Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast NBA Over/Unders, Part 2: The East With Zach Lowe and Joe House About this episode 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
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Transcript 20,322 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.
0:25 Speaker 01 Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.
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1:24 Speaker 02 Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.
1:30 Bill 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.
2:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that's on the ringer too.
2:16 Speaker 04 It is.
2:16 Bill 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?
2:59 Bill 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.
3:41 Bill 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.
3:54 Speaker 04 It's very nice.
3:55 Bill Simmons? We leave your team last.
3:56 Speaker 04 We get to end with Washington. I always leave feeling good. No matter what the pick is, I leave feeling good about it.
4:02 Bill 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.
4:46 Bill 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?
4:57 Speaker 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.
5:17 Bill Simmons? OK. How about you, House?
5:18 Speaker 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?
5:29 Bill Simmons? Right. What if Mobley plays game one? What if Garland was healthy?
5:32 Speaker 05 Hunter was banged up?
5:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
5:33 Speaker 05 Yeah.
5:34 Bill 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?
6:17 Speaker 04 Uh, what he, how many points did he average last year? Let me look at that. I'm guessing 21, something like that.
6:21 Bill Simmons? He was like 19 and 19 and 9, something like that.
6:24 Speaker 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.
6:46 Bill 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?
6:56 Speaker 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.
7:02 Bill Simmons? Top three defensive player of the year rankings, somewhere in there.
7:06 Speaker 04 He's there.
7:06 Bill Simmons? One, so.
7:07 Speaker 04 Check it.
7:08 Bill 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?
7:18 Speaker 04 Uh, in terms of what I think about this team?
7:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
7:21 Speaker 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.
7:37 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
7:38 Speaker 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.
8:15 Bill Simmons? Right.
8:15 Speaker 04 So.
8:16 Bill Simmons? The attrition. No Tatum, no Howburn.
8:20 Speaker 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?
8:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah, go.
8:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. It's an over for me because 57 wins is perfectly reasonable for this team.
8:41 Speaker 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.
9:21 Bill Simmons? It's fine.
9:21 Speaker 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.
9:29 Bill 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.
9:40 Speaker 05 Cause I'm with House. It's a good number.
9:42 Bill Simmons? The first time I looked at it, I'm like, whoa, that's low. They won 64 last year.
9:46 Speaker 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.
9:55 Bill 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.
10:04 Bill 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.
10:48 Bill 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.
10:58 Speaker 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.
11:05 Speaker 04 I did.
11:05 Speaker 05 I'm doing my first.
11:06 Speaker 04 Mine was open.
11:07 Speaker 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.
11:21 Bill Simmons? You coward.
11:22 Speaker 05 I just, I didn't feel great about it from the beginning. I'm going over.
11:27 Bill 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.
11:42 Speaker 04 Still in the league.
11:43 Bill Simmons? Javonte Green?
11:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, definitely not Jeff Green.
11:44 Bill Simmons? I wrote down Green.
11:46 Speaker 05 They had a Green.
11:47 Bill Simmons? Javonte Green? Javonte Green?
11:50 Speaker 05 AJ some sort.
11:51 Bill Simmons? They added Green. Gerald Green?
11:53 Speaker 05 No, AJ Green's on Milwaukee. AC Green?
11:57 Bill 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.
12:40 Bill 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?
13:13 Speaker 05 First of all, Asar Thompson is my pick for most improved player. So I'm excited about him.
13:17 Bill Simmons? That would help. This is fun.
13:19 Speaker 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.
13:32 Bill Simmons? Who was pretty important for them in those last two months. It's like, yeah.
13:36 Speaker 04 And the playoffs.
13:37 Speaker 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.
14:19 Bill 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.
14:28 Speaker 05 He and, he and Durin are extension eligible now.
14:30 Bill Simmons? And it's Cade's team. You gotta slide him in. What do you, what do you see, House?
14:34 Speaker 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.
14:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
14:47 Speaker 04 And, and it was very quiet over the course.
14:49 Bill Simmons? And one of the worst gamblers. Now, we don't know. Not proven. Nothing proven.
14:52 Speaker 04 There's just allegations out there.
14:54 Bill Simmons? Just allegations.
14:56 Speaker 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.
15:10 Bill Simmons? So you're going half under.
15:11 Speaker 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.
15:25 Speaker 05 I think he'll be fine. I think Jay, Jay and I will be fine.
15:28 Speaker 04 Yeah.
15:29 Speaker 05 Shot catch and shoot threes really well.
15:30 Speaker 04 Yeah.
15:31 Speaker 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.
15:44 Speaker 04 Okay.
15:45 Bill 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.
15:54 Speaker 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.
16:12 Speaker 04 It's a tiny bit.
16:13 Bill Simmons? Slide unders for all of us and the marketing trade could really fuck it up.
16:16 Speaker 05 Yeah, sure.
16:17 Bill Simmons? If they just come in in February, come in hot.
16:19 Speaker 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.
16:26 Bill Simmons? I, they feel like every year there's a team and weirdly it was Orlando last year.
16:32 Bill 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.
16:51 Bill 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.
17:27 Speaker 04 Great. Didn't take a lot, but they were the number one three-point shooting team by percentage.
17:30 Bill 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.
17:55 Speaker 04 Well, look, I mean, what did they win last year? 48?
17:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah.
18:00 Speaker 04 And they added Thanasis and Alex Antetokounmpo.
18:04 Bill Simmons? No brainer. And Russell Westbrook and Antetokounmpo.
18:07 Speaker 04 Talk about a freak off. We, this is, we got the, all the freaks are in Milwaukee.
18:13 Bill Simmons? Literal freak off. It's a G-rated freak off.
18:16 Speaker 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.
18:56 Bill Simmons? I mean, a huge improvement. I didn't think Brook was good last year.
19:00 Speaker 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.
19:13 Speaker 04 Fair.
19:13 Speaker 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.
19:37 Bill 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.
19:43 Speaker 05 Kuzma can't be worse. Um, I think, I think Jericho Sims is like a decent backup center.
19:49 Bill Simmons? I agree with this.
19:50 Speaker 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.
20:05 Bill Simmons? Yeah. I have it as a, I'm locking it down.
20:06 Speaker 04 So am I. And there's what?
20:08 Speaker 05 Triple lock, triple lock.
20:09 Speaker 04 Triple lock.
20:10 Speaker 05 It's on my lock.
20:11 Speaker 04 It's Tuesday, October the 14th, we're taping this podcast, Doc Rivers birthday. Triple lock on Doc.
20:17 Bill Simmons? Oh my God.
20:17 Speaker 04 How about that?
20:17 Bill Simmons? Wow.
20:18 Speaker 04 Triple lock on Doc.
20:19 Speaker 05 Doc Rivers birthday.
20:20 Bill 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.
21:02 Speaker 05 Cole Anthony, how about like, I was a six man of the year candidate, like a hot minute ago.
21:06 Bill 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.
21:26 Speaker 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.
21:39 Bill 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.
21:48 Speaker 05 Sure.
21:48 Bill Simmons? Four or five. I think they're not a playing team. I think they're a playoff team.
21:52 Speaker 05 That makes tons of sense.
21:52 Speaker 04 I agree, they're top six for me, for sure.
21:54 Speaker 05 We're all in agreement.
21:55 Bill 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.
