The True Contenders In The Eastern Conference + A Historic Rookie Of The Year Battle
Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to discuss the Thunder getting a big win over the Knicks before talking if New York is an actual contender for the NBA Finals this season. Plus, we break down some high profile battles in the Eastern Conference standings down the stretch of the season including the emergence of the 76ers. Finally, we tackle this historic Rookie Of The Year race between Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel and react to the NBA’s tanking proposals.
Time Codes:
0:00 Intro
1:06 Thunder take down Knicks in OKC
10:22 Who is the true favorite in the East?
14:31 Consequential battles in East standings
16:00 Toronto totally obliterates the Magic
20:06 Maxey & 76ers starting to become relevant
30:02 End of season award battles heat up
38:42 Who is the Rookie of the Year favorite?
47:52 Luka officially gets his 16th technical foul
50:10 Latest tanking proposal reactions
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43 Comments
Slander OKC again McMahon. We will see where you’re podcasting from next trip
Hawks guy here. It would be super fun to see this team get some playoff reps
It’s Embiid and the Sixers not Maxey
Luka gets suspended for 16 techs and you’re framing it as “good timing” and not “detrimental to the teams success”
I remember it used to be a badge of honor when players got to the FT line. It meant you were hard to guard. It was a skill people aspired to have. I don’t get it.
Relax apron restrictions for winners. Give winners something. Losers may get the pick but too many years of losing should cost you a small percentage of your revenue share.
Crazy idea: The league comissioner is not smart. Signing huge TV deals and making all the owners more rich does not make a person smart. Adam Silver has consitently shown that his decisions make the product on the floor worse, and has shown no evidence of solving hard problems. Smart people solve hard problems.
My god, this is the basketball, talk over each other podcast, huh… and everytime one of the others starts talking over the other one you can see how they get irritated hahaha and they do this every gd week
Pistons are garbage
Isn't there precedence for co-rookie of the year? Grant Hill and Jason Kidd did it.
Keep it simple on tanking – No conditions on traded draft picks and use a 3 year average for lottery odds. If teams are still deliberately tanking, go to a 5 year average. The proposed complications will never work any better than a simple approach.
Shai or Luka for mvp. Come on man
again: determine the 8 worst teams by fe average standing in last 3/5 years. These 8 teams compete for top draft pick. The highest win team gets n1 pick. Suddenly whole league wants to win instead of want to loose.
So no talk about the raps?
Here's my ideas to resolve tanking.
1. The league, owners and players' association agree to a list of criteria that will, as objectively as possible, define tanking (sitting "healthy" players, excessive load management, playing 10-day guys over rotation players, etc.) and then form an independent council (maybe comprised of former gm's, players, lawyers, whoever's appropriate) that will determine at the end of the regular season which teams violated the tanking policy during the season.
2. Teams marked as "tankers" by this council will go back 10 draft spots (maybe even more in extreme cases). This should be a huge deterrent for teams fighting for months to get a top pick. There would be an appeal process between the season and draft lottery, because teams would immediately protest it as a subjective label, and they'd have to prove their intent for sitting guys or whether some players' injuries were legitimate. There could be a lot of gray area here and that's why the list of criteria is crucial in keeping it objective.
3. Teams can't live in the lottery. There should be a set of limitations where teams can no longer draft in the top 10 four years in a row. (You could add top 5 over 3 years or lottery picks over 5 years, etc.) Three high draft picks should be enough to start a rebuild and after 4 bad years, teams should be forced to enter the competitive landscape and shoot for the playoffs. We can't have teams doing 7-10 year rebuilds or a bunch of mini-rebuilds because they draft poorly. You have a few years to rebuild through the draft and then you should be acquiring veterans to surround your young core and start making a run. No more Philly "Process", OKC tanking for years to stockpile picks, Wizards not competing for decades at a time, rosters full of 20-year olds, etc.
4. The NBA's three recent proposals were too soft and convoluted, but I'd keep the concept of the win floor. It should be 20 or 25 games. There's no reason we have teams winning 15 games in a season. We have to disincentivize that.
What do you guys think? These are strong measures and would be hard to get everyone to agree to, but it would definitely lead to a more competitive league. Thanks for reading.
Why does windy always need to qualify every statement he makes with excuses first?
Glad the Tims called him out for waffling before talking about the magics loss to the raptors.
I SAW MCMAHON ON TV DOING HIS JOB.
