Transcript of The 2026 Made-Up NBA Awards With Zach Lowe New

The Bill Simmons Podcast live on Netflix. That's Zach Lowe that you're looking at. He's at an undisclosed location. By the way, Rewatchables coming tomorrow night. We are doing Eddie and the Cruisers. It's the tail end of CR Month. And then Zach's got a podcast on Tuesday. We're going to do the Made Up NBA Awards later in the episode. Zach, Game of the Year yesterday. We always say game of the year after there's a great game, but this really was the game of the year. San Antonio, Denver was on Amazon. I like these early Saturday afternoon PT games on Amazon 'cause they're all over the country. Like if you're in Europe, you're watching it like you're watching on Saturday Night Live. We had Wemby and Joker kind of playing for the number 2 MVP spot, not to mention San Antonio trying to lay the smackdown, Denver trying to get to the 3 seed, and the 2 centers just brought it out of each other and we went into overtime. It was the biggest game of the year for Denver to win. I thought it was a good loss for San Antonio, as weird as that sounds.

But more importantly, two generational guys, a really special sporting event. Like, I'm still, I'm still glowing 24 hours later.

What, what more can you ask for? These two guys are absolutely unbelievable. They danced around each other for a lot of the game before Wemby kind of took the Jokic assignment for most of the down the stretch. Jokic did not guard Wemby very much at all, but just sort of sometimes they would come into contact on switches and it would be like, ooh, here, here we go. Here's what we paid for. Yeah. And like, Wemby just big boyed him on a couple post-ups, like just ate his shot alive. And then Jokic would get him, like footwork the body, get a little like weirdo hook over him. And just masterpiece performance by, by both guys. And you could just see the sort of strategies that both teams were toying with, with an eye on like maybe, maybe down the line this could be a thing.

You know, it's funny, the league was built on centers way back when. George Mikan, Russell versus Chamberlain, Kareem, This was the first 25, 30 years of the league you had to have centers. And then we moved toward perimeter guys a little bit here. We've had some great ones watching two centers battle like that, even though Jokic wasn't guarding Wemby that much on the other side, but just watching two unstoppable guys go at it like that. I don't think there's anything like it. As much fun as it is to watch Curry versus Kobe or LeBron versus KD, all the great stuff we've had over the years, there's something different when it's the centers. I mean, Jokic made That turnaround, he made an OT.

I don't even know if that was a Sombor shuffle by categorization or not, but it was like I screamed, I yelped, I did the Yoko. Oh, one of those guys.

I was the best shot anyone's made all season. I can't believe it went in. Wemby couldn't believe it made it, went in the point of the game when he made it was unbelievable. But Wemby shot to end regulation that he missed. Where he had Gordon, and that was like— by the— this is why you could not give up on Denver at any point this regular season, because we didn't see yesterday's Aaron Gordon on this Denver team. We saw it yesterday. But Gordon plays perfect defense. Wemby ends up basically just careening out of bounds on the left side, but then somehow gets this line drive shot. But because he's an alien, it was actually a good shot and probably should have gone in. And if he made that, I'd never have seen anyone make that shot in the history of basketball before, at least in that situation.

8-foot wingspan, half your body can be flying in one direction out of bounds and you just reach out and it's like, oh, my arm is actually in semi-normal position and I'll flick this shot. No, just outrageous. And Aaron Gordon played 41 minutes, guarded Wemby for a lot of the game, did everything that Aaron Gordon always does on offense. And just, I liked when he and Stephon Castle, by the way, I had like, the big boy off where like Stephon Castle actually got into him and put it up. And then the next possession, Aaron Gordon knocked him over. That was fun. Stephon Castle's like, yeah, Aaron Gordon, you're one of the preeminent like ass kickers in the NBA. How about I just go right at you?

Right?

That guy fears nothing.

He had a, I might be the third best player in this game vibe to him that, that entire time. The Wimby thing, it's honestly like watching a horror movie where The alien creature is starting to gain intelligence over the course of the movie, and it's like, this alien was scary in the first 20 minutes, but now it's starting to figure shit out. Uh, the competitiveness and just him understanding what he can and can't do. And, uh, I, and I actually thought it affected Fox negatively. I think Fox, if I'm a Spurs fan, the things I'm nervous about too, and both of them popped up yesterday. Wemby, when you have to put more than 30 minutes on him, which is also the, the MVP argument with him too. He can give you a great 30 minutes. He's a, he's the baseball starter that can throw you 6 awesome innings. But if I need you to go into the 9th and throw like 130 pitches, can you do it?

It's the entire New York Mets rotation, baby. Let's go. Right.

There you go. I thought he looked worn out in OT just 'cause he's not used to that kind of level of intensity for 3 hours. And it was a long game too. The other thing was the Fox piece of it. Fox, who was this great clutch player on the Kings, who was really good, but the offense revolved around him. How do I kind of figure out how to float in and out of this when I have an alien on my team? What's my place? How often do I take over? Should I be taking over? Am I just kind of over here? And if I'm over here, I'm not really De'Aaron Fox. I think they have to figure that out over the next 2 months.

Which, it's weird because for the whole season we've been praising De'Aaron Fox for finding that exact right balance in his game. And it felt a little— I mean, he missed some shots. Shots, right? He missed some like good shots for him, and that's part of it. Like, those go in and we're talking about a different sort of discussion. And yeah, I mean, that's, you know, the three-headed monster of Harper, Kessel, and Fox is super imposing. It gives them all kinds of optionality. They can keep two of them on the floor at all times. Medium-term, long-term, they're going to have to answer some questions about, you know, is there enough— if there— is there enough ball for all of them? But right now it's been perfect. I'm gonna just chalk up yesterday to a hiccup, but just a fascinating game all around. Like Christian Brown, go ahead and shoot a million corner threes. He kind of made 'em pay for it. Denver, like, do we play Valanciunas? Do we not play Valanciunas? It was just an awesome, awesome basketball game.

Cam Johnson, I thought, had a couple really big moments that he, he probably needed more than anyone in the game. Really came through, I thought. And just in general, and I, I, I thought Van Gundy did a great job yesterday. I haven't always been high on him as an announcer, but I think he's been really good this year. And I thought he captured the moment in the fourth quarter just talking about the level of play. Like, this is like what, what we're watching right now. This is as high of a level as we're going to get in basketball in 2025, '26. And OKC can get there. I think the Celtics can get there. Like, even today watching them just house Toronto without— they weren't even making threes and they were up pretty comfortably. I think there's 4 teams that can get to that level. I don't know if anyone else can, especially now that we have the, all these Lakers injuries that I wanna talk about in a second. I don't know if anyone else has it in 'em.

It's, it's funny you say that because in the middle of, right before Luka got hurt, Thunder-Lakers the other night, I got a text from someone high up in the league, not in the league office, just in, in the league saying, man, another, another blowout. Like there's two teams playing at a different level and then there's everybody else. And I replied, And I think we're getting to the point that the only two teams that can actually push them are Denver and Boston. And, and, and, and, you know, it's hard to make a case for anyone else cuz the level of play is just so high. And the Nuggets reminded everyone, you mentioned Cam Johnson, that's super on point. He's very quietly had a good last month, like playing with a lot more verve, giving them what they need. If they, and they didn't have Peyton Watson, we'll see when he comes back. He's week to week, which is like the new thing. People are now week to week with things now, which I don't know how to, how to, how to—

we should start this with our pods. We'll just release that Zach might, might have a pod on Tuesday, maybe not. He's week to week.

Week to week. But yeah, and Cam Johnson has had a good month and the Nuggets sort of remind, and a game it felt like the Nuggets needed, like even though they've won, they're on a winning streak. Everyone at the top of the league is on a winning streak 'cause the third of the league is not trying to win games. It felt like they needed a power win and they got a major power win and they never really had the lead.

They were always on the fringe of being down 15. It kept fighting off. If I'm the Spurs, I'm just looking at that like we were in charge of that whole game and we shouldn't have let it get to OT. It went to OT, we lost, but that was a good loss. We learned some things from it. San Antonio, it's like, it feels like if they've— how many times I wonder have they even been down by 8 points in the last 3 months? I can only think of like 2 games. It just feels like they're in control from the moment these games start doing whatever they want to do. And they're so good. I had a Castle question for you actually, really quick.

Okay.

He might be on a third team All-NBA for me.

It's, you've mentioned this now 4 or 5 times and I feel like you are, you are asking for permission.

I feel like you're doing, I'm not asking for permission. I just like, you're testing it out.

You're testing out. You want someone to tell you. It's okay, do it. And I think you should do it if you want to do it. I wouldn't do it, but he's, he's been unbelievable.

Well, some people have Scottie Barnes on there now that, uh, no, some people have him now that we've had some guys fell off. Like Luka's now probably out, Kade's probably out, so on and so on. And people are trying to talk themselves—

wouldn't give up on Luka. There's, they're, they're actually going to do this thing where they appeal it, right? Because he's going to get to 60, he's at 64 games. They're going to do the extraordinary circumstances appeal because he was in Slovenia for the birth of his child. Can you imagine if the NBA is like, you know what, let's get our lawyers, let's get our top-notch litigate, like get Wachtell in here. We're going to go against Luka Dončić and his agent. And this is extraordinary. We don't care that you were present for the birth of your child. We're sticking by the 65-game rule. I would love if the league just dug in. Imagine how bad that would look. I bet he's going to— we'll see. We'll see. That's all I'm saying.

Well, can they figure that out before we have to send in the votes?

Well, this is what this— I joked about this. So what are you supposed to do? Put the ballots on TBD arbitrator's ruling pending, right?

Like, we'll see what happens. Uh, I have a zag. So Luca and I, I didn't come up with this because a couple listeners emailed this too, but since I'm obviously not a huge Laker fan, I really enjoyed it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pass it forward. Luka, 16, uh, technicals this year, got suspended for a game. Now he's one game short. Wow.

So you're saying maybe he deserves it?

Maybe he should look in the mirror.

Wow. You've been, you've been, you, you've been waiting. This, how about this?

Maybe, maybe behave a little bit better during the, maybe set a better role model example to, to the kids out there.

You hit him with behave. And you hit him with a full block.

Maybe don't get 16 technicals.

You hit him with a full block.

Maybe if you didn't get 16 technicals, you would've played 65 games already and you'd be in the All-NBA.

We're talking about Barkley in 1990. Role models. What was it? Old Spice? Was that the commercial? I am not a role model. Was it Old Spice?

No, it was Nike. It was Nike.

Was it Nike?

No, I, it's not voting for Luka would be, I, I just don't understand how we're gonna fill out these ballots and not have 'em on.

Can I give you the—

64 instead of 65.

Can I give you the sneaky one that people haven't realized yet? What Devin Booker is not gonna be eligible because it looks like on games played he is gonna be eligible, but 2 of his games are sub-10-minute games 'cause of injury and you've gotta get to 20. I think it allows for like 1 or 2 under 15-minute games. Those can count. And so his, he's gonna max out at 64, which I don't think a lot of voters have realized yet because I see him and I think they are potentially gonna look at appealing it too because again, we're just like running out of guys.

I actually haven't sat down appealing this too. What is there like a Judge Judy for the NBA? Just waiting to accept the dumbest appeals ever for All-NBA.

I assume it's some sort of independent arbitrator that hopefully it takes— it does not take as long as the Aspiration investigation. So we're filling out the 2026 All-NBA team in like 8 months from now retroactively. But yeah, I haven't actually sat down and redone my list yet because I gotta cross off like 4 more guys.

Well, I had— that's why I was thinking about Castle, because if Booker's out Booker's out. Well, like, I want— I like Scottie Barnes, but like, I watched him today. I just think Castle's one— eye test-wise, plus I saw in person, and Castle was one of the guys that really jumped out to me this year in person. I, I especially since the— I think like the last 2 months since the All-Star break, he's at like 43% from 3. Uh, I just think he's turned into an awesome, awesome second guy. I got a great mailbag question from Hams in Buffalo. Okay. Luka is at 64 games. They play Utah the last game of the year. Utah's gonna need that loss. Luka should dress in full uniform and stand in the corner of the court for 20 minutes while the Lakers play 4 and 5 and Utah still tries to lose. This would be incredible entertainment, right? I'm down for that.

I mean, look, it can't get any worse. I mean, Wizards Nets today. I mean, you better believe I'm not watching a second of that, but just the injury report alone, it was outrageous. And Yeah, Utah, it'll be interesting to see if they're just like locked into, they, they have the same sort of 99.4% chance of keeping their pick if they're, if a win actually matters to them. But yeah, why not? Luka on one leg, roll him out there on crutches. Like what are you gonna do? Who's gonna stop him? Kyle Filipowski's gonna stay in front of Luka with crutches on? I don't think so.

