Two Crazy Play-In Games, and 2026 NBA Awards Picks With Kirk Goldsberry and Joe House

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“rewatch, Mom Monday. We did basic instinct.”

It was the live show we did in San Francisco. It was awesome. Had a great time. Even at Craig on stage, we'd five of us.

As you know, I've always complained about five man studio shows.

Five man live podcasts kind of worked Craig picked his spots. We were all passing the ball around really, really good show. Go check it out. Next week, Monday. You have six days to watch us on Netflix. We're doing kindergarten cup in Arnold Schwarzenegger classic. Oh yeah, kindergarten cop coming next Monday. Speaking of podcasts, we released the first two episodes of Legata.

A rare narrative podcast for the ringer. We don't do a lot of these when we do them. We go all in. And this is an amazing story. I don't even know how to describe it, but I'll just say this. If you like Scarface and Miami Vice from the 80s,

if you like cocaine driven, what the F is going to happen next kind of plots. This is the one for you. Just think like, if me and Chris Ryan had created a narrative podcast from scratch,

“we probably would have created this, even though we didn't create this somebody else did.”

But Legata, just go check it out.

It's really, really something. Please listen to it. It's really, really good. I was involved in this one behind the scenes, and I'm really proud of it. So Legata. Speaking of things, I'm proud of. I got Joe House to stay up late on the East Coast with Kirk Goldsbury,

down in Texas to react off the two playing games, Charlotte Miami, and Portland Phoenix, and then House left, and we go in a time machine. We go backwards in time. Yeah, backwards in time to earlier this afternoon when Kirk Goldsbury and I did our awards pick, including my MVP, which is at the tail end.

So if you care about who I pick for MVP, something I changed by mind on, 430 times over the weekend, that is at the tail end of the podcast saved it for last, like a big fat dessert. So that is coming up next, we're going to take break, and then bring in Pearl Jam, and then Kirk and House late night Tuesday after two play games.

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandle. The NBA postseason is here in Fandle.

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Game probably caught 100 gambar call. 888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut. All right, we're recorded in this part of the podcast at 953pm. It is presented by new era.

Thanks to them. Kirk Goldspir is here. He's also coming up later because we did on BA. Joe House staying up super late on the East Coast.

I've never been proud of you.

What did you have? Like an RB's for us beef. What happened? No, no, no, no. I don't need that.

I have a little bit of coffee. But I live on the fuel of Danny Abda. You guys did your all NBA. I can't wait to hear it. I'm here.

Oh, wait. For my guy. Look, I'm in my hat right here. We're putting that man's number in the rafters. The best Washington player in the last 15 years.

Give that man his flowers. I'll tell you this much. We aren't allowed to do this. But I'm going to do it. We argued about the last 13 spot in our NBA.

Much later in the podcast. And I said, I was going to give it to Scotty Barnes. And that I couldn't quite get there with Danny because he hadn't. You know, barely played enough games on this stuff. But after watching tonight, Kirk, I'm just going to change my vote.

Dude, the NBA is doing this to us or for us. I'm not sure, but they've given us another set of games to reevaluate our team. The reevaluate our choices. Yeah. Traditional.

The refaving. Traditionally, our votes would have been due by now. Instead, we're watching a con con Apple. We'll get to there. But yeah, Danny obviously playing one of the games of the year for him.

And making us rethink where he should be in these awards. Unbelievable. He was awesome. It seemed like at various points house.

They were just going to go up by 20. Then it seemed like the game was over with the sons that they just bullied. Paul Portland, Portland couldn't hit a shot. And I was watching, I love Portland tonight. I was really confused because I've been watching Portland the last couple months.

And it was the first time I thought they looked a little spooked.

Yeah. And it was kind of like, you know, once they started really like, hey, Danny, you're not driving to the basket anymore. We're throwing five bodies in front of you. And it was like, okay, who's stepping up?

Who's going to step up with this Portland team? It turned out to be the much malign Jeremy Grant. A staple of our worst contract straps with big laws every year. Hit a couple of big threes. And then I've the idea to go over late.

But how how did you let this guy go? I still don't understand. Well, I mean, I'm not going to go through the full recitation. What was going on. It's a true story that his ascendants timeline was.

Didn't line up with the tank effort. So I understand they could have got more. That's the only quibble. We're not going to talk about Washington.

“The most important thing setting aside the hyperbole is that for a lot”

of these guys, this is the most important game they've ever played in their entire basketball

life. Like, I defy you to find another game for Danny Abdiah. That was more important for him than this game. This moment, this stage, this franchise. His identity of this franchise.

His rise right now. And the same is true of some of those guys. You know, in Charlotte tell me a game that Lamello Balls played and his entire basketball life. His whole basketball life.

That was more important than tonight's game. Right. And, you know, it's a fair comparison to make. You had Danny with an incredibly efficient 15 of 22 for 41 points, 12 and 7. And, you know, we'll get to Lamello in due time.

Yeah, yeah. He ended and get a couple of calls too. So, you know, Portland played all the hits, Kirk. They threw a scoot out there.

A little hope with the scoot stop there for a second.

We saw some title. Yeah. We saw little Robert Williams clinging. Center thing. I mean, big picture before we talk about the game.

Now, we have San Antonio versus Portland. And if I'm saying Antonio, I'm beating probably either of those teams pretty handling. I'm sure they're huge favorites. But I would have much rather played Phoenix. Portland, at least, has two big centers that put on Wemby.

They have a guy who's really comfortable and really good at getting to the basket and Danny, although trying to get to the basket against Wemby, it's interesting. True how it is been there before. I don't think it's a sweep. This is my point.

“I think Portland will always make a work a little bit, right?”

Yeah, I'm happy for the Portland fans to have some playoff games up there. That'll be cool. But yeah, this is the 23 ranked offense since the all star break. But it's the third ranked defense. They're going to be tough to score on.

And if one of the things I'm worried about is the spurs guy is the ability for these young guards to shoot their threes. We've both been really positive about them as the season's gone on about getting better. But the playoffs have a way of making teams cool off. We saw that with the Charlotte game tonight too.

So yeah, I think that Portland defense is really, really playoff ready. And then like we saw tonight, Denny can go out there and win a game. Like 41 and 12, you kid me? Yeah, the Portland at that. Green was how many green took 29 shots house?

Yeah. What's the right number for Jalen Green, field goal attempts in a playing game? I'm going to say about 17. I don't think it's 17. What really kind of revealed itself is this overachieving son's team.

They just think to have a talent deficit. And that's not a knock. Like this was supposed to be kind of a transition rebuilding year. Yeah. To wash out the horrendous taste that was left in their mouth from what they tried last year.

And it turned out that like chemistry matters.

“The book of basketball, the secret that I learned from the book of basketball is like chemistry matters.”

Yeah. And lo and behold, here we just watched it. But you know, they couldn't at the end of the day outscore. Portland, because Portland had had one guy that was unstoppable. Yeah.

And you know, they play Gillespie less because they're playing those three guards together. I thought Brooks was pretty awesome in this game. Yeah. Phoenix had a couple. Hey, we've been in games like this before guys who who felt like it.

And from the Portland side, I was really just through holiday. Was the only guy who seemed like really comfortable in the game. But it's a weird Phoenix team. And if I'm golden state. Maybe less the clippers side at the Quippers game to game who knows. But if I'm golden state, I'm like, look, if we can get by this goofy Quippers team tomorrow night somehow, Kirk.

We can be Phoenix too, right?

We can get in the dance. We have Steph. Our horse, it's coming back. Ah, who knows?

“We know we're going to have Steph and you're dying to get Steph bad.”

There's no bad. They see. Oh, oh. You might get teamly suck. Get a full win team in the playoffs.

How's that's what we need? Steph Curry and the playoffs is something we all want. I would say whoever wins that that at nine ten game in the West should feel pretty good about their opponent in Phoenix. That's a team that I thought the wrong guy took 29 shots. I would rather than be to been Devon Booker.

Um, I'm fine with Jalen Green taking 29 shots in a world where Devon Booker is hurt. But in a world where Devon Booker is fine. I wanted him to take 29 shots house. Has to see how many he took? 10.

That's the issue. There you go. Well, no, no, that Booker ended up with team. Oh, I'm sorry. Dylan Brooks had 10.

That's the thing. That's the thing, right? Take nine of Jalen Green shots. And let's have Dylan, Dylan Brooks take them. Dylan Brooks just goes where every goes is to win.

He's a winner.

His team always has a positive defensive rating.

Just delivers wins anywhere that he goes. Let that man takes some shots. He's been in big games. He's also a very hard guy to appreciate. And so he ends up fouling out in the game.

“I think you could argue he could have found that in every quarter.”

He had 14,000 tremendous. He's doing that thing on offense to or he's just like bulldozing people with the shoulder. And they're just like, wow, we didn't call that in the first quarter. I guess we have to let that keep going now. Phoenix was, they set these, these moving picks just constantly.

That they are really good at getting away with. There's a couple of teams that only occurred great at that. Did you feel like Phoenix blew this game or Portland won it if you had to pick one of those two sides? Well, the home team, the home team with more of the bets, the more the playoff experience guys. Again, I would argue coming into this game with all due respect to Denny.

Devin Booker has been to the finals. They have the home port. They have that guy. They should have won it. Yeah.

And then when Portland went cold, Bill. I was already writing notes like this offense. This wasn't good enough down the stretch of Denny doesn't have it going. Nobody else could do anything. So there was a moment early in the fourth quarter.

I was like, Phoenix is going to walk away with this thing. We're going to start the podcast early. Yeah. And then Jeremy Grant hits those threes. And then Denny gets going.

Obviously fouls dill and out with that Ann won. And here we go. So yeah, I feel like Phoenix blew this chance to just get the seven seed tonight. House, which we're excited you on. I'm on the Portland took the game.

Like to come back from eight to ten with four, five minutes left. Um, and take the game with some big threes, some big drives to the basket. Some really good defense. I thought, come on on Booker was awesome down the stretch. They were doing everything they could to try to switch him off.

But I felt like Portland took the game. So how's your the tiebreaker? What do you say? I agree with the idea that the Portland took the game.

And they did hit that stretch in the third quarter.

When Kirk was taking his very salient notes about the in effectiveness of their offense through eight minutes and 30 seconds in the fourth quarter. They had 22 points in the entire second half. Yeah. Yeah.

The teen through you know, the entire third quarter. And then before points in the fourth. Um, but when Denny came back into the game right around that eight minute Mark eight 15 minute mark. He came in immediately got an Ann won.

Got the technical on Dylan Brooks. And that that really started tipping thing. This never works. You know, we have to like this. They get the seal clap for five straight seconds.

That's going to get a technical. You go through it. It's 22 minutes for Mark Williams with for four points and four rebounds.

“I have to say that remember him playing right with the out there.”

It's 24 minutes for Roy so Neil was seven points. It's 23 minutes for Oso with three points. Yeah. This is the problem for Phoenix. They have a talent deficit.

And that's not a knock on them. It's just. Who they are. Jordan Goodwin 29 minutes like okay. Okay.

Good job. Yeah. Portland's pretty good, man. I don't be. They'll be a frisky seven.

So do we call them a seven seed? What's the real here? I guess they're a seven seed now. Yeah. They're the role.

They're the seven seed. They're the seven seed Bill. They're the eight seed playing in the two seven match up. Are they just now the seven seed? They're now the seven seed.

- In the last town. - Did the rock score happen? - They earned it. - Does this spot score exist? Does Denny have these numbers go up?

- No, right. - They just put it over on the side.

Like an area with the area, the alien area. - Area 51. - Yeah, it's in there. - Area 51. - Area 51. - Area 51. - It's house court in the area 52. - Area 51 for Denny. - There you go.

There was like two moments in this game where I was like, fucking scoot, and it's gonna happen tonight. It's happening tonight. - Here we go. - And it just did not happen. All right, we talked about that game enough.

Share it by Amy. - It wasn't the game of the air, it was the drunk game of the air. This game was drunk. - Amazon got drunk. - Oh, right. - Amazon started doing shots in the fourth quarter and glitched out in O.T.