22:01 Speaker 05 I haven't asked for it, but.
22:02 Bill Simmons? If, uh, you don't, you don't want the vote anymore, do you?
22:06 Speaker 05 I mean, there's, I'm torn, but we'll see how it.
22:09 Speaker 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.
22:19 Bill Simmons? If they added an LVP award for most damaging player who played at least 25 minutes on a playoff team.
22:25 Speaker 05 Don't do this to Kyle.
22:26 Bill Simmons? Kuzma's minus 250.
22:29 Bill Simmons? I can't even think who would be another like heavy prohibitive favorite.
22:32 Speaker 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.
22:41 Bill Simmons? You're predicting the Kuzma bounce back?
22:43 Speaker 05 Kuzma bounce back.
22:44 Bill Simmons? Will I hit the legacy button or not?
22:45 Speaker 04 Not most.
22:47 Bill Simmons? 2020 champion Kuzma legacy button?
22:49 Speaker 04 The Kuzma legacy.
22:51 Bill 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.
22:59 Speaker 04 Well, he, not contaminated.
23:01 Bill Simmons? He got bit by a spider on the Wizards.
23:02 Speaker 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?
23:24 Bill Simmons? I'm proud that we got through this whole segment without talking about Giannis' future and where he's gonna go.
23:29 Speaker 05 Well, we kinda did, we talked around it.
23:31 Speaker 04 You have a whole season to do that.
23:33 Speaker 05 Yeah.
23:34 Bill Simmons? If there was one team, if we're wrong and he gets traded during the season.
23:39 Speaker 05 Oh, boy.
23:40 Bill Simmons? You could only pick one team that that trade would happen to. What is the team?
23:45 Speaker 05 Do I have to go first?
23:47 Bill Simmons? I'll go first.
23:49 Speaker 04 Go ahead.
23:49 Bill Simmons? San Antonio.
23:50 Speaker 04 Okay.
23:53 Bill 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.
24:00 Speaker 05 Houston.
24:01 Speaker 04 Good. So you guys took one and two?
24:03 Bill Simmons? So what's that trade? Shangoon?
24:04 Speaker 05 I don't know it. You just asked me to name a team. Stop there. I'm not going any further.
24:08 Bill Simmons? Shangoon.
24:10 Speaker 04 Mine is?
24:11 Bill Simmons? Reed Shepard.
24:12 Speaker 04 Oklahoma City.
24:14 Speaker 05 That's insane.
24:15 Speaker 04 Okay. Just saying, they have the picks and the players.
24:17 Bill Simmons? Presti's even more risk averse than Zach.
24:19 Speaker 04 They have, what's, what's the risk of taking on Giannis?
24:22 Speaker 05 They just won the championship.
24:24 Bill 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?
24:29 Speaker 04 Does Giannis hurt that? Giannis diminishes their win potential?
24:34 Bill Simmons? I feel comfortable predicting that he will not get traded. It's okay, see?
24:37 Speaker 04 That's fine.
24:37 Bill Simmons? Reporting that right now.
24:39 Speaker 04 Purely.
24:39 Bill Simmons? On the ESPN ticker.
24:40 Speaker 04 It's a ridiculous exercise. So I gave an answer of a team that has assets.
24:43 Bill Simmons? San Antonio is ridiculous.
24:44 Speaker 05 It's not. It's not.
24:46 Bill 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.
24:59 Speaker 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.
25:13 Bill Simmons? Fox can be in that trade.
25:14 Speaker 05 I was gonna say.
25:15 Speaker 04 And we'll be good again in five years.
25:18 Bill Simmons? Castle could be in that trade.
25:21 Speaker 04 We'll be good again in the East in three years.
25:23 Bill Simmons? There's a bunch of picks that could go in that trade.
25:25 Speaker 04 That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying.
25:27 Bill Simmons? Kelly Olynyk could be in that trade.
25:28 Speaker 04 I love Kelly Olynyk.
25:29 Speaker 05 Luke Cornet on top of it.
25:30 Bill Simmons? Great eater. Cornet can. He's like hanging up. Don't mention Luke Cornet.
25:33 Speaker 04 One of the best eaters in the NBA, Kelly Olynyk.
25:35 Bill Simmons? Our next team is the Indiana Pacers.
25:39 Bill 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,
25:47 Bill 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.
26:09 Bill Simmons? They're plus 110 for the play in.
26:12 Bill Simmons? They are 35 to one for the conference. They do have their own first round pick.
26:20 Speaker 05 And I'm gonna do my first are we sure? Dot, dot, dot of either over under pod.
26:27 Bill Simmons? Are we sure the Pacers aren't gonna be pretty good?
26:31 Speaker 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?
27:14 Speaker 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.
27:40 Bill Simmons? What a zag.
27:41 Speaker 05 I think they lost so much of their identity.
27:44 Bill Simmons? Zach zag.
27:44 Speaker 05 I think they lost so much of their identity.
27:48 Speaker 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.
28:27 Bill Simmons? This was one of the controversial over unders, just in general, House.
28:30 Speaker 04 Yeah.
28:30 Bill Simmons? What do you have?
28:31 Speaker 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.
28:55 Bill Simmons? Great job, House.
28:56 Speaker 04 He gets, he, he gets the touches.
28:58 Bill Simmons? I really like it.
28:59 Speaker 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.
29:13 Bill Simmons? 14 to one on Fanduel, second best odds.
29:15 Speaker 04 Yeah.
29:16 Speaker 05 Wow, really?
29:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
29:17 Speaker 05 Who's number one?
29:19 Bill Simmons? Amen Thompson, plus 850. And your guy, uh, his brother is 20 to one.
29:25 Bill Simmons? I'll, I'll book all Nikola Jovic 25 to one bets. If you guys want to make those with me directly.
29:34 Speaker 05 You know who else is a serious basketball player? Pascal Siakam, serious.
29:38 Speaker 04 There we go.
29:39 Speaker 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.
29:47 Bill Simmons? Boy, did we clean up on Neesmith Island. I'm going over.
29:53 Bill 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.
30:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
30:16 Bill 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?
30:34 Speaker 04 Contract year Matherin.
30:35 Speaker 05 Could be, yeah.
30:37 Bill Simmons? Love them hard. I'm excited to see what he can do with more stuff.
30:41 Bill Simmons? I've always liked Jarrus Walker.
30:42 Speaker 05 Yeah.
30:43 Bill 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?
31:04 Speaker 05 A facsimile?
31:05 Bill Simmons? A facsimile.
31:06 Speaker 05 Faximile.
31:07 Bill Simmons? Faximile.
31:08 Speaker 05 Yeah.
31:09 Bill Simmons? I'm sorry, was that ignominious?
31:11 Speaker 05 Well, if you're gonna.
31:15 Speaker 05 It's where fax machine comes from, facsimile.
31:17 Bill 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.
31:30 Bill Simmons? I really like Carlisle. My biggest fear is beyond Halliburton, can they survive the loss of James Johnson?
31:37 Bill 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.
31:49 Speaker 05 Wow.
31:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
31:50 Speaker 05 Okay.
31:51 Bill Simmons? I think they're gonna be good. I.
31:52 Speaker 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.
31:58 Bill 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.
32:16 Speaker 05 Okay.
32:16 Speaker 04 Strong agree with that.
32:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I think they're, I think they're gonna be in above 500.
32:20 Speaker 04 You're only asking me to win 37 games.
32:22 Speaker 05 And I guess my, my thing was how much of the DNA is Halliburton?
32:27 Bill Simmons? Right.
32:29 Bill 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.
32:58 Speaker 05 I guess I just.
32:59 Bill Simmons? So we take one more shot at them.
33:00 Speaker 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.
33:08 Bill Simmons? Well, I think Shepard is gonna have to step up.
33:11 Speaker 05 Serious dude.
33:13 Bill 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.
33:22 Speaker 05 You guys are making me feel bad.
33:24 Bill 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.
33:43 Bill 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?
33:53 Speaker 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.
34:12 Bill Simmons? The safest non-tanking bet in the NBA because they just want to go 40 and 42 every year for the rest of.
34:18 Speaker 04 They want to go to the play in and lose Miami.
34:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
34:21 Speaker 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.
34:28 Bill Simmons? Them 40 and 42 is 62 and 20.
34:31 Speaker 04 It's exactly right.
34:33 Speaker 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.
34:51 Speaker 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.
34:58 Bill Simmons? Defense is bad.
34:59 Speaker 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.
35:22 Bill 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.
35:36 Speaker 05 Was that the giddy heave? Was that game?
35:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
35:38 Speaker 05 Yeah.
35:40 Bill Simmons? The giddy way together. I really like Buzellis.
35:44 Speaker 05 Me too. Yes.
35:45 Bill 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
35:57 Speaker 05 A Coros.
35:57 Bill Simmons? Tenth level Coro. These guys are like rotation guys.
36:00 Speaker 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.
36:08 Bill Simmons? Uh, yeah.
36:08 Speaker 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
36:21 Bill 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.
36:50 Speaker 05 First of all.
36:51 Bill Simmons? That's a thirty four and forty eight team.
36:53 Speaker 05 You guys stop right now.
36:54 Bill Simmons? Connie Britton?
36:55 Speaker 05 You cannot.
36:56 Bill Simmons? Disparage Connie Britton?
36:58 Speaker 05 You cannot comp Dartmouth College's own Connie Britton with anybody on this Chicago Bulls roster. Don't do it.
37:04 Bill Simmons? Like a Kobe White?
37:05 Speaker 05 Take it back, delete it from the podcast. Mrs. Coach.
37:09 Bill Simmons? Mrs. Coach.
37:09 Speaker 05 Mrs. Coach. I won't have it. I won't, I won't have it.
37:12 Speaker 04 All right.
37:13 Speaker 05 You want to compare her to, you know, a, an all star, fine.
37:16 Bill Simmons? Okay.
37:17 Speaker 05 Not, not anyone on this team.
37:19 Bill Simmons? Last ten years, the Bulls are three forty nine and four forty four.
37:23 Speaker 05 Great.
37:23 Speaker 04 Mission accomplished.
37:24 Bill 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.
37:40 Speaker 05 The Kings not being on that list is one of the greatest upsets that I can like, what?
37:44 Speaker 04 They lit the beam.
37:47 Speaker 05 But we're all over.
37:49 Speaker 04 We're all over on the Bulls.
37:52 Bill Simmons? My stock guy.
37:53 Speaker 05 Oh.
37:57 Bill Simmons? Buzelis, really? Buzelis Island? Well, Zach's right here.
38:01 Speaker 05 Not everything can be an island. Everybody loves Buzelis.
38:06 Bill Simmons? Zach said there's no valley. Okay.
38:10 Bill Simmons? Not everything can be an island. How dare you? Is there, are we gonna have one island we're gonna create this year?
38:16 Speaker 05 If you want to create an island.
38:17 Bill Simmons? I do want to create an island this year.
38:18 Speaker 05 How about you create Dalen Terry Island? Julian Phillips Island? Those are islands.
38:25 Bill Simmons? Those are.
38:26 Speaker 04 Those are islands.
38:27 Bill Simmons? I have a couple Celtics islands.
38:28 Speaker 05 Pat Williams Island? Pat Williams Island had a decent population for a while. It's deserted.
38:33 Speaker 04 It is, yeah.
38:34 Speaker 05 The volleyball is floating off the coast.
38:38 Bill Simmons? Josh Minot Island might come up later.
38:40 Speaker 05 Oh, God.
38:41 Bill Simmons? All right, so we're all going, uh.
38:43 Speaker 04 Over on the Bulls.
38:43 Bill Simmons? Over, over, over. Wow.
38:46 Speaker 05 It's a sad state of affairs.
38:48 Bill 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.
39:33 Bill 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.
40:15 Bill 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.
41:00 Bill 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.
41:42 Speaker 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?
42:04 Bill Simmons? 51 and 31.
42:05 Speaker 05 I'm going over on the Knicks.
42:07 Bill Simmons? Okay.
42:08 Speaker 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.
42:38 Speaker 04 It is a lock over for me.
42:40 Speaker 05 Wow.
42:41 Speaker 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
43:22 Speaker 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.
43:45 Speaker 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.
43:57 Bill 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.
44:16 Speaker 05 Yeah.
44:17 Bill 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.
44:49 Speaker 05 Spot minutes and he's smart. He's not a big dummy.
44:51 Bill Simmons? Maybe.
44:52 Speaker 05 He's not a dummy. I do think.
44:53 Bill Simmons? And then Shamet found himself in the playoffs a little bit. So I, maybe they have 10 guys.
44:57 Speaker 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.
45:06 Bill 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.
45:15 Bill 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.
45:50 Speaker 05 I don't.
45:50 Bill Simmons? In a bad East, they, 54, 55 feels right. Right?
45:56 Speaker 05 Yeah. And this is, you know, like they're.
45:59 Speaker 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.
46:11 Bill Simmons? You're just trying to suck up to Vino right now?
46:13 Speaker 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,
46:18 Bill Simmons? Right.
46:18 Speaker 04 with the CAA logo on it. But, uh, there is something to be-
46:22 Bill Simmons? Houses can be bought. I don't know if you knew.
46:24 Speaker 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.
46:32 Bill 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.
46:42 Speaker 05 This is the most exciting slash pressurized New York Knicks season from the jump since Patrick Ewing's prime.
46:50 Bill Simmons? Yeah. This is a midnight-
46:51 Speaker 05 That's what's at stake.
46:52 Bill 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.
46:58 Speaker 05 Wow. Lock on the Knicks. I thought for sure somebody would be under-
47:01 Bill Simmons? I really want, I tried. I, I test drove it. I looked at, I just couldn't get there.
47:05 Speaker 05 What Pelton, what, some of the projections are like, oh, sure.
47:08 Bill 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.
47:21 Speaker 05 For the record, Pelton has them projected 47 wins, the Knicks. Crazy. Okay.
47:27 Bill 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-
47:54 Speaker 05 Unclear.
47:54 Bill Simmons? Unclear.
47:55 Speaker 05 I don't think it's too, too long.
47:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's not, like, into December, the end of November, I think.
47:59 Bill 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.
48:20 Bill Simmons? If you had to pick one of those two scenarios, what would you pick, Zach? You have to pick one.
48:23 Speaker 05 What was the first one?
48:24 Bill 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.
48:34 Speaker 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.
48:43 Bill Simmons? Great. What do you got? What do you got for this team?