Tim Bontems is the biggest Tatum hater. He’s the reason he didn’t get finals MVP. He railroads all of his good games and focuses so much on shooting. Never mentions him defending 1-5 or being the teams best rebounder or being an elite playmaker. And here not even curving for AN ACHILLES INJURY. Right back to “meh he hasn’t shot great 🤓 “
aaaaah MacMahon has clearly got a front row seat on the Thunder bandwagon especially with Dallas tanking – almost wet myself watching him get in a defensive stance vs Jeremy Lin. He looks like he is 6'2" or 6"3 at best and is always banging on about short refs, you aint no giant brother
Sadly
With the lottery only the worst teams get a chance to get the top 1 or 2 players in the draft. With the right player, it cld make you a contender.
30:47 thanks bontemps, no idea how ppl have forgotten about klay so quickly…a large part of gsw being able to win pre-kd was klay's ability to guard steph's man, and he was doing it in the heyday of the point guard position! and in the 2019 finals, he was COMPLETELY outplaying kawhi!
Not all teams are tanking, some teams are just bad. They have bad coaching, bad team chemistry, no top star player, they just suck. It is the nature of sports, 1 team comes in 1st and there is 1 teams that comes in last even if they were all good.
6:00 Man what is happening with Jaden Ivey? Bulls just waived him because of his controversial instragam live takes on LBTQ.. it seems like the guy is going actul crazy. Funny enough Wemby said he is the quickest guy in the league to gaurd on ball
BEANTOWN BOMBERS BABY!☘☘🏆✊🏿💪🏿
The West may have the best two teams, but the East is absolutely NOT weak! This season, the East has fewer teams with a losing record than in the West (5 sub .500 in the East vs 6 in the West) and more teams with a positive point differential (9 in the East vs 8 in the West), which shows it’s deeper and more competitive than the usual narrative says.
I'm still mad at the Lakers for letting Caruso walk.
13:49 wrong. Mid table
Here is an idea for anti tanking. After the play in game. The 9-15 teams from the west and east go into a sweet 16 style single elimination game series for the next year draft by winners #1 to losers. When you enter the bracket the team w a better record gets home advantage (so your record does count) if you win tournament you get #1 pick and so on. Then just place each team reverse order in draft based off how they did in playoffs by games won or point differential
ROY is not who the better prospect is lol ROY is who has had the better season. That's it. Hence the words "Of The Year" in the award lol.. Not "Most Hyped Rookie"
Ohhh no Jaden Ivey just got waived today tooo 😬🫥
Jokic scores more efficiently than Shai in the post, the mid range and from 3. Literally everywhere except the FT line.
And Jokic more than doubles Shai's rebounds and assists. His on-off is way better than Shai's too (only Wemby is comparable).
Shai's pros: 3 more ppg, 1.5 fewer turnovers, more FTM and higher FT%. Better defence (although OKC's defence improves with him off the court, unlike Denver without Jokic).
Not sure why Jokic isn't right in the middle of this MVP race. Is it just team record?
SGA has been clutch all season, proving why hes the MVP
I wonder if these nazis will talk about the raptors.
Lizards vs. Glizzies tankathon
Simple tanking solution:
17th: 1st pick
18th: 2nd pick
19th: 3rd pick
20-30 random draw for remaining lottery picks.
How are they talking about expansion when half the league is in tankathon mode because they don't have the rosters to compete?
Paulo's already trying to sabotage his trade value so that he can get moved to Seattle
Not a single mention of the cavs or pistons?
Still struggle listening to Macmahon constantly backing the Thunder every possible time. Would be nice to hear him critique OKC once every so often, just becomes a bit repetitive and predictable. He can still favor them but don't be so vehement every single time it comes up.
If you disagree with absolutely everything that exits these guys mouths .ike me, turn this podcast off. I guess they think no other player like SGA gets fouled, almost every, single time they touch the ball. And Detroit must be the 9 seed despite math saying differently. Adam Silver patting you o the back. I won't.
Its Weird that a team playing against OKC only have that many free throws
The anti tank proposals are a joke
Regarding J. Ivey..
Tim was quick to change the subject. SMH. I know you guys dont get political. But at least you could've elaborated a little.
I hope he doesn't get let go from the League because of his beliefs. When you have abusive women beaters get second chances in the league.
That would show kids its ok to beat women and get a second chance… but if you have a different belief from their sponsors you get black balled.
The NBA would show their true colors if they do.