Prop Points | August 11, 2026

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Prop Points on VSiN, the SportsBetting Network.

**Jeff Erickson** (0:10)
Welcome everybody to Prop Points. Jeff Erickson and Nick Whalen from Roto Wire here with another show for you today. Very excited about it. We got some snippets of the NBA schedule to talk about, including the opener and the Christmas Day schedule is up. Joe Pisapia is going to join us on the progressive guest line. We're going to talk a little baseball and football with Joe.
We're going to do a little Rate That Prop, both baseball and football, and then we'll finish with our Best Bets of the day. We got to splice in some baseball and football news along the way as well. Nick Whalen, how are we doing, my friend?

**Nick Whalen** (0:40)
Look, we got NBA news on a random Tuesday in August, Jeff. So I could not be better. We got some fun training camp news to break down as well. Believe it or not, a starting quarterback has been announced for the Minnesota Vikings. We're not going to tell you who it is, but you can make an educated guess. We'll hit on that in just a bit. But as you eluded to, Jeff, we get the opening night schedule, we get the Christmas Day schedule from the NBA, should have the full schedule now in the coming days. And the thing that jumped out to me first, Jeff, is that we have three games on opening night, or I guess we'll have to call it opening day now, which is Tuesday, October 20th. For some reason, we have decided to add a mid-afternoon Tuesday game between the Celtics and the Pistons to officially open up the season.
I don't really understand why. We'll take it. Traditionally, the NBA has always done the two night games, the two premier games, Celtics, Pistons to me, it's an interesting matchup, right? I think both of these teams made significant changes. Boston specifically this off season, Detroit, still has a lot to figure out as far as what they're going to do with that roster, but ultimately, two of the better teams in the Eastern Conference.
But the big dogs are playing on Tuesday night, Jeff. That's when we get LeBron debuting as a Philadelphia 76er at the New York Knicks at MSG, his favorite place to play. He said it throughout his career. It's a dual revenge game for Ariel Huckporty and Andre Drummond, the backup centers for these two teams, which basically switch sides over the summer. And then, of course, no surprise, this had to be an opening night game, Thunder at Spurs in the lay window.

**Jeff Erickson** (2:13)
Yeah, absolutely. Now, I'm not as deep into the woods about the NBA as you are. I know you can't do like a full like schedule release video like you do for the NFL, just too many games. But, you know, what sort of like do the social media departments get in, you know, deep into the weeds with some of these like highlighted games? Like because you're on this a lot more than I am at this point in time. When I saw this on the outline, like, oh, OK, this is out now.
Do we do we get any of that here? We get the is there the NBA equivalent of the Chargers social media department?

**Nick Whalen** (2:44)
Not really. No, I mean, you'll you'll get the the graphics from the teams involved and things like that. But no, that is that is kind of an NFL specific thing. And I think you said it with the NBA one. You know, the schedule is just structured as it's ready. You you play every team in your division, X number of times, every team in your conference, in the other conference, X number of times. There aren't really surprises and there are too many games, I think, to put together some sort of full length production. So that is specific to the NFL.
The NBA has always made a big deal out of releasing the opening night games and then the Christmas games. But that's really it. The rest of the schedule will trickle out relatively unceremoniously sometime in the next few weeks.

**Jeff Erickson** (3:26)
We're going to have a very busy sports schedule on Christmas Day. There's no pocket there where I can kind of get away.
Maybe if one of the football games is a blowout. But between the NBA and the NFL, we are just jam packed. I'm not sure how I feel about the NFL kind of invading Christmas Day. Actually I know how I feel. I don't like it. But that's maybe just because I'm older, old school at the very least. But starting at noon Eastern, we have eight games to follow between the two sports. Starting the Spurs-Nicks, it's going to be a huge finals rematch, obviously. I think that would almost be a prime time sort of thing there. But the Knicks always get like the early Christmas Day game. So I understand why they have it when they do. But still, it'll be a jam packed day.