48:47 Speaker 05 There's almost no number
48:50 Speaker 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.
49:21 Bill Simmons? You know what the big reason for that was? Other than that he was hurt and seemingly out of shape.
49:26 Speaker 05 He wasn't the same guy.
49:27 Bill Simmons? He doesn't protect the rim anymore.
49:29 Speaker 05 Well, look, I'm just saying.
49:30 Bill Simmons? The rim protection stats with him were terrible last year.
49:33 Speaker 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?
50:13 Bill Simmons? Embiid, 11 years, 452 games house, 31 years old, never made the Eastern Conference Finals, won five playoff series total.
50:23 Speaker 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.
50:29 Speaker 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.
50:39 Speaker 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.
50:49 Bill Simmons? I will say Embiid being in better shape this year, I think is encouraging.
50:55 Speaker 04 He's listed day to day right now. So is Paul George.
50:58 Bill Simmons? That part's not encouraging.
50:59 Speaker 04 Day to day.
51:01 Bill Simmons? Hard under for all of us?
51:03 Speaker 05 I'm not locking it. It's not a lock.
51:05 Bill Simmons? I just said a hard under.
51:06 Speaker 04 Who the hell knows what's gonna happen?
51:09 Bill Simmons? I thought about locking it.
51:10 Speaker 04 It's a scratch ticket.
51:14 Bill 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.
51:30 Speaker 04 Well, let's, let's press the legacy button. If he plays 60 games, no, he needs 65 to be qualified.
51:38 Speaker 05 He's not gonna play 60.
51:38 Speaker 04 I don't think so either.
51:39 Bill 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.
51:45 Speaker 04 Okay, so he's not gonna be.
51:46 Bill Simmons? Bring him out for a minute, then sit him down, AC Green style.
51:48 Speaker 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?
52:31 Speaker 05 Of course. That Eastern Conference Finals.
52:33 Bill Simmons? That sounds great.
52:34 Speaker 05 They've literally never been to the Eastern Conference Finals.
52:36 Speaker 04 I understand. It's why I said, it's why I'm saying.
52:39 Speaker 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.
52:48 Speaker 04 Sure.
52:49 Speaker 05 My soul is too injured to even imagine at this point.
52:52 Speaker 04 Completely understand.
52:52 Bill Simmons? When your ceiling is hopefully we can become a nobody wants to play us nine seed. I'm going under.
53:00 Speaker 05 It's just the repetitive knee injuries are scary.
53:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
53:03 Speaker 05 For the best player on the team.
53:05 Bill 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.
53:12 Speaker 04 Obviously an under.
53:14 Bill Simmons? Celtics over forty-two and a half.
53:18 Bill 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.
53:30 Bill 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.
53:49 Bill 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.
54:25 Bill Simmons? What do you got?
54:26 Speaker 05 Under.
54:27 Bill Simmons? Okay. Under. Case.
54:30 Speaker 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?
55:15 Speaker 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.
55:32 Bill Simmons? Who are you apologizing to?
55:33 Speaker 05 You.
55:35 Bill Simmons? What do you mean? I'm fine.
55:37 Speaker 05 You've got Tatum coming back and on Christmas.
55:41 Bill 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?
55:51 Speaker 04 Under 42 and 40 for the Boston Celtics. That is under 42 and a half.
55:57 Speaker 05 It is.
55:57 Speaker 04 I honestly would have bet the over if it stayed at 41 and a half. Because 42, 42 and 40 is over.
56:05 Bill Simmons? Funny you said that. Cause I was, I was leaning.
56:07 Speaker 05 Cop out.
56:07 Speaker 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.
56:38 Speaker 05 Come on. Come on.
56:41 Bill Simmons? Go over?
56:41 Speaker 05 You gotta go over.
56:43 Bill Simmons? I would, it was so much more enticing to me at 41 and a half.
56:46 Speaker 05 Are you serious?
56:47 Bill Simmons? 42 and 40 seemed reasonable.
56:49 Speaker 04 Yeah, one win.
56:51 Bill Simmons? 43 and 39.
56:54 Bill Simmons? Is way less enticing.
56:56 Speaker 05 I can't.
56:56 Bill Simmons? To lose less than 40 games.
56:58 Speaker 05 You just made the case for the under and it's a good case.
57:02 Bill Simmons? So here's the thing. I think it's 50 50. Like I think it's straight.
57:08 Speaker 05 Totally agree.
57:08 Bill 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.
57:40 Bill Simmons? I'm gonna go over anyway.
57:42 Speaker 05 Yes.
57:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Yeah.
57:46 Speaker 05 Good. That's good.
57:47 Bill Simmons? I think they're gonna be pretty good.
57:49 Speaker 05 I think they'll be fine.
57:50 Bill 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.
57:59 Speaker 05 Disaster, not on paper, on the basketball court.
58:01 Bill Simmons? Everyone's gonna try. I think Jalen is gonna kind of secretly enjoy this whole.
58:08 Speaker 05 I agree with you. Alpha Jalen.
58:09 Bill 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?
58:15 Speaker 05 I like it.
58:16 Bill 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?
58:28 Speaker 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.
58:37 Bill Simmons? Couldn't agree more.
58:38 Speaker 05 Thin is just bad for regular season to me.
58:41 Bill Simmons? I really like Simons on this team. I think he's
58:45 Speaker 05 The rehabilitation of Anthony Simons.
58:47 Bill 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.
58:59 Speaker 05 For the Nets or for the Celtics?
59:01 Bill Simmons? Well, that's the question. The question with this over under is will Simons be in the team in February?
59:06 Speaker 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.
59:12 Bill Simmons? But if Tatum's playing the last 30 games.
59:15 Speaker 05 I'm sorry, what?
59:16 Bill Simmons? If Tatum's playing the last 30 games hypothetically.
59:19 Speaker 05 So he comes back.
59:20 Bill Simmons? Last 30 is February.
59:21 Speaker 05 Yeah. Who plays more games this year, Jason Tatum or Joel Embiid? Come on, answer the question.
59:29 Bill Simmons? Wow, that's a great one.
59:30 Speaker 05 That's a great one. Let's get Fanduel to write a prop for that.
59:33 Bill Simmons? It's gotta be Embiid, come on.
59:34 Speaker 05 Embiid.
59:36 Bill Simmons? What's the over under for Embiid game?
59:38 Speaker 05 I don't know, I just asked who's playing more.
59:40 Bill Simmons? Embiid's a safer bet. Embiid would be favored in that matchup, I would have bet it.
59:44 Speaker 05 I can't believe you're thinking about this.
59:46 Bill Simmons? I just don't, I mean.
59:48 Speaker 05 I love, I love, I love everything about the Celtics discussion, I'm still going under.
59:52 Bill 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.
1:00:13 Speaker 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.
1:00:23 Bill Simmons? It's gonna be right in that low 40s.
1:00:25 Speaker 05 The under is like, wait, how many minutes did Baylor Shireman play last night?
1:00:30 Bill Simmons? He looks great.
1:00:33 Speaker 05 Like he could be very good, he's just young and unproven, unproven.
1:00:36 Bill 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.
1:00:48 Bill Simmons? They added Mamu, they added Murray Boils, they lost Boucher.
1:00:54 Bill Simmons? They have one of the weirdest roster slash salary cap situations. Where I think they have like a top 10 expensive roster.
