Ranking All 30 NBA Teams | 2026-27 NBA Season Preview

0:06 Good morning, sweet world, and welcome to No Dunks, the OG NBA podcast. It's Friday, October 16th, 2026. I'm J.E. Skeets, here in the Classic Factory, and alongside me, as always, Tass Mellis.

0:19 NBA fans, this is for you.

0:20 Next to him is my top shot hot boy, Trey Kirby. Ayo.

0:23 Ayo.

0:25 And over there, making the magic happen, super producer, J.D. Hello.

0:28 There he is. There he is.

0:30 Here we are. Before we get into today's tier ranking, I wanted to plug yesterday's podcast. because it was a lot of fun. Everything you forgot about the 2006-07 NBA season. No Dunks fan Asaf wrote in the comments, the Knicks versus Nuggets brawl, which we talked about obviously on this podcast, was the first NBA game I went to. It was pretty awesome. I was 10 years old and I remember it very well. One of my best cool story bro moments.

1:00 That's a legit cool story bro. Legitimately cool.

1:03 That'd be crazy.

1:05 It got me thinking. That means, in theory, someone's first NBA game ever was the Malice at the Palace too. Oh, definitely. I don't know how many hundreds, but that's sort of crazy to think.

1:15 That's a good point.

1:16 You're going to an NBA game. Oh, you're all excited. Famous fight breaks out. Right in. Let us know. Yeah, if you were at the Malice in the Palace and that was the first game you ever saw, that's a real cool story.

1:26 Bro, right there. Thank you, Asaf. Yeah. Not John. Thank you, though.

1:29 Well, thank, hopefully, to him, too. Yeah, thank you to John as well. This is the last weekend, guys, without NBA basketball for about nine months. Get ready. The season starts on Tuesday.

1:40 Yeah, it does.

1:40 In the afternoon at bat. You don't even have to wait around until night this year. So one of the things we always do here with our season previews is to tier rank. all 30 teams, Trey. We've got your computer hooked up to share the screen as we drop the teams in their respective tiers. And it looks like we're running back the five tiers or the names of those five tiers.

2:03 Our five tier names are title contenders, final four flirts, playoff locks, play-in hopefuls, and the nut dusters. You could also just consider it S, A, B, C, and D if you really wanted to.

2:14 Thank you.

2:15 But you can customize it, so why not?

2:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:18 Did you want to explain nut dusters for anyone new to No Dunks this year? Yes, certainly.

2:25 Amongst the worst teams in the league, we call it the nut dust bowl. The loser is the guy who picks the team that has the fewest wins of our three choices.

2:35 It was me last year. Yeah, we sort of... We sort of let it go last year, didn't we? I never ate the dust. I brought the dust, though. Whoa. I did bring the dust.

2:44 Callback.

2:45 I mean, I couldn't even tell you which teams we had last year. Who'd you have? Donut. Maybe the wizards.

2:52 I don't know. Is that nut dust from last year?

2:55 This nut dust has been saved for quite some time. And looking at it, you know, I'm going to tell you that this came from a jar full of honey sesame almonds.

3:05 So this looks like a lot of sesame seeds. It'll probably taste not too bad. It might be a little like, you know, when your mouth gets over sweet and it kind of feels raw and just destroyed.

3:15 I think that's what this is going to be like.

3:17 It's all that. It's all nut dust. Honey, nut dust.

3:20 There's some other mix-ins in here for sure, but it's mostly.

3:23 That's thick.

3:24 Yeah, it's mostly seeds. Mostly honey seeds. But what happened to us last year? I feel like tanking across the league did us in. We just gave up on really tracking the nut dust teams.

3:33 Yeah.

3:33 We had a good run there a couple years where we were really tracking it. I also think we.

3:38 Maybe the first year we did it, we picked it halfway through the season or something like that. Last year, we picked it during this podcast, the equivalent podcast.

3:47 Yeah.

3:48 And then there was some swapping. It's been a long time to keep track of stuff. Yeah, but then there was swapping teams happened too, I remember. Yeah. Somebody had to, anyway. Yeah. All right, we'll do a better job this year. Whenever we pick the teams. I'll take it to the face. Okay. Okay, here we go.

4:00 Wow.

4:01 For the podcast lister. Wow, he took down quite a large jar of nut dust. That was a lot of dust.

4:06 That was loud.

4:07 That was a lot of dust.

4:08 That noise made me think. Let's go.

4:12 Oh, there's a little bit more left.

4:13 Okay.

4:14 Wow.

4:14 Okay, that's going to be tough to talk. I guess maybe that was your dongle hitting the table. That could be my dongle.

4:21 Not his penis for the podcast listeners.

4:24 Nothing to do with nuts, just the dongle that's computing the... The tears here. I got to talk here just to fill up time because there's no way you can swallow that. That's what I was going to say.

4:35 Interesting decision to do it on the one podcast you're going to talk the most on. But hey, do you, man.

4:41 A little spew. That's the worst one yet. Well, that was a lot, dude.

4:47 We usually do a shot glass.

4:48 That was like a whole cup. That's really dry. It's so dry. It felt.

4:56 Large.

4:56 It felt like large particles. Didn't feel like extremely ground.

5:01 Way to keep up the streak of somebody coughing up their lungs on the podcast all week. Wow. Started the week with me, ended it with you. That was worse than anticipated. Okay. All right. Nut dust completed. We don't even know which team we had last year. I know I lost.

5:14 I still think you need... I'll give you another second because I want to say that I think this is far more fun to track than guys' individual number of games played. because of the 65 game rule. This is way more fun. I mean, people literally, there are literally lines out there where you could gamble on how many games a guy is going to play. And I think that's horrible for the game. I'd rather people... Kids out there be eating nut and seed dust than having to do that.

5:43 When are we picking this year's nut dust teams? As soon as I finish swallowing this. It might be January. Let's do it today.

5:51 You want to do it today? Do you want to save it?

5:53 It's not a swan.

5:54 It's an interesting, yeah.

5:56 You don't like seeing who the crap teams are through the first two weeks?

5:58 I know it feels like cheating, but I don't know. Yeah, okay.

6:01 We can wait. We want to wait. We can wait. I don't care. Holy smokes. All right. That was tougher than anticipated. Everybody got cocky with the last couple of nut dust shot glass attempts. I think that's what happened. And you're like, oh, I can do a whole jar. I have a seed stuck on my trachea. I can feel it. Will you reach your fingers down in here?

6:22 Yeah, no problem.

6:24 Grab it out. I'll get my phone out.

6:26 All right.

6:26 The other exciting thing about this year's Tears. I always get excited when there's a new logo to put into the mix. The Houston Rockets, a new logo inspired by Canadian tire, I believe. Yeah, I hate it.

6:38 That triangle.

6:39 I'm not a fan of it. They just triangled it up, huh?

6:41 Yeah. It feels like it's not even the logo, you know? Like the logo is the stuff that's on it, but then they throw that triangle on there, you know?

6:50 Exactly. This is their legit primary logo? As far as I can tell, yeah. Man, doesn't it feel like such a secondary or tertiary logo? It doesn't look like anything else, but yeah, whatever.

7:00 They're not going to use it a lot. I'm happy to update it.

7:02 I already missed the big R. Yeah. Although the only thing with the big R is almost too big compared to all the other logos. So true. You know, we're putting in little boxes. Okay, let's do it.

7:12 But look, you got to give a little respect to any NBA logo that comes out that doesn't have a basketball on it.

7:17 Yeah. I do like that. And it is not a circle. No.

7:21 Did you get it? Oh my goodness, man. Increase effort.

7:25 I'm trying the Valsalva maneuver as much as I can here. We've done a bad job this week of trying to get our podcast listeners up. I'm covered in seeds. I'm choking.

7:35 Podcast listeners, I'm glad I didn't say this is for you. Leo would get mad. We once had a makeup artist at Turner who told us a story about her kid choking once. Very, very young kid. And she had to reach in her finger Enter his throat to pull something out, and she bloodied up his throat. I'm willing to replay that if you need, Trey.

7:58 You'll give me one? I appreciate it.

7:59 If it's going to help us out, let me know.

8:03 All right, our first team to tier rank. They're alphabetical order, so we're going heavy on the Eastern Conference early. The Atlanta Hawks are local boys.

8:12 It's a tough one to start.

8:15 Tough one to start.

8:16 Especially because... You know, it would help me, I think, to position teams first. But honestly, it's plain hopeful for me. I wouldn't lock it. This Eastern Conference is just so, so hard. There's going to be a couple teams that are going to miss it for sure. Miss the playoffs for sure. That we assume are good. And I think the Hawks could be that one. Feel free to argue away.

8:41 No, I have to back you here. I think we're going to have a weird tier ranking situation. like, list at the end of all this. I think it's a strange season. And I don't think they're a lock. But they're not obviously one of the worst teams in the league. So playing hopeful is where we got to slot them to begin. But we can move things around as we go on. We can definitely do some adjusting later. Especially in the East, I think, when you're saying that it's a weird season.

9:04 Yes, that's what I mean. There's extra teams just hanging out. You know, we'll get to them. Couldn't we have... Your magics....

9:11 Couldn't we have like, I don't know, I'm looking ahead, but couldn't we have like six or seven, it feels like, Eastern Conference teams that we could be like, well, are they a Final Four flirt because of the sort of wide open nature of the East? But then, yeah, it's going to be very top heavy maybe right here, but I don't know.

9:27 Absolutely.

9:28 I can't wait to debate, like, are the Hawks better than the Magic or are the Magic better than the Hawks? Because that, to me, could almost determine, you know, maybe they're just both playing hopefuls and they probably will be at the end of the day, but... I thought you were going to vomit. Honestly, a bad decision. Bad timing.

9:46 I didn't think it was going to be that bad at all. I was so dry.

9:54 It's funny with the Hawks because they just took a couple of games off the NBA champs in the playoffs. They haven't changed. all that much i mean we're seeing a lot of the same guys out there.

10:05 Mostly additions but door in wiggins and kingston fleming.

10:11 Is drafted yep they're they seem like they're strong is it just that People out there are just tired of a team just being anointed as really, really good. And we just say, oh, they had their season. That's it. I mean, because again, they're just not that different. So why should they be any lower?

10:27 They're only getting penalized because all the other teams are either back because major guys are coming from injury, like returning to the lineups, or some of these other teams, like in Miami, have got a Giannis and stuff. It's just squeezing the Hawks down, I think, in everybody's mind.

10:40 I agree.

10:41 Maybe we're overlooking them. I'm not sure.

10:42 And I think you would say maybe their second half schedule they played last year wasn't the toughest, and they dominated it.

10:50 Yeah. I mean, that's, yeah. It wasn't the toughest as being almost kind. It was complete garbage. It was... all nut dust teams. Exactly.

10:58 Really.

10:59 And they went like 18 and two. So it really helped obviously pad their record. And, but then they had some success against the Knicks until the Knicks figured out how to beat them. So yeah. I'm surprised.

11:07 I'm surprised that I think there are 10 teams that we can debate could literally be a playoff lock. I'm surprised that Atlanta is one of them that we're willing to say hometown team here in Atlanta. Nah, it ain't you. I'm surprised that nobody's really throwing them up there.

11:21 But the key word is lock to me.

11:23 Yeah.

11:23 We're debating.

11:24 How many are you locking? I'm locking in eight for me. Hey, we can always maneuver.

11:29 We can always maneuver later.

11:31 I like them here.

11:32 For every team, I wanted to share maybe a little key preseason takeaway from our guy Ben Gulliver doing great work at ESPN. For the Hawks, he said the preseason revealed the backcourt is loaded because after Trey Young has obviously moved on off the books, the Hawks have assembled a backcourt rotation stacked with creators like Nikhil Alexander-Walker and then CJ McCollum as a scorer, Stoppers, Dyson Daniels, and Lou Dort. shooters uh cory kispert you can maybe uh wiggins as a two or three and then kingston fleming's our guy uh 2026 draft pick they.

12:00 Do have a lot of guards a lot of guards but the argument against quinn snyder and what he's going to do is that question what are you going to put out there along with the forwards your dyson daniels and your lewd door you got to play around a lot and how are they going to be offensively if you throw in a dyson daniels and a lewd door and then Four months from now, I know you said the season's nine months, but halfway through the season, Quinn Snyder may say, well, Lou Dort's being moved. Lou Dort, CJ McCollum, Jock Landell, all expiring deals that could move.

12:31 So I'm just saying the pieces may keep moving with Atlanta, and that worked out awesomely, you said, the second half of the season last year, Trey, with Trey Young moving. That worked out perfectly when they moved on from Trey. Will it work again? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I'm banking more on these playoff locks teams as the solid teams that know who they're going to be. This Atlanta team could change.

12:54 All right, the Boston Celtics, the Beantown boys up next. Their big move, of course. Jalen Brown, see ya. Paul George, see ya in Boston.

13:03 Okay.

13:04 I mean, my gut says right away as a Final Four flirt, it's that or playoff lock. I can't go top tier. I'm not going title contender with this squad quite yet, but, you know, Jason Tatum has looked, again, in preseason, I think he's looked pretty strong. I think coming back at the end of last year may have helped his chances to start on a higher MVP-like note this season, if that makes sense, in the limited time he's on preseason. I mean, he was scoring. He was getting his buckets. But, yeah, I'll go flirt. You could talk me into just a playoff lock and going down a tier, but where you got him?

13:37 I got him final four flirt.

13:39 Okay.

13:40 Like you said, the East has so many teams that could end up at the top, and the Celtics are one of them. I think Tatum, plus real, real depth behind him, not just Derek White and Payne Pritchett, but real, real solid guys like your Shiremans and all that. Plus, Mitchell Robinson coming in, I think, is going to help them really solidify their team. That was really, really good last year while having Vucevic off the bench. Mitchell Robinson, big upgrade, just effort-wise. And I think it's the Ugo here.

14:05 Ugo Gonzalez will get better. I think this, yeah, it's the final four. Couldn't do just the lock because Missoula's going to impress, I think.

14:12 Absolutely.

14:13 There's been chatter about the Celtics potentially being in the mix for the one seed in the Eastern Conference.

14:19 And I don't think that's far-fetched.

14:20 I mean, I think the Knicks continuity and chemistry that they have puts them ahead from a playoff perspective.

14:27 But the way the Celtics play.

14:29 And the depth they have means they're going to win a ton of games in the regular season. And they do still have a lot of their infrastructure around. They lost Jalen Brown and split up him and Tatum after years and years together, but they still have all those other guys that are around from, you know, the end of their title team and going forward.

14:47 I think there's just going to be a really, really good team.

14:48 I think the Celtics are, even though they probably downgraded talent wise from Jalen Brown to Paul George, they're going to be very good.

14:56 Did you see the clip of Joe Missoula on Boston radio going around? I was taking calls. Yeah, he was on, I don't know what show he was on, you know, forgive me for, uh, My ignorance there, like really doing a deep dive on what show he was on. But yeah, he was like, yeah, come on, let's take some calls. And, you know, it's Boston fans and they do not hold back.

15:13 And it was pretty funny. Excellent. He was he was dealing with it. So, yeah, we'll see. OK, we got him as a flirt. Second tier there. I think that's good. Brooklyn Nets.

15:21 Next up.

15:22 You said you've been watching Joe Mazzulla taking calls. I've been watching Michael Porter Jr., Talking about stuff.

15:28 Did you see who has joined the podcast space? Who's going to give Michael Porter Jr. a run for his money? Who's that? Kyle Kuzma. Ooh.

15:36 Oh, yeah. Here we go.

15:37 Lab. At some point. That'll be must-watch clips.

15:43 Questionable Kuzma. That's what they should call it.

15:46 Curious Mike meets questionable Kuz.

15:48 Oh, yeah. He's doing his own thing?

15:51 Yeah. I saw the clip going around.

15:54 Does Kuzma, excuse me, does Michael Porter Jr. have a co-host now or not?

15:58 He does.

15:58 If he does, it's a white guy. He's got some guy.

16:01 He's got some guy. But I've seen a lot of clips going around of him and Lonzo Ball. They seem to be on the same wavelength with a lot of things.

16:07 Okay.

16:08 Okay.

