Bill Simmons had old friend Haralabos Voulgaris on his Feb. 18 podcast to discuss the NBA landscape, and they decided to do a deep dive on the Western Conference playoff picture. Voulgaris is a professional gambler and was the Director of Quantitative Research and Development for the Dallas Mavericks from Oct. 2018 to June 2021.
When it came to the play-in tournament, they both agreed that nobody should be sleeping on either the Los Angeles Lakers or Clippers.
“And Minnesota,” added Simmons. “I’m not 100% against Minnesota, either.”
Voulgaris immediately cut him off.
“I think you can be 100% against Minnesota,” he said. “Like, they’re not in the conversation for winning a playoff series, I don’t think.”
“No,” answered Simmons. “But I could see them in the conversation for being the irrational-confidence Round 1 team that wins Game 1, and people are gonna be like ‘Oh my God, they’re gonna win.’ And then they lose.
“But they could at least get a couple haymakers in.”
Nobody in Timberwolves land is expecting them to win a playoff series. Most fans just want to see the Wolves get the 6-seed so they can play in a full playoff series.
But Simmons’ conjecture makes sense. Hell, the Target Center crowd was chanting “Wolves in six” after they beat the Houston Rockets in Game 3 at home in 2018. An irrational-confidence, young Timberwolves team would be pretty exciting. Imagine Anthony Edwards in that setting!
“Yeah, if they manage to get up to the sixth seed, and play like Memphis, I could see that being an interesting series,” Voulgaris responded.
“Or maybe if they played – yeah, I don’t know who else they could play? [Maybe] the Jazz, if they manage to get,” he added, trailing off. “They’re not good enough to get to the five – they’re certainly not getting up to the five-seed.”
Coming out of the All-Star Break, the Wolves are 2.5 games back of the sixth-seeded Denver Nuggets. However, they are four games back of the fifth-seeded Dallas Mavericks.
“The question is if they’ll get out of the play-in,” continued Voulgaris. “The play-in’s gonna be deadly. I mean, you have those three teams (Minnesota and both LA teams). Brooklyn on one side, the Lakers and Clippers on the other side.
“If those are your play-in teams, that’s a boon for the NBA right there.”
Ratings should be through the roof, given how many star-studded, big-market teams are projected to be in the play-in.
While experts aren’t giving the Wolves a chance to win a playoff series yet, some believe Minnesota could still snag the six-seed. And even if they don’t, the play-in tournament would be a great place to showcase this unique Timberwolves team.
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