Reacting to NBA Western Conference Win Totals | Over/Under Predictions | RealGM Radio
What’s up everybody? Welcome to Real GM Radio. I’m your host Wes Goldberg. Today Matt Moore is back and we are making our picks for overunders in the Western Conference. Let’s jump in. [Music] All right, it’s Real GM radio. Thanks so much for tuning in. The best way to support the show is to hit that subscribe button. If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure to follow us on your podcast app to get this show every week. I am back today with Matt Moore to pick our overunders. So, we did the Eastern Conference in our last episode. We went long, we ran out of time. Uh, so we decided to break this thing up. We’re going to do a separate podcast now on the Western Conference overunders. So, let’s just jump right in. Uh, we’re going to go in alphab Mavericks, Matt, who are I have them down at 40 and a half wins. They won 39 games last season. And of course, they’ve had a lot of changes over the last several months. Um, the thing that sticks out to me, and I maybe this is a good point to start with, is that Anthony Davis played just nine games for Dallas. They go six and three in those nine games. People in the Mavericks will tell you all the time, hey, like look at what that looked like when he was there. We’re right back to title contention. Defense wins championships. You know, fortune favors the bold. Blah blah blah blah blah. Uh, Matt, when you saw that 40.5 number for them, what did you think? Too high for me. I don’t I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. Look, um, the defense might be good. Might be great. Might be elite, right? Uh, AD’s good. Awesome. AD’s awesome. No question. Top 15 player. Derek Lively is a great center to pair with him. Daniel Gaffford can pair with him in the other minutes. Him playing a power forward always results in really good seasons when he plays. Okay, let’s move aside. Let’s just move aside the whole question of how many games he’s gonna play. Right. Right. And that’s a big thing to set aside. They have no one no one to reliably and consistently generate and orchestrate offense. The only person is D’Angelo Russell. Now, I I get the argument if you use last year and you’re like, “Look at the splits with D’Angelo Russell and Anthony Davis without LeBron.” They were dynamite. It was one of the most baffling things early in the season when it was like they are murdering teams when D’Angelo Russell and Anthony Davis play together just murdering them. Do we really think that that’s sustainable? Do we really think that that’s or was that just noise? And I’m always a guy that’s like there’s more signal than noise in these minutes. These are actual people actually playing games. That one I can’t get through anything except it being noise. Like D’Angelo Russell is their point guard. If Kyrie Irving was here, sure, fine. Cool. This is probably low, right? And I I don’t like the idea of me thinking this. I’m at 35. Okay, 35 with low. I don’t like the idea of me saying, wait, if I think that with Kyrie they’re over 41 and this is probably should be 43 and a half that Kyrie Irving is worth nine wins. That doesn’t make that’s too much. That doesn’t make any sense, right? But it does when you consider that he is the only player on this team that can do the thing. Yes. that we’re talking about there. Who drives into the paint on this team? Who like, right? There’s there’s nobody like D’Angel Russell, that’s not his game. I like the D’ the Angel Russell signing for them at the value that they got him. I was like, “Hey, that’s really cool. That’s that’s good. That’s a good value addition. That’s good business.” But D’Angel Russell is not a guy who drives into the paint and kicks out the shooters. That’s not his game. It’s never really been his game. He doesn’t have that that that athleticism. He doesn’t have that drive and kick ability. Anthony Davis, that’s not his game either. That’s not what he’s going to do. The only guy who can really do it is Cooper Flag. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was just saying like somebody’s listening screaming Cooper Flag right now. That is asking a lot. I love Cooper Flag. That is asking a lot of your rookie. Um to me, and I hate to be so sort of simple about it, this number come They could go over if Cooper Flag is just awesome right away. If he’s awesome in the way that Luca and Wemanyama were awesome right away, maybe they can go over because that just means he’s basically the point guard of this team and he’s got the ball in his hands and he’s driving and kicking and he’s kind of making everything click into place because this team while we all like a lot of the parts on this team, I love Anthony Davis, you mentioned the centers, they got PJ Washington, they have Klay Thompson who could still make open threes. I like the D’Angelo Russell signing. I like Max Christie. Like there’s a lot of guys on this roster who I like. There’s no there’s no rug to tie the room together. and and and and that so I just feel like you have all these like interesting pieces just sort of floating about trying to figure it out here. So that’s I I I’m with you. I thought this number was pretty high. I would I would take the under. I have under written down here in my notes, but like I said, they might go over if Cooper Flag’s just awesome and can do all of these things. See, now I go the other direction where I’m like, it’s probably a black swan that we don’t see coming, right? Um, Jaden Hardy is a guy that has been like shuffling around this roster and most Mavericks fans are just kind of like shrug about. Had a really good season last year. Like I think Jaden Hardy is actually like moving towards being an NBA guy that can actually be and has some some runway. Yeah. To actually be really good. That’s a good call. I like him too. Yeah. Uh Prosper, the defensive numbers are really good on him. Now I don’t even know if he’s going to play this year, but like Klay Thompson, the defensive numbers are an absolute nightmare. Max Christie. This is the way, right? Is like that they are the magic of last year. That it’s Max Christie and Prosper turns into an actual defensive prospect and that Clay has a bounceback season because the defensive numbers were terrible with him. And that their model of Gaffford, Lively, Davis, we’re jamming the paint. We’re going to dare you to shoot threes and you’re going to miss just like the Thunder did. That that carries them through the offensive struggles. But I can’t get there in a Western Conference with this much firepower and this much defense. Um I have to go under here. Yep. Because if they are the magic defensively, sure. Okay, I can hear it. They still don’t have a powo on offense. They still don’t have a fron vag. And as much maligned as their playmaking is that exact like just there’s not anybody in that realm on this Mavericks. Again, unless there’s a Black Swan event to your point, unless Jay Hardy just becomes like a a starting level point guard all of a sudden, whatever. Or if Cooper Flag’s just awesome right away. So, I’ll take the under on this one. Uh let’s talk about the Denver Nuggets, your home team here. 53 and a half wins is the overunder that I have written down. Um, what I find interesting, my my first instinct, Matt, was to go over on this because I love their off seasonason. I love Nicola Joic. That’s just like first blush instinct. I’m going to go over because I just like the Nuggets this year. They’ve only ever gone over this number twice since Joic became Joic. 54 wins is quite a bit of wins. It’s a lot, especially in the Western Conference. Um, but it is the first year under David Alman, right? Most of those seasons were under Michael Malone. It’s the first official year with David Allen being the head coach. Are they energized with the new head coach? Are they energized after the roster additions in an interesting off season? Um, is the Cam Johnson for Michael Porter Jr. swap something that energizes that locker room? I thought Jamal Murray had a really underrated regular season last year, too. Is that more of what’s to come? Is he sort of just back to being Jamal Murray and we’re not asking all these questions about him all the time? Um, I think there’s some interesting stuff here. I I can kind of go either way. I’m really interested to see where you have it. So, I think we kind of return to what we talked about with the Cavaliers, which was like these high numbers and the reality. And I I actually uh wanted to correct this off the last episode. I said six of eight. I was counting two more. Uh it’s four of six have gone over. The last four out of four out of the last six have gone over with a win total higher than 54 wins. Um I have them at 56.7. So, I lean towards the over here. I think like a reasonable question is do they manage the the season a little bit better? Um, this is going to be a continuing narrative in Denver that we’re going to talk about a lot on locked on Nuggets as it goes along. Joker doesn’t want to miss games. He never wants to sit. He wants to play through it. He wants to take the hardest road possible. He doesn’t want to hear