AAustin - Thought I'd pipe in with my takes on the major NBA ones (I agree with JBissel):
ESPN's NBA Today with Russillo is pretty awesome.
Strengths: What's great about him is that he really knows his stuff, is able to present things in a really intelligent way, is very logical with how he approaches coverage of the league...AND has a great sense of humor, and the Bill Simmons casual-informal thing going on. A+ podcast, and his discussions/interviews with fellow ESPN'ers Henry Abbot from True-Hoop, as well as Ric Bucher and JA Adande, are unbeatable. His Wednesday night "Tales From the Couch", 30 minutes of him discussing each game/teams from the previous night, going into rants and depth about particular players...is also great.
Weaknesses:The only knock I'd have with Russillo sometimes is his blatant arrogance on the show...which I think he tries to pass off at times as "You guys don't get that I'm doing this on purpose, take a joke" vibe...but, he can kinda be a legit dick at times. While he's great at leading discussions with ESPN cohorts, he's not a very good interviewer with NBA players, coaches, GMs.
BS Report - Might as well be considered an NBA podcast given his obsession with the NBA. Bill Simmons can be a divisive figure, but I've been following him since 2001 when he first came to ESPN's Page 2 and have always been a big fan.
Strengths: always creative in how he thinks about the league, takes the fans perspective seriously, great rapport with guests, awesome interviews with people in NBA circles (David Stern, players, GMs). Has a great respect for the history of the game, and is a total geek in the best way possible with knowing every team/player's financial situation. His "Three-Man-Weave" episodes with Ric Bucher and Marc Stein are probably my favorite NBA anything's to listen to all year.
Weaknesses: Very "flavor of the month" type of thinking, can get so lost in his wacky ideas that he doesn't take into account the reality of a given situation, sometimes doesn't think long term with team projections, doesn't take into account the various ramifications and factors that are involved with serious trades. Too much of a, "It's simple, just do xyz!" approach sometimes.
The Basketball Jones - These guys rock. It's THE perfect fan oriented podcast. J.E. Skeets & Tas Melas are the main two cogs that hold the show down with analysis, Matty and JD pipe in with production and witticisms. Skeets & Tas are basically die hard NBA fans that watch every game, read every box score, and have enough knowledge to be pro analysts on a network...without actually being that. It's real loose and informal, often laugh out loud funny when they go off on tangents, but they really hold it down with legit NBA knowledge, and always present interesting takes on team/player analysis. Skeets and Tas often disagree (which makes for a fun listen), and they are good at presenting both sides of an argument. They also do some pretty hysterical video segments, where they'll do wacky skits or traveling-interviews to talk about NBA teams (three favorites of mine: Ron Arteset crashing the Ron Artest art show, Mad Money/Jim Cramer "Booyah!" treating NBA players like stocks, and their "Like a Bosh" rap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2--uG4QMlA0&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL33F1BADD1514332D).
FreeDarko guys - I don't even remember the name of their podcast, because I gave it about 4-5 tries and then bagged it. Pretty awful. I'm a BIG FreeDarko fan in general...their articles and whacked out tangential humor, weird slants and references to total randomness always gives me a chuckle, and right when you think they are diving into total nonsense land, they always pull back and make a great point about the NBA. But unfortunately their skill with written word does
not translate to audio well. NBA segment, and the