When it was 123 to 120, and Charlotte had the ball with 30 seconds left, and we had a soprano's moment, and it just goes away. This game was full of unbelievable shots, massive, massive brain farts, and at the center of all of it was the mellow ball. Who inexplicably injured Bam out of bio and might be suspended for Friday.

Like, let's keep an eye on that. - He missed 14-3's Kirk. - Oh, God. - That's gotta be at least a play in record. I don't know if it's an MBA record, but it's at least a play in record. There's multiple times where they had a lead, especially in O.T.

There are five, like two and a half minutes left, and they're running basically the four corners, and then doing a grenade shot with a second left. I thought Lamelo just had some horrific moments in this game. Like, horrific moments that make you wonder,

is this guy just never getting it, ever?

“What is up with the decision-making, and then what happens?”

After he throws the ball away to lose the lead on a foul Tyler Hero, which he commits for 3-3's, because they come out of a timeout, and he makes an awesome driving layup to win the game. How's he was the player of the game and the least valuable player in the game,

all in the same game? - Well, I mean, it's hard to be fair with this game, because of BAM going out. So my inclination is to give my Emmy flowers for just fighting their asses off all the way through.

It's really befuddling. I'd love to get inside that locker room and get some intel on. When Tyler Hero came back, why couldn't Tyler Hero and Norm Powell be on the basketball floor together at the same time? They couldn't, it was one of the worst defensive combinations

over the last stretch of games. And Miami's defense of braiding suffered mightily, because of those two guys being on the floor at the same time. I'd love to understand what was going on. - Well, no, so Norm played 19 minutes tonight,

and the entire second half had a look on his face,

like I feel like I've lost $30 million in fridge, so just tonight.

This sucks. I'm really bad.

“- What's happening? - I think it's my edge.”

- Yeah, it was bad. - Because the first half of the season for Miami, he was awesome. It was like, how could the clippers possibly have let him walk for so little? - Currently, but you have to do it.

- Fuck it. - Yeah. - Eric Buster, are we sure he's good? - Oh, no, I mean, to your first point, Bill, you nailed it. And Spot was fired up after the game, and the play, which was just a weird play.

I mean, it almost looked like the mellow hit is head. He's just grabbing, but that was the moment. That's the moment we'll remember from this game. And I hate that I'm saying that, but it's crazy as the finish was. Like, that's Miami's best player.

He's out. That sucked. And then you tell me that the number one and two three point shooters this whole season are a con canipple and lamellable. Not for Charlotte, for the whole NBA.

And these guys combine to go two for 22. And you're telling me that Charlotte still's going to win that game. - Tom Breeze. - Tom got benched. - Tom, but they didn't say he was hurt. It was just a flat out, you don't have it tonight.

You're 20 years old, the lights were a little bright. Have a seat. - And Diabote, too. So like, I look at Charles Lee as like the MVP of this game. So con canipple is minus 20 and 34 minutes.

Diabote is minus 17 in 36 minutes. Little mellow ball plus 15 in 40 minutes. - I'm sure it's minus 14 in the 13 minutes he sat. - Yeah.

“- I think Charles Lee finishing with bridges,”

Brandon Miller, the mellow ball. And Kobe White, obviously. - And Grant Williams. - He went a little small with GW as the fifth guy. - Can I give you guys my theme of the night?

- Yeah. - Bad teams give away good players too soon. Kobe White, Davey on Mitchell, Denny Advia. We're all on different teams. A few years ago, they gave up on these dudes.

They were the stars tonight, right?

He played 48 minutes. That's one of the reasons. I'm proud to see the floor.

“Davey on was playing electric basketball”

and both ends of the court. Obviously Kobe White comes over from Chicago. Zack low as the great bit bill.

Chicago and Sacramento should never be allowed to trade again.

Well, we benefited from their trades again tonight. Watching those guys play. So, and then obviously Denny and the first game. But, look, Kobe White was fucking awesome, man. And I was electric watching him.

And I know La Mella made the play that sealed the game. But Kobe hit some big boy shots down the stretch for Charlotte to save their season. - That was the trade of the year. They gave him some Amazon Prime award.

He had some necklace with the plays on it. They should have given him an apology for the stream going out with those. - You know, we're having us in a apology. You could have not damn basketball game being played

in fucking Phoenix at the same time. And they're doing necklace giving. There's a fucking basketball game that's being played. Points for Phoenix scored in Phoenix, Arizona. - I couldn't believe that either.

The other thing with Amazon, the entire year,

the audio has been a split second ahead of the video.

Half of the Amazon games we've watched. - The three pointers halfway toward the basket. It's like bang, it's good. You heard the crowd. It's like the balls that we got in yet.

- How many of them have figured this out? You guys have eight-conjillion dollars. - They can send a tech bro to the moon, but they can't fucking broadcast a basketball game without technical difficulties.

I haven't seen a technical difficulty slide on a basketball game. And since I was 12 years old, bro. - Oh, and this is Amazon, come on guys. - And they have the play and, you know,

they've done a good job with the studio show, they've resubinated stamping on you for me. - I did not like him as an announcer in the three-man booth, on TNT and I would get bummed out if he was doing a selfie game.

Like it was at that level of me.

“I think he's been out standing this season”

in the two-man with I&Eagle. I've had it at a great job today, laying out all the storylines, what was happening, having a feel for, even like the carnival thing.

You know, I think at one point he said something like how long are you gonna stay with him, which is like, he's the third best part in the team. And as somebody that's watch way too many Hornets games this year, he started out slow like that in games.

And then he hits, it's a lot like Clay. He hits one, three, and he's fine.

It's just he never hit the three.

And you can see him starting to lose the confidence, but Kobe White to Kirk's point saved it. I have no idea how he wasn't worth the first round pick. I don't know what happened. I don't know where the rest of the league was.

He was an expiring contract making like, I don't know, $14 million or something. He goes, ends up going back home to Charlotte, where he's from. He went to college there.

He's gonna resign there.

“And this team, there are big guy away house.”

Like you could feel it today. - Yeah, yeah. - And Diabate has been good in some games. Other games he looks like he did tonight. And they're just missing that one.

It can't be Grant Williams. It's gotta be somebody better. - Yeah, and we kind of had that appraisal at the beginning of the season. One of our rare, big W's was Charlotte,

our forecast for Charlotte this season, was it was some success? We thought Conn was gonna be helpful and the big question Mark was, what are they gonna do at the big position?

I was impressed, I will say. You're looking for guys that under the bright lights, we just gave Kobe White the flowers that he deserves. Not to me, the Kobe White addition to that team right guy, right situation,

right price, right place. Everything about it is situational for him. That's success. But you look at what Miles Bridges did and you look at what Brandon Miller did.

Those three guys, they combined. They were 15 for 28 from three. That freaking Charlotte team shot 56 got three boys. And those guys really saved their ass. And every time Bridges or Miller or Kobe White touch the ball,

I was like those are the adults in the room. And that's really, to me, more than anything, that testament to Brandon Miller. He's the youngest guy in that group. And he's the guy that developmentally

who needs to be, you know, carrying the water there. I don't wanna talk about the metal ball. I really, I don't, there's no kind words that can come out of my mouth. 31, effing attempts, 31 and 12 for 31, 2 for 16 from 3. And a lot of it was clown ball.

He's getting, it's a clown car full of limelow balls. Look at the clown getting out of the left side. Oh, it's limelow. Look at the clown climbing out of the trunk. Oh, it's limelow. Look at the clown jumping through the front. Oh, that's limelow.

Look at the three point attempt from distance side to logo. That's the limelow clown climbing out of the right side of the car.

We took like a 35 footer at one point. It's frustrating because he's so talented. And you're the leader of the team, you're the point guard.

They don't have BAM. He's out in the second half.

And I felt like any time he wanted it, it just felt like he could get to, into the pain or get to the rim. Like he's, they weren't staying in front of him. And Kirk, he was just settling for these step-back 28 footers when none of his threes were going in.

It's like, go to the rim. The one thing Miami does not want you to do is to go to the basket. And every time one of the threes and he didn't do, there was one big reason he didn't. That was Colelle Werd, who was playing awesome basketball.

He had five block shots, played 42 minutes without BAM out there. He had some, one of those blocks he had where he caught the ball was a clear goal 10, the roughs mess that was pretty shocked. They missed it. But yeah, dude, I, I don't know whether to be impressed by the two of 16,

the fact that he kept shooting those threes when he obviously didn't have it.

And then when he needed to drive to the basket, it was almost more frustrating.

Made the game winning drive. Like you could have done that. Like Denny did down the stretch of this other game. But that's the lack of experience though.

“And that's what, like, right, the older players who, who know,”

who've been in this situation. So like, to me, a good example is J. L. Brown in the Celtics. Like getting game like that, he just would have started going in the rim. Get to the basket. Oh, where is your last center?

I'm just going to start attacking him and making him challenge me to try it. They just, they didn't have the wherewithal to do some of that smart playoff team stuff. Because none of those fun guys have been in a playoff game. Great length, it was the only way to do it. Yeah, the hero almost stole a Reggie Miller style down the stretch

with one of the great sequences. And, but yeah, doesn't it feel like both of the inexperienced teams? Like when I started seeing hero get go in at the end, and just bow on the sideline, and, you know, Andrew Wiggins, who's won an NBA championship bill,

I started to feel like, okay, Miami's just going to win this game. This is an infrastructure D&A game. I was furious. I just thought that the game was going to go that way too. I thought the Phoenix had that advantage in the other game.

And we saw both sort of young, weird teams figure it out at the last second

and get over the hump. But yeah, for Charlotte, man, they got a lot of learning to do that. Pass that lamello through. Oh, man. It could have ended their season in the same way that the Duke turned over.

Right. Who was that? Who shot the Cated Booser? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Cated Booser turned over and did that season.

It was very reminiscent of a player under pressure who hadn't been there before, just making a bone-headed play. Well, we had House. We had three awards or LNBA spots that might have swung tonight. Because there might have been somebody who was, like, multiple people, like, I don't know

who to pick between flag and con. Yeah, punk tonight. Oh, screw it. I'm going to take flag. That's that's diabolical.

“I really, I think Hacca's for sixth man in the year, which we do this later in the show.”

And Kirk has killed in Johnson's spoiler alert and I have Hacca's. And now Hacca's who I didn't think was very good in the game and then had the biggest defensive fuck up at the end. He didn't, he just let the low go buy him. I don't know what he was doing.

He wasn't playing sixth man. He was playing as a starter because BAM wasn't in the goddamn lineup. I mean, this is the thing that I want to criticize some of the end of the game stuff for Miami. I mean, Kirk was talking about Tyler Hiro, well, I didn't love a lot of it.

It felt like the same hero ball that we saw really at the end of game's last year as well, where this Miami team goes into now again, no BAM. So it's not really fair to criticize, but they get, they turn one dimensional. I know you know what's fair to criticize, you know what's fair to criticize. So they, Charlotte, ties it on the crazy Kobe way three.

We had two crazy threes at the end of regulation OT, one from Hiro and OT, one from Kobe but they tie it time out. Miami has 13 seconds to set up a play. I think Grant Williams was the center for Charlotte Kirk. Yeah. So what does Miami get?

Hey, what's trying to get a 27 footer from from Hiro at the end of the, at the end of the, like, how is that your play? That's bad position. Get to get to the basket. Go to the basket.

There's 10 seconds left. Make one pass. Yeah, make every fucking set of eyes on the basketball court is looking at the guy with the ball. Nobody's eyes have to shift one time because the guy with the ball dribble to the mother

F and ball the whole time, I, I just can't, it makes me lose my shit.

“Well, here's the thing, I don't feel bad for Miami because they were the 10 seed.”

I didn't think they were a playoff team and they were who we thought they were in a lot of ways with that said, the BAM thing stuck.

For the series? Yeah. Oh, God.

San Antonio's mine is 490.

Oh, no. Mine is 1350. Oh, let's see. Watch. Watch.

Watch. Yeah. Wow. What would you like to? What do you think?

The first sweepers. I mean, that's, that's preposterous.

“You know what, I guess the spur sleep, sweep odds, I, I don't want to guess.”

