Guest Sekou Smith is “juiced” about seeing an unleashed Zion Williamson in his sophomore NBA season (Erik Drost/Creative Commons).

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Sekou Smith of NBA TV, NBA.com and the Hang Time podcast returns to the show to survey the ultra-competitive West, a conference replete with fascinating storylines ahead of the season’s start. For instance, should the Lakers be considered heavy favorites, what’s going on in Houston, which teams are best primed to squeeze into the postseason and what can we expect from the Warriors following a lost ‘19-20 season? Sekou tackles all these Western Conference questions and more, plus he offers a bonus Giannis extension reaction and Aaron delivers a Spurs-themed Sexy Stats segment coming out of the break.

*Due to dynamic advertising, time stamps may vary:

7:09-7:38: “To me, there’s a built in advantage for (head coach) T(yronn) Lue in familiarity that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. He’s the kind of human being – knowing him as well as I do – and kind of coach who’s going to be extremely beneficial to the Clippers as an organization. You’re talking about a guy who’s had experience with the pressures that come with a win-or-else proposition like he had with LeBron.”

11:16-11:53: “They’ve changed the expectation for themselves in the postseason, which if you’ve built the way that they have – which I think is some of the best front-office work, roster building, player development we’ve seen in the past few years – then you’re right where you want to be. You’re in that conversation among the best teams in the Western Conference. You have young stars who are entering into their primes. You have even younger potential stars, like Michael Porter. Jr. – Bol Bol being an even bigger reach but certainly with an upside that is really incomparable when you think about his size and skill set.”

19:44-20:16: “Houston is such a difficult team to evaluate because we don’t know, is this the team they’re gonna carry throughout the season, is this the team that’s put together now with James (Harden) bought in or is James committed wholeheartedly at all to sticking around? When you strip all that away, if you start moving pieces and changing things up, then, to me, they fall out of the conversation of teams that are trying to make the playoffs.”

26:03-28:22: “(James) Wiseman, at 7 foot tall with his skill set and what’s gonna be asked of him, potentially could end up being a real linchpin for the Warriors’ chances of making the postseason and then making any noise once they get there. And we only saw, what three games of it at Memphis? So there wasn’t a ton of him to watch in college. I’m still intrigued to see what he can do in today’s NBA. …A lot has to go right, but he’s in a great situation, a great organization that has shown us that they can develop star talent. If he’s not soaking up every second of what’s going on in Golden State right now, he’s crazy.”

31:14-31:47: “I want to see him (Zion Williamson) play 30 minutes a night, just to see if he can sustain what we saw in glimpses during an injury-filled rookie season. He’s a mind-boggling talent when you look at his combination of size, heft and skill. And to me, that is the beauty of NBA seasons and the NBA in general, just watching talent evolve and seeing if it can reach its potential in a given situation.”

33:42-35:06: “I was heartbroken that the Warriors broke down the way they did in the Finals a couple years ago against Toronto. I like to see a champion go down on its shield, but I want to see you go out swinging, and they didn’t really get a chance to swing. … I think the one thing you hold onto if you’re the Warriors is that you’ve built a culture there with Steph(en Curry) as your centerpiece that can withstand a lot of things. … You just have no idea if they have the pieces to crawl, scratch, climb their way back into that upper echelon in the Western Conference right now.”

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Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.