(I cannot believe I managed to finish this. Forgive me if there are typos; I am no longer physically able to type on a computer for extended periods due to a disc herniation in my neck, so this was all written on an iPhone in my bed.)

Performance review

• 2023-2024: +21.2 units on 38 recommended bets
• 2024-2025: +23.3 units on 30 recommended bets
• 2025-2026: +12.7 units on 23 recommended bets
• Overall: +57.2 units on 91 bets

• Had you wagered $10 on each bet I have recommended since 2023, you would be sitting on a profit of $572
• Both 2024 and 2025 featured correct predictions of the eventual champion.
  • 24-25: OKC to win the title (+600)
  • 25-26: NYK to win the title (+1200)

Disclaimer: I do not place these bets myself. I have significant concerns about the practice of gambling on sports and as such do not publicize these bets until the last possible second. I strongly advise you not to wager a meaningful amount of money on sports. I have found the bets to be a particularly objective method of tracking the accuracy of my analysis/predictions as compared to a replacement-level fan or analyst.

1. San Antonio Spurs

O/U 60.5 wins | +270 championship odds

Expectation: 55-60 wins, NBA Champions

Notable additions: Tobias Harris, Jayden Quaintance (20th pick), Tarris Reed Jr (26th pick)

Notable departures: None

Bet (2 units): Spurs to win the championship (+270)

Bet: Victor Wembanyama to win MVP of the regular season (+210)

I began last season with what I believed to be the strongest conceivable endorsement of Victor Wembanyama, taking an aggressive over on the Spurs at 45+ wins and going as far as to assert verbatim, with no qualifications, “Victor Wembanyama is going to be the greatest player in NBA history.” I *still* undersold him. The Spurs exceeded their preseason win total by 17 games and toppled an all-time juggernaut en route to the NBA Finals.

Fine. Lesson learned. I will never miss short on this alien again. 80 yards out? I’m taking a 4 iron.

Health permitting, the Spurs are going to win the title – they may even waltz to it if Dylan Harper takes the leap I expect – and Wemby is going to win the second-ever unanimous league MVP (the other being 2016 Steph Curry).

The contour of Wemby’s 2026 campaign has been overshadowed by his disappointing performance in the NBA Finals, so I’ll remind you of it. Victor started the season on a fiery rampage, averaging 30, 15, and 5 (blocks) on 65% True Shooting across his first five games. He was quickly made the favorite in all sportsbooks to win the MVP award before suffering a calf strain in early November, due to which he missed a full month of basketball and was subsequently eased back into a full workload (often coming off the bench) for sixteen games, at which point his name faded from the discussion. Then the training wheels were removed, and the Spurs went 28-2 across their final 30 games with Victor Wembanyama in the starting lineup, during which he went back to averaging monster numbers on his customary 64% True Shooting. The injury and its associated precautions obscure the statistical picture of what was already a historically dominant season. He averaged 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 3.1 blocks per game, which sounds perfectly precedented before you check the minutes column and see the number 29. Let’s normalize that.

Victor Wembanyama full regular season (2025-2026) statistical averages per 36 minutes

• 30.9 points (63% True Shooting)
• 14.2 rebounds
• 3.8 assists
• 3.8 blocks

Uh oh. The consensus on Wemby seems to me to be that he is a legendary defensive anchor but a limited offensive player, perhaps not even a top-15 scorer in the game today. Does 31 and 14 on 59% from two, 36% from three, and 83% from the line read to you like a ‘limited offensive player’?

There is no leap required for him to win MVP. EPM and several other impact metrics already grade Victor’s play since January 1st as more impactful than that of anyone in the database. I cannot envision a scenario in which this lunatic dinosaur plays 65 games and loses the award, so at +210 it’s an obvious bet.

The Spurs title case is even less challenging. Wemby is 22 years old. Dylan Harper is 20 years old and on a rocketship to superstardom. Stephon Castle is 21. They won 62 games including 28 of their final 30 last year while navigating significant missed time for Wemby, annihilated the Trail Blazers in Round 1, annihilated the Timberwolves in Round 2, then knocked off the defending champions on the road in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. San Antonio crumbled in every fourth quarter against the human embodiment of the indefatigable spirit (the immortal 2025-2026 New York Knicks), but can you blame them? I’ve stood beneath waterfalls which roared quieter than Madison Square Garden during the Game 4 comeback.

The Spurs add Tobias Harris and lose nobody. Castle and Harper (and to a lesser extent Vassell and Carter Bryant) afford them elite ball-hawking perimeter defense alongside the nuclear deterrent at the rim, such that their defense will be the best or 2nd best in the league for every healthy season of Victor Wembanyama’s career. They have an embarrassment of riches at the guard position, they have two of the NBA’s best shooters in Champagnie and Vassell, and they have the reigning 6th man of the year Keldon Johnson. San Antonio had a net rating of +16.8 during Wemby’s regular season minutes, and, far more absurdly, a +12.4 net rating in his playoff minutes. This is a team that lost in five games in the NBA Finals, yet when Wemby was on the court, they dominated their playoff opponents by a larger margin than the 73-win Warriors dominated their regular season opponents (10.7 points per 100 possessions)! Our faculties have been corrupted and our hearts poisoned that we are meant to view this Spurs run as some kind of negative just because they lost in the Finals to a once-in-a-lifetime Knicks team.