I can't. Mine is 1350, that's the one odds for the sweeper. Yeah. That's crazy. Spurs when 4 to 1 is plus 190 on F and I'm betting that it's the, the, the problem with

1350 is, he applied, applied concept there is that Wemby will play all the games and that's right. That, that doesn't really line up with our recent experience. I would like for him to play all the games, I want him to be healthy for all the games. It may not make sense for him to play all the games.

He may yet still need some rest. So, I assume he's playing all the games. You know, who's going to be playing against him, though. That, I've been playing in a Robert the two games for the guys who combined 2 for 12 for 4 points tonight.

Those guys. Clingon's feisty man, he'll, he, he will take this personally, he knows he have 12 fouls. They definitely have 12 fouls.

“I think Zach Low is the first person to point this out.”

Clingon looks exactly like Gunther, the WWE superstar. He's going to Gunther it up against Wemby. There's going to be some high elbows and some shoves and Clingon's like kind of a bad ass. He's, he's, he's, he's, he's going to deal in books and T3.

Yeah, he's the ground. He's going to break it up to do that. Yeah. I have, I have a question that's going to send a, a chill down your spine. I thought about this later in the Charlotte game.

These young, carefree, awesome regular season teams or these stretches, built around the young guys. Yeah. Great, this is, and then the old guys and inside the NBA come on, it'll be like, Barkley does, uh, I don't know, I don't, I want to see it in the playoffs.

Um, I'm like, all right, settle down. They're offensive rating was this, blah, blah, blah, and then the playoffs come in the lights are nice and hot, bright, and all of a sudden that wide open, that first wide open three didn't go in and then your second one didn't come in. And now, like you can see with con today's like rethinking, I made 275.

5 of these and I don't know if I want to shoot this, the spurs have a few guys in that team that the lights might get a little bright, right, from 24 feet, you thinking about that at all? 100%. I mean, these guys are 21, 22, you know, and Dylan Harper's case, 19 or whatever, like, yeah,

of course. Uh, you just hope that Harrison Barnes and Darren Fox and Julian Champenney from these guys, here's the Barnes is my mentalist and a world champion, here's the odds, yes. So he is an MBA champion and a goal, but yeah, there's some vets there, but I think it is fair to say.

And I don't think that's going to come up in a portal in series with Denny, who, by the

way, has never seen this stuff or, you know, Drew Holiday has, I'll give that to him.

But yeah, I think both of these teams, Tiago Splitter is going to be really coaching his first play of series and so is Mitch Johnson. Um, yeah, I think you're worried about that. If you're a spurs fan, we haven't seen it. And the other thing I'd say Bill Simmons is the rules change.

“Remember, last year how jarring it was once we got into the postseason, what is the contact?”

What are the contacts allowances anymore? This was a foul for six months. Now it's not a foul anymore. How is that going to date? How is that going to affect Wemby to house his point about his fragility, his durability?

And just the inexperience with that, that kind of physicality that we're going to see here in the next few months. I can't wait. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought through by Fandle. The NBA playoffs are here in the form of the play in tournament, which goes out for half

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Connecticut. All right, listen up, Ralph's King Supers, Harris Teter, Food for Less, Kruger, many more.

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You got there yet, mental. Oh, I'm there now. Do you have an upset for us yet? Tonight was the night.

No, because the first round is not lining up, the team that I feel like, you know, Atlanta

could give the nicks some trouble. That's the only one where I really feel like, you know, I don't think the unless there's some miracle happening with Lucas, visit to where do you go Italy, the line's kind of doing this. I don't know if you notice the series line hits, it's going this way a little bit.

Lakers now, plus 530 or plus 590, I can't see because one of my contacts is working plus 530. He used to not minus 750, they used to be minus 900, I mean, to me, the lakers are smashed by at that price. I'm probably not betting it.

Yeah, I honestly think you're right. It's what it's the playoffs are two and a half weeks, basically round one, they'll stretch

it out, even if it's 2-1 after 3 and then they could potentially get luka back for the

last couple and you know, you know, I said this to Zack the night, there's going to be the 55 free throw game. That's happening. Just tensile that one in, but yeah, if they could even if they're down 3-2 heading in the game 6, but Lucas back, I don't trust that Houston team, no, I know you guys don't

trust that Houston team. No, not even a little bit. So then the other weird thing that happened, we had the 910 game before we had the 7-8 game in the East. So we have Philly tomorrow, and that line is moved, I love Philly today, Philly was like

minus 1 and a half today, it's up to minus 2 and a half. I really like Philly in that game, whereas Clippers just see by and as well, bet on two drunk guys having a fight in downtown O.A., I've no idea what's going to happen in that game. But Magic Sixers, who do you think, who do you think, Charlotte's rooting for in this game?

Kirk Goldspirre. Oh, Orlando, I don't know if you sell the rumors on the internet today, but there's turmoil in the magic locker. Head coach Jamal Mosley, they're re-evaluating his future no matter what.

“No, I think your beloved Celtics bill really put a put them into a funk heading into”

these playoffs. Without a question, I think it's got to be Charlotte Routin' to see Orlando who has been a complete mess over these last few weeks. And I just don't know if their offense can keep up with Charlotte on an average Charlotte night.

We saw Charlotte with a really below average night tonight beat a pretty good opponent. So if they just get back to average, I don't know if Orlando will keep up. So I would say, the Orlando Magic House, hmm, I don't know.

The problem is how to get to Frenic, the magic have been, they are the more healthy team.

For sure. We don't have any confidence whatsoever in Mosley, but the problem is in the bright light that's maybe those guys all come together. Maybe they're the nobody believes in us team. They were supposed to win 50 games this season.

They grossly underachieved, but like Desmond Bane doesn't want to look go out looking like a bitch and Talon, Talon wherever he ends up, whether he's on Orlando or not. He doesn't want to go out looking like Milwaukee, etc.

“Yeah, I mean, I don't know man, so I think we should never Orlando.”

We both bet on there was a Saturday game where Filly played in Charlotte and really kind of bullied them and took it to them. And if I'm sure that I don't want to play them, I didn't like that, I didn't like how that game went for them. I thought they were really physical with their guards, I thought they were physical with

Khan, I thought their physical with the mellow, I just, I didn't like the matchup. I want to play the magic for all the reasons Kirk mentioned as well in the magic locker room. There was something this week about a team was anxiously waiting to talk to Jamal Mosley, this this summer, what was that story? Who's the team?

I'm blanking. There's one of the things that need a coach, it was like the Taipei Tigers, the, yeah, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, said that he was excited to talk to, oh New Orleans, that's what it was.

That's between the teams we mentioned in New Orleans, those are the same teams to be. If you had to pick where his Cooper as well would you do has not to step on ring or gambling show tomorrow, uh, take the clippers Kirk, uh, is, what's the Warriors injury report? We're getting Porzinga's hand or third and curry. I'm going to this one tomorrow night.

The clippers are interesting because when they play garland and coi together, they're really good. All of the minutes with those two guys on the floor, really good. Garland's the only guy in the team who can dribble.

“All you have to do when Garland's done out there is just press and trap whoever, just try”

to get the ball because they'll give it to you. They don't have a backup center. Their swings kind of are hit or miss. The crowd's going to have a ton of Warriors fans there.

This is the always the biggest issue with clipper games.

This is, you're going to have 5,000 Warriors fans there and there's a real energy of Steph Gets going. So it's weird, I would either pick the Warriors to win or to lose by 20. I don't think there's any in between. I think they either get blown out or they win.

I don't think, but it's close game, I think they win it. Is there any conspiracy bill? We don't want the clippers in the playoffs, uh, anything like, oh, we do want Steph Curry in the playoffs. That could be it.

Wow, I'm not conspiracy bill. I'm just a guy over here. House. I'm going to put my good conspiracy bill. Very on. Do it.

Conspiracy bill did notice. We did not see Scott Foster today. Now wait, on the one hand, Steph Curry, on the other hand, the team that was in broke and some sort of weird aspiration. I don't want to call to scandal, whatever it was for for a long time.

Well, keep that gear conspiracy head on. What did we say was the going to be the funniest possible outcome of the lottery when the ping-pong balls get dropped because the clippers lose than they're in the lottery. But they don't have a pick, right? Get out of the pick.

Yeah. Who has the pick? Okay. See has the pick. Yeah.

We don't have. So, okay, see gets, yeah, the clippers win the lottery, but okay, see gets the pick. I forgot to mention, there was another outcome in that Portland game because they made the playoffs, they lose their pick. I think to Charlotte.

So Charlotte gets a pick in the mid first round and if you've been following this draft

at all, somebody really good is going to fall to the middle of the first round and this NBA draft and it's going to be a point card and it's going to be like the kid from Alabama who just goes 16, 17 because everybody has a point card, nobody need to take them. So that picks like not nothing.

“I think Charlotte was the one that that has it.”

I am really excited for tomorrow. Zach Poupoud, my love of just seeing Steph Curry playing and any sort of a game that means anything. The minutes limit is weird, the fact that the other game is going to be the seven eight game is also kind of weird.

We'll see how it goes. How's before we go, you want to give us your MVP pick? I would be SGA for me if I got to, if I was lucky enough to have about I would vote for SGA. Who would be your number two?

The Joker. Would be three? Yeah, without hesitation or reservation. Who would be your all NBA fifth spot? If Luca doesn't qualify and fails his weird appeal and we have the three guys we just mentioned

in J. Limbrown and the fifth spot could be their Mitchell or Bronson or somebody else. Who would you put in there? I think I would put Mitchell in there because he kind of held that team together. Um, until Harden arrived and they made the push that they made. And for, yeah, for fourth and fifth MVP, would you have J Limbrown, fourth, fourth seems

fair? Sure. With no Luca? Yeah, with no Luca for sure. Absolutely.

And who would be the fifth spot for you?

Because this is something else we argue about in the next second.

You could have Mitchell. You could have Bronson. You could have Coli.

“It probably have to be Bronson for me, honestly.”

Okay. Probably Bronson. House, later, we're going to send you in a soundproof chamber and later on, you'll hear if your picks match the picks of me or Kirk Goldspary. Who do you have for rookie of the year, by the way?

Come. It's not even close. No. It's not even close. I mean.

It's funny how some air aligned. I just cannot cannot under any circumstance.

Like, this is not a who's, I'm going to use, say, somebody did the kill Alexander Walker

when it, thankfully. No, Michael Carter, William State.

“That's the one I think it was a hiking guy.”

Yeah, sit. Yeah. Like, how are you? How are you against hiking guys when in these awards? What's your problem?

I just knew there was a hiking guy that won rookie of the year because we couldn't come up with the answer to who the rookie of the year should be. That's not this year. Just the Dallas is a disaster, that was an absolute, what we were doing is saying, this

19 year old did things that a teenager shouldn't do.

That's great. I don't have any issue whatsoever, show me the winning basketball. I need to see the winning basketball. That's the part of it that's missing. Yeah.

And if it's a bad rookie of the year year and we're not comparing the winning stuff at

“all, then it's just like, all right, who played the best in a shit situation?”

Yeah. Then you can say, OK, let's do the counting numbers. Let's do, let's do rebounds of system points. But that's not this year. And I think the force, the force multiplier effect of Knipple on this Charlotte team, the settling

effect of his coming in and being so efficient with the threes, that to me, flag will get his flowers, flag deserves flowers. But how can you make any assessment of shit numbers on a shit team? Like I said, what you're saying is he is the best 19 year old, where we have rankings for that.

There's other ways to capture that, not rookie of the year in the NBA. I'd just like to apologize to Kathy Flagg for houses and flamatory comments. And I hope she's still a friend of the pot. My last year before we made fan. I love flag.

We'll say there's been some strange movement in these newfangled betting markets over the last six hours on that rookie of the year. So we could be living in a world where Luke is protest. Luke is what is it called, not a protest, it's a appeal. This appeal process may have changed the outcome of this award if those market maneuvering

the movements in these markets are to be trusted. Cooper has had some positive movement over the last six hours. Hey, last question before we go. Cause how's he didn't come on and talk about this? Worry McElroy went back to back masters.

He sure did. He played the masters two years in Rome was the best guy each time. This is a thing that happened. Only four times in the history of the golf tournament, there's been, it's been around for 90 years.

The other three guys to do it were Tiger Woods, Jack Nicholas and Sir Nick Faldo. Three of the all time great. Kurt. I mean, if we had started the decade, 2020 starts the decade, right? That January 1st, 2020.

