The Suns are the favorites to win the Pacific conference but will they measure up?
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Mike Budenholzer, Coach Bud, comes over as the new head coach in Phoenix, which will bring back the
00:06three-headed monster of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal. Beal having just as
00:11atrocious a series as you can possibly have, and maybe the, like, his performance in Game 4,
00:16one of, like, the worst performances, like, ever in a playoff game by any player, period, star, or otherwise.
00:22So, Coach Bud, new, the same three stars, all back, win total 46 and a half.
00:29I just, like, I don't know with this Phoenix team. I don't know what their upside is.
00:34Maybe they can win 47 games. Is Durant definitely on the team the whole season?
00:40What about Phoenix here, Ken?
00:42Yeah, if anything, I'll be honest, if anything, the number just looked a little bit too low to me.
00:47It's just, they're such a weird combination of things.
00:51They're a team that basically was a 50-win team last year, so we can start with that. Like, as much as we hate
00:57Beal and the playoffs and the lack of depth and Durant's trade requests or rumors,
01:03it's a 49-win team that played, like, a 51-win team last year, and the number's 46 and a half, and
01:08they're swapping coaches to someone who has had a tremendous amount of regular season success in two places. So, like,
01:15there is a lot to like about betting over on the number, even if we have all the jokes in the world about Beal and
01:21Durant and the mix of everything and Ishbia and all this stuff.
01:26It just, it just kind of looks a little low. Now,
01:28you know, as Durant ages, and this is true with LeBron, too, to a certain extent, like, can you pencil in
01:3560, 65, 70 games? Can you definitely do that at a certain level of expectation for performance, too?
01:42You know, you start getting a little unsure about that as the age creeps up.
01:46So, for sure, that's one of the downside things. They, I mean, because of lack of depth,
01:50they just absolutely can't take an injury, and Beal missed a lot of games, especially to start last season, which hurt.
01:56So, it's, I get it. It's just so weird, because it's, their reputation is so negative,
02:02but they're like a, like, last year, not, they're supposed to be a 51 team, like, they're a 51 team!
02:08And they're a 51 team who was one of the worst fourth-quarter teams in the history of the NBA.
02:14So, imagine that. They won 50, and in the time when you win the games, they were the worst of all time.
02:19How many games did they win? Well, they actually won 50 of the 80, or 49 of the 82, actually, is how many they won.
02:24Like, what a bizarre team to have that be the, kind of, the combination.
02:29Now, if you want to blame the fourth-quarter stuff on coaching,
02:32which I don't think is totally fair, but you could make that argument, you know?
02:35It's like, this is when the game slows down, this is when, you know,
02:37maybe some of the sets that you run are more impactful, out-of-time, out-of-place, whatever it is, close games.
02:43Booth and Holes are probably at least pretty good at getting them ready for all that stuff, versus, to be fair, Frank Vogel,
02:48who I thought was a really good coach, too. So, I kind of like the over, honestly.
02:52I kind of want to wait a little bit on, you know, Durant getting shopped under the radar, and Ishbia, and Commons, and the off-season, and all this noise.
02:58But if we, if the noise goes away, and this is just kind of what it is, I actually kind of like the over on this team.
03:03I don't think they're going to be the one seed, but it just seems a little low to me.
03:06Where would you, uh, so let's assume that all those things happen, and you get in a position where you'd bet Phoenix.
03:11Where would the Suns over-rank for you amongst what we've already talked about today, with bets for win totals in the West?
03:17I like Lakers under the most, probably, and Rockets over, alongside that.
03:25I don't know if I have another one that I like even more. It's like, is it OKC over, or this?
03:31Probably OKC, but like, I, this, I think this is a bet worth making when we get there. Like, let's get to the preseason.
03:37I don't think it's going up, ever. I think, if anything, it's just, there's a lot of pessimism.
03:42But again, like, just think about that for a second. This is three wins lower than what they actually did,
03:47despite all the bad things that we think about them. I mean, that's like, that's pretty crazy.
03:51They didn't change anything about the team. They just got a better coach, maybe.