16:08 Okay. I'm personally on a different wavelength for most of the things they say, but it's like, it's an interesting mind that he has. That's a curious mind. Hey, they added Julius Randall.

16:21 Yeah, yeah. He's good. I think these are a top-end nut duster.

16:26 Okay, we're going in the bottom, yeah.

16:28 Yeah, playing hopeful is a little much, but I do think their floor is a little higher than people think with Julius Randall out there. Playing with Michael Porter Jr., he's playing for a contract.

16:37 Yep. I'm with you. I think a high-end nut duster. That's a great way to put it. Yeah, it'll almost be a team. Well, we'll see that we are forbidden to take as one of our teams, possibly.

16:48 Too good.

16:48 It might be too good. The too good alert, yeah. We'll see. Gulliver had the preseason revealed. Yegor Jomin is one to watch because he looked really good in summer league, more forceful off the dribble. And, you know, the shift seems evident here in the preseason too, you know, falling in love with just the shot. sort of attacking more and more handle. And I think this is a big thing to at least watch with this team. I know they have Miguel Brown Jr. as another guard, but I think they really believe in this guy as their sort of point guard and creator. So, yeah, with Randall and Michael Porter Jr. scoring or doing the heavy lifting there, it should be better than they were last year, I think.

17:23 Yeah. It's going to feel like, I think, to me, watching a team that Randall's more of their point guard than anything.

17:30 He'll handle the ball a lot. He will. I don't love that.

17:32 No, no, he's not their point guard. I mean, just their, you know. playmaker initiator guy even though jorman will bring it up we'll see how he does in his second season.

17:41 Yeah we'll see and that's the exciting thing to watch because i'm with you i think like randall and porter will be the lead guys for this team but the backcourt of the future is joman and brown they seem like a good mix where brown's like an attack guy and joman's kind of more of the perimeter oriented passer sort of thing so it'll be good if joman adds like a drive to his game because he was a little Calderoni, I think, in.

18:04 His rookie year.

18:05 Like, I just want to hang out on the perimeter, make smart passes, hit shots. He did a great job at that, but you also got to pull a little pressure on the rim.

18:12 Yes.

18:12 And like with his size too, you should. So he's only 20. Yep. And they got great unis, you know, got those, uh, New Jersey style, the ABA boys. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to watch their record in those. We'll have to watch their record. I mean, they go like, uh, yeah. Five to two. Even he was like, you might have to, completely adopt those what if they and we said the swamp dragons are coming too.

18:34 Yeah it's a great year to watch the nets i guess so here's another team that has nets in their name the charlotte hornets nice one of the only two teams in the league i believe that does not have an all-star on their roster though they might after this season is that right brandon miller them and the grizzlies what's the other great and they did until they said see you later d'angelo but the hornets said goodbye to lamello ball and they brought in basically three-point shooters naz reed Royce O'Neal, Grayson Allen.

19:02 Yeah.

19:04 Schroeder will be around as the point guard for right now while Kobe White recovers from a calf strain. They also got Concanipple out right now. They got Grant Williams out right now. But that's more over-under talk. Prognosticating for the Hornets. I think they'll probably end up as our lowest ranked team in the play in hopefuls.

19:24 That's the tier they got to go in. We can, yeah, determine where they slot.

19:27 They're not the worst teams in the league, but they took a step back for sure.

19:31 Yeah, and it stinks for them that you mentioned their backcourt starting hurt in Kobe White. Maybe back soon.

19:37 Yeah, how serious?

19:38 Maybe back soon. So the depth thing, it's something for... Charles Lee to play with, and I think they'll be good because of their depth, but then that sucks to start. So that drops them to the bottom of the playoff hopefuls. when I think they could be closer to the top if they're all right and all the depth that they added by getting rid of LaMelo plus a Nas to get their motor going. But it sucks to start. Backcourt sucks with those injuries.

20:03 This was a fun stat from Gulliver. The preseason revealed life without Conn Knipple is no fun. And the stat is Knipple averaged 18.5 points per game in 81 appearances last year. Joining Trae Young and Carl Anthony Towns as the only rookies to hit those scoring and availability marks over the past decade. Fun little stat there. Trae Young, Kat, and Knipple... hitting those scoring marks, playing that many games in their rookie season. But unfortunately, he is sidelined, and it's a hamstring injury. That's the one thing we really don't want. So I think his opening night remains a little uncertain right now.

20:38 The fact that he played that many games, that's my excuse as a canipple lover for how poorly he played in the postseason, in the play-in games. He wasn't himself. He just didn't look good. But hopefully he'll be back. Yeah, the hammy sucks.

20:53 And then, you know, a lot of the success for the Hornets this season is on the shoulders now with Brandon Miller and shoulders. I mean, he's had shoulder injury. Seems okay now, so hopefully that's good. But my one fear with the Hornets is if they start slow, you know the noise is going to be, we kept the wrong guy. Like, we got rid of LaMelo, and maybe it should have been the other way around. I'm just saying if everything goes to shit here, I hope that's not the case. We have him as, like, most improved.

21:20 We think he's going to score 24 or 25 a game. He should be good. He is good. But, you know, if they fall off a cliff here. Yes, exactly right. People will say that.

21:29 Well, and it's also so weird. Like, isn't, Brandon Miller's like 24 years old and LaMelo's 25. And they're like, we gotta, we gotta get rid of LaMelo so we can build around the youth.

21:38 He's one year younger. Yeah. LaMelo was already paid and Brandon Miller has yet to be paid. That should happen soon. Yeah. I have to imagine. Is that happening soon? It has to happen soon, doesn't it? Yeah, it's getting close. It's Monday, right? 19th? Yep. Cool, cool. So he could have $ 200 million, it sounds like, by Monday.

21:57 That'd be a cool way to go into the weekend, eh? Yeah, it'd be very cool. It's never happened for me. No, same. Not even $ 1 million.

22:06 No.

22:08 The Chicago Bulls, they're up for tier ranking. They're going to be exciting, but I think they're going to end up in the nut dust bowl.

22:16 Agreed.

22:18 Yeah, well, I'm outvoted anyway, but I'm agreeing. It's whether are they ahead of the Nets or behind the Nets.

22:25 Great question.

22:26 No All-Stars yet for the Chicago Bulls. Giddy, Boozellis, Wilson, they're on your draft boards for first-time All-Stars.

22:34 We'll see.

22:35 I also think when we're looking at the end of the season, this Bulls team could look very different. Norm Powell made to be traded. Nick Claxton, if he's able to recover... his trade value in Chicago at all made to be traded as well. These don't seem like long-term pieces to me. Maybe somebody is interested in Isaac Okoro as well. It's what the bulls did last year. Didn't have a great season came trade deadline. They made 9 million trades and their team got terrible. They're not that bad as they were in the last third of the season heading into this season. But the last third of the season could look a lot like last season.

23:10 I think I could, but I'm, you know, I'm intrigued with Tiago Splitter in there now as their head coach and what he did in Portland last year was pretty impressive. And Caleb Wilson obviously is like must-watch television from day one. He's got that. He seems to have that it factor, that positive vibes. And confidence, I guess, is a better way to put it, out of the gate. He seems destined to be a really good player. But he is a rookie, so tough to carry them to a play-in spot even here in year one with him.

23:39 I had to look. To see if they had an all-star after we went through earlier the teams that don't have an all-star. I forgot about Norm Powell.

23:45 Why did you forget?

23:47 Just last year. But the thing is, I want to talk about old guys. He's older and he's missing time, so it's not going to feel.

23:53 But that's okay with this current roster. Get those old guys in to help teach these other guys up a little bit, right?

24:00 These young guys.

24:01 That makes sense to me.

24:02 Because the expectations are low. Exactly. We don't need you to play 80 games, Norm. No, no.

24:09 You got to teach some of these guys how to be a pro. And yeah, like same with Buddy Hilton and all that. Like I think that's the thinking with it at least.

24:16 Yeah.

24:16 That's why you bring these guys in. Yep. Yeah.

24:18 And you can trade them away.

24:19 Yeah.

24:20 The reason they signed him to that big fatty Bruce Brown contract was so they could trade him.

24:25 The big fatty. I'll give you a big fatty balloon payment. The Cleveland Cavaliers. Another Eastern Conference team. Then we're switching to the West for a little bit. But the East right now. We're talking the Cleveland Cavaliers. How high are you going to go.

24:39 With the Cleveland Cavaliers, Tess?

24:40 I know Leo wants to hear. Yeah, Tess.

24:42 You got them winning the chip?

24:44 I'm a Final Four flirt. And I know people were blahed by their Eastern Conference Finals appearance last year. They were still there, number one. And then they added Peyton Watson, who is far better than a Dean Wade or whoever they were searching at the small forward spot. His health is a question if he's going to be able to play through it. But after what they did last year, getting to that conference finals and imploding in game one when they gave away game one, and then it went poof from there, you add Peyton Watson, I think Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, Evan Mobley, and Jared Allen, they're still young enough to put them into that final four flirt area.

25:27 You know, they could drop off to the end of it for sure. But I'm I believe in Peyton Watson as a secondary tertiary guy. I think I think they'll be good.

25:37 No problem putting on there. That's where they belong. That's where they belong.

25:40 We need a second finalist or conference finalists in the Eastern Conference because surely the Knicks are going to end up in the title contender tiers as the defending champions who bought. Pretty much everybody back, but who's the second best team in the East is going to be a question for the entire season.

25:55 Yes, and there's like six or seven teams I legit believe could be in terms of record-wise and then maybe even a magical run through the playoffs. So yeah, they're a final four-flare. That starting lineup is pretty damn awesome. Very good. Now the bench becomes a bit more of a question mark. I saw Gulliver say, though, preseason revealed Peyton Watson isn't the only notable newcomer to Cleveland. Hazonia baby he arrived this summer bargain signing after what spending six seasons I guess in Europe and I think he's going to be primarily tasked to lead sort of that second unit and he needs the ball in his hands and if he gets the opportunity in the second unit you know maybe could help out a little bit that

26:31 was a bad bench last year and they want to improve on I think a 25th ranked bench last.

26:36 Year so maybe he helps Struths and Struder were their number one and two guys off the bench last year they're gone I think Sam Merrill is the guy off the bench. He can score. He's their guy. Even though Mark.

26:48 And Tyson, yeah.

26:49 Yeah, we'll see what Jalen Tyson can be. Solid. And Mario Zonia's around. You know?

26:54 Skeet's a San Zonia cook. He needs the ball in his hand is what I'm saying. So there's no other... There's no point to play him if he doesn't. I mean, he's good. He is a good player. Obviously, flirted in the NBA. He was awesome in Europe. There's a role here on this team.

27:08 Off the bench.

27:09 He's not a starter. And that's fine. But You got Harden and you got Mitchell with the ball. When those guys rest or if they miss time with injury, Hazonia can slot in there, man. I'm telling you. I believe.

27:18 It feels like somebody's got to create for Hazonia to get his dunks. He's not breaking anybody down.

27:25 No, but he's just good with the ball in his hands, I think. But it's different in Europe compared, obviously, to the NBA athletes, for sure.

27:31 Yeah. He'll fire away from three. We'll see what that percentage is.

27:34 He's not going to be the difference maker between a championship. I don't believe that. I want to make that very clear, but I think he could have a regular season role in this team. They need bench.

27:42 I just feel like the Final Four flirt is a good spot for them right here right now in 26-27 because eventually Harden, even though he plays through it all, will be old. Mitchell, a couple years from now, will be old. And Peyton Watson, I am concerned about his health. He played a little more than half the season last year.

28:01 So I am a little concerned about the bench and whether Merrill's going to be a regular out there. I think a lot is on him. And then the way down the roster guys even, you know, your Craig Porter Jr., those guys I think will be important. Craig Porter Jr., my senior.

28:19 But there's no point looking too far ahead with the Cavs. They're looking right now, our chance to win, you know, Potentially win the title. They're all in. This is why they're making these moves. This is why you bring in Peyton Watson.

28:28 That's right.

28:28 Finally find your guy, pay him, and all these other guys.

28:30 Yeah.

28:32 All right. They got him in the final four flirts. Transition. Yes. Western Conference. Dallas Mavericks. A team in transition. Mm-hmm.

28:38 Mm-hmm.

28:39 They got Kyrie Irving coming back from 19 months off following a knee injury. They got a new coach in Dusty May. They drafted Merez Johnson.

28:47 What'd he go? Number nine, I do believe. Mm-hmm.

28:51 The big draw for the Mavericks is this is Cooper Flagg's second season.

28:54 People are expecting big things from this fellow.

28:57 Yeah, absolutely.

28:58 As you should. The numbers were solid in, what, two preseason games over in China. If you extrapolate over the per 36, they were great. I'm a little higher on the Mavs, I think, than you guys are. So, you know, I'm more of a playing hopeful guy. with Kyrie there. I think a healthy Kyrie just.

29:18 Oh, I thought you were going to lock it up.

29:19 No, no, no, no, no. I'm not that crazy. Yeah.

29:22 I think, yeah, hopeful is.

29:23 Okay.

29:24 That's the hopeful section.

29:25 I just say, I thought you guys, maybe I'm wrong. I thought you guys were under on the over-unders.

29:29 Yeah.

29:30 And I was one of the.

29:31 I was. I was. What was it, 33 and a half?

29:33 I mean, it's 33 and a half. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're going under on that, you still think they can slip into a plan? Yeah. I mean, the Warrior made the plan with 37 wins last year. 37. You don't need that many.

29:43 Yeah. They've got to be hopeful for that. I think the backcourt and the depth is a question mark. Are they going to move on from Kyrie Irving is a question mark. I still think they could hold him on. But they lack depth. They have a lot of injuries. The Derek Lively injury is real. And then do they start to– tear it down at some point yeah there's a trade team here's gafford here's pj washington and they're not as good and then there's it's a weird roster we know that all these wings that messiah jerry has and not enough guards so i can't i can't put them any higher than that but with cooper and kairi that's the spot messiah loves his wings he sure does.

30:17 Loves his wings above or below the hornets austin conference is easier yeah i know i'm an above sure i'm above Cool, cool. Denver Nuggets, how high are they going to go?

30:31 They got a great starting lineup, but there's been a talent drain from their support squad.

30:37 Tim Hardaway Jr., now he's on the Miami Heat.

30:39 They did bring back Spencer Jones on a penalizing sort of contract after the Thunder offered him a deal and the Nuggets decided to match it.

30:51 This is still a good team. Yeah, they are. Did we all go over? On the Nuggets? Yeah, I think so.

30:56 They obviously have a great starting five.

31:00 47.5 wins.

31:03 Yeah, personally, I have them in a Final Four flirt. I think this is the last year of Jokic and Murray together if they're not good. And you have to tear it down to try and get better in the 3-4-5 spot. And with Jokic coming back, I think motivated, plus Jamal Murray having his best season. It could be up there, and I think they have to have a bounce back after the way they got bounced by Minnesota.

31:27 So that's my department.

31:29 The problem with the Nuggets, there's just so many questions outside of Jokic. That's a lock we know we're getting. That's awesome, and he makes every team better and probably a 48-win team at a minimum if he plays enough. It's all these other ones, the health of Aaron Gordon, these hypothetical bounce-back seasons from Christian Brown and Cam Johnson to some extent. The DeMar DeRozan experiment, like, it makes sense on paper that he'd be the scorer off the bench.

31:55 Got to see it in practice. So, yeah, I can't get to title contender. Like, nobody in the West is going to be a title contender for me outside of the two teams anyway. Like, I just, I can't envision one of those teams not making it to the finals. So, Final Four flirt, yes, of course.

32:10 Yeah, Jamal Murray and the way he played it last year helps me think that, I mean, their top two is going to be awesome.

32:17 Definitely, yeah.

32:18 What are the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 going to be on this team? I think it's a fair question. Yeah, definitely.

32:25 Fun stat here from Gulliver with Jokic when it comes to his preseason takeaway, which was that Jokic's passing is getting even more preposterous because we saw that one behind the back. No look from one corner to the other past three defenders against the Jazz and then Cam Johnson hitting the three. Anyway. The stat is Jokic enters the season ranking 41st on the NBA's all-time assist leaderboard. So Ben did the math here. He's about five seasons away from reaching the top 10 at his current pace. He still needs five more seasons?

