The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 15: NBA Over/Under w/ Joe House (West)

Episode Date: October 27, 2015

HBO's Bill Simmons breaks down the Vegas Over/Unders for wins with the NBA's Western Conference teams along with his buddy Joe House. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in BS. That's stamps.com. Enter BS. Yeah. Clear enough for you. All right, Joe House, were you ready for a little Tupac right there? I didn't even tell you. It was a surprise. That's a wonderful surprise.

I'm picturing you rolling and I'm looking for a ride on shotgun, son. We're taping this on a Monday, but it's going to run on a Tuesday. If you missed it on Friday, House and I did Eastern Conference Over-Unders for the National Basketball Association, a podcast that also included me going 5-0 on my NFL best bets, by the way, House. What did you do, for curiosity's sake? I don't know. I think I'm— You don't know.

I think I have one team right. Like you don't know. Like you don't know. I had the Jets right. Yeah. Well, I did well. I know that I'm not betting on any more London games. I am the alpha dog now in our NFL bet Friday thing.

Yeah. So that's, yeah. I'm not going to quibble about format. Yeah. Take the torch from me. Right now I'm holding it. All right. So I'm very excited for this because the NBA season, if you're listening to this podcast, that means the NBA season is starting tonight.

It's starting tomorrow. Hey-oh! Yeah, it's really starting tomorrow for us because we're taping this on a Monday. But Western Conference, so much more fun, so much more interesting, so much more exciting than the Eastern Conference. Did you feel good about our Eastern Conference pod? Any regrets? I was going to ask you whether there were any regrets. I looked long and hard again at the Milwaukee 45 that I need this season. conference pod any regrets the any i was going to ask you whether there are any regrets i i looked

long and hard again at the milwaukee 45 that i need this season i'm not going to say that i regret um uh rolling with them getting to the 45 but that's that one i feel like it's going to be a struggle and there's a lot of um smart people looking at the Bulls. Zach Lowe really loves the Bulls this coming season. I'm not moved at all by the things that folks are saying about why the Bulls might be good this year. I stand by our Bulls pick. Me neither. And in fact, I did an impromptu AMA on Reddit on Saturday,

and I was saying that I thought OKC, I thought Billy Donovan had a chance to be good. And people are asking what the difference is between Fred Hoiberg taking over for Tibbs and Billy Donovan taking over for Scotty Brooks. And the difference is Tibbs was a top seven coach and Scott Brooks was a mediocre to below average coach who I thought really interfered with his team's success over the last few years with the weird lineups. And I just never felt like that team was well coached. So who knows? Maybe Donovan will be better than Scotty Brooks. Fred Hoiberg is not going to be better than Tom Thibodeau. I just don't believe it.

Isn't it also fair to say that qualitatively, Billy Donovan's slightly better resume than Fred Hoiberg? Yeah. I'm going to say it's very fair to say that, yeah. My big regret from the Friday Eastern Conference over-unders was that I didn't ejaculate enough about the Boston Celtics. I wish I had just gotten a couple

more thrusts. And then I'm upset I didn't crap on Brooklyn more, because it seems like people actually think they might be good. I wish I'd thrown some more feces their way. But more important, I thought we were too wishy-washy on Milwaukee. And I think definitively we have to decide how we feel about them right now

before we do the West. I'm going to go under, and here's why. I think it was at 45 was the over-under. I think Brooklyn, so out of the teams that made the playoffs last year, Brooklyn's losing their spot. So now we really only have one spot open for Indiana and Miami. Miami, yeah. And I think Indiana and Miami are making the playoffs.

So that means somebody else has to get bounced. And now I'm kind of talking myself into Milwaukee with the smoke up their ass thing. And maybe they go 42 and 40 or 43 and 39, but I'm giving their spot to Indiana or Miami because one of them's taking broken spot. Is that fair? It's fair. I'm not going to try and argue. I'm going to stick with my over. You already had it as under. I'm sticking with my over. You already had it as under. I'm sticking with my over. I know, but we were wishy-washy.

Neither of us felt great about it. So I just wanted some definitive clarity. All right, Western Conference. We're going to go a little faster this time because some of these teams are pretty easy. We're going through the divisions. We'll do the Pacific Division first. Golden State, champion last year. Over is 60.5. The only reason

I can think the over would be 60.5 and not a little bit higher is the West is better. David Lee drop off to Jason Thompson. Maybe that's worth a win. They were really healthy last year. That's the reason. There's got to be some regression health-wise. Yeah, you think regression health-wise. We're already seeing with the coach. Like Steve Kerr had that back surgery

and then had a little spinal fluid leak and isn't even ready to start the season. So that's going to hurt. That's a bad omen for them from an injury standpoint that their coach is already hurt. And by the way, if Steve Kerr is listening for some dumb reason, we wish you the best, Steve Kerr. We hope you get better.

Kerr's going to be back. He hurt himself during the finals. We're very close to the end of his rehab, aren't we? I wish he had talked to me before he got the surgery. That had to have been stress-related and sitting habits. I'm never a fan of back surgery unless you can't move, unless you have it. I just feel like there's always better ways to get around it.

Remember, that's a guy with significant miles playing the game of basketball. Oh, I'm aware. When I was thinking about having surgery in 2004 on my back, and I just didn't want to go under the knife. I was trying to do everything I possibly could to avoid it. And I do think stress is a big part of it. It's just my little pet theory. Uh, anyway, I don't see how this team is seven wins worse and I'm going over. I'm going over as well. Uh, the only, the only other consideration I wonder about, um,

Harrison Barnes in a contract year, is that going to affect him? I like Jason Thompson as a backup to Bogut. Me too. And the annual Bogut risk concern, you know, we'll just repeat it because that's what's on the template. So you have to repeat that when you talk about the Warriors. But I'm right there with you. 61, I love it. You know what else I like? Normally you'd worry about a little regression, a little disease in me,

all that stuff. Get a little satiated, got a taste of the title, drank champagne all summer. This team has not been respected for winning the title. Everyone's just moved on like somebody else is going to win this year. And I do think there's some nobody believes in us, championship edition. Well, all that chatter about how lucky they were to get the run they got

to the finals, and you were one get the run they got to the finals. And you were one of the people articulating that particular piece of luck. Yeah, I mean, you need luck every year. I still thought they were the best team. But Durant, if you just narrow it down to three things. Durant's feet. The Spurs not getting out of round one when that was the one team that would have given them the most trouble in a seven game series. And then Kyrie and Love.

Those are three sizable breaks. But I still think the Warriors would have won the title regardless. But those three breaks were pretty significant. I mean, you'd be hard pressed to go through the last 30 years here in Bay history and finding three bigger than that. Like Durant breaking his feet. You know, and then three surgeries? Like, that was crazy. All right, let's go to the Clippers.

Let's do it. Every year, I want to go under with them. 56 and a half is the number this year. The difference between last year and this year is their bench is much better, almost to the point that it might actually be too loaded. Like, I'm starting to wonder how they're going to play everybody and whether everybody's going to be happy.

They added Josh. They added Lance Stevenson. They got a full year of Austin Rivers. Please hold your jokes. Paul Pierce is in. DeAndre got paid. And not only did he get paid, but he had a whole June of Dallas blowing smoke up his butt

saying he should get the ball. You're DeAndre Jordan. You're an afterthought in that offense. So is he going to want the ball more? There's some chemistry issues that worry me, but the depth I think is going to overcome that. I'm going over. I just don't see how they don't go 57 and 25.