The West is the far inferior conference this year. After OKC and the Spurs, the next strongest projected teams in order are the Rockets (who hate each other and can’t shoot), the thin and aging Nuggets, and the LaMelo Ball Timberwolves (not necessarily a pejorative, we’ll discuss later). After that it’s the alarmingly white Lakers, the ragtag Trail Blazers, and the Phoenix Suns. I agree with the oddsmakers that this is a two-team race, and the Spurs match up far too well with OKC for me to pick against them when I believe this strongly in their nucleus of talent.

2. Oklahoma City Thunder

O/U 62.5 wins | +270 championship odds

Expectation: 55-60 wins, reach Western Conference Finals

Notable additions: Aday Mara (12th pick), Bennett Stirtz (16th pick)

Notable departures: Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins

Bet: Thunder under 62.5 wins (-110)

Bet (related): Longest winning streak by any team under 15.5 games (+120)

I am making a structural bet on standings compaction in the aftermath of drastic changes to the lottery incentives around tanking. The three teams with the worst records now get worse lottery odds than teams 4 through 10, so the most losing organizations will be desperately motivated to win games down the stretch. This was a much-needed reform, and one which I believe is being insufficiently priced in the wins market. OKC’s win total of 62.5 and the “longest winning streak” line of 15.5 games are the same as they were last year despite a radically more competitive league environment, so I’m taking the under on both. It will be far more difficult to win 16 straight games or go 64-18 when you no longer get to play the federally investigated Utah Jazz with none of their 11 leading scorers on the court for the 4th quarter.

This isn’t necessarily a reflection of any skepticism about the Thunder. I think they’ll be excellent again. That being said, one of the superpowers of the regular season Thunder was their excessive depth. I remember a game in March of 2025 where the Thunder beat the Blazers 107-89 without all six of SGA, Chet, Jdub, Hartenstein, Lu Dort, and Cason Wallace. Aaron Wiggins, Ousmane Dieng, and Isaiah Joe combined for 65 points on over 60% True Shooting while Jaylin Williams (the other one) posted a triple-double. That era of luxury is likely behind them. Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe, and Aaron Wiggins, who played the 4th, 5th, and 7th most minutes for OKC last season, all departed in the offseason. I don’t view any of those players as in any way integral to their playoff success (quite the opposite for Sir Dort), but their absences will, I think, be felt in the regular season, particularly since the fill-ins are two rookies and Jared McCain.

I have tremendous and well-documented admiration for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has ascended to the prime Steph Curry echelon of impact at the guard position, but last year did little to assuage my concerns about the ideology and roster construction of this team on the offensive side of the ball. Their best three-point shooter, Jared McCain, is a brazen liability on defense and a poor decisionmaker, but they have nobody on the roster outside of him who is a reliable outside shooter at any meaningful volume. None of Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso, or Isaiah Hartenstein took more than 3.7 threes per game last season, and their collective accuracy was 33.5% (5.3/15.8). This is not just a terrible shooting team, it is a terrible shooting team that leans into its poor spacing by starting a double-big lineup with Chet and Hartenstein. They make up for this by scoring at the rim and forcing a lot of turnovers, but that strategy collapses against a Spurs team loaded with reliable on-ball guards and the most suffocating rim protector in the history of the sport. They’ll still likely steamroll anyone else in a playoff series.

– Tier Break –

3. Houston Rockets

O/U 47.5 wins | +3500 championship odds

Expectation: 50-55 wins, reach Western Conference Semifinals

Notable additions: Marcus Smart, Fred VanVleet (missed all of ‘25-26 season)

Notable departures: Josh Okogie, Dorian Finney-Smith

Bet: Rockets adjusted over 48.5 wins (+105)

I’d prefer not to be mistaken for a believer in this Rockets team as some kind of playoff dark horse, but 47.5 wins is an egregious line for a team that just won 52 games in a tougher Western Conference despite playing the entire season without a point guard. They now get Fred VanVleet back along with Steven Adams, add Marcus Smart, get another year of development for Alperen Sengun (24), Amen Thompson (23), and Reed Sheppard (22), and I’m supposed to believe this team will be 5 games worse?

For a moment I considered that the line may be pricing in a potential mid-season KD trade due to last season’s mortifyingly public locker room civil war, but this team won 52 games the year before Durant arrived as well! It’s a clear mispricing.

4. Denver Nuggets

O/U 48.5 wins | +2500 championship odds

Expectation: 50-55 wins, lose Round 1

Notable additions: DeMar DeRozan, Marvin Bagley III

Notable departures: Peyton Watson, Tim Hardaway Jr, Bruce Brown, Jonas Valanciunas

Bet: Nuggets adjusted over 49.5 wins (+120)

The Nuggets flatly beclowned themselves this offseason. You cannot allow Peyton Watson to walk out the door for free and replace him with the cryogenically preserved skeleton of DeMar DeRozan while also losing Tim Hardaway Jr and shopping Aaron Gordon in the prime of Nikola Jokic’s career. Their bench, featuring Tyus Jones, Spencer Jones, Marvin Bagley III, Julian Strawther (who is out for two months with a knee injury), and DeMar DeRozan, is without qualification the worst bench in the entire Association, Nets and Kings included. It is an outright disgrace. You have prime Jokic and a healthy Jamal Murray, yet your roster is so bad that you’re not even 20:1 to win the title.

