Miami Heat Win Total Over/Under & Awards Odds REACTION | Can Bam Adebayo FINALLY Win DPOY?

Miami Heat Win Total Over/Under & Awards Odds REACTION | Can Bam Adebayo FINALLY Win DPOY?

Vegas projections are in on Miami’s upcoming season. From everything to win totals to players chances at individual awards, we discuss the odds on today’s episode of Locked on Heat. [Music] You are Locked on Heat, your daily Miami Heat podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. All right, welcome to Locked on Heat, your daily podcast on the Miami Heat. Whether you’re tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app, thanks so much for making Lockdown Heat your first listen every day. I’m Wes Goldberg here with David Mill. Both of us are credentialed media members who cover this team every day for daily content on the Heat. Join more than 17,000 Heat fans and click that subscribe button on YouTube. Today’s episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Have a great show for you today. We’re looking at a bunch of FanDuel odds, including what Vegas thinks about BAM’s chances to finally win defensive player of the year and a surprising Heat player with decent odds to win most improved. But let’s start with Miami’s win total. David FanDuel has it set at 38 12 games. FanDuel has it set at 38 and a half games. I repeated that twice because, you know, David, I’m I’m usually not the they always disrespect us guy and I know the Heat are coming off of a bad season, but damn it, David. This is downright disrespectful. 38 12 wins. Come on. It’s been 10 years since the Heat lost that many games in a regular season that wasn’t blowtorrched by Jimmy Butler. I don’t I’m I know people roll their eyes at the Heat culture thing all the time, but there’s something to having institutional pride and I would go so and there’s a lot of reasons why I think the Heat are going to hit the over on this and why I think it’s a lock for them to hit the over on this, but I this organization they’re going to see that 38 and a half win number and go over it just out of spite. Like this is such a hard over for me. I cannot believe it is this low. 39 wins, but you know, they’ll definitely push it to that. I look, I think I can see the perspective of the oddsmakers on this is that, yeah, the season was torpedoed by Jimmy Butler, but also you had Jimmy Butler on the team. And while I think you and I watched the team so closely to determine that Butler wasn’t the kind of factor that he had been in years prior, I understand the idea as well, you had Jimmy Butler in this team and you still only won x number of games and then you were able to acquire basically the same roster, bring back the same roster for the second half of the season after the Butler trade. And guess what? He still didn’t win that many games. So, even with the addition of Norm Powell, I don’t think that Vegas oddsmakers really believe that Powell can duplicate the idea of what Jimmy Butler provided last season for Miami during the brief time that he was here last year. So, I I think that’s kind of how the logic works. At least that would be my guess. Having said all that, it’s absolute BS. Like, this team is not going to win 38 and a half games. They’re significantly better than that. I I think we times there was real trauma about last season. They just didn’t like the vibes there. It was really uncomfortable and you need that to be able to win at a high level consistently in the NBA. I think another off seasonason uh a chance of training camp of building this team of knowing exactly who you are and yes bringing in fle fresh blood like Powell and some other players here and there I think will really renew this team’s sense of focus and I I would say honestly that this team will probably be closer to 45 wins than they would 38 and a half. Um, so I’m doing overunders for the entire league over at Real GM radio and me and Matt Moore, who also does Locked on NBA and Locked on Nuggets for us, we just ran through the Eastern Conference and Matt puts together his projections, like I don’t know what kind of fancy schmancy math and formulas and Excel stuff all spreadsheets, but he said his projection has him closer to 47 48 wins. I So we’re not alone on this, right? Yeah. I I I look at the Eastern Conference and I’m like, why are the why are the Heat going to lose this many games in a week, Eastern Conference? Uh, but beyond all of that, I want to go back to that point that you said about moving on past the Jimmy Butler thing. I think that’s such an underrated part of the what will be the Heat story this year. I think what did what did you and I kept saying about this Heat team towards the end of last year? They lacked joy. That locker room was toxic. There was a cloud hanging over