Over seems logical to me. What do you think? I'm right there with you on the logic. Here's the one concern that I have. Yeah. Is this the year that Chris finally starts to slide? We finally see CP3 showing a little wear and tear. And if so, his primary backup remains.

Yeah. It's really, yeah. They improved across the board on the bench, but at the most crucial position. Well, they won Austin Rivers as his backup. They paid Austin Rivers $55 million for five years. Do you hear me laughing? I think it's funny. It's funny, whatever.

Yeah, so right. Listen, the kid showed some flashes in both directions in the playoffs. I'm with you, The Chris Paul thing. You know, the bigger issue for me is just four straight years of them falling short. And then the last two, I hate using the word choke with athletes because all these guys are way better than I am. But they choked away that Oklahoma City series. I think they would admit that. And then what happened in Houston last year, which we discussed in the podcast a couple weeks ago at home against Houston.

One of the great collapses in the history of the NBA playoffs in game six. So that concerns me. It concerns me that I'm not positive DeAndre Jordan should be out there in the last six minutes of a must-win game with the free throw shooting. It concerns me that their best three guys that they've built this whole team around and now have just reinvested in for the future have really not won anything together. But those are all separate issues from the overrunner. They're going to be in the 58 to 62 range, I think. I think so, too.

And I think that they will be motivated to play to that number because the positioning is going to be so violent this year among the top teams. I mean, it's going to be genuinely, there are four teams genuinely wanting to ensure the home court advantage, I think. I mean, it seemed like teams were playing for that last year. I think that still matters. I agree. And I think they're built for a regular season run. As long as CP3 can hang in there and give them meaningful minutes, I think they'll be fine.

So he was the 2005 draft. This is year 11 for him. Some miles. I mean, he had the MCL surgery or the, uh, whatever the, uh, meniscus. He had that when he was in New Orleans. He's always seems to play himself,

himself in the shape during the season, which is something Shaq used to do and then started backfiring on Shaq later. Shaq was a big guy. I don't know. I don't know what to make of this team, but I do think, I don't know as I'm talking about as a contender, but I do think Pierce is going to have a dramatic impact on them because as i said all last year and all

the clipper fans were like you're being a hater it's like i'm just going to the games i don't i don't ultimately care if the if the clippers are great or not like i'm a celtic fan i'm just telling you what i see the chemistry seemed off and then the way the whole deandre jordan thing played out during the summer was a clear indication that the chemistry was off. And then the way the whole DeAndre Jordan thing played out during the summer was a clear indication that the chemistry was off. They talked about the lack of communication. Doc Rivers talked about how there were issues on the team that he didn't realize. These were all stuff you could see from my section at the games.

So you were there for Pierce last year in Washington. He will solve some of this stuff, I think, right? Oh, my gosh, absolutely. They would just have to tune him out and Doc. I mean, the force multiplier of those two guys together, right? Two leaders, two guys with rings, and nobody else has a ring on that team. So I think that combination, because Pierce is like another coach. He's a player coach at this point in his career.

The most interesting thing to me is what, which Lance are they getting? Because you know, that's part of the answer to this point guard issue. If it turns out that CP three does start to start to show a little where it's not crazy that Lance could bring the ball up, but remember Lance playing defense two years ago? I know. I don't know what to make a Lance. It's almost like in football where you have the guy, the receiver,

who put up the giant season, and then he just gets drafted with a high pick or people spend auction money on them for three straight years, and the guy sucks every year, and then it takes three years to realize he sucks. You know, like Michael Clayton on the Bucs. You know what I mean? Like one of those guys where it's like, no, no, he's good. And then three years pass, like, oh, he's terrible. Maybe Lance was just a fluke and a comet,

and it was just a series of events that led to him being good on that Indiana team for a year and a half for fluke reasons that are now over. He was one of the worst players in the league last year. Of anyone who played more than 20 minutes a game, he was one of the five worst players in the league. year. Of anyone who played more than 20 minutes a game, he was one of the five worst players in the league. We'll know by Christmas. We'll know by Christmas. There is no situation that could give him a better chance.

Maybe the Spurs. But this situation that he's in right now is the very best situation of his professional basketball career. I'm very excited. To redeem himself. Yeah, I'm very excited to go to the games. And FYI, I love Paul Pierce. Paul Pierce is fam. You know? Like, I'm all in to go to the games. And FYI, I love Paul Pierce. Paul Pierce is fam.

You know? Like, I'm all in on this Clippers season. I love Paul Pierce. I rooted for your team last year because Paul Pierce was on it. I'm all in on Paul Pierce and the Clips, and I hope it works out. I have the same concerns you big picture with CP getting 100 games at him. And, you know, just why hasn't this worked? This should have worked better than it has for these first four years.

Anyway, Phoenix, let's go through them quickly. Overs, 36.5. This is a team that feels like it could, a better chance of them free-falling than there is for it to be a good team. They added Chandler. They picked Devin Booker with the 13th pick. They added Toledovic, who I actually like.

They lost the lesser Morris twin. They lost Gerald Green. Brandon Knight, Eric Bledsoe as your backcourt. An unhappy Markeith Morris with a completely insane P.J. Tucker. And then Tyson Chandler at center. Alex Lent, T.J. warren devin booker coming off the bench a hodgepodge and i liked where they were two years ago i don't like this roster as much what do you think i'm in the exact same place interesting thing with over under it's 36 and a

half and by them being two games worse that still gets the over so it's kind of funny uh i think it's easy to properly criticize the position that they're in right now. They're in the mediocre middle, which is just deadly. And, you know, this revamping the roster, it seems like every year now it's really hard to get a vibe as to what the hell it is that they're doing. We haven't seen Brandon Knight and my boy Bledsoe play together since Kentucky, but you know, there's a lot of ways to talk yourself into some upside here. The whole season really comes down to Morris. He's their, like, linchpin guy on offense because of his versatility, and you know,

is he happy? Is he unhappy? Are they going to trade him it's just so crazy it's it crazy is the operative word there i'm going over i'm going over also i like i don't mind this team i think they'd be like a six seed in the in the east and uh i'm intrigued i the the fear would be that come mid-december they they just give Morris away because they have to get him off the team and they just go for a reboot. But there's talent here.

Tyson Chandler's an adult. They're going to be able to play defense. They're going to get some stops. Yeah, I think T.J. Tucker defensively is excellent. And Morris is kind of a sneaky crunch time guy, like somebody you can go to and run plays for, and he makes big shots. I think he's got huge balls.

There's also some nice buzz. TJ Warren is getting some, you know, give this dude some minutes buzz. Yeah. I wouldn't be shocked if they were a 45-win team. Hornacek was great two years ago, and he wasn't good last year, and I'm not sure why. Maybe the chemistry was off.

You can't say he wasn't good last year. They traded Goran Dragic last year in midseason. The whole thing fell apart. You put that on him? A little bit. Why was Goran Dragic unhappy? He had four point guards. Did he sign four point guards? That's true. It was the dumbest thing I've ever seen, by the way.

It was really stupid. I was stupid enough to be like, oh, maybe this will work. And then Goran Dragic is guarding Paul Pierce. It was like, what's going on? What is this? I just didn't like the Isaiah Thomas trade, and that one's never been properly explained to me. I love that guy.

I mean, I'm glad the Celtics got him for really not much, but I just would have rather kept him and kept the Lakers pick and not spend all that money on Brandon Knight. Would you rather have Isaiah Thomas for 8 million a year or Brandon Knight for 16? Like it's no contest. I don't understand it still. Yeah.