That being said, 48.5 is wrong. I am furious that they are making me take an over bet here, but Jokic’s Nuggets have won 54, 50, 57, and 53 games the past four seasons. They won 54 last year despite Jokic missing 17 games with a knee injury, Cam Johnson missing 28 games with a knee injury, and Aaron Gordon missing 50 games with a recurring calf issue. With those three guys on the court, Denver outscored their opponents by a Spurs-like 15.9 points per 100 possessions, driven by a maniacal 131.6 offensive rating. They’ll be more than serviceable for fifty wins in a desolate West.

5. Minnesota Timberwolves

O/U 47.5 wins | +2500 championship odds

Expectation: 50 wins, reach Western Conference Semifinals

Notable additions: LaMelo Ball, Jonathan Kuminga

Notable departures: Julius Randle, Naz Reid, Mike Conley

Bet: None

Bet (related): Rudy Gobert to outscore Draymond Green by 2.5 ppg (-115)

Ignore that bet for now, I know it’s laughably random, trust me I’ll convince you on it in a brief paragraph at the end of this.

I am drowning in ambivalence. On the one hand, I think the LaMelo Ball trade was a home run for the Timberwolves. LaMelo was comfortably on my (imaginary) All-NBA ballot last season as the engine of a top-five offense, and they acquired him for Naz Reid and a single first round pick. I view it as a franchise-compromising mistake by Charlotte, whose metrics cratered across every category when LaMelo was off the court last season. I disagree with the majority opinion that he is a poor fit with Anthony Edwards. LaMelo’s superpower was generating league-leading rates of exceptionally high quality threes for his teammates, so I struggle to see how that is a poor fit with one of the highest volume three-point shooters in the association in Anthony Edwards, who has knocked down 40% of his 9.5 threes per game since 2024. With a healthy Donte DiVincenzo come playoff time, this is the only team in the West that I think has any chance of reaching OKC and San Antonio’s level.

On the other hand, LaMelo has been on a restricted regular season workload his entire career, Donte isn’t coming back until February, and Julius Randle and Naz Reid are both gone. It is going to be a tumultuous regular season if we must suffer through 6,400 possessions of Jonathan Kuminga, Ayo Dosunmu, and Bones Hyland taking contested shots and missing defensive assignments. I love Jaden McDaniels, but the depth is too questionable on a team that lacks an MVP caliber player for me to take either side of this 47.5 number with sufficient confidence.

What I did find was this hilarious comparative scoring bet: Rudy Gobert (-2.5) vs Draymond Green. I don’t know why this is being offered, primarily because these are maybe the two most notoriously horrendous, embarrassing scorers in the league at their positions, but also because the line is just objectively wrong. Rudy Gobert has outscored Draymond by at least 2.5 points every single year for the past ten seasons, with Gobert at 13.9 ppg and Draymond at just 8.7. Gobert is 34 years old and still a DPOY-level anchor for a Timberwolves team that just lost all of its frontcourt depth (Naz and Julius) and will thus need Gobert to play closer to 35 minutes a night rather than the 31.3 he played last year. Draymond, meanwhile, is 37 years old and already making media arrangements for his impending retirement after seeing his minutes drop to 27.5 last season for the doomed, directionless rubble we call the post-dynasty Warriors. Draymond was also a severely negative player in the impact metrics last season (-1.6 EPM, 320th best), so it’s more than on the board that he settles into a reserve role.

6. Los Angeles Lakers

O/U 45.5 wins | +4000 championship odds

Expectation: 45-50 wins, lose Round 1

Notable additions: Walker Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Matisse Thybulle, Kevon Looney, Cameron Carr (24th pick)

Notable departures: LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Marcus Smart, Deandre Ayton, Luke Kennard, Jaxson Hayes

Bet: Lakers to win 47-50 games (+370)

Lot of white guys. Too many white guys.

Great, mandatory identification of the elephant out of the way. If I may be permitted to move past the visual hilarity of a Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, and Walker Kessler ‘Big Three,’ I think this team has enough pieces to be solid and Luka is well-positioned for a record-breaking statistical season. As you’ll see, the Western Conference is a barren wasteland outside of these top six teams.

Am I thrilled that their only competent perimeter defenders are Matisse Thybulle and Quentin Grimes when the task at hand is to cover for the weakness and immobility of Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, Jake LaRavia, and Mamu? No. Walker Kessler is a really good rim protector, but he’s not Wemby. This defense is going to struggle in the regular season then get depantsed in the playoffs.

For our purposes, that isn’t relevant, because the paucity of talent in the Western Conference makes them overwhelmingly likely to be a top-six seed. The 6 seed in the West has won exactly 49 games three seasons in a row, and has finished with between 47 and 50 wins (or on pace for that based on their record in the shortened 72-game seasons) in nine of the last ten years. I think the Lakers have a pretty narrow range of outcomes (45-53 wins), so +370 on their median range is a really easy recommendation.