that entire team. They tried to ignore the Jimmy Butler issue until it exploded in their face. And eventually it just I I think it literally became untenable for the team that is for the organization that says we keep the main thing the main thing. They tried to keep the main thing the main thing for so long that I actually think it became a bug as opposed to a feature. It was at a detriment to the team because they weren’t acknowledging the elephant in the room that was Jimmy Butler’s trade request. trade demand and and the way he was behaving around the organization. Um, and they tried to put their head in the sand and ignore all of it and it didn’t work. And I I think that they would have been better off maybe not doing it that way. Maybe acknowledging it a little bit more than what was actually going on. That team needs that just moving on from Jimmy Butler wasn’t enough to move past it in that moment. They needed a clear off seasonason. I think everybody needed to clear their heads. I think Bam needed to go to Greece. Eric Spolster needed to go touch sand. Uh Khal Wear’s in Egypt or something right now. Uh DaVon Mitchell’s in Spain. Like all these like everybody needed to get away, regroup, refresh, come back. And now I think you could start fresh. And the other thing I want to talk about too is with Bam, we talked about his recent comments about the roster and all these things. What he said about getting a full training camp and getting more connected. That is going to be huge. They were rebuilding the post Jimmy Butler plane in midair. Now they get to actually take a look at themselves, put a plan together and and rebuild the strategy of this team uh given what the roster is. But yeah, like you look at the Eastern Conference and where FanDuel has the overunder win totals uh for these other teams. They’ve got Cleveland at the top at 55 and a half, not surprising. The Knicks right behind them at 53 and a half, not surprising. Orlando at 50 and a half, not surprising, honestly. Um Atlanta at 46 and a half. And then you’ve got Detroit at 44 a 1/2, Boston at 42, Milwaukee at 42, Philadelphia at 412, Indiana at 38 1/2, and Miami at 382 1/2. I’m looking at some of those teams in front of Miami. You’re really you’re really going to put Philadelphia over Miami? You’re going to really put Boston? I They’re They’re without Jason Tatum, but also remember they traded Drew Holidayiday. They don’t have Christophoringis. center rotation is uh Kada, Garza, and Tilman, which I just said three names. Heat fans, how many do you recognize? Like, it’s I I can’t believe that they’re not the fact that they’re behind him, but how far behind him even they are? Yeah, I think we just went through this in on Lockdown NBA ourselves, like we’re ranking the top teams in each conference and in descending order here. So, we went through the top five teams in the East just last week and my co-host Jackson Gatlin of Lockdown Rockets, he has the Celtics at the fifth spot on his rankings and and his I think he might have even had him at fourth if I’m not mistaken. Like his belief is yes for certainly ahead of Miami. um he he thinks that Joe Misoula is still going to be able to coach this group that they’re going to be able to get something out of that backcourt rotation with um Payton Pritchard and uh and Derek White and stuff like that. So that that they’re still good enough even with a loss of Tatum to be able to find some balance there. And I’m just like yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know that I see that. Like this is the I know he’s been the coach of the Celtics for a couple a few years now. This is a new job. He’s never had this job before. Yeah, he he coached loaded rosters to with championship expectations. And I’m not taking anything away from Missoula. He did a fantastic job coaching those teams, especially under the circumstances that he took over the team. I am not taking anything away from Missoula, but this is just a different job than he’s had in the past. You you can’t town your way past uh you know the loss of Jason Tatum and everything else and the fact that you have no centers on the roster. And and back to Miami here. Look at the talent on their roster. Tyler Herro was an all-star last year. Bam is going to have a bounceback season. Okay, we’ll talk about Bam a little bit later in the show. He’ll have a better year. He’s going to be better this season. Kel Wear fully coming into his own starter from day one or at least, you know, a part of the rotation at minimum day one. We think he’ll be a starter. You add Norm Pal, all the young players get better. I think you get a bounceback gear from Haime Hawkeye Jr. You don’t have the Jimmy Butler thing hanging over the team. I think this team is actually