No way. Just the term now, I went on Terminating Eddie on Friday. He's going old school with his All-NBA ballot, which I don't think I'm gonna do, but I really respect it. Where it's like, we have 75 years of, we had a center on each team and now we've thrown this away. And he's like, I don't know if I'm voting for Jokic or Wemby for first team All-NBA Center, but whoever I have, I'm putting the other guy on the second team to keep the history. And I'm like, I really want to do that. I really respect it. But the, the catch for me is I do feel like Jokic and Wemby could belong on the same team. I know Jokic is a center, but he's could, He's not. No, I'm just saying, like, hypothetically, it's Patrick Ewing and Shaquille O'Neal. Like, he's a point guard. He's all kinds of things.

It's not even a question. If you put them on the same team, you would have the starting blueprint for the best team in the NBA.

Yeah. So I feel like that's the out. But I still feel like if this was Shaq and Hakeem Olajuwon or something, that's two real centers, right? Jokic, I don't know what he is. Nobody knows what he is. He doesn't. What position is he? I have no idea.

Well, we, we did this with Embiid and Jokic, right? And this is part of the reason why the rule I think got altered is because one of them had to be a second team All-NBA center when they were like jostling for the MVP.

I, I kind of like it. And then it looks like Murray—

I just like their mindset of you can't tell me what to do. I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.

Well, that's the thing. There's 100 votes, right? The whole point of having 100 votes is that everybody's gonna come up to their own conclusions and have their own attitudes on this. I am gonna have Jalen Duren on my second team. I don't know if he's a second team All-NBA, but I'm gonna have a center on the second team. And if I'm gonna have Jokic and Wemby first team, I'm putting a center on the second team. I'm not gonna have a forward and four guards. I just think at that point, are you— I'm basically doing the MVP ballot. I'm just not doing that. Can we talk Lakers really quick?

Sure.

So do you, do you believe the timelines they're doing out, or do you think they're being intentionally padding the weeks that Luka and Reeves are going to be out, and those guys will actually be back sooner than that. I never, never really know what the agenda is when they just tell you the weeks, where sometimes it'll be faster, other times it'll be slower. In this case, I just find it hard to believe Luka is going to be out for 5 weeks, and I find it hard to believe Reeves isn't going to play with a hurt oblique in the first round. I mean, because all my Laker fan friends are freaking out.

We've seen the oblique stuff is no joke. Like, Bankaro and Franz Wagner both got it last year and they were both out for a while. I don't know if it's the exact same injury, but like, that stuff's no joke. Like, the Reaves timetable was, was like pretty precise, 4 to 6 weeks. The Luka one I think was like a maybe a little vaguer. I can't remember exactly, but, um, I'm going to trust that I'm, I'm gonna just ballpark a month and— okay, so you're trusting the intel plus or minus a month, and that takes him out of the first round of the playoffs. And I think if those guys are both out, I think the Lakers clearly surpass the Rockets as the team that you'd most want to play in the first round if you were one of the best Western Conference teams in the top 6. And so that gets you just thinking like, if you're Denver, you know, what, what seed do you want to chase? Do you want to chase the 3 seed or do you want to stick in 4 or 5 and stick with the Rockets? It, it's like, it is, it's a whole like it's a, it's a whole calculation now.

If I'm Denver, I want to be the 3 seed and I want to, I want to play San Antonio over OKC in round 3.

Yeah. So that's, so that's the route for Denver is like, if we're 3, we get Minnesota instead of Houston, but we get San Antonio in the second round.

If we're 4, well, they might get Houston with the 3-6 too. Like I still feel like the 5-6 is up in the air.

Right. Yeah, but the Lakers, obviously, if those guys are out, then they're not, they're not winning a first round playoff series. I don't know what's interesting about that. That's just what it is.

Here's the big winner. OKC. However this played out, OKC wins because it's probably leading to Denver and San Antonio having a bloodbath in round 2 and OKC playing a significantly weaker team than either of those teams in round 2. OKC potentially getting Portland. In round 1, and then, I don't know, Houston, Minnesota, the, uh, a depleted Lakers team, which isn't going to get out of first round without those guys. Like, this is amazing for OKC.

I'm glad they caught a break.

Yeah, thank God. Thank God for them.

I mean, Houston's 2 up on the Wolves for— and the Wolves are playing as we're doing this.

Um, yeah.

For the 5th spot. And let me look at the tiebreakers real quick. Rockets tiebreaker still in play. They play once more. That's right. They play on April 10th. It's gonna be a head-to-head showdown. So that's gonna be one of the biggest games of the season in terms of seeding.

The other seeding thing that's going on, whatever is gonna happen with 7 and 8 in the East where you had Toronto lose today, the Celtics just look really comfortable against Toronto. If that ends up being the 7th seed, they'd be the 7th seed now. Philadelphia, who everybody's so terrified of, just actually defecated on the court yesterday against Detroit. It was a full defecation. It was awful. Every time everybody's like, oh, Philly, watch out, they just go backwards. I mean, I know Embiid was—

I was going to say a very important player did not play.

I get it. I get it. But I just thought it was notable. And you have Charlotte looming, and I am just on multiple Celtics text threads with the who would you want to play the most and the least. 'Cause even Charlotte, I don't think Charlotte's ready to win a playoff series.

I don't wanna, I don't wanna bandwagon driver, just, you know, cautiously switching lanes here. Yeah.

It's, it's, I think a little early for them to expect to just go in and beat Boston. With that said, I don't want to see them in the 2-7 matchup.

Okay.

I just don't, I don't want to see the, I don't want to see their dudes. I think they'd play with no fear, the 3-point shooting. I just don't want to see them. There's other teams I would rather play in that spot. And then the other one is Cleveland, who thought they were playing this perfectly, and it's like, oh yeah, 4 or 5, we'll play Toronto, we'll beat them, then we'll play Detroit. We love playing Detroit, we can beat them. And now they have to play this incredibly frisky Atlanta team that lots of Hawks fans are saying you refuse to talk about now.

I, but just, who are these Hawks fans? I had like a 3-minute monolog at the end of my last podcast with Michael Peena about a Nikhil Alexander Walker, Jalen Johnson inverted pick and roll. On how beautiful it was.

I got one email from a disgruntled Hawks fan.

Look, if the Cavs— the Hawks are a very good team, and this has been one of the few— we're going to get to this. It's one of the great stories of the NBA season, this sort of identity post-Trey Young that they have.

They—

it was like half of their identity with Trey Young, and then it just blew up and became their whole identity once he was gone and the awkwardness was lifted away from them.

Yeah.

And they've, they're what, they're a million and just a few losses in their last 25 games. They've been outrageous. If Cleveland can't beat the Hawks in a first round series in which they have home court advantage, if they're even like wobbling in fear of the Atlanta Hawks, just, just break it up already.

If Cleveland lost to the Hawks in round 1, they will be in trade podcasts that I do, you do, we do together, everyone else does. Knicks, they'll just be the number one go-to team for all Giannis trades. Like, Palo, pick a guy. Could Evan— is it time to trade Mitchell? Oh, the Knicks are out too. Here we go, Mitchell to the Knicks. Like, it'll just, it'll set off a chain reaction. It's time. We're going to take a break. And then the 2026 made-up NBA Awards. Feel a lot of pressure. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during their playoff run. Build a same-game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip-off. Don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7111. 7-7-7-7 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by PayPal.

We've seen some legendary athletes don the number 4 jersey. Now, I can't name names, but you guys know who I'm talking about. In fact, if you look at my studio, there's a framed picture of one of my favorite number 4s. He played hockey. Anyway, you know what else is game-changing for PayPal Pay in 4. No fees, no interest, no impact on your credit score, just the flexibility to pay the way that works for you. And it's available at millions of online stores. Pay in 4 with PayPal, subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/payin4. PayPal Inc., NMLS 910457. All right, it's the 2026 Made Up Awards. We will be doing, uh, all of our real stuff, the NBA, All-NBA, MVP, Rookie of the Year, all that stuff. We, we have weeks to talk about it, but not the Made Up Awards. We always do it the week before the end of the season. Bunch of awards. I sent you a whole master list. I sent you some nominees. Feel free to chime in, extra nominees. The first award, one of the most important ones, we like to For the made-up awards, we like to have a big one first, like in the Oscars when they bring out like the best supporting actress.

Like, oh, I'm never ready.

I'm never ready. Even though I know it's coming, I'm like, I just sat down, I'm not ready.

Yes. Um, it's Unicorn of the Year, normally a controversial award with a lot of good options. This year the nominees are Victor Wembanyama, Peyton Pritchard, LeBron James, and Jalen Johnson. I don't know if you had any more nominees to throw in.

It's an interesting set of nominees. LeBron is obviously up there for his age. I would imagine Peyton Pritchard, we can talk about whether he deserves to be mentioned in this group or this is like a blockbuster movie that just got tossed in for Best Picture. But I did not add any additional nominees because the answer is obvious and I don't know what else there is to say.

Yeah, it's almost Unicorn of the Decade is in play for Wemby. Peyton Pritchard I put in because of the bizarre stats about his 2-point shooting and him near the rim and just this weird one-man post-up offense that he's been able to do. This iso ball, bang into you around. I've just never— TJ, TJ kind of veered toward a lot of this and then Pritchard took it and grabbed it and took it to another level. But I've just never seen anybody do it like this. Okay.

At 6'1", yeah, for sure.

Not a lot of mystery for that first one. The next one though. The 2011 Blake Griffin Award for Most Unexpected Delight. And the reason we had this award, this was the year before Lob City. Blake's out his rookie year, hurts his knee, comes back the next year. Baron Davis is on this Clippers team. He's probably 20 pounds overweight. DeAndre Jordan's feeling it out. I don't remember who the coach was. Maybe it was Vinny Del Negro. Vinny. Yeah. Vinny. Vinny. Not a lot of high hopes. And then Blake came in and just ran amok and was dunking on everybody, and it was like, oh my God, this is— the Clippers have never had a guy this fun. The nominees for this award, uh, in no particular order: Jason Tatum's comeback, the Charlotte Hornets just in general, the All-Star Game, Bam's 83-point game, Wemby leaping into the stratosphere, Jamal Murray being fucking awesome again, and Kawhi Leonard at age 34 becoming 2019 Kawhi one more time. Any other additional nominees for you?

I added one, and it's the Hawks going like 14-1 in 15 games and 20-3 in their last 23 or whatever it is post Trae Young. I mean, there are like mini runs. This is like a schedule aside. This is like an epic turnaround in the middle of the season and like just scorched earth on the entire Eastern Conference. So I put them, and they're super fun to watch the way they cut and move and pass and play defense.

I agree.

So I put, that was my only extra nominee. It's a, it's a heavy category already.

And you forgot to mention Quinn Snyder looking like he's in Steve Carell's Rooster Show as like the other teacher who may or may not be involved with like one of the coeds. He just has that kind of vibe. Wow. Well, just like he's— there's mystery to him. You don't know. You don't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy. My answer to this, I don't think I could recover from that unexpected delay. Yeah. Bam's 83-point game was the winner for me. Just out of nowhere, watching somebody try to score 83 points against the tanking Wizards and humiliate them when I wasn't expecting it on like a Tuesday night was my number one. So what is it for you?

Did you see Jaime Jaquez Jr. on my pod last week talking about this game?

What'd he say?

He was just like, we were sitting there in shock that the Wizards just were continuing to let him go one-on-one. We were like, what are they do— what are they doing? Like, the guy just put up 35 in the first quarter. You're not sending a second guy. They were like utterly in disbelief.

Did you see what he did in the last game? They played the Wizards again. He had 14 points. In '83, went from '83 to '14.

I found everything about it delightful too. I found the discourse, which I, I was set up to feel like the discourse was gonna be insufferable, and I found it delightful nonetheless.

I loved it.

I love it. I went, I went serious and sappy with this one. Jason Tatum's injury last year is a flashbulb moment in NBA history. It's the same night as Cooper Flagg going to Dallas in the lottery, or Dallas winning the lottery. A night I'll never forget exactly where I was, what I was doing, when it happened, the whole thing. And I just, given, given the history of Achilles injuries, I was like, my expectation, I'm going to, I'm going to level set at he just doesn't play the next season because this is, you know, conference semifinals. And my optimistic take is going to be like, he'll come back and look like, you know, half of himself because that's what happens in these things. For him to come back this early, and look like this for a team with this many wins is like beyond a delight. So I picked him.