We started the decade and think about the things that have happened this decade, including a pandemic and Trump winning reelection and named 17 crazy sports things. Worry winning back to back masters would have been way, way up there, way up there. I honestly not, I have to push back a tiny bit because that's a back master's.

Well, I mean, but here's the thing.

That's like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicholas shit. Yeah. It is that. And he, he earlier in his career, look like that's the trajectory he was on. What truly makes him, the figure that he is in this sporting moment is that there was a

10 year gap between him winning majors. He went on this incredible drought and the pressure bill and the pressure bill.

“And that's why last year's master's resonated across the world in terms of sporting, you”

know, golf fandom and sports fandom because he overcame something that felt insurmountable and even during the course of the round last year in 2025, he damn near lost it three or four different ways. So this year was like a validation of the true caliber of, you know, a legacy, a legacy kind of mark that he put down.

Kurt, my favorite part of the masters other than betting on Justin Rose and thinking that he was going to win the masters and then he just turned into a pumpkin on the night pole. Scotty Shepherd kind of thought's Mike. He kind of sucked the whole tournament and he was like minus 11. It was a clip of watching somebody put up a 35 11 and 12 not making a shot from outside

like. It was like watching the mellow ball like he struggled all game and he just got a stats was unbelievable.

No. I can't abide it. Yes. Fair enough.

Let me come back around Scotty Shepherd went to the University of Texas and studied

this business school that I teach and we are huge Scotty fans.

“I thought the same thing Bill, he is playing terrible and that's how good he is right”

now. He played a terrible way. From his standards, all of his drives were crazy. Every time he needed a big shot, he hit it off into the woods. He missed a birdy put that would have, I thought, really put the pressure on.

And I want to say the 12th or 13th hole in that stretch of holes house where they all gained ground. He had a chance. I was rooting for him the whole time. I still think he is the best goal for in the world but hats off the road.

It was a great Sunday at the master's. It was a great weekend of the world. It was really fun. I was happy to see it. But now I'm ready for the NBA playoffs Bill.

How I love watching great athletes struggle and get mostly to where they need to go anyway.

Because my favorite Jordan game, other than the flu game and the last game of his bull's

career was that game seven against the Pacers when he just didn't have his legs. And he said, I got to figure this out somehow. And just kind of patching together, plays and stats with nothing, those are the best. Hallmark of a true champion winning the B-B-minus game. I mean, maybe it was closer to B+ for him for Rory, we're speaking of because of how good

“his pudding his short game was, especially in the first two rounds.”

But he shot over par on Saturday and only one under on Sunday. Well, yes. Rory just played two awesome backdines, right? Where he was like one of the backdines he was like minus six. And then the other one was the Sunday backdine.

But Schaffler, I don't think put together any good backdines. No, no, Schaffler on the weekend was a lot, he was even par going into the weekend. And then he did not make a bogey on Saturday or Sunday. He shot 11 under par on Saturday. On Sunday, he just could not score on the back nine for five.

He only had one bird. He entire golf tournament.

And that was a miracle on.

Yeah. That was a miracle. It was a miracle. Yeah, right. He saved that.

Oh, you're a good man. And incredibly sick and shot on 18 man after he hit that air and drive as somebody's rooting for Scotty. I was like, did he just do what I think, because that was almost going to be one of the most painful moments and all and then where that ball landed man.

The true Rory experience. That's it. That's the roller coaster. It didn't go on. I mean, they missed a lot of replays and live shots, but they didn't have the perfect

replay that one Murray shot. Let's see. It's like it was going to ding and bounce backwards, which is what it would happen. And it just didn't.

Somebody will we'll cobble it together. There is emerging now some camera angles that seem like they captured it, but it would have been fun to see you in real life. I have another thing I'm going to do as sports are after I settle Amazon's audio video issues where the audio is before the video, the game of watching.

That's cool. That's number one of my agenda.

“I think the masters and this is the only event that you should be able to do this”

with the masters, they should be able to grab the best announcers from all the other networks. Hmm. Like, we should just have Toreco and Van Pelt and Joe Buck should all be on hold. Van Pelt is there.

Van Pelt is there. He should be on hold. He should be on hold. He should be on hold. I like this.

In 2016, 17, I want Van Pelt, Toreco and Joe Buck, and they're just there. We don't want anything else, we'll fly you in, you get your own house, just work this hole on Saturday and Sunday. It's a two day thing and just do your thing. And let's go with the big boys with Toreco does the radio call.

He didn't do it this year because he went to the Olympics, but he does cover the master. I don't listen to the masters on the fucking radio. I know. I understand. Put it there.

And who do you have on the 16th hole if you could have anybody? Van Lung Chris. I mean, that's the answer. What hole would you put Eric Collins on? Would you put him on?

What would be the most exciting era console? 15? A lot of big things happen on 15. Maybe 12? Yeah, 12.

12's good. Yeah, 12's good. The drama there. Real catastrophes happen on 12. Oh, Jim, a toothpick in my throat.

He's in the water. There you go. Yeah. I love it. Just roseheaded over the green and then flubbed the chip.

How would Eric Collins handle that? I'm telling it. Just get all these dudes. We just get them for two days. It's best of the best.

It's like when they make those Avengers movies for the Marvel and they put all the great

Let's just do it for the last two days. Nobody's against this.

Kirk Gold's very pleasure to see you as always.

We look forward to your master's shot chart map that I'm sure you're working on. By the way, he that would be a good idea. Do that. I can do it. Do it right now.

I'll buy one. I'll send you the memo right now. I love you. I love you. Joe House.

Thanks for staying up late. We appreciate it. Seeing the ringer gambling show and I'm fairway rolling and I'll be, I'll be making you pop on during the playoffs as well. We're going to take a break.

Come back. Me and Kirk Gold's better. We're going to go through all the awards. Let's go. As you know, I've been doing Wednesday bets on Fandle.

I actually won the last two. He had a big parlay on Wemby. That was like 91 and then Justin Rose top five masters plus 650. That one hit two almost one Justin Rose to win the masters. I think it was 35 to one.

He let me down. But he still got the top five. So let's see if we can keep the street going. I already jumped the gun. I did my, my play and bet Tuesday night Portland.

That was my favorite bet of the four playing games.

“But I also really like Philly, I think Philly beats Orlando.”

I love betting on the NBA in Fandle. It's a brand I trust easy to build, buy bet, you know, you get your winnings instantly.

Play and tournament's always fun.

Do parlay is I did like a Charlotte Portland Philly parlay that was like five to them. But I like Philly straight up. I just think Orlando's ready for the season and they couldn't stop maxing the regular season.

I am a Philly money line, maybe throw that in with with the cabs to be Toronto in the series. Something like that. Go nuts. Do whatever you need to do.

So don't forget to check out my middle of the week bets. Usually be Wednesday, but there might be a Tuesday like on Fandle use in the Fandle sports book app. Don't forget to use your profit boost token to increase your potential winnings before you place it.

Fandle. Play your game. All right. We just traveled in a time machine backwards to before the playing games. Kurt Goldspare and I banked this whole segment because we want to talk big picture

round one playoffs. I want to do my award picks more importantly. What an honor for you. You have a vote. I can't remember.

Yeah, democracy is back in America bill. Have you said your vote publicly yet? No. We're going to do this right now. We're not going to do it.

We'll talk about the playoffs later. So just look a thing is so weird. Yeah. It screws up to top five MVP because he would be fourth on my ballot if he's eligible. We don't know if he is.

There's some sort of weird appeal process we have to go through. I don't know why the NBA doesn't care about podcast content and dumb shows like ours where we have set up new stuff.

And then it screws up first team on BA, it opens up a spot for somebody.

And it adds a spot on the third team for somebody because everybody moves up a spot. So I want to do all in BA first, we'll finish with MVP, we'll hit all the other categories.

“So I had first team, YoKage, Wendy, Luca, S.J. and Jayland, which I think is chalk, right?”

Yeah. You have that as well. Okay. On the Luca inversion of my spreadsheet. Now I have a Luca out version of my spreadsheet to your point.

What's up about that? Because that's more interesting. So Luca is in if they do the weird ruling and they're like, oh, he flew back for the birth of his child, that somehow counts as a game. It would be funny.

I've said this before, but if silver said, you know what, we reject the appeal. He would have played 65 if he hadn't gotten 16 technicals and maybe he'll learn his lesson now. And we just all moved on. All right, Luca out, alternate first team.

I have Mitchell in the Lucas bot. Who do you have? I've coi Leonard, which was sort of surprising as I went through this bill, but you look at the student's numbers and he's nearing 50, 40, 90 at 28 points a game. He's obviously a defender, but I just couldn't justify any other pick.

I know it's a controversial season for coi. I know the clippers aren't that great. But this is probably his best season as a score of his career. If he's ever been first team all MBA, there's an argument that it should be this year. So I won't coi.

I can't kill it. So he was six and six and scoring in the league this year, who's 7.5 net plus, but 32 minutes a game, career high points per game, which I couldn't believe. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either, 27.9. Was that a loss?

Yeah. Third highest year 14 points per game ever. So a very year 14 guy, third highest we've ever had.

“And I think the other two were current curry, both of whom played in the 50s for games”

that year. Defense was there.

I had a hard time putting him first to my MBA when the team was barely 500. And he was there for a bunch of those, when they started when they were six and I just couldn't get past that, where at Mitchell, that was a top 14 the whole year. They had some injuries.

“I think there's some MVP conversation for him too.”

And it was pretty steady for them for the most part. I thought he had, I thought he had a good year. He played over 70 games, 33.5 minutes a game, 7th points per game, there's a 28.5 and 6 and I just felt like, I don't really feel like either of them or first team obvious to be honest, but if Luke is going to be out, who else do we lose?

We lost one more bad one. What do you mean? We lost a man. What do you mean? We lost.

We lost aunt. I think aunt would have been the other one who could have swam in that swimming pool. Oh, for sure. I did not. Okay.

So we disagree on Mitchell. Okay, sorry. Okay.

“Kate had that spot forever, and then just didn't make it.”

By the way, just missed it. Yeah. Too much load management, maybe too much a long management. I don't know what we're going to call it this time around, but Kate cutting him. I don't know.

Travisty. Well, so, let's say you could have voted 60, like, let's say 60 games enough instead of 65. Yeah. Would Luke and Kate have made it for you?

I had to put J.L. and Brown in there, man. J.L. and Brown and Kate, I know other people are going to roast me for this, but I ended up with J.L. and he reinvented his game. That team had no business going on the run that it went on, and he was the best player

on that team all year long as they went through that incredible surprising run.

I'm not mad at anybody I'd keep cutting him above J.L. and Brown, but it would have been Luke and J.L. and for me. I feel the same way, played almost 2,500 minutes. Everything he did peaked in his 10 season, which is just incredibly unusual for the NBA. There's really no.

I had a whole that I was looking up guys who made first team on the NBA for the first time in their tenth season. John Stockton, 1994, and that's it. It's the only one. He had 6 seconds leading up to this, so you could say in some ways, this is one of the great

aberration seasons anybody has had 10 years or later in their career, but there were reasons for it, including Tatum, him having to take the higher usage rate. I've made the case for J.L. and over and over again, he kind of had to see the season and see how limited the Celtics were from can we get a reliable basket anywhere tonight. Not knowing if Richard was going to be on or not, I love Richard, but he's a little bit

on off. White shooting was near the whole year, and J.L. and had 30 points or more 35 times out of the 70 plus games he played. And they needed them all the time.

It was just always nice to know like, all right, whatever happens, we have somewhere to go

in the fourth quarter, we have somebody we're getting, we know we're getting 30 to 35 from this guy, we know he's going to get to the line. On top of it was taking out defensive challenge over and over again against people like Shay and Kauai, anytime they needed a stopper, it seemed like he ended up on the bigger scores and I thought from a leadership physicality, attitude standpoint, he's the biggest reason

they won 56 games, by far. Yeah, and we didn't get to see what Kade would have done down the stretch.

“So we were robbed of that, and that's why this is a hypothetical.”

Yeah. Kade had finished. I mean, the case for Kade is the Detroit offense without Kade until he got hurt was a awful, awful unit. And when as soon as he came in the game, everything was fine.

