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

The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by FanDuel. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchable on Monday. We did Basic Instinct. It was the live show we did in San Francisco. It was awesome. Had a great time. Even had Craig on stage. We had 5 of us. As you know, I've always complained about 5-man, uh, studio shows. 5-Man Live podcast kind of worked. Craig picked his spots. We were all passing the ball around. Really, really good show. Go check it out next week, Monday. You have 6 days to watch this on Netflix. We're doing Kindergarten Cop, an Arnold Schwarzenegger classic. Oh yeah, Kindergarten Cop coming next Monday. Speaking of podcasts, we released the first 2 episodes of La Gata, a rare narrative podcast for The Ringer. We don't do a lot of these. When we do 'em, we go all in. And this is an amazing story. I don't even know how to describe it, but I'll just say this. If you like Scarface and Miami Vice from the '80s, if you like cocaine-driven, what the eff is gonna happen next kind of plots, this is the one for you.

Just think like if me and Chris Ryan had created a narrative podcast from scratch, we probably would've created this. Even though we didn't create this, somebody else did. But Legata, just go check it out. It's really, really something. Please listen to it. It's really, really good. I was involved in this one behind the scenes, and I'm really proud of it. So Legata. Speaking of things I'm proud of, I got Joe House to stay up late on the East Coast with Kirk Goldsberry down in Texas to react off the two playing games, Charlotte-Miami. And Portland Phoenix, and then house left and we go in a time machine. We go backwards in time. Yeah, backwards in time to earlier this afternoon when Kurt Goldsberry and I did our awards pick, including my MVP, which is at the tail end. So if you care about who I picked for MVP, something I changed my mind on 430 times over the weekend, uh, that is at the tail end of the podcast. Saved it for last, like a big fat dessert. Um, so that is coming up next. We're gonna take a break and then, uh, bring in Pearl Jam and then Kirk and House late night Tuesday after two playing games.

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+ D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right, we're recording this part of the podcast at 9:53 PM. It is presented by New Era, thanks to them. Kurt Goldsberry is here. He's also coming up later because we did All-NBA. Joe House, staying up super late on the East Coast. I've never been prouder of you. What did you have, like an Arby's roast beef? What happened?

No, no, no, no, I don't need that. I had a little bit of coffee, but I live on the fuel of Denny Avdija. You guys did your All-NBA. I can't wait to hear it.

I'm here. Oh wait, House.

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

I'll tell you this much, we aren't allowed to do this, but I'm gonna do it. We argued about the last third team spot in all NBA much later in the podcast, and I said I was gonna give it to Scottie Barnes and that I couldn't quite get there with Denny 'cause he hadn't, you know, he barely played enough games, all that stuff. But after watching tonight, Kirk, I'm just gonna change my vote.

Dude, the NBA is doing this to us or for us, I'm not sure, but they've given us another set of games to, to reevaluate our choices. Yeah, to rethink things. Rethink things. Traditionally, our votes would have been due by now. Instead, we're watching, uh, Con Canipple. We'll get to there. But yeah, Denny obviously playing one of the games of the year for him, uh, and making us rethink where he should be in these awards.

Unbelievable. He was awesome. It seemed like at various points, House, the game was over, headed for the Blazers. They were just going to go up by 20. Then it seemed like the game was over with the Suns, that they just bullyballed Portland. Portland couldn't hit a shot. And, uh, I was watching. I love Portland tonight. I was really confused because I've been watching Portland the last couple months, and it was the first time I thought they looked a little spooked.

Yeah.

And it was kind of like, you know, once they started really like, hey, Denny, you're not driving to the basket anymore. We're throwing 5 bodies in front of you. And then it was like, okay, who's stepping up? Who's gonna step up on this Portland team? It turned out to be the much maligned Jeremy Grant, a staple of our worst contracts drafts with big wads every year. Hit a couple big threes and then Avdi took over late. But how did you let this guy go? I still don't understand.

Well, I mean, I'm not gonna go through the full recitation of what was going on.

Okay.

Down. It's a true story that His ascendance timeline-wise didn't line up with the, the tank effort. So I understand they could have got more. That's the only quibble. We're not going to talk about Washington. The most important thing, setting aside the hyperbole, is that for a lot of these guys, this is the most important game they've ever played in their entire basketball lives. Like, I, I defy you to, to find another game for Denny Avdija that was more important for him than this game, this moment, this stage, this franchise, his identity in this franchise, his rise right now. And the same is true of some of those guys, you know, in Charlotte. Tell me a game that LaMelo Balls played in his entire basketball life, his whole basketball life, that was more important than tonight's game.

Right.

And, you know, I, I, It's a fair comparison to make. You had Denny with an incredibly efficient 15 of 22 for 41 points, 12 and 7. And you know, we'll get to Lamelo in due time. Yeah, yeah.

He and didn't get a couple calls too. Portland put all the hits, Kirk. They threw Scoot out there. Little hope with the Scoot start there for a second. We saw some Tybel. Yeah, we saw a little Robert Williams clinging center thing. I mean, big picture, before we talk about the game, now we have San Antonio versus Portland. And if I'm San Antonio, I'm beating probably either of those teams pretty handily, and I'm sure they're huge favorites, but I would have much rather played Phoenix. Portland at least has two big centers to put on Wemby. They have a guy who's really comfortable and really good at getting to the basket and Denny, although trying to get to the basket against Wemby will be interesting. Drew Holliday's been there before. Hey, I don't think it's a sweep is my point. I think Portland will always make 'em work a little bit, right?

Yeah. I'm happy for the Portland fans to have some playoff games up there. That'll be cool. But yeah, this is the 23rd ranked offense since the All-Star break, but it's the 3rd ranked defense. They're gonna be tough to score on. And if the, one of the things I'm worried about as a Spurs guy is the ability for these young guards to shoot. Their threes. We've both been really positive about them as the season's gone on about getting better, but the playoffs have a way of making teams cool off. We saw that with the Charlotte game tonight too. So yeah, I think that Portland defense is really, really playoff ready. And then like we saw tonight, Denny can go out there and win a game like 41 and 12. Are you kidding me?

Yeah. The port, Portland, I thought Green was— how many? Green took 29 shots, House.

Yeah.

What's, what's the right number for Jalen Green field goal attempts in a playing game? I'm gonna say about 17. I, I don't know. 15 to 17.

What really kind of revealed itself is the, this overachieving Suns team. They just, they have a talent deficit and that's not a knock. Like this was supposed to be kind of a transition rebuilding year. Yeah, to wash out the horrendous taste that was left in their mouths from what they tried last year. And it turned out that like chemistry matters. The Book of Basketball, the secret that I learned from the Book of Basketball is that chemistry matters.

Yeah.

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

Yeah. And you know, they, they play Gillespie less because they're playing those 3 guards together. I thought Brooks was pretty awesome in this game, but they do. Phoenix had a couple, hey, we've been in games like this before guys who, who felt like it. And from the Portland side, it was really just Jrue Holiday was the only guy who seemed like really comfortable in the game. But it's a weird Phoenix team and if I'm Golden State, Maybe less the Clippers. I did the Clippers game to game, who knows. But if I'm Golden State, I'm like, look, if we can get by this goofy Clippers team tomorrow night somehow, Kirk. Yeah, we could beat Phoenix too, right? We can get in the dance. We have Steph. Al Horford's coming back. Ah, who knows?

I mean, we know, we know what's gonna happen. You're dying to get Steph in. They're so bad.

They suck.

I watch that team, they suck.

Get a 30 7-win team in the playoffs, House. That's what we need.

Steph Curry in the playoffs is something we all want. I, I would say whoever wins that, that 9-10 game in the West should feel pretty good about their opponent in Phoenix. Uh, it's a team that I thought the wrong guy took 29 shots. I would rather that have been Devin Booker. Um, I, I'm fine with Jalen Green taking 29 shots in a world where Devin Booker is hurt, but in a world where Devin Booker is fine, I wanted him to take 29 shots, House.

Did you see how many he took? 10.

Devin Booker. Dare you. Well, no, no, Booker ended up with—

oh, I'm sorry, Dylan Brooks had 10. Devin Booker had 17.

That's the thing, right? Take 9 of Jalen Green shots and let's have Dylan Brooks take them. Dylan Brooks, who just goes wherever he goes, it's a win. He's a winner. His team always has a positive defensive rating, just delivers wins anywhere that he goes. Let that man take some shots. He's been in big games.

He's also a very hard guy to officiate. And so he ends up fouling out in the game. I think you could argue he could have fouled out in every quarter.

He had 14 fouls. It was tremendous.

He's doing that thing on offense too, where he's just like bulldozing people with his shoulder and they're just like, well, we didn't call that in the first quarter. I guess we have to let that keep going now. Phoenix was, they set these, these moving picks just constantly. That they are really good at getting away with. There's a couple teams in the league who are great at that. Did Kirk, did you feel like Phoenix blew this game or Portland won it? If you had to pick one of those two sides.

Well, the home team, the home team with more of the vets, the more of the playoff experience guys. Again, I would argue coming into this game, with all due respect to Denny, Devin Booker has been to the Finals. They have the home court, they have that guy, they should have won it.

Yeah.

And then when Portland went cold, Bill, I was already writing notes like this offense just wasn't good enough down the stretch.

Yeah.

If Denny doesn't have it going, nobody else could do anything. So there was a moment early in the fourth quarter where I was like, Phoenix is gonna walk away with this thing. We're gonna start the podcast early. Yeah. And then Jeremy Grant hits those threes and then Denny gets going, obviously fouls Dillon out with that and one and, and here we go. So yeah, I feel like Phoenix blew this chance to just get the 7th seed tonight.

House, which, which side are you on? I'm on the Portland took the game. Like to come back from 8 to 10 with 4 or 5 minutes left and take the game with some big 3s, some big drives to the basket, some really good defense. I thought Camara on, on Booker was awesome down the stretch. They were doing everything they could to try to switch him off. But I felt like Portland took the game. So House, you're the tiebreaker. What do you say?