talented. I think that they’re better as a roster than they were at the beginning of last year knowing what we got from Jimmy Butler. I think this team is better than they were at the beginning of last year. I I actually think this is a really I think this is a solid roster. They’re not going to win 50 games. They’re not going to win the championship. They’re not going to win more than two playoff rounds, but they’re going to win a hell of a lot more than 38 games. I know that the expectation then that the West is just going to be so much more dominant that they’re going to be able to take advantage and pad their win totals across the board on the other side of the ledger and then so that the East they just can’t compete with the West because I I I think look everybody wants to make it look like the West is so clearly dominant everything else like that they are this year. I really think that’s I think that’s overstated to be honest. Well, because of the injuries I mean come on. Maybe. Yeah, exactly. I mean you’ve got We just lost We lost Hallebertton and Tatum. Yeah. in there. Yeah. So, um I mean is that maybe the the idea here is that the West is just going to be able to at least each team in the West surprised because I think it’s the opposite. There’s so many bad teams in the Eastern Conference. Do you think even an average team like Miami would be able to like I think the win totals in the East should actually be more inflated because who are the worst teams in the East? Or it’s not really Well, no, in the East I’m saying. Who are the worst team? Charlotte, Washington, Brooklyn. Those teams are all going to win 20-ish games. Yeah. You know, and and you know, I just when is it going to be Charlotte’s year? When are they going to finally turn this thing around? It’s not going to be this one. Oh, when they get rid of LaMelo Ball, that’s what um uh Well, let’s put let’s put a pin in this conversation. We we mentioned Bam. What does Bam Adabio have to do to win defensive player of the year? He needs to have a bounceback season. David, it’s not all up to him. We’ll talk about that next. Stay tuned. Today’s episode is brought to you by Open Phone. If you’re running a business, you know that every missed call is money left on the table. Think about the last time you had an urgent need, maybe for a plumber or a service provider of some kind. If the first person didn’t answer the phone, did you wait? Probably not. You moved on. And that’s why you need Open Phone. Open Phone is a number one business phone system built to streamline and scale your customer communications, all from an app on your phone or computer. or open phone lets you manage business calls and texts from a single app. No juggling involved. The shared inbox feature is a gamecher. Your team can jump into any conversation instantly without missing a beat. And their AI agent handles afterhour calls, answers common questions, and captures leads so you never miss a customer. Open Phone is offering my listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.comlockonba. That’s op pen pne.com/lockdownba. And if you have existing numbers with another service, open phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open phone. No missed calls, no missed customers. We’ll be right back. [Music] Thanks for making Locked on Heat your first listen every day. Before we continue, we have an announcement. We are launching our 25 of 25 series where we rank the top 25 Heat players of the past 25 years. We’re really excited for this project. We’re going to start doing shows on our 25 and 25 next week. But before we start doing that, we need your help on deciding who those 25 players are. So to cast your vote, join the Lockdown Heat insider community where we are sending the link to the survey every morning this week. Sign up with the link in the show notes and then click the uh click the the Google form that will take you to the survey and then you can make your vote on our 25 of 25 series, the best 25 players of the last 25 years. do it now because voting ends on Friday night. Continuing on with our uh player awards here now. Um we got defensive player of the year and most improved that I want to talk about and then we’re going to get to coach of the year as well. So we’ll start with defensive player of the year. Bam Adabio on the list. Not surprising. Uh the favorite according to FanDuel is Victor Webbyama. Runaway favorite at minus 190. Okay. Nobody else is in minus odds. It’s it’s WBY. And it just it probably will be WY as long as he’s healthy. But I do think that there’s that’s a big if, right? WMBBY hasn’t necessarily been he’s never been healthy enough to win this award. Um so we’ll see. But Cadet is behind him at plus 600 and then you’ve got a bunch of guys until