Bill Simmons

But...

You got to take them seriously because they have a top six guy in the league who I assume will be playing more minutes.

They hit the jackpot with Castle.

They hit the jackpot with Harper.

I was going to do this later, but I'll just throw this to you now because I was really thinking about this on Saturday night watching OKC and the Spurs.

It rarely happened.

Like we've had contenders, we've had more and teams that seemed unstoppable.

Like the 2017 Warriors is a good example where we're like, oh no, hold on.

But that was a team of guys that in the prime, guys that had been in the league for a while.

It rarely happens when you have a young team

With guys that, for the most part, except for maybe one guy on the team, aren't even close to who they're going to be yet.

But they gave you that hold down feeling.

And I actually went through all the seasons going back to the merger, trying to figure out how many times.

Nobody loves going on basketball reference and just looking shit up.

But I thought the 77 Blazers is a great example, right?

Who ended up winning the title.

But young team on the rise, Walton, Mo Lucas, all those guys.

The 86 Rockets with Samson and Olajuwon.

I'm just talking about teams that were like, oh, this team's really talented.

Wait, they're here?