– Tier Break –

7. Portland Trail Blazers

O/U 40.5 wins | +8000 championship odds

Expectation: 40-45 wins, lose Round 1

Notable additions: Ja Morant, Damian Lillard

Notable departures: Jerami Grant, Matisse Thybulle

Bet: None

God help us that there are 9 teams remaining in this cupcake conference.

The Blazers have an Island of Misfit Toys vibe that I appreciate. Ja Morant, Damian Lillard, and Jrue Holiday make for a delightfully weird trio of discounted and discarded former All-Star guards. Scoot Henderson has been completely forgotten about as the 3rd pick in the Wemby draft despite putting together some really nice stretches of basketball last year. Deni Avdija shot more free throws than SGA last season and somehow made the All-Star team for what will be the only time in his career.  Rob Williams III, Toumani Camara, Shaedon Sharpe… it’s an eccentric group! I’m bummed that they didn’t rehire Tiago Splitter, who I thought did a terrific job as interim head coach, but Micah Nori is a likable substitute.

I rate them as the 17th best team in the league, but unfortunately that makes them the 7 seed in the Mickey Mouse West. In any just world, this would be a spunky 38-win League Pass darling that politely flames out in the first game of the Play-in Tournament. I have no desire to bet on or against this team – they’re priced appropriately.

8. Golden State Warriors

O/U 37.5 wins | +6000 championship odds

Expectation: 35-40 wins, play-in tournament

Notable additions: Yaxel Lendeborg (11th pick), Georges Niang

Notable departures: Quinten Post

Bet: None

I can’t do this. I can’t type up 8 more teams in this conference. How is my 8 seed starting Gui Santos, Yaxel Lendeborg, Brandin Podziemski, and Draymond Green???

I think the Warriors will finish with a worse record than the Suns and Jazz, but Jimmy Butler’s return in February ought to make them talented enough to win a play-in game. Steph remains marvelous and oddly a bit underrated – he’s comfortably a top 8 player for me, which I sense is a minority opinion.

Sidebar, since I have no interest in parsing the rotational minutiae of Gary Payton II vs Will Richard vs De’Anthony Melton. People ought to stop being so insensitive about Kristaps Porzingis’ health issues. I wish he’d speak more openly about it, since I think it would have a profoundly meaningful impact on destigmatizing these autonomic and nervous system disorders so often cruelly and wrongly attributed to white female hysteria, but we know from his interview with The Athletic that he has POTS (at a minimum). The reckless speculation about HIV or vaccine injury is totally out of bounds and implicitly invalidates the veracity and severity of chronic illness.

9. Utah Jazz

O/U 36.5 wins | +20000 championship odds

Expectation: 40 wins, lose Round 1

Notable additions: Darryn Peterson (2nd pick), Jaren Jackson Jr, Josh Green, Josh Okogie, Jaxson Hayes

Notable departures: Walker Kessler

Bet: Jazz to win more games than the Hornets (+115)

Story time!

The date is February 3rd, 2026. The Utah Jazz, sitting at 16-35, have just completed a blockbuster trade to acquire Jaren Jackson Jr. At merely six games out of the play-in, the thought crossed my foolish mind that they’d be making an earnest push for the 10 seed. After all, they were firmly outside of the bottom four – the Wizards (13-36), Pacers (13-38), Kings (12-40), Nets (13-37), and Pelicans (13-39) all had, by tanking standards, gargantuan three to five game leads on the Jazz for those juicy lottery odds. The Jazz would have to be utterly gruesome down the stretch to even sniff that bottom rung of the standings. This was a team with two healthy All-Stars in Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr, a burgeoning stud PG in Keyonte George, and a reliable veteran Center in Jusuf Nurkic. They were not going to outtank the Kings, Wizards, and Nets, not when the top prospects were as ironclad as AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Cam Boozer.

The Jazz took their talents to Atlanta on February 5th, and, as I expected, were looking highly competitive. Jaren Jackson Jr was not quite ready to suit up, but Lauri Markkanen more than held his own with 17 first half points and the Jazz led 96-92 through three quarters. Then the fourth quarter started, and Lauri Markkanen was on the bench. “That’s weird,” I thought to myself. “Lauri is only at 23 minutes on the game, and he already rested in each of the first three quarters. Eh, okay, he’ll probably check back in quickly.” Five minutes go by and the Hawks have retaken the lead, 107-106; still there’s no sign of him. “Dang, he must be in foul trouble or something.” Another minute goes by. I check ESPN: Lauri Markkanenen, 2 fouls. The game is tied 110-110. The broadcast pans to Lauri, who is sitting on the bench with his jersey on in no visible discomfort, not being attended to by any training staff. Three minutes left, Jazz lead by two. Two minutes left. One minute left. It’s 116-114 Jazz, and coach Will Hardy is continuing to leave Lauri Markkanen on the bench. They trade buckets. Ten seconds left. Nickeil Alexander-Walker hits a jumper as time all but expires. The Hawks win. The Jazz lose. I immediately checked Twitter, assuming in my infantile innocence that I had simply missed the broadcast’s announcement of an injury, but there was none. Every reaction was as incredulous as mine. Will Hardy had flatly benched his best player for the final 16 minutes of a one-score game for no discernible reason. Whatever. It’s one game. Maybe Lauri felt ill or tweaked something minor.

