfortable against over the years.

And have played Wemby well too, on the flip side.

Minnesota somehow upsets San Antonio or Houston. Somehow San Antonio loses in round 2, so they only have to play one of OKC versus, or San Antonio, and then they're able to get in there. And the big thing would be that Jokic, who was not healthy last year, who got hurt and who missed like 16 games, and when he came back was not moving the same way he normally does, is just healthy. Last year, 65 games. He's had 6 straight top 2 MVP finishes. It is year 12 for him, basically. And they lost Payton Watson, Tim Hardaway, Bruce Brown. They added DeMar DeRozan, Tyus Jones, Marvin Bagley, who I thought was a sneaky one.

He's serviceable. Don't— I mean, he was good in Washington.

Yeah, I think that's serviceable. I'd rather see him out there than Zeke Nnaji. And they added Brazile from, uh, from the draft. And then, uh, they, they rejuvenated Cam Whitmore-Island. They put electricity, electricity and island

on

Whitmore-Island.

Rooting for him.

The most interesting piece was DeRozan, a guy Zach's probably written too many— if you had to regret one player you've probably written too many words on over the years, is it DeRozan or is it somebody else? He basically spans your entire writing career.

Tobias Harris, maybe.

Maybe Tobias.

Okay, could be up there.

He's first team all. I spent too many words on you.

He's definitely first team. There's no question. He's unanimous first team.

Does the DeRozan thing change anything for you?

No, I do think Alfa Diallo is worth a mention too, given how his defense has looked in the preseason. But I think, you know, DeRozan's fine. It'll be interesting to see how they use him. I just, you know, he's additive as a ball handler. I just don't know how that meshes with Jamal Murray and how they stagger all the minutes together. Defensively, he's obviously a liability and he just sort of compounds a, they don't shoot enough threes problem that has plagued Denver. Right. Although less so last year. But so I, Howard Beck picked him as a sneaky 6th Man of the Year candidate and I almost fell outta my chair. I don't see it.

Is he drinking? The DeRozan thing brings up something that's just, we have so many good players now and the league is so deep that we've entered this new era where guys like DeMar DeRozan can just play 18 minutes a game and be a legitimate old school 6th man because that's how much talent we have. I am not going against Jokic.

No,

I just think he's 50 wins every year, much like Tim Duncan back in the day, unless something egregious happens. I do wonder though, is there a Jamal Murray move with this team during this season? Because they have the Jokic extension coming. There's trade partners for something like that all over the league, including the Dallas Mavericks that we talked about earlier, where you could Kyrie's at 39, Jamal's at 50. And if you're Dallas and Kyrie's like, I kind of want to be on one more good team. Now you flip that, you double down on Jamal Murray. Toronto was the other one I was looking at for this where, you know, they could— you— the problem is they don't necessarily have the point guard to give back, but it is Jamal Murray, Canada. But I, I just, I wonder if they'd proactively, if they feel like they're not gonna actually win the title. make a move during this season to try to prepare themselves for the Jokic contract would be my, my fear with the over. But I am going over. Anything under 50 is an automatic over for me with them.

I agree with that. And I'm having a hard time divorcing my skepticism. I don't know, my dismay is probably overstating it. Choosing Christian Brown over Payton Watson and not having that perspective in mind when you're sitting down thinking about, okay, we got an amazing season out of Christian Brown, what does the next 3 years look like? And going through that decision-making and fucking yourself so hard with Christian Brown and making it so that there's no possible way because you don't want to spend the money to, to keep Watson. And I think Payton Watson is going to be incredible with Cleveland. I think it's an amazing situation for him. And I think that losing him is a material diminution of the ceiling of this Denver Nuggets team. Having said all that, it's an over for me, over 48.5. That's not— but that's the problem I have. Like the front office, what we've gone through in terms of the coach swap stuff and the rivalry between, you know, between Booth and Michael Malone that, that, you know, sabotaged that season. Like, what are we doing? You, you have an all-time great with, with the Joker and you are fucking it up year after year after year.

Still, it's an over, but you know, I don't like it. I don't like it. That's all.

Zach, do you feel better about the Brown contract after some of the contracts we saw this summer where there's this range of guys, $20 to $25 million a year now? Like, Pod's just got $22 a year from the Warriors, right? That does seem like the range.

Congrats.

If you're a number 4 or number 5 starter and you're young and you can play minutes, that does seem like where we've landed with the range. Peyton Watson's 22 a year. Ayo got in the low 20s. And I wonder, like, is the Brown contract that bad? He was hurt last year.

Well, all of those guys were better than Christian Brown last year, so it needs— it requires a bounce-back year. We don't really know what Christian Brown looks like not catching touchdown passes from Jokic for half of his points. be that as it may, I think he's a good player. It's a negative contract right now, but it's easily rehabilitatable. All right, are you sitting down? You are sitting down. I can see you. I'm going under on 48.5 for the Nuggets and—

Oh my God.

No one loves Jokic more than I do. I have a lot of respect for the starting 5 that they've assembled. I'm going under because As I went through all my Western Conference picks, you, you can't, you, you've gotta go under on some good teams. It just, for the math to work, it just has to work. And the counter to Jokic being healthy, potentially healthier than he was last year, is I hate the bench. I have no faith in Aaron Gordon being healthy for a large portion of the season. I don't know what the cap on games of him is, and I don't know who backs him up now that I have any faith in. I worry that we just got the best Jamal Murray year and the healthiest Jamal Murray year that we're ever gonna have. And I have to go under somewhere. I don't feel great going under 48.5 on a, on a Denver team that's been a 50-win machine with Jokic. I just really don't like the back end of this roster and I worry about injuries and some minor regression at the top other than Jokic. So I gotta go on, I'm going under.

I, and I actually feel not terrible about it.

It's the—

I just feel sad.

Well, it's the, the required— if you go over on Minnesota the way that you did, questioning

my life,

you're, and you're gonna see other teams I go, you, you could just see other teams I go over on that I feel pretty confident about. I can't, I can't go over on everyone in the top 6. It makes sense.

I'm not arguing with you.