excuses. And the problem there are a number of issues with that. One is that it causes things like Aaron Gordon feels like he can’t miss time because if the big fell is out there, Aaron feels like he needs to play and that’s a problem. The other problem is just the Joker’s starting to get to the point where he is starting to tire out at the end of these seasons. Like he was gassed in 2024. He was gassed in 2025. He they have to do more in order to limit him and get him a few more days of rest. The hope is that they will win enough games that they can actually do this. The problem I always have this issue with NBA teams. Every year coaches are like, “Yeah, we’ve got to get him some minutes of rest.” You know when you need to rest, guys? It’s January. It’s December, January, February. That’s when you need to rest guys because that’s when they’re starting to gas out from having played half a season. That’s when they start to get tired. That’s when the injuries start to pile up. That’s when you need to be that’s the hardest part of the season mentally, emotionally, physically is the middle of the season. Physically, actually, it might be March because then you’re just like trying to get to the finish line. But you mentally are like, “All right, one more month and then we’re at the playoffs.” But mentally in January, it’s a drag. They need those days off in January and December to get them through. But it’s very hard to do that because you always you never have enough separation to feel like you’re good, right? So you don’t feel like you can do that. But Denver’s going to have to do that I think a little bit this year which could take this number down. But with an improved bench with adding they added one, two, they took out Michael Porter Jr. and added Bruce Brown, JV, and Tim Hardway Jr. You know, Cam Johnson replaces Michael Porter Jr. That’s three more NBA caliber guys that they have. Julius Straw I think is actually going to be good. Pton Watson could be. His extension talks are going to be interesting. Their starters are going to kill again. Their bench minutes will be better. This team should win 55 plus games. I think it’s an over. So I have over written down. Yeah. Um to me this I Yes. Their off seasonason was awesome. I love all the additions. I love that we know what Bruce Brown looks like here. I think we kind of know what Timartway Jr. looks like here even though he’s never played with Yic. But I have a really good idea of what that’s going to look like. Um, Jonas Valenunis is just a cinder block that comes off the bench and they need that. Um, to your point though, do they try to rest Jokic? They can kind of go they can look at their their postseason struggles over the last couple years and struggles is a strong word, but shortcomings I guess over the last two years in two ways. They could say, “Well, we need to make sure Joic is fresh for the playoffs.” Or they could say, “We need the first or second seed in the West so that we could avoid the Thunder for as long as possible.” I don’t know that they look at the Thunder that way. You probably have a better idea of that than I do, but even just having homecourt advantage as a one or a two seed for as long as possible. They could look at it and say, “We we want that. We need that.” David Adelman as the first year head coach full-time could be like, I want that. Like, this is the first time I’m a head coach. I kind of want homecourt advantage or something. So, I it’ll be interesting. But I’m going over. I’m going over either way. They’ve suffered with both. They’ve suffered with in 2024 they chased the one seed. After the All-Star break, they were lights out. They were awesome. But then it got to be they were winning so much they just wanted to keep winning and so they kept playing the starters and not resting him and pushing every game. And there was actually the San Antonio game where they gave up a huge lead collapsed and that cost them the one seed in 2024 which would have had them probably avoid the Wolves. That game largely was the product. Like part of what happened in that game is Michael Malone wanted to play the young guys to give the starters a rest and the starters revolted and were like, “No, like we’re winning this game. We want the one seed.” So then they peeled off a little bit last year. Now they just weren’t very good last year, but they peeled off a little bit last year. And then last year they were like, you know, it’s really hard without home court. It’s like, you can’t have both guys. Like, you know, some teams can. If you’re in the East, you can, but it’s very hard for you to be able to rest and have home court. you may have to make a binary decision between the two. And I have a feeling I think they’ll choose rest this time because they have so much confidence in their ability to go on the road. So, we’re both going over there. I’m going to We got the Warriors here next. I’ve got them written down at 45 and a half. Um, they haven’t done anything this off seasonason. I’m going to go ahead and assume they end up with all the names that people keep assuming is going to end up there. Al Horford, the Anthony Melton, Gary Payton the second. Maybe one of those guards, you know, maybe they miss out on one of those guards because of this Kaminga stuff just takes too long. Who knows what happens with Jonathan Kaminga. Frankly, I’m not the biggest Jonathan Kaminga believer on this Warriors team. I don’t think he makes an impact one way or the other. Uh so I’m I don’t really care. I don’t have them factored in when I’m looking at this win total. Um either way, so I’m just assuming that they have those guys that we think that they’re going to sign. Their starting lineup probably looks something like Steph Curry, Buddy Heield, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Al Horford, and then that off the bench they have Padmky, maybe he starts over healed, whatever. Moody, maybe he starts over healed. Those are all kind of interchangeable. Gary Payton the second, Dan Anthony Melton, they have Quenton Post, Trace Jackson Davis, there’s some guys I like in that group. Uh, but 45 and a half seems like quite a bit of wins for an aging team with some real injury history that needs their top guys to be healthy. to make a push here. But maybe they’re also more of a team that just needs to get into the playoffs healthy and be healthy at as long as they’re healthy at that point, maybe they can make a run here. But 45 and a half, I don’t know. My f my first instinct was that was pretty high for their overunder. I started with them being an under and I haven’t I just now actually while we were talking made the adjustment of like all right, let’s add Horford and Melton in there to their to how I’ve got this calculated from just a number standpoint. Um I come out at 47.6. 7. So this it’s a slight over with those guys. There’s talk this Jake Fischer reported this. We talked about this in lockdown NBA that the the Warriors have reached out to Chicago about a double sign and trade with Giddy, right? That makes so much more sense to me where I’m like that’s a north that is a an east west player in an east west system. What I mean by that is like Steph is not north south. Steph is always running around moving sideways. Butler likes likes weird angles. He doesn’t go strictly north south. He’s not like Russell Westbrook straight to the rim. Jonathan Kaminga is a north south guy. This is the words of his teammates. Like I was at a game where Gary Payton Jr. was asked postgame about him about what Kaminga brings and it’s like he gets downhill. That’s not what the Warriors run. That’s not how they operate their offense. So he doesn’t make any sense there. This is frustrating to me that they’re continuing to squeeze this kid and may not trade him despite the fact that it’s like you don’t want him, you don’t need him, you didn’t play him. Let him go somewhere where he can actually be an impact and you can get some good guys. turning down Malik Monk in any first round pick for John the Kaminga is madness in my opinion for the Golden State Warriors. But as far as their win total goes, I think this number is pretty close. Um I think that you have to factor in how old these guys are and the likelihood of injury where even an average outcome for them probably gets this to where it’s pretty scary if you’re picking the over. Yep. And if they have a bad year of injury stuff, it’s very likely an under. I don’t know a lot of ways where this team wins 50 52 54 wins. There’s some guys out there that I think are really are I know are really high on Golden State and think they can do it. And I’m just like guys, you got to really pay attention to some of the slides that we’ve seen. Steph’s still amazing, but he’s not who he was three years ago. Jimmy’s really amazing. He’s not who he was three years ago. Draymond’s really amazing. He’s not who he was three years ago. Father Times undefeated. And it doesn’t have to be a big drop off for any of them. If it’s just like a onestep drop off for all three guys, then this team isn’t what we think of them as, right? So, I lean towards the under. The numbers suggest an over. I’m going to stay