An NBA Scoring Boom, NFL Holiday Picks, 'Landman' Is on Fire, the Return of 'Stranger Things,' and the Future of TV With Kirk Goldsberry, Joe House, Chris Ryan, and Zoe Simmons

What It Covers

Bill Simmons, Kirk Goldsberry, and Joe House analyze the NBA's historic scoring surge — driven by free throw inflation and full-court press adoption — alongside NFL Thanksgiving picks, the Eastern Conference's wide-open playoff race, and a ranking of the most disappointing NBA stars of the past 25 years, covering teams from OKC to Dallas to Miami.

Key Questions Answered

• •NBA Scoring Inflation: NBA teams average 117 points per game in 2024-25, levels unseen since the 1960s pre-three-point era. However, nearly all of the 3.5–4 point per-game increase over last season traces directly to free throws — teams are making 3.1 more per game than last year. Last season, only seven teams averaged 23-plus free throw attempts; this season, 25 teams exceed that threshold, with Orlando leading at 30.7 per game.
• •Full-Court Press as League-Wide Trend: Possessions where defenses pick up ball-handlers behind half-court have risen from 26 per game two years ago to 33 last season to over 40 this season — more than doubling since 2020. Rick Carlisle's 2024 playoff blueprint sparked league-wide adoption. Teams with young, athletic guards like Portland and Boston lead this trend, while the Lakers rank last, lacking the defensive guard depth to execute it.
• •Miami Heat's Screen-Free Offense: The Heat set the fewest screens of any team in the player-tracking era by a wide margin. Bam Adebayo dropped from 27 screens per game last season to just 8. Miami runs a no-pick, rapid ball-movement system designed to attack defenses before they set, ranking first in pace and 12th in offensive efficiency — without Tyler Herro and with Adebayo missing time — while maintaining a top-five defense.
• •Houston Rockets' Rebounding Revolution: Houston leads the NBA in offensive rating while ranking 30th in three-point attempts — inverting conventional spacing wisdom. The Rockets are on pace to set the all-time record for offensive rebounding percentage, recovering over 40% of their own misses. Steven Adams and Alperen Şengün anchor this approach, generating second-chance points that function as some of the most efficient scoring opportunities available in any possession.
• •OKC Thunder's Historic Net Rating: Through 18 games, OKC's net rating exceeds plus-16, surpassing the 1995-96 Bulls' all-time record of plus-13. The Thunder lead the league in defensive rating by 7.9 points — a margin with no modern precedent. FanDuel lists them at plus-880 to break the 73-win record, implying roughly 10% probability. Notably, this performance comes without Jalen Williams for the entire stretch, making the underlying numbers more significant.
• •Eastern Conference Parity: The Eastern Conference has no clear favorite for the first time in roughly a decade. Cleveland, New York, and Detroit form the top tier, with Detroit at 15-2 emerging as a legitimate contender built around the Cunningham-Durham pick-and-roll. Atlanta's best five-man lineup without Trae Young posts a plus-14.8 net rating, and Orlando's core five together sits at plus-19.7, signaling that four or five teams carry genuine Finals potential.
• •All-Time Point Guard Hierarchy: Magic Johnson, Stephen Curry, Oscar Robertson, Bob Cousy, and Isiah Thomas form the consensus top five. The second five includes Chris Paul, John Stockton, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, and Walt Frazier. Tony Parker is flagged as the most underrated all-time — four championships, a Finals MVP, and led the league in paint scoring as a 6'2" guard — while SGA is placed in the second tier of the all-time pyramid, requiring two more strong seasons to move higher.