They only were one, one round last year, so they haven't played basketball since April, which makes me feel good with Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon.

And the Joker. Honestly,

I like the bench a little more than Zach. I, I also think they can add to the bench, especially in February, which we saw last year where there were a bunch of guys available late. And I just can't go under with Joker if he's healthy and motivated, which it seems like he is. But I feel sad. I feel deceived. I feel betrayed.

Wow. Take it easy.

That's

strong. Portland Trail Blazers. By the way, that thing you said about how you had to go over on certain teams, I actually like added up all the wins and losses that I thought everyone was gonna have and all the over-unders and actually felt pretty good about going over on them.

Yeah.

'Cause there, there's a lot of teams I don't like.

That means, that means we're gonna dis— that means we're gonna disagree on some teams coming up.

Oh yeah.

So let's go.

Portland Trail Blazers, 41.5. Last year they were 42-40. Playoffs -185, playing +105, 80-to-1 for the title. They have new coach Mike Enoy, who, uh, is being paid by the month. Last 30 games last year, 18-12. The big question, because they lost Jeremy Grant and Matthias Theibel, they added Ja Morant, Jeremy Sochan, Vic Cretchie, and a healthy Dame Lillard. And they have 4 point guards and 2 centers and a bunch of, I don't know what else. Sharp is hurt. But my big question, House, did they get too fucking weird with this team? Did they just go full weirdo in a way that just was too weird?

It's very weird. I don't, especially with the ownership change and

El Cheapo.

The uncertainty around how long they may remain in Portland. It's a very weird roster.

I wrote down in my notes, it's like when we go out to dinner and you get really excited by different things on the menu and we order too many things.

Well, there's—

and you're like, oh, they have, they have an iceberg wedge. There's French onion soup.

Good.

Wait, they have oysters.

Good.

Oh, there's a seafood tower.

Great.

Wait, you have a, you have a porterhouse bone-in special.

This is where it goes sideways

and you just start ordering stuff, the porterhouse

and the

pasta, and then the entree comes and it's like, oh, I've— oh shit, we have one more course coming. And then you just regret it.

It was a course too many.

I wonder if Portland was like that, Zach, where they were like, oh yeah, we could get Dame Lillard and we could get Ja Morant.

My wife refers to me as a panic order based really on one meal that we had in New York. before a show. We're halfway through the meal. I was like, I just think I'm going to be hungry. Can we get an order of edamame dumplings to just get us— That sounds delicious. Edamame. By the time the edamame dumplings came, I was like, this was kind of a mistake.

It was a mistake.

I don't know who the edamame dumplings— I don't know who the edamame dumplings are in this case.

Not Ja Morant.

Now, Ja Morant is the let's get the lobster for the table.

Yes. The lobster for the table.

Oh wait, they didn't take it. They didn't take it out of the shell.

Well,

now we all have to use the crunchies. Oh my God, it's all over me. You guys don't have bibs? I have lobster all over me. What's happening?

Lobster for the table is magnificent, by the

way. I guess—

Have either of you guys, have either of you guys been approached to be the play-by-play announcer for the Blazers this year?

No, I'm available. Oh, can I do it remotely? Well, they have a cheap owner, 4 point guards, and a new coach on a 1-year deal. They, they have a Scoot Henderson situation that I do think he would've had trade value and interest around the league, and now they've just buried him to the point that somebody like Memphis could probably just steal him. You know, some team that could be like, I have some point guard minutes. Brooklyn.

Why didn't they do that in the first place? Why didn't they get Scoot as part of the Ja Morant?

I don't know why they did arrangement. Free Scoot Henderson is my thing. Um, did you want to do a Stephen A apology to El Cheapo?

No, no, I'm not gonna do it. I know you— we had a whole conversation around last night, Bill Simmons and I, that situation in, in Portland and the direction that that whole thing might be testing

out a zag

about El Cheapo. And I'm not— I'm not—

they're not going anywhere. Maybe he has some good ideas. And I was like, do I'm

not

doing it.

I'm not ready yet. I'm not— I don't have the full body.

Maybe he has some good ideas is a phrase that has led a lot of people down a lot of roads that have become regrettable.

Good observation.

Maybe you should apologize for even thinking about doing a zag on El Cheapo.

No, no.

I'd like to— I'd like to talk to the Trailblazer fans right now, a fan base I deeply respect. You could have just done it, House.

I'm not gonna do it. All right.

All right. Klingan, Avdija, Camara, Dame, and Morant, who they're apparently starting together for now. I would say everybody who knows anything about basketball, if you ask them, hey, would it make sense to start Dame Lillard and Ja Morant together? The answer would be no, don't do that. But they're doing it. They're bringing Jrue Holiday off the bench, who seems like he'd be perfect starting with Ja Morant. Time Lords coming off the bench. Sohan, who I, I don't know how many times teams have to try him out and take him for a test drive. Uh, this is an under for me. I don't understand this team, and anytime I'm just completely confused by a roster, I have to go under. 41.5 means that they would have to have a winning record, and I don't see it, House. So under for me.

I crossed out my answer to this one 3 different times because it's a roster with a lot of talent, like guys that— shot creators, shot makers. The, you know, the flash flood version of Denny, uh, going, you know, to the middle. He's just crashing the middle, uh, and getting to the rim and either getting fouled or finishing. What a revelation that was. Well, how many times is he going to be able to do that with this roster construction? I have no fucking idea. So what does it mean to Denny Avdija's development and his impact on the team? I have no clue. I am playing them under, but I could easily see them winning 44 games or so. I, I could easily see it. It wouldn't shock me.

I have one more comment on this team, but let's get Zach's pick first.

I think Denny's gonna have a great year again in taking some easier threes and still being a pretty high-volume driver, ball handler, et cetera.

But will not have the ball as much as he did last year.

He won't and he shouldn't. I mean, he had the ball all the time last year. He was, he was, it was a little too much. I think there's real talent here. I like some of the pieces. I have the same fit issues everybody else has. No one is tanking. And again, a stat that if I am having any little trouble deciding, 16-33 against winning teams last year.

There we go.