He ran that thing as well as John Stockton, he was like, he was the conductor of that orchestra and also just a great leader. And so, you know, we were robbed at the end of that, but yeah, Jalen ended up coming, absorbing on his, not easy Bill Simmons to deal with Jason Tatum just sliding back into the fold after doing what you do for 66 games.

Now, now let's get back into the Jason Tatum and he handled that as perfectly as anybody could have expected. I'm really glad you mentioned that, because I don't know if that would have gone the right way all the time. Like, Jalen gets credit for, come on back in, let's figure this out how this is going

to work. If Kade had played 70 games, and we had Luca, and I think Luca Trump spoke those guys. Jalen versus Kade would have been an awesome argument, but we were sadly robbed of that opportunity. All right.

Second team, if Luca is in, I am looking at Jalen Dern, Kauai Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, Chamomore, and Jalen Brunson, three guards, which I don't love.

I, what's talk about this now, I'm just always voting a center for each team, or at least

I want my, my on be a team to look somewhat like a basketball team. I'm not going to do like just handing out the trophies for everybody. There's, what are there, 100 votes, 110 votes, I forgot how many votes are. Everybody approaches differently, that's the way I approach it. I value the eight decades of history.

We had centers every year for the first seven plus decades of the league, and I'm not

just going to dump that because Joel and Beat and Yoke had just got weird with first and second team. It got weird with Russell and Will. I've talked about this ad nauseam, so I have Dern, Kauai, Mitchell, Murray and Brunson. Who do you have?

So I have Kauai in this world where Luca's in, then Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant, and I go chat, I go chat home, Grant here, largely because I wanted to center in there, and because defensive conversations aren't well represented in all MBA, and he's one of the most impactful. He's definitely the second most impactful defender in the league right now.

I battled chat first, Dern, went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on it. Fairly similar case, Dern stats are better, minutes are around the same. Yeah, the defensive stats for Cheddar better and Cheddar's room protection stuff was pretty nuts. I actually, as recently as like three, four weeks ago, I had him on the bubble because I hadn't

done the deep dive on all the defensive stats like Holy shit.

He's second in room protection, their first in defensive rate in just in general, their

56 and 13 when he played, so 56, 36, 79 guys, so the statistical cases there. I thought the reason I went with Dern is, I just thought he meant more to that Detroit team, where him and Cade were the guys that the physicality, the competitiveness, the attitude that that team had came from those two guys and spread down, and everyone else kind of carried themselves the same way too.

And when Cade went out, I was so impressed that they kept winning, and I felt like every time I watched Dern, I'm just like, "That guy's a fucking badass."

“So I think that's a, you could go either way, I'm fine with it.”

I didn't feel 100% on it, but 28 minutes of game for him, 70 games, their plus-lim point eight, net when he played, he was sixth in rebounds, and I thought he really grew as an offensive guy. He's going to come up in another reward, but I was really, I didn't know he had this in him, I guess, as my bigger point.

And he was there. He double wasn't there, I thought it was a good chance for him to sort of emerge in an offensive role, but also sort of the second banana role. But for me, ultimately, it's like, dude, this guy is one of the big reasons, they're the best defense in the NBA for the same time.

You talked about jail. Yeah. How are you talking about? Well, you're talking about jailing before, but you're talking about jailing. Yeah.

Yeah, it's not about jailing. No, that's fine.

“This is very confusing, by the way, for the audience, to have this luka non-luka thing, I think”

Bill and I are very, very confused, so thanks, NBA. So luka out, I have Duran Kauai, Murray, Brunson, Kevin Durant. And I didn't feel great about it, but here's the case for Durant. Seconded minutes in the week, put 79 games, put 36 minutes a game. He was 26, 65, he was a 52, 41, 87 guy.

That team didn't have a point guard, basically at all, and he carried that, and I thought, statistically, if you remove all the burner scandal stuff and some of the weird chemistry

that team has, statistically, pretty incredible season.

We've only had three guys, 37 years or older, ever average, 25 plus points again. The team stepped in the bronze, seems like a fitting class. And I hadn't, I had him 13, because the burner scandal really bothered me, and the whole thing, I thought it affected the team, I thought you could see it. I don't know how comfortable he was in it, but I just didn't like it, but ultimately,

like, I just, with all these other dudes out, I think he has to nudge up.

“So who did you have in that extra spot of luka's out?”

I put Jamal Murray and my second team with Jalen Bronson Durant, Chet, and Donovan Mitchell. Okay. So we're basically, we're basically the same except you had Mitchell in the non-luka first team. I had Mitchell in the non-luka first team, and you had Kauai in the non- Mitchell first

team. Yeah. That's exactly right. Did you think at all about Bronson 13 second team, or were you just good to go with that?

No one pressed by him, and maybe it's bleeding over from the playoff run, but he's just

And, you know, frankly, the other guys on the team bill are so inconsistent that he just has

“to be so high usage and so reliable as they go to score.”

When your best second best player is Cat, where I'm sure we're going to talk about here in a second, it just impresses me. So Jalen Bronson, elevating this next team to the third seed in a world where there's so much inconsistency around him offensively, whether we're talking about bridges or an OB or

Josh Harder, whoever else, I've always been sort of a pro Bronson guy, so I had a second

team. Yeah, if Luca, if Luca and Kate had played, I think I would have had Murray over Bronson because of Murray was, he ended up playing 76 games of 75 games, who was 6th in minutes, who's fourth and made 3s, 25, 4 and 7 every night, almost, he's a 48, 44 to 8 guy. And I just study at a harder job than Bronson is where does that sound, this is good

as Bronson is where that entire next team is built around Bronson.

“Yeah, the Denver, you have to figure out, Yokeach has the ball at the time, he's figured”

out completely how to play off Yokeach, how to carry non-Yokeach minutes, playing with this rotating cast of swings that were either heard or came Johnson's out playing well. And I just thought he was so steady and so good all season, but there was no drop-off with him month to month. I didn't look at his monthly splits, but they couldn't have been much different every

month. He was just so impressive as best he were ever, right? Yeah. So I was thinking if you switch them with the next B worse, with Denver B worse, I think if you switch them, I think the next would be around the same, I think Murray could do

a lot of the stuff Bronson was doing for them, but I think the nuggets would have been worse.

“It's a dumb way to think about it, but I think the way Murray played, I feel like he could”

fit into any team. I was just really impressed by him this year, Bronson as a crunch time guy, the confidence that he has and the connection he has, but there's great things with him too. A lot of good teams this year, a lot of good players this year.

Okay, now we're going to get wonky because we have a third team with some guys that I just

can't believe or even in the mix. I have for my Luka, if Luka counts, here's my five, Chet, who you had KD, who I had bumped up to second team without Luka, but he's third team, if Luka is involved. Chet, KD, Jalen Johnson, Steph Castle, and Tyrese Maxi, that's my five, I did it. So, I urge you to talk about it, so Luka's out, that leaves me with Chet, Jalen Johnson,

Castle, Maxi, and Scotty Barnes, which I just don't feel great about, but I'll give you the Barnes case. Well, I'll give you, you give me yours and then we'll talk about some of the cases here. So with Luka and I have Murray, Maxi, Jalen Durrin, okay, there's my big Jalen Johnson and Kat.

So that's a good cat, okay, interesting. I did have Kat and then on my Luka out, I have Maxi Durrin, Jalen Johnson, Kat and then Shen Goon is the beneficiary, if on my ballot, if interesting, if Luka is not included. So it's crazy, just for the audience, this decision is going to affect two people in a grand way, Luka Dodger, obviously, but the 16th best player in the NBA, in theory,

is going to become all NBA, a third team or the 16th candidate, and in my case, that's Shen Goon. I mean, really, he is the 17th best, because, can't afford the 14th, so I guess that was that in the 18th. I looked at Shen Goon, first of all, I didn't want to have two rockets, because I didn't

watch them, for the most part, they drive me crazy. I had him first half of the, I didn't love how the second half of the year went, I thought

the chemistry stuff, like, I always go down, like, how much fun would someone so be to play

with, what Shen Goon, I'm not always positive, he'd be the most fun to play with, his teammates seem like they're really frustrated with him. So he didn't even, he wasn't, I had, I just could do two rockets, so I'll make the case for Castle 1, because I had him either way, so he finished 17, 5, and 7, 47, 33, 73 on the shooting, played high 60s, played 30 minutes a game, so one of the most impressive

the floor and goes after it every single play, and then when you watch him, I don't have to sell you, you love the spares, just, every play doesn't take on.

“Off, I feel like there's more there, I felt like he sacrificed stuff for the team, I think”

if he was on a shite of your team, Dylan Harper was another one, then I thought sacrifice, I think if Castle was on a mediocre team, or, you know, a play in team or whatever, I think his stats could have been better, I think he kind of just, I think he's just all about how we winning, how we winning, how we winning. I think guys hate dribbling up against him, trying to beat him off the dribble, trying

to post them up, they fucking hate playing him, he got way better as a shooter as a year one on that's the other thing, I care about that with all on the A, that you actually got

better as year one along, he was over 40% from three second half of the year, I thought

his threes were going in when he took them during that streak, and I just thought he was their second best player on that team, 160 plus games, so he was their second best player, and, you know, one thing he didn't say that I think is huge with the spur season is he's the biggest reason bill, I think they give the thunder a hard time aside from the obvious victor, I mean, Yama, yeah, he is longer and stronger than almost any other guards, which

“is insane, it's insane to even say that, that's what the thunder are, they're just”

ferocious perimeter of rounds, and he gives them a personality, not only to counter that, but to supersede it in some ways, so he's one of my favorite players, if not my favorite player in pro basketball right now, I love to watch them, it's a treat to go to the spurs games, he's a huge part of their team, ultimately his numbers don't justify his inclusion on this for me, but I'm happy to hear the sports guy giving the students some praise.

There's one other thing with him, and it's a weird, we have no staff for it, it's a, you know, when you see it, he's really malleable with their lineups, and like the

best guy ever for this was John Havichek a million years ago, John Havichek could be a guard

or a forward, depending on who else was on your team, and it's like we actually have more forwards now, you can be a guard, like cool, now we're a little light on forwards, can you play up, sure, can you guard this guy great, can you guard this guy over here, awesome,

“can you fit in, and I think that's what's Army knife thing with swing men are really hard”

to find. And one of the things I love about Castle is like he can be in any lineup they have, you want to go for guard, it's cool, play him at the fucking four, you want to play point guard for your hand to the ball, like he can do that, like I think when you have a guy like that, it just becomes so much easier to be good, and that team is really good, but

like his flexibility, I thought was the second biggest reason that they were as good as

they were, pick a lineup, pick a situation, he could handle it, it's a great point because he can blend scoring the ball, driving it, he's so ferocious with two feet in the paint, he's a great pass, he has these turnover issues that I'm sure he's going to get past because he's just so determined, but he does have turnover red flags, the shooting has come along, but I have the stat, that Stefan Castle is the seventh player in NBA history to average 15

point seven assists and five rebounds at age 21 or younger, so this might not help him for all NBA, but the guys are magic, LeBron, Chris Paul, then there's a couple of funny ones, Ben Simmons, whatever happen to that guy, Luke Adonchich, LaMelo Ball, and then Stefan Castle, so his blending filling up the box score as a guard with those kinds of numbers obviously physical enough to get boards, get extra possessions, he's a big part of the spurs culture and I think even more so than

Wendy gives them a toughness, with the other teams in the west, I adore the player, I think that's coming through, I know Zack loves this player as much as I do in Udo too, so I hope he gets 13 all NBA as a Homer, but as an analyst, I ended up with a different answer there. So Scotty Barnes, 1876, 50% shooting, but couldn't hit three, so it was down to 30 by the end of the year, did a lot of stuff for them, ended up with a five seed, now the five six seven eight nine ten were all

like two wins apart, and Toronto I think was 500, the last 60 games, it's not like this was an awesome team, but he was the key guy in the team did the most defensively, I don't know if I have him in first team, but he was right on the fringe, I think I put him second team all day, and you know, versus putting two guys from the same team versus having a guy who is number a number five seed, who's their best player, I'm okay with it, it's hard for me to wrap my head around

and you know, he barely hit the minimum, he's 24/7, and I just couldn't get there with Obdia, I didn't think that team was Toronto's team was better than Portland's team, and that's,

“I don't know, the winning piece matters to me at least a little bit. That's how I derived”

at some of these tough decisions, too, is, you know, show me what you did in the standings to some extent, and in the Western Conference, so Shen Goon for me is like, yeah, the West is a harder thing to win in, you know, it is really thin, I looked at Denny too, and hats off to him,

what a what an incredible, most improved player case he has, yeah, I did not see this coming

with him as an attacker, learning the dark arts of fallbaiting, as well as almost any other player is age in the league. For me, just can't shoot it well enough, to justify that, I'd like to see him get Portland to a next level, and I could see him doing that next year, credit to him. If this continues, he's clearly got an All-MBA future, if he continues to improve like you do this year. Yeah, the problem, I think there were two and sixteen, and it gets the top three teams in both

conferences. I got it swept out the Celtics, and they got swept by the next, that's where the All-MBA, like voting him on being, so it's the one I might change by mine now, before we have to end in the ballets, but right now that's who I have, I didn't consider towns. I'd be funny, we're taping this before the playing game today, but we're funny at the playing games, swung any of this stuff, mentally even though it's not supposed to. I couldn't get there with

towns, so he was 20 and 12, 50%, I just, I couldn't get there because he's a lot, he's just a lot in the game, there's games where you're just like, "Wow, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?" Yeah. And I just, I couldn't totally get there. I thought about him for the, for the center spot, but I just don't think he had a case against Aaron and Chet.