away from it. But if you got to tell me I got to pick one, I’m probably leaning towards the under. I think you nailed it when you said it’s just it’s a scary over. It’s a scary over because you’re betting on health for all these guys. And look, they won 48 games last year. Steph played 70 games. Yeah, that’s a lot of games for Steph. Yep. And it felt like that was the most amount of games he could miss. When he was out, it was bad in Golden State. And if he misses, if he plays 65 games instead of 70, they can go under. Now, a lot of Warriors fans will point to, hey, look at what we did after the Jimmy Butler trade. We were ninth in offensive rating, first in defensive rating, third overall in net rating. Our record was a bajillion and nothing or whatever it was. And the only reason we didn’t make it out of the out of that round in the playoffs was because Steph got hurt. Okay. Okay, fine. Uh, Warriors fans are going to learn something about Jimmy Butler this season. When uh when Jimmy Butler plays regular season games, he doesn’t care about regular season games. Jimmy Butler only wants playoff games. And Jimmy’s going to take a lot of nights off in the regular season. And he’s not going to look as energized and as motivated and as fu Miami Heat as he did last year after the trade deadline. And that’s just the way Jimmy Butler is. And that’s fine. It’s worked for Jimmy Butler over the course of his career. But in the regular season, he is not a superstar. He is a postseason superstar. Um, and if you’re dealing with that from Jimmy Butler, if you miss a couple more Steph Curry games, the Draymond Green thing, there’s some nights where he looks like the best defensive player in the league, and then there’s other nights where he just doesn’t anymore. He’s just not that guy consistently at this age. Nothing against Draymond, but you said like it’s it’s it’s father time. It happens. It’s just it’s really scary for me to take that to to pick them to win 46 games this year. So, I I went under here. A slight under. I don’t feel great about it. This is probably a stay away for me. Yeah. But the numbers maybe not as slam dunk of a stay away either as I thought maybe it would be. The numbers are so good in in those games with Butler. However, if you go back because I I I noticed this at the time, it was stuff like Ge Santos has a careerhigh, right? Clinton Post goes for 18 and whatever like 20. It was like a bunch of random wins where a lot of Draymond Green had a season high in one of those games and scoring. He was like a like a lights out scorer for one night. Now you could say like that’s the Jimmy effect. He makes everybody better. And I’m like it was also a pretty soft schedule for those first like that first week and a half or two. Yeah. And and like look they will have soft stretches of their schedule too. Cool. It’s just a matter of how much of that record do you kind of distinguish against? Like what is the record that you can that how far is it from that being an outlier? If we take that down a reasonable amount and then we factor in injuries and ups and downs and everything else, what does that kind of look like? Um, at their age, they need to just get into the post. I like them much more as a scary playoff team than a regular season wins team. I think that’s just the difference here. Um, one other point on the Josh Getty Kaminga thing. I wanted to piggyback on that. I remember do I was covering the Warriors for Bay Area News Group at the time and I remember talking with some people in the front office then and there was a pretty significant contingent of people who really liked Josh Giddy in that draft and Giddy went six, Kaminga went seven, Oklahoma City took uh Giddy at six, which was a little bit of a surprise until it was really until just before the draft and then people started to figure that part of it out. Um I think that they would have been had Kaminga gone six and and Giddy been there at seven, I think the Warriors would have taken Giddy. I think they were really interested in that. Um, the other guy that they liked was Fran Vagner in that draft, but they thought that was going to be too much of a reach. So, they were wrong. Um, but uh, yeah, I thought the the Giddy when I saw that Giddy report from Jake Fischer, that was the first thing I thought of was, “Oh, they’ve they’ve kind of liked this guy for a while because they know that he could work in that system.” Um, who’s next in alphabetical order? Houston. Big number here. 55.5. Isn’t that the same number that the Cavs had? Yeah. Um, it’s a big number. That’s a big number. Um, this is a team that is built in my mind for the regular season. They have depth. They play tough. They’re well coached. They They’re on their P’s and Q’s. They have a strong identity. They know what they want to do. And oh, by the way, they added Kevin Durant this year. It’s a big number. It’s one that I’m kind of thinking about going over on though. Okay, I’m on the other side. Okay, this is the one where I want to go the other side on. Um, you don’t have continuity to rely on. And so like with the Nuggets, it’s like you know what you’re getting from Joic and the starters. Like they’re going to be good pretty much no matter what. The odds of Cam Johnson being a negative impact on their starting unit to a significant degree is just very low. You know what you’re getting from Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, Christian Brown doing the things that Christian Brown does. This is a here’s a big one, okay, is understanding who they were last year because I think it’s a fascinating kind of question. Houston actually won two fewer games than they should have by Pythagorean expectation based off of their uh po point differential. They should have won more games, which is really good. Like that’s a really really confident and inspiring against teams with a top 10 point differential. That team went 17 and 14. That was the one, two, three, four, five, six best record in the league. And that’s because of a couple of games at the end of the season where they were resting because they had already gotten their stuff done. They’d already locked in their seating. They were 1.4 ahead of those elite teams. They were lights out versus the top eight in the West, too. I mean, they were killer versus the top teams in the Western Conference. And it didn’t mean anything when the playoffs came. Now, this is a regular season question is how many games are you going to win? One of the problems I think that we have to kind of look at there is exactly what is this offense? Because for a time, Houston flirted with being a top 10 offense. Then they fell backwards. They fell back and back and back and back and back and back and they settled back down to where they were to where we all kind of knew like this team can’t score at all. And you add Kevin Durant which definitely like I’m not going to sit here and try and make an argument that Kevin Durant is not a great addition. It is like that’s why this number I don’t think this number is crazy. I don’t think this is a ridiculous number. They could have like they should be expected to win 55 games with a team that was second in the Western Conference with that many wins last year that added Kevin Durant for sure. However, if we do kind of look at their schedule adjusted offensive stuff, they wound up 13th in offensive rating and that was pretty generous based off of the off of the halfcourt uh putback stuff. It’s just offensive rebounds and they’ll still be good at that. They still got the two bigs. But I think it’s a leap to be like this team is going to jump into top five offense category that this team is going to jump into being top eight offense. Even if they were able to jump top nine, let’s say they that KD gets him five spots and he gets them up to KD and internal improvement plus Jaylen Gray not being there gets them in the top eight. That’s still pro the teams that win 55 plus games are elite. Like they are elite. And if you say like, well, why can Denver do it? Because Denver’s not going to be top five in defense. Well, we’ll see. One, they’ve got the capacity to actually put in some pretty good defensive seasons. Uh 2023, they had their moments. But the other thing I think is or 2024 rather. I don’t know that that that there’s enough here to just kind of believe that this is going to click immediately. This is a big change for them. Jaylen Green’s gone. You know, they moved on from him. They moved on from Dylan who was a steadying force and now it’s Kevin Durant and the men’s going to have to be the primary initi initiator and Shenoon’s going to have to be the primary engine. And that hasn’t really happened yet. I just think that I think this team’s going to be awesome. I think they’ll be really great. I have them projected very high because my numbers suggested that last year they over they overachieved by a huge amount. So I’ve still got them I’ve got them below 50. I got them at 49 wins. If you ask me like do you think that they’re winning fewer than 50? I’d say no. But I could say you know 51 52 is a great season and that’s still four short of this number. Right. So I lean towards the