All right. Let's keep going. But we took the over. We have three overs so far. We might have 15 overs. I mean, the streak is about to end because we have reached the Los Angeles Lakers and their over is 29.

That over could have been 25. I would have gone under that over. It could have been 22 and I would have gone under. I just don't see it. This team is, it reminds me of one of those movie sequels where you get to the fourth sequel and everybody from the original movie is gone. And it's just this hodgepodge of weird actors. It's like Leprechaun 4.

They're trying to keep the franchise going with awful people. I don't get it. You still have Schwarzenegger and Stallone, but they're both in their mid-60s. And they're surrounded by guys like one of the Baldwin brothers, whose names I can't remember. You're right. This is Rambo 9. Kobe's Rambo. It is like they can't film Kobe from certain sides because he's so old

that he'll show off the plastic surgery. And no, just film him from the overhead camera. We're good. Putting Kobe on this team seems like some sort of sociology experiment gone wrong. Putting Roy Hibbert as teammates with Kobe Bryant feels like some sort of sociology experiment gone wrong. Putting Roy Hibbert as teammates with Kobe Bryant feels like some sort of attempt to see if somebody will cry on the court during a game. Well, it's going to be enjoyable.

We're going to enjoy watching. I will watch them. I don't know. I want to see their kids. I want to see D'Angelo Russell. I want to see Randall. We were cheated out of Randall last season. I know.

I mean, literally cheated. It was like the first game. I was excited for him. I worry about that dude, though, because now you're talking about two major lower body injuries already. Broken foot, broken leg. Not good. You're taking the under. I don't like that.

The under does make sense. But 29 is all it takes for them to be in over. Oh no, 30. You need to get to 30. Just quickly, just so we don't completely dismiss the Lakers and the Laker fans get pissy. Settle down, Laker fans.

You won in 2009-2010. There's no way you should have gotten two titles out of that two-year stretch, and somehow you did. So you should settle down. Hit a lot of breaks those two years. Crunch time. Jordan Clarkson. I'm just throwing this crunch time lineup out there.

Jordan Clarkson, Lou Williams, Kobe, Julius Randle, and Roy Hibbert. It's a crunch time lineup, and Kobe's playing better than we thought. Is that, like, mildly interesting to you or not really? It's mildly interesting. I have one slight amendment. I think that this dude, Marcelo Huertas, who played, he's a 32-year-old vet from the Brazilian national team and played for one of the very good teams in Spain

FC Barcelona. I might switch out Clarkson for him. If they're really trying to win games early in the season I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the lineup you described but with Huertas in there instead of Clarkson. You know there's one other

dad Brandon Bass who I always thought was underrated in the Celtics. I couldn't believe a playoff team didn't trade for him last year. He's just an adult, and he makes 15-footers, and he plays defense, and he plays hard,

and he's a good teammate. And so, you know, I just don't think the pieces fit, but I like some of the guys individually on that team. Speaking of the pieces not fitting, that brings us to the Sacramento Kings. Wait a second. Did we both take the under?

Oh, yeah. And I think they're going to win exactly 29, which counts as a push. Oh, you're insane. No, no, no. I'm just saying. We're both taking the under. I just wanted to confirm. Under.

Under. I have under in all caps. And then I bolded the U in the under just I just wanted to confirm. Under. I have under in all caps. And then I bolded the U in the under just to and made it flash. Sacramento is 33. They lost Nick Stauskas, Jason Thompson, Carl Landry, and Ray McCallum,

who they gave away to the Spurs inexplicably. It'll probably end up being a really good Spur. They added Rayjean Rondo, Willie Cauley-Stein, Costa Cufas, Marco Bellinelli, and best-selling author Karan Butler. So I don't know what to make of this team. It doesn't seem like really anybody can shoot other than Bellinelli

and Ben McLemore from the outside. Rudy Gay maybe from 17 feet. If you weren't looking at the mountain of Sloan Conference evidence, that's actually Ewan Henry shooting from 17 feet. If you weren't looking at the mountain of Sloan Conference evidence, that's actually Ewan Henry shoot from 17 feet. Willie Cauley-Stein and Rondo are two of the most shot-challenged guys in the league. I don't know how you play them together. On the bright side, they have Boogie Cousins,

who's probably a top 11 NBA player at this point. And they have guys who can create shots. And George Carl, you're heavy breathing again. Watch the heavy breathing. Got a lot of comments about your heavy breathing last time. The only time... When I'm talking,

just move your phone away from your mouth, you dumbass. Jesus. It's when I go to grab my materials. I have some important material to research. People think like you're getting aroused as I talk about that. People are scared.

They don't want a heavy breathing house. I'm going over. I can't believe I heavy breathing house. I'm going over. I can't believe I'm going over. I'm going over. I think they're going to be all in on trying to win. It's not a situation where they're going to be going, oh, no, we should start losing now. I think to the bitter end, they're going to go down in flames with this team.

And I feel 36 and 46, something like that. I think we take the over every single year for this team because we keep rooting for the over. We want the over. We take it every year and get it wrong. I'm on board with the over as well. I like them. What are they? We need 34 wins to get the over?

I mean, you look at it and you go... That's five wins better. Yeah, you go Rondo and Ben McElmore. I don't know what to make of Rondo. It wouldn't surprise me if he's just in China in like three months. And it wouldn't surprise me if all of a sudden he was playing at an all-star level again. I think he has the biggest ceiling basement of any NBA player over the age of 25 right now. Well, do we agree that if anybody doesn't get through to him, it'll be Coach Carl?

Get through to him, meaning he'll end up in jail? Get through to him, meaning he'll retire from basketball at age 29 coach carl has has a great resume of um being uh a good mentor to complicated point guard all right i'm gonna flip i'm flipping that argument around because they used to say that stuff about Larry Brown, too. And I think as people get older and crankier, that quality of, oh, I can reach talented people, you just start being an asshole to them. Do we think George Carl is crankier? We think George Carl is going to be an asshole? Oh, I think he's super cranky. I think he's like sending breakfasts back because the hash browns aren't cooked enough. I think he's in that stage of his life.

He's like, I told you. I told you, crispy bacon. Put this back on. Yeah, I think he's in that stage. Well, that's going to be a bad fit because there are the starters, God bless them, on NBA TV and NBA.com did 72 questions

entering the season. Yeah. The Kings have 172. They have 572 questions entering this season. It. The Kings have 172. They have 572 questions entering this season. It's, you know, and the other thing is, there's some,

like, I could see George Carl just playing Collison in Crunch Time. That makes sense. And just messing with Rondo and Rondo being a dick and, oh, man. That doesn't mess with Rondo.

We haven't even mentioned. Why wouldn't Rondo accept that role? Are you kidding? Rondo thought he was going to get paid $100 million last summer. I can't even say it with a straight face. That might have been, yeah. Okay, he's not accepting his role. You and I played basketball for most of our lives. If you put enough crazy people on a basketball team,

it's never going to go well. It's basketball team, it's never going to go well. It's just not. It's not going to go well. And there's crazy people on this team. Crazy people I love. I think Boogie Cousins would fall under the definition of lovable basketball crazy. I love Boogie Cousins. I root for him as much as any non-Celtic. I want him to be in a good basketball situation. I don't blame him for any of this. He's had five coaches and 17 GMs and two owners who are both incompetent. The Maloofs were incompetent. Vivek seems

like he might be incompetent. This guy's never had a fair chance to be in a good team. And I hope it works out for him. But I do think that if this team is 7-23, at the end of December, he's going to push for a trade. That's it. He's getting out of there.