1:01:03 Speaker 05 They're over the tax. They're in the first apron.
1:01:05 Bill Simmons? Over the tax. I don't understand the team.
1:01:11 Bill 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.
1:01:25 Speaker 05 It's a great line, 39 and a half.
1:01:27 Bill Simmons? Yeah. What do you have?
1:01:29 Speaker 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.
1:02:13 Speaker 05 Under super amounts of pressure to see, yeah, this model works. This team we built works. I'm going over.
1:02:18 Bill Simmons? So for them to hit this house, they were 30 and 52 last year. They have to be 10 wins better.
1:02:23 Speaker 05 I mean, they weren't even trying for two months.
1:02:26 Speaker 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.
1:02:50 Bill Simmons? Ooh.
1:02:51 Speaker 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.
1:03:33 Speaker 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.
1:04:09 Bill 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.
1:04:45 Bill 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.
1:05:02 Speaker 04 His shooting really regressed last year across the board.
1:05:05 Speaker 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.
1:05:13 Bill 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.
1:05:45 Speaker 05 You're going over? We're all going over on the Raptors?
1:05:47 Bill Simmons? I didn't want to, but I, I think there's no other.
1:05:49 Speaker 05 Yeah. You, you, you sound like you're.
1:05:51 Bill Simmons? I don't feel great about it.
1:05:52 Speaker 04 I locked it.
1:05:53 Bill 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.
1:06:04 Speaker 05 We can, we can keep it quick if you want. I'm also going under.
1:06:06 Speaker 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.
1:06:22 Speaker 05 Yeah, but they, the front office, Jordy proofed the roster this year. I mean, like.
1:06:26 Speaker 04 They did.
1:06:26 Speaker 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.
1:06:34 Bill Simmons? Hold on, let me tell my grandkids.
1:06:37 Speaker 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.
1:07:08 Bill 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.
1:07:24 Speaker 05 The, the offense is going to be a mess and I.
1:07:29 Bill Simmons? This team's gonna be awful.
1:07:30 Speaker 05 This is a. All right, we all went under.
1:07:32 Bill Simmons? Trying to give your tickets away.
1:07:33 Speaker 04 It's a bummer that it ticked down from 20 and a half to 19 and a half.
1:07:37 Bill Simmons? Would any net play in OKC?
1:07:43 Speaker 05 It's a mean question. I think Nick Claxton. I agree. Claxton can get minutes.
1:07:47 Bill Simmons? Who's he playing over? Jalen Williams?
1:07:48 Speaker 04 No, he's gonna get all the homegrown missed game minutes.
1:07:50 Speaker 05 Yeah, dude, there's missed game minutes there to be had.
1:07:53 Bill Simmons? Would any net play in the Nuggets?
1:07:57 Speaker 05 Michael Porter Jr. Knows the system.
1:08:01 Bill Simmons? When does Brooklyn flip the tank switch?
1:08:04 Speaker 05 It's flipped.
1:08:05 Bill Simmons? No, but I.
1:08:06 Speaker 04 The season starts on October the 22nd.
1:08:08 Bill Simmons? They'll let Jordy try to win games for a month.
1:08:10 Speaker 05 I don't think so.
1:08:11 Bill Simmons? Settle down.
1:08:11 Speaker 05 They are praying someone gets desperate enough to take the Michael Porter Jr. Contract off their hands, I'm sure.
1:08:17 Bill Simmons? Can I give you, before we go to a break, the Brooklyn Nets, 15 years in Brooklyn recap?
1:08:23 Speaker 05 It's a really, it's a winding tale.
1:08:26 Bill 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.
1:08:39 Speaker 05 Greatest theoretical team of all time.
1:08:41 Bill Simmons? They built the Tatum Brown dynasty in Boston.
1:08:45 Bill Simmons? They have some future picks and they're the third most popular professional basketball team in New York.
1:08:50 Speaker 05 You just, you left out so much stuff.
1:08:52 Bill Simmons? I've just given you the highlights. What else did you want to put in there?
1:08:54 Speaker 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.
1:09:08 Bill Simmons? There's good pizza.
1:09:09 Speaker 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?
1:09:16 Bill Simmons? Let's see if, this is a good one for House.
1:09:20 Bill Simmons? Cause he's a little groggy now, cause he doesn't have coffee in five hours.
1:09:22 Speaker 04 It's true.
1:09:24 Bill Simmons? How many Nets coaches can you name from the 15 years?
1:09:27 Speaker 04 Uh, four, maybe?
1:09:32 Bill Simmons? We'll just start naming them. Let's hear it.
1:09:33 Speaker 04 Steve Nash, Jordy Fernandez.
1:09:41 Speaker 04 Oh, uh, from, from, uh, the, the Jack Vaughn, he coached.
1:09:47 Bill Simmons? One of them's easy from the last five years. He's now coaching another NBA team.
1:09:51 Speaker 04 I don't know.
1:09:52 Bill Simmons? Kenny Atkinson.
1:09:53 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, Kenny's good.
1:09:56 Speaker 05 Avery Johnson.
1:09:57 Bill Simmons? Lionel Hollins.
1:09:58 Speaker 04 Would not have gotten either one of them.
1:09:58 Bill Simmons? Jason Kidd.
1:10:00 Speaker 05 Is that it?
1:10:01 Bill Simmons? I think that's it.
1:10:01 Speaker 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?
1:10:07 Bill Simmons? There's some interns.
1:10:08 Speaker 05 Yeah, there's.
1:10:09 Bill Simmons? I don't count the interns.
1:10:10 Speaker 05 Right.
1:10:11 Bill Simmons? They, uh,
1:10:13 Speaker 04 Sean Marks is still there.
1:10:14 Speaker 05 We're, we've, we've talked about them too long.
1:10:16 Speaker 04 Sean Marks is still there.
1:10:16 Bill Simmons? They can swap their first, uh, with, in Houston 2027, but it's Houston's choice, which is not good for them.
1:10:23 Speaker 05 Houston can swap at first.
1:10:24 Bill 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.
1:11:08 Bill Simmons? Just go to LinkedIn.com slash Simmons Bill. Terms and conditions apply.
1:11:14 Bill 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.
1:11:55 Bill 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.
1:12:36 Bill 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
1:13:20 Bill 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.
1:13:54 Speaker 05 Yes.
1:13:55 Bill 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?
1:14:14 Speaker 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.
1:14:56 Speaker 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.
1:15:08 Speaker 04 They could do that. They did start last year 17 and nine.
1:15:12 Speaker 05 47 wins two years ago.
1:15:13 Speaker 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.
1:15:21 Speaker 05 I don't think he's far away. From what I've heard, he's not far away. He's not far away.
1:15:25 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:15:27 Bill Simmons? Jalen Suggs timeline injury. Go keep talking to us. I'm just looking this up.
1:15:31 Speaker 04 The real thing to me is.
1:15:34 Bill Simmons? Ooh.
1:15:34 Speaker 04 I still.
1:15:35 Bill Simmons? Left knee troclia cartilage tear.
1:15:37 Speaker 04 Yeah. Well, we knew about that.
1:15:39 Bill Simmons? I'm just.
1:15:40 Speaker 04 Yeah, you're getting the timeline.
1:15:41 Bill Simmons? Expected maybe sort of removed.