I agree with the idea that Portland took the game and they did hit that stretch in the third quarter when Kirk was taking his very salient notes about the ineffectiveness of their offense through 8 minutes and 30 seconds in the fourth quarter. They had 22 points in the entire second half. Yeah. 18 through, you know, the entire third quarter and then 4 points in the fourth. Um, but when Denny came back into the game right around that 8-minute mark, 8:15-minute mark, he came in, immediately got an and-1, uh, got the technical on Dylan Brooks, and that, that really started tipping things.

This never works. You know what refs don't like? This. When they get the seal clap for 5 straight seconds, that's gonna get a technical.

You go through it, it's 22 minutes for Mark Williams with, for 4 points and 4 rebounds.

I honestly don't remember him playing playing, right? Was he out there?

It's 24 minutes for Royce O'Neal with 7 points. It's 23 minutes for Oso with 3 points. Like, yeah, this is the problem for Phoenix. They have a talent deficit, and that's not a knock on them, it's just who they are. Jordan Goodwin, 29 minutes. Like, okay, okay, good, good job.

Yeah, Portland's pretty good, man. I— they'll be, they'll be a frisky 7 So do we call them a 7th seed? What's the rule here? I guess they're a 7th seed now.

They are, they are 100%. It's not the rule, they're the 7th seed.

They're the 7th seed, Bill.

They're the 8th seed playing in the 2-7 matchup, or are they just now the 7th seed?

They are now the 7th seed.

Did this box score happen?

They earned it.

Does this, does this box score exist? Does Denny Avdija's, does his numbers go up? What happens?

Yeah, I forget, is this a playoff game? I think it is.

They just put it over on the side, like in area— area— what's the area? The alien area. Area 51. Yeah, it's in there. 51 or Area 42. Area 52.

Call it Area 41 for Denny.

Oh, there you go.

I— there was like 2 moments in this game where I was like, fucking Scoot, man, it's gonna happen tonight. It's happening tonight.

Here we go.

And it just did not happen. All right, we talked about that game enough. Charlotte-Miami. It wasn't the game of the year, it was the drunk game of the year. This game was drunk. Amazon got drunk. Amazon started doing shots in the fourth quarter and glitched out in OT when it was 123 to 120 and Charlotte had the ball with 30 seconds left. And we had a Sopranos moment. And it just goes away. This game was full of unbelievable shots, massive, massive, massive brain farts. And at the center of all of it was LaMelo Ball, who inexplicably injured Bam Adebayo and might be suspended for Friday. Like, let's keep an eye on that. He missed 14 threes, Kirk.

Oh my God.

That's gotta be at least a playing record. I don't know if it's an NBA record, but it's at least a playing record. There's multiple times where they had a lead, especially in OT. They're up 5 with like 2 and a half minutes left and they're running basically the 4 corners and then doing a grenade shot with a second left. I thought LaMelo just had some horrific moments in this game, like horrific moments that make you wonder, is this guy just never getting it ever? Like what, like what is up with the decision-making? And then what happens? After he throws the ball away to lose the lead on a foul of Tyler Harrow, which he commits for 3 free throws. They come out of a timeout and he makes an awesome driving layup to win the game. House, he was the player of the game and the, and the least valuable player in the game all in the same game.

Well, I, I mean, it's hard to be fair with this game because of Bam going out. So like my inclination is to give Miami flowers. Yeah. For just fighting their asses off all the way through. I, I, it's really befuddling. I'd love to get inside that locker room and, and get some intel on when Tyler Herro came back. Why couldn't Tyler Herro and Norm Powell be on the basketball floor together at the same time? They couldn't. It was one of the worst defensive combinations over the last, you know, stretch of games, and Miami's defensive rating suffered mightily because of those two guys being on the floor at the same time. I'd love to understand what was going on, but—

Well, no, like, so Norm played 19 minutes tonight and the entire second half had a look on his face like, I feel like I've lost $30 million in free agency just tonight. This sucks. I'm really bad. What's happening? I think I'm gonna call my agent.

Yeah, it was bad because the first half of the season for Miami, he was awesome. It was like, how could, how could the Clippers possibly and let him walk for so little.

Kirk, we might have to do it. Fuck it.

Yeah.

Eric Spolstra, are we sure he's good?

Oh no.

I mean, to, to your first point, Bill, you nailed it. And Spo was fired up after the game about the, the play, which it was just a weird play. I mean, it almost looked like LaMelo hit his head. He just grabbing. But that was the moment. That's the moment we'll remember from this game. And I hate that I'm saying that, but as crazy as the finish was, like, that's Miami's best player. He's out. That sucked. And then you tell me that the number 1 and 2 3-point shooters this whole season are Concanipple and Lamelo Ball, not for Charlotte, for the whole NBA. And these guys combined to go 2 for 22. And you're telling me that Charlotte still is gonna win that game?

That's crazy. Con got benched unless he's hurt, but they didn't say he was hurt. It was just a flat out, you don't have it tonight. You're 20 years old. The lights were a little bright. Have a seat.

And Diabate too. So like, I look at Charles Lee as like the MVP of this game. So Concanipple is -20 in 34 minutes. Diabate is -17 in 36 minutes. LaMelo Ball +15 in 40 minutes. That means Charlotte's -14 in the 13 minutes he sat. Yeah. I think Charles Lee finishing with Bridges. Brandon Miller, LaMelo Ball, and Kobe White, obviously.

And Grant Williams. He went, went a little small with G-Dub as the 5th guy.

Can I give you guys my theme of the night?

Yeah.

Bad teams give away good players too soon. Kobe White, Davion Mitchell, Denny Advia were all on different teams a few years ago. They gave up on these dudes. They were the stars tonight. Right, Davion Mitchell played incredible. He played 48 minutes. That's one of the reasons Norman Powell didn't see the floor. Davion was playing electric basketball on both ends of the court. Obviously Kobe White comes over from Chicago. Zach Lowe has the, the great bit, Bill: Chicago and Sacramento should never be allowed to trade again. Well, we benefited from their trades again tonight watching those guys play. So, and then obviously Denny in the first game, but Look, Kobe White was fucking awesome, man, and I was electric watching him. And I know LaMelo made the play that sealed the game, but Kobe hit some big boy shots down the stretch for Charlotte.

Yeah.

To save their season.

That was the trade of the year. They gave him some Amazon Prime award. He had some, some necklace with the plays on it. They, yeah, they should've given him an apology for the stream going out with the, they should've given us an apology. Yeah.

'Cause there was a goddamn basketball game being played in fucking Phoenix at the same time and they're doing necklace giving. There's a fucking basketball game that's being played. Points are being scored in Phoenix, Arizona.

I couldn't believe that either. The other thing with Amazon, the entire year the audio has been a split second ahead of the video on half of the Amazon games we've watched. The 3-pointer is halfway toward the basket, it's like bang, it's good! You heard the crowd, it's like the ball hasn't even gone in yet. How have we not figured this out? You guys have $8 kajillion.

They can send a tech bro to the moon, but they can't fucking broadcast a basketball game without technical difficulties. I haven't seen a technical difficulties slide on a basketball game since I was 12 years old, bro. And this is Amazon. Come on, guys.

And they have the play-in, you know, they've done a good job with the studio show. They've rejuvenated Stan Van Gundy for me. I did not like him as an announcer. In the 3-man booth on TNT, and I would get bummed out if he was doing a Celtic game. Like, it was at that level of me. I think he's been outstanding this season in the 2-man with Ian Eagle. I thought he did a great job today laying out all the storylines, what was happening, having a feel for even like the Kniepel thing. You know, I think at one point he said something like, I don't, how long are you going to stay with him? Which is like, he's the 3rd best player on the team. And as somebody that's watched way too many Hornets games this year, he started out slow like that in games and then he hits one. It's a lot like Klay. He hits one three and he's fine. It's just he never hit the three and you could see him starting to lose the confidence. But Kobe White, to Kirk's point, saved it. I have no idea how he wasn't worth a first round pick.

I don't know what happened. I don't know where the rest of the league was. He was an expiring contract making like I don't know, $14 million or something. He goes, ends up going back home to Charlotte where he's from. He went to college there. He's going to resign there. And this team, they're a big guy away house. Like you could feel it today. Like Diabate, who's been good in some games, other games he looks like he did tonight. And they're just missing that one. It can't be Grant Williams. It's got to be somebody better.

Yeah. And we kind of had that appraisal at the beginning of the season. One of our rare big Ws was Charlotte. Our forecast for Charlotte this season was, it was some success. We thought Conner was going to be helpful. And the big question mark was, what are they going to do at the big position? I was impressed. I will say, you know, you're looking for guys that under the bright lights, we just gave Coby White the flowers that he deserves. Now, to me, the Coby White addition to that team, right guy, right situation, right price, right place. Everything about it is situational for him, that success. But you look at what Miles Bridges did and you look at what Brandon Miller did, those 3 guys, they combined, they were 15 for 28 from 3. That frickin' Charlotte team shot 56 goddamn 3-pointers, and those guys really saved their ass. And every time Bridges or Miller or Kobe White touched the ball, I was like, Those are the adults in the room. And that's really, to me, more than anything, a testament to Brandon Miller. He's the youngest guy in that group, and he's the guy developmentally who needs to be, you know, carrying the water there.

I don't want to talk about LaMelo Ball.

I really—

I don't— there's no kind words that are going to come out of my mouth. 31 effing attempts. 31 and 12 for 31. 2 for 16 from 3, and a lot of it was clown ball. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a clown car full of Lamelo balls. Look at the clown getting out of the left side. Oh, it's Lamelo. Look at the clown climbing out of the trunk. Oh, it's Lamelo. Look at the clown jumping through the front. Oh, that's Lamelo. Look at the 3-point attempt from just inside the logo. That's the Lamelo clown climbing out of the right side of the car. What the fuck is going on?

