Central Division Preview (with Bryce Simon) | RealGM Radio

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**Wes Goldberg** (1:26)
All right. Welcome to RealGM Radio. Really excited for today's show. We are beginning our division preview series. We've been doing these for years. I took over RealGM Radio for Danny LaRue and I just copied and pasted his format for these division previews because it was so good and it's one of the most popular things that we do around here. My guest today is Bryce Simon. You know him as Motor City Hoops on Twitter. You know him from the Pistons Pulse podcast, the Motor City Hoops substack, the Game Theory podcast with Sam Vasini.
He does great work and I was really excited to invite him on his first time here on RealGM Radio. We're going to talk all about the Central Division. The Detroit Pistons, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Indiana Pacers, the Chicago Bulls, the Milwaukee Bucks, an upside down topsy turvy division. A ton of stuff to talk about. The Pistons were number one in the East last year. Can they repeat? The Cavs had Peyton Watson. The Pacers are going to be back with Tyrese Haliburton adding Ivica Zubac to the mix. Milwaukee and Chicago are going in new and interesting directions and we're very bullish on both of their futures because we like some of the pieces there. We talk all the way through the division. It's a great conversation. You're not going to want to miss it. Let's jump in.
So I think most of the attention right now is going to the Atlantic Division, but I kind of think by the end of the season, the Central Division may end up being the best division in the Eastern Conference. I'll break it down. I have Bryce Simon here. You know him as Motor City Hoops from the Game Theory Podcast with Sam Vissini over at Bluewire, Piston Pulse Podcast, and first timer here on RealGM Radio. Bryce, thanks so much for jumping on, man.

**Bryce Simon** (3:02)
No, thanks for having me. I was excited when I got the invite. I'm excited to talk to Central Division. And as I was doing a little bit of homework in preparation for this, I came to a similar conclusion of, man, the Central Division is kind of competitive, at least at the top, right?
I think everybody can kind of figure out the three teams that are really competing and two teams that are in a little bit different of a situation, but a very fun division.

**Wes Goldberg** (3:27)
So this is our first of our division preview series. I do want to give our listeners a little bit of a breakdown of how we're going to do this. And it's the same way we've been doing it for years now here at RealGM Radio. We're going to review the off seasons for some of these teams. We're not going to go team by team. Instead, we're going to ask the question, who got better, who got worse? We're going to talk about move. Could be anything, a pick, a trade, a signing, an extension, anything that stood out to us for any kind of reason. We're going to name the most impactful newcomer and our most intriguing rookie before we make some predictions. We're going to rank these teams, how they'll finish one through five. We're going to talk about how many teams from this division will make the playoffs and what player we will be discussing differently a year from now. So a bunch of fun things to talk to. Let's just jump right in though.