Thinking Basketball Podcast. My name is Ben. This is the 2026 NBA playoff preview.

Cody, we've made it. We've made it through the journey and we are here and there is so much to get to today.

If you're listening to this, the play in tournament may

have already started. There's some interesting play in tournament teams, but of course, we don't

really focus too much on the play in teams or the play in tournament when we preview this

playoffs, the tournament that comes in the second season. our focus is who's going to win the championship?

Who are the contenders? Who are the big teams to watch? What are the great series? What are the

great matchups coming? Is there something in the first round that dictates something in the later

round? So before I jump in with what I want to start with, is there anything that you would

like to get off your chest that you would like to get off your

chest that you would like to say before we determine definitively once and for all what's

going to happen in the next eight weeks that will not only determine Cody the end of the

2026 basketball season, but will set in stone some of the great legacies of basketball and sports history

for the future generation to look back on my friend. How are you doing? I think actually,

this is a time for a bunch of players to ruin their legacies right now, right? We got to forget

the people for whom the legacies will be improved. It's everyone else that's choked or didn't live up to expectations

or whatever other euphemism you might use for not winning the championship.

Are you suggesting that today everyone's feeling good about things?

And in two months, 15 of the 16 teams will be total failures and losers.

And then almost all the players will have all their weaknesses exposed on the Internet.

Maybe I should have actually asked you this, but I don't actually want to ask you this.

But I'm looking at the bracket now, and I'm like, I wonder which fan base would just spontaneously combust the hardest after losing in these playoffs.

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