He took like a 35-footer at one point. It's frustrating because he's so talented and you're the leader of the team. You're the point guard. They don't have Bam. He's out in the second half. And I felt like anytime he wanted, it just felt like he could get to into the paint or get to the rim. Like, he's— they weren't staying in front of him. And Kirk, he was just settling for these step-back 28-footers when none of his threes were going in. It's like, go to the rim. The one thing Miami does not want you to do is to go to the basket. And every time you said it—

there was one big reason he didn't, dude. There was one big reason he didn't. That was Khalel Ware, dude, who was playing awesome basketball. He had 5 blocked shots, played 42 minutes without Bam out there. He had some— one of those blocks he had where he caught the ball was a clear goaltend. The refs missed. I was, I was pretty shocked they missed it. But yeah, dude, I, I don't know whether to be impressed by the 2 of 16, the fact that he kept shooting those threes when he obviously didn't have it. And then when he needed to drive to the basket, it's almost more frustrating. He made the game-winning drive. Like, you could have done that like Denny did down the stretch of this other game.

But that's the lack of experience though. And that's what, like, right, the older players who know, who have been in these situations, like, to me, a good example is Jaylen Brown and the Celtics. Like, in a game like that, he just would've started going to the rim, get to the basket. Oh, where is your last center? I'm just gonna start attacking him and making him challenge me and try. They just, they didn't have the wherewithal to do some of that smart playoff team stuff. 'Cause none of those fucking guys have been in a playoff game. Grant Williams is the only way.

Tyler Harrow almost stole it, dude.

Yeah, he did.

Tyler Harrow almost stole it Reggie Miller style down the stretch with one of the great sequences. And, but yeah, doesn't it feel like both of the inexperienced teams, like when I started seeing Harrow get going at the end, and Spo on the sideline and, you know, Andrew Wiggins, who's won an NBA championship, Bill, I started to feel like, okay, Miami's just gonna win this game.

Yeah.

This is an infrastructure DNA game. I was furious.

Yeah.

I just want them to go in.

I thought Phoenix was gonna go that way too. I thought Phoenix had that advantage in the other game. And we saw both sort of young, weird teams figure it out at the last second and, and get over the hump. But yeah, for Charlotte, Man, they got a lot of learning to do. That pass that LaMelo threw, oh man, it, it, it could have ended their season in the same way that the Duke turnover, right? Uh, who, who was that? Who shot? Guy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Caden Boozer turnover ended that season. It was very reminiscent of a player under pressure who hadn't been there before just making a boneheaded play.

Well, we had— how's— we had 3 awards or LMBA spots that might have swung tonight? Because there might have been somebody who was like, multiple people like, I don't know who to pick between Flag and Khan. Khan stunk tonight. Ah, screw it, I'm gonna take Flag.

That's, that's diabolical.

I, I really, I think Hawkins for Sixth Man of the Year, which we do this later in the show, and Kirk has Keldon Johnson, spoiler alert, and I have Hawkins. And now Hawkins who I didn't think was very good in the game and then had the biggest defensive fuck-up at the end. He didn't— he just let LaMelo go by him. I don't know what he was doing.

He wasn't playing sixth man. He was being playing as a starter because Bam wasn't in the goddamn lineup. I mean, this is the thing that I'm— I, I want to criticize some of the end of the game stuff for, for Miami. I mean, Kirk was talking about Tyler Herro. Well, I didn't love a lot of it. It felt like the same Hero ball that we saw really at the end of games last year as well, where this Miami team goes into— now again, no Bam, so it's not really fair to criticize, but they get— they turn one-dimensional. I—

no, you know what's fair to criticize? You know what's fair to criticize? So they tie— the Charlotte ties it on the crazy Kobe White 3. We had 2 crazy 3s at the end of regulation OT, one from Hero and OT, one from Kobe White. But they tie it, timeout. Miami has 13 seconds to set up a play. I think Grant Williams was the center for Charlotte. Kirk?

Yeah.

So what does Miami get? Hey, let's try to get a 27-footer from, from Hero at the end of the, at the end of the, like, how is that your play?

That's a bad possession. Yeah.

Get to the basket. Go to the basket. There's 10 seconds left. Make one pass. Yeah.

Make every fucking set of eyes on the basketball court is looking at the guy with the ball. Nobody's eyes have to shift one time because the guy with the ball dribbles the motherfucking ball the whole time. I just can't. It makes me lose my shit.

Well, here's the thing. I don't feel bad for Miami because they were the 10 seed. I didn't think they were a playoff team and they were who we thought they were in a lot of ways. With that said, the Bam thing stunk. Um, so House, we have a San Antonio-Portland line. Would you like to guess?

Um, for the series?

Yeah.

Oh God, San Antonio's minus 490.

Oh no, minus 1350.

Oh, that's too much. Way too much.

Yeah.

Wow.

What would you like to— what do you think a Spurs sweep is?

Oh, I mean, that's preposterous. The, the—

you don't want to guess the Spurs sweep odds?

I, I don't, I don't want to guess. I can't. Minus 1350.

2-to-1 odds for the sweep, Kirk.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Spurs win 4-to-1 is +190 on FanDuel.

I'm betting that it— the, the Here, the problem with $1,350 is the implied concept there is that Wemby will play all the games. And that's right, that, that doesn't really line up with our recent experience. I would like for him to play all the games. I want him to be healthy for all the games. It may not make sense for him to play all the games. He may yet still need some rest.

So I assume he's playing all the games. You know who's going to be playing against him though? Donovan Clingan and Robert "The Truth" Williams.

The guys who combined 2-for-12 for 4 points tonight. Those guys.

Clingan's feisty, man. He'll, he, he will take this personally.

They definitely have 12 fouls. They definitely have 12 fouls.

I think Zach Lowe is the first person to point this out. Clingan looks exactly like Gunther, the WWE superstar. He's gonna Gunther it up against Wemby. There's gonna be some high elbows and some shoves and Klingon's like kind of a badass. Like he's, he's willing to make—

he threw Dylan Brooks to the end. He threw Dylan Brooks to the ground. Not many people are brave enough to do that.

Yeah.

Kirk, I have, I have a question that's gonna send a, a chill down your spine. Thought about this today during the Charlotte game. These young, carefree, awesome regular season teams, or these stretches built around the young guys.

Yeah.

Look how great this is. And then the old guys in Inside the NBA come on and be like, I, Barkley does that. I don't know. I don't, you, I wanna see it in the playoffs. And we're like, all right, settle down. Their offensive rating was this, blah, blah, blah. And then the playoffs come and the lights are nice and hot and bright. Yeah. And all of a sudden that wide open, that first wide open 3 didn't go in and then your second one didn't come in. And now like you can see with Khan today, he's like, Rethinking, I made 275 of these and I don't know if I want to shoot this. The Spurs have a few guys in that team that the lights might get a little bright, right? From 24 feet. You thinking about that at all?

100%. I mean, these guys are 21, 22, you know, in Dylan Harper's case, 19 or whatever. Like, yeah, of course. You just hope that Harrison Barnes and De'Aaron Fox and Julian Champagny, Harrison Barnes, Harrison Barnes is a gold medalist and a world champion.

Harrison Barnes.

Yeah. So he is an NBA champion and a gold— but yeah, there's some vets there. But I think it is fair to say, and I don't think that's gonna come up in a Portland series with Denny, who by the way has never seen this stuff, or, you know, Drew Holliday has, I'll give that to him. But yeah, I think both of these teams, Tiago Splitter is gonna be really coaching his first playoff series and so is Mitch Johnson. Yeah, I think you're worried about that if you're a Spurs fan. We haven't seen it. And the other thing I'd say, Bill Simmons, is the rules change. Remember last year how jarring it was once we got into the postseason? What is the contact— what are the contact allowances anymore? This was a foul for 6 months, now it's not a foul anymore. How is that going to— how is that going to affect Wemby, to House's point about his fragility, his durability, um, and just the, this, the inexperience with that, like, that kind of physicality that we're going to see here in the next few months?

I can't wait. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are here in the form of the Play-In Tournament, which goes on for half a week. You can get better payouts this NBA Play-In on FanDuel. All FanDuel customers can claim a profit boost every single day of this tournament. Plus, you can enter FanDuel's Play-In Palooza for a chance to win a share of $2 million in bonus bets every day of the Play-In Tournament. All you have to do is place a live bet using your Play-In Palooza Token. Visit Fanduel.com/BS. Play your game with Fanduel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right, listen up. Ralph's, King Soopers, Harris Teeter, Food 4 Less, Kroger. Many more now on Uber Eats, and you get 40% off your order of $30 or more. Maybe you're trying a new recipe and need some last-minute ingredients. That's a possibility. Maybe the kids made a mess. You're lower on cleaning supplies than you thought. Whatever you need, you can get it delivered to you in as little as 25 minutes.

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Oh, I'm, I'm there now.

I mean, do you have an upset for us yet?

Tonight was the night. No, because the first round is not lining up. I, the, Um, the, the team that I feel like, you know, that Atlanta could give the Knicks some trouble, that's the only one where I really feel like, you know, I don't think the— unless there's some miracle happening with Luka's visit to— where did he go?

Italy.

The line's kind of doing this. I don't know if you notice the series line, it's, it's going this way a little bit. Lakers now +530 or +590. I can't see because one of my contacts isn't working. +530. Houston now -750. They used to be -900. I mean, if you— I mean, to me that's a— the Lakers are a smash spot at that price. So I'm probably gonna end up betting it.

Yeah, I honestly think you're right.

It's, it's what it's— the playoffs are 2 and a half weeks basically. Round 1. Yeah. They'll stretch it out even if it's 2-1 after 3 and then they could potentially get Luka back for the last couple. And you know, you know, I said this to Zach the other night, there's gonna be the 55 free throw game that's happening. Just pencil that one in. But yeah, if they could, even if they're down 3-2 heading into game 6, but Luka's back, I don't trust that Houston team. No, I know you guys don't trust that Houston team.

No, not, not even a little bit.

So then the other weird thing that happened, we had the 9-10 game before we had the 7-8 game in the East. So we have Philly tomorrow and that line has moved. I love Philly today. Philly was like -1.5 today. It's up to -2.5. I really like Philly in that game. Warriors-Clippers, just, you might as well bet on two drunk guys having a fight in downtown LA. I have no idea what's gonna happen in that game. But Magic-Sixers, who do you think, who do you think Charlotte's rooting for in this game, Kurt Goldsberry?

Oh, Orlando. I don't know if you saw the rumors on the internet today, but there's turmoil in the Magic locker room.

What?