32:58 Yeah, yeah.

33:01 But he is a center. Yeah, but I mean, he's like 10 assists a game. I know. That's a high number. It is. It just means we got high numbers for the real assisters out there. Yeah, exactly. I think Ben's point is very realistic if he plays that long, obviously. He could have more assists than Magic Johnson we're getting at. Obviously, when you think passing, you think Magic Johnson. He could have more at the end of the day. I thought it was an interesting fact.

33:27 Year two for Cam Johnson. Christian Brown came in injured last season. Just never really Got his feet under him, so they got to be helping for some bounce backs from these guys.

33:38 Where are we slotting them here in the tier? Interesting. Interesting question. I would have them ahead of the Cavs, but below the Celtics. I don't know. I think the Nuggets are better than the Cavs. This is the way it becomes funny because, yeah, there are different conferences. But, yes, I'm on board. I'd probably have them ahead of the Celtics, too.

33:58 Back to the East. Detroit Pistons. They got Jalen Duren.

34:02 Hey, he looks good.

34:03 How many shows did we do about Jalen Durant? This guy's a little remnant. That does? Now he's sneezing?

34:10 Okay, bless you.

34:12 I was vastly allergic to sesame seeds this whole time. I'm good. Jalen Durant, he's a piston. Isaiah Joe, he's a piston. Osar Thompson, got paid. What else did they bring in? Nobody. Kevin Herter's back.

34:29 Herter's back.

34:30 Who cares?

34:31 Everybody.

34:31 I'm so tired of hearing his fucking name. Please stop saying I'm done. I'm done hearing Kevin Herter and Luke Kennard's names. Okay. So honestly, yeah, a little bit. It's just like, it was good in the playoffs. Luke Kennard won the Lakers two games last year. Kevin Herter. is smart because he disappeared for like six seasons.

34:52 He had an awesome game seven for the Hawks in 2021, then went and played for the Kings.

34:57 Nobody saw that he was bad. Went and played for the Bulls. Nobody saw that he was bad, but they, he comes to the Pistons, a competitive team. And it's like, you were good that one time you were on a competitive team. Wow. That's what happens.

35:06 Yes.

35:08 But he also, he's there to be traded. That's why they gave him. Also, he angers me and you're right. Canard a little different. So I should remove him from the equation here. Um, but, He's a guy that's sometimes reluctant to shoot, too. There's nothing that drives me more nuts than your only job out there, man, is to shoot.

35:25 We saw it firsthand at times with the Hawks. I was sitting there yelling at him. Shoot the ball, man. The only reason they're passing to you because you're wide open is to shoot it.

35:32 He's a little reluctant.

35:33 It is. It's frustrating to me. He's also not a good shooter anymore.

35:37 No, that's a problem, too.

35:38 Maybe he should pass him up.

35:39 I mean, that's a long time ago. I think he did have solid years the year after that. And the first year in Sacramento. So two more years where he was fine. But that's a long time ago. And so that's a problem with Kevin Herter.

35:53 We'll see if.

35:54 He was injured last year in his first little stint with Detroit when he moved there last year. So we'll see what he can do. I got Isaiah Joe.

36:03 Isaiah Joe is actually good. A hundred times better.

36:06 Yeah, he's a very good player.

36:07 And their core is awesome. Yeah, it's Cade, it's Jalen Dern, and Sler Thompson, man. That's a pretty cool three.

36:13 Jalen Dern is still good. He had a A bad playoffs. He had a bad playoffs the first time that the Pistons made it. They had a disappointing playoff run last year. They got down against the Magic. They'll maybe lose that series if Franz Wagner doesn't get hurt.

36:26 But guess what? They did win that series. And then they brought basically everybody back.

36:31 In most scenarios, you're like, nice. That's pretty good. A young team on the rise. Won 60 last year. Cade Cunningham became an MVP. But for whatever reason, they're like kind of shunned this year.

36:41 Like, yeah.

36:43 Weird summer but in reality they just signed their top two free agents that they wanted to sign.

36:48 Yeah in the end they did.

36:51 Terrible ending the other thing is Tobias Harris not a guy that anybody really needs around I shouldn't say needs around wants around for a playoff run but he was their second best offensive player in that series in the playoffs period so losing him is a question Cade just doesn't have a co-pilot And I thought going into the playoffs, okay, you're going to get enough from Duren and Asar Thompson and Duncan Robinson. It didn't happen. So it's hard to put them anywhere above a playoff lock for me, but I think they are a lock because Cade is on that team. But beyond that, I don't know, maybe all that talk about Jalen Duren's, the weight requirement was real.

37:34 I mean, maybe that's why he slowed down in the playoffs. That's the only thing I can think of, but All that to say, I'm not going to buy it until the playoffs, but I think they're a playoff team.

37:43 Oh, Duren didn't miss a beat in the preseason game he just played. He was amazing. Eight of nine, tacking off the dribble, 24 points in like 15 minutes.

37:51 He looks like regular season Duren.

37:52 That's like, as a Pistons fan, you got to hope after all that drama of the offseason, that's how he approaches it. That he's like pissed off from all the headlines and questioning about what he's worth and what he's not. That he's just come in a man possessed. That would be great. And then, of course, try and keep that going in the postseason. But this is where they're going to come up probably short here in our tier rankings. Like, ugh, we don't have a lot of faith right now, in you especially, to help out Cade enough in some of these matchups. Regular season, yes, but playoff lock is 100%. Yeah.

38:21 They're not falling out of that. It's nice to add somebody to that tier as well. I was looking lonely there.

38:28 Another trade team, I think, like, We all thought they should have made a move for somebody at the deadline last year, but they said, let's finish our breakfast, see how things go.

38:36 It didn't go well.

38:38 Now they know they need to go after some sort of ball handler.

38:40 So guys like.

38:42 Kyrie will be in the mix to be traded. Tyler Hero probably as well. They could call the Bulls again. They said, thanks for Kevin Herter last year. How about Norm Powell this year? They just need somebody else who can go get buckets for them.

38:54 Big time. Who is their second best offensive player come this postseason?

38:59 Right now, that's a big question mark.

39:00 Yeah. It's like they're going to need all of these passengers alongside Cade Cunningham as the pilot to be awesome. And I thought that could happen last year. It obviously did not. But is it Dern? Is it Asar? Is it Duncan Robinson? Is it John Collins? I mean, it's too many question marks.

39:18 Golden State Warriors. They don't have Chris Stapps, I guess, but he's showing up now. He was in Santa Cruz, apparently. He wasn't in San Francisco, he was in Santa Cruz. An easy mistake to make. What else did they do? Steph Curry signed a gigantic contract. He's coming back. Jimmy Butler, he's hurt. Brandon Pajemski, they extended him. He got paid, yep.

39:40 Al Horford's back.

39:43 I didn't see the details to this. Kristaps Porzingis is literally... in Santa Cruz because he got it wrong? He got San Francisco.

39:50 Oh, no.

39:51 But he just happened to be in Santa Cruz. Somebody saw him getting his hair cut in Santa Cruz. So they know he's around.

39:58 For weeks. Yeah, he probably knew they were in San Francisco.

40:01 I would assume so.

40:04 But, you know, he's just clarifying things.

40:06 Yeah.

40:07 Clarifying some things.

40:08 I guess he really responds to people on the internet, I guess. Because by saying, hey, I don't have HIV and AIDS, that was just... An online rumor.

40:17 Yep. I mean, it had been going on for about a year. Yes. But yes. Yeah.

40:21 And then I was in Santa Cruz. I was getting my hair cut. I guess somebody just spotted him. But anyway, this feels more like... I was optimistic a few weeks ago, thinking, okay, there's lots of question marks. Jimmy, Chris Stapps, Yaxa Lindenborg. And now to start, there's more questions. Chris Stapps, Prasink.

40:41 I mean, not more, but they all haven't been answered, I should say. So the Chris Stapps is... Not playing. And Steph Curry, they're already talking about how many games he's going to sit out, when he's going to sit them out. That's a problem. I still believe in Jimmy and the Axel Lindenberg looks really, really good, but this may be a gap year if Steph's going to sit out.

40:59 So I got him in the play playing hopeful, but that's it for me.

41:04 Me too.

41:05 I mean, you could talk me into an upper echelon nut duster. If things go absolutely terrible. For the Warriors, if we decide to do a re-up on this in January and Curry's played like 15 games through then and he's going through some knee problems or something like that, the team is just not very good outside of Steph and Jimmy whenever he comes back. But for now, I think playing hopefuls is the move.

41:32 Yes, I think you're right.

41:33 It's all what you hear on media days. First, Steph said, I am totally comfortable at Understanding how my body is doing with this runner's knee and evaluating it. And then hearing this other time, and this is from curves perspective that we're thinking about maybe sitting him down and looking at the schedule and saying, okay, these are the, these are the ones, the rest days.

41:53 Yeah.

41:53 And that's, that may just be, okay, we're not good enough. Let's send him out this year. He'll be back next year.

41:59 Yeah.

41:59 Essentially he'll play half the games. Don't worry, Adam. He'll play on Christmas. They have a Christmas day game, right?

42:06 They do, I think.

42:06 Yeah, like that kind of stuff. He'll play those games, but he may play half the season. Would that be a shock? I don't think so.

42:13 And then they're going to probably be a team that, like, when it comes to the Jimmy Butler of it all, it's like, how are they looking at the time Jimmy's ramping up to actually get back on the court, and how much of a rush are you to bring him back? Like, yeah, this could be a completely sort of washed season, I guess.

42:29 Maybe you let Yaxel obviously find his footing in the league, and Pojemski hopefully blossoms into, like, sort of more of a, flirting with a 20-point-per-game score.

42:36 Who knows?

42:37 But, yeah, it's tough to say, so they have to be where they are. Nobody has a lot of faith in them. Even fully healthy people are like, ah, there's a lot of talented teams that you're having above the Warriors. But with all these question marks, they have to be there. They got to be there.

42:51 The Houston Rockets are up for a tier ranking. Fred VanVleet. coming back from injury. That's the big news. And I got Steven Adams coming back from injury as well. I guess they were kind of banged up last year, huh?

43:05 Yeah. Marcus Smart in the mix. Yep. Reed Shepard, Harry. Yep. Things have changed for the Houston Rockets, but they've also stayed the same. Yeah, it's really... Look, I made that bold prediction last year in one of our shows that the Rockets were going to be like the Western Conference finalist and repping the West out there. I was... under the assumption that Fred VanVleet was going to return so that's why you know they were a good team have a lot of good parts but you could tell they needed Fred VanVleet because their offense especially in the playoffs fell completely flat in crunch time and their spacing and playmaking concerns and that is what Fred helps with there is a trickle down effect I think with VanVleet for

43:44 everybody else for Durant and Shen Goon more operating space because VanVleet will let it fly from three and you know less ball handling duties for Amin Thompson so And then Reed and other guys off the bench can like maybe get into their role more. So I think Fred is huger. I have him as a final four flirt, but I've always been an odd believer in the Rockets, but I like Fred back here.

44:08 I got him in that spot too. The player movement is going to happen around Fred VanVleet and everybody gets better. I think it's not just, oh, Amin doesn't have the ball in his hands anymore. Maybe he'll be better off the ball, but it's everybody else going down a peg. I think... Tarheeson just gets better. Jabari Smith gets better.

44:27 And so, you know, you bring in a Marcus Smart to throw some bodies around him, Ayadoka's going to love that guy. Yeah, 50-plus win team. I could see them, you know, being really good.

44:39 I know we all did, I think, took the Rockets over. It feels like every podcast I've listened to or read, obviously, an article on over-unders have taken the Rockets over. Everybody finds that number a little low. because it was 47 and a half too. Yeah, they won 50 plus last year.

44:51 I know.

44:52 Brought back Fred VanVleet and like Marcus Smart is going to help with this team.

44:57 I think so.

44:57 Yeah, I think there's a chance that the Rockets are the third best team in the Western Conference.

45:02 Ergo, they got to be a flirt. Yeah, got to be a flirt. Yeah. They need, they need, yeah, they need a weird thing to happen where the Thunder and Spurs meet up in the second round somehow. Yeah, exactly. Because of seeding and all that to really get into a Final Four position there.

45:18 But, We'll see.

45:19 A lot can happen between now and then. That's absolutely right. You never know. Also, another trade team. They got a lot of assets to move and contracts and ability to upgrade. Indiana Pacers. Tyrese Halliburton. He's back, baby! Avicii Zubats.

45:32 He did play for the Pacers last year, but he's actually going to play a full season for them this year. Obi Toppin, back from injury as well. They're just looking to return to form from their awesome run in the 2025 playoffs where.

45:46 They caught fire.

45:47 Like, I mean, we talk about the Knicks clicking at the absolute perfect time last season. The Pacers did the exact same thing in the 25 season until game seven of the NBA finals. And even then they were clicking until Halliburton went down, but he's back and people are pretty high on the Pacers right now.

46:04 I think Halliburton returned to the, uh, OKC floor where he had the, uh, torn Achilles here in the preseason balled out dominant first half performance, 24 points. Three assists, three boards, two blocks in 18 minutes. So got that monkey off his back. Again, the place where he unfortunately had the injury. This is tough, though, the Pacers, man, because last year, obviously, it's a write-off. I mean, they were one of the worst teams in the league. 19 wins.

46:28 But now all these guys are back in Halliburton. Your heart and soul of the team makes everything work. It should be. Playoff lock? Too high? Oh, no way.

46:39 They're easily a playoff lock. I was thinking you might be... thinking we should bump him up to the final four flirts. I'm big on the Pacers this year. Halliburton, you can see from the way things went down last year, he's the key. He's one of the most important players to his team of any player in the league. It was basically the same exact team last year, and they were very bad, like terribly bad. Despite having an all-star in Pascal Siakam, he made zero difference with whether or not they were winning games. They were also very banged up outside of Halliburton missing the whole season.

47:09 As well. TJ McConnell did take a step back. He's getting older at this point.

47:13 Nembhard didn't take a step forward like people were anticipating, but now everybody's in their proper spots.

47:20 So I'm good with a lock. Do you think they'll be better than the Pistons?

47:23 I think they could be better than the Pistons, but the Pacers, even in the 25 season, they were super up and down.

47:30 Like they started really slow out of the gates. And I wouldn't be surprised to see that happening this year with the Zubats edition and Halliburton coming back. They just got a few things to figure out, but they found their style of play and they were able to carry that on into the playoffs as well. So it wouldn't surprise me if something similar happens. Yeah, I agree with that.

47:49 And once they open it up and find their groove, it's like, that's a tough team on the schedule that for other squads that get them like, Oh God, we got to play the Pacers tonight and try and keep up with them.

47:56 Yeah.

47:58 So yeah, playoff locks.

47:58 Yeah. I'm locking it up. No doubt. I am one of those people that I can't put them in the Final Four, but it's fun in the Eastern Conference. There's going to be one of these teams. I'm going to probably pitch for the Raptors to be a Final Four, even though that's a push. But one of these teams, like the Pacers, you can put your goggles on and say, well, the Pistons can do it, perhaps. Maybe a few of those teams. The Pacers are really interesting. I wonder how much Miles Turner, not being around, that's more like a locker room guy than anything, changed their team last year.

48:31 But You know, I'm putting some into that because of that start that you mentioned and that 25 season, as you said, Trey, they're 10 and 15. They were just bad. And then somehow everything clicked. And I wonder if Myles Turner was a part of that, but we shall see. I mean, they're a lot because they got some damn good players as soon as you put in Halber. And then you start thinking, oh, Siakam is better. You know, Siakam is a really good player. And then all those other guys that they bring back, they still have plus Zubats, who's going to be a solid player. It's a locket.

49:01 I mean, if we write off last year because of the Halliburton injury, which is completely fair, then the two years prior, they made the conference finals. It wasn't just one. It wasn't just one, oh, somehow got there. Back-to-back conference finals appearances, which is sort of forgotten. They're like, hey, when we're healthy, we are a conference finals. We are a Final Four flirt. That's true. down a little bit fair enough the la clippers are your next team up for tier ranking.