I didn't want to pick that because it would've been a homer pick, but now I'm jealous you picked it. Maybe I should've picked it as well. All right, we award that to Jayson Tatum. I think you, you, you won. Well, we each make our case and then we decide. So Jayson Tatum wins that. All right, this is one of another really important award, the Gold Club Trial Award. For funniest story or moment of the season, our nominees are Michael Jordan joining NBC's NBA coverage, and it turned out to just be edited from some 10-minute interview he did where he didn't say anything. Matt Ishbia trash-talking everyone when the Suns hit 32 wins, even though he's traded 17 first-round picks and had to pay Bradley Beal $100 million to go away to get under the luxury tax. Paul George's suspension helping put Philly under the tax. They had to make a trade too. Every Doc Rivers press conference after the Bucks got blown out, where if you just left the TV on and it cuts to Doc in the thing and he just looks like he lost his dog and he's just like, what did I do?

Why am I here? Nobody going to Chris Paul's party. A tidbit from Ramona Shelburne after what went wrong with Chris Paul and the Clippers and about how he threw like a Halloween party party and only 2 Clippers showed up. Joe Mazzulla renouncing Coach of the Year award. He was asked if he— and he's like, I don't care about that award. Don't ask me about that again. I've never— it was the worst campaign of all time. And then last but not least, Ben Simmons becoming a fisherman. I don't know if you have any to add.

Absolutely loaded category. Kudos to everyone. Yeah, it's an honor truly to be nominated. Yeah, the only other one I thought of was the Wizards April Fool's joke going wrong from, from last week, which got even funnier when they issued a press release apologizing for it. So serious that it was like, is this the White House apologizing for some, like, some horrible thing or something? Like, it was just out— the whole thing was ridiculous. I, I, to me, I, I did, I did think there was a, a clear winner. Not a clear winner, but a winner that was for me the, the winner. Should I just say it, or do you want to say who you— you go? I think Ben Simmons becoming a professional, semi-professional, amateur, professional, whatever, fisherman takes the cake for me because it was framed in the story by Mark Spears that kind of broke this, or whatever terminology you want to use. It was framed as like, you know, he's taking a break from the NBA and this is what he's doing while he kills time until he decides what to do with his comeback in the NBA. Is that, is that really What's, what's going on?

So I, in a loaded field, I took that one.

It's great. I'm going with Michael Jordan's NBC stuff, which led to so many jokes and so much comedy, including on your podcast.

I haven't done one in a while. I had a running bit, just insights to mediocrity.

I just thought they presented it like he was going to be this hugely important part of their coverage, and then it was just this interview they clearly filmed over like margaritas at 6 o'clock.

And do you think there was— do you think there was a conversation at some point after the first level of backlash where NBC was like, yo, Michael, like, this is not—

yeah, can we do another?

Can you just come in for like— it'll be 20 minutes, just wear a different outfit, different location? He was like, nah, I'm good. Like, I did exactly what you asked. We're not doing that. Wow.

It was very, uh, Meghan and Harry-ish. Uh, next award. This is a fun one. The Halliburton for Sabonis Award for most fun in-season trade. Only 4 nominees: Zubats to the Pacers with the Clippers getting back that weird 5th through 9th possible pick plus Matherin, uh, Triple J to Utah, McCollum for Trey, or James Harden and a second round pick. For Darius Garland. What do you have?

First of all, I like that you— I mean, CJ McCollum is now the headliner in the trade for you. It's CJ McCollum for Trey Young. Sebastian is the headliner in the description. I had a couple other nominees, but I, I—

let's hear what are your other nominees.

I just think the Jared McCain trade is, is, is interesting on a number of levels, including how angry it made and continues to make our own Chris Ryan on a daily basis, losing all the Philly fans losing their mind about it. This came I mean, these are— 3 of these 4 are very interesting. I don't, I don't find the Trey one all that interesting. I went Harden for Garland because it's almost like a straight up challenge trade except one guy's 10 years older than the other guy. So it's also just a crazy vote of no confidence in the younger guy for a team that has an enormous amount at stake right now in this very season. So I would— that one beat the Zubats one by a hair.

I agree. And that's our winner for this year. And we'll see 5 years from now who regrets that trade more. My guess would be Cleveland. Oh, speaking of trades, this is a new category that, uh, was created last year. It's called the Luka Trade Award for the most cataclysmic moment of the season. Our nominees: the KD burner scandal, All-Star Sunday, the February tanking crisis with the Utah Jazz, whatever happened that two days before when everybody went nuts, including me. Chauncey Billups arrested after the first game, coaches won Blazers game, arrested. Jimmy Butler, the, the knee injury, bummer, but also felt like an official maybe end to the Curry, Draymond, whole Kerr, Steve Kerr Warriors era. The 65-game rule just completely backfiring over the course of 3 weeks here. America kind of turning on Inside the NBA, one of our most beloved institutions for the first time. Feel like there's some real, real, Literally animosity toward maybe these guys don't like the league as much. I think they'll work it out. I'm gonna bet on Barkley, who's the best media guy we've ever had. And then, uh, this was, this was brief. It was in November.

It was when it seemed like OKC was gonna go 76-6 while the Clippers were in a free fall. And we had 2 weeks there where we were terrified OKC was gonna go 75-7, but then also get the first pick in the draft. So any other nominees for you in this category?

No, I think you covered all of them. And I will congratulate you because inside the NBA's public perception of it being nominated here feels like— feels like if the president of the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was like, I really love this Norwegian film about death and mortality. We're putting it in the Best Picture nominees. Okay, we're putting it in there. Yeah, I'm going Tanking Crisis because it's ongoing. And just the noise drowned out everything else about a prolonged period of the NBA season. It is utterly embarrassing. Half— I mean, that slate Friday night, two nights ago, top 3 worst night of NBA basketball in the history of the league. I mean, every game was unwatchable.

And what was the stat about it? Was like 25 points a game was the disparity of all the games that night. It was like one of the two worst nights ever for something like that.

The stat you're citing is by Tim Reynolds at the AP. I don't remember exactly what it was. It was something like it was either the point spreads or the final margin had only been equaled one other time in the NBA, and it was also this season. So I— and they're going to change the rules and everyone's just talking about it constantly. So in an absolutely loaded field, I mean, you're talking about a coach getting arrested, rules gone haywire, a burner thing. I'm going tanking.

I think you're right because the story still will not die. And every time people get tired of talking about it, something like Friday night happens and then we're off again. And honestly, we would've talked about it all weekend if the Wemby Joker game hadn't happened.

So can we, can we also just congratulate the Blazers on bookending the year with Chauncey Billups at the beginning and this like bizarre two front office employees get fined and so does the team for illegal contact with Hansung Yang before he was draft eligible. That was a new one for me.

Yeah, that was— and it was a couple of years ago, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Before he was draft eligible.

We— I mentioned this on my mailbag the other day with House. We haven't talked about it, but I— to me, the seatbelt is off with the Blazers the next 3 months.

I agree with you.

I— it is. We're just— we are going to take the speedboat out into the, into the ocean and we're going to fucking floor it to 110 like Sonny Crockett with the Blazers. I am prepared for it. Anything like Giannis trade, new coach, maybe they bring in a coach GM, any sort of wheeling and dealing. This new owner coming in who already has this proven thing from hockey of like, I'm coming in, I'm rolling up my sleeves, let's go. And I just think they're the wildcard team this year. I, if I had to bet on a Giannis team, we don't have the odds for this, although I'm sure the prediction market does, which sadly he invested in one of them. I think I would bet on Portland in the number 2 spot behind the Knicks. I would have the Knicks 1 and I would have Portland 2 for Giannis destinations.

That's, that's Cleveland 3. You, you could make, you could make a lot of money if it, if it comes true based on what I think the odds would actually be. And by the way, kind of forgotten stage, you know, offstage this year, all-time franchise icon Damian Lillard coming back to play basketball for the Blazers next year amid all of this.

Could he come back for the, for the 8-9 game or the 7-8 game?

I, I have not even considered this possibility.

Imagine that Dame just shows up.

He won the 3-point contest.

So why not? Well, you know what's changed? We didn't, I don't want to talk about the Bucks and Giannis. I just don't. But I think the one thing that's changed is it's acrimonious enough now that I think he's lost. The, okay, we'll accommodate whatever Giannis wants. We'll trade you to whatever city you want to go to. Now I think it's like, hey Giannis, you're going to Portland. I think that's what's flipped. They're going to make the best trade for them and they're not going to worry about if his feelings are hurt or not. That would be my take. Next award. You know, an important award, almost like Best Cinematography. The 1986 Bill Walton Award, biggest impact under 20 minutes a game guy. This is the true 6-man award. Alex Caruso, Hugo, Shireman, Ron Holland, Grant Williams, quietly +14 for the Hornets this year, Andre Drummond, and my pick for this, Dennis Jenkins, who has just been a revelation for the Pistons. And I think he's thrown his hat into the Sixth Man Award as well because he's been the definition of a sixth man, a bench guy who when you actually need him to start for a couple weeks, he can do it and carry you.

It's a great story. I think he went to 4 colleges. He's somebody I never really noticed until at some point during this season, like, wow, that, That guy's kind of frisky. And then it's like, man, that Jenkins might be good. And then by the end of the year, it's like, could this guy run a team? He's my pick for this one.

I do want to point out that Hugo Gonzalez played 1 minute of garbage time today. Just, just, I just want to point that out. And the initial list of nominees, you've changed it. You're changing up on me. Had Bones Hyland on it, and he's apparently been disqualified from, from the award.

I took Bones off. I felt like I maybe shot my wad on that one a little too excitedly because he was good for about a week.

My two, my two other additions is I did a basketball reference search that fit the criteria. I think Mitchell Robinson deserves a hello and Clint Capella deserves a hello. I'm going to say I made a dramatic decision on this. I think the correct answer is Alex Caruso. But last night watching Detroit Philadelphia, watching Dennis Jenkins yet again lead Detroit with his ball handling, with the shot creation, with his defense and all of it. To another easy win without Cade Cunningham. I mean, you can pick whether it's him or Jalen Duren. He's the most important reason why they have not only stayed afloat without Cade Cunningham, but just death grip on the number 1 seed for a week and a half now. They never slipped for a second. So I'm flipping my vote from Caruso because Caruso, we all know Caruso, it's boring.

Let's have some fun.

Let's honor a guy who's really one of the stories of this particular season. Dennis Jenkins, come out from the back row wherever they sit you at this ceremony. You're getting this award.

I'm really happy for him. Did a great job. And actually, I thought increased the ceiling of the Pistons because one of the things I just didn't take them as seriously as a true playoff contender because I didn't really trust their bench. And I didn't feel like they had like the right kind of guy who could come in and maybe swing a game or a quarter. And you know, who knows when Cade comes back, he doesn't have the car keys in the same way. But I do feel like whatever's happened with him the last 4 weeks, he can come into a game now and flip the game. Which is what they had with Schroeder last year too. Do you think when you're thinking about big picture guys who, if you're another team, like, should we target this guy? Is he— he's trapped behind another asset. Maybe we can get this guy. I was thinking him and AJ Mitchell are the two guys that if I'm another team trying to figure out how to think outside the box with assets and picks, Those would be the two I would look at. Is there anybody else you would put in that category?

Somebody who's basically really good but maybe is being blocked by somebody or isn't in the perfect situation or might become available 'cause of salary cap.

Off the top of my head, I think Kayson Wallace would also maybe qualify for this, or is he overqualified for this?

I just, I'm not, I'm just not trading him.

Teams, teams are—

Would you trade, would you ever trade him if you're OKC? I wouldn't. Ever consider it?

I mean, OKC is going to have a whole bunch of different decision trees based on, you know, do we keep all three of these stars together for as long as possible on their max numbers? Do we not? What do we do? Like, people are going to have to go one way or another. It depends what his number is going to be too. I mean, is, is he— does he get to restricted free agency and someone throws a massive offer sheet at him? I don't know. I think teams are thinking about Collin Gillespie like this, um, on a low—

but I mean, he kind of has a team.

Yeah, you know, but now that he came off the bench today for the first time in a long, long time because they started Jordan Goodwin over him, and I think they're just experimenting. Do we want to— now that Jalen Green's a full-time starter, do we want to just stagger our ball handling? You know, there are like Isaiah Collier on a lower level. I don't think that he's a, you know, that great of a starter kind of candidate, but I'm sure I can think of others.

The 1984 John Drew Award for most stunning random statistical achievement. I knew you would love this one. So I have 6 nominees and I'm sure you found a couple. Some of them are easy. Conley in the NBA in threes as a rookie. Bonkers. SGA, 55% field goal percentage and 31 points a game as a guard. Scottie Barnes, 100+ steals and blocks. Derek White, I don't know if he had a block today, but heading into today, he was 10th in the league in blocks. He had 98 blocks. Derek White is going to get to 100 blocks. Donovan Clingan leading the league in offensive rebounds with 4.5 per game. And then Wemby averaging almost 25 points a game in less than 30 minutes a game. He's 24.7, 29.7. His per 36, I think is at 30. So those would be my candidates. Do you have any other nominees?

Wait, did you, did you wipe Kinnipiel off?

No, I had, I had Khan lead in the NBA in threes.