Head, head coach Jamal Mosley, they're reevaluating his future no matter what.

No.

I think your beloved Celtics, Bill, really put a, put them into a funk heading into these playoffs. I, without a question, I think it's gotta be Charlotte rooting to see Orlando, who has been a complete mess over these last few weeks. And I just don't know if their offense can keep up with Charlotte on an average Charlotte night. We saw Charlotte with a really below average night tonight beat a pretty good opponent. So if they just get back to average, I don't know if Orlando will keep up. So I would say The Orlando Magic pass.

Hmm. I don't know.

The problem is how schizophrenic the Magic have been. They are the more healthy team for sure. We don't have any confidence whatsoever in Mosley, but the problem is in the, in the bright lights, maybe those guys all come together. Maybe they're the nobody believes in us team. They were supposed to win 50 games this season. They grossly underachieved. But like, Desmond Bane doesn't want to look— go out looking like a bitch. And Paolo, wherever he ends up, whether he's on Orlando or not, he doesn't want to go out looking like—

or Milwaukee, Sacramento.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, man. I, I think we have Orlando.

We both bet on— there was a Saturday game where Philly played in Charlotte. And really kind of bullied them and took it to them. And if I'm Charlotte, I don't want to play them.

Yeah.

I didn't like that. I didn't like how that game went for them. I thought they were really physical with their guards. I thought they were physical with Con. I thought they're physical with LaMelo. I just, I didn't like the matchup. I want to play the Magic for all the reasons Kirk mentioned as well. Turmoil in the Magic locker room. There was something this week about A team was anxiously waiting to talk to Jamal Mosley this, this summer. What was that story? Who was the team? I'm blanking. It was one of the teams that need a coach. It was like their—

the Taipei Tigers, the, uh, yeah, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

Somebody was excited to talk to— oh, New Orleans. That's what it was. New Orleans was really interested.

Is there a difference between the teams we mentioned and New Orleans? Those all sound like the same teams to me.

If you had to pick Warriors, Clippers, what would you do, Hess? Not to step on Ringer Gambling Show tomorrow.

Take the Clippers.

Kirk?

Is it— what's the Warriors injury report? We're getting Porzingis and Horford and Curry.

I'm going to this one tomorrow night. I— the Clippers are interesting because when they play Garland and Kawhi together, they're really good. All of the minutes with those two guys on the floor are really good. Garland's the only guy on the team who can dribble. All you have to do when Garland's not out there is just press and trap whoever. Just try to get the ball because they'll give it to you. They don't have a backup center. Their swings kind of are hit or miss. The crowd's going to have a ton of Warriors fans there. This is always the biggest issue with Clipper games is you're going to have 5,000 Warriors fans there. And there's a real energy if Steph gets going. So it's weird. I would either pick the Warriors to win or to lose by 20. I don't think there's any in between. I think they either get blown out or they win. I don't think if it's a close game, I think they win it.

Is there any conspiracy, Bill? We don't want the Clippers in the playoffs. Anything like, oh, we do want Steph Curry in the playoffs.

That could be a thing.

You know, I'm not conspiracy, Bill. I'm just— I'm just a guy over here.

House, I'm going to put my conspiracy bill hoodie on. Do it. Conspiracy bill did notice we did not see Scott Foster today. Ooh.

Now wait, if—

On the one hand, Steph Curry. On the other hand, the team that was embroiled in some sort of weird aspiration. I don't want to call it a scandal, whatever it was. For, for a long time.

Well, keep that conspiracy hat on. What did we say was going to be the funniest possible outcome of the lottery when the ping pong balls get dropped? Because if the Clippers lose, then they're in the lottery, but they don't have a pick, right?

They don't have the pick. No.

Who has the pick?

OKC has the pick.

Yeah, we don't. That would be the worst. So OKC gets— yeah, the Clippers win the lottery, but OKC gets the pick.

I forgot to mention there was another outcome in that Portland game. Because they made the playoffs, they lose their pick, I think, to Charlotte. Mm-hmm. So Charlotte gets a pick in the mid-first round. And if you've been following this draft at all, somebody really good is gonna fall to the middle of, of the first round in this NBA draft. And it's going to be a point guard. And it's gonna be like the kid from Alabama who just goes 16, 17, because everybody has a point guard. Nobody needed to take him. So that pick's like not nothing. I think Charlotte was the one that, that has it. I'm really excited for tomorrow. Zach poo-pooed my love of just seeing Steph Curry playing in any sort of a game that means anything. The minutes limit is weird. The fact that the other game is gonna be the 7-8 game is also kind of weird. We'll see how it goes. House, before we go, you want to give us your MVP pick?

Uh, I, it would be SGA for me. If I got to, if I was lucky enough to have a ballot, I would vote for SGA.

Who would be your number 2?

The Joker.

Wemby 3?

Wemby 3. Yeah. Without hesitation or reservation.

Okay.

Who would be your All-NBA 5th spot if Luka doesn't qualify and fails his weird appeal, and we have the 3 guys we just mentioned and Jaylen Brown, in the 5th spot could be either Mitchell or Brunson or somebody else. Who would you put in there?

I think I would put Mitchell in there because he, he can't kind of held that team together until Harden arrived and they made the push that they made.

And for, yeah, for 4th and 5th MVP, Would you have Jaylen Brown fourth?

Fourth seems fair. Sure.

With no Luka?

Yeah, with no Luka for sure. Absolutely.

And who would be the fifth spot for you? Because this is something else we argue about in the next segment. You could have Mitchell, you could have Brunson, you could have Kawhi.

Could have Kawhi. It'd probably have to be Brunson for me, honestly.

Okay.

Probably Brunson.

House, later we're gonna send you in a soundproof chamber and later on you'll hear if your picks match The picks of me or Kurt Goldsberry. Who do you have for Rookie of the Year, by the way?

Khan. It's not even close to me. It's not even close. I mean, it's funny how House and I are aligned a lot. I just cannot, cannot under any circumstance. This isn't a year where you're having to hold your nose and choose between bad choices. Like, this is not a, who's the, I'm going to use, say somebody. Did DeKayle Alexander Walker win it a handful of years ago?

No, Michael Carter-Williams did. That's the one.

That's the one.

I think of a different hyphen guy.

Yeah.

That was it. Yeah. Like who—

Are you, hey, House, are you against hyphen guys winning these awards?

What's your problem here?

I just knew there was a hyphen guy that won Rookie of the Year because we couldn't come up with the answer to who the Rookie of the Year should be. That's not this year. Just the Dallas is a disaster. That is an absolute, I, what you're doing is saying this 19-year-old did things that a teenager shouldn't do. That's great. I don't have any issue whatsoever. Show me the winning basketball. I need to see the winning basketball. That's the part of it that's missing. Can—

Yeah. And if it's a bad Rookie of the Year year and we're not comparing the winning stuff at all, then it's just like, all right, who played the best in a shit situation?

Yeah.

It's— then you can say, okay, let's do the counting numbers. Let's do— let's do rebounds, assists, and points. But that's not this year. And I think the force, the force multiplier effect of Kinnipal on this Charlotte team, the settling effect of his coming in and being so efficient with the threes, that, that to me— Flag will get his flowers.

Flower—

Flag deserves flowers. But how can you make any assessment of shit numbers on a shit team? Like, it's like what you're saying is He is the best 19-year-old. Well, we have rankings for that. We, there's other ways to capture that. Not Rookie of the Year in the NBA.

I'd just like to apologize to Kathy Flagg for House's inflammatory comments, and I hope she's still a friend of the pod.

My last point before we leave.

She's a great fan. I love Flagg. We all love Flagg.

My last point.

Love that guy.

You're a best friend.

I will say there's been some strange movement on, in, in these newfangled betting markets over the last 6 hours on that Rookie of the Year thing. So we could be living in a world where Lucas' protest, Lucas, what is it called? Not a protest, it's a—

Appeal. Appeal. Yeah.

His, this appeal process may have changed the outcome of this award if those market maneuvering, the movements in these markets are to be trusted. Cooper has had some positive movement over the last 6 hours.

Hey, last question before we go. Because how— see, you didn't come on and talk about this. Rory McIlroy won back-to-back Masters.

He sure did, man.

He played the Masters 2 years in a row and was the best guy each time.

This is a thing that happened only 4 times in the history of the golf tournament. There's been— it's been around for 90 years. The other 3 guys to do it were Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Sir Nick Faldo. 3 of the all-time greats.

Kirk. I mean, if we had started the decade, 2020 starts the decade, right? Like January 1st, 2020. We start the decade and think of all the things that have happened this decade, including a pandemic and Trump winning reelection and name, name 17 crazy sports things. Rory winning back-to-back Masters. Would have been way, way up there. Way up there.

Honestly, not. I have to push back a tiny bit because back-to-back Masters. Well, I mean, but here's the thing.

That's like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus shit.

Yeah, it is that. And he, he earlier in his career looked like that's the trajectory he was on. What truly makes him the figure that he is in this sporting moment is that there was a 10-year gap between him winning majors. He went on this incredible drought and the pressure built and the pressure built. And that's why last year's Masters resonated across the world in terms of, of, uh, sporting, um, you know, golf fandom and sports fandom, because he overcame something that felt insurmountable. And even during the course of the round, he— last year in 2025, he damn near lost it 3 or 4 different ways. So, um, this year was like a validation of the true caliber of, you know, a legacy, a legacy kind of mark that he put down.

Kirk, the, my favorite part of the Masters, other than betting on Justin Rose and thinking that he was going to win the Masters and then he just turned into a pumpkin on the 9th hole. Scottie Scheffler kind of, that's my, he kind of sucked the whole tournament and he was like -11. It was the equivalent of watching somebody put up a 35, 11, and 12, not making a shot from outside, like 17.

It was like watching LaMelo Ball. Like he struggled all game and then you end up—

He's got his stats. It was unbelievable.

Don't, that is so disrespectful to Scotty Scheffler.

No, how dare you?

I can't abide it.

Yeah. How you can't, don't compare him to LaMelo Ball. You got to clean house.