February 7th, facing substantial public scrutiny, the Jazz head to Orlando for Jaren Jackson’s debut, and they quickly put the noise to rest. Through three quarters, Lauri Markkanen had dropped an efficient 27 points and 7 rebounds, Jaren Jackson had 22, Jusuf Nurkic had 14 rebounds and 6 assists, and the scrappy Utah Jazz led 94-87 over the Magic. The fourth quarter starts, and I’m ready to put all this conspiracy honkytonk behind me. Except I can’t, because all three of Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson, and Jusuf Nurkic were on the bench to start the quarter. “Oh come on. I get it, it’s probably just a bad coincidence and a normal substitution pattern, but… no, no, don’t think like that. They’ll come back.” Six minutes go by. The Jazz are clinging to a 3-point lead. Eight minutes. Ten. Eleven. The game is tied 117-117 with 0:28 left and none of the Jazz’s three best players have played a single possession of the fourth quarter. Desmond Bane is fouled and hits two free throws, Brice Sensabaugh misses a short midrange, and the buzzer sounds. Final score: 120-117, the Orlando Magic win. The Utah Jazz lose.

At this point, I and the rest of the internet (of the 26 of us paying attention to the Utah Jazz in early February) were utterly entranced by these unprecedented acts of self-sabotage. February 9th we’re taking the circus to Miami, and all eyes are on Will Hardy. For the third straight game, the Jazz lead heading into the fourth quarter, this time 85-82 against an Erik Spoelstra Heat team fighting for its playoff life. JJJ, Lauri, and Nurkic have combined for 49 points, 29 rebounds, and 5 assists. “They can’t do it again. Everyone is watching. Surely they can’t risk incurring Adam Silver’s wrath and being stripped of their draft pick, or worse?” The fourth quarter starts. “There’s no fucking way.” Jusuf, Jaren, and Lauri have made themselves comfortable on the bench yet again. Ten minutes. Five. Three. One. Bam Adebayo misses a free throw, Brice Sensabaugh hits a cold-blooded three to retake the lead, and the Jazz suffer a devastating 115-111 victory. But for the third game in a row, Will Hardy had benched his best players for the entire 4th quarter of a tightly contested game.

This was now a national firestorm. Bam Adebayo explicitly accused the Jazz of “trying to lose.” Bobby Marks went on ESPN to accuse Utah of “messing around with the integrity of the NBA.” Adam Silver fined them $500,000 for overtly anti-competitive behavior. The Jazz were on thin ice, so they brought their best selves to Sacramento on February 11th and eviscerated the hapless Kings 121-92 to take a commanding 6.5 game lead on them in the standings. Would you believe me if I told you that the 18-37 Jazz would find a way to finish behind the 12-44 Kings when all was said and done?

That February 11th victory marked the last time we would see either Jaren Jackson Jr or Jusuf Nurkic for the remainder of the season. JJJ underwent an MRI that revealed “a benign PVNS growth,” and Jusuf Nurkic opted to undergo season-ending surgery for “a longstanding, severe deviated septum.” The All-Star break comes and goes, and the Jazz lose to Houston on February 23rd, where Lauri Markkanen scores 29 points and exits the game healthy. Alas, that would be the last we’d see of Lauri, too, whose weekly recreational MRI revealed “hip impingement with inflammation.” I’m sorry, is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t have this? He was to be “re-assessed” in two weeks but evidently fled the country because no update was ever provided and he never returned.

The circus is in full force. They’ve lost seven in a row, and they have zero remaining players on the roster that Stephen A. Smith could identify by name, face, or jersey number. They have clawed within four games of the Kings and Pelicans.

March 5th is a catastrophic setback. In a must-lose game against the Leaky Black and Julian Reese Wizards, Will Hardy is left to watch in horror as 8th man Isaiah Collier delivers 27 points and 11 dimes alongside Kyle Filipowski’s first career 20 point double-double in a ten-point Utah Jazz victory. Collier is mysteriously ruled out for their next two games, but the Jazz nevertheless succumb to another brutal win on March 11th, led by a cool 19, 15, and 5 from Kyle Filipowski. The Jazz were now 20-45. The Kings, Wizards, Nets, and Pacers had them dead to rights at 15 or 16 wins each. The Jazz would have to lose nearly every game of their final seventeen and get extremely lucky to crack the top four. Time to give up? No. It’s time to level up. We didn’t come this far for 5th place.

March 15th, the circus takes Sacramento, a game they *must* lose to stay in the hunt. Let’s meet the starters. Isaiah Collier and Brice Sensabaugh are our regulars, we know them well, and they get the nod at Point Guard and Small Forward. Cody Williams and Elijah Harkless will play the 4 and the 2. Regrettably, Kyle Filipowski just couldn’t quite get healthy enough to play today. The 22-year-old former Blue Devil was ruled out with “rest,” which sounds like a terribly painful injury and I wish him a speedy recovery. Taking his place at starting Center is Andersson Garcia, an undrafted 6’7” Small Forward from the Spanish professional circuit who was signed 5 days prior to tipoff to play his first career minutes of NBA basketball.