26-7 against sub-.500 teams. I am going a slight under on the Blazers.

I also have real questions about what do we get outta Dame at this point of his career coming off that injury when I didn't really like where the arrow was pointed to begin with. And then him playing with Ja Morant, just ridiculous anyway. But then where Ja Morant is now in his career where it was all athleticism and all getting in the basket, and as he gets a little older and has had some wear and tear and injuries, what's plan B? 'Cause he still can't shoot. So I, I don't know. I don't like the, uh, and then you have a coach on a 1-year contract and you have El Cheapo. 3 unders for us. Last one's gonna be a good, uh, lively combo. The Utah Jazz, their over-under is 37.5, which made me go, whoa, thought— I didn't think it was gonna be that high. Playoffs +110, play-in +100. Last year they're 22-60, but in the last 40 they were 8-32 as they threw away the second half of the season to the point that Adam Silver, for one of the few times in his commissioner tenure, actually got mad and cleaned, cleaned house and did some shit.

A lot of people like this team, Zach Lowe. My big question, can I offer everyone around a settle-down juice?

You can offer it to me. I don't have to take it. I'm gonna turn your— you can buy me a drink at the bar and I'm gonna say no thank you. I don't like the look of that guy. I don't like what he's about and I'm I'm returning the drink.

20-ounce Settle Down juice. You're not taking it.

That's too much. I don't even want a 12-ounce Settle Down juice. I'll have a beer instead. Or in, I guess I'll have a 2.5% beer 'cause we're talking about the Jazz, but I'll take my beer. Thank you.

They lost Walker Kessler, who played 5 games last year. They added Darren Peterson. They're starting Triple J, Markkanen, Ace Bailey, Peterson, and George. Nurkic is out for at least a month. Bench is C+. Where are you looking, Zach Lowe?

I'm going over on the Jazz. I have a lot of faith in Will Hardy. I think this has a chance to be a very dynamic offensive team. Obviously there are concerns about rebounding, particularly without Nurkic. Maybe they'll start— they started Jaxson Hayes last night. I think they're still deciding who the 5th starter on the team is gonna be. Wing defense obviously gonna be a little bit of an issue. But I think I like the fit of Markkanen and Triple J together. I think Keonte George is a real guy. I like Darren Peterson. I think Will Hardy's a great coach. They're hungry to win. They have good spacing. They're creative. They're gonna be hard to play against. Their bench to me is just, just good enough that I can go over on 37.5.

House?

Yeah. So the market, I think this opened 35.5,

went up 2, I think.

Yeah. So all the way up to 37.5 now, because as folks, as the season's, you know, coming into view, we have some proof of concept with what a dynamic scorer Darren Peterson is. And wow, could he be complementary, you know, adding to this, this team that already, you know, has some shot makers, some guys that can create some, some shots, guys that you would trust with the ball. And it feels like Ace Bailey was a little under the radar last season. He's, he's a big guy. This is a big lineup they can run out there.

I like, I like, I like Ace Bailey a lot. I think he's got a chance to be, and he's in the perfect role now as he doesn't have to do too much offensively. Yeah. He's really embraced like trying to get better defensively, moving off the ball. I really like him. I think he's solid.

There's some rim protection stuff with him that I did not expect last year.

I mean, Washington was dying to get him in the draft that they selected Trey Johnson. They just couldn't, you know, figure out a way to rope-a-dope Utah. And Utah was not good to be rope-a-doped even with Ace, you know, pretending that he wasn't gonna be happy there. I have to take the over with this team because of my respect for, for Hardy and how many professional basketball players are on this team. And because I think when we get to this Pacific Division, the number of unders that are appearing there and all of the wins that are available, I have Utah threatening the play-in. I think they're gonna be a legit, you know, team to, to, to bump up into that sort of 10 space.

I'm gonna zag and go under just 'cause we've— I don't have enough where I've zagged against you guys. I have 'em right around this number. The rebounding and defense stuff is a real concern for me. I agree with what Zach said about Will Hardy. I'm excited to see him with a real team. Offensively, I like some of the stuff they have. I also think they have a bunch of guys that probably would want to have the ball, and I don't know how the Peterson-George thing is gonna work out. Peterson is the anointed guard. Holy shit, there's some Kobe in here. There's a bunch of different pieces of great players that I think, I think you need

some settle-down juice.

Well, I'm just saying, if you watch a 2-minute, 2-minute here's what Darren Peterson did last night montage, you're like, Jesus.

Are you saying he's a problem?

Darren Peterson is a problem. But, but George was a problem last year. I mean, he averaged 23 a game and had the ball all the time for them, and I thought was pretty good at the end of games. Um, I don't like the rebounding defense piece at all. And I don't know when Nurkic comes back. I don't know how this team's gonna get rebounds. Jaren Jackson, his career average, I have it written down, 5.6 rebounds a game. And not just that, he only plays like 28, 29 minutes a game. He, and he gets into foul trouble all the time.

Honestly, I would listen to a 45-minute podcast segment of you and Barkley just complaining about power forwards and centers who don't get rebounds.

I hate it. That's my—

it's one of your, it's one of your favorite things that you guys share.

It's 2 a quarter. It's 2 a quarter.

You can't resist it. And I would, I would listen to just you guys going through all of NBA history and Barkley being like, I played against that guy, he stinks. And just going off on bad—

When Kobe and I played pickup basketball at USC, I was getting 2 rebounds a quarter. It's not hard. Just go put your ass into somebody and get a rebound. I worry about the rebounding and I worry about them defending unless House is right about Ace Bailey and he's somebody that could actually become a 2-way guy right away this year. My fear for this team, I also have some Peterson fears too, 'cause I still think the Kansas season was really weird. It just was. He played, he wasn't playing, he was hurt, he wasn't hurting. I don't trust that. My thing with this team, and I don't like their schedule first 20 games either. My thing with this team, I think they're— the advanced stats are going to be really good. It's going to be a little like Charlotte last year where we're like, whoa, look at Utah's offense. Holy shit. And I think they're gonna be in the vicinity of a lot of games, but I don't think they're gonna be a .500 team. It's a slight under. I think they're somewhere between 35 and 37 for me. So under for me, over for Zach, over for House.