Let me come back around. Scotty Scheffler went to the University of Texas and studied at this business school that I teach in. We are huge Scotty fans. I thought the same thing, Bill. He's playing terrible. And that's how good he is right now. He played a terrible round by his standards. All of his drives were crazy. Every time he needed a big shot, he hit it off into the woods. He missed a birdie putt that would've, I thought, really put the pressure on. I wanna say the 12th or 13th hole. And the, in that stretch of holes, House, where they all gain ground, he had a chance.

Yeah.

I was rooting for him the whole time. I still think he's the best golfer in the world, but hats off to Rory. It was a great Sunday at the Masters. It was a great weekend of golf. It was really fun. I was happy to see it, but now I'm ready for the NBA playoffs.

Bill House, I love, I love watching great athletes struggle and get mostly to where they need to go anyway. It was like my favorite Jordan game other than the, the flu game and the last game of his, of his Bulls career was that Game 7 against the Pacers when he just didn't have his legs and he's like, I gotta figure this out somehow. And just kind of patching together plays and stats with nothing.

Those are always the best hallmark of a true champion, winning with B-, B- game. Yeah, I mean, maybe it was closer to B+ for him, for Rory we're speaking of, because of how good his putting, his short game was, especially in the first two rounds. But he shot over par, um, you know, on, on Saturday and, and only one under on Sunday.

And well, yes, Rory just basically played two awesome back nines. Right?

Yeah.

Where he was like, one of the back nines, he was like -6, um, and then the other one was the Sunday back nine. But Scheffler, I don't think, put together any good back nines.

No, no, no. On the weekend was a lot— he was even par going into the weekend, and then he did not make a bogey on Saturday or Sunday. He shot 11 under par on Saturday. Sunday, he just could not score on the back 9 par 5s. He only had one birdie the entire golf tournament, and that was a miracle.

Yeah, that was a miracle. Yeah, he saved that.

Oh, you're right, KG, an incredible birdie.

Second shot on 18, man, after he hit that errant drive. As somebody's rooting for Scottie, I was like, did he just do what I think? Because that was almost going to be one of the most painful moments in golf depending where that ball landed, man.

The true Rory experience. That's it. That's the roller coaster ride you go on with them.

I mean, they missed a lot of replays and live shots, but they didn't have the perfect replay of that one Murray shot. When it seemed like, it seemed like it was gonna ding and bounce backwards, which is usually what happens. And it just didn't.

It, we, it would, it, somebody will, will cobble it together. There is emerging now some camera angles that, that seem like they captured it, but it would've been fun to see in real life.

In real time.

I have another thing I'm gonna do as sports are. After I settle Amazon's audio-video issue where the audio is before the video of the game I'm watching. That's, that's number one on my agenda. Um, I think the Masters, and this is the only event that you should be able to do this, uh, with the Masters, they should be able to grab the best announcers from all the other networks.

Mm.

Like, we should just have Torrico.

What?

And Van Pelt and, uh, Joe Buck should all be on holes.

Van Pelt is there. He should be on a hole. He should be on a hole.

I like this.

15, 16, 17. I want Van Pelt, Torrico, and Joe Buck, and they're just there. We don't want anything else. We'll fly you in, you get your own house, just work this hole on Saturday and Sunday. It's a 2-day thing and just do your thing. And let's go with the big boys.

But Torrico does the radio call. He didn't do it this year because he went to the Olympics, but he, he does cover the Masters.

I don't listen to the Masters on the fucking radio. I know, I understand. And who would you have on the 16th hole if you could have anybody?

Bern Lundqvist.

Yeah, that's the answer.

I want Bern for the rest, forever, for the rest of my life.

What hole would you put Eric Collins on? Would you put him on— what would be the most exciting era? Console 15.

A lot, a lot of big things happen on 15. Maybe 12. Like, oh, 12 is good.

Yeah, yeah, 12 is good.

The drama there, real, real catastrophes happen on 12.

Oh, Jim, a toothpick in my throat! He's in the water!

That's it, there you go.

Yeah, I love that.

Justin Rose hit it over the green and then flubbed the chip. How would Eric Collins handle that?

I'm telling you, just get all these dudes. We just get them for 2 days. It's best of the best. It's like, it's like when they make those Avengers movies for the Marvel, when they put all the great actors in one movie. Let's just do it for the last 2 days. Nobody's against this. Kurt Goldsberry, pleasure to see you as always. We look forward to your, uh, Masters shot chart map that I'm sure you're working on. By the way, that would be a good idea.

Do that. Do it right now. I'll buy one. I'll send you the memo right now. I love you, brother.

Joe House, thanks for staying up late. We appreciate it. Seeing the Ringer Gambling Show and on Fairway Rollin', and I'll be, I'll be making you pop on during the playoffs as well. We're gonna take a break. Coming back, me and Kirk Goldsberry are gonna go through all the awards. Let's go. As you know, I've been doing Wednesday bets on FanDuel. I actually won the last two. We hit a big parlay on Wemby that was like 9-to-1, and then Justin Rose top 5 Masters plus 650, that one hit too. Almost won Dustin Rose to win the Masters. I think it was 35 to 1. He let me down, but he still got the top 5. So let's see if we can keep the streak going. I already jumped the gun. I did my, uh, my play-in bet Tuesday night, Portland. That was my favorite bet of the 4 play-in games. But I also really like Philly. I think Philly beats Orlando. Uh, I love betting on the NBA on FanDuel. It's a brand I trust. Easy to build, buy bet, you know, you get your winnings instantly. Playing tournaments, always fun. Do parlays. I did like a, a Charlotte-Portland-Philadelphia parlay that was like 5-to-1, but I like Philly straight up.

I just think Orlando's ready for the season to end and they couldn't stop Maxi in the regular season. I am a Philly money line. Maybe throw that in with, with the Cavs to beat Toronto in the series, something like that. Go nuts, do whatever you need to do. So don't forget to check out my middle of the week bets. Usually it'll be Wednesday, but there might be a Tuesday I like on FanDuel. Using the FanDuel Sportsbook app, don't forget to use your Profit Boost token to increase your potential winnings before you place it. FanDuel, play your game. All right, we just traveled in a time machine backwards to before the play-in games when Kirk Goldsberry and I banked this whole segment because we want to talk big picture round one playoffs. I wanted to do my award picks. More importantly, what an honor for you. You have a vote. I can't remember.

Yeah. Yeah. Democracy is back in America, Bill.

Have you said your vote publicly yet?

No, we're gonna do this right now.

Let's fucking do it. We'll talk about the playoffs later. So this Luka thing is so weird.

Yeah.

It screws up the top 5 MVP cuz he would be 4th on my ballot if he is eligible. We don't know if he is. We, there's some sort of weird appeal process we have to go through. I don't know why the NBA doesn't care about podcast content and dumb shows like ours where we obsess over this stuff. And then it, it screws up first team All-NBA. It opens up a spot for somebody and it adds a spot on the third team for somebody because everybody moves up a spot. So I want to do All-NBA first. We'll finish with MVP and we'll hit all the other categories. So I had first team Jokic, Wemby, Luka, SGA, and Jalen, which I think is chalk. Right? Yeah. You had that as well? Okay.

On the Luka in version of my spreadsheet. Now I have a Luka out version of my spreadsheet, to your point.

Let's talk about that because that's more interesting. So Luka's in if they do the weird ruling and they're like, oh, he flew back for the birth of his child, that somehow counts as a game. Um, it would be funny. I've said this before, but if Silver said, you know what, we reject the appeal. He would've played 65 if he hadn't gotten 16 technicals, and maybe he'll learn his lesson now. Yeah. And we just all moved on. All right, Luka out. Alternate first team. I have Mitchell in the Luka spot. Who do you have?

I have Kawhi Leonard, which was sort of surprising as I went through this, Bill. But you look at this dude's numbers and he is nearing 50, 40, 90. At 28 points a game. He's obviously a defender, but I just couldn't justify any other pick. I know it's a controversial season for Kawhi. I know the Clippers aren't that great, but this is probably his best season as a scorer of his career. If he's ever been First Team All-NBA, there's an argument that it should be this year. So I want Kawhi.

I can't kill it. So he was 6th in scoring in the league this year. He was 7.5 net plus, played 32 minutes a game, career high points per game, which I couldn't believe.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. 27.9, was that what it was?

Yeah. Third highest year 14 points per game ever. So of any year 14 guy, third highest we've ever had. And I think the other two were Durant and Curry. Both of whom played in the 50s for games that year. Defense was there.

Yeah.

I think it's a good pick. I just, I had a hard time putting him first team All-NBA when the team was barely.500 and he was there for a bunch of those when they started, when they were 6-9. I just couldn't get past that. Whereas Mitchell, you know, that, that was a top 4 team the whole year. They had some injuries. I think there's some MVP conversation for him too. And was pretty steady for them for the most part. I thought he had, I thought he had a good year. He played over 70 games, 33.5 minutes a game, 7 points per game. He's a 28-5-6. And I just felt like, I don't really feel like either of them are first team All-NBAs, to be honest. But if Luka's going to be out, who else did we lose? We lost one more bad one.

What do you mean we lost Ant-Man? What do you mean we lost, uh, we lost Ant?

I think Ant would've been the other one who could have swam in that swimming pool. Oh, for sure. But did not. Okay. So we disagree on Mitchell versus— Cade.

Sorry.

Cade Cunningham. Oh, Cade is the other one.

Yeah.

Cade had that spot forever and then just didn't make it. By the way, just missed it. Yeah.

Too much load management, maybe too much lung management. I don't know what we're gonna call it this time around, but Cade Cunningham, what a travesty.

Well, so let's say you could have voted 60, like let's say 60 games and up instead of 65.

Yeah.

Would Luka and Cade have made it for you?

I had to put Jaylen Brown in there, man. Jaylen Brown and Cade. I know other people are going to roast me for this, but I ended up with Jaylen. He reinvented his game. That team had no business going on the run that it went on, and he was the best player on that team all year long as they went through that incredible surprising run. I'm not mad at anybody who had Cade Cunningham above Jaylen Brown, but it would've been Luka and Jaylen for me.