you get to Bam who’s at plus 5,000. All right. So some of the names in front of BAM, you got Webinyama, Homegrren, you got Evan Mobley, Amen Thompson, Anthony Davis, Dyson Daniels, who was a finalist last year, Jaylen Suggs, Giannis is there at plus 4,000, Assar Thompson from Detroit at plus 5,000, tied with BAM at plus 5,000, Draymond Green also at plus 5,000 odds. Bam ahead of former defensive player of the years, Jiren Jackson Jr. And Gobear. So, this feels about right to me for where BAM’s starting odds should be. Do you agree that this one is more fair than than certainly the the win total overunder? Yeah, I just it would take such a monumental effort for uh BAM to be recognized amongst the top defensive players in the league like that. I think that window has closed almost to a certain degree and it’s so unfortunate because again I just we’ve made the point before that unless you’re digging really deep into certain statistics there to measure BAM’s impact is so much more difficult to do and shout out to Cooper Morhead of heat.com who does a fantastic job of always laying out a very good statistical case to back up what we all can clearly see regarding BAM’s defense but I think the casual voter in terms of how they view the defensive player of the your chase. They just can’t seem to understand Bam’s impact because the statistics just don’t bear it out. And and it’s, you know, you get a Bam who averages barely over a block per game versus Victor Webbyama, all eight feet of him, and you know, whether or not he can block those shots, etc. That’s much easier to to quantify. And so I look at Bam and how he stacks up against these other players. And a lot of it, and as you well know, has to do with narrative and just idea, belief, etc. Miami, a mediocre team with a player that has a reputation for being a great defender, and you can’t really point to many statistics to back that up. What are you going to do? How are you going to vote for a player like that and feel justified and and and saying that Bamabio is the best defensive player of the year versus somebody that you can clearly see, oh wow, he just impacts X number of shots per games because of his overall superior length. They’re winning. They’re going to be winning a lot more games, maybe even as many as Miami next year based on the fact that they’ve made some significant roster moves. So, um, you look at a player like San Antonio or a team like San Antonio versus a team like Miami and I think there’s going to be a lot more buzz about that Spurs group than whatever it is that Miami does. And I think again the regular season win projections kind of show that is that this is just going to be another lackluster team, pretty mediocre, etc. And so why justify or why have to already give Bam increased chances? And now look, that can all change. I don’t know what it would take though. I honestly don’t know what it would take for Bam to be able to leap into that conversation and get that start early in the year. I because again it’s so hard to measure what he can do. Well, can I can can I jump in here because I I want to push back on that. I don’t know that the statist I don’t think we are in a world even with the the media voting on defensive player of the year. I don’t think we live in that world of do you get a lot of blocks and rebounds for defensive player of the year anymore. I don’t think we’re there. Evan Mobley won it last year. He wasn’t getting a ton of blocks and a ton of rebounds. Like you look AC like Marcus Smart actually won it, which was more of a narrative case. What was but Moy won the team with the most wins in in the NBA. Well, that no that there’s a narrative case for that. And I and I do think we’re 100. I think this is the most This is probably the second most narrative-based award. Ah, this might be it’s top three, but smart certainly fits in that category. That was a narrative vote from 100%. I I will go so far as to say Marcus Smart did not deserve defensive player of the year. He didn’t deserve to be a finalist for that award. I don’t think he was the best defender on that team. No, he was he literally wasn’t. The the Boston Celtics were the team was pushing Robert Williams the third for defensive player of the year and then he got hurt and then they just took all like just scratched out his name on everything and replaced it with Marcus Smart and they said, “How about this?” And everybody’s like, “Yeah, sounds good.” I don’t I still have no freaking clue how Marcus Smart won defensive play. It’s crazy to me. He like won it for guards everywhere. I’m sorry. Guards are smaller than the big than centers. I’m sorry that you’re an NBA player making millions of dollars and you can’t win defensive player of the year. Wow. Wow. It’s the bigger