NBA Over/Unders, Part 2: The East With Zach Lowe and Joe House

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Zach Lowe and Joe House for Part 2 of the annual Over/Unders pod as they run through the win totals for every team in the Eastern Conference! Intro (00:00) Cavaliers (02:00) Pistons (09:28) Bucks (14:53) Pacers (23:35) Bulls (31:28) Knicks (38:08) Sixers (44:11) Celtics (50:07) Raptors (57:37) Nets (01:02:48) Magic (01:09:05) Hawks (01:14:19) Heat (01:20:25) Hornets (01:25:20) Wizards (01:30:57) Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Zach Lowe and Joe House Producers: Chris Wohlers, Ronak Nair, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chia Hao Tat Post your job today at linkedin.com/simmonsbill. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:25Speaker 01

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• 0:37Speaker 02

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• 1:24Speaker 02

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• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetraids. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find Fairway Roland with Joe House. Yeah. You can find the Zach Lowe Podcast. Whoa.

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's on the ringer too.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  It is.

• 2:16Bill Simmons?

  And he's here right now. We did a part one NBA over unders. We did the West, which, you know, is a more traditional, old school, a lot of good arguments. Now we're about to enter the East, which is just a freaking abyss and I can't wait. But we're going to take a break. We're bringing our friends from Pearl Jam and then the East. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. If you're betting on the NFL, come on, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live your way. So you can set your own lines on just about anything. The app's fast, it's easy to use and best of all, when you win, you get paid instantly. I've been in Boston, Massachusetts recently. Guess what I did?

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  Use FanDuel. Super fun. Download the FanDuel app or go to FanDuel.com/BS to get started. Must be 21 plus, present in select states, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky and Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. Call 888-797-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 3:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, we have many traditions here with the over unders pod. One of which is we usually do the East second because House's division with the Washington Wizards is usually the last division. They're usually the last pick. It's like a little cherry in the sundae, House.

• 3:54Speaker 04

  It's very nice.

• 3:55Bill Simmons?

  We leave your team last.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  We get to end with Washington. I always leave feeling good. No matter what the pick is, I leave feeling good about it.

• 4:02Bill Simmons?

  We're going to start with the Central where the Cleveland Cavaliers are at an over under of 56 and a half. They won 64 games last year. They lost Ty Jerome. They lost Isaac Okoro. They gained Lonzo Ball and Larry Nance and Thomas Bryant. And they are our first title related second apron test case, Zach Lowe. It's a true contender with zero outs. This is their roster. They can't really make trades. They can't improve it. They can't even get buyout guys. This is who they are. Even if Charlotte's like, hey, we'd love to give you LaMelo Ball and three first round picks for Darius Garland. The Cavs would have to say, we can't.

• 4:46Bill Simmons?

  We are trapped under a giant second apron. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? When a contender has a disappointing playoff loss and then can't make any moves and actually has to run it back?

• 4:57Speaker 05

  I don't think it's either good or bad. For this team, I think it's fine. They're all young. They all fit well together. There's a proof of concept that everyone got hurt or Darius Garland and other people got hurt in the playoffs. Last year, Mobley was a little banged up when they lost Indy. And I think it's good. I think it's fine for this team. You know, core sticking together is good. I'm OK with it.

• 5:17Bill Simmons?

  OK. How about you, House?

• 5:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I totally agree. This is a team that showed us it still has room to grow. And, you know, the big what if is what if Garland was healthy?

• 5:29Bill Simmons?

  Right. What if Mobley plays game one? What if Garland was healthy?

• 5:32Speaker 05

  Hunter was banged up?

• 5:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:34Bill Simmons?

  Because I was thinking we did Phoenix for the West in part one. And we were talking about how badly that went to shit over the span of three years. Right? And it all starts because Luca beats them in that playoff series. And it just sends them on tilt. And then Ishbia comes in. Now, all of a sudden, the KD trade happens and they just start blowing things up. I think in the old NBA, I think, I wonder if Cleveland would have done a let's blow it up, something. You know what I mean? Like, would Garland have been dangled? Would they have said, ah, maybe we can get away with Evan Mobley and maybe shop Jared Allen for two guys? But in this new NBA, this is where they're going to be. What would an Evan Mobley MVP season look like for you, Zach?

• 6:17Speaker 04

  Uh, what he, how many points did he average last year? Let me look at that. I'm guessing 21, something like that.

• 6:21Bill Simmons?

  He was like 19 and 19 and 9, something like that.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  So 24, that's to be a big jump in scoring. Three-point shooting has to get better, uh, although he was 37% last year, low volume. And just a little bit more, oh, he really feels not, he really feels more like a 1A than a third option behind Garland and Mitchell in terms of creating, initiating possessions.

• 6:46Bill Simmons?

  I had the minutes per game has to go up because they had low minutes for everybody last year. So maybe like 34, 35 minutes a game, 24 and 12, realistic?

• 6:56Speaker 04

  12 is tough. 12 is tough. From nine and a half to 12 with a center that eats a lot of rebounds. That's tough.

• 7:02Bill Simmons?

  Top three defensive player of the year rankings, somewhere in there.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  He's there.

• 7:06Bill Simmons?

  One, so.

• 7:07Speaker 04

  Check it.

• 7:08Bill Simmons?

  50, 40, 80 percentages. It's 24. I think the Cavs would have to have like 65 wins. I don't think it's going to happen. How, what do you got?

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Uh, in terms of what I think about this team?

• 7:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  Um, I think they're capable of running it back. They just set such a high bar last year and it really was, I wonder how much of it was attributable to just that, that the arrival of Kenny Atkinson and everything to the guys on the floor starting to make sense.

• 7:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  You could see how the combination of Atkinson plus those guys are like, yes, okay. This is, and there's, I'm not, this isn't shade of JB Bickerstaff. He got the most out of the crew with what he brought to the table. Atkinson, different guy, different kind of approach. And I think it, it, he elevated Mobley. The guy who gets credit for elevating Mobley is Atkinson, in my humble opinion. And there is still that room to, to, to grow. Um, this is a huge drop off in win total that I don't really grasp, especially in view of what has, what we've all observed in the East.

• 8:15Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 8:15Speaker 04

  So.

• 8:16Bill Simmons?

  The attrition. No Tatum, no Howburn.

• 8:20Speaker 04

  And I, I'm skeptical about some of the teams that we say, oh, there, there's big leaps coming in wins for, for a couple of teams that will, that will get to. So I'm, I don't think I'm gonna go, you know, so am I supposed to say my pick?

• 8:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, go.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. It's an over for me because 57 wins is perfectly reasonable for this team.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  I am a little surprised to be going under. It's a high number, 56 and a half. I realized they won 64 last year. They were 20 and nine in close games in the last three minutes, score within three points. I don't know if they could duplicate that. I'm just a little nervous that Garland's already hurt to start the season. Struce is already hurt to start the season. That combined with maybe someone else gets hurt along the way slash we're not going to go pedal to the metal all the way like we did last year when we're like good vibes with first team together. Let's see what we can do. I could just see a little ease off the gas and just have a nice, normal 55, 54 win season. So again, I gotta go under on some people on the high end. I'm going to go a little under on the cats.

• 9:21Bill Simmons?

  It's fine.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  It's weird to go under 56 and a half on a 64 win team. So I don't know, the injuries to start the season make me a little nervous.

• 9:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then you also have the Lonzo piece too. Where last year the Ty Jerome certainly this year of Lonzo, who if he's playing is great. I thought about the injury stuff too, and I think that's why the number is priced where it is.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Cause I'm with House. It's a good number.

• 9:42Bill Simmons?

  The first time I looked at it, I'm like, whoa, that's low. They won 64 last year.

• 9:46Speaker 05

  There's a very good chance this is a very stupid under by me, especially with the Mobley leap potential is like the best possible reason to go over, even if you're concerned about the injuries.

• 9:55Bill Simmons?

  I'm going over for two reasons. One is the Mobley leap possibility, which I think at age 24, it's right around now.

• 10:04Bill Simmons?

  I think they treated the regular, I know they won a bunch of games in the regular season last year, but the minutes number was low. And I remember some of the dialogue when they got to the playoffs was like, these guys kind of weren't ready for the ramp up because they had been kind of babied throughout the regular season. And did we do something wrong? Should we have handled the regular season a little more aggressively than we did versus like trying to get these guys pacing them, getting ready. And then all of a sudden they're taking haymakers in the playoffs like, ah, what's this? So I wonder if they're going to be more aggressive in the regular season. So that swung it for me. Thought maybe that's like two, three extra wins where they're just taking it a little more seriously that they have to keep laying the smackdown. Also, the East is just worse. I mean, there's just.

• 10:48Bill Simmons?

  Multiple games now, especially like in the first half of the season where you're playing the Celtics without Tatum, right? There's two games that they should probably favor. I think they're be favored in a lot of games.

• 10:58Speaker 05

  You know what? I'm changing my pick. I'm going over. Wow. I'm changing it. I don't know if that's allowed. My first midstream. He did it already.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  I did.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  I'm doing my first.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Mine was open.

• 11:07Speaker 05

  I'm doing my first midstream change. I'm going over 56 and a half. It's just too many. It's, there's too many like wins to grab against 34 win mediocrities across the conference. I'm going over on Cleveland. Sorry Cavs fans.

• 11:21Bill Simmons?

  You coward.

• 11:22Speaker 05

  I just, I didn't feel great about it from the beginning. I'm going over.

• 11:27Bill Simmons?

  The East is lousy. Over is the right move. Detroit is over 46 and a half. They were 44 and 38 last year. They added Karis Levert, Duncan Robinson, Jeff Green.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  Still in the league.

• 11:43Bill Simmons?

  Javonte Green?

• 11:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely not Jeff Green.

• 11:44Bill Simmons?

  I wrote down Green.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  They had a Green.

• 11:47Bill Simmons?

  Javonte Green? Javonte Green?

• 11:50Speaker 05

  AJ some sort.

• 11:51Bill Simmons?

  They added Green. Gerald Green?

• 11:53Speaker 05

  No, AJ Green's on Milwaukee. AC Green?

• 11:57Bill Simmons?

  They lost Tim Hardaway, they lost Schroder, they lost Fentekeo and almost definitely lost Malik Beasley. There's still a chance maybe he comes back on a short contract because they have some rights with that. This is a team that's being thrown into a lot of taking a leap conversations. And I'll just start, I'll start us off normally to throw it, but I don't really see it with Detroit. I thought the 44 and 38 last year was a little deceiving because they played hard every game and that, you know, there was some schedule stuff with it and Cade was really good and it was exciting to watch. But I think they're worse than they were last year. I'm not a huge Levert guy.

• 12:40Bill Simmons?

  Robinson Miami quit on 14 times over the last five years. And I thought their vets like really mattered to them with some of those games. They looked good in that Knicks series. I like Cade, like Dern obviously. Ivy's coming back, which would be like the other factor you would say. The only way I see it is if there's some giant Asar Thompson leap that I think people really seem to want to happen, but 47 felt rich to me and I'm kind of leaning toward under. Where'd you stand Zach?

• 13:13Speaker 05

  First of all, Asar Thompson is my pick for most improved player. So I'm excited about him.

• 13:17Bill Simmons?

  That would help. This is fun.

• 13:19Speaker 05

  And he missed, he'd actually played more than I thought last year. He only missed 23 games, I think, but he didn't play a ton of minutes. Other than Ivy and him, they were very, very healthy last year. And, and other than Ivy, they had Schroder for a lot of the year to sort of make up for that.

• 13:32Bill Simmons?

  Who was pretty important for them in those last two months. It's like, yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 04

  And the playoffs.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm bullish on Detroit's like medium-term future. I think last year was pretty real. I think the playoff toughness was pretty real. I ended up going under, um, just because I can see this being one of those like, well, development's not always linear in terms of win totals. Sometimes you have like a little step back or a little plateau along the way on your rise up to something. I think we're a year away from the rise and ironing out the offensive kinks, I think is going to be the story of the season. Durin, Asar, non, they don't have a lot of three-point shooting. They were a very high turnover team. I don't know how much of that they can really fix. So I can see another year just like last year. So I'm going under on Detroit.

• 14:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, somewhere in the mid 40s. And then bringing back Ivy, who I think is going to be extension eligible in a year, but it's now, now.

• 14:28Speaker 05

  He and, he and Durin are extension eligible now.

• 14:30Bill Simmons?

  And it's Cade's team. You gotta slide him in. What do you, what do you see, House?

• 14:34Speaker 04

  The single biggest factor for me, um, is Beasley thing. He was unbelievable from three last year and that was really important to them. He was one of the three best three-point shooters in the entire NBA, Malik Beasley.

• 14:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  And, and it was very quiet over the course.

• 14:49Bill Simmons?

  And one of the worst gamblers. Now, we don't know. Not proven. Nothing proven.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  There's just allegations out there.

• 14:54Bill Simmons?

  Just allegations.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  And I think that that's not like, oh, we just acquired Duncan Robinson and, and we fixed it. And some of that offensive stuff, Karis Levert will fill in some of those blanks. I like this team to. Win forty six games. I like this team to win more than they won last year.

• 15:10Bill Simmons?

  So you're going half under.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  And it's an under. Right. Yeah. Cause forty six is not a bad record in the East and it's still an under. So it's an under. Um, the Jaden, you guys already said, it's like, tell me how Jaden Ivy is going to play. Like, tell me what his impact will be.

• 15:25Speaker 05

  I think he'll be fine. I think Jay, Jay and I will be fine.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  Shot catch and shoot threes really well.

• 15:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  I like Levert and Robinson better than you guys. I don't think they've lost as much from the, the Beasley volume. Duncan Robinson won't be able to duplicate, but like, he's a little bit of a better passer, like two man game with Durin, I could see.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 15:45Bill Simmons?

  Cause Levert had Cleveland winning with him being like, I think we can do better. That makes me nervous. I thought he was very ball stoppy.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Wild card here, as you have mentioned in the West part is, uh, do they make some sort of massive move in the middle of the season? To win now and that could vault them over to the over, but I'm not, I, I think actually just we'll, we'll see what they do, but I'm, I'm, I don't feel great. I'm going a little under, so.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  It's a tiny bit.

• 16:13Bill Simmons?

  Slide unders for all of us and the marketing trade could really fuck it up.

• 16:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, sure.

• 16:17Bill Simmons?

  If they just come in in February, come in hot.