Yeah, I do wanna point out, it is funny, Zach probably knows off the top of his head, maybe you know as well, who, who was Utah's leading rebounder last season?

Was it Markkanen?

It was not.

Who was it?

Kyle Filipowski at just over 7 rebounds a game.

He's legit pretty good. Kyle Filipowski, I'll tell you, you could make a very good Svi Mykhailiuk was a problem video too. Just, just, just FYI on that.

My dad couldn't stand him when he played for the Celtics. My dad was always like, they brought that Svi guy in again. What does he do?

He shoots. That's what he does.

I will say I feel the, the, the worst about this pick out of my first 10 picks. 'Cause I could see this being over. The Will Hardy thing worries me and the crowd worries me. I don't, I don't feel great about the under, but we gotta disagree on something. All right, we're gonna take a break, come back with the, the very, very decrepit Pacific after this. The Pacific Division, our 3rd and last division in the West, and easily the worst one. The Lakers have the best odds. Their over-under is 45.5. For the division, they're -180. Conference 21, title 40-to-1. Their 2027 draft pick goes to Memphis, but it is top 4 protected. Last year they were 53-29. They lost LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Marcus Smart, DeAndre Ayton. They added Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, and Mamu, a Zach Lowe favorite. My big question for you, Zach, can these snowtime Lakers get Luka an MVP?

It's, it's possible, but I, I feel like we've been having the same discussion about, oh, this is the year that all the stars align for Luka to win MVP. And he, I, I, I don't, I, when I say he hasn't played enough games, I don't mean he hasn't qualified for the 65-game rule. I mean, he's, he's like around 68 a lot and then his team just doesn't finish high enough in the standings. So I, it's just, look, when you gotta go through Wemby and Jokic and SGA, The answer is always gonna probably be no snow time or no snow time.

Pando, Wemby +200, SGA +400, Luka +500, Joker 6-to-1, Giannis 10-to-1, Tatum 16-to-1 house. No, I'm not allowed to bet on this award.

Yeah, I'm— it's, it's a waste of money at the outset of the season to bet on MVP from a gambling perspective. As the season develops, maybe, but I'm done. I'm not betting on Luka anymore. I've done it each of the last 3 years.

You've donated to the Luka MVP fund.

Had enough.

What does an MVP season look like for him? I wrote down probably 49+ wins, 35 a game, 35, 9, and 9, and some game winners. And yeah, I think he has to play 70+ games right now if he goes James Harden 2019 range where he's like 36, 37 a game, the conversation shifts. I think you don't seem excited about that, Zach.

No, I just, I mean, we'll see. I, you know, I, I, I, I think the team is more interesting than how many points Luka is gonna average, whether it's 33 or 35 or 37 or 31. It's gonna be a shit ton of points and he's gonna put up amazing stats.

Starting 5 of Quentin Grimes, and 4 white guys, 4 white starters house. We're heading back to the '50s.

The throwback, a true throwback.

And the big move was Kessler, who I talked about on my pod last week or 2 weeks ago. They gave up a shitload of stuff for him, um, for a guy that I don't think was probably in the top— Ringer 100 hasn't come out for this year, and I don't think he was probably in the top 60. Played 5 games last year. They could have patched together center in different ways. They decided they wanted to go all in on somebody Luka was excited about, and he both has to play a lot of games. He has to be incredibly impactful. And even if that happens, I'm still not sure what the destiny of this team is. So there's another variable. They, the team just got sold. Rob Pelinka is not on the crockpot. He's on the, I don't even think he's on a hot seat. I think he's in the exit row.

Oh.

And I don't know when that's gonna happen, but I don't think he will be involved with this team by the end of the season, if not sooner.

Wow.

JJ seems okay, and I thought JJ did a good job last year, but there's a little bit of, it's Luka's team now. Now they'll change the front office. They're gonna cruise to this division. And I don't know what success is for this team, Zach, other than being in the high 40s and building a future around Luka. Like, I don't think this team has aspirations that they're gonna win 3 playoff rounds, right?

I, I wouldn't say that to Luka's face or JJ Redick's face, but it's, it's hard. I mean, that's making the Finals out of the West, and that seems like a hill too high for them to climb. And I mean, I think the bigger problem is it's not the money for Kessler, it's the picks that, that combined with the money. It is this team now just boxed in asset-wise with the only out looming if they want to change their team, trading Austin Reaves, which is going to be, you know, if they ever do it, would be trading an extremely talented player to try to get another extremely talented player back or reset the timetable, which Luka is not going to want. But look, I mean, the season you just described, high 40 wins, top 4 seed, win a playoff round, lose to Oklahoma City or San Antonio. It's not what Luka wants to hear. It's not what Lakers fans want to hear. It's a good— there's nothing wrong with that.

When do we think, when do we get the first interview from somebody talking about how last year with the LeBron situation just wasn't fun and it's nice to Nice to have this fresh start, or there's gonna be something that's gonna piss off somebody and we'll get a little back and forth. Does that happen? Does that happen before Christmas?

They better have a, a pretty goddamn good winning record if it, if it ever does happen.

So if they're like 17-9, that's when it can happen? All right.

Yeah, maybe.

Where are you, House?

I don't know. I, I'm not sure.

Well, the time has arrived.

Well, you have to pick. It's 45.5.

I'll go. You want me to go?

Yeah, you go.

Over, lock.

Yeah.

Okay. Lock. I am an over only because I think healthy Luka for 70 games with an entire offense being geared around him feels like 46 and 36 minimum to me.

I have to go over as well.

And their conferences or their divisions.

But I'm, I'm shocked that you're, you're an over.

Yeah, I just— Luka's too good.

Okay.

I think he's gonna be really invested. Not that he isn't every year, but especially in this year. This is now his team. Everyone's coming to see him. Everyone's gonna be wearing Luka jerseys. And I just think he's going to— this, if he's ever gonna have a career year, this is the year.

Zach, what is, uh, a—

did you make a pick yet?

I did. I took the over.

Okay.

