All Episodes

October 14, 2025 • 18 mins
The A-Team breaks down a piece from John Hollinger at The Athletic, where he predicts the order of finish in the East and West in the NBA for the '25-'26 season. And shockingly, he has the Kevin Durant-led Rockets predicted to win just 45 games and finish EIGHTH in the West! Adam Clanton doesn't hold back, letting him know how ridiculous he thinks the prediction is!
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There are a lot of ways to forecast what's going
to happen this upcoming season. I think the best way,
as always is watch basketball and then analyze it. Talk
to some of the people that maybe you know a
few things, maybe get some intel from those that are
in different places covering different teams, and come up with
your own ideas. We won't go full blown NBA predictions
the way we did with the NFL. When we get
to the season next Monday and Tuesday, the last two

(00:23):
days of next week, that will be before the NBA
season begins, but we'll give you some thoughts on where
we actually think the Rockets will finish, what their postseason
will look like, how many first team, second team, third
team nods this team will get on the respective ops
that they have, Defensive Team all NBAC and things like that.
But everybody else has their means of doing so, and

(00:44):
this is the point in time where we got to
get that out there, get people talk and get people
thinking about your NBA season, which is now just hours
away from being a week away. Seven o'clock of next
or six o'clock next week will be blown into pregame
Rockets and Thunder. So I'll take you to the athletic

(01:04):
I'll take you to former NBA executive and huge believer
in the numbers. The peer and the Hollinger numbers have
become a thing. So we're talking about John Hollinger and
I've tried to figure out the best way to present
this headache inducing material for you. I think I'll start
this way. Fifteen teams in the West. We rank them

(01:25):
where we think they will finish, what their regular season
record will be. Obviously, the Rockets fit in there somewhere
between one and fifteen. We'll start from the ground up.
Oh good, We're taking it down to the studs and
then building it back up. The five teams that will
not participate in the play in tournament in the Western Conference.
You think you could guess who those teams are and

(01:47):
try to match that up with what Johnny h.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thinks in the West.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yes, we're not talking about the East at all in
this segment or maybe ever again.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I will go with Utah.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Utah is expected to land fifteenth out of fifteen, win
twenty three times.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I will go with Portland.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Portland is expected to finish fourteenth and win thirty one times.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
I'm two for two climbing the charts. Um, I'm gonna
go with Sacramento.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
The Pelicans are expected to follow thirteenth and win thirty
two times.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
The Kings. I heard what you said. Why did you
say the Pelicans because I missed, Yes, you missed. That
was my next guest.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, well, don't guess them again because they're thirteenth.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Okay, even with Zion's Kings are eleventh, So that is
one of the five win thirty six times.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Who's the other team in the West, According to Johnny
h that will not be a part of the play
in tournament Memphis. How about Jalen Green's Phoenix Suns.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I could see that.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
So thirty five wins for Phoenix, they'll finish twelve. So
that's the bottom five. That's eleven through fifteen. That's not
very good basketball. That's no postseason of any kind, even
the playing tournament is the Memphis The next team Memphis?
This is the next team. They are tenth, a thirty
nine win team.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Pause, maybe don't trade your second best player.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Considering your guesses, we've named six of the fifteen. You
feel like everything's fine, your blood pressure's fine. Where it
sounds like it makes sense? Right, They're all in whether
you prefer agreement or agreements. One of them is a
made up word, but I don't discriminate. Yeah, I think
that's where we're all on the same page. I watch basketball,
John watches basketball. I make some beliefs about what I

(03:29):
think is going to happen, and we happen to agree
on it.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Two people with functioning brains in the conversation.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Okay, so Memphis makes the play in tournament, but they
don't even win half their games. They win thirty nine times.
Who slides just ahead of them forty one wins, forty
one losses. Ninth best team in the Western Conference. It's
not San Antonio, but you're extremely close.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Dallas Mavericks.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
The Dallas Mavericks.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
They're both in Dexas.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
So you've got a forty one win Mavericks team, maybe
maybe not makes the playoffs, but they're playing tournament team.
They sit in the ninth spot, and then San Antonio
is eight. So now we've got one through eight. Now
we're gonna go in reverse order. So who's the top team?
Either way I go, the segment is going to blow
up immediately. If I tell you who's number one, you're

(04:14):
going to want to. I don't know what what it's
something bad that you would.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Like to do?

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Leave which one of the which one of the minors?
Something is getting it by with this. This is a
very heavy it's full of water. N we'll be fine,
We'll scare that. We'll start at the top. Who's going
to be number one?