• 16:19Speaker 05

  This is the sequel to all of us being over on the Clippers. I'm surprised all of us are under on the Pistons.

• 16:26Bill Simmons?

  I, they feel like every year there's a team and weirdly it was Orlando last year.

• 16:32Bill Simmons?

  Who had the year from hell, but there's always a team that people just vault to the next level, even though we haven't really seen it. And a lot of it is, you kind of have to look at the circumstance from the previous season. I just thought forty four and thirty eight. To me, they were a five hundred team that played hard and were fun to watch. We'll see.

• 16:51Bill Simmons?

  I also like this next team a lot more. Just spoiler alert, the Milwaukee Bucks, over under forty two and a half. They are 20 to 1 to win the conference, which is the eighth best odds in the East, even though they have the best player in the conference in Giannis. Minus 215 for the playoffs. They were 48 and 34 last year. They turned Lopez into Myles Turner. They turned Dame lowered into Cole Anthony. And they turned Connaughton into Coffee and Harris. And they're deep and they're a sneaky, great shooting team, Zach.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Great. Didn't take a lot, but they were the number one three-point shooting team by percentage.

• 17:30Bill Simmons?

  38.5 last year. They had Prince, Green, Porter, Trent, and Rollins all over 40%. Turner was at 39.6. Porter's 37. Dame was actually lower than all those numbers. And, uh, and they have shooting and they have Giannis. And this number is dumbfounding to me because I don't think they're trading Giannis this season. And I just don't see a world where this isn't like a 46-win team.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  Well, look, I mean, what did they win last year? 48?

• 17:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  And they added Thanasis and Alex Antetokounmpo.

• 18:04Bill Simmons?

  No brainer. And Russell Westbrook and Antetokounmpo.

• 18:07Speaker 04

  Talk about a freak off. We, this is, we got the, all the freaks are in Milwaukee.

• 18:13Bill Simmons?

  Literal freak off. It's a G-rated freak off.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  It's the real freak off right here in Milwaukee town. Now, uh, I think this team actually makes more sense than last year's team. I think that like the version of this team, now I got hammered. I want to like right hand up. I got smashed at the outset of the playoffs because this version of Milwaukee with all those shooters going up against Indiana. I thought that that freak was going to be able to assert his will and this, and the shooters on Milwaukee would keep them in and the Pacers ran them the fuck off the floor. And I lost a bunch of money. But I still think that the core identity of this Milwaukee team, like Turner coming in makes it, makes it absolutely seamless. He's an improvement over Brook Lopez.

• 18:56Bill Simmons?

  I mean, a huge improvement. I didn't think Brook was good last year.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  He was fine. I, I think where I would disagree with you is that like, who do, who do I want dribbling the basketball other than Giannis? And at least I had like another guy to do that with Dame last year in a pick and roll combination that made sense.

• 19:13Speaker 04

  Fair.

• 19:13Speaker 05

  Kevin Porter Jr. is probably a little overtaxed in the role he's going to get. Same with Ryan Rollins, but. As long as, I mean, like, and Giannis typically plays about 65 ish games. So like the remaining 15 to 20 are going to be big for how much, if, if for how much they go over this number. I am also an over. Giannis plus shooting just makes a lot of sense to me. If he gets to 65, 70 games.

• 19:37Bill Simmons?

  How about desperate Giannis? Well, this is my back is to the wall career wise, and I've thought about this all summer and I'm tired of losing Giannis.

• 19:43Speaker 05

  Kuzma can't be worse. Um, I think, I think Jericho Sims is like a decent backup center.

• 19:49Bill Simmons?

  I agree with this.

• 19:50Speaker 05

  And again, but the wild card is like, is there a world where this goes really south and Giannis is not on the team after the trade deadline? I agree with you. I think that's much more likely to be an off season thing than an in season thing. So I am taking, without much thought, actually, this is an aggressive over for me.

• 20:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I have it as a, I'm locking it down.

• 20:06Speaker 04

  So am I. And there's what?

• 20:08Speaker 05

  Triple lock, triple lock.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  Triple lock.

• 20:10Speaker 05

  It's on my lock.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  It's Tuesday, October the 14th, we're taping this podcast, Doc Rivers birthday. Triple lock on Doc.

• 20:17Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  How about that?

• 20:17Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 20:18Speaker 04

  Triple lock on Doc.

• 20:19Speaker 05

  Doc Rivers birthday.

• 20:20Bill Simmons?

  Um, everyone invested in this needs the Bucks to win basketball games. They have no picks. Doc Rivers doesn't, I mean, he left Boston the moment they were even hinting of rebuilding. Like he doesn't want to rebuild with anybody. Giannis, if he's going to be there, is going to try to win every game possible. Myles Turner just signed this deal and is pissed at Indiana and he's going to want to beat everybody too. They also, a lot of the guys in this rotation are still like chip on their shoulder, nobody believes in me, why don't people think I'm good guys? Like Kevin Porter, what the fuck has he ever done? Like he's still playing like he's proven himself. Trent, over and over again, gets discounted in free agency. Portis, like he's born with that chip.

• 21:02Speaker 05

  Cole Anthony, how about like, I was a six man of the year candidate, like a hot minute ago.

• 21:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was giving away. I'm, I think Cole Anthony could play crunch time for them. Uh, I like, I like that Rollins. I thought he was pretty good for them last year. And Green is just like, the one thing we've seen with shooters like that, they get better every year that they're in the league, right? They always go up and I thought he was good last year. I think this team's going to be good.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  He's AJ Green's a good player, great chemistry with Giannis. Portis is just rock steady offense off the bench. We had barely even mentioned him. We take him for granted because he just does what he does. I think that I'm stunned that this line is so low. Like, I, I, I don't, I don't know what that was.

• 21:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I really think that's it. I think people think he's just gonna ask for a deal. I have them, I think they're either fourth or fifth in the East. I have them or Atlanta.

• 21:48Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 21:48Bill Simmons?

  Four or five. I think they're not a playing team. I think they're a playoff team.

• 21:52Speaker 05

  That makes tons of sense.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  I agree, they're top six for me, for sure.

• 21:54Speaker 05

  We're all in agreement.

• 21:55Bill Simmons?

  So I did write down, if we did get to vote for, I, you're gonna get your vote back, would be my guess this year.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  I haven't asked for it, but.

• 22:02Bill Simmons?

  If, uh, you don't, you don't want the vote anymore, do you?

• 22:06Speaker 05

  I mean, there's, I'm torn, but we'll see how it.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  You know, if you don't have the vote, you can gamble. That's why, uh, nobody offered it to me, but I'm.

• 22:19Bill Simmons?

  If they added an LVP award for most damaging player who played at least 25 minutes on a playoff team.

• 22:25Speaker 05

  Don't do this to Kyle.

• 22:26Bill Simmons?

  Kuzma's minus 250.

• 22:29Bill Simmons?

  I can't even think who would be another like heavy prohibitive favorite.

• 22:32Speaker 05

  And he's not, that's not him. He's not, I know he became a punchline last year. Like, he's not a bad NBA player. He, he's gonna bounce back this year.

• 22:41Bill Simmons?

  You're predicting the Kuzma bounce back?

• 22:43Speaker 05

  Kuzma bounce back.

• 22:44Bill Simmons?

  Will I hit the legacy button or not?

• 22:45Speaker 04

  Not most.

• 22:47Bill Simmons?

  2020 champion Kuzma legacy button?

• 22:49Speaker 04

  The Kuzma legacy.

• 22:51Bill Simmons?

  Well, they need him because if he actually can be somewhat what he looked like three years ago before House's Wizards contaminated him.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  Well, he, not contaminated.

• 23:01Bill Simmons?

  He got bit by a spider on the Wizards.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  He was his own, you know, it was a self sabotage alongside what was happening with the team. The problem with him, what happened is that he checked the fuck out two years ago. And you can't flip a switch in, in this league and show up with a team that's contending and beget your head right for, for contending. So we're gonna see this off season with this group, is his head in the right place?

• 23:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm proud that we got through this whole segment without talking about Giannis' future and where he's gonna go.

• 23:29Speaker 05

  Well, we kinda did, we talked around it.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  You have a whole season to do that.

• 23:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:34Bill Simmons?

  If there was one team, if we're wrong and he gets traded during the season.

• 23:39Speaker 05

  Oh, boy.

• 23:40Bill Simmons?

  You could only pick one team that that trade would happen to. What is the team?

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Do I have to go first?

• 23:47Bill Simmons?

  I'll go first.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Go ahead.

• 23:49Bill Simmons?

  San Antonio.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 23:53Bill Simmons?

  Cause I don't think the Knicks, I just don't think it's an appetizing trade for the Bucks. I'm not trading Giannis for what the Knicks are offering.

• 24:00Speaker 05

  Houston.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Good. So you guys took one and two?

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  So what's that trade? Shangoon?

• 24:04Speaker 05

  I don't know it. You just asked me to name a team. Stop there. I'm not going any further.

• 24:08Bill Simmons?

  Shangoon.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Mine is?

• 24:11Bill Simmons?

  Reed Shepard.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  Oklahoma City.

• 24:14Speaker 05

  That's insane.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Okay. Just saying, they have the picks and the players.

• 24:17Bill Simmons?

  Presti's even more risk averse than Zach.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  They have, what's, what's the risk of taking on Giannis?

• 24:22Speaker 05

  They just won the championship.

• 24:24Bill Simmons?

  We just, we all picked, we all picked them to lock in over 62 and a half wins. What are they trading for Giannis?

• 24:29Speaker 04

  Does Giannis hurt that? Giannis diminishes their win potential?

• 24:34Bill Simmons?

  I feel comfortable predicting that he will not get traded. It's okay, see?

• 24:37Speaker 04

  That's fine.

• 24:37Bill Simmons?

  Reporting that right now.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  Purely.

• 24:39Bill Simmons?

  On the ESPN ticker.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  It's a ridiculous exercise. So I gave an answer of a team that has assets.

• 24:43Bill Simmons?

  San Antonio is ridiculous.

• 24:44Speaker 05

  It's not. It's not.

• 24:46Bill Simmons?

  I think that's the team that makes a ton of sense. And by the way, Giannis and Wemby on the same team is an absolute, like Zach, putting the microphone down, walking away, doing like a couple laps and doing this a few times.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  You, you, that's all fine, but just acknowledge that that is an enormous fuck you to Milwaukee. There's nothing they're getting back from San Antonio, other than we'll be good in five years, guys. We'll be good again in five years.

• 25:13Bill Simmons?

  Fox can be in that trade.

• 25:14Speaker 05

  I was gonna say.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  And we'll be good again in five years.

• 25:18Bill Simmons?

  Castle could be in that trade.

• 25:21Speaker 04

  We'll be good again in the East in three years.

• 25:23Bill Simmons?

  There's a bunch of picks that could go in that trade.

• 25:25Speaker 04

  That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying.

• 25:27Bill Simmons?

  Kelly Olynyk could be in that trade.

• 25:28Speaker 04

  I love Kelly Olynyk.

• 25:29Speaker 05

  Luke Cornet on top of it.

• 25:30Bill Simmons?

  Great eater. Cornet can. He's like hanging up. Don't mention Luke Cornet.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  One of the best eaters in the NBA, Kelly Olynyk.

• 25:35Bill Simmons?

  Our next team is the Indiana Pacers.

• 25:39Bill Simmons?

  The over under was at 38 and a half. It dropped to 37 and a half, and now it is at a comfortable 36 and a half. I think because,

• 25:47Bill Simmons?

  oh, I remember Tyrese Haliburton's out for the year. That probably hurts it. McConnell's out for the first month, it looks like. And they lost Myles Turner to the, to the, to the Bucks. They're 15 and 32 last year. So this would be a 14 win drop. If you think they're going under. They are plus 154 for the playoffs.

• 26:09Bill Simmons?

  They're plus 110 for the play in.

• 26:12Bill Simmons?

  They are 35 to one for the conference. They do have their own first round pick.

• 26:20Speaker 05

  And I'm gonna do my first are we sure? Dot, dot, dot of either over under pod.

• 26:27Bill Simmons?

  Are we sure the Pacers aren't gonna be pretty good?

• 26:31Speaker 05

  So you're going over? I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure. This was one of my toughest ones because the line is very low. Thirty six and a half. And I will, I will say this for the Pacers. And this is relevant on the flip side to some other teams are gonna talk about. Yeah, they lost Halliburton. Their whole identity is wrapped up in how he plays. And particularly how he plays with a stretch center who they also lost and are replacing with a mishmash of guys who are not quite that player. All that said, this is a bunch of serious fucking dudes who care about the right things. There's, you will never hear anything on this and a serious coach. You will never hear anything on this team about this guy's hogging the ball. There's a little Matherin, like, does he fit in the identity?

• 27:14Speaker 05

  But like, this guy's shirking his responsibility on defense. This guy's not executing the scheme. This guy's being selfish. Like, there's just none of that on the team. It's a team of serious, adult basketball players. And that gets you pretty far in the East. So that's my answer to like, I'm not sure that they're not gonna be pretty good or they're whatever the double negative I just said was. That said, I am going under on thirty six and a half. I just think they lost.

• 27:40Bill Simmons?

  What a zag.

• 27:41Speaker 05

  I think they lost so much of their identity.

• 27:44Bill Simmons?

  Zach zag.

• 27:44Speaker 05

  I think they lost so much of their identity.

• 27:48Speaker 05

  So much of their style of play. Their full court press is not gonna take everyone off guard like it did last year. McConnell's already injured. Their margin for like any more injuries is pretty slim. Can Nemhart really be like a co number one option and guard the best guy on the other team? Like, how mu- how long can he sustain that? And if we're five games under five hundred, we do, thanks to the Pelicans, by the way, own our pick. And we don't own it every year going forward. That, there are some years they don't own it because of the Pascal trade. Is there some, you know, reverse incentive? So I'm going under. Sorry Pacers.

• 28:27Bill Simmons?

  This was one of the controversial over unders, just in general, House.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:30Bill Simmons?

  What do you have?

• 28:31Speaker 04

  I have them over because 37 is such a low bar in the East and Zach made a compelling case, the case for why I, this team is not showing up to roll over. They get derailed with any more injuries. They cannot have any more injuries, but I have Benedict Matherin in my most improved. Like I'm, I'm looking hot and heavy at those odds.

• 28:55Bill Simmons?

  Great job, House.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  He gets, he, he gets the touches.