They can't play defense. There's nobody on the floor. You know, they have one rim protector. You know, Utah tried that with Rudy Gobert. It didn't work.

Yeah, it worked okay. They won it. They won like 60 games one year.

Yeah, yeah. But when he was the sole—

You're talking about it didn't work for winning the Finals, making the Finals.

And him as the only sort of defensive stopper. What's a Lakers game look like? Is it like a 129 to 122? Is that what I'm going to see?

What, what's, what, I mean, how many games did they win last year? Who was playing defense for them at a high level last year?

That's the problem. And that's why one of the reasons I went over, 'cause I had the under for them last year and I was rooting against them. And I also don't like the Lakers. And you get in these games with them where they're down 6 with 4 minutes left, but they have Luka and he just starts tilting the last 4 minutes of these games and getting good, doing all the stuff he does. And they're, and I think they'll, I think they're gonna be close to a lot of the teams and he'll be the, he'll swing, they're a .500 team and he'll swing 6 games, right?

I, I, I think Kessler's a legit, really good defender and JJ Redick has shown the ability to like scheme around his team's limitations and, yeah. Oh, and like win the kind of marginal things that you can almost kind of control as a coach. Like they walk into every game, Bill, you can conspiracy theory Bill if you want, with like a +5 free throw advantage every single game. They, Luka teams are generally—

You don't even need Conspiracy Bill. You could just have Bill for that one.

Luka's teams are generally low turnover teams, so I could see them like 7th in offense, 17th in defense, 6th in offense, 15th in defense. I just think 45.5 is too low. They were kind to me last year. I was the only one to pick the over last year, so I'm gonna go overlock this year in the division.

Stinking, I think, helps them as well.

It does help. I agree with that. Yeah, that's more than anything, that's really the case here. I mean, I'm gonna lay— this is a rare instance where the price is -180 to win the division. I'm gonna lay it.

Yeah, I don't— I guess we could talk as we go through the rest of these teams. I don't know who the challenger is. Golden State over-under is 36.5. I have them in the number 2 spot because the over-under was 39.5 when I did my layout, and it has now dropped 3 wins. And they're now +410 for the division. They're +110 for the play-in, +105 for the play-in, +110 for the playoffs. Last year, 37-45. Big question for you, House. Does it matter that Steph Curry will never win another title with the Warriors?

What kind of question is that? Does it matter?

Does it matter?

No, it doesn't matter. His legacy—

When we talk about Steph Curry in 30 years, will it matter at all? No. I'm gonna say no. 0%.

No, no. Doesn't matter at all. It's an amazing legacy. He's a one of one. He seems— it's the greatest shooter I've ever seen.

He's— I'm retiring with the Warriors. And that's just— it's very Dirk Nowitzki, mid-2010s Mavs-ish. This is my team. I don't want to play anywhere else. I already won. I'm good.

He's got a great life.

Zach, did you watch The Sopranos?

I did not watch the whole series. No, I got in and then I got out and then I got interrupted and it was too late. It's on my list. of like, I just have to sit down and do this.

All right. Only House will get this joke then. I think he's in the Carmela Soprano arc.

Oh.

Of— it went great. He's— things are going— The Sopranos are kicking ass, winning titles. We had the dip.

Yeah.

Like in the show, season 5, Tony moves out.

Well, she asked for a divorce.

She's going to get a divorce. She tries to meet with different lawyers. Yeah. No lawyer will take her case.

Well, 'cause Tony's bought 'em all.

She hooks up with the teacher for a couple episodes.

Flirts with the priest.

Eventually gets sucked back in. And then by the last season, she's just like, this is my family, and I'm married to this guy, and that's it. And I guess we're going to— I guess we're going to the diner tonight.

We're in the Carmela.

I'm just— I'm married to him for life until he gets shot, basically. And I think Steph, at some point over the last couple years, was like, This is it. I, this is my team. I'm just married to this and this is just how it's gonna play out and I don't really care.

Is Joe Lacob Tony?

I think Draymond Green is Tony. Oh,

I like that better.

And I think Joe Lacob is probably Johnny Sack. And I don't know. Yeah, see that? Now you're getting— this is good. But it's Dirk. It's a little messy in Miami too. where it's like, I've done everything I can do and now it's like, I'll come, I'm in the MLS, come see me. I'll make some threes every once in a while. I'll be on in big TV days. Fun. I just don't think he cares. The big, the big question for me roster-wise is if Yaxel is impactful this year, can that shift the over-under at all? Like if he's, he's 24 years old, it's conceivable he could come in and just be an impact guy. So now you Draymond and Yaxel and Pods, Curry. We have no idea what we're getting for Porzingis. They basically have no rebounder, shot blocker, or anybody other than Horford.

Guy Santos.

He's a wing guy.

I like Guy.

Yeah.

Guy. It's decent bench guys. Butler's coming back midseason. I just think it's gonna be too much damage in the first couple months here without Butler, not knowing what you're getting from Porzingis, no Moses Moody, trying to figure out what this team is. that it's gonna be too hard. I am shockingly going under, guys.

Shocking? What's shocking about it?

It's 36.5. Like, I just would've been a blind over for me basically until this year with these guys. What do you have, Zach?

Yeah, go ahead, Zach.

I'm an under as well. I, I think you outlined it pretty well. Worth noting, Steph Curry is 38 and missed half of last season with runner's knee. And they just have absolutely no fallback plan for until Jimmy Butler comes back. And who knows how good he'll look for the first month or two when he's back if Curry misses games and Curry will miss games. And I also think, as we alluded to earlier, they could very well find themselves in a position where they are in the sweet spot of the new lottery system, and that's the absolute best place for them to be in terms of their long-term future. So I will go under.

With a star player who would have complete buy-in on Yeah, we're not doing anything anyway. The other problem is there's really good centers in the league now, and you could get to— you could kind of patch together the aging Draymond and Al Horford, and— but they kind of needed Porzingis or somebody like that. And it just— I mean, we don't— Porzingis, this is the great unknown. Yeah, we have no idea what's gonna happen.