under here pretty heavily. You might have convinced me. It’s it’s it is just a big big number. And it’s really easy to be like 52 wins plus Kevin Durant. Why not? Yeah. But this is how Vegas acts. That’s sort of the the they know that a lot of people are going to bet the overinking exactly that and they’re going to generate a lot of action on this. But so I in terms of my stat that I have and it’s one that I keep quoting over and over again. They were 13-1 when Jaylen Green scored 30 or more points last year when they just had a guy who could be the number one scoring option. This team was virtually unbeatable. And if you just assume Kevin Durant walks into that and just doing that now, is he going to score 30 every single night? No. But they were also 17 and eight when Jaylen Green scored 27 or more. So like is as long as they have a guy to just put the ball in the basket, everything else just kind of works out. Um that was at a that was basically at a 56 win pace last year, which would be just over this number. Um you’re going to get growth from Aman Thompson, who I think is an absolute stud. I still like Jabari Smith Jr. Tari E will be there. Alpron Shang good. Uh Reed Shepard is a good shooter. He should help with the outside shooting stuff. It is just but it’s a big number. Big number. If there’s an injury, if there’s a some like that’s it. And and they didn’t they had pretty decent injury luck last year. I thought they overachieved last year based on like you look at their point differential. It’s right like Memphis had a better point differential and they were the eighth seed, right? like their point differential wasn’t like as close to maybe Oklahoma City as being the two seed behind them might suggest. So yeah, I just it’s a scary big number for a pretty young unproven team. So I had overwritten down, but I think you convinced me I’ll go under on that one. Um all right, next is Clippers. The Clippers. You’re right. It is the Clippers. Let’s do it. Uh 49.5 is what I have written down. What do you think? I’m checking. Yeah, there’s a 48 and a half in the market. So, there’s been a little bit of move back the other direction here. Um, I wind up very much over here. And I don’t I don’t love I don’t love this. I don’t love this. I am I am the internet’s resident. Kawhi Leonard is overstated. Not overrated, overstated person. I’m the only person that’s willing to talk about his failures in game sevens. I still have this team at 57 wins and this is the this is the area where when the books are like, hey, we’ll give you more than 45 but less than 50, those are the teams that tend to go over because those are good teams that if they have a good season, breeze past. And it’s very possible that this Clippers team is like a top three seed in the Eastern in the Western Conference. in uh Kawhai did look awesome when he came back from injury. Harden knows who he is with this team. He’s comfortable there. They’ve settled down like he knows he’s going to be there for for the duration. One of the I think it’s fascinating how they built this roster because a lot of this is like they literally built a roster to be Denver. They were like we’ve got Zoo, we won the Zoo minutes versus Joic, but we lost the non Zoo minutes versus Joic. Let’s go get Brook Lopez. You know, Chris Paul is still a very good player. I think Chris Paul is more impactful than Bradley Beal. And Beiel, I think, was probably scapegoated in Phoenix and still is probably like a very borderline net negative. Like it’s very one game he might be a little bit of a positive, one game he might be a little bit of a ne negative. And that’s probably like the the average swing variance for him night toight. But look, Norman Pal tailed off so dramatically after the injury and when Kawhai came back, he just absolutely tailed. I don’t love that they have this roster that’s kind of like we have offensive guys or defensive guys. We have Chris Dunn and DJJ and then we have Harden and we have Bradley Beal. I don’t love that they’re very split between those two. But I do think um as much as I think Tailoo get Tyoo is right a little high circa 2022 2023 like people were just a little too high on Tailoo and what he’d accomplished and he still has a tendency to go small too much. But look they got like Nick Batum’s still there. They still got so many guys. just got so many guys and with a great defense. Zoo is so good, even if he has a little bit of regression this year. Um, I still think this team’s going to win more than 50 games, I think this is a very solid over. I have this also as a solid over. Um, I want to I want to just piggyback on that point that you made about like the offense guys, the defense guys. It also tends to be like the big starry name guys and then the Chris Dunn guys and the Derek Jones Jr. guys who were not as star named as Bradley Beiel and and Chris Paul and James Harden. My only hope is that they continue to lean on their defense and they don’t push too many of those minutes towards some crazy James Harden, Bradley Beal, Chris Paul, John Collins lineups, you know what I mean? Um there there I’m a little worried about the too many good guys problem here and like some of those big names who might have certain expectations versus these role players who might be a little bit too differential to some of these star guys. But I think Tyoo is a good coach when it comes to handling rotations. And I like that over the course of his career, Tyoo has had a really quick hook on lineups. If they don’t work, he just yanks it and that’s it. And he’ll try something else. And I think that’s probably good for this roster, especially for the first couple of months of this season. So, I think he’s the right coach for a group quite that that’s like this. And at the end of the day, there’s just a lot of talent. There’s a lot of depth. There’s a lot of injuries that they can withstand. Kawawaii finished the year healthy, which is a first. You don’t think you what what on the injury part you Yeah. So, I mean, here’s the thing, though. Okay. They were 19 and 15 when when Kawaii came back. So, they’re on pace for about 45 wins. like they’re not on pace for anything spectacular. Like they were good. They they were like better than we thought. We’re like look at the Clippers, right? But it was also just like oh the Clippers and they went into like oh the Clippers when Kawawaii got back. You’re still you are still dependent on Kawawaii getting through 60 games and man that’s just that’s a big ask with his history. Like I don’t know that you need him to play 60 to get 50 wins here. If you just got Harden Zubach and some shooting and that defense I just need that defense to to come back. But again, again, the the record kind of shows that that’s not true. The record shows that they were just like a little bit over 500 when that happened. If you miss two months at Kawaii, you’re gonna be you’d be sweating this all the way through if you pick them over. Yeah. Um and then I just I I’m with you that I don’t have any evidence other than the rest of Kawhi Leonard’s career or the last let’s see 17 the last eight years of Kawhi Leonard’s career to base this on. But I have eight years I have the last eight years of Khar’s career plus the age of Harden plus the age of Chris Paul plus the age of Bradley Beal right it is that there is real risk here that I don’t know if they especially they get a cluster injury they’re in real trouble right if they get if like Brooke is ninth insurance for zoo but let’s say the power forward gets banged up and they’re add Collins too he’s so good like they had so many guys but If they get a cluster injury at small forward or something, it it winds up being it does get a little dicey here and it do you trust do you trust to keep playing Chris Dunn who is so good for them? I don’t know that I do. I think he might play Bradley Beal. That and that’s my biggest worry with them. Uh trust is the key word when it comes to me with the Clippers. I just wrote a piece on real GM last week or two weeks ago. I will never trust the Clippers. I have two rules when it comes to the NBA. Don’t watch Charlotte after February. It’s a waste of time. And never trust the Clippers. I will not trust the Clippers. And for that reason, I would never bet on this number, but to your point, I have it as an over, but it’s a scary over. Um, I do like that at least Kawhai finished the year healthy, which is not We can’t always say that. So, he’ll at least presumably be there at the start of the year, but again, I have no idea what to think about Kawhi Leonard. Um, I don’t trust Kawhi as your superstar, but that’s a different topic, I suppose. The Lakers, I have them at 48 and a half. Um, is that right? Yes. I have them 48 and a half. That seemed like a big number to me too, Matt. Um, to me, my biggest question about the Lakers, do they have a better chance at being an elite offense or an elite defense? Because it feels like you got to be at least one of those two things to get to 4950 plus wins in the Western Conference. And Lakers fans love to point to that month stretch where they’re the number one team defensively in defensive rating and I’m like, “Okay, that okay, that’s cool. I’m looking at this personnel. I’m still not buying it for a full season.” And by the way, that kind of fell off a cliff after that, but nobody wants to talk about that. Um, and then offensively, look, you’ve got Luca, you got LeBron, maybe that’s enough. that that definitely could be enough, but the shooting is just okay on this roster and that’s being pretty generous. Uh the bench is really thin, so this is an injury away potentially from being even, you know, in a pretty scary spot, but and this is a big butt, Luca and LeBron. So, it’s it’s a big number, but they have two of the top 10 guys in the NBA. Maybe it’s enough to to get it done. I don’t know. Where are you? I’m a slight over. I’m a slight I’m a slide over. I’m a slight under is what I have written. It’s because the number, right? 