Okay. You said it.

Yeah.

First of all, Derrick White had no blocks today. He, there was one play where he, someone went up and he kind of deflected it, but I, I guess they called it either just a deflection or maybe the guy was passing. It would be very funny if he had 99 blocks going into the last game of the season and started just chasing blocks like some guys chase triple doubles, chase assists at the end of games, just trying to swat everything in sight just to get this.

He's like roping people into shooting so he could go at them.

Yeah. Just to, just to cinch, just to cinch this random award. I mean, I guess it's not a season-long thing. I thought Bam's 83-point game would be in here and I, I would even put, oh, I was, yeah, I was thinking for the year, but you're right.

Bam. So if it was single, single game is eligible, Bam would win.

But I mean, that was just such a, like, outlier event. And I, at the SGA, Wilt Chamberlain 20-point streak, you know, it's not a year, it's more than one year. I thought that was interesting.

That's a good one.

That's a good one. I went basic on this. Call me basic like the teenagers do. I went Concanipple leading the entire NBA in threes and walking into the league as the best shooter in the entire world not named Steph Curry, which I think is what he's established himself as in year one, the volume. The different ways he can get shots off movement, off the dribble, both sides of the floor. It's just, you cannot say enough superlatives for how great of a shooter he is in year one on a team that has been one of the stories of the season. So I went with sort of the just most boring counting stat one of all of these.

It's boring, but it's the right answer because you can actually bet this before the season on FanDuel. And I always like to, I'll do like a couple bets where I'll have Curry for most threes parlayed with like Wemby for most blocks and dude, those are the two shock ones and then put other stuff. I don't think Khan even had odds. So when you look at it from that perspective, 'cause they probably have 20 guys that they'll put in there and it'll be like everybody you can think of, right? Jaylen Brown, like everybody. Khan didn't have, as far as I remember, Khan didn't have odds. So to go from that to leading the league in made threes as a rookie, which is an achievement in itself, and you know, he as a shooter, I thought just looked like peak prime Klay Thompson, right? With that, like some of the stuff, the quick release stuff that he was doing was like, it took Klay Thompson 4 years to get to that point and Khan's already there. And I don't even know where we go from here with Khan. It's not like his release can get faster. I guess he could maybe get, move it 5 feet out would be the only, I don't know what else he could even add.

He's just finished already.

Can I, can I give you 2 more nominees? Yeah, that I forgot. Zion playing 51 out of 52 games and counting. I don't know what that, that seems to be something. And it, it another single game one that just I was crazy. So maybe it doesn't qualify was the night that Khaleel Ware had double digit points and rebounds and 7 blocks and 5 steals off the bench. And no one had ever done that coming off the bench ever before in the history of the NBA. So that was a little oddity for you.

I actually, I don't mind when they give us those things like he's the first guy since 1963 to have 30 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists, 5 blocks, and 3 steals. Like when they do those hot spot things.

Yeah.

But it's a little over the top with how many times, like to me it's like Jokic had a 20, 20, and 20. That's like a real, that's one where it's like, all right, I can put that into some sort of context. All right. Two coaching ones really quick. I know that this is where Zach gets uncomfortable. Zach does not—

I'm not uncomfortable. I'm ready. I'm ready.

Well, it's the Monte Williams Award for worst coaching performance. First of all, do you think Monte Williams is the right person to have this award named after? Do you think he— can you see his face on the bust? Is there somebody else you would put here?

So it's got to be somebody else because that year with the Pistons was— everyone, it felt like everyone immediately agreed on day one that, you know what, this was a bad idea. The money was too much. Everyone got carried away. This is a horrible idea. And he had just coached the team to the finals and 60 wins and all that. So I feel like we could, we could do better.

Okay, I'll work on that. I'll talk to the committee. Nominees: Doug Christie of the Hindenburg Kings, Ime Udoka. Had to throw him on there. Just a lot of clogged toilet in the end of these games, and the team seems super unhappy. Brian Keefe, who did not double Bam Adebayo for 3 quarters during an early 3-point game. Willie Green, no longer with us. Jamal Mosley, who's been on, it feels like, the quiet hot seat now for a month and a half. And then, listen, I gotta call it like it is. I think Doc Rivers is on here as well. When you have this many 20-plus-point losses, As much as I love the guy, I, I have to just throw him on there for sake of accuracy. Uh, my winner is Doug Christie. I don't know if we have the same guy.

The committee is unanimous. Congratulations to Doug Christie. Um, it's truly been an experience to watch across the board.

I think the best thing you can say about it to really capture the moment is sometimes with these coaches, it's like, I wonder if he'll get another head coaching job. With Doug Christie, we have the answer already. We will— he will never have another head coaching job. It will never happen. No other team will hire Doug Christie. It's the nicest thing you could say about it. We've had NFL coaches like this too, where you're watching the tail end of the season, the guy's gonna get fired. It's like, I'm never gonna see— the Patriots had Jared Mayo like that. It's like, we're never gonna see this guy again. Doug Christie, we will never see again as a head coach. I remember predicting this.

I had forgotten about that, about this until someone reminded me a couple weeks ago. Remember the brief— this guy's like a Hall of Fame level accomplished almost, but remember the brief John Beeline Cleveland Cavaliers era, which was over in like weeks, and then all these funny stories came out, like the players like, yeah, he names plays after animals. So we're out there like calling Panda and like Anteater, and everyone's like, what are we doing here? That was a good one.

See, I had this thing when I did the mailbag with House about when we go to commercial for League Pass, instead of seeing the people dancing for the Jumbotron, it's little 2-minute mini documentaries about players, teams. That would be a funny wrinkle to it. It's just a 2-minute John Beeline documentary about the guy who had to leave in 40 games and name plays after animals. And we just—

I think it was animals. I think it was animals. It was like, hippopotamus.

A more positive award, the Brad Stevens Award for most untankable coach, named after Brad Stevens' 2015 performance when the team was built to tank, was supposed to tank, and just wouldn't tank. So our nominees are Joe Mazzulla, Jordan Ott, and Tiago Splitter, unless you can think of anybody else.

Well, all the coaches who would've been like Jordy Fernandez would've been in this conversation a year ago. Turns out you can tank with Jordy Fernandez as your head coach, even with Rick Carlisle as your head coach. If you try hard enough, you can tank with a Hall of Fame, 1,000 games won, all that kind of head coach. So I could not, I had no other nominees.

I think my answer, oh man, this is a tough one because this is basically one of the proxies for Coach of the Year, at least who you think is going to be second. It's between Mazzulla and I, and I can't decide. So you're going to have to decide.

I went with Joe Mazzulla. I also think Charles Lee deserved maybe a mention here as well as a nominee because I don't think the Hornets had any idea. I don't I don't think Hornets brass ownership had any idea that any of this was in play at the start of the season. In fact, I think they would've preferred like, hey, let me get another bite at the apple.

You know who had an idea? He's got two thumbs and he's you.

Yeah, I'll go Joe. I was trying to tell you, I'll go Joe Mazzulla just because he's, he's the Celtics are the 2 seed. He's gonna win coach of the year. They have gap year stamped all over them by everybody and they rejected the label and, and like just threw it in the trash. And I have to ask you then, when he wins Coach of the Year, because I think he's going to win Coach of the Year, having denounced the entire notion of the award, what do you think he should do when he's given the award? Do you think he should just let his whole staff come up and accept it? Do you think he should throw it in a garbage can? Do you think he should like, like give a, like a speech about how stupid the whole thing is? Do you think he should let the players accept it? I'm serious. Like, what should he do? He has preemptively said this award that I'm about to get is a piece of garbage that is dumb. So what does one do then upon receiving it?

I'm looking at the odds now. Bickerstaff is still favored. He's -240. Missoula is +230. I don't think— I think Bickerstaff's gonna win.

You're right. Maybe Bickerstaff, you know, with the way they've— I would vote for Missoula, but with the way they've played, it says a lot about the culture that he's instilled there and all that. So yeah, maybe, maybe I'm wrong.

To answer your question, I think he would refuse to hold it almost like NHL players refusing to hold the conference, whatever trophy that they get, 'cause you're not allowed to touch anything until the Stanley Cup. And I think he'd be dismissive of it and probably have a speech about how dumb awards are for people trying to lead their players and make everybody feel bad they voted for him.

You know what the real award is? It's the journey. It's not the destination. It's the journey.

Yeah, I think it is Missoula because I still don't know how this team's going to win like 56 games. It's, it just seems impossible. Now I know they, they had health good fortune with, with the best 3 guys in the team, Jalen, Pritchard, White. Those guys have stayed healthy and that's really helped them. Tatum didn't play for the first 3/4 of the season. Um, I don't— I just don't understand how they're going to finish 56-26. It's impossible. They're 14 wins higher than the over-under. All right, we're going to take a break on Spotify. We can keep going on Netflix. The late 1990s Chauncey Billups Award: best reason never to sell your stock. So explanation for this award. Chauncey Billups, drafted by the Boston Celtics, 1997. Watched him play for 50 games. There was some talent there. My big takeaway was, I'm not sure this guy's a point guard. I don't know if I— great athlete. I don't know if I see it. They turned him into Kenny Anderson. One of my more regrettable takes. I had my old website at this time and I was like, I kind of like to trade Kenny Anderson's a real point guard.

Didn't realize at that point that he had had some personal issues going on. Billups bounces around. I can't think of anybody who would've kept their stock with him. Lands in Minnesota, turns his career around, and then goes to Detroit, and the rest is history. I don't know if you have your version of a Chauncey Billups where you learned your lesson not to give up on, on great talent.

Hmm.

Is there somebody from your past?

There definitely is, but I, I'm blanking on the spot. Because I was so, I was so focused on the nominees. All right, we'll do the nominees.

This is a really important award. LaMelo Ball. Jared McCain. Only because of Darryl. Darryl said we sold high on Jared McCain. Maybe he didn't sell high enough. Anthony Black. I can, I can report firsthand, I gave up on this guy. Duncan Robinson, who I think we've all given up on at least 4 different times over the course of his career, and then he always rallies back. And then Peyton Watson. I never saw it with Peyton Watson. Never thought he'd be a guy. And there's probably others, but those were the 5. Who else did you have as nominees?

By the way, you know who else? They didn't give up on Peyton Watson, but they made a very clear decision. We're paying one guy and not the other. And we paid Christian Brown and not Peyton Watson. I would nominate just late season, late season nominees. Cody Williams is like flirting with next year's list, maybe. Bones Highland. The entire Atlanta Hawks franchise. And I'm going to preemptively argue with you again and Goldsberry again. I am just going to stake my claim to the Amen Thompson portion of this argument now and say anyone who labels him a disappointment or sells their stock is going to regret it.

Leading the league in minutes. Did you know that?

Is that good, bad, nothing? What is it?

I'm just saying, like, it's not like he's having a bad season. I just wonder, I wonder what the next level is in. But you might be right. I mean, we might have been too harsh. I think our winner for this category is LaMelo Ball. I don't know if you have, you never sold your stock.

As you said, I just get mad as people, as someone like I'm checking my retirement accounts every, every day. And like, I've just, LaMelo has single-handedly paid for 7 vacations that I'm gonna take in a couple years. So I, I, No brainer for me. It's LaMelo Ball.

There was a moment even this summer, definitely even in the, when they were 4-14 first, like 20 games of the year when it was LaMelo, it was Trae Young and Ja. And I think I might've even done a podcast segment of which guy would you bail on the fastest? Who would you kind of hold onto? And LaMelo was the clear choice out of the three. Like I would give this one a little longer. But the point is, he was closer to that conversation than, is this one of the best point guards in the league? That conversation, he— the seesaw had swung to this side, and he's rallied out. This'll be— when you talk, we'll do, uh, next week we'll do the 25 most intriguing guys in the playoffs on this pod.

Okay.

You're giving me the deadline. Yeah, we did that last year. We did it at Grantland way back when. One of the last Grantland Basketball Hours.

Grantland? Yeah.

Remember Grantland? Great website.

Funny name.

But we did that last week. I'll be interested to see where Lamelo falls in the 25 most intriguing players of the playoffs. There's a world where he's just fucking awesome and basically pulls the 2009 Derrick Rose against the no-KG Celtics. And how many years?

I'm here. How many years did that series take off your life? A year? A full year?

I mean, so—

6 months minimum.

The 2 best first-round series ever were that one and Spurs-Clippers, right?

I mean, you still probably have like Ben Gordon PTSD from that series.

That was the one where a lot of people— Ben Gordon became Bitcoin, where you just bought in hard on Ben Gordon and it came back to bite you. So you agree on Lamelo?

I do.

Okay.

I do.