While Isaiah Collier and Brice Sensabaugh were limited to 24 and 22 minutes respectively, Garcia would go on to play 43 minutes, during which he converted 1 of 7 tries for a total of 3 points. Bez Mbeng, a 185 pound undrafted guard from Yale, played 32:30 in his second-ever NBA appearance, logging an admirable 2 points, 5 fouls, and 3 turnovers. It wasn’t easy – the Jazz tied the game late in the fourth – but DeMar DeRozan’s 41 point, 11 assist performance was just enough to hand the Jazz a rejuvenating 111-116 loss.

Days later, Isaiah Collier was ruled out for the remainder of the season with “hamstring soreness.” Whatever fleeting notions of karma you may have grasped for were clinging to the supple shoulders of Kyle Filipowski and Brice Sensabaugh. March 18th vs Minnesota, Sensabaugh erupts for 41 points. It doesn’t matter, the Jazz lose by a thousand, but it’s still enough to get him ruled out for the next three games. Another loss. Another loss. They’ve pulled within a game of Sacramento. March 25th the Wizards come to town and we’re pulling out all the stops. Sensabaugh and Filipowski are suddenly both ruled out with “rest.” I guess it’s contagious. The Jazz start Bez Mbeng, John Konchar, Elijah Harkless, Cody Williams, and Ace Bailey. Bez plays 44 minutes. Ace Bailey is the Center. They lose by 100,000.

Only 9 games remain. They’ve nearly caught Sacramento, and Will Hardy lets his guard down. On the road in Denver against the fully healthy Nuggets, he assumes it is safe to play Brice Sensabaugh and Kyle Filipowski, but he assumes incorrectly. At the end of the 3rd quarter, the Jazz lead by double digits. Jokic’s 27, 11, and 7 has been neutralized by Kyle Filipowski’s 25, 8, and 5. Sensabaugh has a cool 13, 4, and 6. The Jazz are going to win! “There’s no fucking way.” My jaw detaches from my skull and clatters against the floor. Kyle Filipowski and Brice Sensabaugh have been benched. Ten minutes. Six minutes. It’s still 120-107 Jazz, put them back in!!! Three minutes. A 14-4 Nuggets run cuts the lead to three. Jokic with a quick two. Cam Johnson and Jamal Murray each hit deep threes. The buzzer sounds. Final score: Nuggets 135, Jazz 129. Will Hardy had yet again benched his best players for the entire fourth quarter, this time even at the cost of playing Ace Bailey at Center against Nikola Jokic, and in doing so allowed the Nuggets to score 28 points in 6 minutes and erase a thirteen point deficit.

There was simply no stopping the Jazz. Sensabaugh and Filipowski returned the very next night, confirming that there were no injuries, and scored 26 points apiece on 21/35 from the field (60%). Not enough, Suns win by thirty. How about one last hurrah against Cleveland? Filipowski has 20, 10, and 5 at the halfway mark of the 3rd quarter, and it’s a tie game in the 4th quarter! Yeah, no. Will Hardy did not suffer this unending festival of humiliations for some rosy-cheeked Duke kid to go Linsanity for a month and ruin everything. Filipowski was benched for the final 16:34 of that game, too. Cavs win 122-113.

All told, the Jazz went 4-23 over their final 27 games and lost 11 of their last 12, tying the Kings’ record of 22-60 but losing (winning) the tiebreak to secure the most glorious, improbable top-4 lottery odds finish in NBA history. They were rewarded with the 2nd pick and drafted Darryn Peterson.

How could I not be bullish on the Jazz this season? It took two sustained months of the most indefensible, anti-competitive tanking ever observed across all of recorded professional sports for this team to lose games last season. Kyle Filipowski averaged 22/11/5 when given the keys to the operation. Brice Sensabaugh scored 21, 29, 31, 22, 41, 24, 26, 28, and 34 points in a three week stretch as the leading option surrounded exclusively by G-League players and international guys on 10-day contracts. These are the 7th and 8th men off the bench! Keyonte George, Darryn Peterson, Ace Bailey, Lauri Markkanen, and Jaren Jackson Jr is a downright menacing starting five. Isaiah Collier, another bench player, averaged 17 and 9 in a fourteen game stretch that included a 22-assist masterclass in a win against the Pacers and the 27 and 11 special in 29 minutes against the Wizards that got him shut down for the season.

For obvious reasons, I lack the institutional confidence to do what my heart is telling me to do and take the Jazz to win 50 games, so a simple over will have to do, and may God have mercy on our souls.

10. Phoenix Suns

O/U 39.5 wins | +12000 championship odds

Expectation: 35-40 wins, play-in tournament

Notable additions: Miles Bridges, Luke Kennard, Koa Peat (30th pick)

Notable departures: Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale

Bet: Suns to miss the playoffs (+100)

*Deep breath. Inhale, four seconds. Hold, four seconds. Exhale, four seconds.*

I don’t really know how to move on from that. I’m typing this all on my phone while horizontal in bed at 5:57 a.m. This was supposed to be “a quick little blurb” for each team and somehow I find myself at 6,000 words with six whole Western Conference teams yet to be discussed. I haven’t even started the East! It’s Saturday night! The season starts in two days!

Let’s do this one Socratically.

“The Suns went 45-37 last season with the 7th best point differential in the West and made the playoffs. As you said yourself, the West is even weaker this season. Why should I be expecting them to be so much worse?”