I'm just— I'm penciling in a zero. Zero. Yeah, I think you have— you're right, my projections, and I'll be happy if I'm wrong.

Yeah. That's right.

And they misplayed this badly.

It's a super under. The misplay, the thing that they can't overcome is fucking up 2 incredibly high draft picks. There's just no recovering from Wiseman and Kuminga with the, with the team that they are and the way that they tried to—

Or turning them into any sort of asset either way with any of those guys.

Yeah. So it's an under, it's a big under for me.

I am glad Georges Niang is on this team. I've always liked him. I think he'll fit in. I think he'll be a, a popular Warrior. The crazy question that almost could have been the big question is, have, has the Valks, have they supplanted the Warriors as the team of Golden State? I wonder if you're following the Valks.

I'm following the WNBA and the, the, I, there was breaking news. I didn't read it about where the actual Finals games are gonna be in Atlanta while we were doing this podcast.

The team building of the Valks is an all-timer. So Lacob still gets the victory lap this year. It's like, yeah, we won 4 titles with the Warriors and then I moved my attention to WNBA.

He's not, he's not that kind of owner to take a public victory lap like that. That's not him.

3 unders for us.

Yeah.

Listen, Kerr signed a new deal. Curry signed a new deal. Draymond's got one left. I think this is a, this is a 4 to 10 team. Are we gonna use that as an official phrase? A 4 to 10?

Oh sure. In the lottery system? Yeah. 4 to 10 team. And, and I think—

This is a 4 to 10 team.

And I think they're 55 games in and they're like, we can try and we will try 'cause we're a proud veteran team. That's still where we're gonna end up. And I think the key for them is not to tank, but just don't go the other way and be like, let's trade 2 of our picks for this marginal guy who might help us make the play-in tournament.

Well, one of the things that I had in my notes as I was trying to figure out the records, you could be a 4 to 10 team, but also maybe be a play-in team in the West. 'Cause there's a chance there's like 7 bad West teams and only 3 bad East teams. And there, and a lot of the wins are in the East and you could be in the like 36 to 38 range with a chance to kind of straddle.

We had it last year.

Both fences. We had it last year.

Yeah. were 37. They were the 10th and, and they were 37 wins.

Phoenix Suns over-under 38.5, +310 for division, -110 for the playoffs. Their 2027 draft pick is going to Houston. They were 45-37 last year, but they were 14-16 their last 30. My big question, House, they have this team. The Duke kid's going to be the center, the kid you liked in the draft. Miles Bridges, Brooks, Green, Booker, Gillespie, Kennard, Ausso, Goodwin, Dunn, Fleming, Highsmith. They don't have any good picks until 2034. This is your team, Phoenix. This is where you landed. The Clippers just had the biggest suspension in the history of the league and have more first-pick assets hits than Phoenix does. But this is how you— where you landed. So for the offseason, got rid of Grayson Allen, Maurice O'Neal, added Miles Bridges, Luke Kennard, and Pat Spencer.

This is what happens when you fuck up when— right when the team, you know, is under new ownership and go all in on, on a player like Kevin Durant for a— in a situation that made no sense. This— you're paying—

And even worse, Bradley Beal.

And Bradley— well, the Bradley Beal, they'll— all they did was, you know, take on this salary.

They took on all these dumb swaps.

Yeah. Yeah. So they're paying the price for that. I had to make a decision in looking at this between which roster I preferred.

Between this and—

Phoenix and Portland.

Oh,

this was because this is, you know, this is where they're going to fall in terms of, you know, 7, 8, 9. And I think I prefer this Phoenix roster with Ott and with, you know, the fact that because of what you just described, And I think they're going to play hard. And I like the character. I love how they discovered Gillespie. I loved how they discovered Goodwin. Dillon Brooks, I think, is exactly the right place. I love what you did in terms of having them very highly ranked for fight potential.

Yeah.

Dillon Brooks and Miles Bridges together, it's pretty tough. It's tough guys. The big question mark is Green. Can they— can— is there any iteration of Green that, that is, you know, can smell offensive efficiency? Can we, can we get there with him at all?

So I have a bigger question mark, the center position on this team.

Well, sure.

Because when does Mark Williams come back?

Torn labrum.

I think it's gonna— I think it's a long time.

I agree.

So you're basically rolling the dice with Maliuc.

Close, close.

Maliuc.

Malawak.

Malawak.

Hey, I got it.

You're rolling the dice with Maloof.

The Maloofs are back.

You're rolling the dice with the Duke kid. But man, I, from what I saw from him last year, he seemed far away.

Yeah, I agree.

Like far away. This was like, I felt Wiseman, Golden, Statish far away.

I think Iguodaro will start also at center. Awesome.

Good luck

with that sneaky contract extension candidate right now, by the way. Keep an eye on that. But I think he'll start. I liked him in the draft. I like him off the bench.

One of my favorites.

I'm going, I'm going under on the Suns. I, I do think this is a really, this is like a perfect line. Like I, I think the Suns are an exactly average basketball team on both ends of the floor. I have no idea if this is gonna hit under or over. I just think they got a lot of mileage last year out of just outworking everyone. And I think you get a little bit less mileage outta that this season with no one tanking. Now, they were not super healthy last year. Jalen Green missed a bunch of time. Booker missed games. I could go either way on this. I just think it's kind of just meh all around. And you add in Mark Williams already being injured, I just slight under 38.5.

It's so funny you said that 'cause my, my initial big question was, my big question, blah.

Hmm.

But I thought that was too mean.

45 wins.

They're a blah team.

They were a super fun team last year. The fans really liked 'em and I just, they won 45, you said? Yeah. I, I don't think they can get back to that this year, but they're good and solid and super competitive.

The last 30 is really telling to me that they only were 14 and 16 down the stretch. They, they caught people by surprise in that first 2 months and I thought they won a couple games they shouldn't have won. And I thought they kind of came back.

What was their record against winning teams? Do you have that in front of you, Zach?

Uh, yeah, 21-30.

So that's not horrendous.

Yeah, but there was a couple like 24-7 against end of the game wins that they had.

No, I, I, yeah, you're right.

