Hello, friends. Welcome to the second half of our NBA preview podcasts. If you missed us talking to Jared Dubin (@JADubin5) yesterday about the Eastern Conference, you can head right here and give that a listen. But if you’d rather listen to a breakdown of the Western Conference, keep on scrolling.
Martin and Robby are joined by Zach Harper (@talkhoops) of The Athletic to survey the landscape of the West. Naturally, we spent a lot of time talking about the madness in Minnesota, especially in light of Jimmy Butler working Karl-Anthony Towns at a Wolves practice, but we touched on every team at one point or another over the course of the pod.
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Here’s the rundown of this week’s episode:
- Martin and Robby are joined by Zach Harper, who got that Athletic money
- The Jimmy Butler saga continues to be impossibly weird, and Zach has some inside info
- The conundrum the Wolves face: Trade Jimmy Butler or be good
- Dallas has the potential to be really, really fun
- Deandre Ayton is going to put up wild numbers during his first year
- A lot is going on in Sacramento
- The Grizzlies are the highest-variance team in the NBA
- Doc Rivers has his ideal roster with the Clippers
- Picking the Lakers to do anything means betting on LeBron
- The Nuggets and Pelicans are really weird teams
- The five teams that are pretty safe playoff picks, and then the rest
- The Spurs! They’re very injured!
- Donovan Mitchell is awesome, but here’s why you should be careful about projecting a major step forward
- It’s hard to get a read on the Thunder
- The Rockets are going to be really good, but whether they can knock off the Warriors is TBD
- The Warriors are going to win another title, probably
And much, much more!