players are the better defensive defensive players. I’m It’s just how it works. Okay. It’s a league that self- selects for size. This is how it works. Anyway, I feel like I have to do one of those rants once a month. Um, love it. But I will say for somebody like Nicola Joic who his counting stats now are out of this galaxy literally just off charts. But there was a point where we were trying to capture Jokic’s value with advanced stats onoffmetrics all of these things and we did that like people fully understood how great Joic was. And I I we will and we do that now with defensive player of the year. Rio Bear has won it uh three times, four times. And a lot of that is because of the block numbers, but a lot of it also is just because his crazy onoff numbers. If Bam were to have the crazy onoff numbers, we’re doing it now with Victor Webbyama as well. If he were to have those kinds of onoff numbers where when Bam is on, Miami’s defense is number one by alarm. He’s in the mix. And by the way, that’s why he’s been a finalist. It’s not as if he’s overlooked for this. He has been a finalist for this award multiple times. He’s just ultimately lost out to somebody else, I think, because of the narrative part. So why what would it take for Bam to win defensive player of the year? It’s going to take a strong season from him on both sides of the court. For some reason, the offensive side of the basketball will matter for Bam when it comes to defensive player of the year. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s how you become relevant. And Bam was irrelevant for all of last season on a national perspective. And that’s why he didn’t even make an alldefensive team. Although I couldn’t tell you 10 better defenders than Bam in the league last year, but he didn’t make all defensive team because he was irrelevant. So you need to be you need to be relevant and you do that by having a strong overall season as a basketball player and your team being good. And if the Heat win, I think if we get specific, if they win 48 games, so basically come in 10 wins over their projection, if they win 48 games, are a top four seed in the Eastern Conference, and our top five in overall defensive rating, BAM will have a BAM will be a finalist again for this award, I think. I don’t know about finalist. It feels just like 50 plus win team again to kind of get that idea and and yes meet all the other criteria that you just laid out as well because then that’s when you’re really talking it’s like oh wow that E team that you know somehow nobody expected to win is suddenly winning a lot more games it has to be for X reason and I think again and you start watching that team a little bit more you get a couple more national televised games and and I think that really starts to change the idea that again that that story it feels a little bit more justifiable in saying they’re better for a reason and one of the reasons that you look to is their defense if they meet that criteria as you said of being a top I don’t think they need to win I don’t think they need to be at the top of the east I think if they have homec court advantage not tough east it has to be you know again sec if you’re like if you’re close to Cleveland and I don’t think it’s so impossible I just were saying like the argument is does this feel right or appropriate for where Bam is and I think it is like I mean is Bam a better defender than Assar Thompson I think so right now I think Yeah, I I think he was a better defender than Jiren Jackson. I think uh I think he’s uh as impactful I honestly think he’s as impactful a defender as Victor Webyama. And I think he’s better than Moy who won it last year. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So I Yeah, I still see him as a top five defender. And uh I think he’s better than Giannis, too. And I think most people see him. I think Bam has that reputation in the league, obviously, as one of the best defenders in the NBA. I think if So I think the bar, this isn’t Bam trying to crack into the conversation. It’s just Bam trying to get back into the Bam left the conversation, went to the bar, grabbed a drink, and now he’s just trying to work his way back, and he’s like, and he’s just trying to catch up on What are we talking about? We’re talking about something completely different. And that’s the whole thing. It’s like they see everybody knows and they’ll let him back in. Yeah, but in order to get recognized again, he’d have to come in there with like the joke of the night or something like that. Just I don’t think so. I don’t think I think he could just come in here with a softball just like, “Hey, what’s going on, guys?” No, I just I that’s the reputation was there five years ago when he was clearly better than Marcus goddamn