47 and a half is like you’re a pretty good team. Oh, so you have 47 and a half. There’s a 47 and a half in the market. Okay. And I think that win matters, right? It does. Yeah. I mean, if it was Yeah. I I kind of have this team pegged at 48 wins and I have it written down 48 and a half. So, we’re kind of on the same page here. And I’m with you because I was like not believing. I was like, “This defense is gonna be atrocious. Come on. They don’t Jackson Hayes is starting at center.” And then Jackson Hayes for six weeks was awesome defensively. And all the rotations were perfect and they were scrambling and they were they were that was the thing was they were able to switch with Jackson and then able to scramble out of it. And then like Reic just got spooked in the playoffs. He just got absolutely spooked. So now they have guys that that he can trust a little bit more. They still gave him Jackson for some reason. I don’t know how you I don’t know why because it’s just like what when is Re gonna want to play Jackson Hayes and that’s beside the fact that Jackson Hayes probably shouldn’t be in the league based off of some of the allegations but anyway hashms Miles Bridges but they also lost Doria Finny Smith which is a big loss for them which is a that’s a huge deal here is well but they got Marcus Smart I don’t I’m really worried Marcus is is washed and we kind of hinted at this in the last episode when Boston gives up on a guy you should red alarm bell should be going off off in your head because when they are done they’re that mean they don’t ever come back. They usually wear guys out until they’re a husk and then they when they’re willing to discard them it’s because they built their reputation up. Very Miami Heatlike. Like they’re just not the same guy because of the miles and the end the wear and tear. Atlanta should be concerned about this as well. Um so I you know look it was bad luck in Memphis. It was a bad trade for Memphis. They needed to move off of him. Jaylen Wells was really great, which is a reason that they moved him. Smart, I hope Smart has a bounceback season because I’ve loved what kind of defender he is where he can guard five positions. He’s such a pain when he switches on the bigs in the post. But if he’s not that, if he is not DPI smart, man, they don’t have anybody. I continue to question whether Austin Reeves and Luca Donic can ever be part of one more part on Can I Can I jump in on Marcus Smart because we started seeing that decline his last year in Boston and then he got traded. So to your point, the Celtics kind of know and he wasn’t even DPOI Marcus Smart that last season in a Celtics jersey. Yeah. So, you know, you could say, well, it was weird years in Memphis and Washington wasn’t playing any that like he was kind of declining three years ago. Yeah. So, that was a big part of it, too. And I’m a little worried right now that JJ Reic because that they’re gonna look at Marcus Smart and say that’s our point of attack defender. Not anymore, dude. That’s not really his game anymore. Unless he has some tremendous type of bounceback year and he’s healthy all of a sudden. Like even the last couple years he was more of a wing defender. Washington didn’t like Washington was scared to use him as a point of attack defender and they didn’t they weren’t exactly flush with options there. He was more of a wing defender which is is valuable. He’s a valuable wing defender. He’s a good communicator and when he’s on the court, I think he’s going to have a net positive impact to the Lakers defense because of just his communication, his pride on that end. That that kind of stuff is infectious and matters in regular season defense in a big way that I think is a little over underrated. But if if JJ Reic is throwing out him out there to guard elite point guards, I think Lakers fans are going to be really disappointed with how that turns out. Yeah. So, so I’m with you on the I’m with you on the defense, but look, they go out last year and they rack up 50 and 32. And this is kind of I understand if you’re listening to this, you’re like, “Whoa, wait. So, Houston’s not legit, but the Lakers are.” And I’m like, “Yeah, kind of.” Because what the Lakers are going to be capable of being, so for example, the Lakers were were top they were seventh in half court offense and 11th in half court defense. The Rockets were 22nd in half court offense. like they were truly miserable and were propping it up with smoke and mirrors which you can do with a regular season for a year hard doing it two years in a row is difficult even if you add KD with the Lakers LeBron Luca Reeves DeAndre Aiden I had to like go back and like re refamiliarize myself with Aiden’s game like I had to go back and actually be like I had the I in my mind he had become something different than he w than he is and he is such a great pick and roll lob threat And if you give Luca that type of weapon, the offense is so easy, man. It’s just so easy. You got to make catch and shoot jump shots. That’s it. They have enough shooting. They’ve got enough on those kind of weapons. They’ve got enough of those kind of capacities. LeBron I don’t even think LeBron really matters here because LeBron’s the drop was so bad in terms of his his advanced numbers last year. Like he had his great games are still amazing, but his bad games are now worse than ever. like his bad games are worse than than they were when he was a rookie by far by wide margin, right? That unsust that unbelievable you’re always going to get this level of excellence from LeBron is gone, right? But you’re still going to get a lot of nights where he is the best player on the court. Um I don’t really care about Luca’s fitness. I’m always skeptical of that because he does this a lot and then works himself out of shape. He’s still such a monster, man. Like he’s just a monster. He’s a oneman army. He just does everything. And if you have a rim runner and shooters, you’re going to be an elite offense. They’re going to cook. They’re going to kill. And they’re gonna One of the easiest ways to win 50 games. Really, the model I always talk about this that these are the games you need to win. You need to win your division games, you need to win your home games, and you need to win your games versus teams under 500. The Lakers have one of the best homec court advantages in the league because everybody goes out the night before. They have uh a division that they have shown the ability to like they they destroyed the Clippers last year in a year where the Clippers were really good. They couldn’t match up and they were really good versus Phoenix when Phoenix was actually not not good. But in the beginning of the season when they weren’t dead yet, right? They also got past their bugaboo with the Kings, right? If AD struggles versus Deon Sabonis, guess what? AD’s not there anymore. And Davis actually won his last couple meetings against Sabonis. And then this is the big one. JJ is great at managing the schedule and absolutely beating the snot out of bad teams. Every single team that they face under 500 that the Lakers get up for and they will actually rest guys to win those games. This is a Papovic thing. You rest the guys in whatever game is versus the tough opponent if the backtoback is versus the easy one. So the easy game is first. You’re playing everybody sitting the second night and then you flip it the other way. They did that a couple times last season. They’re going to work the regular season schedule. They’re going to get a top four seed. I think this is a team that goes over just slightly. I think like 52 wins is an absolute ceiling. I think 50 is not out of the realm of possibility. I think 47 and a half is a little soft. I got to go over. All right, I’ll I’ll hear it. The depth makes me a little concerned here. Um it’s a scary over if you want to go over, but I’m here for it. Um Memphis 40.5 is the number I have here. Is that what you had written down? Yeah, that’s that’s where we got it. Um 48 wins last year. Yeah, they lose Desmond Bane. They add Contavius Caldwell Pope in that trade along with the draft picks. Zack Edy out for the start of the season. I know you’re his biggest fan. Um there’s questions about the new coach there, but they’re they’re relatively healthy outside the Edy thing, which is new for them. I like the addition of uh of Tai