We'll go quickly here. The Freeman Williams Award for biggest black hole. Go look at Freeman Williams' basketballreference.com if you want to have a good time. Nominees: Cam Thomas, Zach Lavine, Ace Bailey. Not his fault he's on a team that wants him to shoot. And then Malik Monk. I don't know if you've watched him recently on the Kings, but he's really like, I want to get traded this summer. I need some tape. And has been dialing it up. It's gotta be Cam Thomas though. I just say as long as he's in the league, I think he has to get this.

I abstain from— I abstained from the voting.

Because you got into it with one of the nominees over the summer. Well, he got into it with you.

I felt it was appropriate and respectful of the process to abstain from the voting.

Fair enough. Cam Thomas is the winner. The 2007 Kevin Garnett Award. So this is literally an award with Kevin Garnett's face from the 2006-07 season. You have to like capture the face. Trap star who needs help escaping the most. Nominees: Steph Curry, Giannis, DeMontis Sabonis, Lauri Markkanen, and my personal winner, Trey Murphy.

Oh wow, I didn't see that one coming.

Save Trey Murphy, get him to a real team. I've had enough, enough of him on a not a real team. Let's put him on a real team. Let's put him on a team that has chemistry, that has guys that seem to like each other, that doesn't need 5 basketballs. Let's put him in a good situation. Let's put him on the Spurs. Let's put him on the Thunder. Let's put him on the Nuggets.

Not put him on those teams.

Put him on the Celtics. No, no. Let's put him on the Pistons. Let's put him on the Hornets and go fucking crazy. Put Trey Murphy somewhere else. No more Trey Murphy on New Orleans.

The world does not need Trey Murphy on the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder. No, we don't need that.

Well, from a fear title standpoint, yeah, fair. I'm just looking out for Trey Murphy. I feel bad for him. Put him on a real team.

Here's my thought process. Feels a little early for Trey Murphy to win this award. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Markkanen's finally coming out of 4 years of Utah purgatory onto a good team next year. Gianis is— I'm just— we don't want to talk about it. It's whatever. And Steph doesn't, I don't think, want to leave the Warriors. And then I look around and I'm like, Domantas Sabonis, do you think he cries every night when he goes to sleep? I mean, do you think he actually weeps? Just—

he looks at his— he probably looks at his plus-minus on that NBA site and sees the -15.5 or whatever it is.

Do you think he watches YouTube clips of himself lighting the beam 3 seasons ago? Just, just, and his wife is like, hey, Thomas, are you doing it again? Come to, come to bed. Are you doing it again?

It's over. We're not lighting the beam anymore. He's an interesting one. I would still have Trey Murphy, so maybe we'll split the vote. Sabonis is an interesting one because I think people have given up on him as like, you could actually win 3 straight playoff rounds with this guy as one of your 4 best guys. Guess.

How about one playoff round? Yeah, but I think all 4 best guys is too many guys. But, but this is why— so this is how I interpreted the award: who needs help escaping the most. I think he needs help in the form of another team valuing him more highly than the rest of the league and the consensus around the league, and that they probably should. I think he needs that kind of help.

I don't know what the team is because the, the defense stuff with him is rough. On the other hand, I think he's an incredibly skilled offensive player that if you put him with other really high IQ players, I always thought like if you just put him on the Warriors with the way they play and the kind of guys that they get, I'd feel like he would thrive for them.

Maybe the Bulls could get Sabonis if they take back Levine and DeRozan and just put all of the morass of players who have switched teams onto one team.

Trump ruled 2 days ago the Bulls and Kings are not allowed to trade anyone.

This has been my rule. This has been my—

maybe that should have been my rule. He listened to you. He did it on Truth Social.

Oh gosh.

So you have Sabonis, I have Trey Murphy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, this is one of the big awards.

Okay.

The Perk Thinks Jokic Pads His Stats Award for the most scalding hot media take of the year. Perk did say this a couple years ago. That wasn't even the hot— that wasn't even there when he said that.

I was not— if I— I was not on TV with him, but I was there at ESPN. That was not even the most scalding thing he said about that MVP race.

I remember, uh, I, first of all, I want to apologize because I should have been keeping track of these during the year and I didn't. So I had to kind of go off memory and some Google searches. But here, here's what we have for this category. Uh, 6 nominees. Perk says in December that Kawhi Leonard was the worst free agent signing ever. That one like actually like burned my eyebrows. Stephen A recently, I think this happened after the OKC game, suggesting Luka fakes injuries when he's not playing well. That became a whole thing.

I missed that one.

Yeah, that became a thing. Perk said Charlotte limited LaMelo's minutes to lower his scoring average so he won't be an All-Star and that would make him easier to trade. There was an OKC writer, Clemente Almanza, when the expansion thing started, who said Seattle fans, before they get the Sonics back and their history back, should have to apologize to Oklahoma City fans before they get their history back. In other words, we're going to hold your history until you apologize to us. Mark that one down. Uh, Stephen A. pushing Jaylen Brown for MVP in mid-March. I love Jaylen Brown, but that one had— that ship had sailed. And then, uh, Stephen A. blame LeBron for ruining the slam dunk contest, which he was never in.

But that's why maybe that's why he ruined it though.

The take was he should have been in it, but I One of the things with LeBron, he really only has like 2 dunks. I mean, there's— he was smart to avoid the dunk contest. He's, he's like a cock back and one hand dunk guy. I don't— there was a reason he never wanted to be in it. Uh, my winner for this, unless you have any other— do you have any other nominees?

I don't.

The winner is the OKC writer demanding an apology from the Seattle fans. I thought that was absolutely unbelievable. I was in awe of that take.

I couldn't decide what to do with that one because I don't know how to say this. It just, it feels more appropriate to deflate Stephen A. Smith and Kendrick Perkins than it does to deflate him. But that was so wildly insulting to an entire metropolitan area. And not only that, how would it work exactly? Are these handwritten letters that everyone in certain zip codes has to write?

Yeah, you have to digitally sign it.

Is it the mayor? Is it like, what, what exactly are you asking for? And you're holding the Sonics' earned history, the stuff that happened in Seattle, over their head like ransom for like, like a kidnapping?

You guys won that title last year and it was like the second title for the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise. The first one was in Seattle. All right, uh, another really important award, the Virginia Beach Kings Award for most contrived story on a slow news day. Remember the Virginia Beach Kings? I do remember when that had like a minute. All right, nominees here: expansion being approved for 2028-29 without any bids or 22 votes from the— 23 votes from the owners. That somehow became a story. We picked the season in the cities. Well, you don't have bids or owners yet. Uh, LeBron using Rich Paul's podcast on the ringer to try to get the Lakers to trade Austin Reeves. This was an actual thing people thought. Stephen A feuding with the New Orleans Pelicans. This happened.

Another one that I missed completely, and I Googled it and I was like, oh wow, this is a real, real thing.

It's like a 2-day feud. Can the Jays coexist in Boston was the thing that kept happening over and over and over again. The Clippers want LeBron to replace the vacated Kawhi cap space. This was a recent one. I really enjoyed this one. It would have to involve somehow being somehow, somehow his contract being voided. What are the odds of that? Like, honestly, like, run our test. His Latrell Sprewell, his contract didn't get voided when he choked his coach.

We'll find out when the elite law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen Katz finishes its investigation in 2020.

Yeah. And then last but not least, the recent one: LeBron doesn't like Memphis.

Well, that's, that's not a contrived story. That was— he said, I don't like— basically said it and then doubled down and said, I don't like Memphis either.

I mean, I'm a walk either. Uh, your answer for this, or do you have any other nominees?

Um, I don't, I don't know if these fit I just remember a lot of media noise about, you know, we gotta wait to see what the Bucks really are. We can't judge the Bucks until Kevin Porter Jr. comes back and plays with Giannis. Like, we gotta wait. We gotta wait for that. Can the 3 guards coexist in San Antonio, or do they just need to trade De'Aaron Fox like right now because these 2 young guys are so good? I thought that was silly. And it's, it's burbling up now. We're gonna talk about versions of it. Coming up, but specifically, like, did or did Jason Kidd not know or know about the Luka trade ahead of time are all nominees for me. And another one that I might actually vote for, this might have been limited to LeBittard's platform, and we all love Dane LeBittard and his show, but there was a day like—

speak for yourself—

there was a day like a month ago where they had— unless it was AI, and I always assume everything is AI, but it was like a long clip I saw. They finally had the discussion of like, basically, are we sure Eric Spolstra is a good coach? Are we sure like none of this is his fault? And I was like, wow, Spolstra, I am sure Eric Spolstra is a great coach.

Wow. That was a segment.

So of all your nominees, I think I would go with Stephen A feuding with the Pelicans because it's ridiculous. It's just, just saying it out loud is like the tagline of a ridiculous movie that happened. And like, but, but it's like, yeah, so I'd go with that one.

I think that's the winner as well. All right, one of our big ones. This is like bringing up Best Actor right now. The McKeskey Award for Best American White Guy. Previous winners— again, it's an American white guy— previous winners include Chet Holmgren, Tyler Herro, Kevin Love, Mike Miller.

Do two of them come out and introduce the nominees? Like, do Tyler and Kevin come out?

We like, and please welcome Kevin Love and Mike Miller with Tyler Hansborough. I'm in awe of how loaded this class is.

It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

Nominees. Cooper Flagg just scored 51 points as a 19-year-old. Con Canipple, Peyton Pritchard, Chet Holmgren, Austin Reeves, and Donovan Clingan. Anybody else who needs to be a nominee here?

Well, first of all, when I told my wife about this award, she, as a Croatian person, was like, wait a second, why just American white guy? Wouldn't we Yugoslavians clean up? I was like, that's the point. You have so many overqualified people.

Yeah.

I had no notes on the nominees. It's an absolutely loaded field other than I might, although he's missed so many games, I think Tyler Herro's had a sneaky good season. I went with it. I agonized over this. Austin Reeves, career year, Cooper Flagg and Kinnipal, what they're doing, consistency, defensive dominance, health this year, dominant team. I'm giving Chet Holmgren a repeat win. For this award? It's a tough one.

So I thought about it long and hard, and it comes down to which of these guys is the most reasonable All-NBA vote if they, if one of them ended up on a third team All-NBA, which means the answer is Chet Holmgren. We have Rookie of the Year for Flaggin Kniepel. The other guys, I think Reeves, Reeves before he got hurt. Yeah. If he hadn't gotten hurt, I think there's a real chance he could have taken this, but I think it's Chet Holmgren. Back-to-back Mokeskis for Chet Holmgren.

I think agents have to start working this into their contracts for like, if he gets the Mokeski Award, $15,000 bonus, not a huge, not a huge bonus by NBA standards, but if he gets the Bill Simmons McKeskey Award. $15K.

It would be funny if they put it in the CBA and you got like a 5% salary cap bump. Uh, we did an old ESPN or Grantland column I did, we actually— somebody made a fake McKeskey trophy for this, and it's one of the funniest things we ever ran. It's McKeskey's face on this bronze, uh, whatever. And as always, I encourage people to go onto YouTube and watch McKeskey highlights.

Okay, it's the fact that you have to say as always about that. As always, like, just as I frequently tell people.

Yeah, listen, the Dennis Rodman Award for biggest ongoing distraction— there's not gonna be a lot of mystery here. Maybe there will be because we have Giannis versus Milwaukee, we have Ja Morant, whatever the hell was going on with him in Memphis, Kawhi and the Aspiration scandal— is it a scandal? We still don't know— and then, uh, tanking. Any other nominees for you here?

65-game rule. Yep. Okay. Burner scandal, whatever you, where you want to say Mark Cuban versus the Adelsons versus the ultimate regret of life. I just, it's Giannis. It's Giannis. 'Cause it's, it's, it's the worst kind of distraction because it will never stop and it's reached a point of oversaturation.

Yeah, it's kind of amazing to me that Kawhi and aspiration isn't going to win this. But I think people tuned this story out a while ago, and I think a lot of people, including myself, were like, can you just tell me what happened when, when we have a final verdict? We can't escape this Giannis story. This is like, every time you think, you think, it's like poison ivy. Every, every time you think you got rid of it, all of a sudden it's back again. And it's been going on since August. And it's been going on in a way that people are now like, like, I think vehemently tired of it. Like when he started going against them this week, 'cause they wouldn't let him play and they, they like, I don't even think people wanted to report it anymore. I think people are just like, just fucking trade him at the end of the year. We're all done with this. Just trade him.

This latest round was, uh, bordering on the absurd on a lot of different levels of whether he's healthy enough to play. We'll talk more, well, whatever we may, we won't talk more about it, but that's my pick.

The Andre Blatch Award, most immediately regrettable contract or extension last 12 months.

Yes.

Named after Andre Blatch, who signed an extension that didn't kick in for a year. And over the course of that year, they became so unenamored with him that when they were allowed to amnesty anyone on their roster, they amnestied him before his Extension started.

Amnesty was really a great time.

