Thinking Basketball podcast. My name is Ben. Welcome back. It is time, Cody. We've put it off long enough. We're a month into the season. We need to talk about who the best NBA teams are. Who's going to win the championship. This is a very, this podcast has a very

important precedent because we come out swinging every year and it's, it's rare that throughout

an entire course of a season, we change the pole position on who we think the inner circle

title contenders are. Some seasons are a little more variable than others. This might be one of

those seasons where there could be seven or nine or 12 teams that can win an NBA championship,

or maybe it's again, it's the top two, three, four leaders in the clubhouse trying to

just chase down that title and everyone's following them. What's it going to be, Cody?

What do you say? Who are the inner circle title contenders this season?

I'm a little nervous right now because I think at one point last year, I said there's a 99% chance that the East would be represented by, I think I said the Cavaliers and the Celtics. I feel like there's a third team. No, you said, I don't know for sure. You said the, I think I said, the Cavaliers and the Celtics.

I feel like there was a third team.

No, you said, I don't know for sure.

You said the, I believe you said the Cavs and the Celtics, and I did we have, I think we had some post-show discussion about that. We may have. Yes, because that jumped out to me. It wasn't worth going into at the time, but it certainly looked like that, but there were other teams lurking.

There was a team lurking. There

was a team lurking that ended up making it out of the conference. But 99% that's still not

100. It's pretty good. That's true. So I guess I wasn't technically like Nate Silver would come

out here and be like, I don't know, the model was okay. Like I gave the 1% sliver in there,

Nate Silver with the sliver.

But I just don't know.

I'm trying to look in the rear view and see which teams might have the potential to have that breakout.

So I hope that's a conversation we have at some point.

But I think we have to start in the most obvious place.

And right now, Ben, let's just get the marker out right now, put them right in the center of it all.

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