The Double Double

With Anthony Davis and Lebron both missing over 15 games with Lakers, many teams in the West had the opportunity to catch or pass them in the standings. Portland was one of those teams, with Jusuf Nurkic and CJ McCollum both returning for injury, and with new acquisition of ex-Raptor Normal Powell. Instead, Portland sits at the 7th seed in the West, winning only 3 of their last 10 games. This episode, we talk about what the problems have been for Portland during this stretch, and what kind of changes should be made to this team in the future. We also cover my favorite team in the Nuggets, who have surprisingly held strong despite Jamal Murray's injury. They may no longer be Finals-bound, but they are still an excellent team led by the soon-to-be MVP Nikola Jokic. We also discuss the battle in the 4-6 seed in the East, and give an overview of how each team has been doing. Enjoy!

As we start to reach the end of the regular season, we have a much clearer picture of the teams fighting for the worst records in the league, and subsequently for the top pick in next year's draft. We have talked quite a bit about some of the prospects, especially 6' 8" 220lb Cade Cunningham, so we felt like today would a good time to dive more in-depth on the top picks in the 2021 draft, and which teams we think should go after which players. Outside of the top 5, the rest of the picks in the lottery are up for debate as to what pick they make the most sense at, and we also give our ideas for where we think each player we list will fall in the draft.  The draft lottery is still a few months away, but we thought it would be a good idea to give you guys an idea of what kind of players are coming into the draft, and what they can bring to a team. Enjoy!

Unfortunately, the landscape of the NBA has been affected pretty heavily by injuries. Jamal Murray recently added his name to the far too large list of big name stars to get injured this year, and he'll be missing the rest of the season and playoffs with a torn ACL. This epsiode, we talk about how this affects the Nuggets as a whole, as well as the long-term implications about Denver's championship window. Also, we take a look at the 7-10 seeds in the East and West and give our takes on who wins which matchups, and how much movement we expect to see at those seeds. Among the teams building momentum in the last part of the season are the Celtics, and we have very different views on how impactful Sophomore Romeo Langford can be for the Celtics, which leads to some pretty funny arguing. Enjoy!

After missing the last 22 games with a hamstring injury, Kevin Durant made his return against the Pelicans and scored 17 points without a miss. Joel Embiid has also dominated in the few games in his return, getting to the line for 20 Free Throws against the Celtics. Over in the Western Conference, The Nuggets have passed the Lakers in the standings, bringing Denver to the 4th seed. They have looked incredible as a team, and could certainly battle the Lakers as contenders in the West. In this episode, we cover this news, as well as the strong play recently from the Mavericks, and much more. Enjoy!

The biggest names from the buyout market, Lamarcus Aldridge and Andre Drummond have made their way onto contenders. Today, we start this episode by talking about the fairness of the Nets picking up Griffin and Aldridge for a combined $2.1 Million, and how the lack of parity affects our enjoyment of the league. We all remember the KD Warriors dynasty, and we all collectively felt like the championship was a wrap at the start of the season. With the insane amount of talent the Nets have, it will be pretty close to impossible to beat this team in a series with all their players healthy. We also take a look at how some teams that acquired new pieces recently have been doing, including the Nuggets with Aaron Gordon, and the Bulls with Nikola Vucevic. The Nuggets look like a scary team with Gordon starting over Millsap, and I highly recommend anyone who hasn't been watching them check them out.

Another year, another incredibly eventful final day of trades in the NBA. While we didn't see as much movement as we were expecting, there were still tons of interesting moves made today. The Bulls upgraded in a big way, replacing their center combo of Wendell Carter Jr. and Daniel Gafford with All-Star Nikola Vucevic and ex-Celtics big Daniel Theis. The Celtics made a couple of moves themselves, some for the better and some for the worse. In this episode, we break down every important trade that took place today, and how much the new acquisitions move the needle for their teams. We also break down the trades that almost happened and give our thoughts on which players should have been traded but weren't. Enjoy!

In one week, we lost the Vegas Odds favorite to win the MVP (Lebron James), and ROTY (Lamelo Ball) to injuries. Lebron will be back likely before the playoffs start, but losing out on a month definitely puts him out of the running to win MVP. In this episode, we discuss how each of these teams will hold up with their top players missing, and what we think this means for each of those award races. Anthony Edwards has been balling out recently and certainly looks like he could take that ROTY mantle, but he needs to improve his efficiency before he can do that. Also, with the trade deadline only two days away, we thought we should look at some of the trade rumors we've been seeing, and talk about what players we think should be traded, and where they should go. When the trade deadline is over on thursday, we will hopefully have another episode up talking about the news. Enjoy!

The Boston Celtics have not been very fun to watch this season. There have been some good, hard-fought wins, but also some games with terrible effort from the whole team that ended in blowouts. This episode, we start by being realistic about what to expect from this team this season, and what needs to happen next season to change things for the better. The injury to Joel Embiid has opened up the MVP discussion again, and we try our hardest to make the case that Lebron should not be the runaway favorite, although ESPN and Vegas-Odds seem to point to that being the case. James Harden has been sensational since becoming a Brooklyn Net, and with Kevin Durant sidelined, Harden gets to continue to propel his name into the MVP discussion, along with Jokic and a few others. With the trade deadline only a week away, we start to see some trades materialize, which we also discuss. Enjoy!

Now that we have made it through the All-Star break, we felt like it was time to review the teams that nobody in the NBA community outside of the fans of these teams talk or care about. We talk enough about the best and most interesting teams in the league (Suns, Jazz, Celtics, Nets, etc.), so in this episode, we try to cover the teams that we have mostly ignored throughout the season. Some teams, like the Timberwolves and Rockets, have been dealing with injuries to their better players, and haven't been able to show their potential as a team. Other teams, like the Hornets, are finally getting some of the buzz that they deserve. These teams likely aren't headed to the Conference Finals or beyond, but there's still a lot of interesting and fun basketball being played, and we felt like talking about it. Enjoy!

We have made it halfway through a very strange season of the NBA, and with that, we felt like it was time to review our preseason picks for each NBA award, and who we think is now leading each race. Some of these awards, like MVP and DPOY, have some good competition and definitely will be up for debate as the season continues. Some others, like ROTY and 6MAN, already seem like they have clear favorites, with no real challenger for second place. We both had some pretty big swings and misses in our preseason predictions, but some of our predictions, like Ben Simmons for DPOY (Ben) and Embiid for MVP (J.P.) seem to have been pretty good bets. Enjoy!