So my thing with this, and one of the reasons I went under, because I think they'll be between 35 and 38, and I think that's okay with if you're them because After we get the top 5, and let's say the Lakers win 45-46, 7, 8, 9, 10, I think might all be under 40. Portland, Phoenix, Dallas, all these teams, I think they're all gonna be clustered in that 35 to 39 range. And I don't think there's gonna be an outlier. I think that's just where those teams are. Who's your favorite son when you do the Zach Lowe All-Stars?

Just like favorite guy to watch?

No, you, you, I called it the Bill Simmons All-Stars when I had my column. You called it the Marcus All-Stars, your favorite.

Yeah. I'll disqualify Booker just 'cause he's—

Yeah, he's a god.

Yeah. I would say coming for this is Rasheer Fleming. I just haven't seen enough yet, but he is a freak. I like him as well. He can do some stuff. I'll go Collin Gillespie. And I actually think there's this interesting conversation, should he start over Jalen Green? But he's just got a lot of moxie, man. He talks a lot of shit. He make— he's snarling at people. I like him.

If I were the Suns, I would start, I would start Gillespie and make Green my 6th man and just be like, you're gonna come in and run the offense.

We may well get there.

10 minutes a game.

Well, that honestly, they could probably sell that to Green. Why don't you go win 6th Man of the Year? Make your mark, Jalen Green. Show us that you can do it.

I think his response would be, but I'm one of the 12 best players in the league. Why would I do that? Do you realize how good I am? I'm Jalen Green. Can we talk about quickly the Luke Kennard sucking in another fan base into the hope of Luke Kennard and how that whole arc's gonna be?

I'm actually going the opposite way. I really hope he turned the corner last year and I'm, I'm surprised the Lakers didn't bring him back because he's been searching for his confidence and searching for a home that shows confidence in him. And I thought particularly given how he played at the beginning of the Houston series when he was like, what, he had 30 in a game in that series.

I kind of died as the playoffs went along though.

I thought he had found a home. I think he's gonna be completely fine. as a 7th, 8th guy in Phoenix and he's a solid player. Good matchup.

Is he one of the top 37 I thought he found a home guys of the last 25 years, Zach?

Oh, he's, he's, I mean, I did, I could see what the criteria is for that list, but sure.

It always seems like Luke Kennard found a home for about 20 minutes and then he's on another team.

This does make a lot of sense for him though. They, they are sneaky good. Like I, I feel Going under and them at only 38 wins, it's disrespectful to Dillon Brooks. Everywhere Dillon Brooks goes, they're winners. Dillon Brooks is a winner.

I don't know why the Lakers—

anyway, right?

No, they're an over for me. I think they're gonna win in the low 40s because I think they're better than Portland.

I don't know why they signed Collin Sexton and let Luke Kennard go. But the Lakers, I didn't get that one. I also get suspicious. I, I feel the same way. I forgot to say this with the Kessler trade. When Utah, who is clearly building like this whole foundation that he seemed to be a part of, and then all of a sudden the Lakers made some offer and Utah's like, okay, done, call it in. That would make me nervous if I was the Lakers. Why are they so anxious to put this guy in a trade? I guess 'cause the package was so great. Speaking of packages that are great, The Los Angeles Clippers over-under 27.5. They do not have their first-round pick in 2027 because it is swapped with OKC or Cleveland. So technically they will have a pick. They're +850 for the playoffs, +370 for the play-in. Last year they were 42-40. Zach, my big question is Yikes. Yikes. Why? They lost Kawhi Leonard, John Collins, and Nick Batum. They added Brandon Ingram on one leg, Keaton Wagler, Rui Hachimura, Max Strus on one leg, and Grady Dick. Starting 5 for the first Clippers game.

Who do they announce last? Is it gonna be Wagler or Darius Garland? Who's gonna get the spot in the Jumbotron? The last guy who does the clap hands and screams.

Careful, careful talking about Jumbotrons and the Clippers. Oh

yeah, too soon. My bad. They're starting Brook Lopez, who's all right, Chels. They're gonna start Derrick Jones that gets hurt seemingly every year and sometimes 2 to 3 times a year. They do have my guy Niederhauser. They have your guy Bradley Beal. I don't think we have talked about this long. This is a hard under for me. I don't see how this team gets to 25 wins, much less 28.

I think 27.5 is very low. Ty Lue is a very good wins-scrounging manufacturing coach. They are gonna have the chip on our shoulder, try hard, outwork everyone, try to restore some dignity to the operation. And yet Brandon Ingram's already hurt. Max Strus is already hurt. I'm going under 27.5 in a league where everyone's trying. I just think, I, I don't, even Jordan Miller is hurt. Like just guys are already hurt all over the place. I'm going under.

And by the way, if you finish in the bottom 3 and you don't have your pick, who cares? If anything, it's a little sticking.

Yeah. You've hurt someone else.

Yeah. You've hurt somebody else. Under, under house.

Under lock. It's a lot of money. Yes. I mean, I got— the Clippers were one of my favorite teams last season. On this note of Ty Lue, I still don't understand why they came out of— at the beginning of the season last year and were so terrible over the first 30 games. Still have no good explanation for why that team that threatened 50 wins the previous season—

I mean, there was a big scandal brewing.

What'd that have to do with playing basketball on the basketball court?

The vibes were weird. Honestly.

But how, but how—

6-21 at one point.

Not only were they 6-21, the, the very first game of their season was in Utah and they got blown out by like 30. And it was one of the all-time single-game opening game alarming, like, whoa, something is not right here. Like it would, they just look completely— We should keep that in mind for this year's season.

Their, their opening 5, their, their starting 5 for that team was, you know, it was, it was Zoo, it was Kawhi, it was James Harden. Like, what the fuck?

I mean, it was alarming and it is something to, to put in your back pocket when we watch opening, opening night that Wednesday with all the games. If there's a team that has that kind of feel, like it, it's somewhat meaningful. We didn't mention how bad the home field advantage is gonna be for them. Home court advantage.

Streetlights over spotlights, baby.

It's gonna be—

Are you gonna go find out?

I will go to a couple games.

All right.