Don't you think? Oh, I absolutely expect that. They're better than that, though. They're not going to go 7-23. No, they're not. They'll play hard. It's really hard to go less than 500 with Boogie Cousins on your team when you have to double-team him.

There's no way to play the Kings without double-teaming him. Right. Boogie got his taste last year. He made it onto the national stage. His first season as an all-star. He knows that he's a Team USA cornerstone. He got all that time in the last 18 months with Team USA. I like the direction of Boogie's maturity. And, you know, this is a team where the owner is out of his mind and gloriously incompetent.

Yeah. But they're trying to win. I like that. A gloriously incompetent should be the new Kings blog. Yeah, I was over at Glorious Incompetent today. They had an interview with Marco Bellinelli. Stauskas? Stauskas? Stauskas?

The best part is when Stauskas is making four threes a game for that terrible Sixers team. He's going to, too. Count on it. Chen and I had our Super League draft last night. He was there, and I was helping by text. It's one of my favorite random nights where I'm just helping him.

We're just texting each other the whole night as guys come up. And one of the best parts, Chen, he was involved with Jeremy Lane once upon a time. They're still buddies and some of the guys in that draft. So Jeremy Lane always has value

that skews way higher. Jeremy Lane is treated like he's Chris Paul in this league. But we went big on Paul George. We drafted him in the second round at $17 million. I was excited about that. Well done. Congrats. He's awesome. I love Paul George. We had the eighth pick in the first round, and we took Cazonia. Not as much because it made sense, but just because neither of us could live in a world where he wasn't on our team. You had the what pick in the what round and took Cazonia?

Well, everyone has three keepers, right? So then when it's an actual draft, you make picks, and it's like the low-salary guys are the most important guys, right? So it's like people like Okafer and people like that. And we got Justice Winslow in the third round, which also gave me a big boner. And our three protections were Vucevic, $11 million, Marcus Smart, and then somebody else who's really good. Oh, Gobert. We have the best guy in the league, Gobert.

Oh, wow. Yeah, we have Gobert at like a million bucks. And all he does is blocks and get rebounds. Anyway, I wrote a column on, you'll check it out in the Grantland archives if you Google it, about this Salad Cap Basketball League. And it's the greatest idea of all time,

and I love it, and it's fantastic. And Colby Brown was not drafted. I'm still waiting for my invite. Yeah. We gotta start our quick break for our friends at HBO, the place that was kind enough to give me my own television show that launches next spring. If you go to HBO now, download the free app,

you get a month for free, and you get everything HBO has done. You don't need cable. You don't need satellite. You know what's cool, though? You go to that site, and it's basically a library for the last 35-plus years of HBO content. Pretty much every series they've done.

All kinds of movies. Some of the great HBO movies they've done, I would recommend The Late Shift, and I would recommend And the Band Played On from the 90s. Two of my favorite TV movies ever. Those are buried in the HBO Now archives. And all the comedy they've done. Amy Schumer's special, which I really enjoy. She makes me laugh. Uh, some of the sports stuff, documentaries, it's all there. Go check it out. HBO. It's an amazing app. It's really 35 years

of television history. If you want to catch up on the Sopranos, just do it. Go to the HBO Now app and watch whatever you want. Curb Your Enthusiasm. My favorite. I've decided that's my favorite comedy ever. Get that. A whole bunch of stuff. HBO Now. The app. HBO. Thank you for letting me do this. And now, back to

NBA. Over. Unders. San Antonio. Their over is 58 and.5. You know what they did with their team. We're in on them to win the title 10-1. They added LaMarcus Aldridge and David West. They lost Splitter, which I think is...

It matters a little bit. It doesn't not matter that they don't have Splitter on this team. And they lost Bellinelli, who was their irrational confidence perimeter guy. But I like this team more as a playoff team than a regular season team. I went under for 58 and a half. I just don't think they care about the regular season. I think it's going to take a couple weeks.

I'm sorry, a couple months for them to figure out, hey, how do we play Aldridge and Duncan at the same time? How do we make David West happy? Who's going to be our bellinelli irrational confidence guy off the bench like is parker still an elite point guard like these are things that i think they're going to figure out in october november december january and it's going to hurt the over-under i'm going under we're both going under should we make it a lock i made that too disrespectful i made it a lock oh you made it a lock i did, you made it a lock. It's a lock. That is a lock. We're in lockstep

agreement. Let's move on then. Unless you have anything interesting to say about the Spurs at this point, let's move on. The only thing that I wanted to comment on, I was hearing bad things about Tony Parker over the summer. Patty Mills

might be getting a lot of run. I like Kyle Anderson quite a bit. So the Parker thing, just quickly. Year 15 for him, which seems impossible, but he's only been in the league four years less than Tim Duncan, even though I think he's seven or eight years younger. Year 15 for point guards, not great. I mean, Stockton in the mid-90s on Utah,

that's when he was younger than Tony Parker is in NBA miles right now. So if you think of like John Stockton in the late nineties and where he's playing 28 minutes a game and was kind of aging John Stockton, that's Tony Parker right now. I don't think he's ever going to be an elite guy like he was in 13 and even 14. Hey, you know, he's at a different – it's impossible. Point guards are – you only have so many of those back and forth zoom drives in you. I'm also a tiny bit worried about Aldridge the first couple months.

I think it will be fine eventually. They'll figure it out. He's an isolation guy. It's going to be a little weird with him and Duncan. They've got to figure that out. I just don't see them coming out of the gate and going 30-2. No way. Yeah, and the thing about them, they don't really care that much,

it doesn't seem, about position. They're okay with going on the road. It didn't work out last year, but they just get to the playoffs and do their thing. Yeah, so we've managed to disrespect them and massage them at the same time because we have under for regular season wins, and yet we have them to win the title. So I'm proud of how we played the fence on that.

Yes. My next team is also a lock. Oh, this is a lock lock. This is our lock of the year. Actually, the Celtics are my Eastern Conference lock of the year, and this is my lock of the year for the West. The Houston Rockets, over 54.5. Not only are they going to go over, I think they win the most games of anyone in the NBA this year.

This does not mean they're going to win the title. I just think they're built for the regular season better than any other team. Joe House, discuss. I couldn't agree more. In big, bright red letters I wrote when the great Tate Frazier circulated this at the end of last week. Can we still get 54-and-a-half? How is it possible that the angle on them is a game-and-a-half worse than last year? They're deep at every single position.

Now, you could talk yourself into flight regression out of guys like Trevor, Reza, and I guess... He wasn't even that good last year, statistically. No, he shot the threes great. Well, pretty good. Yeah. You could say that you have some concerns about Dwight Howard's health. Well, especially it turned out he had a bum knee in the round three, which nobody knew about. I know.

We could tell, though. We said it. We were talking about the Miles finally catching up to them in round three, and you could see it. We didn't have an injury prognosis at that moment, but he was injured. We knew it. So those are the things that you point to and say, let's take a little bit of the bloom off the rose. But I love the depth on this team.

The Ty Lawson thing was, to me, 1A to the Aldridge signing. Aldridge was the number one best signing in the offseason. Right. Ty Lawson, right there as 1A. We both love him. Yeah, it was the highest ceiling pickup that anybody made in the summer because if it works out, you're talking about a guy who can change games off the bench, which nobody has.

The Celtics have it with Isaiah Thomas, but he's basically a starter that comes off the bench. In this case, you have somebody who's not a starter who can come in and change a game in two minutes with his speed, and if they can keep him right off the court. It also gives them the lineup flexibility they have now. They could play Beverly, and Beverly, by the way, is back, who wasn't there last year. Easy to forget that part, but they could play Beverly and Beverly, by the way, is back, who wasn't there last year. You know, easy to forget that part.