spot but and he was a finalist. I’m just saying to get a just to be a finalist. Okay, finalist. Okay, maybe you’re right. All right, if that’s just to be like on the like on the ballot here, you know, and then once you’re a finalist, you have a chance to win it. Just to get back into that finalist conversation. I never believed it. Never believed it. I wish I Yeah, you and I didn’t think he was actually gonna win it, but he was at least a finalist. He was at least a finalist. So, um, to win it, maybe actually maybe to your point to to win the thing, it’ll take a pretty big season from him. It’ll take and and by the way, playing and the team obviously, but playing power forward now could unlock new levels of block numbers as a weak side help defender. if he’s just if he’s just chasing guys down and blocking them at the rim as that helpside uh recovery defender, he can rack up another couple blocks here and there. Next thing you know, he’s averaging one and a half blocks per game. That’s something. And that’s a big deal for Bam. Every, oh, he added this extra thing and even though they he didn’t really add it, even though maybe he did add it. I don’t know. But he’s he’d be playing a different position and that would be mostly the reason why. So maybe maybe there’s something there that could help him with the narrative. But um all right, we’re going to move on to some other awards. FanDuel is giving a couple of Young Heat players a real chance at winning most improved. We’ll talk about that and whether Eric Spolstra can finally win coach of the year after this. Stay tuned. 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I happen to have a little bit more time on my hands. Let me go catch these Marlins that I’ve been hearing so much about.” Guess what? That’s when you download the Game Time app. You find the seats that you’re looking for in the range that you can afford, and you get to see exactly where you’re going to be sitting there. You’re going to have a great view at Marlin’s Park there. You’re going to love it. and you get $20 off cuz right now you can take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Game Time. If you download the Game Time app and create an account and use the code locked on NBA, you get $20 off your first purchase. Now, terms do apply, but create an account, redeem the code LK DBA. ONBA, I should say, for $20 off. Download the Game Time app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. We’ll be right back. [Music] All right, let’s talk about most improved. So, uh, according to FanDuel, we’ve got two guys who are favorites for most improved at plus 1,000 odds. So, there’s not a clear favorite, so it’s worth mentioning here, but it’s Denny Abdia from Portland and then Indiana’s Andrew Nemhard are the most. By the way, this is such a crapshoot at this point. Who freaking knows? But, uh, I kind of like Nemhard for it. He’s just he’s going to get way more touches with Hallebertton now. Anyway, that’s what it is. Yeah, that’s what it is. That’s what this is. Um, you got other guys on the list. A man Thompson, Scoot Henderson, Shaden Sharp, they’re really pushing the Portland narrative here. They think that Portland, I guess, is just going to be good and that somebody will among them will emerge as the most improved. Not a bad strategy. I don’t know that like just in terms of like uh like riding a team. I don’t know that Portland would be that team, but interesting. Well, they they outdid expectations last year, and I think the the idea is they’re only going to get better despite the trade assignments. I don’t know how much does Drew Holiday have left in the tank, and how much is he going to really impact that team’s culture? Yeah, I’m starting to short I’m starting to short Portland a little bit. I think they’re they have a super overrated offseason. Um yeah, they got some Detroit players. Jaden Ivy, which seems like a cheat. Like he played 10 games last year or whatever because he was hurt. Like can you believe most improved and you’re come back from an injury? That doesn’t seem right. Um I like Jaden Ivy. As a I like the comeback player of the year awarded. Can you remember that one? They used Yeah, they got rid of it. Yeah. I don’t know. Um Assar Thompson who I that’s a nice bet. I like him a lot. Um anyway, Nicola Yovic is on this list in the top 20 according to FanDuel at plus 3500. So he’s a it’s a pretty fair distance, but like I saw Thompson at plus 2500. Jane Ivy at plus 2,000. Like Eiovich is at plus 3500. It’s far away but not like off the board. He’s in the top 20 in odds. I found that interesting. DaVon Mitchell right behind him at plus 4,000. Just outside the top 20. Are you surprised to see Nico I mean 19th isn’t super high on the list but it’s pretty high on the