Flagg At Point Guard? Rockets Ready For Finals? Southwest Division Deep Dive | The Hoop Collective
Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to preview everything you need to know about the Southwest Division in the Western Conference. The guys break down what to expect after a wild offseason in Dallas, if the Rockets are ready to compete for a championship, what to expect from Wemby in San Antonio, if Ja Morant will be back to an elite level and much more! Plus, what Thanasis Antetokounmpo returning to the Bucks means for Giannis.
0:00 Intro
2:14 New fantasy league for the Tims
4:27 Thanasis returns to the Bucks (Good sign for Giannis in Milwaukee?)
8:32 Southwest Division of NBA preview
9:19 Why are Mavs so hard to predict?
25:52 Rockets ready for next step now?
32:45 Expectations in San Antonio this year
43:34 Reasonable standard for Memphis?
55:22 What is the direction in New Orleans?
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36 Comments
Flagg handle is not that good for point guard he will be pressed full court a lot
Flagg at pg.. its the MJ formula… Gotta do it, even if he struggles at times.. Once he can get around PGs he can get around anyone. Gotta do it.
I-90 Boston to Seattle is longest interstate highway in US…
Are tim and tim blowing each other?
This is arguably the most boring podcast in the history. Ohhh my god is the Dead Sea. Can you imagine having dinner with these clowns?
Okc would get 10 steal a game vs him 😂
Lakers only team that matters
I see Kidd using cooper the way he used Giannis and cooper is way further along than Giannis was his rookie year. Cooper had the ball almost every possession in summer league and only had 3 turnovers so I can see him handling the ball to start the season.
Pura Vida Macmahon!
Mavs are fairly easy to predict. Kyrie injured. AD injured. Klay injured. Lively injured. Flagg falls short of expectations. Nico fired.
43:30 SAY IT LOUDER MCMAHON! LUKE KORNET WILL BE THE MOST IMPACTFUL FA SIGNING THIS SEASON
Calling Cooper Flag a generational talent is wild.
Cooper at PG makes the most sense. Watching from summer league he really impressed me by handling the full court pressure. Plus you put ky at his natural SG position. Klay at SF at 6’7. Now they can switch pretty much everything especially with AD and Gafford/ Lively. Brilliant!
The mustache faze (the 80's), the goatee faze (the 90's) , the full beard faze (the 2010's) & now just shave it off. Back hair is optional.
I would love to see OKC knock out the Rockets in the playoffs. So tired of KD taking the easiest possible path
Dats kap rockets not going to no finals 😂😂😂
It’s pronounced TUR-kee-yeh not turkey-yay just like it’s RAY-ahl Madrid to Ree-ahl Madrid.
no one cares about the wnba
y’all r trippin i’m taking d’angelo over a rookie 3 or 4 at the pg. cooper is going to be good but not his first year in the league this team would be lucky to make the playoffs
Acting like the Mavs are so interesting is kind of a joke – they likely have the lowest ceiling in the division for this year since Kyrie has already said don't expect him back. I would say they're the least interesting team in the division for this year. Whole team is built to be spoonfed buckets by guards, and they have no guards. They are also one of the biggest Tank Watch teams in the league because they control their own pick next year in an actual possible generational draft but then don't control it again until 2031.
Meanwhile all other teams have huge range of outcomes and are in one way or another approaching crossroads. NOP front office has been on drugs but this was a 49 win team last time they were healthy and could be anywhere from worst in conf to 50 win team. Memphis also is being slept on because the wheels came off right at the end of the season, but they were statistically an elite team before that. Rockets could easily challenge for no.1 seed, and Spurs are a ticking time bomb for the whole league.
I know this episode has much more emphasis on Houston and Dallas, but Wemby is definitely a sleeper. Look at his off-season work, especially his workout with Kevin Garnett. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Wemby go on a terror this season.
Really hopeful Sochan amd Castle improved their 3 point shooting this offseason. Even if they SNIFF league average percentages, that would open up a ton of lineups
29:25 still under 25 too. Jokic was 26 when he got his first MVP.
Great Podcast… stop cutting each other off mid thought or comments. Confusing…
Small thing, but Julian Champagnie is 6'9". He's not a 2.
@20:44 Bontemps turned into the Penguin for a second there.
Troy Weaver got fired by the Pistons because he COMPLETELY FUCKED UP THE REBUILD.
They are fucked. Watch.
Barring a major injury, the Spurs are going to be really good this year. Right now, everyone is making confident predictions, about half of which will be wrong!
42:25, did bontemps say fox is better than cade?
🚀🧨
These guys have been following basketball for too long to think PJ at the 3 is sustainable. Cooper at the 2 is a terrible suggestion
No disrespect to Detroit but if the spurs were in the east I would bet money that the spurs would finish with a better record. I could see the spurs being as high as the 2nd seed and as low as the 5th seed.
Spurs are more talented than Detroit and it's really not a convo to me. Spurs would be a top 4 East team…nobody outside of the top 3 are ahead of the Spurs on talent in the East, and they honestly are not far off Orlando if Wemby takes a leap.
Think the Spurs can take that jump to playoff team, but the question is whether Wemby takes a leap on how much of a jump they take. Their improved depth, significantly improved, gives them a pretty high floor as a team to me. Like Vassell and Barnes as shooters around Wemby, like Castle as a secondary creator/cutter/transition guy, like Kornet+Wemby playing some minutes in Double Big lineups and being a stout defensive duo. They're a good team from top to bottom for me.
I love the Grizzlies this season….they're gonna defend, and if Ja/Jaren remain healthy, they're gonna score too. And I think Ja has a season that gets him back on the map. I think KCP having a down shooting season with the injuries all around him has seen his stock drop too far. He's gonna make an impact.
The reason Houston signed Clint is to keep anyone else from getting. He was a match matchup nightmare for Sengun and literally played him off the floor in the 4th. Ime and Sengun had a pretty animated conversation.
Sochan is a swiss army knife. The shot is the question with him, has some other things to address but he does contribute in a variety of ways, and he's gonna be important this season. Spurs are quite young but most of these guys have NBA experience…they're not as green as it feels some say they are. And they're also in clearly defined roles. Spurs have the depth you need to survive a gauntlet of a season.
I think Looney is gonna be more impactful for the Pelicans than people think. They're one Zion injury away from another poor season but they have the offense to be explosive this season and outscore teams and think with Zion active their floor is pretty high because of how impactful Zion is. And I feel Poole makes a difference for them as a creator…they needed that out of a guard.
Pelicans roster is too talented to win 26 if we're talking about projections on paper…people are down on them because of vibes. It's not objectively looking at their roster, IMO. Understand not having them a playoff or even play-in team but 26 wins is a model predicting the worst vs just looking at their roster at face value.
If the put Cooper at PG, they are tanking the season. It’s no different than the Spurs playing Sochan at PG, which the media buried them for