Speaker 2 (04:33):
I mean you assume it's the Thunder.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Sixty six wins Thunder team, they're number one?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Who's number two?

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Why? Why would that upset me? Defend one?

Speaker 1 (04:40):
I'm not gonna upset you, and you might be okay
after that, but I doubt it. Who's number two? Rockets
finished number two last year?

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Denver.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Denver is not number two. Denver is not number three.
Denver is number four. Fifty win team.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Okay, Denver ahead of or behind the Rockets?

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Information I'm withholding what a stupid company? Number two or
number three? At your disposal? Who would you like to guess?
I was not Houston because obviously is worse than the Thunder.
This fifty four win team, second best team in the West,
finished second.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
And it's not Denvers Pleasant Rita.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
That is incorrect. It's Chris Paul's team, the LA Clippers.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Okay, I mean, somebody's drunk. This is the number two
squad in the West, the Clippers. The Clippers, So we
got okay, see defending champs at number one. Yep, fine
with that.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Then miraculously fat suit and old guy get back together
and they're the number two seed in the West. The
only thing dumber would be putting the Golden State Warriors next.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
The are next, of.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Course, because we gotta force it, we gotta make thattch happen.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
This isn't even the.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Steph Curry is going to be basically metaphorically dead soon,
but he's definitely going to have a top three seed
next year.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Now, I will tell you that it's not where the
Golden State Warriors are predicted to finish that is going
to make you most bad. Oh my god, So Denvers fourth.
Who's fifth?

Speaker 3 (06:07):
It's got to be the Lakers, right because some you
know what riding Lebron's fan.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
It's Minnesota Chimberwolves forty nine wins. Who's number six?

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Let me rephrase what I was going to say, the
Lakers are ahead of the Rockets.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Who's number six? Say the Lakers?

Speaker 2 (06:25):
The Lakers.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
The Lakers are number six. That's forty seven wins for
the Los Angeles Lakers, the second best team in La Real.
Quick stop before you go any first, just remind people
of what we have not done yet. We haven't gotten
too the Rockets have not gotten to the Rockets. Vin
given you the best defense in the NBA. We've given
you one through six. We have not gotten to the
Rockets yet.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Give me the win totals very quickly again, going from
one to six.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
So far again, sixty six, fifty four, fifty one, fifty
to forty nine at least Lakers at forty seven.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
From that standpoint, they have tightly compacted the wins. So
this is a lot like last year's very much so,
where the Rockets were number two, but it was not
the Rockets.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
That is correct. We'll give you more of that. He
also he hasn't listed the Spurs yet either, So I
guess you guys might have been able to check.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
The library this player, because now I'm gonna get pissed. No.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
I specifically chose this in the one of the two
segments where you do not and that is one of
them right here. The four o'clock hour, and a final
thought on what the Rocket season will look like according
to John Holliger, next.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Wex ac Cole Thompson with you as we take you
until six o'clock tonight, and following that very shortly he'll
have Rockets preseason game number three. Pretty much doesn't matter apparently,
according to John Hollinger, because they shouldn't even play their season.
They're barely accepted into the league because they're so bad.
After obtaining Kevin Durant and putting him with the mix

(07:49):
that has not given up a core that includes Alprea
and shingoon A'man Thompson and a smattering of other casts
of characters, plus Dorian Finney Smith and one of the
most elite head coaches in the NBA that forces you
to play defense or you don't play. But all that aside,
they suck. According to John Hollinger, one.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Of the biggest questions of the off seasons whether Houston
leaned too hard into the two center front court that
gave some of its best minutes in the twenty twenty
five playoffs. Yes, the trade for Katie is the headline
move the ROCKETSAF season for obvious reasons. But when the
game start, I, John Hollinger, AM going to be wondering
about the functionality of their huge playing rotation. They already

(08:29):
employ an all star center in Alpi, traded for Durant,
who's best suited at power forward at thirty seven, but
that didn't stop them from also signing Steven Adams for
three years thirty nine meals signing DFS for four years
and fifty four, extending Jabari Smith Junior for five years
one twenty two, or signing Clint Capella for three years
and twenty one, or adding Jeff Green for insurance. That's

(08:52):
just the beginning of the ride up.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
No, no, no, no, that's just the beginning of the drivel.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
This is a team that also employs three mean, tough
wings with if he shooting profiles often produce their best minutes.
His undersized power forwards Tarry, Jay Shawan and Josh Okogi. Finally,
the team's best young player, Man Thompson, was the starting
power forward for much of last season. How exactly does

(09:18):
this work?

Speaker 2 (09:19):
I mean, does he watch basketball or does he.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Just like especially now that the one good guard on
the roster, Fred van Vliet, is out for the season.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Oh, he was the only good guard.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Huh, The one good guard on the current roster, Fred
van Vliet is out for the season.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Okay, in today's NBA first and foremost, and he should
know this because he's mister analytics.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
It's positionless.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
So and then Thompson's technically a guard if he wants
to be, and he will be, at least from the
traditional sense of the.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Point guard brings the ball up the floor.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Like, all I hear about all the time is you
can't have enough interchangeable wings three and D three and
D three and D that's all they have.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
That's I mean, that's his point. And he thinks it's
a it's a bad thing. Well, he thinks it's because
they don't have anything in the in the actual creative
set up the offense somewhat traditional sense of a point guard.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Also, he thinks that having too many bigs who can
play in what they try to do is a bad thing.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Apparently, so rockets at Spurs in the play in tournament
to see which one of them gets number seven and
which one of them is relegated to playing the winner
of the nine to ten game.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Okay, look, I'm not trying to be mean here. I'm
really not going to take a personal shot at this guy.
He's nearly dropped on his head multiple times as a child.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Forty five wins is number eight. We mentioned this earlier.
It's not that far from the team at number.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Two as a nine that they won't have fifty plus
just by playing the East alone. So again back to
the number of this. Guys think that like Atlanta is
going to be the number one seed. Like everybody else
who's stupid that's writing about basketball here in October.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Told you for the purposes of the Hollinger article. When
we get to the simulations, we can talk about the Hawks,
but we're not talking about him here.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I mean, I genuinely want to walk up to him
because he'll be at Toyota Center at some point this year.
Maybe well, if he's smart, he won't. But if he
shows up.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Shows face because he wrote an article saying they're going
to public after writing that, I'd be fine with it.
I wouldn't have written it.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
I mean, I want to walk up to him and
be like, seriously, how many times there only were you
dropped on your head?

Speaker 1 (11:29):
They're only nine wins away from the two seed.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Right, I know, but we can't give that to anybody
that's not named Oklahoma City, Golden State or of course
the vaunted LA Clippers, who probably uh should have Kawhi
Leonard taken away from them because they signed him illegally
to an endorsement deal.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Not according to the league.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Just yet, you're right the commissioner who's been completely paper
thin soft as Charman about this whole thing. Like, I
guarantee you, if it wasn't a team based in LA,
he wouldn't be singing that song.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Also notes in a Lakers ride up, adding Marcus Smart
Jake Laravia, if nothing else, that should give the Lakers
seven guys they can more or less trust in a
playoff game before things go off a cliff. It also
gives them a bit more resilience to survive Lebron james
absence in the opening weeks of the season.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Lebron James's absence, which is going to lead to the
sixth seed?

Speaker 2 (12:22):
What all?

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Almost every article that's written they don't get the NBA
at all. They're not paying attention to what the NBA
is like. The Thunder and the Rockets weren't a class
all by themselves last year. They were the only teams
that seemed to have value in trying to win every game,
trying to land the number one seed, and they had
it for such a long period of time, and then

(12:44):
the overall number one and winning sixty six, seven, sixty
eight games, whatever total Oklahoma City could get to, they
were kind of hell bent on getting there. The Rockets
played to win every night. The Rockets tried to not
be a forty four win team. They could have coasted
a forty four wins no problem and hit the postseason.
They try to win every night. They out played teams,
They played harder than other teams on a night to

(13:05):
night basis. Most of the rest of the league, especially
in the West recently and definitely in its upcoming season,
those teams goals don't match what you're trying to say.
Denver's not going to try to win that number of
games because who's on their roster. The Lakers aren't going
to try to win that number of games. They can't
first of all, but they're not going to try to
either the clip. None of these teams are going to
be putting everything they have into the first eighty two.

(13:29):
They're gonna put everything they have into being prepared for
the next opening series of the playoffs. Nobody's gunning for
these win totals. To try to get some seed that
doesn't exist in the West End.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
It's just like the positions I was just talking about.
And let me do this because we're on camera. I
don't want to be like you know, told I'm a homer,
So let me cover up all of my biases that
I'm wearing today, since I'm decked out head to toe
in rocket gear.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
You had a Rockets pull over.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
But I want John Hollinger to see this somehow, you're
an idiot.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Like it.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
It's not personal, it's just factual because that's not what
he's dealing in here.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
He's not dealing in reality.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
What he's writing doesn't even make sense for just like
you said, the other teams like you just got done
saying that, I don't know how this is gonna work.
So they're gonna be the eighth seed or is it
the ninth seed fort eighth seed?

Speaker 1 (14:18):
It could be the ninth seed because they're in the
playans right.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Thank goodness.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
I'm so glad that he didn't put them outside of
the traditional top eight teams that make.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Me play slide.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Maybe in a simpler way, you put the Olklahoma City
Thunder a side. The Rockets were a fifty two win team,
not far off from all the other teams. We've gone
over this a million times. Fifty two to forty five,
forty six wins. That was the whole Western Conference postseason picture.
It's not a big difference in a number of wins.
But what you're saying here is the Clippers and the
moves that they made adding John Collins, Brook Lopez and

(14:45):
Bradley Beal elevates their team as the Rockets slide down
by adding Kevin Durant and to lose Chris Paul and
Chris Paul.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Because he said that like it's like it's like it's
twenty eighteen again.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
While the ad Durant while losing Fred van Vliet, Jalen Green,
and Dylan Brooks.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Look, I mean, I get it.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
If you want to, like say, I'm not as high
on the Rockets as I was gonna be because they
lost Fred van Vliet, perfectly valid opinion to have.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
In fact, I would agree with it. You can't.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
You just can't put them in the same on paper,
you know, vaunted elevated status as you would have if
he was running the point completely valid, understand it, reasonable, logical,
All of the things that don't apply to anything else,
he wrote, I just this is it's almost as bad
as all these people forcing the Golden State Warriors upon

(15:38):
us where and we'll get to that, the fact that
there is a six in front of their win total
according to some people, because what you've got a full
year of Jimmy Butler with old Steph with old Raymond.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Biggest example outside of the Lakers, of that team under
no circumstances. There's not a single set of circumstances that
will play out in the NBA this year that you
could tell that's gonna result in the Golden State Warriors
playing good enough, healthy enough, and hard enough to win
sixty four sixty.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
It's not.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
It cannot happen. I will not happen. I feel like
I have to say this because it's just me. But
I know, as much as you want it to be
the case, there is no way in the name of
Gavin Newsome that this should have so much California all
over it.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
They're not that good. It's the Lakers suck. The Lakers suck.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
The Clippers have a ton of question marks, not the
least of which is their best player. Is just this
side of Zion Williamson completing a season than James barely.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
But I'm saying, like, how many games everybody's talking about.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Kevin Durant's is not gonna play sixty games, and so
so Kawhi Leonard's gonna play what fifty five?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
And that's gonna definitely give them the two seed.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
I mean, if you want, if you want to, because
you have to, you just can't stop worshiping at the
altar of the Warriors. Fine, good luck with that. I really,
I'm just I'm waiting for a Jimmy but led team
to just wow me, because it hasn't happened yet, and
it's not going to now that he's even older than
he was the last time.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
He didn't do it. But you're right, Warriors, they're the best.
I can't. You can't do this as a straight face.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
He has to be laughing at us, right because he
knows what he did, because he knows it's so stupid
that somebody made him put this in.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
A public It's publicly read.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
People are gonna see this article that's out there, This
is in the Athletic right. Yes, well, I'm sorry, Chandler,
but I've just canceled my subscription He does note that age,
you get rid of Netflix, you get rid of the
athletic everything that's.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Going to lie to you or lead you down a
bad path, You just get rid of it. Cut it
out like a cancer.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
He does note that age is a big concern for
who the Warriors.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Okay, but does he know that he put him at
thirty number three.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Butler's thirty six, Draymond's thirty five, and they've added thirty
nine year old Al Horford. But it's a concern.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
But to be fair, wex they re upped with Johnathan
and gaminga who definitely wants to be there, and they
definitely want him there.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
I mean, he's almost as good as an and as
important as Pajemski.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
Hey, we're about to find out just how good of
a coach Steve Kerr really is in his final season.
He's out and he's never been a good coach.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
He got his fingers have things on them. Yeah, not
many other coaches do.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
He couldn't even repeat.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
He couldn't even repeat seventy three wins and couldn't even win.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
In the show, we do run through the ESPN simulated
NBA season. It'll be a repeat of this, but worse.
Nobody else do it.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Nobody else that has things on their fingers ever blew
a three to one lead in the finals. Chump jump
yis well, he's not schmuck like a rod. But all
the names all day today. I will call you names.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
I will do

Speaker 3 (18:48):
It the on Sports Talk seven ninety
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.