I love that. I think they should bring it back. I honestly, like, you should be able to use an amnesty once every 10 years.

There should have to, there should have to be a ceremony too. Like everyone's gotta go to a podium and it's like the opposite of being knighted. You, it's like something like that. That sounds great.

Uh, regrettable contracts. Palo, Jaren Jackson, Miles Turner, Dorian Finney-Smith, Chris Paul. Any other nominees?

Oh, I've got nominees. You want nominees?

Yeah.

Just, just a couple of nominees. I was a little surprised, and I wouldn't pick him, nor would I even nominate him. I was a little surprised De'Aaron Fox's name did not come up. And I think the reason is if you're gonna win 60 games, you just get a pass. And he's been largely good.

That's how I felt.

I would actually, just to pick a winner for my winner for this, I would go off the nomination list, like, but like ordering off the menu. I'll take, I'll take for my main course, I'll take Jakob Poertl contract extension. Like it's like almost $30 million a year. He wasn't even extension. He wasn't even like becoming a free agent for 2 years.

He had a bad back.

He has back issues. He's just fine as a starting NBA center. And the Raptors were like, you know what? We don't even want you to wait, let alone 2 years, not even 6 months. Here's $90 million or $100 and whatever million, and he's had a largely forgettable injury-riddled season. It never— it was the most inexplicable contract of the summer. So I'm going off, off the menu and ordering, you know what, a big fat helping of Jakob Pertl.

I'm not perfect. Even heroes have warts. Pertl should have been on there. That's my mistake. I think it's a great choice. It made no sense when they did it. Also, like when we did the worst contracts draft with Waz and House, I was going hard on centers just 'cause I feel like we've learned that there's this giant inefficiency with how much you should pay a center. And if you're $20 million and up, unless this guy is Wemby or Jokic, maybe not a great idea. And Toronto just ignored all the evidence and went all in on Moreyaka Pertl. I mean, he got dominated by Nemias Keita today.

It was, it would be one thing if he were approaching free agency and you thought, well, we're a good team, we don't really have a replacement for him. That's the bird rights trap, as Hollinger calls it, that you fall into with your own guys. This was like, why? What? What?

Like, really good one. 2027 Ewing Theory Award for the star most likely to be Ewing Theoried next season: Giannis, Zion, Kawhi, Ja, KD. Any other nominees?

So to be clear, what we're picking here is this person goes to a new team and his old team thrives.

Basically KD and the Suns this Okay. I think the Suns are like a stealth Ewing Theory team right now. Not that they're gonna win the title, but my pick is not Giannis as much as I wanted to pick that one. I think Zion was my favorite one for this.

It's a good pick. They're, they clearly, if they keep your guy Trey Murphy instead of trading him or getting him to a new place as you so want, and they keep the other infrastructure around what they have now and just excise Zion or turn him into a piece that fits better or whatever. That's a, that's a pretty solid case. I went with, I went with Ja Morant. It's a little hard because the Grizzlies don't really have a roadmap to being like, what's, who's, who's the best player on the team if not Ja Morant? Are we going this all, am I going so far all in on Ty Jerome? But I, I just like the way, I mean, who knows what of their young guys other than Coward and some of their other core guys will be on the team next year. I've enjoyed watching the remnants of the Grizzlies play. They play hard. They've sort of bought into a style of play. They play defense, they're super handsy, they play fast. And I could see a world where like the Morant cloud is removed and they just like become a really fun 34-win team next year.

It's become a tough place. It's, it's definitely like a trap game every at Memphis game now where these teams go, they all hate staying at the hotel, which finally became a thing in the last week. They don't really like going there. You're playing a team that's tanking and they just kind of sneak up on you. All right, so we'll split that vote. Uh, quick aside for— this was not on the list that I sent you, and I forgot about Edie, by the way.

If I forgot— even forgot about—

oh yeah, Edie, come back. Um, Mike Smeltz, who I think was in the mailbag, the last one we did, he's— he wanted to know why the MVP wasn't on the made-up awards. Not Most Valuable Player, Most Valuable Poku. Given to the bad player on a tanky team who's given too many minutes as a stealth way to make the team lose and brought back the 2021 season when they unleashed Poku and he shot 37% and was one of the great tanking weapons anyone's had. First of all, my apologies. That should absolutely— that next year we will have the Most Valuable Poku will be on the menu. He suggested Bez Mbang on the Utah Jazz, who all of a sudden was playing all these big minutes for the Jazz as a possibility. I guess my issue with this award is I don't know if we'll ever be able to recreate Poku again. The combo of how bad he was, but then also this weird hope and love that the Thunder fans had for him. Like, there might be something there. Maybe Preston did it again and there was nothing there. I don't know if we see that again.

So Bezz is among a pile of guys who are suddenly playing 40 to 48 minutes. I mean, literally entire games. And so I, I think to win this award, the essence of this award is you can't just sort of exist out there as a 3-and-D kind of a guy for 48 minutes. You have to have the ball and do a lot of super damaging things with it. So I'd, I'd have to think hard about who that really is this year.

I don't think the guy exists. And in some cases it's people like Sensabaugh played 43 minutes today, but he's actually good.

He's fine.

26. It really— I don't— I don't— maybe Most Valuable Poku can't be an award, or maybe it's— oh, maybe it's a, you know, when you see it. It's like, like when the Oscars, when they bring out the guy and they give somebody like, it's Harrison Ford, it's a special Irving Thalberg Award for special achievement. Maybe that's how it has to go.

By the way, not a hot take, shrinking is a favorite in the Lowe household. I just, I say it every episode to my wife. Harrison Ford, American treasure. It's not, it's not a hot take, but I like to be reminded of it. He's so good in the show and he's just, he's an American treasure.

These all time. Now you're sucking up to Mallory. League Pass Broadcast Team of the Year. I'm not even gonna give nominees. This is your, your category. You care about this the most. Who was your favorite League Pass broadcast team this year?

So I, all encompassing the broadcast crew, the play of the team, how those two things mesh together. And it's gotta be Charlotte. It's gotta be Charlotte with Eric Collins and Dell Curry and watching that team run up and down the floor and shoot threes and dunk alley-oops. It's, it's like, look, we all know who the sort of pet broadcast teams are. We all love the New York broadcast, the Brooklyn broadcast, lots and lots. I love the Toronto broadcast, but the whole experience of Eric Collins just losing his mind 10 times a game for a team that like, like you watch the Wizards broadcast and they'll lose their mind over like Bub Carrington making a mid-range jump shot. Like, oh, yeah, look at Bub Carrington showing out for the Wizards. Timeout. Wizards are down by 21. Eric Collins is like going crazy for legitimate basketball reasons. And the whole thing, the uniforms are great, the court's great, the honeycombs, the Hornet, the everything.

Charlotte. I had them as well. It's, I think the only two broadcast, well, there's three, 'cause I, Eddie Johnson does the Phoenix. There's only three teams where I make sure I switch the broad— you can switch the broadcast feed. They'll give you one. And if it's Charlotte, if it's Phoenix, or the other one for me is Denver, I will switch over to their broadcast teams to hear their people do the games.

So I never, I never voted in the the top 100, that ESPN 100 that they used to do when we would rank the players. But this is how you would— this is how they would be ranked. You would just get like snap decision on 2 players, and you would just do that a bunch of times, and they would then spit out your rankings of the players that way. That would be a fun column someday if we really just wanted to piss a lot of people off or delight a lot of people, is just like that but for league press broadcasters. Just like, okay, it's, it's Philly, Detroit. Who you listening to? That's right. And just like, and yeah, me too. Just, just see and just see how it ends up.

You, you said more than enough about Eric Collins. I want to chime in. I think he's spectacular. He is like everything you would ever want from your local play-by-play guy. 'Cause he, he's like Drew Carter's like this with the Celtics too. They're overqualified to be doing the local games. Like they're really national guys. The difference with Collins is he's been in Charlotte for a while, really cares, but cares like not in a way where it's like you're a little embarrassed for them, like they're cheering for the team too much. Like he really cares and like somebody will make a shot against them. It'd be like 2 minutes left, they're down 1, and then some fuck up and somebody will hit a 3 against them and he'll, he'll just say some crazy sentence like, oh, isn't that a chainsaw on the tibia? Like, just— he just has like this endless thing of crazy comments.

The Hornets are hanging on like a cat on a screen door.

He's, he's a 10 out of 10. I love Eric Collins. I'm so happy that— yeah, so good. And Dell's great. I watched the whole Dell Curry day. I thought it was so genuine with those guys. And, uh, shout out to them.

Note for announcers, a lot of what you're saying is he's enthusiastic without being like a gratuitous homer. And part of that is, unlike some other homers, never hostile to the other team or the opposing players for no reason. Never going out of your way to criticize, sometimes unjustly, somebody on the other team.

Who— I'm blanking on her name— on the Nuggets broadcast, Katie, Katie Wingate, Katie Wingate. So she's done a couple games. I thought she was fantastic. Like as, as the color person, I, I really thought like she had high level smart, like breaking down what was going on. And I thought she was really good. Some, it seems like they bounced the partners around a little bit, but I thought she was really good.

Well, she, she played at a fairly high level in college, I think. And it, it seems to me that they're making her the heir apparent for whenever Scott Hastings, who's, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's played against Larry Bird in college whenever he retires.

Yeah, I did the rare, I never, Add Twitter follows anymore, but she was really good. I was like, I'm following her on Twitter. The Lou Brown Award for out of nowhere surprise team where we have Phoenix, Charlotte, Boston, and post-Trey Atlanta. Loaded category. I think it's probably Phoenix though. Who had them as the 7th seed? It would have been absurd. Every other one sort of makes sense, right? Phoenix does— still doesn't make sense. I still don't understand it.

There's just, you get a lot of mileage out of playing hard chemistry, good top-end talent and Booker, good complimentary pieces, great coaching. I mean, they're only gonna finish with like whatever, only they're gonna finish with 45 wins. So it's not like they've blown the doors off people. Certainly they've blown the doors off expectations. I still went with the Hawks. If like I issued a formal apology for my Hawks optimism on my podcast around Christmas, I sat down and I reckoned with what I had done. And what I had convinced people was going to happen with the Hawks. I actually thought about filming it in the vein of Will Smith's taking questions about why he slapped Chris Rock. I was going to sit down and wear the baseball hat that he had and like, we just ran out of time and I was going to be like, read fake questions like, Zach, why did you think Trae Young would fit with this team? And I'd be like, well, that's an interesting— anyway. And then they were like 7 in a row, 11 in a row. 15 out of 16. Like, what's happening? I, I— it was an ultimate what's happening for me.

Okay, I think you've convinced me. I'll switch mine over because we had all given up on the Hawks and left them for dead, and it just seemed like they'll make some giant weird trade this summer and that'll be it. What's weird is, does all this happen if they don't trade Porzingis? Because Kaminga's already kind of on the outside looking in for them. I wonder if like they had kept Porzingis, if that would've been a fun wildcard for them. A couple more awards. The ML Carr Trying to Trade for a Retired Michael Jordan Award for goofiest but possibly real upcoming offseason subplot. This is a thing that happened. He did call the Bulls and try to trade for a retired Michael Jordan and they hung up on him. And then he leaked to people that he tried to trade for Michael Jordan. So technically it was true.

I'm actually not surprised there are not more awards named for ML Carr, but that's a different story. Yeah.

Nominees. This is for this guessing this summer. The Warriors trying to get Kawhi. We found out before the trade deadline they actually did try to get Kawhi when they traded James Harden. The Warriors came in and tried to make a bid, didn't get him. LeBron becoming the Warriors player coach. Paolo for Giannis. The Celtics trade Jaylen Brown. Or OKC says fuck it and trades J Dub. I bet all those are ridiculous, but what's the one that may— oh, give me if you have any other nominees.

No. Uh, all of these broke my brain. Um, although, I mean, Palo for Giannis is not to me goofy at all. Uh, on a number of levels, it's something I pitched in the fall before I forgot that Palo was poison-pilled. Celtics trading Jalen felt more plausible last offseason than now, but crazy things happen. His contract is what it is.

I don't see, now that they've reset the tax, I don't see any scenario where it happens. And I don't, Chisholm is like, he goes to every game, he loves the team, everybody loves the J. I don't, I don't see a scenario.

Is it, I mean, I went with the Warriors trying to get Kawhi, which doesn't feel goofy since it, it happened. But I do, I mean, God only knows what could happen this summer, what's going to happen with Kawhi, what's going to happen with his contract, et cetera. But I went with that one because LeBron's not going to become player coach, right? They could go to the Warriors, but that one is not going to be on the table.

I don't know. Would they bend the rule if they, if the Warriors and LeBron went to Adam and were like, can you bend this rule on the player coach?

You're going to certainly be good for business. Does LeBron want to be a coach?