They lost Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale, who played the 3rd and 5th most minutes on the team as arguably their two best shooters. Grayson took nearly 9 a game and Royce knocked down 41% of his 6.7 nightly triples. That is 27 PPG and a ton of spacing going out the door, being replaced only by Miles Bridges (who is bad) and a fringe rotation player in Luke Kennard. In addition to this, Mark Williams is out for several months with a torn labrum, leaving Oso Ighodaro as their projected starting Center. Phoenix went 14-22 over their last 36 games last season and is already limping into 2026 with their outlook depending heavily on Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks. I’m out.

– Tier Break –

11. Memphis Grizzlies

O/U 29.5 wins | +100000 championship odds

Expectation: 30-35 wins

Notable additions: Cam Boozer (3rd pick), Jerami Grant, Isaiah Stewart, Quinten Post, Karim Lopez (21st pick)

Notable departures: Ja Morant, Santi Aldama, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

Bet: Grizzlies to win 33-36 games (+500)

I took a break and return refreshed and excited to talk about the Memphis Grizzlies.

I know my (albeit small) audience – none of you watched the Grizzlies last year, and none of you have a clue who their good players are or why I’d be betting such an aggressive win range on them at 5:1 odds. Given that, most of you will skim or scroll entirely past this section, allowing me to discuss the dreaded “analytics.” Memphis will be starting the following five players: Ty Jerome, Cedric Coward, Jaylen Wells, Cameron Boozer, and Zach Edey.

When NBA fans talk about “analytics,” we are most commonly referring to a handful of esoteric algorithms which claim to provide a decent estimate of a player’s “impactfulness,” expressed as a number of points per 100 possessions on the court (approximately the length of a full NBA game). For simplicity, +0.0 is an average player, +2 is a strong starter, +4 is a weak All-Star, +6 is a strong All-NBA player, and +8 is MVP-level impact. To use examples from last season, Tari Eason and Brandin Podziemski were at +0.1, Desmond Bane and Trey Murphy III were at +1.9, Kevin Durant and Zach Edey were at +4.1, Luka Doncic and Ty Jerome were at +6.2, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the association at +9.3.

Wait, did I type Zach Edey and Ty Jerome? Apologies. Like I said, I’m typing this all on my phone late at night, I’m bound to make mistakes. I’ll just double-check and get that cleared upp, uh… nope, that’s them. Huh?

Okay. Let’s talk through my process for reacting to and contextualizing shocking and counterintuitive “analytics,” since there are a lot of terrible approaches. One terrible approach would be to read the EPM database as unimpeachable arithmetic and adopt the opinion that Ty Jerome is the 8th best player in the NBA. These models are not the work of omniscient computer overlords, they are algorithms engineered by human analysts, mathematicians, and data scientists, and they are modified constantly in view of their many inherent flaws. An equally terrible approach, however, would be to use Ty Jerome’s appearance near the top as evidence that analytics are stupid and throw out the whole database. It is perhaps the most significant advantage of these models that they lack our bias towards accolades and name brand stars. Unless the goal is to create an equation that perfectly reproduces The ESPN Top 100 Players list, we should treat these oddities as at the very least directionally significant and grounds for deeper investigation.

Let’s look at Jerome’s last two seasons, the 85-game sample spanning two teams (Cleveland and Memphis) that has caused EPM to fall head over heels in love. It’s immediately clear that he is a productive player. 14 points and 4 assists per game, at just 20.4 minutes per game, puts him on pace for 25 and 7 per 36 minutes. He is also efficient; 57% from two, 43% from three, and 87% from the free throw line nets a cool 64% True Shooting. EPM is evidently overconfident that Jerome will be able to sustain these fantastic per-minute numbers as a full-time starting Point Guard, but all the same I’d rather not dismiss the possibility. EPM has plenty of swings and misses, but it was multiple years early to the party on the ascension of Nikola Jokic, SGA, Jimmy Butler, Pascal Siakam, and a number of other late bloomers who went on to become All-Stars. For now, consider me Ty Jerome curious. The median outcome is still “decent 4th or 5th starter on a good team.”

Likewise, the sample size on Zach Edey is woefully inadequate (77 career games), though here no statistical voodoo is required to appreciate that Edey is likely to be at least a highly impactful starter when healthy. He is 7’3” and 305 pounds. The average adult male black bear found in the springtime in America weighs approximately 315 pounds and is 6.5-7 feet tall standing upright. Through 77 games, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that Zach Edey is a 100th percentile offensive rebounder (5.8 offensive rebounds per 36 minutes) and a 99th percentile rim protector. The hoop is ten feet in the air, it helps to have a gigantic dude on your team.

Again, grounding ourselves a bit, I do not expect these Grizzlies to churn out All-NBA seasons. I think Jerome won’t be quite as efficient at scale, Edey will struggle to stay healthy, and the youth of the team will cost them several close games this season. They’re not a playoff team, but 29.5 wins is too low in this West. Hence the range: +500 is also a stunning price for what I see as their expected outcome (33-36 wins). These bands are typically set at +300.

12. Dallas Mavericks

O/U 33.5 wins | +18000 championship odds

Expectation: 30-35 wins

Notable additions: Kyrie Irving, Santi Aldama, Morez Johnson Jr (9th pick), Sergio De Larrea (25th pick)

Notable departures: Klay Thompson, Khris Middleton, Marvin Bagley III, Ryan Nembhard

Bet: None

Over 800 words on the 2026-2027 Memphis Grizzlies. Someone needs to confiscate my phone.