49:27 They got a lot of guys they got a lot of guys yeah half of them are injured they're led by darius garland they drafted keaton wogler Who else is a Clipper at this point? Rui Hachimura, Brooke Lopez, Derek Jones Jr., Chris Dunn, Max Struess, injured, but he's there.

49:44 The Dick.

49:46 The Dick is there. Brandon Ingram, he's a Clipper now. He's injured. Yeah, Struess is injured. Ingram injured. Jordan Miller injured. Right now, Yannick Conan-Niederhauser injured. Bradley Beal is there, and he has right knee inflammation.

49:57 Jeez.

49:59 There's a lot of injuries. It's sort of like, yeah, Rui's going to score, but I look at this team, I go... It's just Darius Garland standing there going, whoa, I'm doing everything sort of offensively. Yes, he is. Yeah, go ahead, bud. So this is a nut dust team to me.

50:14 Oh, yeah. It'd be nice if they had a, you know, if Strews was healthy, like somebody to just plug and play here. I will, let's say Strews is healthy. I'm not going to count on Bradley Beal being healthy, but Brandon Ingram is healthy. Then you start to say, okay, Kobe Sanders is a complimentary guy. They could be a play and hopeful team, but with all these injuries, that's an overpay on Bradley Beal's contract. I don't think there's any hope, really. There's just none. They're a duster.

50:45 They're a duster. They're a long leather coat.

50:48 Yeah, yeah. Dust it.

50:51 Dust it. The Los Angeles Lakers. They're not a duster.

50:56 No, no.

50:57 They traded everything for Walker Kessler, signed him to a big contract. They brought in a whole bunch of other guys as well. Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamou-Keleshvili, Colin Sexton.

51:08 He's a Laker as well.

51:09 And, of course, they're led by Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves, who signed a gigantic contract over the summer as well.

51:16 How high are you willing to put the Los Angeles Lakers? The shine of Hollywood in your eyes. Yeah.

51:24 The starry Lakers.

51:25 I guess, man, like you could convince me a Final Four flirt. To play it safe, I'll say playoff lock. Now they think they've got title aspirations. They're like, look, we've got the Luka team now. Did you see what happened in Dallas when we had the Luka team? You know, we won 50 games and went to the finals. Why can't we do it here? Okay. They're brimming with optimism, is how Gulliver put it. Great. With all these... and transformative moves.

51:53 In the offseason.

51:53 So I'm high on them. I think they're going to win a decent amount of games if Luka's out there. But I believe in too many more teams in the playoffs, I guess, to put them in a Final Four.

52:06 Yeah, I can be proven wrong. There's so many questions with this team for me, but JJ Redick's teams seem to outperform. They're better in the sum of their parts, but their parts are questionable to me. Like the wing size, the Quentin Grimes, the Zaire Williams... The big size, the Mamoos as your backup center. You saw it in Toronto last year. He's not a backup center. He's undersized. Kevon Looney barely played last year. I mean, those are the backup centers. Jared Vanderbilt, I guess, is going to get minutes there. So I think there's too many questions, but I could be proven wrong. I should say they're a lock to make the playoffs, but I could be proven wrong that they make the Final Four, but that's the

52:44 size I go. Playoff lock, too many questions for me.

52:47 I'm with you.

52:47 Playoff lock sounds good because to me... All of those questions you're asking matter so much more come playoff time, where you're like, how many of these guys are actually going to be reliable enough to stay on the court and defend at a level that the Mavericks did when they were at their best? I don't think that the defensive talent that the Lakers have is where the Mavericks were.

53:06 The Mavericks could run out 48 minutes of solid center play.

53:09 I'd agree.

53:10 I'd agree with that. Walker Kessler has to be a revelation here defensively. Los Angeles Lockers are going.

53:16 But I would put them.

53:18 Would you put them above those Eastern Conference teams, though?

53:22 Sure.

53:22 I sort of would. Sure. I think they could.

53:25 I don't know.

53:26 Who knows? They could have more wins. They're probably all about similar rounds, those three teams. Around the same ballpark, yeah. But easier in the West.

53:32 I don't think this is actually the halfway point, but it always feels like the halfway point to me when you end with the Los Angeles.

53:37 Just feels halfway through the alphabet. Well, yeah, right.

53:39 Yep. It is.

53:40 It's 14.

53:40 14 of 13. Okay, good. What is the 13th letter of the alphabet? I don't know.

53:47 Not off the top of my head. The Memphis Grizzlies.

53:49 It's always, it's L or M. Is it L or M?

53:52 I thought it was L, but maybe.

53:53 Wow, it is?

53:54 Yeah.

53:54 No, I think it's M. It might be M.

53:56 13th letter of the alphabet is M.

54:01 Yeah. We're learning.

54:04 The M-Fist Grizzlies. Up for tier ranking. People are excited about this team. Zach Eadie is not hurting right now. They drafted Cam Boozer. Ty Jerome, full season. Scottie Pippen Jr., hopefully full season for him as well. Though, Tass, I did see some bad news. Apparently, they're looking at trading Gigi Jackson and Walter Clayton Jr.

54:28 They got a bit of a roster crunch right now.

54:30 They do. That's weird. Walter Clayton was like, I must have in that Jaron Jackson Jr. trade. Now they're going to trade him? What up with that? What's going on there? Walter Clayton Jr. It's an interesting team because you mentioned those bodies. Tomas Isolo as the coach is going to throw out a lot of bodies. I do think there's going to be like some hockey changes, like it's five on five off, like a lot of guys out there and they're good. And they're led by Cam Boozer, but I can't go any higher than playing hopeful just because, I mean, that's, that's, but hopeful, they're hopeful.

55:02 Yeah. I mean, that's as high as you can, we can rank them for sure. They're either at the top of the nut duster, which feels oddly disrespectful. I sort of agree, but then. You know, playing hopeful, it's like, I mean, that's really hoping. Very hopeful. You're saying a lot of prayers, I think.

55:17 It maybe could be the bottom of the playing hopefuls or the highest end of the nut dusters.

55:21 What was their over-under? It was like 29 and a half, right? Yeah.

55:24 Pretty low number. Yeah.

55:26 Yeah.

55:27 What do you want them? You're putting a lot on.

55:30 Playing hopeful is fine. They don't seem like one of the worst teams in the league.

55:33 No, they don't.

55:33 I don't think so, yeah.

55:34 No, because even if Ty Jerome gets hurt, which is bound to happen, I mean, Scottie Pippen Jr. was good. But then, yeah, then when that happens, then you get some problems. Like you start being a little too thin. Then you're traded to Walter Clayton Jr. He was supposed to be good. Who are your guards now? Who's running that team? I think there's just a lot on Cam Boozer and Cedric Coward's shoulders because of their guards. Yeah.

56:00 They're going to be good. Those two are going to be good.

56:03 Yes, they do.

56:04 Good shoulders.

56:05 This is a muscular team.

56:06 Well, yeah.

56:06 And then Gulliver wrote the preseason revealed Zach Eadie is still a force because, you know, the guy is a massive dude, has the size, has the strength to control the glass, punish small ball lineups in any sense. But it's like, this guy's got chronic, you know, not chronic, but he's had feet issues for his size. That's always a worry. That's an Olgowskis worry. So, but if he plays... God, he sure helps out a team like that.

56:29 That's why you can be excited, I think, because if Edie's out there and then Isolo wants to switch it up and say, hey, we want a shooter out there. Here comes Quentin Post. They have options to play, but it's a little scary. They slow played Edie's injury because they hoped it would get better. and not be a chronic thing.

56:49 And he wasn't injured. He was healthy in college, if I remember correctly. Yes. He played like 40 minutes a game in college. Yeah, it's not like he's injured every year. So yeah, hopefully it's just a one-off thing. Yep. And my sources tell me more Lang Whitaker on the pregame shows this year. My source was Lang Whitaker. Hashtag muscle watch. Yeah, exactly right. He might love this team. He's watching the muscles nonstop. He's probably in the gym with them, man.

57:13 Lang Whitaker is like half the size he used to be like 10 years ago. He's done a great job.

57:17 Oh my God.

57:17 God, yeah.

57:18 Hashtag cooking with Lang. Those are his two hashtags.

57:21 Hang a Lang. Hashtag muscle watch and hashtag cooking with Lang.

57:25 All right, we're at the official halfway point of the NBA. The Miami Heat, up for your tier rankings.

57:30 They'd do anything this summer. Oh, they got Klay Thompson.

57:34 Yes.

57:35 They got Tim Hardaway Jr.

57:36 Yes.

57:37 They signed Pella Larson to a big deal.

57:40 Pella. Giannis.

57:42 They traded for Giannis Antetokounmpo as well. They traded their entire team except for Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins, and Davion Mitchell.

57:49 They traded them all for Giannis Antetokounmpo, and we would all do it. I'd risk it all for Giannis. Not everybody would do it. Not everybody? Boston Celtics didn't. Yeah, that's right.

57:58 They said, no Hugo.

58:00 They're like, no thanks. Hugo, no go. We got Hugo. Yeah, this should be a good team.

58:05 Yeah, I agree.

58:06 It's going to be a good team.

58:07 How far do they go?

58:08 I mean, I know Bam and Giannis are committed to their– They're a little weird pointing thing.

58:14 On the floor?

58:14 Anime-type thing, touching tips. Fusion dance or something like that. I saw them do it on the floor. But then in the locker room, I saw Spolstra give Fontecchio, Simone Fontecchio, they're doing a little, like, put your little Italian gesture in. So they were doing that. Vibes are good right now. Vibes are good. Vibes are very, very good.

58:32 People are going to love that emoji with the hand, the Italian.

58:35 That's nice.

58:36 Yeah. They're going to use it so much in Miami.

58:38 Is there a similar thing that they could do to celebrate Giannis' Greek heritage?

58:42 Like a similar hand signal?

58:44 For hand signals.

58:47 No, not as much. That one is just very associated with Italian culture. Absolutely.

58:53 I mean, they could do a facial emoji. Like there's the no, the quiet no, the kiss sort of thing. I mean, that's just like chin up, eyes closed. That's a facial.

59:07 That's the next emoji drop.

59:10 That's the next one. Yeah.

59:13 Where you like the Miami heat test.

59:15 They're locking it.

59:15 They're locking it.

59:16 But I can't go any higher at this point. I don't know. It feels weird. I think they're sort of in that category of you can push Indiana into that final four spot. You can push Toronto. You push Detroit. And I think people could do it for Miami, but there's too many questions, I think. The creators and a lack of them being the main one. And then, yeah, the shooting's okay, but is the shooting going to be there if you can't create for them? I don't know.

59:43 Yeah, the shooting is such a question because it's like your best shooters you're going to put out there are Klay Thompson and Tim Hardaway Jr. They're also probably the worst defenders in your entire rotation.

59:52 Yeah.

59:52 So that's a real catch-22.

59:54 I think a lot is on Pella Larson to be awesome and Giannis expects him to be really, really good. He said, he's fucking good. And I'm going to swear for Giannis because he let it out, man. He let it out. And if he's saying that, I believe that he expects Larson to be really good. And it's like he is their lead ball handler in a weird way.

1:00:17 You know, Damian Mitchell's not really a creator. Wiggins, you know, it's not him. It could be on Larson's shoulders to get things going. And Giannis, when he has to do that, he can. when he's done it for Milwaukee or he's done it for Greece, he could do it. But I don't think he wants to. I don't think he physically should or can be that much on him. So there's too many questions at this point.

1:00:40 Wide range of outcomes, I think, for the Heat. I've seen people say, why can't they win the title?

1:00:45 Fair.

1:00:45 You've got Giannis basically still in his prime. Maybe it all clicks. He's got a great coach in Spolstra. Should have an awesome defense. That translates in the playoffs. I get it. But then I've seen people say they're not going to even make the playoffs. They'll be like a play-in team. I think John Hollinger, I believe, is actually saying that.

1:00:59 Did you hear Stan Van Gundy, former Miami Heat coach, basically say they're overrated.

1:01:04 Okay, well, this is my point.

1:01:05 They're not that good. He's got questions about the guards. He said Bam is a little overrated offensively.

1:01:10 Yeah, well, this is exactly my point. So I'm fine with playoff lock because we're starting to get in the middle there somewhere.

1:01:16 Yeah.

1:01:16 But it could go one of two ways here. It could, of course, we could be at the end of the year going, oh, yeah, they're one of the favorites to win the whole thing. Or, oh my God, this was not a good first year. But they said, they told us that, remember? It was always like a two-year plan here. So I'm fine with playoff lock. What about you, TK? Yeah, I'm fine with playoff lock. Dumb prediction, next year they'll be in a higher tier. They're going to get more guys.

1:01:39 They're going to get more guys.

1:01:41 They just didn't have enough time to get these guys. Milwaukee Bucks. They used to have Giannis. So all those guys that got traded from the Heat, now they're on the Bucks.

1:01:51 Kalo Ware. Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasperis Yacachonis.

1:01:54 I thought he was wearing number 55. Turns out it was 25. Tyler Hero wearing his big shorts, of course. Miles Turner's still there. We got Kuzma on the podcast. He's there for as long as his contract is, probably. And Gary Trent Jr. was their big signing in the summer.

1:02:13 A very, very questionably big signing. Suspicious. gary trent jr still under investigation apparently yeah i'm just gonna.

1:02:20 Let that one slide they're gonna say you gotta pay this guy yeah it's fine there we did there were some worse things happening in the nba you get you get through you get through man.

1:02:31 Uh they are gonna be one of the worst teams in the league yeah i'm pretty confident in that i mean i look there's some good players here you just went through a lot of them i ryan rollins i'm excited to see what he can do I think Gulliver made a good point. It looks like Taylor Jenkins is going to give the veterans first dibs here. Sure. Sort of to start the season. Ryan Rollins, Hero, Jaquez Jr., Kuzma, and Turner. That's, I think, going to be their starting five.

1:02:56 But then as the season unfolds, and maybe there's not a lot of wins going around, will Jenkins and that organization lean into more Kahlil Ware, lean into more of the two lottery picks in Burries and Amet? So I think that's a possibility. I could see that happening.

1:03:11 Oh, yeah.

1:03:12 Just like how quickly do they get to that? So this is a nut dust team to me.

1:03:19 I want to throw them in the potential, the playoff hopefuls, just because it's sort of like what the Grizzlies can do, throwing out a lot of guys. I think Jenkins is capable of doing that with Milwaukee. I think there's enough guys. Every possession, I think there's some heart on that defensive end. Like, they could be, you know, as a team comes down to face Ryan Rollins and Tyler Hero, mostly Ryan Rollins, and then Myles Turner at the back end, like, they could be decent defensively. Yeah, I know there's a lot of questions. I'm fine putting them down. I'm fine. Maybe Usman Jang has a breakout year. He's, like, good maybe. So, I don't know. I was fine going over their 25.5 win total. So if they get closer to 30, that's

1:04:06 an awesome season for them. I think it's possible.

1:04:09 I don't. I think they stink. I can't remember if I said this. I think they'll have one of the 10 worst defenses in the league.

1:04:15 Yes.

1:04:16 They're just not a team of players that make any sense together. And they're going to be worse at the end of the season because the reason they play all these vets early in the year is saying, anybody.

1:04:26 Want to give us a pick? We got no picks. We'll take anything for Jaime Jaquez.

1:04:30 Yeah, they have a lot of guys that are willing. They can trade a lot of guys. There's already talk about Kemper Jr. Have him, take him. Karis LeVert, take him. And that's true. And it's more like I look at this roster and I'm like, you know, there's names that you know. And you can be hopeful. But I do think it's up to those guards. Ryan Rollins was a good guard last year. And if Tyler Hero can be awesome beside him, former All-Star. Can he be awesome beside him?

1:04:59 Not too long ago.

1:05:00 Coming home. Oh, I can't remember if I've said this on the other podcast.

1:05:03 With Miles Turner. They've got to be really, really good. Miles Turner, he is washed.

1:05:06 Yeah, well.

1:05:08 He doesn't have to play much. He doesn't have to do much.

1:05:12 It should be Khalil Ware at least opportunity to give the guy a go. But I can't remember if I said this, so apologies if I did. We did too many podcasts. But I think Tyler Herro is setting up to have a Bradley Beal Washington Wizards year here, baby. Give me like, he could be flirting with 29, 30 points per game. But I went and checked those Wizards teams when Beal was doing that. They were winning 25 games. Yeah.

1:05:33 Though they did win 34 games the next year because he did it two years in a row.

1:05:36 There you go.

1:05:38 I think it's going to be more like a 25 win team and he scores a lot. And I hope to see the opportunity to some of these younger guys to figure out what they have there and some of these guys. Yeah.

1:05:47 They'll find out if Yaka Jonas is good. Hamahakis is good. He's a good off the bench guy. It's a 25-to-30 win team. Is he starting?

1:05:57 I think he is going to.

1:05:58 That's a weird one to me.

1:06:00 They can use a second creator in their starting lineup, I believe. Jake Fisher last night on the Stein line. The Lakers and Bucs have held exploratory trade discussions on a framework that would ship former first-round selection Dalton Connect to Milwaukee, along with second-round draft capital for big man Jericho Simms. We're not doing an emergency podcast if that happens.

1:06:22 You're calling it now?

1:06:22 Yeah.

1:06:23 No. Sims for connect.

1:06:25 I accept that we don't do an emergency podcast.

1:06:30 That's a board game for a video game. Connect for Sims. Come on, man.

1:06:38 Okay.

1:06:39 Put that as a YouTube title. The Video Game Trade. Come on.

1:06:44 What's the other game? The Sims? The Sims.

1:06:47 The Sims, yeah.

1:06:47 Connect for Sims, yeah.

1:06:50 Connect for Sims. I mean, it's literally perfect. All right. Emergency podcast back on.

1:06:55 Yes.

1:06:56 We're doing it. Anyway, if it happens, if it happens. If it happens.

1:06:59 We collaborate everything, so. Like you go to McDonald's, they can just give you either a little Connect Four or part of the Sims. Like they're doing that. They're doing that. They hand out. What are you talking about? With, you know, Happy Meals for Kids. I'm talking specifically about kids. They'll do like the Minecraft.

1:07:14 Is Monopoly back right now?

1:07:16 Yes, it's also back. There's a lot going on there. Minecraft plus another thing, which I was not familiar with. There's the little hamster, whatever. I don't know what it's called. But they'll collaborate anything.

1:07:26 Yeah, that's absolutely true. Yeah. They'll give anybody a meal.

1:07:30 Anybody gets a meal, but those, yeah, I don't know if it's going to work actually for a happy meal. Connect for what are you going to give you a chip? Collect them all.

1:07:41 You got all the yellow ones. Yeah. I got like half the red ones. Can't wait until you've had at least four happy meals.

1:07:47 Are they black and red?

1:07:48 Oh yeah.

1:07:49 Why did I say?

1:07:50 I thought yellow. Well, McDonald's should be yellow and red.

1:07:53 Yeah. That's why you're thinking of yellow, right?

1:07:55 Blue board, yellow and red, uh, I thought they're black and red, fellas. I'm sure there's different versions. Bro, you're thinking of Checkers, of course.

1:08:01 No, bro.

1:08:02 That's a different restaurant.

1:08:03 Okay, let me look it up.

1:08:04 Connect Four. We need to know this, okay? It's yellow and red, baby. Come on, I think it is. Blue board, blue board.

1:08:10 I know, I know.

1:08:11 I play Connect Four every night.

1:08:12 Primary colors. Blue, yeah, it's definitely blue.

1:08:14 But I'm looking at one that is also black ones. So, yeah. Cool.

1:08:18 Minnesota Timberwolves, one of the biggest zags in the league this year.

1:08:23 Julius Randall, he gone. Nas Reed, he gone. But guess who's here? It's Lomelo Ball. And Lomelo and Ant have had a love fest since Lomelo showed up. It's just like a joke Instagram reel that I see every time I log on, these two being silly together. So the vibes are good in Minnesota. The vibes are loose. Yeah, they're burying Julius Randall and they're letting Nas Reed take some shots as well. It's coming out of the woodwork.

1:08:49 This guy was also moody. It wasn't just Julius. Chris Finch said about the team's new identity, quote, we've traded moodiness for giddiness.

1:08:59 Yep.

1:08:59 Yep. end quote because you remember we were debating this a couple weeks ago and you know i don't know are these really shots at julius rattle i mean it's all but confirmed yes i guess yeah those guys gone they were moody we didn't like the vibes in comes fun lamello everybody's happy this guy's zany.

1:09:17 Can't stop joking didn't he say like we need to find a happy medium he's almost like we're a little too silly right.

1:09:23 Now i mean that could be a problem for the timberwolves ben gulliver wrote the initial giddiness that comes with any honeymoon period must eventually be complemented by resolve and maturity and i think this is spot on i think the honeymoon yeah it's gonna be great but you know that's only gonna last for a Oh, well, that's going to translate to the Wolves. But the Wolves are a tough one to figure out here, too. Because it's just so completely different. But I'm intrigued. And vibes are important in the NBA.

1:09:54 Vibes are very important.

1:09:55 And they might be the most important of any player when it comes to, like, an Anthony Edwards and, of course, LaMelo, too. That's like their superpowers, maybe.

1:10:03 But... I don't know.

1:10:04 They also got to stop teams. Lovello has literally never played a playoff game. Got to play healthy. Never played in the playoffs.

1:10:10 Yeah.

1:10:11 Jonathan Kaminga, they're starting power forward?

1:10:14 What? Yeah. Yeah. This is a Final Four flirt team, but at the same time, it could be a flirt that just ghosts you. Like, oh, I'm going to flirt with this person. Then they're just gone. And they could be a, literally, I'm going to go as far as saying there could be a playoff hopeful. I mean, I got them as a lock. but I can't put him any higher just because of the range of questions. Too many questions. Front court, okay, Randall and Reed, you're out, so Gobert, you've got to play a ton. When they were really, really good, Gobert could sit, and here comes Carl Anthony Towns at first, or Nas Reed. So they had options. Now it's Kaminga, play a ton, man, even though you got dropped by multiple teams. And Yoann Bernier,

1:10:57 are you going to be awesome? You've got to now.

1:11:00 Yeah, he's important now. When's Dante DiVincenzo coming back?

1:11:03 Apparently he is training some.

1:11:05 He wants to play this year.

1:11:06 But it's going to be a while.

1:11:08 Because it was in the playoffs. March, maybe.

1:11:12 Yeah, exactly.

1:11:13 But not a guy that I think of as like relies on athleticism type. He can come in and shoot some free still. So that would be very helpful for them. And also, you know, I've been thinking about it. I think Jaden McDaniels should have came up in our conversation for.

1:11:26 Most improved player.

1:11:28 I think he got a, what about this guy?

1:11:30 He got a, what about this guy? Good. That's at least what he deserves.

1:11:32 Yeah.

1:11:32 I think he'll get some votes.

1:11:34 Or maybe you were talking Jalen versus Jaden, just the name wise. But I thought, I thought he was mentioned.

1:11:40 Yeah.

1:11:40 He could be awesome because as he's saying, who are they going to put on me? I mean, he's good at talking and saying that other team can't play defense, but now you got to play Anthony Edwards. You got to play LaMelo. He may be able to have whoever he wants and score on them. If, if he can take that next step that he was able to, in the first playoff series last year when he took out Denver.

1:12:00 Oh yeah.

1:12:00 He shows flashes of it.

1:12:01 There's flashes. So yeah, that's why they could be a flirter, but, uh, I can't go that high.

1:12:08 I'm willing to bid on a flirt here. I am too. Okay. Low end flirt. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's exactly right.

1:12:14 Yeah.

1:12:15 I have a little more confidence in the nuggets and rockets ahead of them in the West.

1:12:17 Yes, I would agree, but I have them right there.

1:12:21 This is a must watch team of the early start of the season. Absolutely. I mean, I don't know how many nationally televised games they have, but, This will be a number one league pass check-in team.

1:12:30 And Chris Finch just dropping bombs about the locker room. Yeah. Because it's got to be Julius Randle. Like this Nas Reed thing taking shots.

1:12:39 It's definitely Julius Randle.

1:12:41 Yeah. Right?

1:12:42 Yeah, but I mean John Krasinski came out and said, literally said it's like it's not just Julius.

1:12:46 Nas Reed was super moody as well. Okay, yeah. And he, I mean he said Jaden McDaniels is a moody guy.

1:12:51 Right.

1:12:51 Seems pretty obvious to me as well. I think the problem is too many moody guys. Too much moody. That's it. Gotta lighten the mood a little bit.

1:12:58 They had Mike Conley there to heal things.

1:13:01 Not anymore. He's just... Mike Conley's just too nice.

1:13:05 Yeah. He's very nice.

1:13:07 He ain't moody. He's always up. What are the only two teams they could trade Moody-us for Gideon-us? The Warriors. Yeah, there you go. Got it. Definitely a Moody and a Gideon league. What are the odds?

1:13:19 New Orleans Pelicans. They're up for tier ranking. They're a weird team. They brought back DeAndre Jordan.

1:13:26 Two-year deal. Love it.

1:13:27 Ben Matherin, he's on the Pelicans now. And all the guys that have been on the Pelicans for the past three seasons, they're all still there for the most part. Jordan Pooley's still around. Zion Williamson, he's there.

1:13:37 Herb.

1:13:39 Trey Murphy III. We got all those guys back. Yves Misi likely starting for them, even though they traded a top 10 pick. to be able to draft Derek Queen. But are you going to start Derek Queen and Zion together? You're going to get scored on a lot. Weird team. One of the weirdest teams out there. It is a weird team. Gulliver wrote, after winning just 26 games last season, are the Pelicans trying to squeeze better results from a mediocre roster, or are they ready to start building for the future? It looks right now like they're like, come on, let's squeeze out some better results here. Because like you're saying, Fierce and Queen, I think, are coming off the bench in preseason action. And so they're like, okay, we'll go

1:14:14 with our more established guys here. But it's like, okay, we've done this before too. Now I know they're always injured. They always have that out. Somebody or two or three guys are always out. If they were ever for once all healthy, is there a team there that's maybe legit? Yeah, maybe, but I don't know where we'd put this team. I get playing hopeful or nut dust, yeah.

1:14:36 Yeah, they're good enough to be a playoff hopeful. I mean, if that's like a 30-35 win team, yeah. I'm reluctant. The positive side is the guys that have been around, as you said, Trey, but plug in DeJounte Murray, who's just been there basically for the end of the last season. So he's got to be really, really good. I think he's, if we're talking moods and the heart of a team, I think just attitude-wise, he brings that type of attitude they need to that team. So that's your hopeful time.

1:15:08 I think that, yeah, but everything else is a question. Everything else is a question. So Jamal Mosley comes in and talks about Eve Misi being awesome defensively. He's our guy, but he's getting shoved around by a Dai Mara. I think he can get shoved around if it's the right center on the other side. So that's a problem. Big time.

1:15:25 A lot of questions for me. Hopefully as high as I go, but they do have to tear it down eventually this year. I think this is the year.

1:15:33 We just keep waiting for them to do.

1:15:35 It, man.

1:15:35 It might be.

1:15:36 Yeah, I like the Trey Murphy. Start with the guys who are going to get the most. And I think it's Trey Murphy. We'll see.

1:15:43 They did play hard when DeJounte Murray came back last year. They did.

1:15:46 They played, what, 14 games. But they were literally like, let's try and make the play. And they played their best basketball when he was back. And like you're saying, he does play with a chip on his shoulder. So I feel like we'll at least get some real intensity from the Pelicans early on.

1:16:00 And Zion played last year. A lot of games, yep. I mean, there is that.

1:16:03 Not quite the same player, but it's like. That's like, what do you want from him? Do you want him to play more or do you want him to be one of the most explosive players out there? Because they kind of seem like they're at odds with each other. Maybe the reason he was so healthy was because he wasn't trying to dunk everything.

1:16:19 Yeah. Don't know.

1:16:20 Felt that way.

1:16:20 What do you think, Skeets? Hopefuls or Dustys? Man, I'm jaded by this team too. I guess I'm a nut duster guy, but I'm fine with an end of a play in hopefuls.

1:16:34 Okay, we can be optimistic for them now, but mid-season, they're going to be in the dusties.

1:16:40 Well, they're 26-56 last year. How far do you have to be down to be a duster? Put it that way.

1:16:47 I think this year, 25 wins. I think if you're under 25. So they're right on the cusp.

1:16:54 Yeah, they're close.

1:16:55 Finally, we're getting some title contenders in the mix. The New York Knicks up for tier ranking, defending NBA champions after a 53-year drought. They did lose Mitchell Robinson, but they brought in Andre Drummond to replace him. Everybody else is back, but not everybody is happy about their contract situation right now. Will that hang over the Knicks heading into this season? Or will they put it in the past and say, we got a title. We'll figure out the money eventually.

1:17:24 Yeah, the locker room thing, I don't think that's a huge problem. I think the bigger thing is it's just hard to get back to the finals, man. Yeah. It hasn't been done since the Warriors, and that's a long time ago. Almost a decade. So as far as the regular season goes, yeah, they may not be anywhere close to the 1C. They could easily be a 3-4. Do they turn it on in the playoffs? That's a question.

1:17:47 I think they do miss Mitchell Robinson. But you got to respect the champs, so it's impossible to not put them there. But I could definitely see them getting bounced in the second round. That's a possibility, yeah.

1:18:00 Title contender, though.

1:18:01 Yeah. You got to do it now.

1:18:03 They got the, the pedigree.

1:18:04 Exactly.

1:18:05 And the continuity and the chemistry. And, and like, it wasn't just a one year flash either. They were building on those, that run to the championship in terms of making, exactly.

1:18:15 Yes. Yeah. Like they, they will bring it every single night that they want to this year. I think the Mitchell Robinson motor is that, that I know Drummond is in there and it will help.

1:18:25 Like, It's a downgrade. No one's going to deny that. Drummond tries.

1:18:30 He tries to be a Mitchell.

1:18:33 He's always a fan favorite, too. Drummond is hilarious to watch. He's one of the funniest players in the league. He spins so much for a guy that's that big. Nobody should be spinning that much.

1:18:45 No, interesting.

1:18:46 Just spins a lot.

1:18:46 When it comes down to it, there's like only a handful of other guys that I would take above Jalen Brunson in a like a must-win game or even a seven-game series at that in the postseason with the way he plays. Yep. Like, I mean, we sort of forget. Didn't he score like 45 in the game-winning? Yeah, that's a great point. He won finals MVP quite... Easily.

1:19:10 In all things considered, we're like, but yeah, but was OG Ananobi their second best player? Was Karl-Anthony Towns their best player? But then this guy just hits every single mid-range jumper.

1:19:17 It's just incredible. He scored 45. But are they too distracting?

1:19:22 Game-clenching.

1:19:23 He's on Saturday Night Live. OG Ananobi is on Elsbeth. Carl Anthony Towns was in the Devil Wears Prada, too. These guys aren't focused this year.

1:19:31 No.

1:19:32 You know, look, I agree with Tass, and when we did our over-unders, I took the under, because I don't think maybe the regular season results will be there. And I think Mike Brown will also try and get other guys opportunity and all that. But come playoff time, I'll put them up against any team, or I like their chances against any team in the East. That's right. And hell, even in the finals, for that matter. So they're a title contender. DJ Khaled, another one. The Oklahoma City Thunder. Yeah.

1:19:56 They're getting up into the title contenders tier, I do believe.

1:19:59 Yeah.

1:19:59 You can put them there right now. Do you put them ahead of the Knicks?

1:20:04 Probably.

1:20:06 Yes, I would. This team won 64 games. They didn't have their second best player. That's true. And then, yes.

1:20:12 Very true.

1:20:12 They lost Dort. They lost Wiggins. They are going to be relying on rookies a little bit this year. Mara, I think, will be a bench guy. Bennett Sturtz probably gets at least some sprinkles of playing time. So they lost a little bit of the continuity that they've had for the past, what, four seasons? I mean, Dort was a lifetime Thunder guy. Wiggins had his moments certainly there, but This is a, like we talked about when we were talking about six-man of the year, this is a super deep team and also a super top-heavy team. They've got three guys who have made all-NBA, not to mention Shea Gilgis-Alexander, two-time MVP.