Jerome there quite a bit. Mhm. I don’t really see a reason why they should be eight win seven or eight wins worse than what they were last year. I would I’m I’m tempted to go the slight over on this one. Matt, where are you? This is a this is a number that’s preposterous. Now, you should always be concerned from a uh if you look at the history of the data, I’d have to take me a second to pull it up. when the number goes down by this much. Um, the phrase would be quote unquote Vegas knows, right? Quick aside, that is not true. One, most of the lines that are set in Vegas are actually not set in Vegas. They’re built on offdoor books off of in in non US countries and then those numbers are emulated by various people in Vegas. So, the phrase Vegas knows doesn’t do anything. The other thing is that these numbers are all built off of models. But anyway, when the market does decide that a team is going to get substantially worse, it’s usually correct. M like they are usually smart on that. They’re way worse at projecting jumps than they are drops. So that’s a little bit of a concern. But I don’t know. This team baffled me. Baffled me. They were so damn good until January. Mhm. Elite defense. The offense was working. They were playing fast-paced. Jiren made such a great leap over the last two seasons. Jaylen Wells is a revelation. People do not understand how good that kid is. He should have won rookie of the year. Like all of these things, they are all so good. There is so much to like here that I I have to go over. I have them at like 49 wins. I think they’re going to be in competition for like a top five seed in the in the Western Conference. If you want the reason not to that I do not know if Thomas if Paul Masalo is a good coach. That’s it. That’s it. That’s the entire thing. We have no idea. I don’t want to say that he was handed the head coaching job, but there wasn’t exactly a mass interview process after he had taken the interim job. We have no idea. And I do think Taylor Jenkins had a lot to do with their sort of resolve as a group and ability to withstand injuries and that next man up mentality. All that stuff is really hard to just replicate with any old head coach just because it’s the same virtually the same roster, very similar team. You can’t just assume that that stuff just carries over that sort of emotional uh you know fortitude that you can’t just assume that that stuff carries over. That said, again, I like I love the Tai Jerome edition for them. They still have Scotty Pippen Jr. coming off the bench. When we’re talking about injuries, we’re really talking about Jarant. And with Jerome, I think they have a that’s exactly the kind of Tai Jones type of Tus Jones type of guy who just fills in, plays his role, keeps the thing keeps the thing humming until John comes back. So, I’m going over. You’re going over. Minnesota, I have them at 43 or I’m sorry, 49 and a half wins here. Um, they won 49 games last year. So, we’re we’re right there. Makes sense. No real changes to the roster year after year. They did lose Nikuel Alexander Walker. Um, yes, Mike Connley, Rudy Gobear, they’re a year older. Connley showed real decline towards the end of last season. You could see the decline even with Rudy Gobear a little bit in uh last season. To me, this this number even just kind of staying where it is. It’s a bet on Anthony Edwards just taking another leap, which is entirely possible. It’s a bet on guys like Terence Shannon, Rob Dillingham, Jaylen Clark all being better, which I like. I like that group quite a bit. Um, but I’m gonna go slight under here, Matt. This just Minnesota is gonna need to have a regression year. It’s got to happen at some point. It just feels like it has to happen. And this feels like it’s probably the year that it happens. They they went all in on this. Rudy Gobear, Mike Connley, Carl Anthony Towns for a little bit of it. Let’s bet on Anthony Edwards making that leap during this. Let’s go all in and try to make a run. And they did. They made the Western Conference Finals twice. That’s awesome for this Timberwolves franchise. That is not nothing. But that window I think is going to close at some point and they’re going to have to open up a new window which Tim Connelly I think is doing a really good job of preparing them to be part of that window. But part of that process is a regression year and I think it has to happen this year. I’m going to go under on 49 and I I kind of hate myself for it because I like this Timberwolves team. I am a slight lean over. Okay. Because I don’t one like they’re due for regression. Well, you know, maybe not. Maybe this is just the the floor, right? Yep. I don’t think that they’ve overachieved. And you can’t say last year that they overachieved. They were 4.7 wins worse by cleaning the glass than their record. They lost to a lot of weird close games early in the season. They had like bizarre they had bizarre clutch problems and those are usually not something to like really freak out about. One thing that’s interesting I did want to kind of note on that because I think this is like a fascinating thing that happens in the NBA. I only have this data updated through uh 2023 24. Um but the teams that that underperform their win total. So what I mean by that is they won fewer games than they should have based off of how good they were in point differential. Okay. One of the things I noticed is that the books, the number that comes out for these teams is more closely correlated with that number than it is their actual wins. So when you ask like how are these numbers built? At least from the surface, I don’t I don’t have any insight on how they are, but at least on the surface, they are more strongly correlated with what you should have won than what you actually did. And what’s fascinating is 55% of teams that underperformed go under the next year. They don’t regress back to to being like, well, they should have won more games last year. They’re going to win more games this year. Nope. That’s not how it works. Something caused them to win fewer games, right? If you want to believe in the causation effect here, that something caused them to win fewer games than they should have and that actually winds up catching up with them the year after. I think that’s a fascinating thing when we look at some of the numbers and how often we use point differential as a starting point. That said, look, Anthony Edwards, Rudy Goar, Chris Finch, that’s really all I need. Dante Devenenzo is not as bad as he was last year. He’s just not like he will be better this season. He had a rough season. Seen this a million times from guys like him where it’s like shooters can’t get comfortable. They have to find that they don’t they have some minor injuries. They’re trying to figure out the rotation. He’ll be better. Love will be better. Yep. Julius Randle. Had a really rough start the first couple months last year. Yeah. Uh Jade McDaniels was terrible to the point where I thought they were going to trade him until January and then he really rediscovered his role, got comfortable, and moved forward. The Nikquille loss matters. I’m not like it does matter. But what’s interesting is if their problem is offense doesn’t moving Nquille out for somebody that’s got a little bit more burst than Terren Shan Jr. Nil’s a great shooter. No, no, no question. But they’ve got shooting. Isn’t it better to add somebody who’s got a little bit more balance to their game and Terrence Shannon Jr. or some of the other games? Maybe Rob Dillingham gives them a boost off the bench. I I I don’t love this one. I’m not probably I’m probably I’m not going to bet it, but I have to go kind of over. I think Chris Finch deserves enough credit to be like, “Yeah, they’re going to be a 50- win team again.” It’s a scary 50 wins. I just to me again, I think the Conley minutes are going to be rough. I think the go bear decline is already starting and I’m not as much as I like the young guys, are they ready to take on more right now or is there like a one year? And by the way, when I say regression, I’m not saying that they’re going to be in the play tournament. They’ll probably win seven games, you know what I mean? But like it’s um it’s enough for me to just stay away from it. Um I’ve got New Orleans here next at 29 and a half. Uh one of my favorite teams to talk about uh based on their offseason because it was horrible. Um, and I don’t understand it. And nobody that I talked to can make it make sense for me. Um, CJ McCullum out, Jordan Pool in. Okay. Uh, Jordan Pool has another year left on his contract more than Mcllum. All right. Um, they loved Derrick Queen so much that they had to trade an unprotected pick next summer to move up to get him, but they didn’t love him enough to just pick him with the first pick that they had where they took Jeremiah Fears, who people are very split on. Uh if you talk if you talk to draft people, they’re either in or they’re out on him. They won 21 games last year. Zion played 30 games. That’s I mean we could talk about the offseason all this stuff. I guess I it probably just comes down to how many games Zion plays honestly and whether or not they make