Analyzing Various NBA Tiers as the Playoff Season Nears
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00:00 Donny, let's not pass off those TEL tiers like they were yours.
00:05 That's the great work of our guys behind the scenes, two excellent basketball minds in
00:09 John Shames and Joe Frizzo.
00:12 And I love not only the catchy names, but also the grouping of teams in these tiers.
00:18 We just mentioned the 76ers at 12 to 1 to win an NBA championship.
00:22 J.Y., we're nearly at the midway point.
00:24 I don't think a lot of even casual NBA fans recognize that.
00:28 Most teams around the association, 35, 36, 37 games already played this year.
00:34 The Celtics, the best team in basketball, 28-8, best record, a perfect 17-0 at home
00:39 inside TD Garden.
00:40 The Nuggets off to a great start as well, 12 games above .500.
00:44 The storyline that I am going to follow here down the second half of this NBA season, the
00:50 teams that are off to great starts in the Western Conference, the Minnesota Timberwolves,
00:54 the Oklahoma City Thunder, the two best winning percentages in that conference.
00:59 How legitimate, J.Y., do you believe the T-Wolves and the Thunder are going to be, not here
01:03 in January, but by the time we get to April and May?
01:08 I think when you look at it, Ben, if you're going to give me one team that I like more
01:12 than the other, it's going to be Minnesota.
01:14 The fact, folks, is they are the best defensive team in the NBA by the metrics, giving up
01:18 107.2 points per game.
01:20 When you got that rim protector in Rudy Gobert, who's playing his best basketball in a long
01:24 time, him and Cata figured it out, and Anthony Edwards has ascended his game to a top 10
01:29 player in the NBA.
01:30 So I do think I trust them more and more because of the defensive side of the ball.
01:35 And as you know, Ben, the game slows down a lot.
01:39 But the one thing in that list that Frizzo and James did a great job pulling up is those
01:46 teams that are in the bottom on the trade deadline dependent, right?
01:50 I'm looking at the first two, the Knicks and the Heat.
01:53 Rodgers is going to do something because he always has the trick up his - he's always
01:58 up to no good.
01:59 So something's going on.
02:00 But to me, folks, I'm telling you this right now, if the Knicks go get a bench scoring
02:05 guard, most likely by the name of Malcolm Brogdon, I will say this, the Knicks could
02:10 find themselves in the Eastern Conference Finals because they got a stopper in OG Ananofsky.
02:16 Rodgers playing out of his mind.
02:18 Hartensein's been really good.
02:19 But the play is going to be key of McBride and Grimes.
02:23 And they continue to elevate their game, which then gives the Knicks more depth.