But they could play Beverly and Lawson together. Why not? They could go small. They can go big. It's a Dirk Diggler team. It's a thing going all directions. They can make love fast. They can make love slow.

Tell me how you want me to do it, Jack. It's a Spanish panel on his team. The other one they got... So, Harrell, I think, could be a rebounder. Now, who knows why he fell that late. Maybe there's some personality concerns about him.

But they got Marcus Thornton. Don't laugh. Marcus Thornton's on this team, last time I checked. I'm not laughing. I like him in the right situation, in the right context. I watched him last year, and at least 10 different times, my dad and I had conversations about, is Marcus Thornton kind of somebody who should be on a playoff team

as a guy off the bench who takes over games for four minutes at a time? He can do stuff like that. So I the depth they got hard and hard and got away from chloe kardashian in time for the season and uh i think they're in the 60s this is the only team other than the warriors that i think has a legit chance to be like i'd be surprised if they weren't in the 60s so the only thing that i'm going to throw a little water on it, if I was inclined to do so, would be, I liked Nate Duncan and Daniel Rowe did a, the Real GM guys did a over-under thing a little while ago. They talked about the differential, the point differential last year being appropriate for a team winning kind of low 50s, and so they were slightly lucky to win the 56 that they did. So it'll be really interesting to see, to me,

how that point differential kind of plays out over the first, let's say, 25 games. Are they going to be blowing teams out? Are they going to be shooting the ball terrifically? Is Harden going to get to the line as many times? I don't have any reason to think that any of these things won't happen, but it will kind of chart the course for us. We'll be able to watch it as it's sort of developing. And I genuinely like Monte Yunus as a guy coming off the bench, a big guy.

And he was hurt last year. Josh Smith basically got his minutes. He's better than Josh Smith, like just point blank. That guy can affect games in different ways better than he can. And the other thing we forgot to mention, they're built for a December trade once all their contracts kind of lay in. And I really think this is a Marquise Morris destination. Darrell would have no problem trading for that dude.

If things go bad for Phoenix early, there's a couple Marquise Morris destinations. I think the Celtics are one. There's teams equipped to do a three-for-one with some picks. Houston's one. Boston's one. I think Toronto's a possibility. But, like, Houston's ready to do something. They have pieces.

Do they have enough pieces to bring in Carmelo? Oh. Or does he not make sense for them? Oh. Well, Darry make sense for them? Oh. Well, Darryl won't care. He would do that. He would do that. That's interesting.

He can make anybody work. Oh, I like Carmelo. Imagine Melo out on the perimeter. Melo is a sneaky good three-point shooter. I hope Kurt Goldsberry doesn't kill me for saying that. I think he's a sneaky good three-point shooter. Both of us just want to see Carmelo on a good team again. I love Carmelo.

I love watching Carmelo. I like watching him play basketball in crunch time where teams know he's going to shoot, and he shoots anyway he scores. I enjoy it. It was such an exciting moment when he dropped 60 last season. I loved it. It was one of my favorite moments of the whole NBA season last year. He's a businessman.

That's the other thing I love about him. The guy's a businessman. The guy knows business. The guy knew to grab that giant contract from the Knicks and then immediately get knee surgery and throw away the season. He's a businessman. Like to stand in the window in suits. Let's spend as little time on this next one as possible.

The Memphis Grizzlies, over 50 and a half. It's the same team they've been the last few years. I think they're treading water when everybody else has gotten a little bit better and it feels like they're in that 48 to 50 range. I'm going slight under. Just out of respect to everybody in Memphis,

you know I respect the team. I just don't see how they're better than they were last year. I don't think they're better than they were last year either. Well, they won 55 last year, we should say. Yeah, that's right. They only have to win 51 games, so I'm taking slight over. Okay.

So we're going to have a slight disagreement on one for one. Fair enough. Zach's been in the league since 2001, I should mention. That is one of my things. A lot of miles on Zeebo. Huh? A lot of miles on the Zeebo. This is year...

34-year-old Zeebo. Yeah, he's like Parker. This is year 15 for him. The reason I knew they were in the same draft was the Celtics had three first-round picks, This is year... 34-year-old Zeebo. Yeah, he's like Parker. This is year 15 for him. The reason I knew they were in the same draft was the Celtics had three first-round picks, 10, 11, and 21 that year. And we somehow didn't get Zach Randolph or Tony Parker. We just kept passing on both of them.

And we took Joe Johnson and traded him after 50 games. We took Kedrick Brown, Joe Johnson, and Joe Forte. And Tony Parker thought we were drafted. We passed Zeebo. I remember it was the first year they started showing Summer League. Or we went to Summer League or something where my dad saw Zeebo in Summer League and was like, we passed on that guy twice. I just watched him.

He was scoring on double teams. This guy, Zach. Zach Randolph. He went after our two picks, but before the third pick. And we just didn't get him. Why didn't we get him? He's a lefty. My dad loves lefties.

This was Chris Wallace at the height of all his powers. The height of his Chris Wallace-ness. All right. We'll move on. So slight disagreement on that one. Yeah. You know, the one thing, I like Brandon Wright on this team. I like Matt Barnes on this team. Those are both, you know, on that one. The one thing, I like Brandon Wright on this team. I like Matt Barnes on this team. Those are

both on the margins. Interesting little upgrades, but I'm right there with you. They could win 48. They could win 52. At some point, you've got to fade back to being good, but not very good. I'm also

prepared to just flip my opinion on the Grizzlies in a week and be like, oh my god, they look good again. I wish I had rethought that. I'm my opinion on the Grizzlies in a week and be like, oh my god, they look good again. I wish I had rethought that. I'm always rooting for the Grizzlies. All right, so New Orleans. Their over is 48. Tyreek is out for six weeks, it looks like.

Drew Holiday has just injuries. He's maybe never going to be the guy we thought he was going to be for that team. They gave up two lottery picks for him. And I don't care. I just think the days of Anthony Davis winning less than 50 games are over. It's just as long as he plays 82 games a year or something close, he's a 50 win guy. And I don't

care who his teammates are. I really don't. I'm going over. I'll go further. Locke. Yeah, Locke. I'll go further. Locke. Wow. Yeah, Locke. I believe in you, bro. I believe in you, Anthony Davis.

I'm not joining you. Good. I think it's going to be a push. The number's 48. I think they're going to win exactly 48 games. I understand that. I'm just telling you. I'm taking the under.

It's a slight under. I think they're going to win 47, exactly 47 and a half games since I have to take the under. The injury thing at some point is a problem. Tate's recording this. I'm excited to play this for you when Anthony Davis, the day after he gives his MVP speech for the 2015-16 season. I'm rooting for that. Nothing would make me happier than to see him make another leap. You're not rooting for it.

You went under. You're not rooting for it at all, you heavy-breathing weirdo. I don't think, as great a player as he is, that a single talent in the West is capable of delivering 50 wins. You have to have the guys. You have to have the cast. They have six guys that are either hurt or in some stage of recuperation right now. Ashik is hurt.

Tyreek is hurt. Norris is hurt. Pondexter is hurt. They haven't hurt. Pondexter, by the way, saved their season last year. Yeah, a little bit. Well, they got supernates on this team. You know he's going to win some games.