the 29 and a half or not. What’s tough about this one is uh so like if you’re like me and you’ve got them projected for 27 wins if Zion’s healthy and Trey Murphy is what they think he is and Jordan Bull shot the freaking lights out last year. He shot the lights out last year. He was a great shooter last year and this team defies all expectations and comes together. This has a cascading effect across the entire Western Conference because now the Lakers that this is a type of team that they should beat up and destroy. What if they split with them? Well, if they get four games against them and they split with them, there’s a cascading effect on the Pelicans because I don’t know where the hell to put them just like with the Sixers. So, I don’t have really any interest in like trying to nail a win total on them. There’s more interest in questions like is Trey Murphy third able to be the guy if Zion still banged up? Uh are they is the Derek Queen thing going to be that terrible for them? What if Jeremiah Fears saves the day for them and it’s just like an absolute revelation? Um what’s the future of Willie Green? Like there’s a lot of of ancillary questions, but trying to figure out trying to get an accurate target on this team is absolutely impossible. This team was genuinely good two years ago and was absolute disaster last year and there’s no way to predict any of it because their training staff is so terrible because of the ownership situation. It’s all a mess. There’s no way to target this. If you bet the over on this heck, if you bet the un if you bet this uh I don’t know like this is crazy to your point. The win total is almost not interesting at all. It’s it’s a very fascinating team organization to discuss and talk about. The players are very interesting. I love Trey Murphy the third. I quite like Willie Green as a head coach. Eve Missy is my guy. I bought a lot of stock in him before the draft and I was glad that he played well for New Orleans last year. I think there’s some interesting players that come off the bench. Um, this is a total stayaway for me. I went slight under if I had to pick something, but it’s a stayaway. Um, let’s go Thunder next here. 62 and a half wins is is the win total I have. They won 68 games last year. I kind of want to take the over on this, Matt. I kind of want to take the over. And I just look at history. I have no fancy schmancy numbers or anything like that, but I look at history. The Warriors, after they won the championship, ripped off 73 wins the next year. Not saying that the Thunder are going to do that, but they did that. The year after Miami won their first title in the Big Three era, they ripped off 66 wins the year after. Boston, after they won the championship in 2023, ripped off 64 wins the year after. There tends to be a we did it, we won the first one, now let’s show everybody how much of a badass we are. this is our block now and we’re going to own it kind of thing that happens with some of these teams, especially when they’re a little bit younger and they’ve kind of gotten over the hill. I think this Thunder takes a ton of pride in all this stuff. I think they’re going to say, “We’re the champions and we’re going to act like it and you’re going to treat us as such.” I think they’re going to come out smelling blood, wanting to prove to the rest of the league again that they’re they’re all that in a bag of chips. So, I got the Thunder going over here. I have 72 wins. Jesus Christ. Like, what am I supposed to do? Like what am I supposed to do here? Like what what what am I supposed to do? Because there’s no way to argue that there’s they obviously didn’t get worse. The roster is the exact same. They’ll be more tired. Yeah. The Celtics, I think, are a great The Celtics are a great example of this where Yeah. you know, they win they were an older team, but they they they win the title, they rack up all these wins in 2024, and they were still 60 wins last year. Like they were still like they were still an over. Like it’s just this number seems so preposterously high that you should definitely be betting the under. And I will say this, 67% of all teams, uh it’s a very limited number for any team that has had a um that has had a win total of more than 60. It’s four and two to the under. And most of that is just the Warriors because you couldn’t put an accurate number on them. Their floor is so ridiculously high. There’s you’re right that they’re young so they’ve got more energy. I am I am just with you that I don’t it is such a preposterously high number. That’s so many wins. But god they should have if they put the pedal down they they breezed to 75. If they put the pedal down last year they breezed to 75 and they managed it and they won the title because of it. So and and this wasn’t an injury luck thing. They didn’t have a center for a month. Yeah. Beating them in the regular season is just it is so freaking because there were so many games last year where it was like hey they’re down seven at the half. They might actually Oh, nope. There they go. They won by 17. Yep. It’s their runs are ridiculous. They are Their defense is sticky. Like it it will carry over. They have that ability to just be like, “Okay, now we’re just going to full court press. We’re going to take the ball away from you.” I will say one, it tailed off towards the end of the season. And two, um that defense was such an outlier. It probably does regress a little bit, but not enough. I’m with you. We got to get the over here. Yeah, I’m going over. I mean, literally the only reason to me to take the under on this or even think they’ll come under, they can withstand most injuries, as they proved last year, if for if SGA turns an ankle, knock on wood, right? Nobody wants to see it. That’s the only reason you take the under is if SGA is just like out with something for a very long time. And that’s the only reason to even think that they’d come under this number. This team is going to be a juggernaut. Um, help me out. Who’s the next team? I’m so bad at this. Why did I write this all down on notepad? One of my favorite teams to talk about, the Phoenix Suns. 31 and a half is what I have. Is that what you have? Uh I have them currently in the market. You can find uh a Yeah, there it’s 30. There’s a 30 and a half in the market. 31 and a half. So, I like their offseason all things considered. like they they did it it I’m giving them credit for something I shouldn’t give them credit for because they did bungle their way into a situation where they were forced to trade Kevin Durant based on what how they acted in February but all things considered that’s why I put that on there all things considered I liked what they did I actually do I don’t have a problem with them just removing themselves from the Bradley Beal situation again a situation of their own making they created such a toxic situation with with their own employee there essentially that they had to basically just release him and eat the money on it. But I like the additions at center. I had no problem with them trading for a center in Mark Williams and then taking Mali Watch at 10 or nine or whatever that pick was. Um I I just think when you have a problem, throw money at it. I have no problem with that. You know, just like just go ahead and address the issue and something will work out. Uh I like Dylan Brooks for this roster. I like the stuff that they got for Kevin Durant. I kind of like Jaylen Green for this roster even in a weird way. I like their smaller moves, Jordan Goodwin, Jared Butler, Nigel Hayes bringing him back. uh over here. So, uh we’ll see. Jordan not at head coach is maybe the biggest question mark I have. Just we don’t know, not proven. We’ll see what happens there. Um I have one Devin Booker take, but before I get to that, I was surprised at this. I kind of went slight over on this. This is going to be one of my stronger positions. I’m at 40 wins. I am way over. Okay. I think they are playin. I think they are a playin contender. Wow. Um, a lot of this is if you want to look at it from a player perspective, think about how many guys in this roster are not going to register when they’re building a model for him, like how much is this player worth to the spread for a power rating. Um, Oso Eigodaro is awesome and is not going to register at all. Dylan Brooks is really good for long stretches. He was great first half for Houston. He’s a big reason they won 50 games. Not going to register a lot on that. Uh, Nick Richards, Mark Williams, and the rookie, not going to register that much. Jordan Goodwin is a very good player who can actually impact things. Not going to register on it. Like the guys that are actually Ryan Dunn, love Ryan, right? They have all of these guys that are not going to register in against this win total and are going to be considered basically net zeros or negatives. And it’s just like, well, what’s Deon Booker worth? And like that’s this number. This number is like, what’s Deon Booker worth? About 30 wins. Okay, the roster is actually really good. I have no reason to think Jordan now Jordan could be terrible. That that’s always a risk. But I have no reason to think Jordan is