 What's the word y'all? I've always been a fan of a good bold prediction. And I mean like a real bold prediction, because I remember I would ask people, what is your boldest prediction on this NBA season? And people would be like, man, the Charlotte Hornets don't be better than people expect. That's a lukewarm take because the Charlotte Hornets were already solid. I mean like somebody that will really put their neck on the line and say, this is what I think might happen this season. The only problem with it is some people get afraid to have those bold predictions and I fell into this category once before. They're afraid to have these bold predictions because guess what, if I have a bold prediction, somebody gonna write it down in their journal and they gonna count down the days to the end of the regular season and be like, oh Kenny, you said this might happen and it didn't, so now what? But in reality, a bold prediction probably shouldn't happen. It's one of those things that like, hey, if you get it right, you pop your collar and say, yeah, I saw that coming. But if it don't happen, since it was bold, no harm done. So what I did was I searched the Reddit and I found a post, a thread, of people giving their bold predictions right before the season started. Now some of these, we still have what, three fourths of the NBA season to go. We still have the playoffs to go. So some of these predictions might not, it might be too early to really tell. But I wanna see if people really had good bold takes that are already standing up. And remember, this is about bold predictions and everything and everything we do is lighthearted, good fun. That's what sports should be about. So don't take anything too seriously. Even saying that you know that people will. The top thing on this post, Nick Claxton is hot af, everyone has a good time. That is a very, very bold prediction because I know a lot of fans are not having a good time with their organization. I'll just say that. That is the boldest prediction that you can possibly have as everyone has a good time. And guess what, 40 days into the season, you are wrong, mister. Everybody ain't having a good time. You know what I decided? When you talk about bold predictions, hot takes, it's probably not best to sort by best, go back controversial because a real hot take should really get people going. This is one M and it's throwing me off. It's not one minute ago, it's one month ago. That is throwing me off for real because everybody commented one minute, no, it's a month ago. This may not be a hot take, but if you take my moderately warm take, express with certainty and its place, mine is that the bulls will fail to even make the playoffs. I don't see three all stars. I see a collection of three guys that were, okay. This was definitely a moderate slash lukewarm take at the beginning of the season. Somebody said, I can't see how the defense is gonna work at all. Got downvoted. This is what I don't understand about NBA Reddit or just in general. This person really expressed, because on paper, the bull shouldn't be a good defense. This was an actual good thing to think about. But four people was like, you're wrong, bucko, and just downvoted it. This is what we're here for. This is, I don't think this is a super, super bold prediction because if you even look at ESPN, Bleacher Report, or some of these other publications, a lot of people had the bulls as a playing team, not really a playoff team. And obviously through the first month of season, the bulls look a lot better than that. So I'm not gonna say that Jamie was crazy to have this take because even I have expressed before the season started that I was a little bit concerned about our defense. Somebody mentioned that the bulls were 12 for defense, but there was a lot of roster turnaround. Zach Levine had been known as a negative defender. DeMar DeRose has always been one of the worst defenders in the league statistically speaking, and Vucimus is not a real protecting big. So where's the defense gonna come from? And the reality is it's coming from that two-headed monster that is Lonzo Ball and Alice Caruso, and just then being infectious on the defensive side of the ball has people playing good defense. And now the bulls, if I'm not mistaken, are the seventh best defense. Thinking basketball has put out a really good video about Alice Caruso and Lonzo Ball playing together. In that video, he mentioned that the bulls are like number seven or something like that, number six, number seven in defense, but it's only about like one point. So they're closer to being like a 12th best defense in the league than like the number one defensive league. But regardless, the defense has been good enough to have us be a playoff team at this point. James Hardware no longer be a top five player at either point guard or shooter guard by the end of the season. Nagging injuries, new rule changes. Oh, buddy was ahead of his time thinking about the rule changes and being out of shape since 2018 will finally catch up to him at the age of 32. That is 100% a hot take going into the season. But through the first 20 games, just our sample size, the first 20 games, this has been true. Now, James Harden has not been terrible. I don't want you to misunderstand me. James Harden, if the season were to be at the halfway point with these current stats, James Harden is still an all-star, but the last five, six years of his career, he's been a top 10, top 12 player of the entire league. And right now he's not that. I think he's still an all-star at Easter conference, but this is a hot take that seems like it has been become true. He's not saying that James Harden will be washed or be terrible, but as far as being the number one shooting guard in the entire league or like in that realm, he hasn't been that this year. And I think all the things that he has been talking about, we mentioned it early in the season that he looked like he had been playing through an injury. That seems like to be the case. The new rule changes. He's one of the people that is really, really impacted and him being out of shape is something that we've talked about heavily on this channel. So this guy one month ago, so all of that and came to the conclusion that James Harden might not be top 10 no more. And so far, pretty good. And again, this is where I have to be very selective because I know there are some people that hear you say something and skew it to fit what they wanted to say. I am not saying that James Harden is bad, obviously. Look at these stats. 20 points per game, 80 rounds, nine and a half assists. 99% of the league would love to average something similar to this. But comparing it to just himself from a year ago, from two years ago, this is a down year. And he's no longer top 10 based on our 20 game sample size. Oh my God, I will probably get roasted for this. But the Bucks were a one and done and Yanis Hype will level out finally. That's a very interesting one. I guess I would have to ask like, what does he mean by one and done? Winning the championship in the NBA is hard. I'm near a lot of great players that end up with zero and winning back to back is even harder. So if he means by one and done in the sense that they won't win the championship this year then sure, that's not really a bold take. There's still 29 other teams trying to prevent them from doing that. But as far as one and done is in, they won't be contending for a championship or one and done is they won't be in the conversations. That's ludicrous. The Yanis Hype has not died down because Yanis, I don't, it's not hype. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm trying to think of a player that's that the talk around them is hype related and not actual like, this man is one of the greatest of all time related. You know what I'm saying? Yanis is one of the greatest of all time. That's not really hype speaking. That's like actually watching the games and even having the advanced stats to prove it. Yanis is one of the greatest of all time. So it's, and to me it's never really been hype. This for sure, hot take. Mavs all make the playoffs. And if everything is still going the way it is, they're going to be a playoff team. But I see this and I say this is a hot take that could have been true. I mean, there are a lot of different outside factors. Somebody else commented, new head coach. You didn't know what was going on with KP. You know, no real changes as far as the team goes. But so far they've been able to weather the storm even when Luca having somewhat of a down year, Porzingis has elevated himself and Jason Kidd as a coach hasn't looked terrible. But as far as a bold prediction goes before the season start, these are the type of bold predictions I like. And for his sake, it didn't happen or it's not going to happen. And it's cool. Russ regresses even further to barely a top 15 point guard where Bronn still looks decent, better than the playoffs last year because most of the regular season it missed a lot of time due to injury and low management. Meanwhile, the Lakers rely on Anthony Davis who has a huge bounce back, plays 70 plus games, wins MVP defense player and carries them to the one seed. That's an interesting bow take. He has a couple of different parts to his that we can break down. Russell Westbrook regresses to barely a top 15 point guard. I think that's so far this season. He started off in a typical Russell Westbrook fashion where he looks terrible and then he starts to amp it up. He's like, okay, that's interesting. And I think right now we're at the point we're like, okay, this might be the Russell Westbrook we're getting every single day. So if that's the case, I would still consider him a top 15 point guard. So so far through 20 games, that bold prediction dead. So Bronn still looks decent, that is true. But he mentioned low management and injury and so far we've only seen what? 10 games with LeBron James or something similar to that? So yes, LeBron still looks decent. He still looks good, but he has missed some time due to injury. And meanwhile, the Lakers rely on Anthony Davis who has a bounce back year or Wednesday if you can defense player year out of the keys in the conversation for either those two things because Anthony Davis hasn't been as great as you want Anthony Davis to be. Again, beginning of the season, we made a video on this channel where Anthony Davis even said himself that teammates around the locker room were saying that this is my team and it's my year to step up. And so far he hasn't done that. We talked about in the last video how Kurt Goldsbury put out a stat that Anthony Davis has been the worst efficiency player when it comes to his shooting jump shots. He was shooting 16% on three before last game and all three of them had a good game last night against Detroit, but again, that's Detroit. So we will see they have just one game where they beat a team by double digits and that was the Houston Rockets. My boy Mike put up a stat that in the game, the triple overtime game against the Sacramento Kings. Let me find this stat because that was a crazy, crazy stat. Friday versus the Kings. The Kings tried 45 threes. They attempted 45 threes. And out of the 45, 39 of them were uncontested. They contested a total of six three-pointers out of 45 in a game. The defense has been lackluster and everything. But now we're finally seeing all three of them together. This is the time where they can probably gel a little bit. So I still haven't made my time to panic Lakers video just yet. It hasn't looked great, but I'm giving it at least two more weeks before I decide for myself what I think about this Lakers team. This is a pretty solid one. My hot tag is that this sub has gone too far on Drummond and he will be perfectly serviceable backup. Also, FII, DeWyte was not good for us. And then he gave the advanced stats to showcase that. Net rating for DeWyte Howard was down. Offensive rating. Obviously, when you compare it to Joel and Beatsman, it's gonna be down. Defensive rating was slightly up. Yes, for them, DeWyte Howard was not great. And when they both were off, the team was better. So they were probably better off not playing DeWyte Howard at all. When they were both on the court together for just those 10 minutes, they were terrible. But okay, whatever. And yes, that has been the case so far. Just the other day against Minnesota Timberwolves, they needed an offensive rebound. They put Drummond in and boom, he had a game tying layup. I guess, tip in, whatever you wanna call it. Andre Drummond has been cool. You know what I'm saying? While Joel and Beats was out, Andre Drummond was having 15 to 20 games and stuff like that. I do believe that the Andre Drummond hate is the wrong word, but narrative or opinion about him has gone so far itself that people see Andre Drummond as a player that shouldn't be in the lead for some reason. And as a backup, you give him spot minutes to go get rebounds and hopefully he doesn't turn the ball over million times, he's cool for that. He's definitely good for that. So this was a relatively hot take that turns out to be pretty good. Ah, Warriors, Mr. Playoffs again and Curry asks for a trade. That's for sure was a, that might be the hottest take of all time. Mr. Playoffs again and Curry asks for a trade. That's a hot take for sure. I think that's good enough for today, man. Again, ball takes are supposed to be fun and just cause you to talk about some things. Don't take anything too seriously and enjoy basketball, y'all.