I feel the same way. Played almost 2,500 minutes. Everything he did peaked in his 10th season, which is just incredibly unusual for the NBA. There's really no— I had a whole thing. I was looking up guys who made first team All-NBA for the first time in their 10th season. John Stockton in 1994, and that's it.

Wow.

It's the only one. And he had 6 seconds leading up to this. So you could say in some ways this is one of the great aberration seasons anybody has had 10 years or later in their career. But there were reasons for it, including Tatum. Him having to take the higher usage rate. I've made the case for Jaylen over and over again. You kind of had to see the season and see how limited the Celtics were from, can we get a reliable basket anywhere night to night? Not knowing if Pritchard was going to be on or not. I love Pritchard, but he's a little bit on-off. White's shooting wasn't there the whole year. And it's, Jaylen had 30 points or more 35 times out of the 70+ games he played. And they needed him all the time. It was just always nice to know, like, all right, whatever happens, we have somewhere to go in the fourth quarter. We have somebody we're getting, we know we're getting 30 to 35 from this guy. We know he is gonna get to the line. On top of it was taking on defensive challenge over and over again against people like Shay and Kawhi.

Anytime they needed a stopper, it seemed like he ended up on the bigger scores. And I thought from a leadership physicality, attitude standpoint, he's the biggest reason they won 56 games by far. Yeah.

And we didn't get to see what Cade would've done down the stretch. So we were robbed of that. And that's why this is a hypothetical. Yeah. If Cade had finished, I mean, the case for Cade is the Detroit offense without Cade, until he got hurt, was an awful, awful unit.

Yeah.

And when, as soon as he came in the game, everything was fine. He ran that thing as well as John Stockton. He was like, he was the conductor of that orchestra. And also just a great leader. And so, you know, we were robbed at the end of that.

Yeah.

But yeah, Jaylen ended up coming, absorbing on his end. Not easy, Bill Simmons, to deal with Jason Tatum just sliding back into the fold after doing what you do for 66 games. Now, now let's get back into the Jason Tatum. And he handled that as perfectly as anybody could have expected.

I'm really glad you mentioned that, 'cause I don't know if that would've gone the right way all the time. Like, Jalen gets credit for, come on back in, let's figure this out, how this is going to work. If Cade had played 70 games and we had Luka, and I think Luka trumps both those guys, Jalen versus Cade would have been an awesome argument, but we were, uh, sadly robbed of that opportunity. All right, second team. If Luka's in, I am looking at Jalen Duren, Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Murray and Jalen Brunson. 3 guards, which I don't love. I, let's talk about this now. I'm just always voting a center for each team, or at least some sort of big. I want my, my All-NBA team to look somewhat like a basketball team. I'm not gonna do like just handing out the trophies for everybody. There's, what are there, 100 votes, 110 votes? I forget how many votes there are. Everybody approaches it differently. That's the way I approach it. I value the 8 decades of history. We had centers every year for the first 7+ decades of the league.

Yeah.

And I'm not just gonna dump that because Joel Embiid and Jokic got weird with first and second team. It got weird with Russell and Wilt. I've talked about this ad nauseam. So I have Durant, Kawhi, Mitchell, Murray, and Brunson. Who do you have?

So I have Kawhi in this world where Luka's in, then Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant. And I go Chet. I go Chet Holmgren here largely because I wanted a center in there and because defensive conversations aren't well represented in All-NBA. And he's one of the most impactful. He's definitely the second most impactful defender in the league right now.

I battled Chet versus Durant, went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on it. Fairly similar case. Duran's stats are, are better. Minutes are around the same. Yeah. The defensive stats for Chet are better and Chet's rim protection stuff was, was pretty nuts. I actually, as recently as like 3, 4 weeks ago, I had him on the bubble because I hadn't done the deep dive on all the defensive stats. Like, holy shit. He's second in rim protection. They're first in defensive rating just in general. They're 56-13 when he played. He's a 56-36-79 guy. So the statistical case is there. I thought the reason I went with Duran is, uh, I just thought he meant more to that Detroit team where him and Cade were the guys that the physicality, the competitiveness, the attitude that that team had came from those two guys and spread down. And everyone else kind of carried themselves the same way too. And when Cade went out, I was so impressed that they kept winning. And I felt like every time I watched Dern, I'm just like, that guy's a fucking badass. Yeah. So I think that's a, you could go either way.

I'm fine with it. I, I, I didn't feel 100% on it, but 28 minutes a game for him, 70 games. They were +7.8 net when he played. He was 6th in rebounds. And I thought he really grew as an offensive guy. He's getting a couple of come up in another award. But I was really— I didn't know he had this in him, I guess, is my bigger point.

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

Yeah.

Who are you talking about?

Well, I was talking about Jalen before, but you're talking about Chet now.

Yeah, yeah, I was talking about Chet.

My No, that's fine.

This is very confusing, by the way, for the audience to have this Luka, non-Luka thing. Yeah, I think Bill and I are very, very confused. So thanks, NBA.

So Luka out. I have Duran, Kawhi, Murray, Brunson, and Kevin Durant. And I didn't feel great about it, but here's the case for, for Durant. Second in minutes in the league, played 79 games, played 36 minutes a game. He was 26-6-5. He was a 52-41-87 guy. That team didn't have a point guard basically at all. And, and he carried that. And I thought statistically, if you remove all the burner scandal stuff and some of the weird chemistry that team has, statistically pretty incredible season. We've only had 3 guys 37 years or older ever average 25+ points a game. Him, Steph, and LeBron. Seems like a fitting class.

Yeah.

And I didn't, I had him third team 'cause the burner scandal really bothered me and the whole thing. I thought it affected the team. I thought you could see it.

Yeah.

I don't know how culpable he was in it, but I just didn't like it. But ultimately, like, I just, with all these other dudes out, I think he has to nudge up. So who did you have in that, that extra spot if Luka's out?

I put Jamal Murray in my second team with Jalen Brunson, Durant, Chet, and Donovan Mitchell.

Okay. So we're basically, we're basically the same except you had Mitchell in the non-Luka first team. Oh, I had Mitchell in the non-Luka first team and you had Kawhi in the non-Mitchell first team.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Did you think at all about Brunson third team, second team, or were you just good to go with that?

I'm so impressed by him. And maybe it's bleeding over from the playoff run, but he's just so clutch and so important for that team and ended up earning the 3 seed in the East. And, you know, frankly, the other guys on the team, Bill, are so inconsistent that he, he just has to be so high usage and so reliable. As their go-to scorer, when your best— second best player is KAT, who I'm sure we're gonna talk about here in a second. It just impresses me. So Jalen Brunson elevating this Knicks team to, to the third seed in a world where there's so much inconsistency around him offensively, whether we're talking about Bridges or Anunoby or Josh Hart or whoever else. I've always been sort of a pro-Brunson guy, so I had him second team.

Yeah, if Luka— if Luka and Cade had played, I think I would've had Murray over Brunson because of, Murray was, he played, ended up playing 76 games or 75 games. He was 6th in minutes. He was 4th in made threes, 25, 4, and 7 every night. Almost a, he's a 48, 44, 88 guy. And I just thought he had a harder job than, than Brunson, as weird as that sounds, as good as Brunson is where that entire Knicks team is built around Brunson.

Yeah.

The Denver, you have to figure out Jokic has the ball all the time. He's figured out completely how to play off Jokic, how to carry non-Jokic minutes, playing with this rotating cast of swings that were either hurt or Cam Johnson's not playing well. And I just thought he was so steady and so good all season. I feel like there was no drop-off with him month to month. I didn't, I didn't look at his monthly splits, but they couldn't have been much different every month. I thought he was just so impressive.

And he was, it was, yeah, his best year ever, right? Yeah.

And that, but so I was thinking like if you switch them, would the Knicks be worse? Would Denver be worse? I think if you switch them, I think the Knicks would be around the same. I think Murray could do a lot of the stuff Brunson was doing for them, but I think the Nuggets would've been worse. It's a dumb way to think about it, but yeah, I think the way Murray played, I feel like he could fit into any team. I was just really impressed by him this year. Brunson, You know, as a crunch time guy, the confidence that he has and the connection he has with— there's great things with him too. A lot of good teams this year. A lot of good players this year. Okay. Now we're going to get wonky because we have a third team with some guys that, that I just can't believe are even in the mix. I have for my Luka— if Luka counts, here's my 5. Chet, who you had, KD, who I had bumped up to second team without Luka, but he's third team if Luka's involved. Chet, KD, Jalen Johnson, Steph Castle. Oh, and Tyrese Maxey.

That's my 5. I did it.

So I heard you talking about it.

So if Luka's out, That leaves me with Chet, Jalen Johnson, Kessel, Maxey, and Scottie Barnes, which I just don't feel great about. But I'll give you the Barnes case. Well, I'll give you, you give me yours and then we'll talk about some of the cases here.

So with Luka in, I have Murray, Maxey, Jalen Duren. Okay. There's my big, Jalen Johnson and KAT. So that's my Luka.

Oh, so you had KAT. Okay. Interesting.

I did have KAT, and then on my Luka out, I have Maxie Dern, Jalen Johnson, KAT, and then Senghun is the beneficiary if on my ballot, if—

interesting—

if Luka is not included. So it's crazy, just for the audience, this decision is going to affect two people in a grand way. Luka Dončić, obviously, but the 16th best player in the NBA, in theory, is gonna become All-NBA, uh, Third Team, or the 16th candidate. And in my case, that's Shengun.

Um, I mean, really he's the 17th best 'cause K— K or the 23rd. And Ant's out. So I guess now he's down to 18. I looked at Shengun. First of all, I didn't want to have two Rockets 'cause I hated watching them. Um, for the most part, they drive me crazy. I had him first half of the year. I didn't love how the second half of the year went. I thought the chemistry stuff, like, I always go down to like, how much fun would, would so-and-so be to play with? With Sengun, I'm not always positive he'd be the most fun to play with. His teammates seem like they got really frustrated with him. So he didn't even, he wasn't, I had I just couldn't do two Rockets. So I'll make the case for Castle first. 'Cause see, I had him either way. So he finished 17-5-7, 47-33-73 on the shooting, played high 60s, played 30 minutes a game. So one of the most impressive players I saw in person. I just couldn't believe what a badass he was on both ends of the floor and goes after it every single play. And then when you watch him on I don't have to sell you, you love the Spurs.