so terrible to pull them under 30 wins. So I I I’m with you. I think this is an over. Uh let’s talk to Evan Booker. I kind of like him for the scoring title this year. Spicy take. Love it. The the It’s going to be him. He’s the offense. All the guys you talked about, I love him. They’re all defensive players. They’re all catch and shoot guys. It’s going to be a lot of Devin Booker at point guard because they don’t have a point guard. Uh which he’s not bad at. It just didn’t work when he was trying to get it also to c he isn’t a skilled enough point guard and differential enough to be like I’m feeding be I’m feeding Durant and I’m also getting mine. But if it’s just him kind of heliocentric offense and just kicking out to open shooters who don’t necessarily need the ball on any given possession, I think it’s going to work. I think he’s really skilled at that stuff. There’s enough centers there where he can just run pick and roll. We’ve seen him do work with that in the past with guys like DeAndre Aton and other guys. He’s just going to have the ball in his hands so much and he’s so capable of it. I love like a just a big by the way, I’m back. I’m still a top 15 guy. I’m reminding everybody type of season from Devin Booker. Yeah. And he might average 32 points per game. Yeah. If he can wrestle the ball away from Jaylen Green, he’s going to be in a really good position. Yep. Like that. I love that take though. I think that Booker underperformed so much last season. He’s a guy that again it’s like it’s like reg it’s like he’s due but it’s just like look man progression isn’t linear and the drop was LA was too much last year and inexplicable. You listen to Lock on Suns and they talked about it. It didn’t make any sense right how much Devin strugg struggled last year. I’m with you. I think this is a bounceback season. I think this is a revenge tour for Deon Booker. I love that take for him for scoring title. Two more teams. Uh let’s breeze through them here. Portland we got three actually. Jesus Christ. Oh, you’re right. Utah. Okay. Um can’t forget about Utah. It’s hard not to. Um, Portland at 33.5. They won 36 wins last year. They were fourth in defensive rating after the All-Star break. They went 13 and 14 during that stretch. If they do something similar to that, they would breeze past this number. Their offense is still a problem. Um, their big move was Drew Holiday for for Anthony Simons. That doesn’t help their offensive issues. I like Holiday as part of that locker room. I don’t know how impactful he’ll be on the court. You mentioned the Boston thing earlier. Um, just copy and paste that conversation here. I think I go I go slight over because I like Chanty Bilips. I I like a lot of the players on this roster. I like Denny Aia. There’s just a lot that I like here. I don’t feel awesome about it. It just feels like they need a Scoot Henderson leap to just consistently be that. I think they were a little inflated towards the end of last year. You’re always wary of teams that kind of do work when other teams are not really doing work. Um that said, 33 and a half is low enough where I would probably take the over. Stay away for me. Yeah, they’re not going to be worse. I don’t know how much better they’re going to be. Injuries could be here if Scoot doesn’t progress and Cameron misses some time. You know, what does that look like? What are they going to do with center? They got too many trade some guys for the love of God. Well, they’re a big trade candidate here. And if they go under, it might just be like, let’s kind of let’s pull the plug on this. Well, it could go the other way, though. It could be like, oh, they went out and they got like an actual offensive weapon that can kind of drive, right? They trade Scoot and Robert Williams, and that’s a great trade package if you go get an actual weapon. Um, but with now I can’t project that, right? So, their offense is so bad. Their defense is so good. I’ve got them right here at 32.7. It’s not at a point where I want to bet it. I I I don’t feel confident. I don’t I tell you this, Wes. I don’t even feel confident that I’m like, they’re definitely winning less than 40 games. Like, no. Like, they could absolutely be in the play tournament. They could win 43. They could be a 500 team. Wouldn’t shock me in the slightest, right? They could also be a 30- win team that never got it quite together and they were just bad. It’s that it is too much in the nebula for me to go either direction on the Portland Trailblazers. Sacramento 35 and a half. I had a I had one lock in the Western Conference. This is my lock, Matt. I’m going under on the Sacramento Kings. I am going under. I’m They limped to 40 wins somehow uh last year. This is the number one WTF team in the league. I have no idea what’s going on, but I I don’t see any way that they’re better than this is going to be one of the worst five defenses in the league, and they’re not going to be five. I don’t see how they climb their way out of the top out of the bottom five in defensive rating. I don’t trust their offense. There’s no point guard that I trust. All apologies to Dennis Shruder and potentially here Russell Westbrook. Um 35 and a half to like 36 wins for this team just feels like a lot. I think this team is going to be in the 20s. I can’t get there. the numbers disagree here and they’re just like, “No, this is actually gonna be a pretty decent team.” Um, Lavine really was awesome last year. Like, he was just awesome. I wish they would trade Demar Rosen. I wish they would just trade Demar Rosen to Golden State or Miami or somewhere and just like move him and get some more versatility, especially to open up things for uh uh to open up things for Keegan Murray. But in general, um I’m with you that I don’t I don’t want to bet the over, but I am not confident in the under at all. San Antonio’s at 43 and a half. Um they won 40 or 34 games last year. Um that was V with Victor Wyman getting hurt. They add Dear and Fox. WBY and Fox played only five games together. My first instinct and I think what a lot of people are going to be questioning is why is this not higher? So I have a hipster team for each conference. My hipster team was Atlanta for the East. The hipster team is San Antonio. Everybody’s going to be picking the over on San Antonio. And I’m not saying that they’re wrong. They added some needed front court depth. I like Luke Cornet. I like Kelly Olen for them as just another body back there. Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant looked good in summer league. Um I like the over for them. And I’m usually not one of these guys that that bangs on the on the the hipster team, but I have no reason not to like them other than just scary Webby injury stuff. What’s the big leap? Dylan Harour. What’s the Wyama being healthy? Yeah. I mean, look. Well, yeah. Okay. But even with WMY, they were tracking towards under 500. Yeah, I guess it’s a WBY leap plus Dear and Fox being there all year. They just didn’t make quite enough moves and he didn’t move one of a cell or Kell Johnson. If they moved one of those guys and gotten like another dude in, but like Chris Paul was really good for them last year and he’s gone like a loss. There’s no like there’s like Luke Cornet, sure, but like and WBY could just jump this. That’s possible. But it everything about this screams that everyone’s a little early on how good they are as a team versus how good Wendy is. And so I think that we need to I’m gonna be conservative here and I’m gonna lean under. Utah 18 and a half. I have no problem with that take. Utah 18 and a half. Um do they trade Larry Markin in February before February probably. And if they do they could definitely go under on this. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a I mean you don’t trade for use of Nerkage unless you want to lose games. So uh I’ve got him at 18. This is this is gonna be the only team in the teens. Uh they’re gonna be that they’re gonna be the worst team in the league again by design, right? I think they finally want to win one of these lotteryies. Now, I will say I don’t want to bet it because of the numbers that we talked about in the first episode, which is like, hey, these numbers under 25, you don’t want to get in on like you just want to ignore it. They could they could win a six out of 10 and then you’re screwed. So, Matt Moore, we did it. We got through all 30 teams, both conferences, two a little bit more than two hours. Really appreciate the time, man. You could find uh I think your pics are up there on the Action Network uh actionwork.com. Um you could find them at on the Action Network podcast. You could find them over at the Locked on Podcast Network. Locked on NBA Afternoons. Awesome show that you do over there with Hayes and that other guy. I forget his name, but um and Doug. Uh thanks for jumping on, man. Really appreciate the time. Thanks, man. [Music]
Wes Goldberg and Matt Moore react to NBA Western Conference win totals for the upcoming season and make their picks for over/unders. #nba #warriors #lakers
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1:00:55 Kings
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