list. Yeah I think again you look at some of the criteria it’s a player who was coming on strong and then sa succumb to injury and miss some time there and so the idea is he’ll get some playing time. Again I I think the team is going to a greater of their identity. they’re going to have a greater purpose, their understanding of exactly what it’s going to be required of each player. So, I think that is going to lend itself to the idea that Nico could come in and make an impact. And I mean, you’ve made the point before that you could see him even perhaps emerging as a potential starter or getting some the bulk of the minutes, too. So, that being the case, yeah, I could see that. I I I mean, if he’s coming off the bench, I I wouldn’t be surprised to see maybe even as a a six man of the year candidate down the road. I think that’s we did the show two weeks ago on whether or not he can be Miami’s version of an Azared. If he is, yes, he’s in the running for this and sixman of the year to your point. DaVon Mitchell, he ends the year strong after getting traded over from Toronto. I could that’s also kind of the guy they they kind of this award is kind of won in the second half of the prior year. I think that’s why you have guys like Denny and Nemhard and Aman Thompson very high on this list. you kind of you start laying your campaign in the second half of the previous season. DaVon Mitchell definitely did that. So, it’s not surprising to see him um kind of float floating around the top 20 of this list either. But is it like most improved typically almost like player who was really good and then just turned into like star level player? That’s a problem. That’s what it’s become lately. That’s usually the criteria. That’s why I kind of last year because I know Zubot was certainly in the running. Who was and and you made a case of for hero too like I think that was certainly a good case too. Um, I forgot who was like Maxi a couple years ago. John Morant has won this. It’s ridiculous. Uh, let’s talk about coach of the year, though. Spose never won it. Eric Spolster has never won coach of the year. I think it’s absolutely crazy. Uh, I’ve done big things and monologues on, you know, whether or not he should have deserved it, what year he actually should have won it. There was a year where Tom Thibido won it where I think Spo should have won it. Um anyway, he’s in the top 12 uh according to FanDuel right now. He’s tied with JJ Reic at plus 30,000. And if JJ Reic wins a coach of the year before Eric Spolstra, I’m going to have I’m going to lead a mutiny like this. That’s it’s crazy. But uh Jamal Mosley is at the top at plus 400, the Orlando Magic head coach. Quinn Snider’s behind him at plus 500. David Adelman, the new Nuggets head coach at plus 800. E Ododoka at plus 850 and then Mitch Johnson who’s the coach of the Spurs taking over for Greg Papovic was the interim coach last year at plus 1,000. That’s your top five. This to me just looking at the names and the order that they’re in like Darko Rajikovic the Raptors coach is at plus 1500 over Eric Spolstra. Twice as good odds as Spo at plus 3,000. I think FanDuel just threw a bunch of darts at a board and just says this is the order we’re going to go in. None of this makes any sense to me. No disrespect to guys like Jamal Mosley and Quinnstein. But like come on, what are we doing here? It’s um I can actually see Mosley being in the running for this if the Magic win 50 games, which I think they’re overunders at 50 and a half. So that makes sense. And this makes sense also when you consider that FanDuel has Miami’s over under 38 and a half wins. It’s actually kind of remarkable that Spose even this high on the list considering they think that the Heat aren’t even going to be a 500 basketball team. I shouldn’t say that’s not what FanDuel is saying. They’re just they’re putting the they’re trying to get betting on both sides of the the overunder. Anyway, um I think David going into the year, I don’t know that Eric Spolster has ever had a better red carpet leading into his season to prime him for winning coach of the year than he does right now. I think the circumstances are finally perfect for Eric Spolstra because if you think about the big three era, he was never going to win it because that team was loaded with talent and we were too stupid to figure that part of it out. Um, you look after that, the teams just weren’t good enough. You have that year where they actually kind of made it within a game of the Eastern Conference Finals playing Justice Winsow at center and stuff and then everybody started to realize, oh wow, this Spo guy really can can make the most out of nothing, huh? And that’s sort of where it’s this version of the way we look at Eric Sper started and then you kind