I love 'em.

Just every play doesn't take off. I feel like there's more there. I feel like he sacrificed stuff for the team. I think if he was on a shittier team, Dylan Harper was another one that I thought sacrificed.

Yeah.

I think if Kasa was on a mediocre team or like, you know, a play-in team or whatever, I think his stats could have been better. I think he kind of just I think he's just all about how are we winning? How are we winning? How are we winning? I think guys hate dribbling up against him. Yes. Trying to beat him off the dribble, trying to post him up. They fucking hate playing him. He got way better as a shooter as the year went along. That's the other thing I care about that with All-NBA, that you actually got better as the year went along. He was over 40% from 3 second half of the year. I thought his 3s were going in when he took them, during that streak. And I just thought he was their second best player and that team won 60+ games.

So he was their second best player. And you know, one thing you didn't say that I think is huge with the Spurs season is he's the biggest reason, Bill, I think they give the Thunder a hard time aside from the obvious Victor Wembanyama.

Yeah.

He, he is longer and stronger than almost any of their guards, which is insane. It's insane to even say that. That's what the Thunder are. They're just ferocious perimeter, right? Hounds. And he gives them a personality personality, not only to counter that but to supersede it, uh, in some ways. So he's one of my favorite players, if not my favorite player in pro basketball right now. I love to watch him. It's a treat to go to the Spurs games. He's a huge part of their team. Ultimately, his numbers don't justify his inclusion on this for me, but I'm happy to hear the sports guy giving this dude some praise.

There's one other thing with him, and it's, it's a weird I— we have no stat for it. You— it's a, you know, when you see it. He's really malleable with their lineups. And like, the best guy ever for this was John Havlicek a million years ago. John Havlicek could be a guard or a forward depending on who else was on your team. It's like, we actually have more forwards now, you can be a guard. Like, cool. Uh, nah, we're, we're a little light on forwards. Can you play up? Sure. Can you guard this guy? Great. Can you guard this guy over here? Awesome. Can you fit in? And I think that Swiss Army knife thing with swingmen are really hard to find. And one of the things I love about Castle is like, he can be in any lineup they have. You want to go 4 guards? Cool. Play him at the fucking 4. You want him to play point guard for you and handle the ball? Like, he can do that. Like, I think when you have a guy like that, it just becomes so much easier to be good. And that team was really good.

But like, his flexibility, I thought, was the second biggest reason that they were as good as they were. Pick a lineup, pick a situation, he could handle it.

It's a great point because he can blend scoring the ball, driving it. He's so ferocious with two feet in the paint. He's a great passer. He has these turnover issues that I'm sure he's gonna get past 'cause he's just so determined. But he does have turnover red flags. The shooting has come along, but I have the stat that Stephon Castle is the 7th player in NBA history to average 15 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds at age 21 or younger. So this might not help him for All-NBA, but the guys are Magic, LeBron, Chris Paul, and then there's a couple funny ones. Ben Simmons, whatever happened to that guy?

Oh man.

Luka Dončić, LaMelo Ball, and then Stephon Castle. So his blending, filling up the box score as a guard, with those kinds of numbers. Obviously he's physical enough to get boards, get extra possessions. He's, he's a big part of the Spurs culture and I think even more so than Wemby gives them a toughness.

Totally.

With, with the other teams in the West. I, I adore the player. I think that's coming through. I know Zach loves this player as much as I, I do and you do too. So I hope he gets third team All-NBA as a homer, but as an analyst I ended up with a different answer there.

So Scottie Barnes, 18, 7, and 6, 50% shooting, but couldn't hit threes, was down to 30 by the end of the year. Did a lot of stuff for them. They ended up with a 5 seed. Now the 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 were all like 2 wins apart. And Toronto, I think was.500 the last 60 games. It's not like this was an awesome team, but he was the key guy in the team, did the most. Defensively, I don't know if I have him in first team, but he was right on the fringe. I think I put him second team All-D. And, you know, I, versus putting two guys from the same team versus having a guy who is number, a number 5 seed who's their best player, I'm okay with it. It's hard for me to wrap my head around him being a third team All-NBA guy, but The only other one I was looking at was Avdija and, you know, he barely hit the minimum. He's 24-7 and 7. I just couldn't get there with Avdija. I didn't think the team was, Toronto's team was better than Portland's team. And that's, I don't know, the winning piece matters to me at least a little bit.

That's how I derived at some of these tough decisions too, is, you know, show me when, show me what you did in the standings to some extent.

Yeah.

And in the Western Conference. So Shengun for me is like, yeah, the West is, is a harder thing. to, to win in. Um, you know, it is really thin. I looked at Denny too, and hats off to him. What a, what a, what an incredible most improved player case he has.

Yeah.

Uh, I did not see this coming with him as an attacker learning the dark arts of foul baiting as well as almost any other player his age in the league. Um, for me, just can't shoot it well enough, uh, to, to justify that. I'd like to see him get Portland to a next level, and I could see him doing that next year. Credit to him if this continues. He's clearly got an All-NBA future if he continues to improve like he did this year.

Yeah. The problem, I think they were 2-16 against the top 3 teams in both conferences. They got swept by the Celtics and they got swept by the Knicks. And that's where, that, that's where the All-NBA, like voting him All-NBA, that's the, it's the one I might change my mind on before we have to hand in the ballots. But right now that's who I have. I didn't consider Towns. Avdija. I think it would be funny. We're taping this before the playing game tonight, but it'd be funny if the playing game swung any of this stuff mentally, even though it's not supposed to. I couldn't get there with Towns. So he was 20 and 12, 50% shooting.

That's good.

I just, I couldn't get there because it just, he's a lot. He's just a lot in the game. There's games where you're just like, wow, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Yeah.

And I just, I couldn't totally get there. I thought about him for the, for the center spot, but I just don't think he had a case against Duran and Chet.

Yeah. I put him in that sort of front court, the vague front court position. I think what he does statistically is really impressive. I think rebounds remain one of the more underrated metrics in this league. Yeah. And, and you know, I agree. Yeah. Well, it's true. The Celtics really were a rebounding juggernaut this year. It's a big part of their story. And then I think what he does on offense, even when he have the ball, just stretching out the defense is so important for Brunson and helping the Knicks be such an effective offense. Yeah, KAT's fingerprints are on that. That put me there. But again, this is a team that's in the top half of their bracket, a 3rd seed. That means a lot to me. And so I had KAT there.

Okay. Ineligible were Cade, Ant, Booker, and LeBron if you wanted to get crazy. Harden is the only one who I had took a look at. When Zach does this, Zach has like 48 guys and he's down looking at like all of the Hornets and he loses his mind. I, I, I don't go that far. Harden got traded mid-season.

That's a tough one. Me too.

I thought he made the Cavs worse defensively, like almost overnight. Like they just dropped down to 15th, 16th defensively. I just couldn't get All right, so that's what we got. So my, my All-NBA right now with no Luka is Jokic, Wemby, SGA, Jalen Mitchell, Durant, Kawhi, KD, Murray, and Brunson. And then Chet, Jalen Johnson, Kessel, Maxey, and Barnes. That we didn't talk about Jalen Johnson. That was another one, like figuring out second team, third team All-NBA with me. He was 23-10-8.

Yeah.

And the games, I just, I'm not, he, he's not there. And I, they really kind of needed CJ to be the guy and then Alexander Walker when he's hot. And yeah, so it's, it's almost like he's the overqualified third banana on that team sometimes. He's doing a lot, but I don't, I didn't, it just didn't feel like he was one of, had a case for being one of the 10 best players in the league. Like, even with all the injuries, seemed like a lot for him.

No, if the season started in January, maybe, because the Hawks were that good since then, but it didn't. And you're right about the CJ stuff, and, and, you know, I'm a big Hawks supporter, but when they play a good team down the stretch, it is too much CJ, and I'm worried about that in the playoffs. And that's gotta, that's gotta ding Jalen Johnson a little bit.

And then Maxey was first, first in minutes per game, fifth in points, fourth in steals, 28-4-7, and If you just want to have a second team of all guards, he makes it. Probably bumps.

Yeah, he's great.

You didn't want to care about a center. Okay. Um, quick break and then we'll do Coach of the Year. Coach of the Year is between Missoula and Bickerstaff. Who did you have as your third guy in this?

I put Mitch Johnson right there, maybe even with JB Bickerstaff. I'm a big believer in what Mitch and that staff was able to do this year to help the team go from a tanking team to— what was their over-under? I don't mean to put you on the spot.

42 and a half.

Yeah, 42 and a half to a 60-win team. Bill Simmons. Yeah, uh, we— when something— again, that's one of the things that matters to me for this category, Coach of the Year, is what do we expect from you in October and where did you end up in April? And so Mitch Johnson has a very impressive answer to those questions, uh, and so he's clearly in this conversation for me.

He was for me as well. I thought there were 4 choices for this. I have Mitch Johnson as well. I had Jordan Ott for a while. Yeah. And I feel bad. I wish, I kind of wish we could have 4 choices for this just in general. I don't know why they limit it to 3. I think that's weird.

You know what? That's a really good point. I never thought about that.

Like, why not have at least a Mount Coachmore for the year?

But there's really good coaches. If we have to go 15 deep for All-NBA and 5 deep for rookie and like, where's 10 deep for rookie? Why can't we do 5 deep for coaches?

I don't know.

The Suns finished 45-37. I thought they were very well coached. But Mitch Johnson, I mean, they were the best team in the league for 4 months. Nobody saw that coming. I thought he did a really good job managing everybody's minutes. Stats, not playing people too much, figuring out different lineups. So I had him third. I have Missoula first and Bickerstaff second, and I switched on this a bunch of times, and I see the case for Bickerstaff. I just thought when they won all those games without Cade, that was nuts. It was like, holy shit, you don't have a single guy who I completely trust to create a shot. How are you still winning? The Missoula thing's nuts. Their over-under was 42 and they went 56 and 26. The team played hard. I think they took maybe 3 games off out of the 82. The thing that impressed me the most is how they brought Tatum back into it. And I think that's what pushed it for me. The fact that they won 56 games but also brought this star back without upsetting anything. That they had just built over the last 4 months. I thought he had the hardest coaching job in the league of any successful team by far.