They went from Mighty Williams to Alvin Gentry, which is like going from a Hyundai to a Tesla. Not just that, they also got Darren Ehrman, the guy from the South. Way better coaching staff. How many games did this team blow last year? If Davis plays 80 games, it's impossible for them not to win 50. That would be the first time that he

needs to play 70 games for the first time in his career. That's a fair comment. If you're going to tell me he can't stay healthy. You know who else they added? Kendrick Perkins. Leadership in the clubhouse. Little guy to defend my man Anthony. Well, guess what?

How are you going to enjoy watching him get a lot of minutes to begin this season? Because Asik and Najink are still coming back from injury. We'll let him throw two jump hooks off the backboard and we'll be done with it. We won't run another play for him. Last season, their best player to play more than 70 games? Tyreek Evans. Guess who's in a contract year? 26-year-old former stud by the name of Eric Gordon,

who really quietly had an awesome shooting year last year. Well, I'm glad you used former. He's like a 45% from three. Guess who else is in the contract year? A rejuvenated Ryan Anderson, who had well-documented terrible trouble off the court, hurt his neck, hasn't been right physically and emotionally in two years. Contract year, feeling good again. That guy shoots threes.

This team's going to shoot threes and make them. I love Ryan Anderson, and he is absolutely positively in the best possible situation for him with this team. Oh, what a shame we don't get to watch Tyreek Evans keep shooting when Anthony Davis should have the ball. I wonder how they're going to recover from that. Let's go with plan B, giving the ball to the MVP, Anthony Davis, over Tyreek Evans taking on three guys and driving to the basket. I've had it. I've had it. I've had it with all these people who don't respect the brow. He's going to win the MVP this year, and they're going to win 50 games.

Done. Lock it down. I'm rooting for that to happen. I just don't think it will. And you're asking me to take my hard-earned greenbacks, my hard-earned George Washingtons, and put them in a place where my heart isn't. And I'm not going to do it. I'm taking a slight under on 48. Well, actually, a better move than betting the over would just be to bet Davis to win

MVP, which I'm not allowed to do because I think I still have a vote. Whoa, I didn't know that. That's too bad. Yeah, I have a vote. I'm not allowed to bet on any of the awards. But I think Davis is the MVP favorite this year. I'm allowed. Especially, especially when his team's banged up in the first six, seven weeks.

And he's like, oh, I guess I'm just going to have to carry us every night. And I'm 23. I think I can handle it. I hope he does it. I want him to do it. All right. Let's quickly go over Dallas. Dallas is 37 and a half.

Wesley Matthews is allegedly starting on opening night, even though he tore his Achilles like a week and a half ago I don't get that Chandler Parsons He must have had Adrian Peterson's Very fishy Leg specialist Well maybe Ray Lewis healed his Achilles Is that possible?

They have deer antler spray in Dallas Did Ray Lewis heal his Achilles during his book tour? Maybe he went to Germany Maybe Chandler Parsons Lewis heal his Achilles during his book tour? Maybe he went to Germany. Maybe. Chandler Parsons. Microfracture surgery. Might have had it.

May not have. Might be ready for the opening season. Might not. Seems like he spent his summer, instead of rehabbing, going out with DeAndre Jordan every night. And trying to be a famous celebrity. And that makes me nervous. No Tyson Chandler. Not that he was Bill Russell last year.

That was a mistake, by the way. Why is Mark Cuban so disrespectful towards Tyson? All Tyson's done is bring him Ws. I'll go the other way. Why are teams always so happy to get rid of Tyson Chandler? Are teams really happy to get rid of him. All he does is... Seems like he gets passed around a little bit. The Knicks were certainly delighted

to get rid of him. They lost Monte Ellis, who made a lot of big shots for them. They lost Jay Crowder in the Rondo trade, who turned out to be just better than Rondo, straight up. They added Zaza, who, I gotta admit, I've always kind of

liked. Huge head on Zaza. One of the biggest heads in the NBA. And he'll fight you. He's one of the few guys who will actually fight you. He's not ready to have the hold me back fight. He'll actually fight you. That's who Thabo wished he had next to him when they were up in New York at the club

last April. That's true. Instead of Piero Antic, who looks tougher than Zaza. But if Zaza was there, those cops aren't breaking Tabo's leg. So Darren Williams is here, also known as the artist formerly known as Darren Williams. I think he just has the symbol like Prince did. I am not optimistic about the Darren Williams era. I'm not optimistic about this team and the X factor. Rick Carlisle on a contract year, one.

Two, Celtics get their pick unless it's in the top seven. So if Dallas is going to the lottery. That's the most interesting thing about this team. Yeah. So Dallas has to decide in the first five weeks if they're going for that top seven pick or not. Because once we stretch past December, it's going to be too late. There's too many bad teams.

So what do you think? Well, here's my view. Poor Dirk. Did you see the picture over the weekend of him dressed up as Lurch? Poor Dirk. It was a pitch-perfect Lurch. I think what we're getting this season is Lurch Nowitzki. I think it was the perfect picture for what we're getting out of the Dallas Mavericks. It is going to be Adam's family, and Dirk is going to be Lurch,

and they're going to be lurching around. And I honestly think that notwithstanding all the criticism they heaped upon the Golden State Warriors for tanking two years ago, this team is going to tank this year. And so I like them very much as an under. Very unfair that they spent their whole summer, their calf space, they basically just put all their chips on the DeAndre Jordan table. And then the table got overturned during a riot after a Mike Tyson fight.

Yeah, it's not fair to the players. It's the system that the owners have brought. Yeah, the security cameras, they can't find the chips. They're just gone. And that was it. There was no plan B. And they were too far down the owners have brought. Yeah, the security cameras, they can't find the chips. They're just gone. And that was it. There was no plan B, and they were too far down the road with that. And, you know, they shouldn't be good. They shouldn't be good.

That's the point. Are we both in agreement on an under? Oh, we're way under. We're way under. They'd be crazy to try to make the playoffs. What are they going to try to make the playoffs this year? What, are they going to win the title? You've got to keep that pick. Got to keep the playoffs. What are they going to try to make the playoffs this year? What are they going to win the title? You got to keep that pick.

Got to keep the pick. That's the most important thing. I would keep all these guys fresh and healthy, and I would win 19 games. And if any team is but collateral with their fans over the last 15 years, it's Cuban and Dallas. Is this a lock? No, because they might be – they're so competitive between Carlisle and Cuban, they might actually just try to go for the playoff spot.

They did it. And it would be the honorable thing to do for Lurch-Dirk. Lurch-Nawitzki. Is it possible he sold his soul in 2011 in the finals? Who? Dirk. Cuban? No, Dirk-Nawitzki.

No, Dirk didn't do anything wrong in those finals. Did Cuban sell his soul? Somebody sold their soul. Yeah. I think it was Cuban, his soul? Somebody sold their soul. Yeah, I think it was Cuban because he immediately dismantled the team. Dirk went and played for Germany, which was a huge mistake, and there was a lockout. Yeah. A series of events that suggest the lockout wasn't related to it.

But nobody wanted Dallas to be honored as a league champ. I wanted it. I really enjoyed league champ. I wanted it. I really enjoyed that finals. I loved it. They beat a team with LeBron and Wade in their primes. To this day, it remains stunning. It's one of the most stunning things I've ever sat in a basketball arena and witnessed. Not just that they won, but that LeBron, you could literally see his brain breaking during that finals.

They broke his brain. He turned into, and the usage rate backs it up, and all the advanced stats. He was afraid to play basketball. They broke his brain. He did not know what to do. He could not solve whatever they were doing. He just could not figure it out. They were defending him with J.J. Barea in the low post.