of go in the Jimmy Butler era and there was only one year where they were the number one team in the Eastern Conference. I think he had a legit case to win coach of the year that year. Did not win it. Um, but even those teams were the the narrative around those teams, the Jimmy Butler era teams were what that they didn’t care about the regular season and that they were going to take care of business in the playoffs. And that’s why a lot of these players and coaches and why explosion never won these regular season awards is because that narrative around the team was there rightly or wrongly. But right now, this coach, we talked about narrative awards, coach of the year is the biggest narrative award because there are no stats other than wins and losses. And unless you’re the Steve Kerr coaching the 739 73 and9 Warriors, nobody’s stats are like that much crazier than anybody else’s. You know what I mean? You got one you got one column for wins, one column for losses. Um there are no advanced metrics. So for Spo, as long as he just goes way over the projection here, I think he has a real chance to exceed expectations. And the number one narrative case for winning coach of the year is did your team exceed expectations? And it is such a BS thing and it’s why Spo has never won this thing, but he finally has a chance because expectations are so low and you and I believe that this heat team can come in 10 wins over their potential projection here. And if that’s the case, Spo will definitely at least be a finalist for this award. I I don’t think he’s ever had a better case potentially going into a season than he does right now to finally win coach of the year. Yeah, this is the lowest the floor on this team has been over the I don’t know how many years he’s been a head coach for the Miami Heat now. This is going on his 17th season. Yeah, this is the lowest floor since the year LeBron left. No, even then you had re Dwayne resigned Chris. You’re right. You’re right. I mean that that group was still projected as a top fourish team in the Eastern Conference. You’re right. You’re right. Um so I this is this is well I don’t think this team is going to be any good at all. They’re probably going to be mediocre. If anything, you can even make the argument they’re getting 38 wins projected because of Eric Spolzer that this might be like a 25ish win team that somehow is going to eek out a 13 more wins. And as a result, if they do eclipse that mark by 10 more wins, it certainly would be deserving. I I just you’re you’re it’s a interesting point and one I hadn’t considered is that you know what, right now that nobody views this team as anything. They’re not viewed as a playoff contender. They’re certainly not viewed as a title contender. Um they’re just kind of one of those teams in the Eastern Conference that might do something uh but not anything of note. And and so if Eric Spolster can put them in that position, even more so than Bam, I think he has a pretty good case to be made that he can coach this team to another level. And look, I mean, that’s an interesting case. That’s an or an interesting question. Who of all the players and things that we just How would you rank maybe we end the show with this because we’re starting to run out of time. We talked about the win total. Bam. Most improved coach of the year. How would you rank those in terms of likelihood? To me, I would go win total as the most likely to go over and then I would go spo winning coach of the year, then probably BAM, defensive player of the year, and then most improved after that. Yep. Same same Warner. And I think it it makes a lot of sense that way because again, the the other the the narrative discussion ties so much to wins. You made the point about, you know, for a coach, how else do you analyze what they’ve been able to do statistically? It’s just boils down to wins and losses. You can’t measure, you know, more UCLA’s run per practice or, you know, more atto sets or anything like that. It’s like, how do you how do you, you know, quantify it? So, yeah, it’s a it’s a good case. Thanks for making Lockdown Heat your first listen today, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

Will the Miami Heat exceed expectations and go over their projected win total? Wes Goldberg and David Ramil discuss their reasons for taking the over on 38.5 wins, and then examine whether Bam Adebayo can finally win Defensive Player of the Year, which Heat players could be in the mix for Most Improved, and if Erik Spoelstra is gearing up for a Coach of the Year campaign.

0:00 Intro
1:30 Heat over/under 38.5 wins
12:30 Bam Adebayo’s DPOY chances
25:39 Heat players for Most Improved
28:00 Spoelstra’s best case yet for COY

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