1:20:47 I do think they're going to be better this year with their depth beyond even Dort, Wiggins, Joe gone. I think they're going to be really, really good with just guys taking a step up. Here comes Gason Wallace. I think he'll be really, really good. And, you know, here comes... a full season of Jared McCain. So I'm ready to watch that. I'm already watching Shea come off the ball a little bit more. They're starting to give it to other guys and let Shea save himself for the postseason because he had to do so much last year. The health is a question, but they should get the 60 wins.

1:21:25 And they clearly concluded... that we need a little bit more size maybe, even though we have two seven-footers in Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren, to take on Wemby. Like, to me, the Thunder are only like, that's the team we got to beat.

1:21:37 Yep.

1:21:38 And we got to just figure out that. And so you get Ademara in there, who in preseason looks like Pau Gasol 2.0. So if they've added that and found that, dear God, like, look out. So, look, of course, a title contender. Sort of a funny year, too, because we're coming in here, like, because they lost last year. It's like, not a lot of talk about them, really.

1:21:56 Mm-hmm.

1:21:57 Despite winning what the number one seed, like year after year after year there in the West. So it might work in their favor. They're like, ah, there's all these other flashy new things to like discuss and have our focus on. And we'll probably get to the all-star break and there'll be like, you know, four games clear with the number one seed or whatever and going, Whoa.

1:22:13 Oh yeah.

1:22:13 They are still really good.

1:22:14 They're Spurs-y during the Spurs dynasty. Exactly.

1:22:18 Okay.

1:22:18 They're good. We'll talk about them later.

1:22:20 What do you think it will be their longest winning streak of the season? Hmm. I'll give you over under 19.5 consecutive games.

1:22:29 I'll go under. I'll go under.

1:22:31 That's the smart move. That's a pretty good streak there. How many did they win to start the season last year? 24, 25? Did they really? Wow. They were on fire, yeah.

1:22:39 Wow. They were good. Was that a bit of what the Golden State Warriors did after winning 73 games? The other way around.

1:22:50 Yeah, they won their 15 title and then won 73 games.

1:22:51 Yeah, exactly.

1:22:53 That was similar.

1:22:54 Yeah, so I think Shea's responding likewise, like what Steph Curry was the following year after winning 73 games and going to seven with the Cleveland. Let's chill a little bit, you know?

1:23:05 They won 24 of their first 25 games. They had an early loss to the Blazers. That's why I was like, I don't remember that, but awesome record.

1:23:13 Great. Yeah, and they played, who was that in that 25th, was it? Hold on a second. Forget I said anything. Go on.

1:23:21 Did you say something?

1:23:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but it was a national TV game. It was the Spurs.

1:23:26 The Spurs, remember? Yeah. They were like coming in. They were 24-1, I think, when they lost. Good game. Then they lost. Orlando Magic. They're up for tier ranking. They almost won a first-round series last year. They got a new coach. His name is Sean Sweeney. He said, bye, Jamal. Hello, Sean.

1:23:44 Vooch is back in town. He can make a run at the Magic's all-time leading scorer mark. I think things would go poorly for Vooch to score over 1,000 points for.

1:23:53 The Magic this season, but it's on the table, okay?

1:23:57 Everything is the same for the Magic, except for they haven't given Anthony Black a contract quite yet. And I think you told us during some other preview shows, Tass, that Jalen Suggs has been very.

1:24:07 Apologetic in his play during the playoffs.

1:24:09 Sorry about that.

1:24:09 I did.

1:24:10 He came out and said, hey, man, it's on me.

1:24:13 It's on me.

1:24:14 He's literally on the mic saying that. That's not why I'm considering them a playoff lock, but I got them in the playoff locks. Part of it, I think this is, like you said, they're coming off the best ball that they're playing last year at the end of the season in a seven-game series against Detroit. I think putting all those pieces together plus a Sean Sweeney means that this is, I know we're all sort of tired of this iteration, I guess, of the magic. People are just like, meh.

1:24:43 I still think they're really, really good. So I have them as a lock because this is kind of like the last kick at the can here for them. This is their last try with Bancaro and Franz and less so Bain, but also Suggs in there too. They have to change things up if they're not good. And they said, okay, like you said, Trey, they're the exact same team, but here comes Sean Sweeney to help things out. And coming off their best series, but also just their best play overall, I got them as a lock, but I could easily be, I'm sure people aren't going to be high on them because they're the magic and they get injured. So I'm taking them as a lock, though. I believe in them.

1:25:20 I come back to how we started with the Hawks. It's like, are the magic better than Atlanta? I don't think they're as deep as Atlanta. Though I did like Noah Penda dunking off his own face and the ball popping back out. Yeah, it didn't count. Yeah. They got a lot of new look guys as well. Penda with the blonde hair. Paulo got a haircut. And I do think the new voice will help. Yeah.

1:25:40 Because there seemed to be some tension last year, specifically between Paulo and Jamal Mosley.

1:25:45 Yeah.

1:25:46 Like you're saying, Tess, they're like, We want to say goodbye to the coach and try somebody else leading the team before we actually split up the players. So it is a bit of a last chance saloon here. I do think the Hawks are.

1:25:58 Better, though.

1:25:59 Oh, so that means we would have the Magic in a play and hopeful. Yeah, that's why I asked. That's why I asked, because I knew we had the Hawks there. So it's up to you, man. That's where I agree. Okay. I agree. So I would have them right behind Atlanta.

1:26:10 You're such a homer.

1:26:12 Yeah, I am. I give you a deep cut from Gulliver when it comes to the Magic, though. And this goes to maybe... what you're hoping for in the new coach, Tass. Ben wrote, the preseason revealed Tristan Da Silva is launching. Okay, again, this is a deep cut. So he could be reaping the rewards of having a new coach there in Sweeney because he's like, you know, his emphasis is on spacing and ball movement and all that. But Da Silva averaged 3.7 three-point attempts during his first two seasons with the Magic.

1:26:38 So not a lot, obviously, for a guy that can shoot. He's up to 10.7 trays per game in the first three preseason appearances. Okay. I mean, that's... That's a jump. That's obviously Sean Sweeney. The coaching staff is like, come on, man, let it go. So something to watch here early. I like that from Culliver. Wow, geez. Now, I don't know how many he's hitting. Maybe he's 0 for 10.7. I don't know. 10 bad three-pointers. So, yeah. Yeah, so maybe this works with a new coach. I could be wrong.

1:27:07 I think, again, this is a team where I've been high on the magic a couple seasons prior, and then it sort of blew up in my face. Now, is it just injury-related? Maybe, but they always are injured. I hope Sweeney can get something out of them.

1:27:19 As an assistant coach who is talked about throughout the NBA, this is the guy. I mean, he's been talked about for years. Here come the playoffs. I mean, the 24 finals, he was Jason Kidd's assistant for Dallas, and there were people interviewing him, so it felt like he was going to go. And maybe as you see Tristan Da Silva's numbers go up, that's the reason. He's willing to try different stuff. And that makes sense for the mid-range to open up for Boncaro and Franz and Jalen Suggs, too, because he's not a great three-point shooter on a regular basis.

1:27:53 So he's going to do different things than Jamal Mosley did. I think that's pretty apparent, and that number, I think, proves that. They're going to change it up.

1:28:02 Do you think Sean Sweeney will do— A Sidney Sweeney-like parody of that commercial? Like a Novig ad? Yeah, like a topless Sean Sweeney with a basketball in front of him? He will, absolutely. I agree. That's what the people want to see. I'd love to see it. Man, I'm so glad you said Tristan Da Silva. I don't think I've fought his name one time since the playoffs ended. We still believe in Tristan Da Silva on this podcast. He's handsome.

1:28:25 He's chucking threes now. I know. If he's up to 11 threes per game attempts at least, watch out. He might lead the league in attempts.

1:28:32 I hope so.

1:28:33 I'm rooting for that now. Philadelphia 76ers.

1:28:35 A lot of change for these fellers. Jalen Brown became a Philadelphia 76er. That seemed like the biggest move they were going to pull. That would have been a huge move. That would have rocketed them up, the tier linkings. Then they drafted LeBaron Phylon. Then they signed LeBron James. LeBron James chose them due to fanatics connections is what it seems like.

1:28:58 So he's there. They got Dean Wade. They got Anthony Simons coming off the bench. Bulls legend, Anthony Simons. But how much do you trust Joel Embiid? That's the question. How high can you rank this team? Could you consider them a title contender? Can you consider them a Final Four flirter? You say, no way Embiid makes it that long.

1:29:21 That is the question. He's never done it before.

1:29:24 Yeah, as you drag these teams into their tiers, I mean, control... copy into those three tiers because they could be a title contender they could be a flirt they could be a playoff lock i mean would it be surprised if they dropped out of there no uh those three they could easily be in those three um so i put them right in the middle they can flirt they can flirt but the defense is a question the age is a question and is it in bead time to make his first conference finals i guess i could be that's as far as i'll go yeah but that's that's enough I mean, they've got enough guys to win 50 games because they've got Jalen Brown and Tyrese Maxey they can depend on. Plus the other guys.

1:30:06 Remove Duell and Bede completely from the equation. Could the Sixers make a conference finals run without them?

1:30:13 Make it to the conference finals? Yeah. Okay.

1:30:16 Okay. With the Dembona as the starting center? That's very bold.

1:30:20 I think they can win two playoff series. All right. Yeah, the Bona is a problem.

1:30:25 Still a good team, you're right, but Not a lot of guys up front.

1:30:28 Yeah. Yeah. The bone of the Barlow. It's a problem. And now you have an injured Huck Porty. They're looking to piece that thing together. They're not done there. But. Yeah.

1:30:42 Yeah.

1:30:42 It's optimism time.

1:30:45 All right. Wow. Wow. In the flirt tier. Do you think Nick Nurse will film a Sidney Sweeney parody? which one i mean the sasquatch one uh gulliver pointed out lebron's uh super teams they generally start slow so something to watch here with philadelphia like a feeling out period uh his history 2010 11 heat started nine and eight remember that i do bumping into spolster bump and spo uh 14 15 calves when he went back started five and seven And 18-19 Lakers start at 4-6. So, you know, maybe they don't come out of the gates here with an epic record. I'm sure being Philadelphia and having LeBron on your team, they're probably playing a bunch of really good teams with all these marquee games as well. Surely, yeah.

1:31:35 So take that into consideration.

1:31:40 You're telling me a lot of drama with coaches is what it sounds like for LeBron James when he's switched teams.

1:31:45 Yes. Yeah. Interesting. So watch out, Nick Nurse.

1:31:50 Hot seat.

1:31:51 Heating up. Yeah. I mean, you're semi-joking, but I think there's probably a lot of truth to it.

1:31:55 There's going to be a lot of eyeballs and a lot of pressure on this team.

1:31:59 Yes. But he's not doing the videos. He's not doing the Sidney Sweeney thing. He's not. No. Money's guaranteed as a coach, even if he's fired, is what I mean. He's still going to have, he'll be fine.

1:32:11 Nick Nurse, he's going to play in, what's the band he always plays with? Arkells? Arkells. Yeah, I couldn't think of them. Yeah. Good old Canadian band.

1:32:20 Okay, the Phoenix Suns, they're up for tier ranking. Do you think Jordan Ott will do a Sidney Sweeney parody?

1:32:25 I don't think so.

1:32:26 What have I done?

1:32:27 They traded for a guy. They had Mark Williams got hurt. They're probably going to start Oso Iguodaro. That's kind of cool.

1:32:36 I'd like to see him. Kamon Malawach had a great summer league. A lot more responsibility for this guy. The Phoenix Suns, they had a playoff run last year. They exceeded expectations last year.

1:32:47 How about this year?

1:32:50 For me, they're one of those teams that, yeah, they could make it. And that wouldn't be surprising because Jornat gets his guys to perform better than they are, better than the sum of their parts. And you're going to have guys coming at you, the Jordan Goodwins, the Dylan Brooks, the Ryan Dunns. Defensively, they'll get there. But the West has got.

1:33:10 Too many teams to lock them.

1:33:13 I wouldn't be surprised, though, if they make it. That's the weird thing. I had to go back and forth with this team, even when we did up Over and under, I should say. But I'm a hopeful guy at this point with their roster.

1:33:26 Me too. Though we caught some flack for that with going under the Phoenix Suns in our over-unders.

1:33:32 I get it.

1:33:32 How dare you guys? How dare you guys sleep on us again? I had to say, I didn't sleep on you last year. I was one of the only people that took the over last year, but I feel like there's a tiny step back, a little regression here.

1:33:42 Like I'm taking a Blazers team over them and a Jazz team over them even. So....

1:33:49 If you're doing that, then yeah.

1:33:50 They get dropped. Top of the rankings. The common Malawach thing is real in that he would propel them up if he was really, really good. And I know Iguodaro's going to start, but one day Malawach's going to start. But it might not be now. If and when that happens, they could be awesome because he looks really, really good.

1:34:09 He was banging with Wemby and playing really well against them, but I don't think he's ready for a long term here.

1:34:15 But he.

1:34:16 Odd is like Redick to me. He's going to get his guys to play really hard. So is the offense there? Is the talent there? I don't know. Not yet, I don't think.

1:34:22 Yeah, I like him as a play-in hopeful. I would have him ranked higher than the Mavericks currently are.

1:34:28 Yeah, so would I. I was going to say, even if you wanted to put him at the top of the top, but fine, behind those Eastern Conference teams. Sure, I'll do it for you. They were a 45-win team. They were. For the most part, the same team. Bridges was there. Obviously, Jalen Green, they're hoping healthy. He was banged up quite a bit. But then, that's a funny one, it's like, did that actually help them? I've been training with Steve Nash, I heard.

1:34:51 Yeah, I think they may have hurt their depth with Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neal being traded for Bridges, and Jalen Green wasn't healthy last year. Here's the other side, Jalen Green wasn't healthy last year, so maybe they're good. They could be a lock, but hopeful's the spot.

1:35:08 Another high-effort team in the Western Conference, whose name starts with a P. They're up for It's the Portland Trailblazers made it back to the playoffs last year.

1:35:18 Took a game off the Spurs, I do believe, right? Yeah, Wemby didn't play, right?

1:35:22 Wemby didn't play. Smacked his head on the ground. They traded for Ja Morant. Damian Lillard, defending three-point champion. He's back playing NBA basketball after an Attili's care with the Bucs a couple of playoffs ago. They got a ton of guards. Shaden Sharp down with an injury right now. Tough start to the season for them. They got a new coach, Micah Norrie. He'll be there for at least this year, probably. After that, we don't know. Their owner, Tom Dundon, won the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes.

1:35:54 Don't forget. And so did his family members.

1:35:57 That's right. Engrave it.

1:35:58 Carve it in. Weird.

1:36:01 Trailblazers are like a play in hopeful.

1:36:04 The Stanley Cup has every single player's name, coaching staff. And I stop there because that's it. That's who usually gets it. I guess the owner gets their name in it, but he put his name first and his children's name right after. And I guess his partner's name, his wife's name. I'm not sure. I forgot about that part. Yeah, yeah.

1:36:25 I missed this story. T. Dundon.

1:36:26 They get a limited amount of names or something, right? They get to pick 50 names.

1:36:31 Or something like that.

1:36:32 He's like, put my son Tim on there. Wow.

1:36:34 Just guessing. It wasn't even alphabetical.

1:36:35 Well, I know he didn't pay extra for engraving. Yeah. Yeah, it comes with a package. I'm surprised you put any names on. He's like, how much does that cost? They're like, no, it's included. You win the cup, you get to engrave it. No.

1:36:46 I was like, all right.

1:36:47 Just put Hurricanes, that's it. Hurricanes. Hurricanes team. Yeah, just put Canes. Yeah, I don't even want Hurray in there. How much is five letters going to cost me?

1:36:57 If the New York Knicks were able to carve their names into the trophy, would James Dolan do that for himself? Yeah, for sure. Put his name on it? Yeah.

1:37:08 Yeah. I mean, the owners always accept the trophy. I have no problem with putting his own name on it. I think it's a little weird to put his wife and his kids' names on it. That's just me, but.