No, no, I just, it's stupid. Um, I'm going to say, oh, my answer is OKC trading J Dub.

I left that one sitting there for you. I'd rather you take it.

I just find it hard to believe they're going to be paying 3 max guys and Kayson Wallace, and they're going to have more stuff coming. And I just think Presti. Will proactively do stuff. And I don't think they're going to do this, just for the record, don't aggregate me and be like, Simmons thinks, okay, I'm— we're talking goofiest but possibly real. This one had like a shred of, well, what happens if OKC loses in the conference finals? Do they just run it back? Do they get creative? They have all these picks. Do they try to upgrade Jalen Williams, who is already a top 25 guy?

You're talking about last year.

Yeah, I'm talking about this year. Like if they lost.

Yeah, I was going to say what complicates all this is if they win the championship.

The Zaza Pachulia Award. Pachulia? Pachulia. The Zaza Pachulia Award for the one NBA rule that absolutely needs to be changed. 65 games, tanking, half-court shots don't count as field goal attempts, a passion point of yours, and League Pass showing people dancing during every timeout. Anything else you would add here?

You should get to pick your opponent as the number 1 seed. And oh, there needs to be a time limit on reviews.

Oh, that's really good. I'm going with that one.

That's my pick too.

I went off the menu. 45-second reviews. 45 seconds.

That's it. Done.

Every time you say you went off the menu, Joe House's stomach growls and he thinks of food. Just so you know. That's right. It should be 45 seconds.

For the record, first of all, I do have to admit defeat on the half-court shots rule. It worked. Players take half-court shots. I mean, I still think it's— I like the idea of having the field goal percentage cowards have to be publicly cowardly by not shooting. I enjoyed that. Yeah, but I enjoy the heaves more.

Me as well. So 45 seconds, I don't even think the refs go over to the monitor. I think they decide it in the caucus and they just tell the ref and it's announced. I don't even need the refs like, but I'm going to put my headphone on.

Well, I'm out. And the refs wearing the headsets has been this weird— they are wearing them now, they're not, like on-again, off-again thing. Like, what's going on with that? Why did that? You know, just these games, the games are too long still. And a close game at the end, if there's 3 reviews, you're just going to— it's going to take too long.

All right, well, we'll go through a couple quick ones here. The 2010 Baron Davis Award for best individual mail-in of the season. Sorry, Baron, I went to those games, unfortunately. John Morant, Zion, Anthony Davis, Zach Levine, or Mark Cuban. I'm going, I'm going out of the box here and giving it to Mark Cuban. How is this guy still giving interviews and, and taking— first of all, nobody asked you to sell the team. You sold the team after you hired Nico Harrison, right? The GM who then made the Luka trade, who now you've been badmouthing. You hired him. You picked the ownership group to sell the team to. You lost your say in the whole process.

You had the famous line of like, nothing's changing except my wallet, or whatever he said.

Yeah, you're a rich guy who— I don't— didn't seem like you need the money, or maybe you did, of selling the team. You sold too early. You sold before the value of all the franchises went way up. You handled every piece of this wrong. Not to mention you said you were gonna be involved and you weren't. And now it just feels like for the entire season he's been trying to throw his scent off his culpability in the Luka trade, which never would've happened if he still owned the team. Like, I don't think he should give interviews about it anymore. It would be my take.

And so that fits the mail-in criteria for you?

Yeah, because he mailed it in by selling the team.

Okay.

It's your fault they traded Luka. You're Dr. Oppenheimer in this.

Wow.

Yeah. Is that a hot take? Don't sell the team. Well, you don't want them to trade Luka Dončić. Keep the team yourself.

Invoking the father of the nuclear bomb is certainly—

this was the NBA trade nuclear bomb.

I went much— I went with Ja Morant because he literally stopped trying during multiple games to the point that Blake Griffin, and I think his first like welcome to broadcasting moment, called him out at halftime of a game and then he's just disappeared. But I, but you, you make quite a case for Mark Cuban.

Just how about this? Point the finger this way.

Yeah, there is a lot of blame being thrown around, um, retrospectively.

Um, it would be like if Howard Schultz, when they— when he sold the Sonics to the Oklahoma City Thunder businessman group who were dying to bring a team to the Thunder, and then they moved the team to Oklahoma City, is like, oh my God, what I can't believe that happened. It's like, you couldn't? You sold it to a bunch of guys from OKC. All right, uh, the Shane Battier Award for Sloan Conference Stat Nerd Darling du Jour is— it's Diabate, right? Did anyone have more fun with the what the fuck is going on here stats for the advanced metrics than all Diabate lineups and all the weird shit with him? Or would you go with somebody else than the Moose?

I'm happy, I'm happy to give it to Musa. A couple other names that came up for me were Dean Wade cause the Cavs are just obsessed with, well, when Dean Wade's healthy, look out. Dyson Daniels, Clint Capella, Derrick Jones Jr. But I'm happy to give it to the Moose.

Hugo, Hugo having the like +17 net rating for most of the season was pretty crazy too. The Vitaly Potapenko Award for worst deadline trade. For the kids out there, 1999 strike season, 50 games. Celtics are a bottom 10 team. Rick Pitino, who was just a serial killer when he was running the team and just, just leaving bodies left and right, decided to trade an unprotected first-round pick for Vitaly Potapenko, who was a backup center masquerading as a starter. And that pick turned out to be the 9th pick in the draft, which would've been either Andre Miller or Sean Marion if they had it, and they did not have it. Worst trade. Kobe White for nothing, Porzingis for Kaminga and Heald, or Simons for Vucevic, or another nominee that I don't have?

Jared McCain. Too soon to say. Too soon to say. And they got real draft equity for him.

Yeah, I wouldn't put that as the number one, but it could be a nominee.

I mean, I'm just going— I'm going— I'm zooming out and just going the entire Chicago Bulls organization for everything gets this award. I mean, I don't follow hockey and football closely enough to say this. Is there a more— I ask you then, is there a more depressing franchise in American professional sports right now than the Chicago Bulls?

I think that, yeah, to flip that around, most depressed fan base, it's down to Chicago and Sacramento, I think, in the finals.

Even Sacramento is going to enter the lottery in pole position or fourth position, or at least they have that. The Bulls are ninth in the lottery standings hoping for a Derrick Rose redux with Matis Vucevic and a whole bunch of like, yeah, but even Giddey's like last two months have been, now I guess you just throw them all the way, have been just like, okay.

What was the Kobe White trade and why did they then trade Vucevic to take on $6 million of of Simons. What was that?

I don't know. And it's tempting to say, well, they got Collin Sexton, who's been pretty good on an expiring contract, and he'll be on another team next year when he walks for nothing. And also, I mean, wherever you want to classify this—

why didn't they keep Dang in the three-way trade they did? Why didn't they reroute him somewhere else? I mean, you need a 22-year-old young energetic forward.

And their two big second draft swings were Rob Dillingham and Jaden Ivey. And one of those has gone completely sideways. And it's just, I just—

wow, it sounds like you're— we should just move right next to the—

let's do it—

the David Kahn Award for Worst GM Performance. Nico Harrison, not eligible. I, I had him in there, but then the more I looked at it, not eligible. Uh, Kings GM, I don't even know who is it. It's Scott Perry. Scott Perry. But I mean, it's really, it's really Vivek and whoever his kids are, the GM. Like, does somebody can announce themselves at like a dinner? It's like, I'm the GM of the Kings, but it's not— they're not actually the GM, right? They're not really making these moves.

That'd be great if I went— if I started going to parties and just introducing myself as the GM of the Kings. I just want you guys to— I just want you guys to know I, I, I've been quiet about it, but, but I'm running the Kings.

Kings GM Joe Dumars at New Orleans, John Horace on, on, uh, The Bucks are our winner, Arturas on the Bulls. So I don't think we'll have this job a week from now, would be my guess.

I just don't—

it was really abysmal for 5 years there.

And it's, it's a, um, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a to— in totality multiple year award.

Uh, in this case, the Bradford Smith versus MJ Award for saddest NBA feud, where we have LeBron versus Memphis, Chris Paul versus the Clippers, Stephen A versus the Pelicans, or Mark Cuban versus Nico and the Dumonts, I think is my winner again, for all the reasons I said earlier.

That, that's my winner as well out of this group of nominees, because no one is rooting for anybody in the feud. Everyone is rooting against all parties involved in the feud. And, uh, everyone is rooting for Luka Dončić to have success for another franchise. Everyone in Dallas is now somehow a Lakers fan after all of this. And so that was my saddest feud too.

We're running late on time, so we're going to cut the T. Moran Award, um, for most polarizing family member. We'll just give it to Rick Brunson right now.

Uh, I was not consulted on that. That was a committee of one.

Uh, the 1988 Reggie Lewis— I don't know, I just like this guy— award for a young guy who's not playing much yet, but you've already bought significant stock. Really important category here.

Yes.

Our nominees: Ron Harper Jr., Carter Bryant, Hugo, Will Riley.

He's like Madonna. He just has one name.

Hugo. And I can't even say it right half the time. Will Riley, a Joe House absolute favorite. Favorite.

He's on my All-Rookie team now.

He should be. Kaishon George, Malachi Smith. Did I say that right? Malachi. Malachi Smith. Diawara on the Knicks. And my personal pick, Niederhauser. I'm not even going to try to say his first name on the Clippers. I love Niederhauser. I was bummed out when he got hurt, and I think they would easily be the 8th seed if he hadn't gotten hurt. But the other ones, the stock's a little higher. Niederhauser, I still feel like, is like dirt, dirt cheap. If I was getting a little pricier, I'd be looking at Hugo Carter Bryant are two that I would invest in, but I think those are already a little jacked up. Did you have any other nominees before you give us your winner?

Carter Bryant is definitely— they're not, they're not taking on more buyers at this point. People are very high on him.

They've shut the IPO and that's it.

I went again off menu. Sorry, Joe House. I went Rasheer Fleming in Phoenix.

Oh, I like him. He should have been nominated. Why wasn't he nominated?

I can't answer those two questions.

I gotta talk to myself. Yeah, that was the guy all the Celtic— well, the smart Celtic fans were hoping the tea leaves were showing that the Celtics might take him. And then the Suns jumped them.

They traded up for that pick, I think.

Or traded up. Something happened. Yeah. Oh, we got Hugo. Carol Dawson Award for Most Unabashed Tank Job. Carol Dawson, the guy who invented tanking with the Rockets. That's in the Samson Olajuwon things. So we got Utah, Washington, Brooklyn, Indiana, Sacramento, Memphis. I'm happy giving it to all 6. I don't really want to separate anybody.

It's really, it's a really hard one. It's a hard field.

Yeah. We're not picking a winner for that.

I would pick a winner.

Go ahead.

I would congratulate the Washington Wizards and I would pick them because they traded for not one, but two. Good and presumably playable NBA players, pretended that they might actually play them, actually played Trae Young for a hot second, kept pretending that they might play Anthony Davis, and then just issued one medical update after another about everyone's ramping up or ramping down or ramping in various directions, and basically played neither of them and then stopped playing other people too. So I mean, like the, the Jaren Jackson Jr. had surgery.

It took out $95 million for two guys to not play them.

And like, are they gonna extend them? What's gonna happen now? It's just, it's a bizarre one. So I, in a, in a field, it's like really 1994 Best Picture, but it's, it's a, it, I give it to the Wizards.

I mean, you gotta look at Brooklyn too, just playing all of these young guys they have together who don't even make sense on a basketball court together, just throwing them out there, making sure Porter Jr. doesn't play too much, all the stuff they're doing. But I, it's loaded.

It's loaded.

If we have to pick one, your Washington case was good. This is, uh, it's a slightly mean-spirited award and I don't really care. The Dwight Howard— it's mean. Sorry, sorry dude, I can't help it. I just don't really like watching you play basketball that much award. Uh, Paolo, James Harden, Jalen Green, Westbrook, Zach Lavine, Rudy Gobert, Trae Young. I'm not saying it's a bad brand of basketball, I'm just saying for me personally Just for me, it's not really resonating. It hasn't really resonated with me as a fan. I don't know if you have any other nominees.

Again, we're not happy about saying these things.

No, we're just trying to be honest.

Karl-Anthony Towns.

Sure. Let's add him. Okay, is that your winner?

I flirted with a couple others, but, uh, my winner of this group would probably be Zach Levine.

Okay, I have him as well. Opted into his last year of his deal at $49 million. I don't know if you saw that. Well, here's one of the marquee awards, the Ron Artest Award: Best Bet to Inadvertently Start the Next Artest Melee. 3 of the people on this almost did start the next Artest Melee a couple months ago. Isaiah Stewart, the Moose, Ron Howland, Goga Bitazzi, Jose Alvarado, Donovan Clingan, who I don't think gets nearly enough credit for how feisty he is. I think he's going to be involved in a really big fight at some point. Jokic, got to include him. Jaylen Williams, not J Dub, J Will. Lou Dort and the Champagny brothers, both of them. They're on separate teams. They're both in. They're both ready to go. You can see it. Who wins this for you? This is basically the who is the guy you don't want to fuck with the most in the league award.