“Yeah, I put him in that sort of front court, the vague front court position. I think what he does”

statistically is really impressive, I think rebounds remain one of the more underrated metrics in this league. Yeah. And you know how to stop? Yeah. Well, it's true, the Celtics really were a rebounding juggernaut this year. It's a big part of their story. And then I think what he does on offense, we want he doesn't have the ball just stretching out the defense is so important for Bronson and helping the next B such an effective offense. Yeah. Cats, fingerprints are on that.

That put me there, but again, this is a team that's in the top half of their bracket,

a third seed. That means a lot to me. And so I had cat there. Ineligible, we're paid

antbooker in LeBron if you wanted to get crazy. Harden is the only one who I took a look at. When Zach does this, Zach has like 48 guys. And he's down looking at like all of the hornets

“and he loses his mind. I don't go that far. Harden that traded midseason. That's a tough one.”

Me too. I thought he made the calves worse defensively like almost overnight. Like they just dropped down at 15, 16 defensively, I just couldn't get there. All right. So that's where we go. So my all NBA right now with No Luca is Yokech, Wendy, SGA, Jaylin, Mitchell, Durin, Kd, Murray and Bronson, and then Chet, Jaylin, Johnson, Castle, Maxi, and Barnes. We didn't talk about Jaylin, Johnson.

That was another one like figuring out second team, third team, I'll be with me. He was 23,

10 and 8. Yeah. And the games, I'm not, he's not there. And they really kind of needed CJ to be the guy and then Alexander Walker when he's hot. And so it's, it's almost like he's the overqualified third banana on that team sometimes. He's doing a lot, but I don't, I didn't, it just didn't feel like he was one of, had a case for being one of the 10 best players in the league, even with all the injuries, seemed like a lot for him. No, if the season started in January, maybe, because the

holiday would have been good since then. But it didn't, and you're right about the CJ stuff. And you know, I'm a big hawk supporter, but when they play a good team down the stretch, it is too much CJ, and I'm worried about that in the playoffs. Yeah. And that's got to, that's got to do Jaylin, Johnson a little bit. And then Maxi was first, first a minutes per game, fifth and points, fourth and steals, 28, four and seven. And if you just wanted to have a second team of all guards, he makes it,

probably bumps, he's great. If you do want to care about a center. Okay. Quick break, and then we'll do the coach of the year. Coach of the year is between Missoula and Becker staff. Who did you have as your third guy in this? I put Mitch Johnson right there. Maybe even with JB Becker stuff. I'm a big

what was there over under? I mean, to put it in the spot. Forty and a half. Yeah. Forty two and a half to a sixty-win team Bill Simmons. Yeah. When something, again, that's one of the things that matters to me for this category coach of the year is what do we expect from you in October? And where did you end up in April? And so Mitch Johnson has a very impressive answer to those questions. And so he's clearly in this conversation for me. He was for me. Well, I thought there were four choices for this.

I, I have Mitch Johnson as well. I had your not for a while. Yeah. And, uh, and I feel bad. I wish, I kind of wish we could have four choices for this just in general. I don't know why they're

“limited to three. I think that's, that's weird. You know what? That's a really good point. I've never”

thought about this amount of coach more for the year. But it's really good coaches. If we actually go 15 deep following BA and five deep for for Rookie and, and where's Wendy for Rookie? Why can't we do five deep for Coach? I don't know. This Sun's finished 45 and 37. I thought they were very well coached. But Mitch Johnson, I mean, they were the best team in the league for four months. Nobody saw that coming. I thought he did a really good job managing everybody's minutes. That point people too much

figuring out different lineups. So I had him third. I have Mazula first and Bicker staff second.

And I switched on this a bunch of times and I see the case for Bicker staff. I just thought, when when they went all those games without Cade, that was nuts. It was like, Holy shit. You don't have a single guy who I completely trust to create a shot. How are you still winning? The Mazula things nuts. They were over under was 42 and they went 56 and 26. The team played hard. I think they took maybe three games off out of the 82. The thing that impressed me the most is how they brought

“Tade him back into it. And I think that's what pushed it for me. The fact that they won 56”

games, but also brought this star back that upsetting anything that they just built over the last four months. I thought he had the hardest coaching job in the league of any successful team by far. I don't think it's a question. And then ironically, that game 82 was like a perfect example of why

they should win. The team is just wired a certain way. And he's the most important. It's not,

I said this Sunday night. It's not Jaylin's team or Jason's team. It's Mazula's team. That's right. Everything they do is based on the fact that he's just a competitive psycho in a good way. So I haven't first had bigger staff second. I feel bad, but I just think that's the way it has to go. I don't think it's close. I mean, I agree with what you said about bigger staff. I remember I was on Zach Show when the morning that we found out that Kade had the long injury.

And we were like, "Oh, are the Celtics going to catch him?" And it was like a realistic possibility of looking at their schedule and I was like, "Well, if you look at these numbers without Kade, they haven't been very." It was a really good stretch without Kade and bigger staff deserve some flowers for that. However, this is exactly what Joe Mazula did from October to March, right? The whole stretch he did that. And he turned the main red clause into a fucking juggernaut.

And it was impressive. And like I've compared, I think on your show before, it reminds me of the pop 2010 spurs when we're load managing Manu and Tony and Kauai. And it's all of a sudden it's Boris De Young Gary Neel and Danny Green out there beating anybody. They have that Baylor Shireman who go, that whole team has no business where they ended up. And to me it's the most impressive coaching job. And one other point I want to get to you, right? Nobody talks about Brad as much as they should,

but it reminds me of Brad Stevens, the Butler Coach, like the mid-major, the two von your shoulder mid-major guy. How he's able to turn these guys, find these guys, to extend the college analogy, he takes a three-star recruit and turns them into a player that can beat Duke or North Carolina

“or Florida in a tournament game. That's what it feels like to me. So like I feel like his college”

coaching and his player development era has come to life here. But ultimately, it is Joe Masulu's

job to get those lineups out there to make this a really competent two-way juggernaut with players that nobody thought could do that six months ago. Yeah, and also losing Simon's basically, they basically turn Simon's in the Tatum, but they only have two guards. And he's got a really managed those minutes. And when there's the nights when Tatum Warbrown was sitting out, and then

And then you're hoping Baylor Shiremen can run something in the offense. Like some of the shit that was going down is crazy. The other crazy thing about the Celtic season, I really thought they should have won more than 56 games. But you can just look at Denver was the

“other team like this. Dumb games, you should go 50, 50 on dumb games, right? Like, whoa, that was”

a dumb win. I can't believe we stole that versus, ah, I can't believe we blew that. Denver was

like four and 16 in those games. Like they they always seem to lose games they should have won.

And the Celtics, there's a bunch of them where there was a couple like end of the game, rug got pulled out of them, stupid losses. They, and I think two to filly, there was that road games against San Antonio, no KC, where weird shit happened, both games. I felt like they could have so anyway. I actually thought they could have done even better than 56, which is nice. Yeah. And you talk about it being Missulu, see, my love that take. And to me, we talk about

culture way too much now in the NBA. It's become a cliche. Yeah. But when you look at how this story started, why your team ended up hiring Joe Mazzula and when? And that's the story you got turned out to be. Yeah. Yeah. And now it's like, that's the coach of the year. What a story that is. But ultimately, like I said, Billy, this team has his personality as one of the strangest, sort of most aggro competitive unique personalities I've ever seen ahead coach in this league have.

And it works. It is contagious in the locker room. And my favorite moment of game 82 and you already talked about this a little bit on your show with legs or maybe it was that. But that ATO just a drop that two for one, where it's a Garza, from 27 feet. And I know that was the play. Yeah. And that's an insane play. And it works. And it was one of those guys who nobody thought would make a meaningful shot this entire season. And it was just a great moment. And it

comes from the mind of Joe Mazzula. Incredible coach of job. And a little bit of revenge for him

“because I think he was really upset with the next series. And those two games and just, you know,”

I think he was in the workshop. Defense of prayer the year when he's going to win everyone's picking on me. Top 5's interesting. So I'll just give you my, you won't be surprised to know I am not a I'm putting five centers on my first team defensive. Same. I'm just not doing that. I will do maximum two. I still want each. I still want the guards to be represented in a little and a swing. So we both had Wemby and Chad. I'm guessing. Yeah. Did we both have us our Thompson?

No, I put both Thompson's on the second team. Okay. All right. I'll tell you my, I had Wemby and Chad. I had us our Thompson. I had Castle. And I had Case on Wallace who I thought was the most devastating defensive guard I saw all year. I could not believe what a nightmare he was. And I actually think they're going to have to get rid of the door. So he can play more next season would be my guess with what they're going to do. But that to me, Wallace was the best defensive guard.

I thought a Sartom someone was the best swing. And I thought Castle was the best

“kind of back and forth like attitude swing. And then Wemby and Chad were the two centers. So who do you have?”

Well, I have three centers. I look at it the other way. Centers are by far the most important

defenders in the sport. So I put three on here. Three legendary defenders in my opinion. Wemby who is on another level. Chad, who second best defender in the league right now. And then Rudy go bear who is one defensive player the year so many times. So you know, I know that's not the sexiest pick. But then I add two perimeter players because I also value that. I don't want to over index on guys who just protect the room. I put Dyson Daniels on there. Who you talk about a

nightmare is a walking deflection and steel. And somebody who I bet Jalen Bronson is going to be very sick of seeing here in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to watch him in the playoffs. And then Derek White spurs great. But also single handily, one of the best shot blocking guards

that position always seems to be in the right place on defense might not be the athlete. Obviously

that the Thompson's or Stefan castle is. But Derek is just the headiest perimeter defender and one of the most effective in the league. So I end up Wemby, chat, go bear, Derek White, Dyson Daniels. Interesting. I had white on my second team. I'd go bear on my second team. I had on my Thompson on my second team. I had on my second team. And I put Scotty Barnes. I did not put BAM. BAM was the toughest cop for me. And I also did not have Dyson Daniels on either team.

on it right all year. And it was the same reason I left BAM off. You're one of the 10 best

“defense supporters in the league at a key position. But everybody seems like they can go for 130”

on your team. So I have to reward that. Go bear definitely. It's just tough to not come off. But Anna Noby was the guy that I really thought was really jumped out to me a couple of games this year. With there's just nobody really exactly I talked about him a little Sunday. His size physicality and just his style is so unique that if I was a six foot eight score, I think I had anybody he'd be the guy I wouldn't want to say. He's so important for them. You mentioned this earlier.

We still have time to submit our ballots. I do not have OG. And now I'm questioning that.