• 28:58Bill Simmons?

  I really like it.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  The touches are the thing that translate into him getting his head right. Cause Zach, you kind of alluded to a little bit like, what is this guy? Is he wanna, you know, where is exactly, he thinks he should get the ball more than he does. Well, that's like not a concern this year.

• 29:13Bill Simmons?

  14 to one on Fanduel, second best odds.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:16Speaker 05

  Wow, really?

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 05

  Who's number one?

• 29:19Bill Simmons?

  Amen Thompson, plus 850. And your guy, uh, his brother is 20 to one.

• 29:25Bill Simmons?

  I'll, I'll book all Nikola Jovic 25 to one bets. If you guys want to make those with me directly.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  You know who else is a serious basketball player? Pascal Siakam, serious.

• 29:38Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 29:39Speaker 05

  Doesn't, doesn't play selfishly, plays hard all the time. Serious dude, bunch of serious dudes. Nairn Neesmith, Neesmith Island, that was an island, serious dude.

• 29:47Bill Simmons?

  Boy, did we clean up on Neesmith Island. I'm going over.

• 29:53Bill Simmons?

  I think this team just has a bunch of professional dudes who really got a taste of it for a long, prolonged stretch of time last year and really understood this is the level it needs to be at. This feels great to be here. I don't want to lose this. I was watching the preseason San Antonio, Indiana last night, just Toppin. Toppin's gonna play more minutes this year.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:16Bill Simmons?

  Toppin's like ready for it. Toppin's good. You think Toppin's like, oh no, we lost Miles Turner. He's like, fuck that, more minutes for me. Siakam, Neesmith, Matherin. You think he's like super upset that he's gonna be getting all the Tyrese Halbert and touches for six months?

• 30:34Speaker 04

  Contract year Matherin.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  Could be, yeah.

• 30:37Bill Simmons?

  Love them hard. I'm excited to see what he can do with more stuff.

• 30:41Bill Simmons?

  I've always liked Jarrus Walker.

• 30:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:43Bill Simmons?

  I've been kind of mentioning that for the last two years. I really want to see what happens with him. And I guess the thing for me is can they can they kind of mismatch Phil, the Turner stuff, with Toppin, with Isaiah Jackson, with Huff? Can they just kind of piece together a facsimile of his numbers?

• 31:04Speaker 05

  A facsimile?

• 31:05Bill Simmons?

  A facsimile.

• 31:06Speaker 05

  Faximile.

• 31:07Bill Simmons?

  Faximile.

• 31:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:09Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry, was that ignominious?

• 31:11Speaker 05

  Well, if you're gonna.

• 31:15Speaker 05

  It's where fax machine comes from, facsimile.

• 31:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, facsimile. Uh, I think they can patch together his numbers on offense. I don't, defense probably won't be the same, but he was a real liability in that OKC series. Um, I like Huff.

• 31:30Bill Simmons?

  I really like Carlisle. My biggest fear is beyond Halliburton, can they survive the loss of James Johnson?

• 31:37Bill Simmons?

  What he brought. Knowing that you're winning any bench clearing brawl, so you can be aggressive because James Johnson's right there. He's your double deuce bouncer. I am, I'm a hard over and it's a borderline lock for me.

• 31:49Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 31:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 31:51Bill Simmons?

  I think they're gonna be good. I.

• 31:52Speaker 05

  Look, I don't, it doesn't feel good to me to take the under on a team of serious professional basketball players. I'm just, I'm doing it anyway.

• 31:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's something about the season after an overachieving team that had some sort of bad something. Somebody left, somebody got injured, whatever, but there's still the DNA of like, what it took to get to where you got the year before that I think carries over. I really do.

• 32:16Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 32:16Speaker 04

  Strong agree with that.

• 32:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think they're, I think they're gonna be in above 500.

• 32:20Speaker 04

  You're only asking me to win 37 games.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  And I guess my, my thing was how much of the DNA is Halliburton?

• 32:27Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 32:29Bill Simmons?

  I would argue the DNA is more from Carlisle and that style they had with all of these ball handlers, all this pressure, all this unselfishness. It's a little like what I, not to step on the Celtics section, but I think the Celtics had a real style and a system that even if you take Tatum out of it, which is awful, he's one of the best six players in the league, they're still gonna shoot threes, they're still gonna have guys who do certain things and they still know who they are. I like when teams know who they are compared to like a Sacramento.

• 32:58Speaker 05

  I guess I just.

• 32:59Bill Simmons?

  So we take one more shot at them.

• 33:00Speaker 05

  Do they know who they are or are they just tough mentally and physically like who are they without Tyrese Haliburton and Miles Turner? I don't know who they are.

• 33:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think Shepard is gonna have to step up.

• 33:11Speaker 05

  Serious dude.

• 33:13Bill Simmons?

  And then Matherin, basically those guys are gonna split the minutes for the Haliburton 30 plus minutes a game. I don't know. I think they're gonna be good. I.

• 33:22Speaker 05

  You guys are making me feel bad.

• 33:24Bill Simmons?

  That's not the point. Don't worry. You can make fun of me for this next one. The Chicago Bulls 32 and a half. Last year they were 39 and 43. They lost Lonzo Ball and added Isaac Okoro plus a lottery pick who won't play. Playoffs plus 320. Year two of Booze Ellis.

• 33:43Bill Simmons?

  They went 17 and 10 after the All-Star break and then the 10th net rating in the league. So House, why would they go 32 and 50 in a worse East with guys that are a year older?

• 33:53Speaker 04

  I don't think they are. I'm not, I'm not taking the under on this team. Billy Donovan, nine of the last 10 seasons has won at least 39 games. This franchise has given us no indication that they intend to rewrite the, the play in purgatory that they are in. That is their playbook.

• 34:12Bill Simmons?

  The safest non-tanking bet in the NBA because they just want to go 40 and 42 every year for the rest of.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  They want to go to the play in and lose Miami.

• 34:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 04

  That is the goal of the Chicago Bulls. They are perfectly aligned to, to meet that goal this season. I am taking the over on the Chicago Bulls.

• 34:28Bill Simmons?

  Them 40 and 42 is 62 and 20.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  It's exactly right.

• 34:33Speaker 05

  I think the better question is why is this line so low? For a team that's won 40, 39 and 39. Why is the line so low? I actually think the line is very well placed. I think this team is gonna win fewer games than it did last year despite the bulk of the team being young.

• 34:51Speaker 05

  I think the roster is just full of question marks on the wing, almost across the board. Vuch's defense is getting worse and worse every year.

• 34:58Bill Simmons?

  Defense is bad.

• 34:59Speaker 05

  I don't know how they build a competent defense out of this team. I don't know how they build a above average offense out of this team. But 32 and a half is just too low. It's too low for a team that's gonna run like hell to try to get to that magical 38, 39 win mark in the play in. So I'm going over, but I think the line is, is shrewd. I think this is a worse, like I'm going over and I see like 34 and 48.

• 35:22Bill Simmons?

  I thought the line should have been thirty four and a half. I thought you're getting two free wins. One, one thing I like about this team as a bad team is they actually know who they are. They have a style. I went to that Laker game last year when they just ran up and down and tried to run the Lakers off the court.

• 35:36Speaker 05

  Was that the giddy heave? Was that game?

• 35:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:40Bill Simmons?

  The giddy way together. I really like Buzellis.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  Me too. Yes.

• 35:45Bill Simmons?

  And I think there's a little under the hood with him to kind of bump this up. And, uh, and they have more of a bench this year. I mean, even having guys like Herter and Zach Collins, like these guys are at least like

• 35:57Speaker 05

  A Coros.

• 35:57Bill Simmons?

  Tenth level Coro. These guys are like rotation guys.

• 36:00Speaker 05

  Bench capable. I think it's an easy over at, at this number. If, if you had set the over at thirty eight and a half, I would have been an under.

• 36:08Bill Simmons?

  Uh, yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 05

  At that, at that, which is where it should be based on what they've done the past few years. It's interesting that the line is still, they were also twenty nine and forty last year. Finished ten and three against a pretty angel food cake schedule. So there's some like might be some

• 36:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the thing. We know they don't tank. They, for whatever reason, don't believe in tanking. I said it's like one of those rom coms that come on Netflix. That my wife is trying to decide whether she should click on it or not. And the thumbnail has Kate Mara, Patrick Dempsey and Connie Britton. And my wife's like, huh, I kind of like all three of those people, but I've never heard of this movie. Should I click on this? Is this movie good? I'm like, I don't know.

• 36:50Speaker 05

  First of all.

• 36:51Bill Simmons?

  That's a thirty four and forty eight team.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  You guys stop right now.

• 36:54Bill Simmons?

  Connie Britton?

• 36:55Speaker 05

  You cannot.

• 36:56Bill Simmons?

  Disparage Connie Britton?

• 36:58Speaker 05

  You cannot comp Dartmouth College's own Connie Britton with anybody on this Chicago Bulls roster. Don't do it.

• 37:04Bill Simmons?

  Like a Kobe White?

• 37:05Speaker 05

  Take it back, delete it from the podcast. Mrs. Coach.

• 37:09Bill Simmons?

  Mrs. Coach.

• 37:09Speaker 05

  Mrs. Coach. I won't have it. I won't, I won't have it.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  All right.

• 37:13Speaker 05

  You want to compare her to, you know, a, an all star, fine.

• 37:16Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 37:17Speaker 05

  Not, not anyone on this team.

• 37:19Bill Simmons?

  Last ten years, the Bulls are three forty nine and four forty four.

• 37:23Speaker 05

  Great.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  Mission accomplished.

• 37:24Bill Simmons?

  Sixth worst record. The other five teams are all in the East. Pistons, number one, Wizards, two, Hornets, three, Magic, four, Nets, five, Bulls, six. The six worst teams in the league the last ten years.

• 37:40Speaker 05

  The Kings not being on that list is one of the greatest upsets that I can like, what?

• 37:44Speaker 04

  They lit the beam.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  But we're all over.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  We're all over on the Bulls.

• 37:52Bill Simmons?

  My stock guy.

• 37:53Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 37:57Bill Simmons?

  Buzelis, really? Buzelis Island? Well, Zach's right here.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  Not everything can be an island. Everybody loves Buzelis.

• 38:06Bill Simmons?

  Zach said there's no valley. Okay.

• 38:10Bill Simmons?

  Not everything can be an island. How dare you? Is there, are we gonna have one island we're gonna create this year?

• 38:16Speaker 05

  If you want to create an island.

• 38:17Bill Simmons?

  I do want to create an island this year.

• 38:18Speaker 05

  How about you create Dalen Terry Island? Julian Phillips Island? Those are islands.

• 38:25Bill Simmons?

  Those are.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Those are islands.

• 38:27Bill Simmons?

  I have a couple Celtics islands.

• 38:28Speaker 05

  Pat Williams Island? Pat Williams Island had a decent population for a while. It's deserted.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  It is, yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 05

  The volleyball is floating off the coast.

• 38:38Bill Simmons?

  Josh Minot Island might come up later.

• 38:40Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 38:41Bill Simmons?

  All right, so we're all going, uh.

• 38:43Speaker 04

  Over on the Bulls.

• 38:43Bill Simmons?

  Over, over, over. Wow.

• 38:46Speaker 05

  It's a sad state of affairs.

• 38:48Bill Simmons?

  The New York Knicks are coming up after we take a break. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details.

• 39:33Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA season is coming. FanDuel is the place to let you play your game. Everything, everything they have to get you ready for the season. We'll be talking about it a lot on the podcast for not just today, but the rest of the week and next week.

• 40:15Bill Simmons?

  Cool bets, season leaders, player specials, win totals, exact team outcomes, playoff parlays. You can go nuts. Even better, you can parlay your favorite bets together for an even bigger payout. Take a flyer on the MVP race, crown your champion in October, parlay or playoff dark horses. We're going to be doing our season future boost. We're trying to figure this out during the over under pods. FanDuel is going to have it. I'll talk about it on my Thursday podcast. We like to put three teams together with win totals, 40 plus wins, 45 plus wins, 50 plus wins, put them together and we're on a win streak. We lost last year because of the stupid Suns, but we're going to win this year. So get ready for our boost announced on Thursday's pod. Visit FanDuel.com/BS today and you can start planning your futures bets now. FanDuel, play your game.

• 41:00Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus, present in select states, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky and Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-Help.com, call 888-797-777 or visit CCPG.org/chat in Connecticut. The Atlantic Division, the New York Knicks, over under 52 and a half, minus 250 for the division, plus 380 for the conference, 11-1 to win the title, plus 280 for the one seed house. They added Yabaseli, who we all love, whatever's left to Malcolm Brogdon, whatever's left to Jordan Clarkson. They lost Precious Achua and they exchanged Tibbs for Mike Brown. Will that solve this? Solve whatever's ailing the Knicks at low.

• 41:42Speaker 05

  I don't know what it will solve. You know, it's one of those things you could kind of see coming based on how the Indiana series was going. I'm just going to come out and just say right now, they were also like, they were pretty healthy last year with their core guys, but I'm going to, I'm just going to lead with it. I've seen a lot of unders on this number. A lot of the projection systems are under. It's a big number. What did they win last year? 51 games?

• 42:04Bill Simmons?

  51 and 31.

• 42:05Speaker 05

  I'm going over on the Knicks.

• 42:07Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 42:08Speaker 05

  I feel good about it. I think this is, there's this line of thinking like, well, you know, a Tibbs team always maximizes regular season win totals. He overplays everybody, blah, blah, blah. There's probably going to be a regression this year. I think this team is deeper. I think the core holdover guys are pretty hungry to prove, hey, we're not just like some sort of paper tiger from the East. We're a real team. We got more continuity. We got cat in the door right before the season started. I know it's a big number. Like, I feel pretty good going over on 52 and a half. I think the Knicks are going to win more games than that.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  It is a lock over for me.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  This Knicks team is loaded. I am putting, it's a two-unit play on the one seed for me. I think the Knicks are the best team in the East. And I think this, the two things about what Zach just said that resonate, Mike Brown is going to come in and immediately free up some aspects of the offense. Their bench, I think, averaged under 22 points a game last year. They had, you know, scoring wise, one of the most bereft benches in the league in terms of scoring talent. They have addressed that. They have adults. And I think that, that the bit that we saw with

• 43:22Speaker 04

  Brunson injured in the run-up to the playoffs, the onset of the playoffs, where that, that team got a little more diverse on offense, I think that that clicks, that works with a Mike Brown offense. And I think that that's going to translate into regular season wins. I think they are built for it. I think it's going to be a New York party all season long this upcoming season. It's a lock for the KNICKS.

• 43:45Speaker 05

  Mitch, Rob, can we get like a real season out of him? That's a game changer in terms of just their versatility on both ends of the floor. I just, I've seen a lot of the projection systems be low on the Knicks. I'm the opposite.

• 43:57Bill Simmons?

  I test drove it. I really tried to talk myself into it because I had, I felt like I had one too many overs. And you just go back to last year, the Towns trade happens like right before the season, basically, and Mitch doesn't play for two thirds of the season and their bench was fucking awful. They still won 51 games.

• 44:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:17Bill Simmons?

  And I think Yabaselli is really good. Like I, I don't know why more teams weren't on him. I thought, I really like Cornet too, but Cornet going for twice the price of Yabaselli, I thought was crazy. I also think there's some McBride stuff with them that they can unlock because as a Celtic fan going against them, I was happy when they would take him out. And there's some, there's some him and Brunson together stuff I think they could do. I, I don't know. I just, him, I don't think Brogdon has anything left. I guess we'll find out.

• 44:49Speaker 05

  Spot minutes and he's smart. He's not a big dummy.

• 44:51Bill Simmons?

  Maybe.

• 44:52Speaker 05

  He's not a dummy. I do think.

• 44:53Bill Simmons?

  And then Shamet found himself in the playoffs a little bit. So I, maybe they have 10 guys.

• 44:57Speaker 05

  I like Shamet. I, I, it's confusing to me that Shamet can never hold down. Like you can't just be a consistent 10th man. Like no one seems to trust. But I like him. I like him for this team.

• 45:06Bill Simmons?

  There's home court advantage too with them. And the tips thing was just super weird last year. It was weird to watch in person. He was playing everybody too many minutes.

• 45:15Bill Simmons?

  The only thing that really worried me was if the Yanis thing goes bad and all that rumor stuff starts and trades and, and just this team being in trade rumors could undermine something. I don't, I always felt like we underrate that. It would always happen with LeBron teams where starting December, January, February, these guys were just being rumors and then you could see how it'd affect the team. Towns and Ananobe would be the natural, some sort of piece for Yanis. And it's just, if they're just going to be in rumors from January on, I think that fucks the team up. But I don't think it's going to be enough to.

• 45:50Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 45:50Bill Simmons?

  In a bad East, they, 54, 55 feels right. Right?

• 45:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. And this is, you know, like they're.

• 45:59Speaker 04

  It's a, it's an organization that's all on the same page. It's the CAA, right? It's the CAA organization. Everybody seeing eye to eye. There isn't any backstabbing. There isn't going to be any undermining.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  You're just trying to suck up to Vino right now?

• 46:13Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, I always suck up to Vino because I was saying, how else am I going to get a beautiful master's vest out of, you know,

• 46:18Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 46:18Speaker 04

  with the CAA logo on it. But, uh, there is something to be-

• 46:22Bill Simmons?

  Houses can be bought. I don't know if you knew.

• 46:24Speaker 04

  That is right hand up. I think, yes. Uh, there's something to be said for that institutional stability and Mike Brown that fit. Like, there's a fit to the whole thing.

• 46:32Bill Simmons?

  There's gonna be a real energy around this team this year. Especially if, if Cleveland starts out a little gamey. If, if the Bucks start out nine and 10.

• 46:42Speaker 05

  This is the most exciting slash pressurized New York Knicks season from the jump since Patrick Ewing's prime.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. This is a midnight-

• 46:51Speaker 05

  That's what's at stake.

• 46:52Bill Simmons?

  And that's the thing. Those Knicks teams would go 16 and 22, 59 and 23, whatever. All right, we're all on that.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  Wow. Lock on the Knicks. I thought for sure somebody would be under-

• 47:01Bill Simmons?

  I really want, I tried. I, I test drove it. I looked at, I just couldn't get there.

• 47:05Speaker 05

  What Pelton, what, some of the projections are like, oh, sure.

• 47:08Bill Simmons?

  The problem is when you actually start looking at their schedule and you're like, well, they're going to be favored by 11 in that one. They'll be favored by 15 in that one. They'll be favored by eight there. This will be more fun. The Philadelphia 76ers.

• 47:21Speaker 05

  For the record, Pelton has them projected 47 wins, the Knicks. Crazy. Okay.

• 47:27Bill Simmons?

  Philadelphia, 42 and a half. Plus 490 for the division, 13-1 for the conference, minus 240 for the playoffs. They were 24 and 58 during a tank-tastic 2024-25 campaign. They added VJ Edgecombe. They lost Yabaselli. They're getting Embiid back, we think. McCain's hurt already for a while. When does McCain come back? That's gonna be-

• 47:54Speaker 05

  Unclear.

• 47:54Bill Simmons?

  Unclear.

• 47:55Speaker 05

  I don't think it's too, too long.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not, like, into December, the end of November, I think.

• 47:59Bill Simmons?

  Uh, there's a scenario where this team, Embiid, who's skinnier, we should mention. We're skinny Embiid and some guards and a slightly rejuvenated Paul George and stuff's happening. There's also a scenario where the coach and GM are just getting cleaned out in, like, January.

• 48:20Bill Simmons?

  If you had to pick one of those two scenarios, what would you pick, Zach? You have to pick one.

• 48:23Speaker 05

  What was the first one?

• 48:24Bill Simmons?

  First one is skinny Embiid, some guards. The vibes are good. Didn't realize Paul George had this much left in the tank. Oh, can kind of see the vision.

• 48:34Speaker 05

  I, I think that's a little more likely than, uh, everyone gets fired in December, January. I don't, I don't particularly think either one is likely, but we'll get there.

• 48:43Bill Simmons?

  Great. What do you got? What do you got for this team?

• 48:47Speaker 05

  There's almost no number

• 48:50Speaker 05

  that's realistic that you could have given me where I would take the over. I just can't do it. I'm sorry. Like I can't, I can't do it. I get the upside scenarios. Yeah. I get that they shot, like, I looked this up yesterday. Cause last year, you can point to the missed games and they missed a ton of games. Everyone knows that. Last year was also the first year that they were not good with Embiid on the floor. Like it was the first year that they were either neutral or like with, with all three of Embiid and George and Maxey, they were plus two with Embiid on the plus two, like total points. So like neutral.

• 49:21Bill Simmons?

  You know what the big reason for that was? Other than that he was hurt and seemingly out of shape.

• 49:26Speaker 05

  He wasn't the same guy.

• 49:27Bill Simmons?

  He doesn't protect the rim anymore.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  Well, look, I'm just saying.

• 49:30Bill Simmons?

  The rim protection stats with him were terrible last year.

• 49:33Speaker 05

  And, and PG, for as disappointing as he was, it wasn't like he became abysmal. He 16 a game, 43% shooting, 36% on threes. Like it's kind of what you would expect for a player entering the tail end of their time in the NBA is in his mid 30s. It's a low number. I just cannot in good conscience go over it. I just can't. I don't trust the infrastructure. And I say that, like, I looked this up. This is what I looked up. They shot 29.8% on threes in Embiid's minutes last year. Like that's unthinkably bad and should be a case for some encouraging. I just, how, how can I, how can, how can anyone bet the over on this team right now?

• 50:13Bill Simmons?

  Embiid, 11 years, 452 games house, 31 years old, never made the Eastern Conference Finals, won five playoff series total.

• 50:23Speaker 04

  I think it's better to go to the gas station and get a scratch ticket than to bet on on this team going over.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  I wouldn't bet, I wouldn't bet anything on this team. I wouldn't bet any, it's a complete stay away, over, under, anything, but we have to make a non bet. I'm picking under, but it's a complete stay away for me.

• 50:39Speaker 04

  I would go to the Wawa, the Philadelphia Wawa and grab a nice scratcher. I would, I would get a hundred dollars worth of scratches and try and, oh, that's not a Philadelphia accent. I can't do.

• 50:49Bill Simmons?

  I will say Embiid being in better shape this year, I think is encouraging.

• 50:55Speaker 04

  He's listed day to day right now. So is Paul George.

• 50:58Bill Simmons?

  That part's not encouraging.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  Day to day.

• 51:01Bill Simmons?

  Hard under for all of us?

• 51:03Speaker 05

  I'm not locking it. It's not a lock.

• 51:05Bill Simmons?

  I just said a hard under.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  Who the hell knows what's gonna happen?

• 51:09Bill Simmons?

  I thought about locking it.

• 51:10Speaker 04

  It's a scratch ticket.

• 51:14Bill Simmons?

  The Embiid thing's too bad. I know we've been critical on him on all the pods, but it just was more fun when he was really good. It was fun to have a guy like that in the league that on any night might drop 60 on a Tuesday night on League Pass. And I know the era's kind of over now, but.

• 51:30Speaker 04

  Well, let's, let's press the legacy button. If he plays 60 games, no, he needs 65 to be qualified.

• 51:38Speaker 05

  He's not gonna play 60.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  I don't think so either.

• 51:39Bill Simmons?

  65 is impossible. They're gonna have to do the AC Green, come out for a minute, back to back. So you're already subtracting whatever.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Okay, so he's not gonna be.

• 51:46Bill Simmons?

  Bring him out for a minute, then sit him down, AC Green style.

• 51:48Speaker 04

  He's not gonna be eligible for any of the awards. That's the reason, the only reason I mentioned 65. But if he plays 58 games, 55 games, and this team gets through the East with 44 wins or whatever, and then he and Paul George are both healthy, and Jeremy Kane and Maxey are, are, are healthy, and Edgecombe is a revelation, and they arrive at the playoffs, and they win the first two rounds of the playoffs because they get to play depleted Milwaukee or depleted Indiana, something like that, with Toronto, who's made the push up, and they're into the Eastern Conference Finals. Is there something we're gonna, we're gonna say nice things about Joel Embiid?

• 52:31Speaker 05

  Of course. That Eastern Conference Finals.

• 52:33Bill Simmons?

  That sounds great.

• 52:34Speaker 05

  They've literally never been to the Eastern Conference Finals.

• 52:36Speaker 04

  I understand. It's why I said, it's why I'm saying.

• 52:39Speaker 05

  I think their ceiling is we get to the end of the season and they're like a nobody wants to play us team in the first round of the playoffs. I can't, anything beyond that.

• 52:48Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 52:49Speaker 05

  My soul is too injured to even imagine at this point.

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Completely understand.

• 52:52Bill Simmons?

  When your ceiling is hopefully we can become a nobody wants to play us nine seed. I'm going under.

• 53:00Speaker 05

  It's just the repetitive knee injuries are scary.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:03Speaker 05

  For the best player on the team.

• 53:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm just too old now and so are you, House, with basketball. We've just seen too many seasons. We know how this goes with the injury guys. It never ends well.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  Obviously an under.

• 53:14Bill Simmons?

  Celtics over forty-two and a half.

• 53:18Bill Simmons?

  Division eight to one. Conference eleven to one, title thirty-three to one. Playoffs minus two twenty-five. They turned Drew Holiday into Anthony Simons.

• 53:30Bill Simmons?

  They turned Porzingis into Luca Garza and Josh Minot and Chris Boucher. They lost Al Horford. They lost Luke Cornet. They turned Jason Tatum for at least four months into Hugo Gonzalez.

• 53:49Bill Simmons?

  They have a twenty-two point five million dollar trade exception in their own twenty twenty-six first. They're in the first apron. Twelve million over the luxury tax line. And for a while, we thought this would be a tank season because they have their own pick. And then Jason Tatum kept doing Instagram videos of how good he was looking and now he's dunking in the practice center and trying to make history with the fastest Achilles comeback. And then now openly saying, I am coming back. I'm going to be on the team this year and I've told the Celtics that. Forty-two and a half, Zach.

• 54:25Bill Simmons?

  What do you got?

• 54:26Speaker 05

  Under.

• 54:27Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Under. Case.

• 54:30Speaker 05

  I, I just think they lost so much. Their front court is just a morass of completely unproven guys. And I understand like the stuff I said about serious dudes with Indiana. These are serious dudes and a serious coach that are used to winning, that know what it takes to win, that know how far you can get in the NBA by just playing hard and playing right every single night. I get all that. They just lost so much that like if Derrick White misses 15 games, it's just that they have no margin for White or Brown missing anytime this season. And, and you combine that with all the incentives that are pointing to like, are they going to try to duck the tax?

• 55:15Speaker 05

  Is this going to be if we get to the 40 game mark and we're not doing well? Is, does this transition into the tank gap year? That you know, people sort of started to, I just think there's too much. They lost too much and there's too much tugging. I'm going under, I'm sorry.

• 55:32Bill Simmons?

  Who are you apologizing to?

• 55:33Speaker 05

  You.

• 55:35Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean? I'm fine.

• 55:37Speaker 05

  You've got Tatum coming back and on Christmas.

• 55:41Bill Simmons?

  I mean, honestly, I hope he doesn't. I hope he comes back when he's 120% ready to come back. I hope he's like cleared to play and then two more months pass before he plays. House?

• 55:51Speaker 04

  Under 42 and 40 for the Boston Celtics. That is under 42 and a half.

• 55:57Speaker 05

  It is.

• 55:57Speaker 04

  I honestly would have bet the over if it stayed at 41 and a half. Because 42, 42 and 40 is over.

• 56:05Bill Simmons?

  Funny you said that. Cause I was, I was leaning.

• 56:07Speaker 05

  Cop out.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  No, they're exactly a 500 team. Like the, the, the DNA that you just described is of a, of a winning team. And the design of this team is going to be fascinating. They're going to take a minimum of 63s a game. Jalen Brown said he's on a track team, not a basketball team. That's going to be fun to watch. I'm going to enjoy watching it. They're not going to get any offensive rebounds, so they better make the threes. They better be a lot of made threes, but against the East, that's a 500 team with the players they have. So I'm betting on them being a 500 team. That's under.

• 56:38Speaker 05

  Come on. Come on.

• 56:41Bill Simmons?

  Go over?

• 56:41Speaker 05

  You gotta go over.

• 56:43Bill Simmons?

  I would, it was so much more enticing to me at 41 and a half.

• 56:46Speaker 05

  Are you serious?

• 56:47Bill Simmons?

  42 and 40 seemed reasonable.

• 56:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, one win.

• 56:51Bill Simmons?

  43 and 39.

• 56:54Bill Simmons?

  Is way less enticing.

• 56:56Speaker 05

  I can't.

• 56:56Bill Simmons?

  To lose less than 40 games.

• 56:58Speaker 05

  You just made the case for the under and it's a good case.

• 57:02Bill Simmons?

  So here's the thing. I think it's 50 50. Like I think it's straight.

• 57:08Speaker 05

  Totally agree.

• 57:08Bill Simmons?

  It's not like our Philly argument where I'm like, I'm not sure gonna, there's two outcomes. The one is that the system they play with and all the threes they shoot with. And the Missoula being an alpha, all that stuff, that it just translates better the regular season than people think. And they know how to play with each other. There's real familiarity, real DNA. The other thing is what Zach said, where if like one guy goes down for four weeks with a sprained ankle, the entire team falls apart or the balance is way off.

• 57:40Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna go over anyway.

• 57:42Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 57:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 57:46Speaker 05

  Good. That's good.

• 57:47Bill Simmons?

  I think they're gonna be pretty good.

• 57:49Speaker 05

  I think they'll be fine.

• 57:50Bill Simmons?

  All the guys that they got, all the, all the weird signings they have, all these bigs, they're all like energy guys who play hard. On paper, the rebounding is gonna be a disaster.

• 57:59Speaker 05

  Disaster, not on paper, on the basketball court.

• 58:01Bill Simmons?

  Everyone's gonna try. I think Jalen is gonna kind of secretly enjoy this whole.

• 58:08Speaker 05

  I agree with you. Alpha Jalen.

• 58:09Bill Simmons?

  We still have me. I'm sorry. I thought I was still one of the best 20 players in the league. Why aren't we a playoff team?

• 58:15Speaker 05

  I like it.

• 58:16Bill Simmons?

  And I really like the guards. I think the guards are gonna be a problem in crunch time. Pritchard, Simons, White, all together with Jalen and one big, and they just go super small Indiana style. And I think teams are gonna be like, what is this?

• 58:28Speaker 05

  They're, look, I don't feel super confident about the under. Like the guards are really good. I just think the team is super thin in proven NBA players and.

• 58:37Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't agree more.

• 58:38Speaker 05

  Thin is just bad for regular season to me.

• 58:41Bill Simmons?

  I really like Simons on this team. I think he's

• 58:45Speaker 05

  The rehabilitation of Anthony Simons.

• 58:47Bill Simmons?

  Like closes games, like they're running plays for him in certain matchups kind of guy. I think there's games where he's just gonna have like 35 points. There's didn't be running up and down there and be like, just fucking shoot threes.

• 58:59Speaker 05

  For the Nets or for the Celtics?

• 59:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the question. The question with this over under is will Simons be in the team in February?

• 59:06Speaker 05

  There's, there's different ways they can cut the tax bill. They can get under it, they can flip a couple of minimums here and there. There's different ways.

• 59:12Bill Simmons?

  But if Tatum's playing the last 30 games.

• 59:15Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, what?

• 59:16Bill Simmons?

  If Tatum's playing the last 30 games hypothetically.

• 59:19Speaker 05

  So he comes back.

• 59:20Bill Simmons?

  Last 30 is February.

• 59:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. Who plays more games this year, Jason Tatum or Joel Embiid? Come on, answer the question.

• 59:29Bill Simmons?

  Wow, that's a great one.

• 59:30Speaker 05

  That's a great one. Let's get Fanduel to write a prop for that.

• 59:33Bill Simmons?

  It's gotta be Embiid, come on.

• 59:34Speaker 05

  Embiid.

• 59:36Bill Simmons?

  What's the over under for Embiid game?

• 59:38Speaker 05

  I don't know, I just asked who's playing more.

• 59:40Bill Simmons?

  Embiid's a safer bet. Embiid would be favored in that matchup, I would have bet it.

• 59:44Speaker 05

  I can't believe you're thinking about this.

• 59:46Bill Simmons?

  I just don't, I mean.

• 59:48Speaker 05

  I love, I love, I love everything about the Celtics discussion, I'm still going under.

• 59:52Bill Simmons?

  Me too. We didn't talk about Missoula enough, so I'm just gonna mention this one other piece. I don't think that dude's built to tank. I think he's an absolute maniac and you talk about like what the Celtics used to have with KG way back when, where it was just like every practice, every game, just like crazy, crazy, crazy. I think he's like the KG for this team.

• 1:00:13Speaker 05

  Just, just to be clear, this isn't a tank bet. The under isn't a tank bet. That the under is that Derrick White misses 15 games or the, the.

• 1:00:23Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be right in that low 40s.

• 1:00:25Speaker 05

  The under is like, wait, how many minutes did Baylor Shireman play last night?

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  He looks great.

• 1:00:33Speaker 05

  Like he could be very good, he's just young and unproven, unproven.

• 1:00:36Bill Simmons?

  Property available on Shireman Island. No, but Josh, Josh Minot Island, I did, I did put a little something down. Toronto Raptors, 39 and a half.

• 1:00:48Bill Simmons?

  They added Mamu, they added Murray Boils, they lost Boucher.

• 1:00:54Bill Simmons?

  They have one of the weirdest roster slash salary cap situations. Where I think they have like a top 10 expensive roster.

• 1:01:03Speaker 05

  They're over the tax. They're in the first apron.

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  Over the tax. I don't understand the team.

• 1:01:11Bill Simmons?

  And the over is like right around where I would have had it. There's actually a little action. Plus 104 on the over for 39 and a half, if you want to do that. Zach's always, always a complimentary of the Raptors. You're kind of in the back for them a little bit.

• 1:01:25Speaker 05

  It's a great line, 39 and a half.

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What do you have?

• 1:01:29Speaker 05

  Over. Over by default. The two sweetest words in the English language, default. I just think they have too much talent. I understand all the questions about how weird the fit is. The bench is unproven. Are any of these shooting guards going to pop? Does Murray Boils give us anything? Blah, blah, blah. They just missed so many games due to injury last year. And I just, I just think there's, I, I, I can get to 42 wins with this roster if quickly can give me 65, 70. If ever, all the core guys give me a, some sort of minimum threshold of games, I can get to 42 wins in these. And the organization top down has to win. They're like, this is a, this is a front office that is a holdover front office, new controlling owner.

• 1:02:13Speaker 05

  Under super amounts of pressure to see, yeah, this model works. This team we built works. I'm going over.

• 1:02:18Bill Simmons?

  So for them to hit this house, they were 30 and 52 last year. They have to be 10 wins better.

• 1:02:23Speaker 05

  I mean, they weren't even trying for two months.

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  They actively took wins off the table in that, in that stretch. They were ahead of teams considerably in the second half and just walked themselves back to losses. It was. Appalling if you were a Toronto fan rooting for wins. Fine if you were betting on second half, you know, the other teams to beat them in the second half. This is a lock over for me.

• 1:02:50Bill Simmons?

  Ooh.

• 1:02:51Speaker 04

  This is a lock for all the reasons Zach just mentioned. Plus, I mean, look, they, they, they met five of their top six players last year missed a combined 143 games. Like they, they had, you know, bottom three injury luck in the league. I like the coach. I think the coach is, is, is a, is a real dude. You know, I, this, you, I said this to you and you laughed. I think they have in their own heads, the idea of being a poor man's Oklahoma City, which is to get out in transition to force turnovers. You know, to, to, to take, force teams to miss threes and get moving. And they have the guys that can convert.

• 1:03:33Speaker 04

  Now, this, this is why I asked Zach about the plant situation in Toronto. They have extended Brandon Ingram. They didn't just sign that homeboy and say, please show up and then give us a good year. They said to that man, we want you here. And this is a lot of investment in, in, in Mr. Ingram. I'm willing to make it, but look, the, the, he, he has to show us this year that he wants to play competitive basketball. Cause it's a team that's built for a decent showing in a weakened East.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  So I, I was leaning under for a while with them. And my issue was that they spent all this money and capital to basically lock down a 43 win ceiling roster, which I just didn't fundamentally understand. I don't want to be in the area they are with this really no chance to improve it. It's expensive and you don't really have a chance to maybe do anything. But with that mindset, 39 and a half, they should be over that because they've spent all this money to lock in a 43 and 39 team. So maybe that's what they're going to be.

• 1:04:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't see a scenario where they're, they're, this team's terrible, especially in the East. They'll score points. I don't know if they'll make sense as we're watching them. Right? And there's a Scotty Barnes. Is there something else there? I don't personally think there is. Some people like him more than I think I do.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  His shooting really regressed last year across the board.

• 1:05:05Speaker 05

  He was dealing with some pretty bad ankles, playing through some pretty bad ankle stuff for a lot of last year. I'm, I'm betting on a Scotty Barnes bounce back.

• 1:05:13Bill Simmons?

  The Ingram piece, so, and if you're, if you're going the other way, like Ingram was available for a year and nobody wanted him. That was weird. Right? He left that, left that Team USA thing basically bagged out near the end. Had an injury or whatever, but he wasn't going to play. And so you're building around him and Barnes, two guys that I don't know if I trust for, to lead anything. I do like some of their younger guys a little bit as, as at least rotation guys, but I think they're right. Somewhere in between 40 and 43.

• 1:05:45Speaker 05

  You're going over? We're all going over on the Raptors?

• 1:05:47Bill Simmons?

  I didn't want to, but I, I think there's no other.

• 1:05:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. You, you, you sound like you're.

• 1:05:51Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel great about it.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  I locked it.

• 1:05:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't feel great about it. Uh, Brooklyn Nets, over, under 19 and a half? I'm going under. I'll just tell you guys now, they're going to be awful. This team, wow. I mean, wow.

• 1:06:04Speaker 05

  We can, we can keep it quick if you want. I'm also going under.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  We're all going under. The only thing to talk about is how good that coach is. And I'm super impressed. He's going, he's another one like Will Hardy to me that like, he, he deserves the shot. Once they get the talent to stay and, and you know, coach some, some, some legit talent.

• 1:06:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, but they, the front office, Jordy proofed the roster this year. I mean, like.

• 1:06:26Speaker 04

  They did.

• 1:06:26Speaker 05

  The only argument for the over is three of their starters are Cam Thomas, Michael Porter Jr. and Nick Claxton. That's like, those are.

• 1:06:34Bill Simmons?

  Hold on, let me tell my grandkids.

• 1:06:37Speaker 05

  I said, I said, the only argument for an over on a line of 19 and a half, you don't have to tell your grandkids about it. Those are like representative NBA starter level players now and Cam, and one of them, Cam Thomas can handle the ball and run some of the offense. I just think A, they're all going to be trade candidates and B, the, if you hand an NBA team. To rookie guards and they have a thousand of them. The results are generally disastrous.

• 1:07:08Bill Simmons?

  I said this in June, the, the draft picks they made are all guys who need the ball. Even that Danny Wolf, he needs the ball. They drafted all these dudes who need the ball and then they're going to all throw them out in the court together. I really liked the draft last year. I didn't like their draft.

• 1:07:24Speaker 05

  The, the offense is going to be a mess and I.

• 1:07:29Bill Simmons?

  This team's gonna be awful.

• 1:07:30Speaker 05

  This is a. All right, we all went under.

• 1:07:32Bill Simmons?

  Trying to give your tickets away.

• 1:07:33Speaker 04

  It's a bummer that it ticked down from 20 and a half to 19 and a half.

• 1:07:37Bill Simmons?

  Would any net play in OKC?

• 1:07:43Speaker 05

  It's a mean question. I think Nick Claxton. I agree. Claxton can get minutes.

• 1:07:47Bill Simmons?

  Who's he playing over? Jalen Williams?

• 1:07:48Speaker 04

  No, he's gonna get all the homegrown missed game minutes.

• 1:07:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, dude, there's missed game minutes there to be had.

• 1:07:53Bill Simmons?

  Would any net play in the Nuggets?

• 1:07:57Speaker 05

  Michael Porter Jr. Knows the system.

• 1:08:01Bill Simmons?

  When does Brooklyn flip the tank switch?

• 1:08:04Speaker 05

  It's flipped.

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  No, but I.

• 1:08:06Speaker 04

  The season starts on October the 22nd.

• 1:08:08Bill Simmons?

  They'll let Jordy try to win games for a month.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  I don't think so.

• 1:08:11Bill Simmons?

  Settle down.

• 1:08:11Speaker 05

  They are praying someone gets desperate enough to take the Michael Porter Jr. Contract off their hands, I'm sure.

• 1:08:17Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you, before we go to a break, the Brooklyn Nets, 15 years in Brooklyn recap?

• 1:08:23Speaker 05

  It's a really, it's a winding tale.

• 1:08:26Bill Simmons?

  Seven coaches and two playoff series wins. They went for it, tanked, went for it, tanked. They peaked for three weeks in 2021 with Zach's most theoretical, great team of all time.

• 1:08:39Speaker 05

  Greatest theoretical team of all time.

• 1:08:41Bill Simmons?

  They built the Tatum Brown dynasty in Boston.

• 1:08:45Bill Simmons?

  They have some future picks and they're the third most popular professional basketball team in New York.

• 1:08:50Speaker 05

  You just, you left out so much stuff.

• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  I've just given you the highlights. What else did you want to put in there?

• 1:08:54Speaker 05

  Well, like we don't, there's, there's a lot. There's a plague. There's a, there's a plague on the world that affected their team more than other people. There's a mascot that they created and then murdered because everybody hated it so much. The Brooklyn Knight, R I P.

• 1:09:08Bill Simmons?

  There's good pizza.

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  It, it, it's been a wild, wild, I was thinking in my head, like, how many of the seven coaches could we, could we name in 30 seconds?

• 1:09:16Bill Simmons?

  Let's see if, this is a good one for House.

• 1:09:20Bill Simmons?

  Cause he's a little groggy now, cause he doesn't have coffee in five hours.

• 1:09:22Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 1:09:24Bill Simmons?

  How many Nets coaches can you name from the 15 years?

• 1:09:27Speaker 04

  Uh, four, maybe?

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  We'll just start naming them. Let's hear it.

• 1:09:33Speaker 04

  Steve Nash, Jordy Fernandez.

• 1:09:41Speaker 04

  Oh, uh, from, from, uh, the, the Jack Vaughn, he coached.

• 1:09:47Bill Simmons?

  One of them's easy from the last five years. He's now coaching another NBA team.

• 1:09:51Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:09:52Bill Simmons?

  Kenny Atkinson.

• 1:09:53Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, Kenny's good.

• 1:09:56Speaker 05

  Avery Johnson.

• 1:09:57Bill Simmons?

  Lionel Hollins.

• 1:09:58Speaker 04

  Would not have gotten either one of them.

• 1:09:58Bill Simmons?

  Jason Kidd.

• 1:10:00Speaker 05

  Is that it?

• 1:10:01Bill Simmons?

  I think that's it.

• 1:10:01Speaker 05

  Wow. Good job by us. It's so, it's crazy. There's a guy, there's, isn't Tony Brown, isn't there like an interim Tony?

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  There's some interns.

• 1:10:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's.

• 1:10:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't count the interns.

• 1:10:10Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:10:11Bill Simmons?

  They, uh,

• 1:10:13Speaker 04

  Sean Marks is still there.

• 1:10:14Speaker 05

  We're, we've, we've talked about them too long.

• 1:10:16Speaker 04

  Sean Marks is still there.

• 1:10:16Bill Simmons?

  They can swap their first, uh, with, in Houston 2027, but it's Houston's choice, which is not good for them.

• 1:10:23Speaker 05

  Houston can swap at first.

• 1:10:24Bill Simmons?

  Not good for them. Anyway, we'll take one more break. We'll do the Southeast, the most fun of all the divisions. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn Ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from the other ad buys. You could target your buyers by job title, industry, company, role, seniority, skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return and ad spend on all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one.

• 1:11:08Bill Simmons?

  Just go to LinkedIn.com slash Simmons Bill. Terms and conditions apply.

• 1:11:14Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead? But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save, savings vary. Hey, I was lucky enough to get a son and a daughter through their early teens and their mid-teens in the social media era. And even though we were constantly monitoring it, there's still a whole bunch of stuff that can go wrong.

• 1:11:55Bill Simmons?

  And that's why Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see. Contact limits for who can contact them and time management tools like daily time limits. And sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed in the teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. As you could tell from this over/unders pod, I love betting NBA futures. One of my favorite things.

• 1:12:36Bill Simmons?

  Gives you a little stake, not just in your team, but you can pick five, six, seven other teams. Just kind of monitor their progress over the six-month season. I like doing finals winners. I like doing pairings for the finals. I'm not allowed to bet on any of the awards because I have a vote, but the playoff stuff is really fun. Playing is kind of a fun one. Season leaders, you can bet on stuff like, will Wemby have a quadruple double this year? You can bet on that on FanDuel. You can parlay stuff together. I love betting on Steph Curry for most threes every season because he usually wins if he plays enough games. Anyway, we're going to be talking about a bunch of these during the over/under podcast. And then on Thursday night's podcast, we're going to be announcing our big super boost

• 1:13:20Bill Simmons?

  for the upcoming season. That will be Friday. 1014 on Fanduel. Be ready. Southeast Orlando Magic over 50 and a half minus 185 for the division, six to one for the conference, plus 450 for the one seed. They lost Cole Anthony, KCP, and finally, thankfully, Gary Harris. They added Desmond Bain, they added Tyus Jones. They added Jace Richardson, who a lot of, a lot of the stealth draft nerds really like and think might actually play for them. Mo Wagner is going to come back at some point.

• 1:13:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:13:55Bill Simmons?

  Pretty deep team. Desmond Bain's the big, the big, the big add. So they won 34 in 2023, 47 in 24. Last year regressed to 21. And the thinking, the common thinking with this team, with the over under being 50 and a half, is that this will be a top three team in the East. Do you agree, Zach Lowe?

• 1:14:14Speaker 05

  This is a huge number. When I first saw this number at 50 and a half, with starting with a five, I was like, whoa. That's, I was prepared to like hammer the over on the Orlando Magic because I thought it was going to be like 47 and a half, 46 and a half. 50 and a half for a team that hasn't been a top 20 offense in a gazillion years. Team that can't shoot straight. And yeah, they got Desmond Bain, blah, blah, blah. And you know what? I'm hammering the over, over, over, over. Give me all the action. I just think this team's defenses are legit. Top three to five defense. Every night they play super hard. Palo, Leap, Franz, Leap, Suggs. Can't be any less healthy than he was last year. Bain, huge addition. Tyus Jones, huge addition.

• 1:14:56Speaker 05

  Young guys. I like De Silva even, like Anthony Black, mini Leap. I'm just, I just think this team's going to be a regular season wins machine. Over 50 and a half for a team that hasn't won this many games in a long time.

• 1:15:08Speaker 04

  They could do that. They did start last year 17 and nine.

• 1:15:12Speaker 05

  47 wins two years ago.

• 1:15:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. I just don't think they're gonna. I mean, we're already in Jalen Suggs. What's the timeline for, you know, for, for him and, and.

• 1:15:21Speaker 05

  I don't think he's far away. From what I've heard, he's not far away. He's not far away.

• 1:15:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:15:27Bill Simmons?

  Jalen Suggs timeline injury. Go keep talking to us. I'm just looking this up.

• 1:15:31Speaker 04

  The real thing to me is.

• 1:15:34Bill Simmons?

  Ooh.

• 1:15:34Speaker 04

  I still.

• 1:15:35Bill Simmons?

  Left knee troclia cartilage tear.

• 1:15:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, we knew about that.

• 1:15:39Bill Simmons?

  I'm just.

• 1:15:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're getting the timeline.

• 1:15:41Bill Simmons?

  Expected maybe sort of removed.

• 1:15:43Speaker 04

  The secret sauce and, and I was kind of a prick about it last year.

• 1:15:50Speaker 04

  I just need Franz Wagner to be a consistent scorer in this basketball league.

• 1:15:55Speaker 05

  You don't want him to shoot like.

• 1:15:56Speaker 04

  I need him to, to, to like, he had one season of good three point shooting.

• 1:16:02Speaker 05

  I'm all in on Franz.

• 1:16:03Speaker 04

  You, you have to be. That's the only way to get to the over here.

• 1:16:06Bill Simmons?

  Zach's all in on Franz.

• 1:16:10Speaker 05

  He's, he's a, you know what he is?

• 1:16:11Bill Simmons?

  All in.

• 1:16:11Speaker 05

  All right. The hitch is what it is. It's, it appears, it disappears, it reappears. Hitch, first of all, unlike most guys with jump shooting, whatever he had, he keeps shooting. At least. And he's a, just a basketball player. He knows how to play both ends of the floor.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  Basket apparently.

• 1:16:27Speaker 05

  I want you to go under, go under. Come on.

• 1:16:29Bill Simmons?

  I, I already wrote it down. I'm under.

• 1:16:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're both under.

• 1:16:33Speaker 05

  Orlando Magic fans, just remember who had your back at 50 and a freaking half. Me.

• 1:16:39Speaker 04

  It's a grotesque, that's a high number.

• 1:16:40Speaker 05

  It's a high number. You know what? It's time.

• 1:16:42Bill Simmons?

  I just think 51 and 31 is a really good record for a team that is pretty young, that's adding a big Bain piece, that does know when Suggs is coming back, that has this Franz, I never know what I'm getting from him month to month.

• 1:16:56Speaker 04

  Let me see.

• 1:16:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't, go ahead. I don't a hundred percent love the coach.

• 1:16:59Speaker 04

  Oh, there we go. That's the part of it. Make, make your.

• 1:17:02Bill Simmons?

  You know what else I don't like, Zach Lowe?

• 1:17:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. What don't you like?

• 1:17:05Bill Simmons?

  Lots of expectations for a team that hasn't done jack shit. It's a good over under recipe for, you know, we fell for it last year with them and they had the year from hell, but I just think like, if this team goes 49 and 33, that's a great season for them.

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  So is 50 and 32.

• 1:17:20Bill Simmons?

  32, another great season for them. 48, 34, congrats.

• 1:17:24Speaker 05

  Over.

• 1:17:26Speaker 04

  It's an under.

• 1:17:27Speaker 05

  It's an over for me.

• 1:17:28Speaker 04

  We, we gotta see one time. People were begging for it last year. Let's see a little offensive, uh, in, in ingenuity, a little innovation out of Orlando. It can't just, we can't just continue to tolerate the missed shots. You asked earlier, what happened to KCP? What's the answer?

• 1:17:45Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 1:17:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:17:46Speaker 05

  I don't know, but.

• 1:17:47Speaker 04

  No, but none of us have an explanation.

• 1:17:49Speaker 05

  The bench wings make me a little bit nervous. Like I'm counting on De Silva to give me something. I might be counting on Jace Richardson to give me something. I'm definitely counting on Anthony Black to give me more. That makes me a little nervous. Jonathan Isaac, I'm, I don't know how to pencil him in.

• 1:18:01Bill Simmons?

  They just have a lot of guys. They're like, what am I getting from this guy? What am I getting from this guy?

• 1:18:05Speaker 05

  I think Bain is a.

• 1:18:10Speaker 05

  Transformational stylistic player.

• 1:18:12Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:18:13Speaker 05

  I, I think he, he will unlock a lot of different things they can do offensively. I don't think he's like a top 30 player in the NBA, but he's not far from that. But I think for them, he's a game changer. I respect the culture. I respect the effort. I'm going over. You cannot talk me out of it.

• 1:18:28Bill Simmons?

  You're allowed.

• 1:18:28Speaker 05

  I like being on an over island. Over island is the most fun place to be on this podcast.

• 1:18:35Bill Simmons?

  They have, I did my top 100 exercise for the ringer and they had five guys on the list.

• 1:18:42Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta, 47 and a half, another team with a ton of expectations. So I chose to go slightly under with Orlando and slightly over with Atlanta.

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  This is, it's a combo deal.

• 1:18:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, I felt like you had to choose and you couldn't go over for both. I love it. They're 40, 42 last year and I just like everything they did. Alexander Walker, Porzingis, Kennard, Jalen Johnson back. Missed what? He missed the last two thirds of the season.

• 1:19:12Bill Simmons?

  I think he has a chance to be an all-star. Kangu, they finally gave him the car keys, got rid of Capella. And, uh, and Trey on contract here, but I just like the team. I think, I think this is a really fun, regular season, get some wins. High 40s range. So the over under, I wish it was one lower. I wish it was 46 and a half, but I still have to go over. What do you have, House?

• 1:19:35Speaker 04

  I'm in the same boat because I thought about it the same way, which is to say, if I'm going to go under on Orlando, then I'm going to go over on Atlanta. And this number stayed right at that 47 and a half. There was 46 is, uh, early and I think in the summer it was like 45. So there was some great numbers.

• 1:19:50Bill Simmons?

  Oh man, remember the draft?

• 1:19:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Bill Simmons?

  I mean, they were like 60 to one when they, there were some like great future bets with them that have now.

• 1:19:56Speaker 04

  And now, now it's at the right number. It's settled at exactly 47 and a half, which I think is a super fair number. This is what you're gambling on. If you take the over, you're gambling on the infectious enthusiasm of Alexander Walker and Dyson together to, to create a defensive.

• 1:20:14Bill Simmons?

  With Jalen Johnson.

• 1:20:15Speaker 04

  Yes. So there's your defense. You, you, cause this team didn't play no defense. This is a no defense situation on the perimeter. They gave up threes to everybody and their sister last year. This team better come out and play some defense on the goddamn perimeter. This is also a bet on Quinn Snyder and you know, we made this bet before. We lost on Atlanta. Did we win or lose last year?

• 1:20:38Bill Simmons?

  We won in Atlanta last year.

• 1:20:40Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:20:40Bill Simmons?

  One other thing on this before we get to Zach, who's ready to zag.

• 1:20:44Speaker 04

  He is. He's gonna murder us.

• 1:20:46Bill Simmons?

  It's a stealth move team. They have really good picks. They have that Pelicans 26 first and their own. They have a $13 million trade exception.

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  Maybe Risha Shay could be on the right table and the right thing. Maybe Jalen Johnson, if you want to start talking, have a really honest conversation.

• 1:21:02Speaker 05

  I was gonna say they're the stealthy honest team because they own the rights to Milwaukee's picks too.

• 1:21:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Uh, so it's an over for me and House. What do you have?

• 1:21:11Speaker 05

  You know, I don't have to choose between Orlando and Atlanta. I went under on Indiana. I went under on Boston. I went under on Detroit. I'm going emphatically over on the Atlanta Hawks. There's no zag.

• 1:21:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:21:25Speaker 05

  If there's a zag, it's that I don't have any of this. Well, if it was 46 and a half, I'd feel a lot better.

• 1:21:32Speaker 05

  That's chicken shit stuff. I'm going over. No thought. The Hawks are going over 47 and a half and the Magic are going over 50 and a half. Over.

• 1:21:40Bill Simmons?

  They have some of my favorite players. I've always wanted Luke Kennard to be on one good team. I always felt like on the right situation, he could be a really good rotation guy.

• 1:21:49Speaker 04

  Memphis.

• 1:21:50Bill Simmons?

  He had a Memphis moment, but it's never been like, just like for a year. I always wanted him to go to Denver. I thought he would have been an awesome Nuggets bench guy. Uh, obviously Porzingis. I got to watch that and so did House firsthand. When he plays, he's genuinely impactful. So even if you pencil him in for 50 games, the team's gonna be fucking awesome in the 50 games. They're gonna be able to go Porzingis with the three perimeter guys and Trey at crunch time. And I think they're gonna be really hard to guard. Uh, Reese's say should be better this year. He had, he was up and down.

• 1:22:21Speaker 04

  It's a good, it's a good situation for him.

• 1:22:23Bill Simmons?

  23, 22 and 20.

• 1:22:25Speaker 05

  The case for the under is every time we're all ready to trust the Hawks as an NBA collective, they kick us in the nuts.

• 1:22:34Speaker 04

  You are right.

• 1:22:35Speaker 05

  Shooting is a little shaky. Their bench after Kennard, Alexander Walker and Okongwu, so now we're into eight guys, the bench after that makes me very nervous.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  They're gonna need Nual to play.

• 1:22:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:46Bill Simmons?

  They're gonna need to make a trade, which they have the pieces, they have the exception, and things to do.

• 1:22:50Speaker 05

  You cannot, and I cannot temper my enthusiasm. I'm going over.

• 1:22:55Bill Simmons?

  So, over/under Atlanta All-Stars, I'm gonna give you the definites. Giannis, Cade, Palo, Brunson, Mitchell and Mobley. I think those are the six definite All-Stars.

• 1:23:06Speaker 05

  Jalen Brown didn't make the list?

• 1:23:07Bill Simmons?

  Probables, Jalen Brown, Bam and Towns. I think we can comfortably say those are nine All-Stars barring an injury. There's three spots left. Could the Hawks have two All-Stars? So that would have to be Trey, and then I think Jalen Johnson.

• 1:23:23Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. Not Dyson Davis.

• 1:23:25Speaker 05

  I would bet against it because we still have to account for all the Sixers guys, whoever among them survives.

• 1:23:32Bill Simmons?

  I forgot about The Walking Dead.

• 1:23:34Speaker 05

  Did you say Banqueiro? You said Banqueiro, right?

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  I said Pango, yeah. So there could be a Bain in there.

• 1:23:39Speaker 05

  You know what? You know what?

• 1:23:40Bill Simmons?

  It's very possible they could have two. I thought Jalen Johnson, I thought that was the most underrated injury last year.

• 1:23:47Speaker 05

  Scotty Barnes, yeah.

• 1:23:48Speaker 04

  If people even try.

• 1:23:49Bill Simmons?

  But I thought that was the most underrated injury last year because he was really becoming a guy, like a capital G guy, and then he was gone, and then nobody talked about him again.

• 1:23:58Speaker 05

  If Embiid plays half the games and has a great, and has good numbers, the coaches will pick him because he'll just, he's got that kind of stature.

• 1:24:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:09Speaker 05

  And then Maxey is still there.

• 1:24:11Bill Simmons?

  If you could pick any-

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  I'm gonna bet against two Hawks All-Stars.

• 1:24:14Bill Simmons?

  If you could pick any East team to have three All-Stars, which one would you pick?

• 1:24:17Speaker 05

  It has to be Cleveland, right?

• 1:24:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, yeah, I see.

• 1:24:21Speaker 05

  I'd say still Cleveland. Mitchell, Garland, Mobley feels like the most likely trio. Orlando?

• 1:24:26Speaker 04

  Not for me, dog.

• 1:24:29Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta with the two picks and the trade exception. To me, there's a bench guy they don't have yet that they're gonna have. And it'll be like worst case scenario, George Nang. Who maybe they can't even trade for him because they already had him. But somebody of that ilk, somebody who's like a very impactful eighth man. Miami Heat, 38 and a half. They added Norm Powell and Fontecchio and Achua and Yakushunis, my favorite post lottery rookie.

• 1:24:58Speaker 05

  Wow, I didn't know he had that status.

• 1:25:00Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, I was so mad when they got him. It was classic Miami.

• 1:25:04Speaker 05

  He could draft anybody and you'd be mad.

• 1:25:06Bill Simmons?

  No, that one made me mad because it was like, he just, he just fell five spots lower than he should have. It was stupid. And I was vindicated the GM survey. Everyone said that was like the steal pick. They lost Robinson, they lost Highsmith, who they gave away. Remember I said that? They lost Kyle Anderson. They have their own 2026 first. Most important, Tyler Hero, ankle surgery. He's out. They're saying like maybe end of December. To me, that means like All-Star break. They always lie about that shit. Could be 35, 40 missed games. Does that make Miami a stealth tank candidate for you, Zach Lowe?

• 1:25:46Speaker 05

  This is my blind faith pick.

• 1:25:49Bill Simmons?

  Heat culture? You and Adonis Haslem, the only two left in Heat culture, Allen?

• 1:25:53Speaker 05

  Because the tank scenario is there.

• 1:25:56Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:25:56Speaker 05

  The hero injury timetable is unclear. I don't think it's gonna be as bad as you said, but I don't know. I don't know.

• 1:26:04Bill Simmons?

  I just always add three to four weeks to any timetable.

• 1:26:07Speaker 05

  37 and 45 last year.

• 1:26:09Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:26:10Speaker 05

  And their best perimeter ball handler is injured. Yes, they introduced another one in Norm Powell, not a playmaker like Hero. The playmaking quotient's getting pretty, pretty low.

• 1:26:18Bill Simmons?

  By the way, Norm Powell is more like a heat check.

• 1:26:20Speaker 05

  Finisher, straight line finisher, shoots some threes.

• 1:26:23Bill Simmons?

  Just like gets hot for five minutes. He's not like a, let's run a week of plays for Norm Powell.

• 1:26:29Speaker 05

  That was the idea with Terry Rozier. I don't know what in the hell is going on there. What can possibly be expected out of him? But this is my blind faith pick. I'm allowing myself the leeway of like, I just trust the infrastructure. I think some of the young players, like people are already out on Hakez. I think Hakez bounces back. I like Jovic. I like where, see what Yakichunas gives him.

• 1:26:55Bill Simmons?

  He's just a blind, anybody with an itch, you're in.

• 1:26:59Speaker 05

  I like Jovic. I think he's a guy, if he stays healthy, he's, he's an itch, but he's also gonna be good.

• 1:27:05Bill Simmons?

  There's literally no evidence of that, but.

• 1:27:06Speaker 05

  And he shot, he shot, you know what? We're not gonna argue about Nikola Jovic on this podcast. I'm going over on the Heat. It's my blind faith pick, hardest working, hardest playing, toughest, whatever you want to write on the court. They get points, they're bringing back the Miami Vice jerseys. That's like five wins. I'm over.

• 1:27:22Bill Simmons?

  I was excited for that.

• 1:27:23Speaker 05

  It's not, I bet you guys are both gonna go under.

• 1:27:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, 100% going under.

• 1:27:28Speaker 05

  Under's, under's the smart pick. I'm going over.

• 1:27:32Bill Simmons?

  I'm a hard under.

• 1:27:33Speaker 04

  I am over.

• 1:27:34Speaker 05

  Oh my God, you're with me.

• 1:27:36Speaker 04

  I am over. The reason is.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't know how it's like I thought it did.

• 1:27:39Speaker 05

  You might lock it in.

• 1:27:39Bill Simmons?

  Not locking in. I wouldn't lock in against Heat culture.

• 1:27:42Speaker 04

  This team, in each of 17, Spolstra 17 seasons, has topped 36 wins. Every season. So we're looking, they went, they won 37 games last year. In what should have was the most disastrous. Jimmy Butler tried to sabotage the basketball team. He effectively sabotaged the basketball team. He did it. He fucked them up so bad and they won 37 games.

• 1:28:07Speaker 05

  And they were the worst crunch time team like imaginable. They were so bad in close games.

• 1:28:11Speaker 04

  Do you recall how many times I went on the Ringer gambling show and told people to live bet the Miami Heat? In the fourth quarter, live bet whoever's playing them. It doesn't matter how much they're up by. They gave up double digit leads in the fourth quarter at an unprecedented rate last year. And it was because they didn't have an offensive solution. Tyler Hero just took the ball the last four and a half minutes of every single game. And they lost a bunch of those. We made a bunch of money out there.

• 1:28:40Bill Simmons?

  This is the question for me. Let's say Tyler Hero was starting this season and playing healthy. 100%. He's good. He's playing 82 games. What would you think their record would be?

• 1:28:49Speaker 05

  Well, the line was not much different than this before his injury, right?

• 1:28:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was like below 40.

• 1:28:54Speaker 05

  I, I think they're 45 win team. I think they're closer to like the Pistons, Bucks tier of the East than they are to where they are. Yeah, I think they're.

• 1:29:05Bill Simmons?

  I have them in the Pacers Celtics cluster of, there's DNA here, but I'm not sure I trust what's going on. But not having Hero for. And he, he was everything they did at crunch time. What are they gonna do at crunch time now? They're gonna run plays for a game.

• 1:29:20Speaker 05

  All they did last year was lose.

• 1:29:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, win games.

• 1:29:22Speaker 05

  Can't get any worse.

• 1:29:23Speaker 04

  Just lose worse.

• 1:29:24Bill Simmons?

  But here's the thing, if you start out the first two months and they start out 10 and 16 or 10 and 17.

• 1:29:28Speaker 05

  That's what worries me, the pick incentive.

• 1:29:29Bill Simmons?

  At that point, you're like, fuck it.

• 1:29:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:29:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you want Andrew Wiggins? You're willing to give us a first?

• 1:29:34Speaker 04

  Have we said enough about clear where yet?

• 1:29:37Speaker 05

  Look, there's a reason I called this my blind faith pick. I'm just, I'm just giving Miami the over. I'm just doing it out of respect.

• 1:29:43Bill Simmons?

  Moving on to Charlotte, I'm going under. Over, over, under. Charlotte Hornets, 26 and a half is the over under. They lost Yusuf Nurkic.

• 1:29:55Speaker 04

  You're leading with Nurk.

• 1:29:56Speaker 05

  That's a loss.

• 1:29:57Bill Simmons?

  Mark Williams, Seth Curry and a Koji. They added, uh, Collin Sexton, Dean Witty, one of the Plumleys, Connaughton, Knippel, McNeely and Kalkbrenner. Who's getting a lot of buzz, lot of Kalkbrenner buzz, like a lot.

• 1:30:16Speaker 04

  He better.

• 1:30:16Bill Simmons?

  Like a lot of buzz.

• 1:30:17Speaker 04

  He'll be playing a lot of minutes.

• 1:30:18Bill Simmons?

  Lot of buzz, he's starting for them.

• 1:30:20Speaker 04

  He better.

• 1:30:22Bill Simmons?

  They're just, they just have way more talent than they did last year when you include the part that, um, Brandon Miller's actually gonna play basketball and be healthy. That Lamelo Ball's gonna try to be healthy and is at a fork in the road. What the hell are you, season?

• 1:30:37Speaker 05

  Knippel's worth minimum 10 to 12 wins for you.

• 1:30:40Bill Simmons?

  Who?

• 1:30:41Speaker 05

  Knippel. We're at the point where your lawyers told you it's now okay to start talking about Knippel.

• 1:30:45Bill Simmons?

  I just think he's gonna be immediately impactful. Just glue guy, he's gonna rebound. This team, even though they have a center, I think they're gonna rebound. They have guys who are fill the box score guys. Uh, Bridges had a pretty good year statistically last year. But, um, I think we have to set a, before we do our picks, we have to set a deadline for can we find out if Lamelo is a superstar or not? What year is that gonna be? It could be this year, it could be next year, you could go two years from now. Just let's set a deadline for it. Cause I don't wanna talk about it anymore.

• 1:31:19Speaker 04

  A superstar?

• 1:31:20Bill Simmons?

  Superstar.

• 1:31:23Speaker 05

  I mean, I'd give that another couple of years. I'd settle this year for like All-Star.

• 1:31:28Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:31:29Speaker 05

  Agree.

• 1:31:29Bill Simmons?

  Two more years.

• 1:31:30Speaker 05

  Great. Two, two more years. Yeah.

• 1:31:32Bill Simmons?

  Cause he's one of the most popular person in the league.

• 1:31:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, but popular.

• 1:31:36Bill Simmons?

  But the league needs him to be good. Like they need good stuff to happen with them and this team. I like the coach.

• 1:31:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:43Bill Simmons?

  I think the front office and the ownership, everything they've done are things I would do if I ran a team and I was trying to rebuild and just be like, all right, I'll take that asset. I'll grab that. Grant Williams might be back at some point.

• 1:31:54Speaker 05

  Congrats.

• 1:31:56Bill Simmons?

  I can't defend the saloon pick, whatever his name is, cause we didn't say.

• 1:32:00Speaker 05

  Tijon Salon.

• 1:32:02Bill Simmons?

  Salon.

• 1:32:03Speaker 05

  Doesn't look great as of today.

• 1:32:06Bill Simmons?

  Guys, it's an over for me.

• 1:32:10Bill Simmons?

  I think they're gonna be a competitive bad team. I think they're like in the high twenties. I think they'll win some games and kind of hang around. And I don't think the East is good.

• 1:32:21Speaker 05

  Uh, I am also an over. Uh, I, I think my, okay. There are two reasons I don't feel great about it. Number one, I, I, does ownership actually want to win games this year? Or do they want one more bite at the apple? Particularly since the, what they get out of Salon is gonna be a question mark. Like that might've been one bite and it may not yield fruit. We'll see. Number two,

• 1:32:43Speaker 05

  I just don't know how the hell Charles Lee is gonna make this defense anything better than abysmal. Like a Miles Bridges plus whatever non-entities they have at center defense is just drawing dead from the beginning. But I think offensively they could be all right. And just like, I think LaMelo's a good offensive player. The numbers suggest their offense was okay with him last year. Miller was a zero last year because of health. He's gonna play. And this could be with the lack of teams in the West that are outright tanking other than Utah. And combined with the fact that we have now seen a decent amount of years with these new lottery odds where losing at a high level does not reward you the way that it used to.

• 1:33:25Bill Simmons?

  Huge point.

• 1:33:26Speaker 05

  I think this team could win 28 games and still be like the fifth or sixth worst record in the NBA and be absolutely fine with that. I am hammering the over. I might, I might lock the Charlotte Hornets over.

• 1:33:37Bill Simmons?

  Amazing.

• 1:33:38Speaker 05

  Which is insane.

• 1:33:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Every year, I was looking it up for the last few years because I thought this is one of the most interesting ones. We have like five or six teams that are like 26 wins and under. Right? So the worst six are usually 25 wins or below. And the question with this bet would be, are they going to be one of the worst six teams?

• 1:33:57Bill Simmons?

  And when you think they're in the East, there's easy wins to be had and there's players they have that are like Brandon Miller wants to prove that he's a good player. He's got an extension stuff coming up. LaMelo wants to prove that you can build a franchise around him and then Knippel wants to prove he's a good player right away and Charles Lee wants to prove he's a decent. There's a lot of proving stuff with this team. I think they'll be fun to watch. I think, you know, I always look at these four o'clock on the, on the West Coast here. And it's always Charlotte and Miami and Washington and Toronto. I mean, we just said before, the six worst teams of the last 10 years were all in the East. Those teams are always on at four o'clock. Charlotte's probably the one I would gravitate to of all those teams.

• 1:34:39Bill Simmons?

  Cause I think they're going to be fun to watch. I think they're going to play with the style. So we're all over.

• 1:34:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're all over because we're asking for eight more wins. And I think the Brandon Miller thing is most compelling to me. Like he, I think he could play. I think he can be a two-way guy too. And the contract incentive, it's that, that plus Charles Lee. So.

• 1:35:02Speaker 05

  There's just a lot of, there's a lot of East teams, a lot of teams, period. Like a lot of these like teams that we're talking about where the over under is around 40. Like you're going into Charlotte on a back-to-back. It's like a pain in the ass game to play. Like, I gotta, man, they're gonna run and like dunk all over.

• 1:35:17Bill Simmons?

  Always a dangerous Celtic game these last few years.

• 1:35:19Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:35:20Bill Simmons?

  Last one.

• 1:35:22Speaker 04

  Hey.

• 1:35:22Bill Simmons?

  Here we are again.

• 1:35:23Speaker 04

  We made it.

• 1:35:24Bill Simmons?

  The Washington Wizards. We did it.

• 1:35:26Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 1:35:26Bill Simmons?

  20 and a half. They're 28 to one to make the playoffs, House. If you want to put some down on that.

• 1:35:32Speaker 04

  No, thank you.

• 1:35:33Bill Simmons?

  They lost Brogdon, Poole, Smart, Bay and Holmes. They added McCollum. And Whitmore. And they drafted Trey Johnson and got Will Riley as well. They have a top eight protected first that goes to the Knicks.

• 1:35:50Speaker 04

  I don't think the Knicks should expect that one.

• 1:35:51Bill Simmons?

  I don't think they're gonna be getting that one. So one house, one more worst four teams in the league season and then you're good.

• 1:35:58Speaker 04

  That's what it feels like.

• 1:35:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:00Speaker 04

  And they need to win 21 games to hit their over this season, which is three games more than than last season. Just a tiny over for me. I like the over for, I'm gonna be glass half full.

• 1:36:14Bill Simmons?

  Come on, be more, I want to hear the enthusiastic over.

• 1:36:18Speaker 04

  I keep watching this team. They are a bottom three offensive team and a bottom three defensive team. I just like, where's the, Trey Johnson is already doing the thing that you want, which is he's the first in the gym, he's the last out, they have to tell him to go home, all of that kind of, that's infectious. And that's what you want with a young scorer. He for sure rookie of the year odds, like, you know.

• 1:36:42Bill Simmons?

  Cooper flag injury ads?

• 1:36:44Speaker 04

  Well, because he, and he's gonna play as many minutes as his body can tolerate. He's gonna put up as many shots as, as the team is willing to tolerate. There is no question that he is going to have the combination of volume shooting and opportunity. That, that's two thirds of the.

• 1:37:02Bill Simmons?

  Third best odds, 10 to one.

• 1:37:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. So that, that's a play for me for sure. Trey Johnson rookie of the year is a hard play and a tiny bit over because team.

• 1:37:11Bill Simmons?

  Canipal 22 to one.

• 1:37:13Speaker 04

  Tiny bit of progress.

• 1:37:15Bill Simmons?

  Happy, why not? Why not?

• 1:37:16Speaker 04

  Tiny over for me for.

• 1:37:17Bill Simmons?

  What's Dylan Harper?

• 1:37:20Bill Simmons?

  I think he's 13 to one.

• 1:37:24Bill Simmons?

  Pretty good ads. What do you got, Zach?

• 1:37:27Speaker 05

  I'm going under on the Wizards.

• 1:37:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:29Speaker 04

  It's fine.

• 1:37:30Speaker 05

  I just, part of this assumes that McCollum and Middleton are going to be traded and or rested enough to not impact the offense.

• 1:37:41Speaker 04

  Fair.

• 1:37:42Speaker 05

  And I just think, other than that, you are handing the basketball to a lot of inexperienced guys who are going to be facing adult experienced defenses and that tends to go badly. I am, as I said on Zach Loser earlier this week, I'm excited about a lot of young players on this team. I just think in this particular season, I'm actually kind of surprised the line jumped from 19 and a half to 20 and a half. I'm not sure why it did. So I'm going under on all three of Brooklyn, Utah and Washington, which seems, based on gambling history, very, a very stupid thing to do.

• 1:38:13Bill Simmons?

  No. I'm also making this one of my locks.

• 1:38:16Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:38:16Bill Simmons?

  Which I did last year too.

• 1:38:17Speaker 05

  It's fine.

• 1:38:18Bill Simmons?

  I just don't think Washington wants to be good. And by the way, I like the, they did a great job of asset collection.

• 1:38:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:38:24Bill Simmons?

  We talk about asset collection. I think Charlotte's done a good job, Washington. But this roster makes no sense. If you actually put all these dudes together on a basketball court, it's a, it's a bunch of wings. And nobody on the roster is a glue guy, even like McCollum. Their only glue guy is Middleton. And Middleton's, you know, at the tail end of his career.

• 1:38:45Speaker 05

  The La Cola Bali.

• 1:38:47Bill Simmons?

  Who's a terrible offensive player. I mean, he's really bad.

• 1:38:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:38:50Bill Simmons?

  I didn't like, I'm, I know he's exciting and he'll have a play every once in a while, but he's a bad offensive player.

• 1:38:56Speaker 05

  I'm not defending him. Marvin Bagley the third?

• 1:38:58Bill Simmons?

  I would argue he's got, yeah, Marvin Bagley the third. I, I would argue cool about, who was that guy Poku on OKC? That was a great tanking.

• 1:39:06Speaker 05

  Don't, don't pretend like you forgot about Poku. Who was that guy Poku?

• 1:39:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, so many OKC wins.

• 1:39:13Speaker 05

  Alexander Pokashevsky.

• 1:39:13Bill Simmons?

  But remember Poku started playing a lot. And I wonder with Kula Bali, it'd be a lot of clear outs in March and April.

• 1:39:19Speaker 05

  Don't, don't do that.

• 1:39:20Bill Simmons?

  Kula Bali, call your number. Uh, I do like the assets though, and I think there's going to be some fun. I've always wanted to see Cam Whitmore on the right team.

• 1:39:29Speaker 05

  Me too. No, you haven't. You've never wanted, you, you've.

• 1:39:32Bill Simmons?

  I've liked Cam Whitmore the entire time he was with the Rockets. He never played.

• 1:39:35Speaker 05

  He's going to shoot a lot of shots. Fine with that.

• 1:39:40Bill Simmons?

  I think if your name's Cam, you just come out firing. That's what we've learned with basketball. So the McCollum trade will happen pretty soon. And then Middleton.

• 1:39:51Speaker 05

  That's a big salary to trade, man. Let's see. That's like, what worries me a little bit about going under is that these guys just might lay around on this team for a while.

• 1:39:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:59Speaker 05

  Okay. And be like helpful in ways that I don't want them to be helpful if I'm betting an under.

• 1:40:05Bill Simmons?

  Okay, let's go through the picks. Cavaliers 56 and a half. We all went over.

• 1:40:14Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to, uh, to lock that one.

• 1:40:19Bill Simmons?

  At 56 and a half.

• 1:40:21Speaker 05

  Do my locks from the West carry over to my total lock total?

• 1:40:24Bill Simmons?

  No, you can do however many locks you want.

• 1:40:26Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:40:27Speaker 04

  What do you mean? Do they carry over?

• 1:40:28Speaker 05

  Well, I was told I need a minimum of six locks.

• 1:40:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:31Speaker 05

  I don't know if that's per conference or total.

• 1:40:32Speaker 04

  Total, total, it carries over.

• 1:40:33Speaker 05

  Uh, I've got like five already.

• 1:40:35Bill Simmons?

  Detroit Pistons, 56 and a half.

• 1:40:37Speaker 05

  Forty-six and a half.

• 1:40:38Bill Simmons?

  Forty-six and a half, under for all three of us.

• 1:40:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, disappointing.

• 1:40:41Bill Simmons?

  Milwaukee Bucks, 42 and a half, over. We already locked it down. Three locks, triple lock.

• 1:40:47Speaker 05

  Triple lock.

• 1:40:49Bill Simmons?

  Indiana Pacers, 36 and a half. Over for me and House, under for Zach. I really thought hard about locking that, but decided not to. Chicago Bulls, 32 and a half. We all went over on that. Knicks, 52 and a half, over, over, over. House, lock, over.

• 1:41:06Speaker 04

  Lock the Knicks.

• 1:41:08Bill Simmons?

  Philadelphia 76ers, 42 and a half.

• 1:41:13Bill Simmons?

  Under, under, and I'm going to lock my under. Uh, just for fun.

• 1:41:19Speaker 04

  Dangerous.

• 1:41:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:23Bill Simmons?

  Is it dangerous, though? Is it Zach Low?

• 1:41:25Speaker 05

  I wouldn't lock anything with the Sixers.

• 1:41:26Bill Simmons?

  Is it dangerous?

• 1:41:28Speaker 05

  They could put the over/under at 25 and a half and I wouldn't lock.

• 1:41:31Bill Simmons?

  You know what? I'm gonna unlock it. I've unlocked my lock. No lock. Lock waived. Zach's right. Just stay away from this team.

• 1:41:38Speaker 04

  Stay away.

• 1:41:39Bill Simmons?

  Stay away.

• 1:41:40Speaker 04

  By scratchers.

• 1:41:41Bill Simmons?

  42 and a half. I went over, you guys went under. That was one of our big disagreements. Toronto Raptors, three overs, including a lock from Joe House.

• 1:41:49Speaker 05

  I'm gonna lock the Raptors. I'm locking the Raptors.

• 1:41:51Speaker 04

  See? Look at this. Love to see it. Me and Zach Low on the same page.

• 1:41:55Speaker 05

  You know what? Once I lock, the lock is locked.

• 1:41:57Speaker 04

  The lock is locked. You're not gonna unlock it.

• 1:41:59Bill Simmons?

  Nets, under 19 and a half. Are we all under?

• 1:42:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:42:03Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:42:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, not only am I under. This is a hardcore lock.

• 1:42:11Bill Simmons?

  With some Viennese pizzas thrown in.

• 1:42:14Speaker 05

  Oh, Viennese.

• 1:42:15Bill Simmons?

  Lock for me at under nineteen and a half. I don't see any scenario where this team wins twenty games. I honestly can't.

• 1:42:22Speaker 05

  They won twenty-six games last year.

• 1:42:24Bill Simmons?

  They're gonna be so bad. They're gonna be like watching when you go, like when your son started playing basketball and you're just watching these crazy eleven-year-old teams of people just running around, not knowing who should have the ball.

• 1:42:37Speaker 05

  So, all right, we should, there should be, does the Reddit Bill Simmons page, like, your comparisons need to be tracked. Ayton has already been compared to multiple pieces of furniture. The Nets were compared to an eleven-and-under basketball team. I would love like, how many metaphors in this podcast? Wonderful stuff.

• 1:42:55Bill Simmons?

  I felt like I've been light. I feel like I could have dialed it up.

• 1:42:58Speaker 05

  I mean, I compared the Kings to the Hindenburg. You did do that.

• 1:43:03Bill Simmons?

  Hawks, three overs. Oh, I want to do a lock so bad for them.

• 1:43:09Speaker 05

  Don't do it.

• 1:43:09Bill Simmons?

  I'm too scarred from previous.

• 1:43:11Speaker 05

  Hawks.

• 1:43:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's just.

• 1:43:12Speaker 05

  It's the Hawks.

• 1:43:14Bill Simmons?

  Miami, under thirty-eight and a half for me, over for you guys.

• 1:43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:20Bill Simmons?

  Charlotte, twenty-six and a half, over, over, over. Washington, twenty and a half. I locked that one down as an under.

• 1:43:30Bill Simmons?

  You went under.

• 1:43:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:31Bill Simmons?

  House went over. So you were light on the East Coast locks.

• 1:43:35Speaker 05

  Uh, I, I'm gonna lock something now. I'm locking Orlando over fifty and a half.

• 1:43:42Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:43:42Speaker 05

  I feel strongly about this. I like being on Orlando by myself on the over. And I'm gonna lock it.

• 1:43:49Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:43:49Speaker 05

  You're allowed. I'm gonna get super behind that one.

• 1:43:53Bill Simmons?

  So playoff teams, really quick before we go.

• 1:43:55Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:43:58Bill Simmons?

  If you just say in the top six.

• 1:43:59Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:00Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland, New York, Orlando, Atlanta. Do we all feel good about those four being four of the six playoff teams?

• 1:44:06Speaker 05

  Yep. Yes.

• 1:44:07Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland, New York, Orlando, Atlanta. Would you put Milwaukee in there as the fifth playoff team?

• 1:44:12Speaker 05

  I can tell you who my next two would be are Detroit and Milwaukee. Yeah, I have Detroit and Milwaukee in there also.

• 1:44:17Bill Simmons?

  I have Milwaukee and then Detroit.

• 1:44:19Speaker 05

  Okay, so, fine.

• 1:44:21Bill Simmons?

  Playing, um, Boston, Indiana, Chicago, Toronto?

• 1:44:29Bill Simmons?

  In some order?

• 1:44:30Speaker 05

  Boston, Indiana, Chicago, Toronto. I am kicking out Chicago.

• 1:44:35Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:44:36Speaker 05

  And I am putting in-

• 1:44:37Bill Simmons?

  Philly?

• 1:44:38Speaker 05

  The Philadelphia 76ers.

• 1:44:39Speaker 04

  Okay, that's fair.

• 1:44:40Bill Simmons?

  All right. Well, we just went for, uh, what time did we start? A little before 10 o'clock? That was a four-hour extravaganza.

• 1:44:48Speaker 05

  I'm hungry.

• 1:44:48Bill Simmons?

  Joe House, pleasure as always.

• 1:44:49Speaker 04

  Pleasure, pleasure.

• 1:44:50Bill Simmons?

  Zach Lowe is hungry.

• 1:44:50Speaker 04

  We did it. We did it, Zach Lowe.

• 1:44:52Bill Simmons?

  Our first one. Great work. Uh, thanks to Chris-

• 1:44:55Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 1:44:55Bill Simmons?

  For hanging out-

• 1:44:56Speaker 04

  Great job.

• 1:44:56Bill Simmons?

  For multiple hours with us. Thanks to Ronik as well, and Eduardo. And, uh, I'm gonna be back with one more podcast. Some, we'll do some football. I don't know if you're gonna be on it.

• 1:45:06Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:45:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, maybe you'll be on it.

• 1:45:08Speaker 04

  We just went 4-1, you son of a bitch.

• 1:45:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we did go, yeah, you, you will be on it. So I'll see you again on Thursday.

• 1:45:12Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:45:15Bill Simmons?

  On behalf of, uh, myself and Conk Nipples family, we'll see you next time here on the BS Podcast.

• 1:45:36Bill Simmons?

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• 1:47:03Bill Simmons?

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