1:37:17 Even still, that's weird. The owner. Does every NHL owner get to put their name?

1:37:21 That's the thing. Maybe they're all on it. Yeah.

1:37:24 But he's, yeah. And he's just added his family members. And he led with it at the beginning. He made sure. It wasn't an alphabetical thing. It's, here it comes. Here it comes. Tom Dundon and friends.

1:37:37 Family, TJ Dundon. He put friends on too.

1:37:39 Jesus. This is my good friend.

1:37:44 You gotta be, you just gotta be friend of billionaire for a lot of reasons. But one of them is that maybe your name ends up on the Stanley cup.

1:37:51 Somehow, some way. Cool. All right. Back to the blazers.

1:37:54 Oh yeah. Blazers.

1:37:57 Probably. They're a weird team.

1:37:58 Yeah. Probably a play in the hopeful though.

1:38:00 I agree. Play and hopeful. They're what?

1:38:02 42 and 40. I think last season, Still a lot of change and a lot of questions to be answered for the Blazers.

1:38:10 A big one being, should John Morant come off the bench? And he has a little bit in preseason, right? I think he has.

1:38:16 He has not been impressive in preseason, John Morant.

1:38:19 I know. I hope this guy is not washed. I know. It's in play here.

1:38:23 Yeah.

1:38:24 Somebody might have set the machine.

1:38:26 But if Mike Inori says, hey, come off the bench, and he does it, isn't that a good sign for this team?

1:38:32 It means buy-in.

1:38:33 It means buy-in with a team that's got a billion guards.

1:38:36 And it just might balance the lineup more. If it's Dame and then like a defender in Drew Holiday or even Scoot Henderson is like a level up on obviously John Morant defensively, then yeah, then John come off the bench. Like that makes more sense. But this is obviously a superstar all-NBA guy, or has been, and it's always a tough pill to swallow, I think.

1:38:55 It'd be awesome if he does. Yeah, that's the big thing. But is he playing for his reputation, his career? I'm just trying to give him reasons to turn this thing around and, in turn, turn the Blazers around, or into a playoff lock. Because if you look at the West, yeah, Spurs, Thunder, Rockets, Nuggets, Wolves, for sure.

1:39:15 And then Lakers, we think.

1:39:16 So that's six. That's six. I've got them as a team that'll be there. I'm buying into the Mike Inori, you only get a team option for year two, you better perform in year one, which is a hunk of junk. Coaching for his life. Coaching for his life.

1:39:33 Do you put the Blazers ahead of the Suns?

1:39:36 Right now, I do.

1:39:37 Okay.

1:39:38 Interesting. I think they've got enough talent. Look at the talent.

1:39:40 I think I do, too. They've got a ton of talent. You're right.

1:39:43 So I'm buying into Mike Inori being a guy who can convince the players to play. And then a good locker room guys like Drew Holiday. Those, you'll get some buy-in. And a Robbie Williams. Not the performer.

1:39:58 The guy from the monkey movie? Straight up made a biopic of Robbie Williams and had him as a CGI monkey. I haven't seen it. You ever seen that, JD? It's kind of interesting.

1:40:08 I have not seen it yet.

1:40:10 Whoa.

1:40:10 Yet.

1:40:11 This is the only movie that either of you guys have not seen. I can't believe you haven't seen it.

1:40:15 Well, it wasn't really in theaters. It was very brief.

1:40:18 Came and went for sure.

1:40:20 So where is it? Is it on Amazon or something?

1:40:22 It's gotta be somewhere. Yeah. What's it called? Uh, It was not called Monkey Man. No. Robbie Williams' monkey movie. It was called Better Man. Better Man. Better Man. Because he's a better man.

1:40:39 I like that you said yet as if you've been like saving it for the perfect time to watch this Robbie Williams.

1:40:44 I mean, I've seen it while like browsing, you know, and go, I should probably watch it.

1:40:48 It's supposed to be quite good, actually. The reviews were surprisingly good, I think. Yeah. Looks like you can stream it on Paramount Plus or rent or buy digitally on Prime Video or Apple TV. All right.

1:41:00 Okay.

1:41:01 Some of us got to own it. We almost might have bought it.

1:41:05 Who?

1:41:05 Will Ellis, remember? He does love Robbie Williams.

1:41:08 He loves to perform a Robbie Williams song at a karaoke night.

1:41:11 Yeah, but I could also see Lee going, why make him a monkey?

1:41:15 Why is he a monkey? Why don't you just make him an old lady? He loves bananas.

1:41:20 He loves bananas. That's a real conundrum for him. The only thing that can make me love Robbie Williams more. If he ate a bunch of bananas like a monkey. Damn, that's a good counter, JD. He probably loves it. It is cool that they're bringing Robbie Williams off the.

1:41:33 Bench, though. Yeah, solid. It's going to help them out. I believe in enough. I'm a Mike Inori guy, so I think he can turn them into a playoff team. I've got him as a lock, which is, I understand it's a push, but damn, so much talent.

1:41:48 Me likey as a play-in hopeful upper tier of that. Yeah, they're coming into the playoffs by way of the play-in, which I think is probably the most likely outcome.

1:41:58 I guess that.

1:42:00 Sacramento Kings.

1:42:02 Oh, boy.

1:42:03 Over, under 20 and a half. Two overs. That's right. Two of us chose the over for the Sacramento Kings after choosing for the over for the Sacramento Kings the last year. Yes. But 20, such a small number.

1:42:16 So minuscule. So easy to win. Yes.

1:42:18 But I think they are going to end up in the Dust Bowl.

1:42:21 Yes.

1:42:22 They're in the bottom tier.

1:42:23 Yes. Oh, okay. So you guys are ranging between 21 and 24 wins, I guess. Because didn't we say that if you're hopeful, you're at 25 wins?

1:42:32 If they win 25 games, that would be a great year.

1:42:37 Would you take the over-under on their over-under from last year? 33 and a half.

1:42:41 No way I'm getting that high. What's the highest number you would take the over on? You could talk me into a 29-win team. Whoa. Yeah, high 20s. That's a perfect year. That's a perfect year.

1:42:58 29 wins.

1:42:59 Wow, that's a bold choice. That's Acuff Jr. probably, I mean, finishing top two for rookie of the year because the numbers are great. The efficiency is high. That's probably swapping out a Levine or a Sabonis at some point from maybe some young talent. That's a Keegan Murray bounce back here. Maxime Reynaud who avoided any real scary injury because he left in a wheelchair. I don't think it's super, super serious.

1:43:22 It doesn't seem like it's serious. But he was good last year. He was all-rookie second team, and he was like 13-8. I'm just talking it out here, baby, talking it out. You're just making the over sound better and better. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, man. We just need 21, man. We don't even need 29. How many wins do we need a month for the Kings? We need like four? Three or four wins? No, three wins a month. Three to four wins a month. Yeah, yeah. three wins a month yeah we can just say it like that it makes me a little more scared oh yeah.

1:43:55 I'm willing to i'm willing to prepare the jar of nut dust uh for this team and.

1:44:02 Oh one of us has to take the kings yeah oh yeah.

1:44:04 You guys you guys are gonna take them because you took the overs yeah that's right um yeah they're gonna be bad.

1:44:12 Agree they're in the nut does will they be the worst team in the league They have the lowest over-under.

1:44:17 Correct.

1:44:17 Significantly. Yeah. I think that's anticipating the vets being gone, Sabonis and Levine. Though I don't know that they necessarily have takers. I want the vets going. Yeah. I like their chances to win, actually, more games with guys, like, putting in some effort. Yeah, get Cardwell out there. Yeah, that's right.

1:44:33 He's out for a couple weeks right now, early to start the season. Caff. That's not a good sign, I guess, for a big man. But, yeah, like, Christie got them playing. Hopefully it's Caff.

1:44:42 His calf gets well. Never mind, shut up.

1:44:45 I've got to send somebody a card coming up, so I hope I make that. Cardwell. Yeah.

1:44:56 Anyway. I mean, so far, two for two on these.

1:44:58 Well, Cardwell, come on. You said Calfwell. The guy's name is Cardwell.

1:45:02 Oh, my God. You don't have to explain my joke that you always do to me.

1:45:07 I'm explaining why mine's better. Oh, I disagree with that.

1:45:12 Cardwell wishes you should have said if you're going to say anything.

1:45:14 Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Anyway, we got to start wrapping this up.

1:45:19 Yeah, it was like eight hours ago that I almost died from eating nut dust. Sources tell me that Doug Christie is not going to recreate the Sidney Sweeney ad.

1:45:28 God almighty.

1:45:29 But he is going to recreate the photo shoot he did with his wife.

1:45:32 Where he's wearing a dog collar.

1:45:33 Yeah. Ooh, kinky.

1:45:35 Yeah, it's time for a renewal. Sources tell me he'll be fired at some point this year. Not if they get to 29 weeks. Run it back, baby.

1:45:43 Yeah, that's the number one thing I tell people about Doug Christie. The dog collar. Honestly, I do. That's the number one thing.

1:45:53 That's the number one thing.

1:45:54 People don't know about basketball. I'm always chatting people up about Doug Christie's dog collar. If we're talking about Sacramento Kings head coach, it's literally the first thing that comes up about Doug Christie. I mean, yeah, I like to guard Michael Jordan. Yeah, he's a tough guy.

1:46:06 Is he still married? I think so.

1:46:08 He has no choice.

1:46:09 He has no say in the matter. Jackie. Still married. Good. They had a great relationship. Married since 96. No joke. There you go.

1:46:17 30 spot.

1:46:18 Oh, yes. They renew their wedding vows every year. Every year? Yeah.

1:46:22 That's love.

1:46:23 That's love. And the Kings renew their vows to Doug Christie every year, including this year. 29 plus wins.

1:46:30 We shall send them a card.

1:46:32 The San Antonio Spurs.

1:46:34 There we go. Every year.

1:46:36 The Spurs.

1:46:37 They went to the NBA finals last year. They brought in Tobias Harris. Everybody else is very young except for Harrison Barnes. So you have to imagine your Wembes are getting better. Your Dylan Harpers are getting better. Your Stefan Castles are getting better. De'Aaron Fox is talking a good game. He's saying, I played way more games hurt in.

1:46:57 The playoffs than I played healthy games. He had some pop in preseason. He had some pop in preseason. That was good to see. I agree. title contenders to me.

1:47:05 Of course.

1:47:06 Without a doubt. Of course. Without a doubt.

1:47:09 Yeah. Everybody's talking about Adai Mara, but watching Terrace Reed as, uh, Wemby's back up big, like they are ready to help him out even with younger guys, even though, uh, Jane Quaintance is injured. Um, Terrace Reed looks good. They look good. Yeah.

1:47:25 Huge board.

1:47:26 Yeah, it's after it. So yeah, I, I love the addition of the height there and Tobias Harris too. So of course they're going to be 60 plus, no doubt.

1:47:36 Are we putting them at the top, top, top? Ooh, the tippy top, huh? Of the tiers. Wow, they've got OKC's number. They do have OKC's number. Well, they beat them a thousand times last year. Eight and four, I think they were. Is that what it was in the end? San Antonio? Or against OKC?

1:47:49 That was.

1:47:50 But then the Knicks beat them. That was tough. It doesn't really matter. They're there. If you're in that top one, it's all the respect in the world. Okay.

1:47:59 It's fine.

1:48:00 Is this team... Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. And is Wemby the best player in the league? Also, there's only two questions. Well, I mean, obviously, can they win the title? So three, but obviously the Wemby.

1:48:10 Yeah.

1:48:10 Is he immediately MVP?

1:48:12 That's fair.

1:48:14 And, you know, how does it work if they're doing the three guard lineup? How does it work? yeah they could could be elite or does uh ms johnson really have to massage some egos potentially and in terms of who's coming off the bench in minutes distribution and all that those are like the three questions yeah but.

1:48:33 I feel like those are three kind of major questions for a team that is on the up and up, you know, like having literal starting lineup questions. You don't see that really with the Thunder or the Knicks teams that have done what the Spurs are trying to do, winning the championships, but they're going to be awesome.

1:48:49 They're going to be fun to watch. And I do, I do kind of like that.

1:48:52 Wemby is coming in with a different vibe this season. Last year it was like, check out everything I've done this year.

1:48:57 It's like, I'm in your face. Right. It just seems like he's coming in with a bit of a tougher toad this year.

1:49:03 Yeah.

1:49:04 Cool.

1:49:04 Toronto Raptors.

1:49:05 Are they getting up into the title contenders? Tass was teasing a Final Four flirt. After a long flirtation, they finally did the trade for Kawhi Leonard. And pretty much everything else is the same as it ever was.

1:49:18 This is quickly healthy. Purtle, healthy.

1:49:20 R.J.

1:49:21 Barrett, maybe some contract questions.

1:49:23 But who knows? They're flirting for me.

1:49:27 I think you're right.

1:49:28 Yeah, good. Nice effort.

1:49:30 Well, come on. Come on. Like health reasons for sure with some of their starters. There's that. Then there's the growth of the younger guys in CMB, Jacoby Walter. Then there's what we saw with our own eyes with Scotty Barnes. He looks like he's turning into one of the more elite two-way players in the league. Like that looks like the real deal. Then what was their one issue? Well, it's scoring come crunch time. Well, yeah, he just went and got the best maybe in the business at it in Kawhi Leonard, the Terminator, as it's worked before. Of course, health always an issue with him. And can he make his way through playoff runs like we do it with Embiid?

1:50:02 How long has it been since this guy's been healthy in the postseason? A very long time. But it's all there for what was already a top five defense last year to then add Kawhi, the upgrade over Ingram. That's pretty scary for these other teams in the East. So I think Final Four flirt is fair.

1:50:19 I agree.

1:50:19 A lot of things still need to break their way. I still have questions about potential three-point shooting and stuff like that. That, um, outside of Kawhi, I feel is a little limited unless RJ is cooking from the corners or, and, and quickly who can get them up.

1:50:33 They're playing Walter, as you said, Jacoby Walter. That guy can shoot it.

1:50:36 But there is a, there's a, you know, a basis there with that defense. It's going to win you a lot of.

1:50:40 Regular season games for sure. This seems to be like the year for it too, right? It seems like it's doable to get up to that final four this year. It's grabbable. But there are some deficiencies. The size is a bit of an issue with the yak of Purtle at the center. The yak. I was going to call him the yak, but I don't know. It works.

1:51:01 They call him yak.

1:51:02 They call him yak, but the yak. I don't know why.

1:51:04 It's not.

1:51:06 An animal.

1:51:08 It's cleaner. That's from The Social Reckoning. Are you going to watch that one? Anybody watch that one? Is it out even yet?

1:51:15 I don't know. It is out. I did not watch it.

1:51:17 Oh, geez, man. I thought you watched every movie.

1:51:19 I had to watch eight episodes of Carrie this week. Plus the original Carrie.

1:51:25 Sorry.

1:51:26 Okay.

1:51:26 You've been busy. Fair enough.

1:51:27 He's busy.

1:51:28 I like the Raptors up in the final four flirts.

1:51:30 We need a second conference finalist. I like them right next to the 76ers because they are very similar where you're like, if this was NBA 2K and you can turn off injuries, turn off fatigue, you're playing your top five guys, they.

1:51:44 Got a chance. Right. Yeah. But the reality is that legs can happen.

1:51:48 What if Colin Murray-Boyles turns into one of their top four players? He could be really good.

1:51:55 Yes.

1:51:56 He could be, and that would make up for some deficiencies at the center spot, but they also could make a trade. I don't know. I'm already wishful thinking here, but Bobby Webster was the protege to Masai Ujiri when he traded for Marc Gasol because they needed one guy to Put him over the top. They did that. So Bobby's watching. He's watching. We just need one center to play 25 minutes.

1:52:20 You would prefer a center than like a point guard, like a carry over?

1:52:26 I think so.

1:52:27 I'm kind of with you. When you look at the biggest or the best teams, the Thunder are huge, like we said. The Spurs have Wemby. And Karl-Anthony Towns is still a seven-footer.

1:52:36 Yeah.

1:52:37 Nikola Jokic is still out there. The Cavs are a big team as well. The Heat have giant guys. So perhaps center is more important than point guard.