So you have for the second team? So I both Thompson Bros. I do have BAM. I have your guy case in

Wallace. And then I have Steph Castle. So that's guard heavy. I love it. OG though your convention

“may do. I think OG is so important to guarding the exact type of players like Boston, right?”

Like that series last year. He's a big reason for that. He is a big reason for the headaches that Boston. Yeah. And they played the game as a real trouble against him. He's such a big, big, strong wing defender. Yeah. Trying to think if there are any other type of missions for me here. And we're good. We can move on. Rookie the year. Oh, we're going to disagree here. I know. I've gone. I ran in funny story spurs maps game Friday night bill Simmons. I ran into Kelly

Flag. She says hello. She says he's very interested who you're going to choose for rookie the year. Did she really say that? Yeah. It was like one of those Mafiosos. Yeah, that's how I say, but say how to bill for me. Yes, they don't bill it. Yeah. Listen, Kelly Flag. We still love you. We still have your your condo ready for

231 when your son joins the Celtics. I have con. And it comes down to being on a good team and all the stuff he had to do versus flag being on a crappy team that just gave him the car keys and said, make all the mistakes you want. You're going to be awesome someday. You'll be better in game 82 than your own game one. Just keep plugging away and go and no mistake is bad and learn from this and by the end of the year, you're going to be a good place.

Which he was. Yeah. If I'm a rookie, I would rather be in that situation than the situation

con was in where he was basically playing a playoff game every game from January on because they

dug such a hole for themselves early that they, you know, they're doing this trying to climb into the playoff picture. I think if con was on a bad team, I thought he could have scored more than he did. And you look at the advanced metric stuff and con stuff versus flag like flags three point shooting was bad. I think flags are better player just like from a talent ceiling standpoint. And I think flag has a chance to be a generational star. I don't really know how to vote for the

rookie is my other issue with this. So I'm just voting for who jumps out as they're going to be awesome 10 years from now or is it am I just my just evaluate in the year because if I'm evaluate in the year, I've made this case a couple, a couple of pods ago like con had an incredible season. He led the league in threes. He rebounded played defense. I felt like his gravity and all the

“movement he has was the key to have their offense really worked. He played the whole year. He never got,”

I think he played like 79 games. And his team was, you know, we were taped at this before the playing game tonight, but his team turned out to be a, I thought one of the 10 best teams of the last four

months of the season. And to me, that just matters when I'm always going to gravitate toward the winning.

Yeah, I had no idea con could translate this well to the NBA. Let alone this well this fast and incredible clay tops and ask catch and shoot season. And I don't say that lightly. If you look at clay tops and and to staff or the only people combined volume and efficiency like this. Unlike staff, he's doing a lot of it as a catch and shoot guy. And I'm not going to make the case against con, but to context to contextualize it, I would say every opponent when they're playing this

lowly Maverick's team, their game plan was built around stopping Cooper flag. When you played the hornet,

leads all rookies and scoring. He has more points for game, more assists, more rebounds, more

steals than blocks than con con Nepal. He's the first rookie Bill Simmons since Michael Jeffrey Jordan

to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals. He is going to be an all NBA player for an eternity. Maybe next year. Yeah, and this shouldn't come into the discussion, but remember, this should be his freshman year in fucking college. He reclassified that shouldn't be a criteria.

“And don't get me wrong on this. I'm fired up because I think he's just and I appreciate how”

you look at the word. There is some ambiguity here. Con has played more meaningful minutes for a more meaningful team that I hope makes the play. And higher pressure situations, too, is the other thing. Like we're just game-to-game. He's playing teams that these are real games, where his flags

playing games are just down 20 in the second quarter. Yeah. And some of it's vanity. I don't want

to be the guy who didn't vote for Cooper flag in 10 years. Because I know where this is going, Cooper. Yeah. So I get it. 10 to look at it a little differently. And then the last thing I'd say is players like Wemby, who are rookie of the year, were on awful teams. And we've seen this a lot. You know what? I went back and looked at that Wemby year. Because I remember voting for him. And I went back and looked at my notes. And he was like borderline to fit support of the year

that year. I had him go bare at a whole thing on my notes of like, it's got to be go bare, but Goddamn, I kind of want to vote for Wemby. And yeah. He was just way more impactful. He we also

“average like 24, 10 and 5. And the guy that he was competing, I think we was going against chat.”

His stats were just way better. Flag stats aren't way better than cons. But anyway, keep going. And then, cons is handed the ball and to 80% of his shots are assisted. Right. And thanks for that number for for Coop is like 45. I know, but I think it's more there with I feel like they could have done more with Con on that. Like I actually kind of liked when he would get around the foul line and be physical and try to like either take guys to the hoop or do that little pull-up.

I just think that I just think that team had a lot of masters to serve offensively. Where's Dallas the bat? I respect your take. And like I said, Con has a lot more shit to his game than I would ever expected off the bounce, get rebounds, plan defense. This is not what I thought. So if you're if the award were to find like who's the most surprising rookie cons. I mean, if they redrafted,

“Con has probably third. I'm still taking Dylan Harper too. Third or fourth?”

Tom to pass, Dylan Harper. It's one of that. We did this the last time you run. It's one of the great top fours we've had. So if you switch these guys on their teams, yeah, let's do that. The horns are good. That's actually like he could have fit in. It changes their style a little bit for that not not the same kind of three point thing, but he's bringing defense rebounding. He could probably like he'd probably phase back from the offense a little on Con straight morning. The glue

guy stuff that he was so great at and it's great at. And Con, it would give Charles Lee like his Jason Tatum character from his Boston era, right? Like this giant forward who can break guys down, get you a rebound, play incredible defense. So I think in I think Con would have had around the same stats. I just he probably would have taken more threes, maybe wouldn't have shot the same percentage because they wouldn't have been as good looks most of the time. I don't I really

hate this because I don't even want to pick between these guys. But my move over the years is always

been if winning is a tiebreaker. I got to think about it. It's not flagged. Thought he was on a shitty team. Do you think we can take Michael Carter Williams rookie of the year trophy and give it to whoever loses this year? And type of differences. That would be another one I think VJ Edge come third. God, I haven't even thought about that. Yes, definitely. You know VJ I have to see this is the one I have to do. Dylan Harper VJ Edge come have you would those the two? It's not stats

wise that's not close. But Dylan Harper you know was just in a different situation. So I listened to legs on your podcast to I thought did a great job. But yeah, he made the point well Dylan Harper's on the Wizards or whatever. Yeah, he was seeing a lot more negative. At least. Yeah. So Dylan dropped into a really healthy environment where he's the third guard and gets those minutes. But dude, you talk about guys getting better and better and better. The case for Dylan is he's

on a team that is 160 games. He too has become a much better shooter earlier than we thought. I kind of like the most when he's out there with Castle on the cell and Webby and his shooter.

con VJ Harper and I had fears as my fifth guy. Fear so it fierce fight 82 games. Fear fears was there the whole time. But I thought he had a couple games this year. We were like, wow, what's going on here? Second team I've covered Ace Bryant, Queen and I guess we'll rally. I don't I don't even know. I'll figure out the tenth guy. But who did you have as your fifth guy

“in the first team? Yeah, so I think it's like the MVP race. There's four solid guys on the first”

group of five. But yeah. So we go coupe con VJ Harper and then I threw Joe Duma as a bone and put Derek Queen there because he gave up so much form. You got to give him that right? Nice. Then coward fears Ace Bailey. Your guy Hugo Gonzalez and then will rally. So oh, that's what I'll put as my tenth guy Hugo. Great. Is it Hugo or Hugo? It's Hugo but I really want to come Hugo. Clutch. Clutch I'm going SGA Brunston in Yokeage in that order. I have the exact same

and it's SGA and then a big gap for me. Most improved is not a battle because it's going to be the kill Alexander Walker unless you haven't been watching the season. 9.4 points to 21. Got better as you're went along and is just a complete wildcard threat for the playoffs now because he's a absolute he check. He's even more than he check guy. He just kind of takes over games. So I had him first I had Durn 2nd and I put Keta third and I'll make the case further in second.

What did, who do you have for your three? I have Nikhil by leaps and bounds and then you said Durn was second. I had Durn 2nd. And then I put Kassler because I didn't I didn't give Kassel the award and I know some people don't like the second team second year jump thing. You might be one of those people. I I'd violently oppose this is my least favorite Kirk Grove spider moment of the podcast. He should be better this year. It's the second year. He's the fourth pick of the draft. I'm not mad at

you bill but that's the same thing I'm given Jalen Durn. Like you're a lottery pick late lottery in his case. You're supposed to get better as you go. Did you ever think he was going to be at

21 and 11 dominant center? I never did. I won't say I did but the first time I saw him in person.

It was one of those like holy shit. Look at that guy moments that you get in an NBA arena. He's now out of the 1990s. He's like he looks like he's a lawns up warning or he's been well.

“Yes. He's the perfect piston. He's the I always say he's the perfect piston. But ultimately I think”

the story here is Nikhil Alexander Walker who scored nine points of game last year for a very good team and was a stand in the corner and don't do anything else. We'll call you when we need a three. And then Atlanta gives him a nice deal come to over 21 points of game on over 60% true shooting. So one of the only times in my career is an analyst in the NBA where I've seen somebody go from nine points of game to 20 points of game and then their efficiency jumps too. Like that's that's crazy.

And for me this is the easiest vote on the whole ball. Except for defense to player the year. Nikhil Alexander Walker in a walk away couldn't agree more. Shout out to Atlanta. Great signing.

The case for Kada. He played first of all he this is his fifth NBA season. He'd never played

more than 13 minutes a game. Yeah. He turned this year into a 10 and 8 guy. Over a block a game. It's played 25 minutes a game. He's gotten better as you're going along. There's actually a little more offense to all the advanced metrics room protection stuff with him is really sought. He's just a good player now. And it's something like you would watch him come in the first hit like my daughter

“is love them. She's like why doesn't Kada play more? I was like I don't know. Who you'd watch him?”

And he'd be like there's something here. Yeah. But now this is somebody that conceivable he could be playing 25 minutes a game in the finals. This was a team before the year where we were like well there's a course in August and a warford. Who's going to play center? I don't know. And Tatum's out. Yeah. Yeah. No rebound. Yeah. Yeah. I guess we're going to win last quarter. Yeah. I guess Garza and this member Kada. I guess he's going to be there

and turned into a real guy and you watch these games. I've only there was only a couple times this year where you kind of could feel this was a guy that was on Sacramento three years ago. Yeah. But the most part he was awesome for what the expectations were.

And that's the key point dude. I remember they were this was the second eight for

an casualty that they dismantled this team. I got a year ago. I was like okay there goes poor Zingus and Horford, Luke Hornet's cast away. Tatum's out. That's their front court.

season and I'll put my hand up. I was like this team's not going to be a little rebound. This team is not going to be able to protect the room. And that's where I would say Kada deserves part of this conversation. They are now a very good rebounding team. It's part of their signature is turning

missed shots into second chance points. He's the biggest reason for that. Yeah. And I did not see

that coming ever for this young man. So hats off to him and that Celtic staff for finding him and developing him. They also they read did. I mean, they did some strategy stuff with that with them. One of them was these little handoffs at the top of the key, which became like the bread and butter their offense that he was just better at than Porzingus and Horford. And then the offensive rebound and was the other thing. He's just a good offensive rebounder. He's got good hands

around the rim. So you really feel it when he's in the game. Like the best version of them usually is when he's in the game. I'll be interested to see against the next. Right. They're in crunch time

“against towns, whether they go smaller with Tatum. I think they're saving that. And I could see”

Kada getting bounced or maybe Kada getting moved to the Mitchell Robinson portion of the game. Or it's like, just go toe to toe with this dude and try to hold him as standstill. We'll see.

Six man. I have Hawke as I put Celtic Johnson second and then I have a wild card at third.

Who do you have? I only have two. I haven't figured out the third. I'll probably just steal yours. I'm a Keldon Johnson man. I thought I'd get it culturally. He's great. The 162 60 games. He was in most of those games. Let all players win shares off the bench. And again, over Hawke, the Miami Hawke has got, I just had a brain fort. The more substantial contribution in the league this year off the bench was killed Johnson. I battle back and forth. I don't feel

great about it. But I thought Hawke has basically been 15, 5 and 5 off the bench and he can't shoot 3s. When you watch, he's pretty impactful in an old school, like 1970s, 80s. He's doing weird kind of half posts up. So he's trying to beat guys off and he's banging into dudes. He's one of those kind of what? He's one of those guys when you're watching him, you're going, could this guy have his own team? But obviously he can't, but he'll have moments or like, man.