I have no read on the Mavs, who went 26-56 last year. The path for the over here would be that Cooper Flagg is a stud (he’s clearly excellent) and has an All-NBA sophomore season, Kyrie sticks it out in Dallas and still looks like himself post-ACL, and Dereck Lively II maintains relative health. With PJ, Naji, Christie, and Aldama, there’s enough depth and versatility here to talk yourself into Dallas making a run at the 7 seed if you’re particularly bullish on Cooper Flagg. Conversely, Dallas was completely unwatchable last season, half the team can’t shoot, and Lively’s not expected to return until December. What is stopping the Pistons from trading for Kyrie on January 12th when the Mavs are 12-27?

There are too many confusing variables at play here, not to mention a new coach. I have zero idea what’s going to happen.

– Tier Break –

13. New Orleans Pelicans

O/U 28.5 wins | +40000 championship odds

Expectation: 30 wins

Notable additions: Bennedict Mathurin

Notable departures: Jordan Hawkins, Kevon Looney

Bet: None

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on me. My shame knows no bounds. Every season I bet on these abject clowns for reasons beyond my conscious apprehension and every season I find the audacity to act surprised when this worthlessly coached, positionally indifferent, defensively challenged, nonsensical hodgepodge cockadoodledoo roster goes 12-49 through February with a -17 point differential. Never again. I’m out. I’m done.

As I say every year, this team has way too much talent to be a 13 seed. Zion Williamson has always been a monster when healthy, and (low bar but) quietly he’s played 60-70 games in two of three seasons since his foot injury. Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, and Dejounte Murray are not the caliber of names you expect to see on a 25-win team. Saddiq Bey just got paid, and Ben Mathurin joins Year Two Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears to round out a potentially exciting bench unit.

With age, thankfully, I find myself gravitating towards greater deference to organizational stability. The Pelicans are barely a year removed from trading their unprotected first round pick in a tanking season to move up ten spots from 23rd to 13th in the 2025 NBA Draft. In effect, they traded the 8th pick and the 23rd pick for the 13th pick, receiving no additional compensation. It is an unserious, unprofessional operation, and I refuse to be a part of it.

14. Sacramento Kings

O/U 20.5 wins | +100000 championship odds

Expectation: 25 wins

Notable additions: Darius Acuff Jr (7th pick), Alex Karaban (29th pick)

Notable departures: DeMar DeRozan, Russell Westbrook

Bet: Kings adjusted over 22.5 wins (+145)

The Kings have the lowest win total on the board, only a game off of Utah’s 19.5 preseason number last season despite a comprehensive overhaul to the incentive structure around winning basketball games. On theoretical compaction alone they make for a strong ‘over’ candidate, but it helps that they are fairly loaded for a 20-win team. Domantas Sabonis, hardly ancient at 30.4 years old, has averages 19/13/7 on 65% True Shooting since 2023 with multiple All-NBA 3rd team appearances. He’s fully healthy for opening night after missing 63 games last year with a torn meniscus. Zach LaVine, age 31, is an efficient 23-25 ppg scorer and easily one of the ten best shooters in the league (40% on 7.5 attempts per game since 2020). Keegan Murray is a good basketball player. Darius Acuff fell to Sacramento at 7th overall. There is also an addition by subtraction component to this; DeMar DeRozan and Russell Westbrook were catastrophically bad last season. Russ was up to his usual shenanigans, taking on a 26% usage rate as a 40/30/70 scorer who somehow averaged the 8th most turnovers in the league while playing the 112th most minutes, and geriatric DeRozan logged a defensive impact in the 0th percentile, narrowly avoiding the honor of worst defender in the EPM database thanks to Bub Carrington, Jordan Poole, and Jericho Sims.

It’s a pretty easy over for me and one of the bets I feel most confident in, even at this hyper-bullish +145 stretch to 22.5 wins.

15. Los Angeles Clippers

O/U 28.5 wins | +50000 championship odds

Expectation: Pain

Notable additions: Keaton Wagler (5th pick), Brandon Ingram, Rui Hachimura, Max Strus, Gradey Dick

Notable departures: Kawhi Leonard, John Collins, Bennedict Mathurin, Nicolas Batum

Bet: Clippers over 12.5 seed in the West (-110)

For clarity, this bet means “Clippers to finish as a bottom three seed in the West.”

I’m bored of the West and want to head East, so I’ll do the TV analysis thing where I just name players and pretend that constitutes insight.

Guards: Darius Garland, Keaton Wagler, Kris Dunn, Gradey Dick

Wings: Derrick Jones Jr, Rui Hachimura, Kobe Sanders

Bigs: Isaiah Jackson (6’8” but currently listed at starting center on the depth chart), Brook Lopez (38 years old)

Injured and expected to miss months: Brandon Ingram, Bradley Beal, Max Strus, Yanic Konan Niederhauser

There is nothing here. All of those wretched 7-14 seeded Western Conference teams I wrote about are orders of magnitude better and more sensibly constructed than these Clippers. This would be the worst team in basketball if not for the Nets and Bucks.