The Double Double

Welcome back to our Trends and Dead Ends podcast! Every year, we take a look at some of the surprising trends to come out of the beginning of the NBA season, and we go over which ones we expect to continue (Trend), and which we expect to change (Dead End). Some teams, like the Bucks and Grizzlies, have struggled a lot more than people expected to start the season. While teams like the Magic and Hawks look great early. There is still plenty of time for these narratives to change, but it's fun to take an early look at how the season is shaping up and make predictions. Enjoy!

The NBA Season is finally here, and we've already seen some great moments from our rookie class. Brandon Miller looks great to start the year, better than many people expected him to look. The Celtics start the season 2-0, and the starting 5 looks incredible right out of the gate. I expected the Houston Rockets to be a competitive team and fun to watch, and so far they look to be the same dysfunctional team as they've been for years. It's too early to make any bold claims about the season, but there are trends that we'll certainly have to keep our eyes on. Enjoy!

The Western Conference this year is packed full of talent, and there are way more than 8 teams that expect to make the playoffs this year. This episode is our breakdown of our picks for the 1-15 seeds in the Western Conference. The Denver Nuggets are a Juggernaut and should continue to be viewed as the best team in the West. Outside of that, the fight for home court advantage is going to be an exciting one. Even at the bottom of the conference, teams like San Antonio, Portland, Houston, and Utah all have exciting young squads and should be entertaining watches at the least. Enjoy!

We are back! We took a hiatus for a bit from the NBA this offseason but we are back and ready to start bringing you more NBA content as the season inches closer. Today, we will be breaking down the Eastern Conference for this season and giving you our picks for what seed we expect each team to be. The Bucks and the Celtics rule the East this year, but we expect some younger teams to really start surprising people. The Cleveland Cavs improved on their team from last year, which was already top 10 in offense and defense, The Pacers drafted really well in Jarace Walker and have a young star in Haliburton that could help propel them into a potential playoff spot this year. There are some teams that we expect turmoil from, like the Sixers and the Heat, but all in all we expect a very strong season from the top teams in the East, and some very promising play from the young teams towards the bottom. We will be back with our Western Conference Breakdown soon, enjoy!

The Summer League play this year has been so exciting. In this episode, we start by going over all of the rookies that have played in Summer League so far, and what our thoughts are on all of them. There have been some very impressive performances by some Second Year players, most notably Jabari Smith Jr, and we highlight some of our favorites of those as well. The In-Season tournament is official, and we are both very interested in how the NBA will market this and what the overall reactions will be from the players and from casual fans. Finally, we talk about Damian Lillard. This situation could have been handled so cleanly, but instead the kind of moves from Dame and his agent that will certainly sour his reputation going forward. I think the Blazers organization will cave eventually and send Dame to Miami, but the waiting game that is coming will not be fun. Enjoy!

The Big Waves of Free Agency have all passed and a lot of teams made big moves. In this episode, we go through and talk about some of our most favorite and least favorite moves by each of the big players in this year's free agency. We have some big disagreements about the Magic, who could have made big free agency moves but chose not to. Some teams, like the Suns and Mavs, took big steps in improving their depth, and then there's the Rockets. Fred Vanfleet and Dillon Brooks getting $210 million over the next few years, the Rockets have a very interesting lineup going in to next season. Enjoy!

The NBA Draft is one of our favorite parts of the NBA Season. We've spent a lot of time over the past researching these prospects and building our own mock drafts, and last night was the night of the draft. In this episode, we review all of the first-round picks of this draft and all of the notable second-rounders. There are some picks that we disagree on like Anthony Black at 6 and Bilal Coulibaly at 7, but for the most part we are pretty happy with most of the decisions made by teams last night. If you are interested in more draft content, there is more over on the TikTok @doubledoublepod. Enjoy!

The NBA Draft is only two days away, and we have finally reached a point where we're comfortable with our mock draft and our predictions for the 2023 NBA Draft. We have spent plenty of time talking about the top 3 picks in earlier episodes, so today we spent more on some of the lesser-discussed names. There are some important players in this class, Coulibaly and Bufkin among the top, that we didn't discuss enough in previous episodes. Every year, there are players picked after the lottery that will end up being productive players, and we have plenty of predictions for who those players could be. We will be back with a review for the draft Friday Morning, so stay tuned for that! Enjoy!

The Finals are Tied! Denver lost their first home game since March 30th as the Miami Heat put together the best fourth quarter performance they've had all year. Jokic has had no trouble scoring in the games where defense tightens up on the rest of his team, but the Nuggets have not found success through Jokic's monster scoring alone. They are 0-3 in these playoffs in games where Jokic has 40+ pts, which is certainly usual for a team's best player. Across the NBA, major coaching changes have been made to some big teams. Monty Williams, Frank Vogel, and Nick Nurse are all coaching new teams, and the Bucks have replaced Mike Budenholzer with a rookie head coach in Adrian Griffin. Damian Lillard has been discussing "hypotheticals" about where he could be traded from the Blazers, with Miami as the top destination. Portland is in a really interesting situation this offseason, and the trade deals that they make could impact their future for quite a long time. Enjoy!