“Great heat player. I remember when they drafted him. It was all, it was, if this is what we,”

we knew we were getting it, and they got it. My third pick for this category, and there's a

million, there's a million people. The shame of it is, Richard should have been a six-man, but he

started to do many games. Yep. I went with Mamo. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm not stealing this. You're going to have to convince me. 22 minutes a game. He was 11 and five. He was a 52, 39, 75 guy. His advanced stats are nuts. And I test wise, I actually thought he probably should have played more. I feel like he would, he was one of the only bench guys. I thought this is that consistently he would come into the, their bench was the biggest reason they started out, well, the first month and a half.

But he would come into games, and I felt like he would take over games for like two minutes. And it's good. Yeah. And I think like if you're just talking about like a pure six-man coming off the bench, swinging a game, he did it as well as anyone I saw this year, and I couldn't come up with a, I couldn't shake that. He was the third best guy I saw. Do that this year.

“That's what I have. Who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who did you have in your possibility?”

Reach up, reach, Shepherd. I, I feel like is, is the choice, right? But now he started the last 10 games. I couldn't get wrong with it. Because that, I don't think his coach was like, I don't know if we should play him for six months. Well, he should be fifth man of the year to piggyback on Wild's point, and why don't we just have a first man, second man, third man. Reach, Shepherd should be fifth man of the year, email, if you're listening. So we, but the other one, I just couldn't get there.

I, I don't know. It is weird because the predicament he's in is so weird. I mean, in a world where Freddie Van Fleet is there and Steven Adams is there. Reed is definitely like the he check guy off the bench. And they didn't figure it out. I think so. Yeah. All right. I don't feel great about the mama, but I just, I don't know, the heart wants with the heart wants. The heart wants mama. All right. MVP. Oh, boy. So we have Luke of four. We both have Luke of four.

Yeah. I have Luke a clearly four. So, Luke is bounced. I am going, it's interesting because I had done with Mitchell first team on BA. Yeah. But for MVP, I'm putting Brunson fifth and J. Lim Brown fourth. That's what I have just because that next team for better

every game. Where's the calves? Can get, I don't know. It's just, it, it, I, I basically split in the vote

“with Mitchell as first team on BA, but Brunson in Miami, P about. So that's what I have for four and five”

without Luke. I have Wemby third. I have Joker second and I landed on SGA first and I switched S.J. and Joker all weekend and really wanted to do Joker and ultimately like the wind difference. Yeah. And how great S.J. was in the clutch. Yeah. I just felt like as you know, I love Joker and Joker's probably my favorite not Celtic in the league other than Curry. And I just felt like I want to do this correctly. There's too much SGA

evidence. I feel like I'm not, if I do Joker, it's almost like a personal pick versus like with the red pick. I just couldn't 100% get there. The real problem, if Joker hadn't gotten hurt, I think I think he gets it because not only did he miss all those games, but then he came back and he wasn't 100% when he came back and you know. And the other thing was to clutch stuff with that team just in general, not take care of Brunson's near the end. That's kind of his job and they

weren't good enough. Whereas SGA like every time last three minutes, he just took care of business.

“And I think his job was easier because of that team, they're so good defensively. All he has to”

worry about is basically let me just be awesome and get to the found line and then the last three

minutes, I'll score every point. Not an easy job. Whereas Joker was doing everything. But to not vote for a guy who led the league and rebounds and assists and was six and points and did all the shit he did and had the best offensive career, I don't feel good about it. I don't think anybody's going to do this with the respect that the task deserves is going to feel good about who's third. In some cases who's second. This is the deepest one of these I've

ever thought of. Like we have three legitimate candidates for MVP. We do. And we have better numbers than ever. I'll start with four and five. I have the same Jalen, shout out to Jalen Rose by the way, big year for Jalen's on the MVP ballot. Now we have two of them on our top five. I have

Joker third, which is crazy. But again, Bill my latter is going to be informed a lot by how the

“standing turned out. You know, and I think that deserves respect here. And so I have Wemby second,”

which was hard. By the way, not a homer pick. I wanted to put him first. Other times I wanted to put him third. And then I also ended up with that shit. I mean, he's just the team is too good. He is on as you keep pointing out so studely, one of the best runs we've ever seen from a guard and the history of the sports. Yeah. Once again, here we are with a net rating over 11. They're just the most dominant team in the NBA and he's it. But Joker do let me give him some flowers. I was looking

at on-off splits like all the nerds do when it's time to do this exercise. Yeah. But now that's our minus seven and net rating when he's off the floor, like that's a lot of retail. They're they have the statistical profile of the Utah Jazz. No, and no Gordon half the year. Jam Johnson, not really healthy most of the year. You lose Peyton Watson. This was why when I was thinking this weekend where there was going to vote for him or not. And I was like, I'm definitely in the one thing and he

put 400 more minutes in Wemby and when Wemby skipped the last game of the year, which I just thought was really weird. That to me, like, he put himself in the third spot because they should have tried to win that game and get them or the fuck out of the three seed. Like, what are you guys doing? I think I'm hours home or I couldn't agree more. I was perplexed. So yeah, when they played 1866 minutes this year, he put 29 minutes a game and he missed. I thought a fair enough amount of games that

he probably could have showed up for the 80 second one and tried to knock him out. I just I didn't like that. Joker led the league and P.R. for his sixth straight year, 31 bucks every year, second straight triple double season. He's with will now as I talked about the other day with will it was fourth first and second and fifth first and third. So if you add that up less than 10, Joker was 81 and one, so 10. Offensive rating, they 126 when he played. He led the league and

rebounds the CSPR and Vorp 10.8 net. His highest usage ever, 57% shooting, like, really one of the great offensive seasons and somehow didn't win the MVP. I can't believe it. But their record was a good

business at the end. I think that has to matter the consistency of it. And then from some of my MVP

questions, you know, one of them is how you remember the year. One of the ways we're going to remember this year is okay, see becoming a little villainy. And actually in the fall betting, like that was a big part of the season, whereas for Joker, it was another great Joker year. I don't really, you know,

“the stats that was good. But we're really going to remember Wemby and SGA, I think before just,”

it was a typically unbelievable Joker year. It didn't really stand out from the other three, I guess. I think that's right. And I remember you doing those questions with Leglor and he was his knee jerk reaction was Wemby. For me, that's it to that question. Yeah. Um, the minutes thing with Wemby is really fascinating, right? Because you and I both agree on one big thing. There's too many games. And what the spurs have to do with this dude is try to keep him upright and get him into the

playoffs. And again, I thought Miss Johnson did a great job. Yeah, Victor Wemby and Yama's healthy. I wish they would have played him game 82, by the way. But healthy going into these playoffs. That's the number one job in an in an era of calf strains and hamstring injuries, like just be thankful we have Wemby. So I almost don't want to ding Victor for minutes because that's that's what's going to happen with him as whole career in the regular season as long as we're playing 82 games

and 16 back to backs or whatever it is. And the NBA Cup that they win went into play the extra game in. Um, well, so SGA deserves credit for having a better record, better statistical indicators. And, um, you know, ultimately, like you said, just the most impressive end to end season of a high volume player in the NBA and not having jade up for most of the year, plus 16.3 net, 9.0 free throws a game made 7.9 free throws a game just first, clutch points, 175 points first, 59 free throws

in the clutch, shot 52 percent, fuel goal in the clutch. Um, there's also some games where they

“just killed teams and he didn't really play. Actually, I think he could have been around 33 minutes”

a game of some of their games have been closer. Last four years, he's 31 a game. Last two years, okay, C is a 133 and 31. I think that's correct, but 31 losses. And he's the biggest reason by far. You know that night after night, you're guy, it's a little, it's, it's the rich man's version of what Jayland did for the Celtics. You know, night after night, I'm getting this from my best player at the end of the game, so I'm getting this. And I'm just, and I know I have that every game

with you throwing the win totals and the minutes, um, he should, uh, he should be the MVP. And I can't believe you're just isn't going to win though. I just can't believe it. I was telling my students earlier, it's like, if you would have told me that somebody would have John Stalkland amount of assists in Dennis Rodman amount of free bounds when I was growing up. Okay, that's insane. But you can't have nothing in common with you. You just shouldn't

lead the league and both of those categories. In fact, they're, they usually happen in different parts of the floor. Like, it's crazy that, that he's, like, I don't think we were talking about that enough. Yes. Definitely got to be the best season of anybody who's ever finished third

“if he finishes third. I think he's going to finish second. But we'll see. I mean, for me,”

Bill is the defensive stuff is insane. Again, so the Brooklyn nets are the worst shooting team in the MBA. Okay. They're tanking their effective field goal for a stage is 52, 30th in the MBA. When Victor Weminiam was on the court this year, opponents had an EFG of 48 or 49, 49.7. So he essentially turns your offense into a tanking level offense just by being on the court. I wish we had better metrics in our discourse for evaluating defensive impacts.

'Cause we're always citing things like points, reboundes, it's just triple doubles. And that's

going to favor Joker and SGA. It's really challenging us to quantify the impact of Victor on defense, because that's going to be his case for years to come. And we have to get better. I'll take it on, on, I mean, I have to do better to articulate his greatness on the defensive end of the floor. What's that commercial? They're like, yep. No. That's no 40 song choices. No Bay Area. That's a Chipotle's commercial. Yeah, that always makes me think of Wemby when the guys, the guys

are having the best. He's like, nope, just jumping to dribble back out. Now it's kind of the point where the guys don't even consider it. No. They're starting to move. It's like, oh, yeah, I can't do that today because we're playing the spurs and they're just reset. If Denver had gotten,

And I think it's for their 54 and 20. I think if they've gotten a 58 and 24,

“I think I would have voted for Yoke. It's just dumb as that sounds. 10 wins behind OKC”

with the same kind of season where Aaron Gordon's out for half the year. So it was JW. Yeah. OKC seems obviously better. But I just, I weirdly felt like Denver should have won more games than they did. And he's got to get dinged on that too. They finished with a 12 game winning streak. And still, I know they've did the 49. 28. But no, that was a run and they beat the spurs in the game in the year. Like it was that was an MVP moment when he hit that fade over Wemby. They had a

stretch 39 game stretch where they were 19 and 20. And I think that kills him. But I can't believe

he's not going to win. We'll see if he finishes the second. I think SJ is going to win

and we'll see between Wemby and chain the round. All right, Kurt Goldsbury. See you soon. What's your deal of playoff upset? I, if I had to pick an upset, I got two candidates. It's Minnesota Denver because we've seen it before.

“But I think Atlanta, New York is really interesting too. If, if Atlanta can find offense beyond”

CJ McCollum, I think Denver is going to beat Minnesota. And I actually like that so many people including myself, first scared of Minnesota in the series because they've had so much success. I think a fun zag is actually Denver's going to kick their ass. Atlanta's the one I'm looking at. I wonder is there, I just wish Toronto wasn't so

lousy against basically every good team. I wish everyone just pencil and Cleveland in for that series.

And I don't trust them at all because I don't think they can, I just think they give up points to everybody. And if Toronto, the question for me is, I just don't think Toronto is good enough. I've been to wait to haunt them. But Cleveland, if that land in play Cleveland, I think I would have picked that land on that series. Like for Atlanta, Atlanta has all the makings of a team. It's, you know, if you look at the game the way I do, and I literally, they look like the best

statistical profile of any team that's an underdog right now in the last three months of the season. With the exception, maybe Charlotte, who will find out shortly if they're even in the tournament. Yeah, that would be the top of the pot in the time machine. I think Atlanta takes the next to seven in loses because of their bench. I don't like their bench.

Thanks for the help of a game the other night. Yeah, their bench is like just never know tonight tonight.

All right, Kurt Goldsburg pleasure as always. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Don't forget about Legata, our new narrative podcast, which has cocaine in Miami and Colombia

“and all kinds of great stuff. You should check it out, Kurt Goldsburg. You'll rewatch most coming”

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