The Emirates Cup begins on Tuesday, so it's time to start thinking about our first picks.
For a refresher on the tournament, see the first post. Note, though, that there are actually going to be seven group play days with each team playing four total group play games.
GamesGames
Here is the first slate of games (plus the home spread):
- Hawks @ Celtics (-12.5)
- Heat @ Pistons (+3)
- Hornets @ Magic (-8)
- Knicks @ 76ers (-1)
- Raptors @ Bucks (-8)
- Suns @ Jazz (+4.5)
- Mavs @ Warriors (+2.5)
Just pick one of the teams above to win their game on Tuesday.
Remember, you can only take each team once and the options will dwindle once we get to the Knock Out round. There are at most 10 choices to make during the tournament, but you don't know which ones will be available towards the end.
I'm going to wait a couple of days, to get more clarity on the injury situations for the Heat, Magic, 76ers, and Bucks. At first glance, I'm leaning towards taking either the Heat, but with Jimmy hurt and the Pistons looking a little frisky, I don't love it.
PrizePrize
27133 sats! plus whatever else comes in from here on out
ParticipantsParticipants
@Undisciplined, @gnilma, @BlokchainB, @realBitcoinDog, @Carresan, @supercyclone, @grayruby
There's still time to join. The initial buy-in is only 3k sats.
Lock me in for the Magic and @supercyclone wants the Heat.
Your Magic pick looking good so far, your son's Heat pick seems to be a 50/50 so far. Pistons really have picked up their game lately compared to last season.
Heat hanging in. I think he will be ok.
Not looking good. Also, the safe-bet Celtics are tied with the Hawks at 104.
Definitely surprising the Hawks are hanging with the Celts. Did @gnilma weigh in on our power rankings?
Wow Celtics lost! Even when @siggy47 tries to take the lock he loses.
Siggy someone put the evil eye on you when it comes to sports.
I'm glad you wrote that. I showed my family. I tell them this all the time. Some sort of malocchio
They lost by botching an inbound pass. At least it was really funny.
Haha. It brings me great joy to know I could play a small part in your family vacation.
Unbelievable! I really dodged a bullet not taking them.
I can only assume he ran into the SN character limit trying to correct everything wrong with our rankings.
I saw that post but got lazy to weigh in with my thoughts or work out my own ranking. I'll try to find some time to give a reply to the post, as it is a fun one. Sorry for the laziness; no excuses, especially if I want to keep the title of self proclaimed SN NBA guru.
No worries. When you have time.
Did the Heat lose on a technical foul after making a big comeback?
Didn’t see what happened but was kind of following the gamecast on my phone while watching the Raptors.
I don't know yet. I had seen them down pretty big, but I didn't even realize they got back into it.
I did just watch the end of the Celtics game. It was good for a laugh.
Missed out on all of the action tonight. Had to go to the AP program info session tonight, as my son is going into highschool next year and he wants to get into the AP program at our catchment school. Head home now to catch the remainder of the Warriors Mavs game.
Close game, both teams playing hard, fun to watch. A bit over 5mins left to play, Klay just hit a huge 3. Let's see how the Warriors respond.
It was fun to watch!
Wow! Curry showing why he is the greatest shooter of all time! And in clutch time too!
We can tag team it then, because I'm going to bed.
Raps didn’t look good but Dick played really well.
Dick had been playing pretty well so far this season. Good to see that.
Yes, he is much improved. They should be competitive once Quickley and Barnes are back but at this point hopefully not too competitive. Let’s get that top 10 pick.
I saw Embiid heading back to the locker room earlier, but he's back out there.
Watching the Raps and Bucks.
It'll be harder to skip KAT corner this week.
I was shocked to see this episode doing fairly well considering we excluded our most popular segment.
People probably listened more than once thinking they had missed KAT Corner.
It's in the books.
Magic
IM NOT GOING OUT IN FIRST ROUND
This was the pick!!
YOU LIKE THAT?!
For you yes! For me I’m jelly
And yet, you pick a team that recently lost their star player.
THE STARS WILL ALIGN
Heat
It's in the books
AAAND of course they lose!!! I have the worst luck!!!
On Spoelstra pulling a Webber, no less. At least you didn't take the Celtics, like @siggy47.
True I can’t believe they lost
Celtics
Burning them early
I pick the Magic for this round.
Smart pick. Canucks stick together.
You saw that I missed the T-Wolves vs Blazers, right?
Yes I did, I even zapped the post, but I'm not burning the Wolves this early. Magic is my pick. Thank you.
It's in the books
Ugh. This is tough. I think I need to wait until Monday.
@remindme in 2 days.
Yeah, it's a tough starting slate.
I'll hop on the Magic bandwagon.
Hopefully, Suggs can lock down LaMelo.
Knicks
Going with an underdog right out of the gate, interesting.
I may end up using the rebuy early, hahaha!
Leaning towards the Magic, but will wait until Monday to make my pick. Want to watch Sunday's games and also wait until last minute for injury updates.
I haven't watched them since Paolo got hurt. How have they looked?
They are not particularly shooting the 3 ball well. Franz Wagner took over ever since Banchero got hurt, and the other young guys are contributing too. They are rebounding well and passing well, I'm thinking they should be able to beat the Hornets even without Banchero. The other option is the Heat, but the Pistons seem to be playing pretty well lately, so it's hard for me to decide.