I mean, I don't know if it's that, but I know it's the award for the guy who most wants to fuck with you award. And true, I mean, there's, this is becoming a pretty easy decision. It's Isaiah Stewart who, yeah, it is. When he begins running across the entire court with fire in his eyes. It's, it's over. Like, it's, you're too late. You're too late. It's now a melee. And this is the second time he's traversed the entirety of an NBA court.

I love it.

To get himself a piece of something.

The Novak's Kyrie Irving Award, best job of maintaining good stats by not playing regularly. We're just giving this to Joel Embiid. Well, listen, it's, if you're playing once a week or every once in a while, your stats are gonna be really good. So congratulations, Joel.

Agreed. I had him too.

The White Chocolate Was a Problem Award.

He was a problem.

2026 guy whose season was so much better in 47-second Twitter highlights. Nominees: Ace Bailey, Kaishon George, Berinje. How do you say his name?

How did he get on this list?

Because if you cut 47 seconds of alley-oops and blocks from him, you would think he's like—

that's fair.

The next Wemby. Robert Williams, Time Lord. He would, and Nolan Traore, who's my pick. I have him. I think there could be, I think you could cut a really nice 3-minute super mix of Traore highlights and you would be convinced he's like a future All-NBA guy.

So Ace Bailey and Usman Jang would have the most like basketball-y versions. Like they'd have turnaround jumpers and post-up moves. For me, I get— can I go off menu again, please?

Joe House got hungry again.

I went Danny Wolfe because if you supercut like crazy Danny Wolfe no-look passes and then some threes and some like overhead no-look pass, you would be like, wow, this guy's like Magic Johnson out here at point, like just running, running things. So I went with Danny Wolfe.

Wow. You did the triple crown there. You made Joe House hungry. You delighted Peter Schrager because this is his favorite net and you delighted Tommy Alter as well. Triple crown.

3 for 3.

Thank you. All right, 3 awards left. These are the big ones. The Travolta and Pulp Fiction Award for Comeback of the Year. Jay, Jason Tatum, obviously, LaMelo Ball, Michael Porter Jr., Brandon Ingram, and whoever else you want to nominate.

I would nominate Sadiq Bey, Nikola Nikola Jokic.

Yeah.

The entire Atlanta Hawks franchise for the mid-season comeback. But I would give the award, again, sappy and serious, I would give the award to Jason Tatum.

Yeah, this is, this is one of those where it's like the ESPYs where he's in the front row with his family and you know he's getting nominated. It's like, oh, Tatum's winning that one. We don't even talk about that. So this is one I really wanted to give out, the 2026 LVP for least valuable player. And least valuable player isn't the worst player, but it's least valuable. It's somebody that is working against your team at all times. I don't think there's a winner for this this year. I think some years you have it, some years you don't. When you have 10 teams not trying, um, I just feel like the LVP becomes a lot harder. Um, in a way it could almost be given to the team. To the guy that his team's trying to tank, but he's been too, too good at, at messing up the tank, would almost be the LVP in this situation. You're messing up our draft pick. That makes you the least valuable. So I don't know if you feel like we should give this out. I'm fine with it. We could skip it.

You could go the other way and it could be a team that was at various points, including at the beginning of the season, trying to win and investigated a crap ton of resources to get you onto their team and enjoyed arguably the worst season of your entire career.

Paul George.

That's a, that's not who I was thinking of, but is perfectly fits that.

Who were you thinking of?

I was thinking, and you didn't prep me for this one. This was not on my list of nominees.

I went off the menu for house.

I was thinking of Miles Turner, who just, can you remember one thing that Miles Turner did this year? Like one. Wow. And he's, he shot 38, he's shooting 38% on threes. He just, he's missed a lot of games now. They're tanking now obviously, but just given the wave and stretch, sign for $25 million a year, perfect fit with Giannis, blah, blah, blah. It just feels like I just never even noticed him on the court the entire season.

I mean, this is why you're one of the greats. I went from thinking we shouldn't have this award to thinking you laid out the perfect— and Paul George would have been another one, right? But Paul George actually got them under the tax by getting suspended. So in a weird way, he was viable. Miles Turner, when you throw in the stretch and what they thought it might do for their seat, basically like this Hail Mary to save their next 2 years, and it just didn't. And they probably, as we've talked about, overpaid him a little because centers, unless I have an All-NBA center, I don't want to pay $25 million a year for a center. I think that's a good pick. Not entirely his fault. He did choose to leave Indiana.

Off the top of my head, it's just off the top. So I'm sure we could think of other, you know, candidates.

Final word, the 2026 League Pass MVP. This is as coveted as the real MVP. I don't know, a lot of people don't talk about that.

Everyone's been drinking now for a few hours. They're getting punchy. They're ready to go to the after parties, but now they gotta pay attention. They gotta sit and pay attention.

This is so much different than the real MVP. This is, you're going back to the legacy of like Michael. We didn't even have League Pass in 1987, but oh my God, Michael Jordan. This is Kobe in 2006. Like, is he gonna score 80 tonight?

It should really be named for Blake Griffin. I think Blake Griffin made League Pass. Just a thought.

Interesting. We already— he already has an award named after him. I know he has the Unexpected Delight Award. So the difference between this and just being the best player in the league is this is just— you're flicking around and you just keep gravitating toward a team, a player, and it's just somebody you know is gonna deliver the goods. It's like your best Postmates order. 7:30. I need to— and you just go, it's your go-to. It's like, I'm hungry, where am I going? Um, the nominees are Wemby, Joker, SGA. I only have 3 people here, um, because to me it's either Wemby or Joker. I don't— are there any other nominees for you? I would have the Hornets as a team, but teams can't win this. It has to be a person.

I mean, certainly the last month and a half, Luka has gotten into this conversation.

No, I know, but it's the whole season. And if I'm gonna vote for him for the season, I also have to deal with like Luka from that one month when he just seemed completely miserable and was just mad at every ref for 2 and a half straight hours. I did not, I did not seek that out on League Pass.

I thought, no, I know I have no other nominees. I mean, if you're just talking purely Who do I have?

This is basically— this is Wemby versus Joker. Yeah, this is Wemby versus Joker.

You want to go first or me? No, you go. I never— I thought Joker would win this award 10 times in a row, 15 times in a row. I never thought anybody would be more must-watch appointment television for me. And Victor Wembenyama in his third year wins this award for me. You know, I watch every team as equally as I can. You end up watching the best teams more because when they play each other, it's must-watch. And then by the end of the season, none of these teams, the tankers, are not trying to win. And, you know, so I can't watch every Spurs game because it would be derelict of duty to the other 29 teams in the league. I feel bad when I miss a Spurs game. I feel bad when I have to read about it. I feel bad when I have to watch the highlights of it. I feel like I've missed something. Magical. And if he does something magical, then I'll go back and watch that game. It'll be an extra game. But the, it, the pang of FOMO that I get has exceeded the Jokic FOMO. So it's Victor Wembanyama.

That was my answer as well. If you're going totality of the season, Joker wins for me because I love Denver. Jo— it's just like the most reliable order you can make on postmates. Uber Eats or wherever you're getting your food. What Wemby was doing the last 6 weeks, I was going out of my way to watch the Spurs, which has not happened. I don't think it— as much as I— and you and I are probably two of the biggest Jokic fans on the planet just for just watching him play basketball. He's so steady and, you know, he's there. It's like you're not going to go, oh my God, I have to watch Jokic. Like when Wemby played the Warriors last week and it was clear he was in his, I'm gonna make my MVP case. I was like, I'm just not missing that game. I don't, there's no scenario where I wasn't watching it. There was no scenario where I wasn't watching the, the yesterday game against the Nuggets. And he's just hit that point. It's a pretty rare point to get to. We've had it a few times since I, since we've known each other.

But I don't think like this where it's like every game you might see 5 things you've never seen on a basketball court. Court before.

And it's, it's both ends of the floor, obviously. Not that he's good on both ends of the floor, we know that. It's that he's unprecedented on both ends of the floor. It's the Spurs figuring out the lob stuff in more creative ways as it goes on, where they're just throwing it to him and he's getting it.

And even put him on the floor to get the ball, like little stuff they're just getting better at.

And even you mentioned, you know, for the whole season it's Jokic, 'cause from start to finish, this guy's gonna lead the league in rebounds and assists, and he is one of the most, maybe the most efficient high-volume scorer in the league. And the magic of his passes and all that. Even Wemby, like, learning to reach this level, the curiosity factor was just off the charts. Like, I just wanted to see every part of all, even the mistakes and the things he was trying that didn't work. And I wanted to see, my curiosity was just off the charts.

He, it's the last rule of basketball. Like, your eyes just gravitate to where he is on the TV. When you go to see him in person, you just find yourself just watching him. To just, even though the ball's over there, you're just seeing where he sets up. He did a thing yesterday, I think it was in the second quarter, Valanciunas tried to post him up. Did you see that play?

The one where he just took the ball at its apex? That one?

He did a jump hook and Wemby didn't jump and just blocked it. And Valanciunas was like, and he just kind of whipped him to the ground. He got mad. But it was like, I've never seen anyone do that ever. Where it wasn't— he didn't just block it, he almost like blocked it with his elbow.

He blocked a floater in that game. I don't remember who shot it, but he came from so far away that as he was going towards the— but it was on the right side of like the foul line. As he was going toward it, I thought he's just trying to scare the guy at the end of the shot clock. He's like, he just doesn't actually think he can block that shot. And then he blocked it and I was just like, I don't even know Well, what am I supposed to do now?

Well, and as the legend grows with him, you could see the other players in the league, like before it was like people at the last second realizing they should, he's there, I've gotta change my plan here. And there'd be like 2 seconds of discombobulation and then they would reset the play. Now they're recognizing it as it's happening and they're just giving up on even thinking about potentially trying to make the play. They'll dribble in the paint, they'll see him and it's like a fucking shark. Like you're a swimmer in the ocean. Like, I think that's a shark fin. I'm going to go this way. They just completely bail on it. They don't even really— and then the guys that challenge him are just nuts. Like, the guys that are like, I'm going to take it right to him. I'm going to bounce into his chest and double clutch and try to overpower him. And it's almost like a badge of honor that they try to do it. I've never seen anything like that.

You know who likes to play against him and plays that way is Shen Goon. Shen Goon, you can tell, is like, this guy. I can, I can take this guy. Like, I'm going to try like that.

I like, I like that about Shengun and watching Joker try to solve him and doing like, I'm now I'm going to take him this way. I'm going to put my shoulder into him and then I'm going to bring my jump hook a little bit further back and then try to flip it a little higher and that should be okay. He was solving him like an MIT scientist trying to figure out like some sort of DNA model for something. Wemby was the, was the clear winner this year. Jokic, I don't know what else they could do. He's leading the league in assists and rebounds. He's doing something that only Wilt Chamberlain has done where you add up, he's first place in two categories. He's fifth in points. So if you just do 1 plus 1 plus 5, he's 7. And I think that's what it is, right? 1 plus 1 plus, he's 7. The only one that did that was Wilt. In 1968, second in assists, first in rebounds, fourth in points, 7. And I don't think anyone in the history of the league has done that for those 3 categories. Usually they're like 1, 2, 12, 2, 3, 15.

This is his season. That's why I, I think I have Joker second for MVP heading into this last week.

Interesting. 'Cause you were definitely flirting with the Wemby MVP.

I was, I think yesterday showed the limitations of the 29 minutes a game. And there's a durability with Jokic that I think should, that's what I'm staring at as I think of these 3 guys all against each other. Like, is it just easier to be 29 minutes a game and have that burden versus like what Jokic just went through where it's like, I might have to play 45 minutes today.

Well, and it adds, it adds up to significantly fewer minutes if you just want to look at it in the most raw and maybe basic ways. It's like, I don't have it in front of me, 300, 400 intermittent gap.

All right, so your podcast is Tuesday morning. Um, thanks to Sam's— thanks to, uh, Sam's Club for helping us out with this live stream. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well on The Ringer side and everybody else over at The Ringer. Made up awards. I feel like it was an A+. I'm glad.

I'm glad you feel that way.

I feel like your brain broke like 3 times.

Oh, we went off menu a lot, which is probably fun.

Yeah, it was great. Uh, thanks everybody at Netflix. Thanks to The Ringer. And I will see you on the rewatchables tomorrow night, Friday and the Cruisers, and then back on this feed on Tuesday. Thanks everybody. Must be 21+ in President Select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ in President DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope Is Here, visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.