1:15:43 Speaker 04 The secret sauce and, and I was kind of a prick about it last year.
1:15:50 Speaker 04 I just need Franz Wagner to be a consistent scorer in this basketball league.
1:15:55 Speaker 05 You don't want him to shoot like.
1:15:56 Speaker 04 I need him to, to, to like, he had one season of good three point shooting.
1:16:02 Speaker 05 I'm all in on Franz.
1:16:03 Speaker 04 You, you have to be. That's the only way to get to the over here.
1:16:06 Bill Simmons? Zach's all in on Franz.
1:16:10 Speaker 05 He's, he's a, you know what he is?
1:16:11 Bill Simmons? All in.
1:16:11 Speaker 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.
1:16:26 Bill Simmons? Basket apparently.
1:16:27 Speaker 05 I want you to go under, go under. Come on.
1:16:29 Bill Simmons? I, I already wrote it down. I'm under.
1:16:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, we're both under.
1:16:33 Speaker 05 Orlando Magic fans, just remember who had your back at 50 and a freaking half. Me.
1:16:39 Speaker 04 It's a grotesque, that's a high number.
1:16:40 Speaker 05 It's a high number. You know what? It's time.
1:16:42 Bill 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.
1:16:56 Speaker 04 Let me see.
1:16:56 Bill Simmons? I don't, go ahead. I don't a hundred percent love the coach.
1:16:59 Speaker 04 Oh, there we go. That's the part of it. Make, make your.
1:17:02 Bill Simmons? You know what else I don't like, Zach Lowe?
1:17:04 Speaker 05 Yeah. What don't you like?
1:17:05 Bill 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.
1:17:19 Speaker 04 So is 50 and 32.
1:17:20 Bill Simmons? 32, another great season for them. 48, 34, congrats.
1:17:24 Speaker 05 Over.
1:17:26 Speaker 04 It's an under.
1:17:27 Speaker 05 It's an over for me.
1:17:28 Speaker 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?
1:17:45 Speaker 05 I don't know.
1:17:45 Speaker 04 Right.
1:17:46 Speaker 05 I don't know, but.
1:17:47 Speaker 04 No, but none of us have an explanation.
1:17:49 Speaker 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.
1:18:01 Bill 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?
1:18:05 Speaker 05 I think Bain is a.
1:18:10 Speaker 05 Transformational stylistic player.
1:18:12 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:18:13 Speaker 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.
1:18:28 Bill Simmons? You're allowed.
1:18:28 Speaker 05 I like being on an over island. Over island is the most fun place to be on this podcast.
1:18:35 Bill Simmons? They have, I did my top 100 exercise for the ringer and they had five guys on the list.
1:18:42 Bill 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.
1:18:53 Speaker 04 This is, it's a combo deal.
1:18:55 Bill 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.
1:19:12 Bill 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?
1:19:35 Speaker 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.
1:19:50 Bill Simmons? Oh man, remember the draft?
1:19:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:19:51 Bill Simmons? I mean, they were like 60 to one when they, there were some like great future bets with them that have now.
1:19:56 Speaker 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.
1:20:14 Bill Simmons? With Jalen Johnson.
1:20:15 Speaker 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?
1:20:38 Bill Simmons? We won in Atlanta last year.
1:20:40 Speaker 04 All right.
1:20:40 Bill Simmons? One other thing on this before we get to Zach, who's ready to zag.
1:20:44 Speaker 04 He is. He's gonna murder us.
1:20:46 Bill 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.
1:20:55 Bill 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.
1:21:02 Speaker 05 I was gonna say they're the stealthy honest team because they own the rights to Milwaukee's picks too.
1:21:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Uh, so it's an over for me and House. What do you have?
1:21:11 Speaker 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.
1:21:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, okay.
1:21:25 Speaker 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.
1:21:32 Speaker 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.
1:21:40 Bill 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.
1:21:49 Speaker 04 Memphis.
1:21:50 Bill 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.
1:22:21 Speaker 04 It's a good, it's a good situation for him.
1:22:23 Bill Simmons? 23, 22 and 20.
1:22:25 Speaker 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.
1:22:34 Speaker 04 You are right.
1:22:35 Speaker 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.
1:22:44 Bill Simmons? They're gonna need Nual to play.
1:22:46 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:22:46 Bill Simmons? They're gonna need to make a trade, which they have the pieces, they have the exception, and things to do.
1:22:50 Speaker 05 You cannot, and I cannot temper my enthusiasm. I'm going over.
1:22:55 Bill 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.
1:23:06 Speaker 05 Jalen Brown didn't make the list?
1:23:07 Bill 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.
1:23:23 Speaker 04 Oh, okay. Not Dyson Davis.
1:23:25 Speaker 05 I would bet against it because we still have to account for all the Sixers guys, whoever among them survives.
1:23:32 Bill Simmons? I forgot about The Walking Dead.
1:23:34 Speaker 05 Did you say Banqueiro? You said Banqueiro, right?
1:23:36 Bill Simmons? I said Pango, yeah. So there could be a Bain in there.
1:23:39 Speaker 05 You know what? You know what?
1:23:40 Bill Simmons? It's very possible they could have two. I thought Jalen Johnson, I thought that was the most underrated injury last year.
1:23:47 Speaker 05 Scotty Barnes, yeah.
1:23:48 Speaker 04 If people even try.
1:23:49 Bill 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.
1:23:58 Speaker 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.
1:24:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:24:09 Speaker 05 And then Maxey is still there.
1:24:11 Bill Simmons? If you could pick any-
1:24:12 Speaker 05 I'm gonna bet against two Hawks All-Stars.
1:24:14 Bill Simmons? If you could pick any East team to have three All-Stars, which one would you pick?
1:24:17 Speaker 05 It has to be Cleveland, right?
1:24:18 Bill Simmons? Well, yeah, I see.
1:24:21 Speaker 05 I'd say still Cleveland. Mitchell, Garland, Mobley feels like the most likely trio. Orlando?
1:24:26 Speaker 04 Not for me, dog.
1:24:29 Bill 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.
1:24:58 Speaker 05 Wow, I didn't know he had that status.
1:25:00 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah, I was so mad when they got him. It was classic Miami.
1:25:04 Speaker 05 He could draft anybody and you'd be mad.
1:25:06 Bill 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?
1:25:46 Speaker 05 This is my blind faith pick.
1:25:49 Bill Simmons? Heat culture? You and Adonis Haslem, the only two left in Heat culture, Allen?
1:25:53 Speaker 05 Because the tank scenario is there.
1:25:56 Bill Simmons? Yep.
1:25:56 Speaker 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.
1:26:04 Bill Simmons? I just always add three to four weeks to any timetable.
1:26:07 Speaker 05 37 and 45 last year.
1:26:09 Bill Simmons? Yep.
1:26:10 Speaker 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.
1:26:18 Bill Simmons? By the way, Norm Powell is more like a heat check.
1:26:20 Speaker 05 Finisher, straight line finisher, shoots some threes.
1:26:23 Bill Simmons? Just like gets hot for five minutes. He's not like a, let's run a week of plays for Norm Powell.
1:26:29 Speaker 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.
1:26:55 Bill Simmons? He's just a blind, anybody with an itch, you're in.
1:26:59 Speaker 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.
1:27:05 Bill Simmons? There's literally no evidence of that, but.