They broke his brain. He didn't know what to do against J.J. Barea in the low post. It broke his brain. He didn't know what to do against J.J. Barea in the low post. It was amazing. Amazing three games in Dallas. I will never forget. Alright, Northeast Division. Northwest Division, sorry. Northwest, yeah. OKC is 57.5. Seems low. You have every

reason to think they're going to hit it. They should be loaded. Locked and loaded. Should be a great team. I'd like to see Durant play 20 games before I made this a lock. I'm going over. Oh, I hear what you're saying. I know what you mean. Well, didn't we just play seven games, six games?

Yeah. Let's get to Thanksgiving where he's running around fresh as a daisy, and then I'll feel good about a lock here. Okay. We're both taking the over, though. Yeah, this team's loaded. They're awesome. And a coaching upgrade, we think.

Seems like it. I think this team and Houston are our two best bets to lead the league in wins. I totally agree with that. They are going to be... This is the forgot-about-Dre team. I mean, these

guys are like, remember us? They could win 65 or 66 games. Yes. And the other thing, now that Abaka's back, I really liked when Cantor and Abaka played together. I think Cantor is really limited and is an offense-only guy and has to be protected with a shot blocker. It's the only way he's redeemable.

But him and Ibaka together was great. They were like yin and yang. It was awesome. And they just have wrinkles. They have things. My fear with them is Westbrook was in, you know, if we're going down in flames, we're going down in flames with me shooting mode last year and really became just for lack of a better word a maniac

like an over competitive maniac and i don't know can you now channel that this year that's a lack of institutional control that's a that's a friend that's an indictment of the franchise that's not an indictment of west well they the team allowed itself to be hurt in that way. Who's in charge there? You don't just let the guy, every time he touches the ball, decide the fate of every single offensive possession. You can't run a successful team that way. Well, and he's also, and I've heard he's an awesome teammate.

I think he's a great guy off the court. I actually think he wasn't a great teammate during that last 30 games. Not just the hog and the ball stuff, but I thought he affected the other guys on the team. They were scared to let him down, which is not what you want. Well, Reggie Jackson certainly agrees with that. Yeah, it was a weird vibe, and to say that he didn't contribute to it would not be honest. And I hope he learned from that, because I don't think that's who he is. I think what really happened was he couldn't believe that Durant went down and Ibaka went down. I think he snapped. And I don't think he had a good coaching infrastructure in place and somebody to just show him game tapes and be like, this is really bad when you yell at Enes Kanter on

the court. And this is bad when you stink eye this guy because he dropped your pass. Like you can't do this stuff. So I'm fascinated. You can't do this stuff. I'm fascinated to watch what happens with this team and I have no idea how it's going to play out because we don't know if Durant's going to be able to play 100 games. We just don't. I'm rooting for it. I honestly think also, Zach wrote this in his 35 crazy things

for the season, that he's going to do a one-year extension. Me too. I'm down with that. The economics make the most sense. So it's going to pop that balloon of KD to DC and all that other silly stuff. Well, it also allows him

and Westbrook to leave together. Yeah, and Ibaka. Ibaka's on the same cycle. Yeah. Same cycle. Sounds like you're talking about girls in college. Or PEDs.

What? Oh, come on. Stop it. No, we don't think that OKC's on PEDs. We have other candidates for PEDs. They're not on my list. They're not on my list either. Yeah.

Maybe they should start. Maybe that would stop the injuries. Little HGH never hurt. Do they even have PDs? The guy whose initials are beginning with an L. Do they have PDs in Oklahoma? They have them everywhere. Okay, good.

Can you order them online? Good. Utah, over 42. This is this year's champion of getting the most smoke blown up their ass for a young team that's never done anything. Everybody has this team making a gigantic leap. And meanwhile, I keep looking at their point guards. This is it.

I keep seeing Trey Burke, who was just abysmal last year. I keep seeing Alec Burks, who's coming off major knee surgery. And I don't really see anyone else. Dante Exum? Oh, no, he's out for the year and I don't really see anyone else. I'd Dante X him. Oh, no, he's out for the year. I don't get it. Honestly, their point guard is not on the team right now. You know, it's like here in Washington where you say,

who's the franchise quarterback for the Washington D.C. Grudens? You say, well, he's not on the team. I don't know who it's going to be. He's coming. The same is true of point guard for the utah jazz i'm going under so am i they're not a lock they remind me of phoenix last year i honestly don't think they're going to make the playoffs no i i i think they're going to be where sacramento is they'll be right and and maybe pho Phoenix will be above both of them. I don't see. Nobody's been able to explain to me why Utah, Sacramento, and Phoenix aren't grouped together

as the teams that aren't going to make the playoffs but can be a little frisky under the right circumstances. Seems like the destinies of all three of those. You know what's crazy is by making those three teams kind of on the bubble, on the fringe like that, we're putting Dallas back into the playoffs. No, because Oklahoma City's taking somebody's spot. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

That's it. Dallas is out, OKC's in. There's your playoff picture. That's it. Utah's in. Utah. You're not making the playoffs. Sorry.

Good luck. Good luck with the Stifle Tower. I love. It's going to be enjoyable to watch them, except for Trey Burke, Rick Baum. Yeah. The bottom line is... Other than that, it'll be fun to watch them. I thought he was going to be a good pro.

And he just can't shoot. You know? And it's like, that's it. He just can't make shots. He has one talent. He shot 38% last year on spot of threes. But how's he going to get a spot of three? Who's bringing the ball up and passing it to him

so he can stand and catch it and shoot it? I don't get it with this team, and I don't get the smoke. I got the smoke with Milwaukee a little bit. It made more sense, but not with this team. All right, Denver's over is 27.5. They've blown it up. They lucked out because Vlade Divac passed on Moutier at number six because Moutier didn't work out for Sacramento.

And he didn't want to take a player he hadn't worked out. So instead he took Willie Cauley-Stein, even though Moutier had much more value. And he should have just taken Moutier and figured it out later. These teams are like, oh, yeah, we didn't work him out. I don't feel like just take them figure it out he's the most value just take him or justice winslow just take one of those two guys who have the most value and then flip them for more picks or something don't take willie collie

stein at six what are you doing it is kind of insane like what are you doing? I like their young core. I like, obviously, Narkic. I really like, I think Mouya is going to be pretty interesting. I mean, he played professional basketball last year. You know, he's not a kid who's coming in cold.

He has the most important position at the most competitive slot in the West, right? Well, you figure they're going to let him run everything and be the man and do all that stuff. And your model for that historically is a situation like Tyreek Evans and the Kings. Yeah. Where he wins the Rookie of the Year.

It sets them up perfectly. Yeah. He wins the Rookie of the Year, he puts up big stats. For a 24-win season. Yeah, and they win 22 games. Yeah. So we're both taking the under, right? Yeah, and it's a borderline lock for me. I do like some of the players

on this team, but I also think this is a team that has the Knicks' first round pick. They do not have their own first round pick. Well, actually, that's not true. Is the Knicks' pick protected? My bad. They get the lesser pick.

I'm sorry. They get the better pick of their pick or the Knicks pick. So if they think the Knicks are going to be better than them, then they can tank and go the other way. I think that's how it works. The Knicks don't get their pick. The Knicks pick... The Raptors get whatever is the worst pick.

Oh. The Raptors are going to get the Nuggets pick? Well, if the Nuggets win 24 games and the Knicks win 30 games, they'd get the Knicks pick. Okay. Yeah. Well, Kurt Goldsberry says they project to be the worst three-point shooting team in the league, which is a tough stat for a league that is now highly focused on a three-point shot. Yeah.

And I just like the under. The only thing that makes me... No, stop. Don't qualify. Stop. It's Mike Malone. Mike Malone. I respect Mike Malone.

That's all. Under. Because he coached 500 basketball for three weeks? I like Mike Malone, too, but everybody's got to stop acting like he was Tom Thibodeau. Under. He didn't really do anything. Yeah, under.

Under. Under. Not locked up. The Timberwolves of Minnesota, the over is 26 and a half, and we were taping this one day after news came out about Flip Saunders, which I've got to say, I'm not surprised by much these days on Twitter or anywhere. I was just aghast. I couldn't believe it.

I had no idea it was that bad. Then it comes out he was in a coma for six weeks, which they hid really well from everybody. But, God, what a terrible story. I feel really bad condolences to Minnesota and Flip and everybody. What a bummer. I know. He did a really credible job here in Washington

with perhaps the most insane situation in the last 20 years in the NBA. Yeah. And he deserves all of the credit that he is getting now and has received in the past for being such a creative, offensive mind. I loved watching those Pistons teams. And what he did in terms of delivering Minnesota from irrelevant and unknown onto the national stage, that's a true accomplishment. That's a legit legacy. I can't believe how well he did in Minnesota. Because the track record of first coach GM

and then second, why is this guy running out? And then the Wiggins love trade is one of the great trades of the century. It really is. That was an unbelievable trade for them. It completely changed their future for the next 15 years. A guy who's been around for so long still having a fastball. Think about the league that KG came into and how it was still a pretty unknown kind of quantity for a high school kid to jump straight into the league the way KG did.

Yeah. And the success that he had, he got out of KG. Well, I like the over for this team even before they had a real purpose now. And it'd be really i just can't imagine they're gonna not that they would have anyway but i'm sure they're gonna dedicate this season to him i i it was obvious from reading all this stuff in the papers the last 24 hours that that everybody had real affection for this guy and not like when they're trying to pretend they do in sports but you can kind of read between the lines and see they're just being nice.

Like this was somebody that affected a lot of people's lives. And it just seems like I could see them kind of galvanizing around this whole thing. I also think Rubio, been waiting for the career year for him for a while, and if it's ever happening, it's this year. I like Rubio this year. You need the 70 game year out of Rubio. That would be a career year. Well, yeah, and it's also the kind of team that makes sense for him, right?

You've got athletes now. You have Towns, and you have Wiggins, and you have Dang. People can run the floor with him, kind of do stuff like i love i like kg as a player coach also you know it really does help that sam mitchell situation which i'm not that fond of i think they have young talent um sufficient to get to around 30 wins i'm gonna go over also um because i want to be positive about this team i was going over anyway i i thinks and Wiggins are young and talented and are going to be bringing it every night. The only reason to take the under is they're not really incented

to go win 30 games. They should go get another top five pick. That's the best angle for them. It's tough, though, when you have Towns and Wiggins to tell those guys aren't going to turn it off. KG's not going to let them. KG's not going to let them, but I have Towns and Wiggins to tell those guys aren't going to turn it off. KG's not going to let them. KG's not going to let them, but I think Towns and Wiggins, they, I don't know. I think Wiggins, I was asked this question in the Reddit AMA I did.

I think Wiggins, out of anyone right now over the next two years, has a chance to be a superstar. Who's not a superstar yet. I don't know if it'll happen this year, but I think a lot of seeds will be planted. That game is so, basketball is so easy for that guy, you know, and he's going to figure it out. I thought he hit all the right checkpoints last year, and it's going to keep going and going.

And now Towns, I don't know what to make of Towns. I don't know what his ceiling is and didn't really watch enough of him. He couldn't have a better mentor than KG. Yeah, it'll be great. I'm excited to watch that team. I'm not as excited to watch. Yeah, we go over for them. I'm not excited to watch Portland.

There's been some buzz about Portland's sneaky, better than you think they are and all this stuff. I keep hearing that and seeing that. I just can't make any sense out of it. The soccer moms are getting into it again. That's what they do. I'm doing that with my kid's soccer team right now. I'm convinced we're going to make a run in the state cup, and I think we've scored one goal in the last four games.

They only have to win 27 games to get to the over. I just don't see it. I just don't see it either. Unless you said Aldridge is a Ewing Theory candidate, okay. So is Ed Davis and Noah Vonley going to be able to replace Aldridge's production, the 80% of it?

No. I don't see it. I'm just totally unwilling to, without having seen one minute of it, try and project what kind of player Dame Lillard is without all the parts that have been around him since he entered the league. There's that. Who the hell is he going to be? Is he going to be Westbrook

last year? I like CJ McCollum. I'm excited to see him on a good team. I like him too. He's a very good role player. You know what I don't like? Him and Damian Lillard in the same starting lineup. He has to play 32 minutes a game now. Well, who's guarding

any two guard? Nobody. Who's guarding Quay Thompson? Nobody. Who's guarding Quay Thompson in those two? Nobody. Nobody on this team is guarding anybody. And this conference is loaded. That's the other thing. Look, everybody looks better in the preseason than they are.

Somebody's got to be in the bottom. It's sports. You have teams at the top, teams in the middle, teams in the bottom. When you look at the West, it's really hard to find teams that are going to be in the bottom. So I'm going to say Portland under as well. All right, quick recap. For our locks, we both have Golden State over 60.5. We both have the Clips over 56.5.

We weirdly have Phoenix both over 36.5. Under Lakers, 29 both. Sacramento, we both have over 33. We kept agreeing. Under San Antonio, 58.5. We both have that as a lock. Yeah. Our lock of the year, over 54.5, the Houston Rockets.

If that was 58, I would still go over and I would still go a lock. I'd be shocked if that team didn't win high 50s to the 60s. Memphis, we disagreed. You had over 50.5. I had under. I don't feel that strongly about it. And then we vehemently disagreed on the Pelicans. I went over 48 with a lock.

You went under. You did that. And I'm going to shove it right in your face. I'll shove it right in there. I hope it tastes like a cheeseburger. Dallas, under 37 and a half. Did you make this a lock? No, I asked you.

We expressed a little bit of a reservation around disrespecting Lurch Nowitzki. Mavericks over 57.5. I'm sorry, OKC over 57.5. We both went over. We wanted to make it a lock. We just want to see Durant play for two months. We need 20 games of foot joy. Utah, under 42.

It's a borderline lock for me, but I stayed away. But we both went under on that one. Denver, under 27.5. We agreed on that one. Minnesota, over 26.5. We agreed on that one. Portland, under 26.5. We agreed on that one.

You have one lock left if you want to use it. Or you can just be a big wuss. No, no. I'm going to use it. I didn't realize that I had the opportunity to have my own individual lock. Yeah, you have your own lock. I'm going to put it on the Denver Nuggets under, because I think that they're going to trade every single vet on their team. You're taking the under EA from UDA.

The under EA. My to get my worst joke. The two part podcast. That was a bad one. Houston. House block. House block. All right. Well, we'll see how

this turns out. I look forward to the weirdos on the Internet putting this all down on a piece of paper so we can keep track and then repeatedly mailing them to us and taunting us

when we're wrong about things because Portland's eight and seven in the first 15 games. And that means we're wrong about Portland. Portland's 8-7 in the first 15 games, and that means we're wrong about Portland. All this stuff is fun. I'm really excited for this season. Joe House.

Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be good. It's been a pleasure. Hold on. Let me say goodbye to a couple of our friends. Thanks to Stamps.com for sponsoring today's BS podcast. There's a better way than dealing with the post office people.

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