The 2016-17 NBA season is about to tip off and our podcast returns to get you set for opening night featuring two heavyweight matchups. The Cavaliers will celebrate ring night and raise their championship banner the same night the Indians play host to Game 1 of the World Series, while the Warriors kick off their run with Kevin Durant as the most super of super teams vs. the San Antonio Spurs.
On this episode:
-- We talk to Jason Lloyd (@JasonLloydABJ) of the Akron Beacon Journal and Ohio.com about the mood in Cleveland with so much newfound success as the Mistake By the Lake suddenly looks great. (1:05 mark.) Are the Cavaliers going to coast this season? LeBron James reasserted himself as the most dominant player in the league with his Finals performance. Does he coast this year, or really go after his fifth MVP, which would tie Michael Jordan and Bill Russell, leaving him trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (6 MVPs)?
-- Matt Moore previews the opening-night lines with Jared Dubin of CBS Sports and the Knicks Locked on Podcast (22:40 mark). The Warriors are favored by nine points over a Spurs team that lost Tim Duncan but also won 67 games last year. Can Golden State cover at Oracle vs. what is usually a great Spurs team ATS? We also wonder about the Jazz and if they can cover plus-5.5 vs. the Blazers on the road with injuries to Gordon Hayward and maybe Derrick Favors.
-- Finally, Washington Post national NBA columnist Tim Bontemps joins the show to talk about the Greatest Show on Earth out in the Bay as the Warriors' relatively quiet preseason is about to give way to a very loud regular season with super expectations. (32:50 mark.) Bontemps gives his thoughts on whether the Warriors are thin-skinned, what there will be to write about given the Warriors' dominance, and how this season looks from inside the giant fishbowl of covering Golden State.
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