1:27:06 Speaker 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.
1:27:22 Bill Simmons? I was excited for that.
1:27:23 Speaker 05 It's not, I bet you guys are both gonna go under.
1:27:26 Bill Simmons? Oh, 100% going under.
1:27:28 Speaker 05 Under's, under's the smart pick. I'm going over.
1:27:32 Bill Simmons? I'm a hard under.
1:27:33 Speaker 04 I am over.
1:27:34 Speaker 05 Oh my God, you're with me.
1:27:36 Speaker 04 I am over. The reason is.
1:27:37 Bill Simmons? I don't know how it's like I thought it did.
1:27:39 Speaker 05 You might lock it in.
1:27:39 Bill Simmons? Not locking in. I wouldn't lock in against Heat culture.
1:27:42 Speaker 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.
1:28:07 Speaker 05 And they were the worst crunch time team like imaginable. They were so bad in close games.
1:28:11 Speaker 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.
1:28:40 Bill 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?
1:28:49 Speaker 05 Well, the line was not much different than this before his injury, right?
1:28:53 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it was like below 40.
1:28:54 Speaker 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.
1:29:05 Bill 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.
1:29:20 Speaker 05 All they did last year was lose.
1:29:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, win games.
1:29:22 Speaker 05 Can't get any worse.
1:29:23 Speaker 04 Just lose worse.
1:29:24 Bill 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.
1:29:28 Speaker 05 That's what worries me, the pick incentive.
1:29:29 Bill Simmons? At that point, you're like, fuck it.
1:29:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right.
1:29:32 Bill Simmons? Oh, you want Andrew Wiggins? You're willing to give us a first?
1:29:34 Speaker 04 Have we said enough about clear where yet?
1:29:37 Speaker 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.
1:29:43 Bill 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.
1:29:55 Speaker 04 You're leading with Nurk.
1:29:56 Speaker 05 That's a loss.
1:29:57 Bill 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.
1:30:16 Speaker 04 He better.
1:30:16 Bill Simmons? Like a lot of buzz.
1:30:17 Speaker 04 He'll be playing a lot of minutes.
1:30:18 Bill Simmons? Lot of buzz, he's starting for them.
1:30:20 Speaker 04 He better.
1:30:22 Bill 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?
1:30:37 Speaker 05 Knippel's worth minimum 10 to 12 wins for you.
1:30:40 Bill Simmons? Who?
1:30:41 Speaker 05 Knippel. We're at the point where your lawyers told you it's now okay to start talking about Knippel.
1:30:45 Bill 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.
1:31:19 Speaker 04 A superstar?
1:31:20 Bill Simmons? Superstar.
1:31:23 Speaker 05 I mean, I'd give that another couple of years. I'd settle this year for like All-Star.
1:31:28 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:31:29 Speaker 05 Agree.
1:31:29 Bill Simmons? Two more years.
1:31:30 Speaker 05 Great. Two, two more years. Yeah.
1:31:32 Bill Simmons? Cause he's one of the most popular person in the league.
1:31:35 Speaker 05 Yeah, but popular.
1:31:36 Bill 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.
1:31:43 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:31:43 Bill 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.
1:31:54 Speaker 05 Congrats.
1:31:56 Bill Simmons? I can't defend the saloon pick, whatever his name is, cause we didn't say.
1:32:00 Speaker 05 Tijon Salon.
1:32:02 Bill Simmons? Salon.
1:32:03 Speaker 05 Doesn't look great as of today.
1:32:06 Bill Simmons? Guys, it's an over for me.
1:32:10 Bill 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.
1:32:21 Speaker 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,
1:32:43 Speaker 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.
1:33:25 Bill Simmons? Huge point.
1:33:26 Speaker 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.
1:33:37 Bill Simmons? Amazing.
1:33:38 Speaker 05 Which is insane.
1:33:39 Bill 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?
1:33:57 Bill 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.
1:34:39 Bill 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.
1:34:43 Speaker 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.
1:35:02 Speaker 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.
1:35:17 Bill Simmons? Always a dangerous Celtic game these last few years.
1:35:19 Speaker 04 Yep.
1:35:20 Bill Simmons? Last one.
1:35:22 Speaker 04 Hey.
1:35:22 Bill Simmons? Here we are again.
1:35:23 Speaker 04 We made it.
1:35:24 Bill Simmons? The Washington Wizards. We did it.
1:35:26 Speaker 04 Amazing.
1:35:26 Bill Simmons? 20 and a half. They're 28 to one to make the playoffs, House. If you want to put some down on that.
1:35:32 Speaker 04 No, thank you.
1:35:33 Bill 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.
1:35:50 Speaker 04 I don't think the Knicks should expect that one.
1:35:51 Bill 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.
1:35:58 Speaker 04 That's what it feels like.
1:35:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:36:00 Speaker 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.
1:36:14 Bill Simmons? Come on, be more, I want to hear the enthusiastic over.
1:36:18 Speaker 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.
1:36:42 Bill Simmons? Cooper flag injury ads?
1:36:44 Speaker 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.
1:37:02 Bill Simmons? Third best odds, 10 to one.
1:37:03 Speaker 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.
1:37:11 Bill Simmons? Canipal 22 to one.
1:37:13 Speaker 04 Tiny bit of progress.
1:37:15 Bill Simmons? Happy, why not? Why not?
1:37:16 Speaker 04 Tiny over for me for.
1:37:17 Bill Simmons? What's Dylan Harper?
1:37:20 Bill Simmons? I think he's 13 to one.
1:37:24 Bill Simmons? Pretty good ads. What do you got, Zach?
1:37:27 Speaker 05 I'm going under on the Wizards.
1:37:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:37:29 Speaker 04 It's fine.
1:37:30 Speaker 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.
1:37:41 Speaker 04 Fair.
1:37:42 Speaker 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.
1:38:13 Bill Simmons? No. I'm also making this one of my locks.
1:38:16 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:38:16 Bill Simmons? Which I did last year too.
1:38:17 Speaker 05 It's fine.
1:38:18 Bill 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.
1:38:24 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:38:24 Bill 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.
1:38:45 Speaker 05 The La Cola Bali.
1:38:47 Bill Simmons? Who's a terrible offensive player. I mean, he's really bad.
1:38:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:38:50 Bill 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.
1:38:56 Speaker 05 I'm not defending him. Marvin Bagley the third?
1:38:58 Bill 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.
1:39:06 Speaker 05 Don't, don't pretend like you forgot about Poku. Who was that guy Poku?
1:39:11 Bill Simmons? Well, so many OKC wins.
1:39:13 Speaker 05 Alexander Pokashevsky.
1:39:13 Bill 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.
1:39:19 Speaker 05 Don't, don't do that.
1:39:20 Bill 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.
1:39:29 Speaker 05 Me too. No, you haven't. You've never wanted, you, you've.
1:39:32 Bill Simmons? I've liked Cam Whitmore the entire time he was with the Rockets. He never played.
1:39:35 Speaker 05 He's going to shoot a lot of shots. Fine with that.
1:39:40 Bill 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.
1:39:51 Speaker 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.
1:39:58 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:39:59 Speaker 05 Okay. And be like helpful in ways that I don't want them to be helpful if I'm betting an under.