I do— I will say I do feel bad for the people that work for the Clippers, and they didn't deserve this or ask for this. And, you know, they're in a good situation seemingly with a new arena and a contending team, and now all of a sudden they've been thrown into this basically only because of a couple people. Under. I don't know if I'm locking that one yet. I'm gonna wait till the end. Last team, Sacramento Kings. They lost DeMar DeRozan and Devin Carter, who is now going to be a star for the Celtics. They added Darius Aykoff and my son Ben Simmons. Division, if you want to look at those odds, 125 to 1.

I don't want to look at them.

125 to 1, Zach. Title, 1,000 to 1. Playoffs, 40 to 1. Last year they were 22 and 60 and they kept kept Doug Christie. Their starting lineup is Sabonis, Murray, Hunter, Levine, and Acuff. Levine in a contract year. Reynaud is already hurt.

Maxime Reynaud.

Monk is still there. Ben Simmons is allegedly feeling as good as he's had in some time. Achua is here. Over 20.5. I don't even have a big question other than, are the Kings talking to you, Zach?

Yeah, we're all good. Okay, good. We're all good with the Kings. I— you didn't mention Nick Clifford, who of all the guys, I'm actually probably the most excited to see what they have in him.

They, they didn't seem as excited last year when they weren't playing him enough for some reason.

Well, that's true.

I, I, I like him as well, but he just didn't get enough time.

I'll just get it over with. The— I am going over on the Kings. Oh, you motherfucker. As you're calling them the Hindenburg. The Hindenburg Kings.

I was going over. I was all excited to go over on them and have you guys react.

Both of you guys do it. It's fine. I'm going over.

Oh man, I thought it was gonna be the only over.

I am not doing that.

It's just, it reached a point where it's just too low for a team that has some actual like good basketball players and every organizational incentive to try to avoid the bottom 3 in the standings. It's just too low of a line. I'm going over.

They, with these new rules and the fact that they have their own pick. I don't understand how they wouldn't try to be the 4th best team— worst team in the league. You can't be in the bottom 3. You're gonna try. This will be fun the last 2 weeks as they're scrapping to get to the 4th spot in the lottery.

I'm gonna bring up their schedule and see if they have any of the games in the last 2 weeks against like the Bulls or the Nets or some of these other teams that are gonna be down there.

21-61. sounds fine. And I was encouraged by the Acuff-Sabonis stuff in the preseason. I watched some Kings. I do think he's got the ball all the time.

Season finale. I know the Clippers don't control their pick, but Kings at Clippers, last day of the season. Bill, you got to go to that one.

Wow. And guess who won't care about that game? The Clippers, because they don't have their pick. House, where are you?

Uh, you dicks.

Do it. You can't change your pick.

I'm under.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm fine with it. I have no problem with it.

19 teenage wins.

I mean, I, I, I believe in Doug Christie when it comes to this under. I think he can get it done for me.

Why did they bring him back, Zach? Just didn't wanna pay 2 coaches.

Inertia, the most powerful force in, uh, I mean,

look around the league, all the young guys. Look at Sean Sweeney in Orlando. Look at Jordan Ott in, in Phoenix. We finally get to see Will Hardy.

Zach, do you want to do a Stephen A apology to Vivek and the Kings?

No, I don't. I have nothing to apologize for. But I do wonder, I, I do wonder also, like, how many— I, I don't— I've lost track of how many coaches they're still paying any amount of offset to. It may, it may, it may not be any. I mean, Mike Brown's being paid handsomely by the Knicks. They may be done with all the—

Had they broken the record for most executives who worked for them and then never got a comparable job like that ever again. Like, Vlade Divac ran the team and is now— I don't even know what he's doing. He's in like Serbia hosting like the 6 to 10 all-sports show there or something. I don't know where he went.

He'll be sitting next to Vivek at over-under 5.5 games this year.

All right, to recap, San Antonio 60.5, We all went over, no locks. Houston 48.5, we all went over, a tri-lock, triple fave. Dallas 33.5, I went over, House went over, Zach went under. Memphis 30.5, we all went over. New Orleans 28.5, we all went under. OKC, you know what, I'm gonna lock that one.

Hmm.

House and I over lock. Zach, Justin over. Minnesota over, over for me and Zach, under for House. That is 46.5. Denver 48.5. House and I went over. Zach, in one of the most shocking betrayals in the history of this podcast, under on Jokic. Portland 41.5. We all went under. Utah 37.5. I already regret this one. I went under. You guys went over. Lakers over, over, over 45.5. Zach locked it down. Golden State under 36.5. I'm locking this.

You're locking Golden State?

Yeah. Under for me, under for both of you. Phoenix under, under for me and Zach, over for House. Clippers, 3 unders. House locks that one down. That is under 27.5. And last but not least, the Kings. 20.5 over, over for me. And Zach? Under for House, but a regretful under. I could see the pain in his face after hearing Zach and I lay out the case. Um, what fan base is going to be the maddest, Zach?

At us collectively?

Hey, or, or individually. It could be one of us, could be all 3 of us.

I think the Warriors fans are generally just really cranky right now, so they'll be cranky at Anyone who took the under and cranky at anyone being optimistic to take the over. They seem pretty cranky.

I think Phoenix will get cranky. I think they're just cranky in general. That would be—

Portland has bigger fish to fry with El Cheapo to be cranky at us.

Yeah, they can't be mad.

Yeah. Plus we're going to Portland for a podcast. I should have taken the over just for that. I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it with a job game backcourt. All right, that is it for part 1. Part 2 is gonna go up. Um, we'll probably put it up whenever it's ready because, uh, that's what's gonna happen. Don't forget to check out Zach's The Low Post. It's out. He's writing again. The fingers are working after a 2-year break. You can hear how it sounds on Ringer Wise Guys tomorrow

or Friday.

Friday. Okay. And, uh, we'll be back for part 2 as soon as it's done. Thanks, guys. Oh, and thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris and everybody as well. Bye. Must be 21+ and present in select states. For Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ and present in DC or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable Profit Boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gaming problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-888- Hope NY, or text HOPE NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.