Weekend Review: NBA Draft prospects, surging Wizards, parity and faster games

The Step Back Day-to-Day NBA Podcast

Miss this week’s episodes of The Step Back’s Day-to-Day NBA podcast? Catch up with the Weekend Review a compilation of what we talked about during the week. It’s ideal for weekend listening. This week we looked at 2017 NBA Draft prospects, the surging Washington Wizards, parity vs. mediocrity, and if the NBA needs to speed up its games. First, host Jason Mann talks with Chris Stone about Markelle Fultz’s athleticism and complete offensive game, Josh Jackson’s outstanding wing defense but weird shooting motion, Lonzo Ball’s incredible court vision and why he is so fun to watch, and much more. Next, Chris Barnewell joins the program to look at the distribution of NBA teams in tiers in 2017, finding major changes in the number of teams between .501 and .600 winning percentages and between .301 and .400 from a season ago. We contrast those numbers with averages for the past five years and see if we find any patterns. Then, Jen Julie Smith of WizOfAwes.com joins the show to talk what explains the Wizards’ turnaround, how John Wall and Bradley Beal are gelling on the court, Otto Porter having a career season, and more. And finally Ian Levy, editor in chief of The Step Back, joins the show to talk about whether crunch time is really that much of a drag and examine some proposals that might speed up the NBA.