1:40:05 Bill Simmons? Okay, let's go through the picks. Cavaliers 56 and a half. We all went over.
1:40:14 Bill Simmons? I'm going to, uh, to lock that one.
1:40:19 Bill Simmons? At 56 and a half.
1:40:21 Speaker 05 Do my locks from the West carry over to my total lock total?
1:40:24 Bill Simmons? No, you can do however many locks you want.
1:40:26 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:40:27 Speaker 04 What do you mean? Do they carry over?
1:40:28 Speaker 05 Well, I was told I need a minimum of six locks.
1:40:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah.
1:40:31 Speaker 05 I don't know if that's per conference or total.
1:40:32 Speaker 04 Total, total, it carries over.
1:40:33 Speaker 05 Uh, I've got like five already.
1:40:35 Bill Simmons? Detroit Pistons, 56 and a half.
1:40:37 Speaker 05 Forty-six and a half.
1:40:38 Bill Simmons? Forty-six and a half, under for all three of us.
1:40:40 Speaker 05 Yeah, disappointing.
1:40:41 Bill Simmons? Milwaukee Bucks, 42 and a half, over. We already locked it down. Three locks, triple lock.
1:40:47 Speaker 05 Triple lock.
1:40:49 Bill 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.
1:41:06 Speaker 04 Lock the Knicks.
1:41:08 Bill Simmons? Philadelphia 76ers, 42 and a half.
1:41:13 Bill Simmons? Under, under, and I'm going to lock my under. Uh, just for fun.
1:41:19 Speaker 04 Dangerous.
1:41:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:41:23 Bill Simmons? Is it dangerous, though? Is it Zach Low?
1:41:25 Speaker 05 I wouldn't lock anything with the Sixers.
1:41:26 Bill Simmons? Is it dangerous?
1:41:28 Speaker 05 They could put the over/under at 25 and a half and I wouldn't lock.
1:41:31 Bill 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.
1:41:38 Speaker 04 Stay away.
1:41:39 Bill Simmons? Stay away.
1:41:40 Speaker 04 By scratchers.
1:41:41 Bill 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.
1:41:49 Speaker 05 I'm gonna lock the Raptors. I'm locking the Raptors.
1:41:51 Speaker 04 See? Look at this. Love to see it. Me and Zach Low on the same page.
1:41:55 Speaker 05 You know what? Once I lock, the lock is locked.
1:41:57 Speaker 04 The lock is locked. You're not gonna unlock it.
1:41:59 Bill Simmons? Nets, under 19 and a half. Are we all under?
1:42:03 Speaker 04 Yes.
1:42:03 Speaker 05 Yes.
1:42:04 Bill Simmons? Well, not only am I under. This is a hardcore lock.
1:42:11 Bill Simmons? With some Viennese pizzas thrown in.
1:42:14 Speaker 05 Oh, Viennese.
1:42:15 Bill 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.
1:42:22 Speaker 05 They won twenty-six games last year.
1:42:24 Bill 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.
1:42:37 Speaker 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.
1:42:55 Bill Simmons? I felt like I've been light. I feel like I could have dialed it up.
1:42:58 Speaker 05 I mean, I compared the Kings to the Hindenburg. You did do that.
1:43:03 Bill Simmons? Hawks, three overs. Oh, I want to do a lock so bad for them.
1:43:09 Speaker 05 Don't do it.
1:43:09 Bill Simmons? I'm too scarred from previous.
1:43:11 Speaker 05 Hawks.
1:43:11 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it's just.
1:43:12 Speaker 05 It's the Hawks.
1:43:14 Bill Simmons? Miami, under thirty-eight and a half for me, over for you guys.
1:43:19 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:43:20 Bill Simmons? Charlotte, twenty-six and a half, over, over, over. Washington, twenty and a half. I locked that one down as an under.
1:43:30 Bill Simmons? You went under.
1:43:31 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:43:31 Bill Simmons? House went over. So you were light on the East Coast locks.
1:43:35 Speaker 05 Uh, I, I'm gonna lock something now. I'm locking Orlando over fifty and a half.
1:43:42 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:43:42 Speaker 05 I feel strongly about this. I like being on Orlando by myself on the over. And I'm gonna lock it.
1:43:49 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:43:49 Speaker 05 You're allowed. I'm gonna get super behind that one.
1:43:53 Bill Simmons? So playoff teams, really quick before we go.
1:43:55 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:43:58 Bill Simmons? If you just say in the top six.
1:43:59 Speaker 05 Mm-hmm.
1:44:00 Bill Simmons? Cleveland, New York, Orlando, Atlanta. Do we all feel good about those four being four of the six playoff teams?
1:44:06 Speaker 05 Yep. Yes.
1:44:07 Bill Simmons? Cleveland, New York, Orlando, Atlanta. Would you put Milwaukee in there as the fifth playoff team?
1:44:12 Speaker 05 I can tell you who my next two would be are Detroit and Milwaukee. Yeah, I have Detroit and Milwaukee in there also.
1:44:17 Bill Simmons? I have Milwaukee and then Detroit.
1:44:19 Speaker 05 Okay, so, fine.
1:44:21 Bill Simmons? Playing, um, Boston, Indiana, Chicago, Toronto?
1:44:29 Bill Simmons? In some order?
1:44:30 Speaker 05 Boston, Indiana, Chicago, Toronto. I am kicking out Chicago.
1:44:35 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:44:36 Speaker 05 And I am putting in-
1:44:37 Bill Simmons? Philly?
1:44:38 Speaker 05 The Philadelphia 76ers.
1:44:39 Speaker 04 Okay, that's fair.
1:44:40 Bill 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.
1:44:48 Speaker 05 I'm hungry.
1:44:48 Bill Simmons? Joe House, pleasure as always.
1:44:49 Speaker 04 Pleasure, pleasure.
1:44:50 Bill Simmons? Zach Lowe is hungry.
1:44:50 Speaker 04 We did it. We did it, Zach Lowe.
1:44:52 Bill Simmons? Our first one. Great work. Uh, thanks to Chris-
1:44:55 Speaker 04 Amazing.
1:44:55 Bill Simmons? For hanging out-
1:44:56 Speaker 04 Great job.
1:44:56 Bill 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.
1:45:06 Speaker 04 What?
1:45:06 Bill Simmons? Well, maybe you'll be on it.
1:45:08 Speaker 04 We just went 4-1, you son of a bitch.
1:45:09 Bill Simmons? Yeah, we did go, yeah, you, you will be on it. So I'll see you again on Thursday.
1:45:12 Speaker 04 Wow.
1:45:15 Bill Simmons? On behalf of, uh, myself and Conk Nipples family, we'll see you next time here on the BS Podcast.
1:45:36 Bill Simmons? Must be 21-plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18-plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-797777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures, WildHorse9, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee,
1:46:20 Bill Simmons? who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys. Parker Posey and Tom Waits. WildHorse9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment, and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss WildHorse9. Only in theaters November 6th. Get tickets now. This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes? Post-workout recovery is a big factor. Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout with high-quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate. It's all you need for your recovery in one bottle. Available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you.
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Previous BakerMania, Kelce’s New Identity, Cross-Off Teams, Guess the Lines, and Parent Corner With Cousin Sal and Jimmy Kimmel Next NBA Over/Unders, Part 1: The West With Zach Lowe and Joe House Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated