Sports Time Radio

We’re just 10 days away from the start of the NBA season. The season opens with a doubleheader on TNT. Game 1 has the Golden State Warriors at the Brooklyn Nets while the nightcap features the Los Angeles Clippers at the Los Angeles Lakers.

Now this looks like a pretty good opening night line up as you’d have to think all four of these teams should contender for the NBA title this season. The Nets could possibly be the best team in the Eastern Conference while the Warriors are looking to bounce back from an injury plagued 2019-2020 season. The Clippers where expected to challenge for the title last season, but ended up being a playoff disappointment. Of course the Laker won the title.

Now the question becomes; can any of these teams or any team actually challenge the Lakers for the NBA title?

The Miami Heat was a bit of a surprise coming out of the Eastern Conference last season, but they eventually lost to the Lakers in the NBA Finals. Miami is predicted to win 45 games this season which puts them behind the Boston Celtics with 47 wins and the Milwaukee Bucks with 53 wins. The Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers roll in with 44 wins and then the Nets come in with 42 wins.

If these wins predictions are close to what we’re going to get it will make the Eastern Conference interesting to watch and it could also possibly lead to a team we’re not expecting getting into the NBA Finals again. While that does make things fun to watch and difficult to predict the one question it doesn’t answer is; are any of these teams a serious contender for the NBA title? Unfortunately I think the answer is no here.

In the Western Conference it’s no surprise that the Lakers are predicted to win the most games this season with 52, but the Clippers are slated just one win behind them at 51. The Denver Nuggets come in with 47 predicted wins followed by the Utah Jazz at 45 and the Dallas Mavericks at 44 wins.

Even though the win totals seem to be tight here in the Western Conference when it all comes down to it everyone is looking for a team to challenge the Lakers for the NBA title; so do you see one of these teams being able to knock the Lakers out in a playoff series?

It appears that the only answer here may be the Clippers. They have two stars in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, but unfortunately the Clippers lost last season 6th man of the year Montrezl Harrell and to make it just a little worse Harrell signed with the Lakers.

As you know I’m not a huge fan of the NBA; so it’s difficult for me to make an actual prediction, but it seems clear that not only are the Lakers the best team in the NBA, They’re also still the team that the league wants to win the title; so I think that makes them the easy pick here even though I never like picking the obvious team. Is there another choice?

Yesterday it was made official that after 10 years with the MLB Network Chris Rose would not be brought back after his contract expires at the end of December. Rose host the show Intentional Talk with former major leaguer Kevin Millar.

Now this is a show I try to watch everyday and while I wasn’t a huge fan of Rose himself I’m not sure how the show is going to transition to another host. Hopefully with Millar sticking around it will help however they decide to give the roll to find their place and the show will continue to be good. My fear is they’ll just try to rotate different hosts through and never settle on one person. If they do something like that they might as well just cancel the show because it will never find it’s pacing.

Millar seems like an interesting personality to work with. He seems to come right out and tells the truth even though he’s become much better at how he says it. He can also come off as a larger than life person; so they’re going to have to be able to find someone who can keep Millar on track when he starts to stray and Rose was fantastic at that.

Intentional Talk started on April 4th 2011 and Rose and Millar have been together as the hosts since the beginning; so finding that chemistry with someone else may take some time, but what I’m wondering is will the MLB Network be willing to give Millar and whoever they put him with the time they’ll need to gel or is Rose’s exit the beginning of the end for Intentional Talk. I guess that is something that will just have to wait and see about, but I hope it isn’t.

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