1:52:45 Yeah, I think Scotty Barnes can do enough of that. Kawhi has to sort of do some of that. Colin Murray-Boyle is showing he can do a little of that. So, yeah, I'm hopeful.

1:52:56 Two teams remain, one west, one east. We'll start with the Utah Jazz because they're first alphabetically. They drafted Darren Peterson. They traded for Jaron Jackson Jr. at the end of the season, and now he's going to be healthy. Yusuf Nurkic hurt to start the year. Lowry Markin is back. Keontae George got paid. Seems like Ace Bailey is probably going to come off the bench, but had a good rookie season.

1:53:22 Picked up steam as the year went along. People are excited about the Jazz.

1:53:28 I think the Nurkic injury actually hurts them in a few ways. Defensively, Jaron Jackson Jr. has got a position up to the five, and they were just bad last year, so I'm concerned there. And then all those pieces, like you said, Ace Bailey may start, but Darren Peterson may start. And so there's just a lot to work in there.

1:53:47 I think they can outscore teams. But defensively, I think they're bad, and I think they've got rotation questions. So, you know, it's one of those teams that's got a lot of talent, too. They're kind of like a Blazers team. For me, can Will Hardy get them all to lock in? Like Mike Inori, I think could get them to lock in, but Hardy's a good coach too. I have them below the Blazers, so I could lock them in. That's where I feel they're borderline.

1:54:13 To a play in hopeful.

1:54:14 Yeah. Or no, but even a playoff lock. No.

1:54:17 I mean. No, come on.

1:54:19 They could be both. I mean, they're right there. They could be, yeah.

1:54:22 That's a hell of a jump if it is the case. I agree with Gulliver here though.

1:54:25 I mean, top eight. When I say playoff lock, I think they're just in.

1:54:27 Oh. one of the i think top six when i think playoff luck anything can happen in a playing game so true anyway i agree with all over here strong case uh utah to be the nba's most improved team from a watchability standpoint because that offense should be light years better 22nd in offensive efficiency last year that could you could talk me into that jump in like 10 spots across the league um you know florton with a top 10 sort of just outside of it if you get a rookie of the year where they sort of You're from Darren Peterson, and you have some health with Markanen, Triple J, and Keontae George. I mean, that should be great offense. Can they stop teams? We'll see. I'm in the play-in spot, though. That's where I'm slotting them in.

1:55:08 I agree.

1:55:09 I like them right in the middle of the play-in hopefuls tier. I would have them ahead of the Mavericks.

1:55:15 I think they're going to have a better season than the Mavericks.

1:55:17 Yeah, that's... It's a good spot.

1:55:21 I think it's exactly where I would put them, too, because I don't have them right up there with the Blazers and Suns.

1:55:27 But more with the Mets.

1:55:28 Agreed.

1:55:28 They've got a lot of guys who are going to be playing their first important games in their career.

1:55:32 That's true.

1:55:33 They're my eighth seed. They'll get there.

1:55:35 That'd be cool.

1:55:36 That'd be very cool.

1:55:37 This might be Skeets' eighth seed. The Washington Wizards. He's heading over. Trae Young for MVP, baby.

1:55:43 Trae Young, potential MVP, he said. Trae Young is going to play. He played a handful of games last year.

1:55:48 Anthony Davis. How many games will he play for the Wizards this season? He's there, though. Yeah. Chris Middleton came back. Must love it in Washington, D.C. DeAndre Ayton. He's on the Wizards. He's there. He's just every clip I've seen of him is him like his teammates laughing at.

1:56:04 Yeah.

1:56:05 So far for something he's doing, not knowing a number or like being too silly.

1:56:10 Yeah.

1:56:10 Something like that.

1:56:11 So, you know, he's taking it seriously out there in Washington, but should be an improved team.

1:56:15 They drafted A.J. DeBonsa, number one.

1:56:18 This is also a team I think that's going to be high in the improved watchability score.

1:56:23 It's very jazz-like, this team. Quite jazz-like. In terms of what they hope to improve, trying to win. As Bub Carrington came out and said, oh yeah, we weren't even trying to win. So that's good. That's a good start. And there's a lot more talent. I don't think they're going to be a lock like the Jazz weren't at all.

1:56:43 Playing hopeful, I think that's got to be what they're praying for this year. To get out of the nut dust bowl. where we've probably had them. Oh, definitely. Three or four years running, I assume. And I think they will be. I think Trae Young and AD, and I think he might come out at least impressive looking to maybe try and get traded through the first couple months.

1:57:03 I think it's going to help them in the win-loss column. So I'm near the end of the plan.

1:57:09 They can hope.

1:57:11 Yeah.

1:57:11 I'm buying that. There's a lot of talent offensively. They're going to score teams sometimes, I think. Mm-hmm. um because of yeah literally every every position it's really good so hopeful for me.

1:57:24 Trey young 23 assists only 16 shot attempts through the first three pieces in games too so he is really looking to set the table up here which would be awesome if that's the case i think and then you're gonna need him to come through in clutch time you know in close games he's can and will take shots and get to the floater and step back threes and all that but I love that. Every clip I see, they're just pushing the ball. And you had that one about him throwing lobs to everybody. With Saar and AD sort of screaming down the paint. He's like, got his options here. Sean George looks great in preseason too. I'm hopeful.

1:57:56 Aiton can fill in if and when they trade Anthony Davis or if and when Anthony Davis misses time along with Saar. They have depth.

1:58:04 They have depth.

1:58:04 Yeah.

1:58:05 Brian Keefe. They have three number one picks on their team.

1:58:08 They sure do.

1:58:09 Wow. Okay.

1:58:10 So I'm with you playing hopefuls. Right now they're hoping to make the play-in. Better or worse than the Pelicans?

1:58:17 Better. Yeah. Yeah, I think, yes. Better or worse than the Grizzlies? Better. Tough call.

1:58:26 Better.

1:58:27 Better or worse.

1:58:27 Look at all these.

1:58:28 Then that's where I stop. That's probably where I stop. Yeah. Or I'm right around there.

1:58:31 The Warriors got some more reps and some more infrastructure.

1:58:34 I'm with you.

1:58:35 And I think in the Eastern Conference, I would have the Hornets ahead of the Wizards, even though I think the Hornets take a step back. So it looks solid. We got a lot of teams in the play in hopefuls.

1:58:44 11. A lot.

1:58:45 Yeah, exactly.

1:58:46 Because it's going to be a mess in both conferences. Like, I think Western Conference, it's kind of like three through 10 is up for grabs.

1:58:54 You know, I mean, like.

1:58:55 Three through six is really up for grabs, and then seven through ten kind of as well. And then very similar in the Eastern Conference where it's like two through six is up for grabs, and then maybe seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven is random at this point.

1:59:07 All right, let's go over it for the podcast listener here, TK. That's right. Our tiers. Title contenders. We got the Thunder, the Knicks, and the Spurs. That's it. Everybody happy? Yes. I agree. Yeah. Final four, Flirts, Celtics, Nuggets, Cavs, Rockets, Sixers, Raptors, Timberwolves.

1:59:25 I think that's accurate.

1:59:26 I think we got the right teams. You know, we could be here all day for another hour debating the right order of those, but they're in the right tier.

1:59:33 Wouldn't be a surprise to see any of those teams make a conference finals this year.

1:59:37 Playoff locks, the Lakers, Pistons, Heat, and Pacers. Yeah. Our smallest tier. Our smallest tier. Maybe not all four teams. Well, I don't know. I was going to say maybe all four teams. Could at the end of 26-27 season, one of those teams be in a conference finals?

1:59:55 Yes.

1:59:56 Also would not be surprising. But they're locked. They're going to be in the dance. They're going to be top six teams, we think, in both conferences.

2:00:04 Our biggest tier, the play-in hopefuls, 11 teams, Blazers, Suns, Hawks, Magic, Jazz, Mavericks, Hornets, Warriors, Wizards, Grizzlies, Pelicans.

2:00:16 Yep. Perfect.

2:00:17 I like it. Sounds like a great play-in tournament.

2:00:19 Sounds pretty good.

2:00:21 Sounds really good.

2:00:22 People will say, hey, I think those Easter Conference teams, that's where the anger will be. Hawks match having.

2:00:30 Them be in the plan as in they should be higher.

2:00:32 You mean? Yeah. Yeah.

2:00:34 I think those ones are questionable and I think people would probably also look sideways at the Pelicans perhaps, but that's a team that it's like, who knows what's going to happen?

2:00:44 Yeah. Like looking at it in the East alone, we have seven teams from the East or is it eight that are playoff locks? Hold on. Maybe I counted wrong. No, it is eight. We have eight. Okay. Detroit, Miami, indiana then we have the raptors the sixers we have the calves the celtics and the knicks that's eight yep interesting i think we got perfect perfect.

2:01:07 And then our nut dust teams our five lowest ranked teams heading into the season the nets bucks bulls clippers.

2:01:14 And kings are we assigning nut dust teams here and now we started with you choking on nut dust from we pick our squads i think we should at least our first pass sure One of us has to take the Kings. We have determined that. Yes, we have.

2:01:33 It's got to be you two because you picked the over. Yes. Yeah, not me.

2:01:37 Who do you think did it more emphatically?

2:01:40 Oh, that's a great question.

2:01:42 You decide. In fact, you just assign the Kings to one of us.

2:01:47 Let me replay that in my head here.

2:01:51 Doing it again. I remember he did go first. Yeah, but then he said that Von Deucey's Moe. I did say that. Great line.

2:02:00 Deuce and Moe.

2:02:01 Got shared by Moe. Thank you for sharing on your stories, Moe. Thanks, Moe.

2:02:05 Thanks for... Deucing it?

2:02:07 Deucing it?

2:02:08 I was going to say, you guys did it Moe-riggen. Ragon is her last name. Pick the king's rank. Anyway, Trey did it first, I guess. All right. That's all I got.

2:02:19 Man, I'm so jealous you have the Kings. I mean, I'll swap them if you want the Kings.

2:02:24 Who do you want to swap?

2:02:25 I'll take the Bulls, obviously.

2:02:26 No, I'm higher on the Bulls than you are.

2:02:29 I'm taking the Bulls. All right, I'm taking the Kings. You can have your pick of these three.

2:02:34 I'm riding a buck into 2027.

2:02:37 You're higher on the bucks than most of us, so that's good.

2:02:40 All right.

2:02:41 I guess I'll start saving my dust because... I don't think the Kings are going to have the most wins out of those teams. Okay, so Trey has the Sacramento Kings, I have the Chicago Bulls, and you have the Milwaukee Bucks. Right now is our nut dust team. Great. For 26-27. There it is.

2:02:56 There it is.

2:02:57 A chunky boy. Always is when we go through all 30 teams. Hit the like button, subscribe, share the show, podcast listeners, five-star ratings and reviews. Get mad. Sound off in the comments. Which team do we just have wrong? We're straight up too high on, way too low on. Go nuts. Go nuts down there in the comments.

2:03:16 Yeah, they're going nuts right now. They're saying TK, fake Bulls fan. Oh, my God.

2:03:21 What?

2:03:22 I love it.

2:03:23 I was trying to pick the Bulls already. Jeez. But you took the under. Yeah. Of course I did. But it was way too high. Yeah, not my fault. I didn't set the line.

2:03:31 I know, I know.

2:03:32 How many games am I going to watch? 82, unfortunately. I like this. I don't want you to have your own team. This is way more fun. I've got your team. I'm already cheering for the Bulls. I don't want them to win a lot. So that's it for this week, obviously. We're back on Monday, though, with one more season preview type show. Our burning questions. I know one of them we always do, which is a lot of fun, is which player is going to score 50 points in a game.

2:03:56 So we'll be running that back for sure. maybe some hot seats when it comes to coaches, bunch of other things, like a lot of other silly things. So join us on Monday, 10 a.m. Eastern here in the Classic Factory. And then basketball starts on Tuesday, NBA basketball. We got the WNBA finals starting this weekend. Game one tomorrow, right? Yes.

2:04:13 3-3-30 Eastern.

2:04:15 Very exciting. Our hometown Atlanta dream in the finals. Let's go. So yeah, excited for that too. So we're back on Monday though. Reminder to get your No Dunks reversible jersey ready. At NoDunks.com. You got like two weeks left to grab these. Limited run. Get them for your rec league team.

2:04:31 Do it.

2:04:32 And take a photo. Win a championship. Take a photo. And then engrave your name and all your friends on the cup.

2:04:38 Do it.

2:04:39 That one's actually valid. That one's fine. That one's 100% fine. All right. Thanks so much, guys. We will see you on Monday. Till then, Clipper Bros. You heard it here first. Have a great time. Turn up. Love you guys. Awesome.

2:04:51 Thanks for joining us.

2:04:52 And remember.

2:04:53 We here at No Dunks read all your comments, including who you thought the better joke was told by Skeets versus me. Who do you think they went with? Skeets is Cafwell or Tess is Cardwell?

2:05:06 Did we have a poll?

2:05:08 I didn't. I needed to hear what the people thought. Cafwell versus Cardwell. It feels like that's a real Maddy Austin thing to do.

2:05:17 Okay.

2:05:19 They took your calf well.

2:05:20 55-45.

2:05:20 That's the right answer.

2:05:22 Yeah, I didn't even vote.

2:05:25 Me neither.

2:05:27 Hey, I respect you for that.

2:05:29 Thanks. I've got so many browsers right now. I've got so many browsers open. I've got a Chrome open. I could have voted there. I've got a Safari open. I could have voted there. I've got a new phone. You've got a new phone?

2:05:40 I did it, yeah. It was time time. What did you go?

2:05:42 19? 18. 18.

2:05:47 Is that where we're at? It's a nice case.

2:05:48 No, 19.

2:05:48 We're at 19, aren't we? I don't know. What's the flip?

2:05:52 No, we're at 18.

2:05:52 That's the duo, is the flip.

2:05:53 Oh, that thing.

2:05:54 Duo, baby.

2:05:55 But that's not a number assigned. They haven't numbered that one yet.

2:05:59 It's not a 19.

2:06:00 It's a flip or something. It hasn't come out yet. How do we feel about a.

2:06:05 Yellow that color?

2:06:06 Sexy looking, man.

2:06:07 Wine. I like it. That's a nice looking color.

2:06:10 I agree.

2:06:11 What did you call the color?

2:06:12 I called it wine.

2:06:13 Oh, yeah, yeah. Mulberry.

2:06:15 Mauve. Mauve.

2:06:17 That's a cool color.

2:06:18 We call it, yeah, Ron Burgundy.

2:06:19 Oh, he liked that color so much he got a clear case for it.

2:06:22 He's like, I want.

2:06:23 To show off that color.

2:06:24 Yeah, but it doesn't look as good anymore. That's why I took it off. You know when you put it in a case?

2:06:28 Yeah.

2:06:28 It's not the same.

2:06:29 Steve Jobs didn't use a case. He had an iPhone hookup, I heard. He could get a new one anytime he needed it.

2:06:37 You don't have to have a case with this one. It is heavy. Feel it.

2:06:40 Famous last words, buddy. Yeah, see if you can break it.

2:06:43 I'm not going to do it. I think you're accidentally recording. Oh. Yeah. Oh, oops. So the new phone, you know, that was just a voice record. So the new phone has, instead of this, this upper.

2:06:55 We're not getting paid for this, by the way.

2:06:57 We're not getting paid for any of this. The upper left. It'll be quick here. The upper left button, usually it's just to see if your ringtone is on.

2:07:04 Uh-huh.

2:07:06 It's a shortcut for so many things.

2:07:09 Wow.

2:07:09 Literally, it's a shortcut for, oh, I want to do a voice memo. Boom, you click it, voice memo. Boom, I want to know what this song is. It's a Shazam button you can pick.

2:07:18 Can you tell your phone to wrap up this podcast?

2:07:24 Oh, is this too long? We've been on for two hours. I think we can go two hours.

2:07:30 We might need to break this into two parts, man.

2:07:33 I'm done. A lot of settings, though. A lot of settings.

2:07:36 We didn't even talk about the Brewers going to the World Series. And we're not going to. We'll see you on Monday.