I don't even think it's a question. And then ironically, that Game 82 was like a perfect example of why they should win. The team is just wired a certain way, and he's the most important. It's not— I said this Sunday night, it's not Jalen's team or Jason's team. It's Missoula's team. That's right. Everything they do is based on the fact that he's just a competitive psycho. In a good way. So I have him first, I have Bickerstaff second. I feel bad, but I, I just think that's the way it has to go.

I don't think it's close. I mean, I, I agree with what you said about Bickerstaff. I remember I was on Zach's show when the morning that, that we found out that, that Cade had the lung injury, and we were like, oh, are the Celtics going to catch them? And it was like a realistic possibility. I was looking at their schedule, I was like, well, if you look at these numbers without Cade, they haven't been It was a really good stretch without Cade, and Biggerstaff deserves some flowers for that. However, this is exactly what Joe Mazzulla did from October to March, right? Right. That whole stretch, he did that, and he turned the Maine Red Claws into a fucking juggernaut. And it was impressive. And like I've compared, I think on your show before, it reminds me of the Pop 2010 Spurs when we're load managing Manu and Tony and Kawhi.

Yeah.

And it's all of a sudden it's Boris Diaw and Gary Neal and Danny Green out there beating anybody. They have that. Baylor, Shireman, Hugo, uh, that whole team has no business where they ended up. And it, to me, is the most impressive coaching job. And one other point I want to get to you, I— nobody talks about Brad as much as they should. But it reminds me of Brad Stevens, the Butler coach, like the mid-major, the chip-on-your-shoulder mid-major guy, how he is able to turn these guys, find these guys, these— to extend the college analogy, he takes a 3-star recruit and turns them into a player that can beat Duke or North Carolina or Florida in a tournament game. That's what it feels like to me. So like, I feel like his, his college coaching and, and his player development era, has come to life here. But ultimately it is Joe Mazzulla's job to get those lineups out there to make this a really competent two-way juggernaut with players that nobody thought could do that 6 months ago.

Yeah. And also losing Simons, basically, they basically turn Simons into Tatum, but they only have 2 guards and he is gotta really manage those minutes. And that when there's the nights when Tatum or Brown was sitting out, And then you're basically just hoping you can get 35 to 30, 35 minutes from each guard and 36 from Tatum. And then you're hoping Baylor Shireman can run some of the offense like that. Like some of the shit that was going down was crazy. I, the other crazy thing about the Celtics season, I really thought they should have won more than 56 games. Like if you just look at Denver was the other team like this, dumb games. You should go 50-50 on dumb games, right? Like, whoa, that was a dumb win. I can't believe we, we stole that. Versus, oh, I can't believe we blew that. Denver was like 4-16 in those games. Like they, they always seem to lose games they should have won. And the Celtics, there's a bunch of them where, where there was a couple like end of the game rug got pulled out of them, stupid losses. They had, I think, 2 to Philly.

There was the road games against San Antonio and OKC where weird shit happened both games that I felt like they could have. So anyway, I, I actually thought they could have done even better than 56.

Which is nuts. Yeah. And you talk about it being Mazzulla's team. I love that take. And to me, we talk about culture way too much now in the NBA. It's become a cliché.

Yeah.

But when you look at how this story started, why your team ended up hiring Joe Mazzulla and when, and that—

How fortunate that turned out to be. Yeah.

Yeah. And now it's like, that's the Coach of the Year. What a story that is. But ultimately, like I said, Bill, This team has his personality as one of the strangest, sort of most aggro, competitive, unique personalities I've ever seen a head coach in this league have. And it works. It is contagious in the locker room. And my favorite moment of Game 82, and you already talked about this a little bit on your show with Legs, or maybe it was Zach, but that ATO, just to drop that 2-for-1 where—

It's Garza.

It's Luka Garza shooting from 27 feet. And I know that was the play.

Yeah.

And that's an insane play, and it worked. And it was one of those guys who nobody thought would make a meaningful shot this entire season. And it was just a great moment. And it comes from the mind of Joe Mazzulla.

Incredible coaching job and a little bit of revenge for him because I think he was really upset with the Knicks series and those two games and just, you know, I, I think he was in the workshop. Defensive Player of the Year, Wemby's gonna win. Everyone's picking Wemby. Top 5's interesting. So I'll just give you my, You won't be surprised to know I am not a, I'm putting 5 centers on my first team defensive team. I'm just not doing that. I, I will do maximum 2. I still want each, I, I still want the guards to be represented a little in a swing. So we both had Wemby and Chad, I'm guessing.

Yep.

Did we both have Asar Thompson?

No, I put both Thompsons on the second team.

Okay. All right, I'll tell you my— I had Wemby and Chet, I had Asar Thompson, I had Castle, and I had Kayson Wallace, who I thought was the most devastating defensive guard I saw all year. I could not believe what a nightmare he was. I, and I actually think they're gonna have to get rid of Dort so he can play more next season, would be my guess with what they're gonna do. But that, to me, Wallace was the best defensive guard. I thought Asar Thompson was the best swing, and I thought Kessel was the best kind of back and forth, like attitude swing. And then Wemby and Chet were the two centers. So who'd you have?

Well, I have three centers. I, I, I look at it the other way. Centers are by far the most important defenders in the sport. So I put three on here, um, three legendary defenders in my opinion. Wemby, who is on another level. Chet, who second best defender in the league right now. And then Rudy Gobert, who's won Defensive Player of the Year so many times. So, you know, I know that's not the sexiest pick, but then I add two perimeter players 'cause I also value that. I don't wanna over-index on guys who just protect the rim. I put Dyson Daniels on there, who you talk about a nightmare, is a walking deflection and steal and somebody who I bet Jalen Brunson is gonna be very sick of seeing here in a couple weeks. I can't wait to watch him in the playoffs. And then Derek White, Spurs great, but also single-handedly one of the best shot-blocking guards at that position. Always seems to be in the right place on defense. Might not be the athlete, obviously, that the Thompsons or Stephon Castle is, but Derek is just the headiest perimeter defender and one of the most effective in the league.

So I end up Wemby, Chet, Gobert, Derek White, Dyson Daniels.

Interesting. I had White on my second team. I had Gobert on my second team. I had Amen Thompson on my second team. I have Anunoby on my second team. And I put Scottie Barnes. I did not put Bam. Bam was the toughest cut for me. And I also did not have Dyson Daniels on either team. Only because I thought as, You made the case. I also feel like teams were pretty easily scoring on Atlanta all year, and I, and it was the same reason I left Bam off. You're one of the 10 best defensive players in the league at a key position, but everybody seems like they can go for 130 on your team. Like, so I have to reward that. Gobert, definitely, it's just tough to knock him off, but Anunoby was the guy that I really thought was, uh, really jumped out to me a couple games this year with— there's just nobody really— Zach and I talked about him a little Sunday, like his size, physicality, and just his style is so unique that if I was a 6'8" scorer, I think out of anybody, he'd be the guy I wouldn't want to see.

He's so important for them. Uh, you mentioned this earlier, we still have time to submit our ballots. I do not have OG, and now I'm questioning that.

So who'd you have for second team?

So I have both Thompson bros. I do have Bam. I have your guy, Kayson Wallace, and then I have Steph Castle. So that's guard heavy. I love it. OG though, you're convincing me, dude. I think OG is so important to guarding the exact type of players like Boston, right? Like that series last year, he's a big reason for that. He is a big reason for the headaches that Boston has when they play the Knicks.

Tatum has real trouble against him.

He's such a big, big, strong wing defender. Yeah.

I'm trying to think if there were any other tough omissions for me here. And we're good. We can move on. Rookie of the Year.

Oh, we're going to disagree here.

I know. Ivkan.

I ran in— funny story— Spurs-Mavs game Friday night, Bill Simmons. I ran into Kelly Flagg. She says hello. She says she's very interested who you're going to choose for Rookie of the Year.

Did she really say that?

Yeah. It was like one of those mafiosos.

Yeah, that's—

I say, say hi to Bill for me.

Yes. Yeah. Listen, Kelly Flagg, we still love you. We still have your, uh, your condo ready for 2031 when your son joins the Celtics. I have Khan, and it comes down to, um, Being on a good team and all the stuff he had to do versus Flag being on a crappy team that just gave him the car keys and said, make all the mistakes you want. You're going to be awesome someday. You'll be better in game 82 than you are in game 1. Just keep plugging away and go, and no mistake is bad, and learn from this, and by the end of the year, you're going to be in a good place. Which he was.

Yeah.

If I'm a rookie, I would rather be in that situation than the situation Con was in where he was basically playing a playoff game every game from January on because they had dug such a hole for themselves early that they, you know, they're doing this trying to climb into the playoff picture. I think if Con was on a bad team, I thought he could have scored more than he did. And you look at the advanced metric stuff and Khan stuff versus Flag, like Flag's 3-point shooting was bad. Yeah. I think Flag's a better player just like from a talent ceiling standpoint. And I think Flag has a chance to be a generational star. I don't really know how to vote for the rookie is my other issue with this. Am I just voting for who jumps out as they're going to be awesome 10 years from now? Or is it, am I just Am I just evaluating the year? Because if I'm evaluating the year, I've made this case a couple, couple pods ago, like, Con had an incredible season. He led the league in threes. He rebounded, he played defense. I felt like his gravity and all the movement he has was the key to how their offense really worked.

He played the whole year. He never got— I think he played like 79 games. And his team was you know, we'll see. We'll, we're taping this before the playing game tonight, but his team turned out to be a, I thought, one of the 10 best teams of the last 4 months of the season. And to me, that just matters where I'm always gonna gravitate toward the winning. Yeah.

I had no idea Khan could translate this well to the NBA, let alone this well, this fast. An incredible Klay Thompson-esque catch and shoot season. And I don't say that lightly. If you look at Klay Thompson, And Steph are the only people who combine volume and efficiency like this. Unlike Steph, he's doing a lot of it as a catch-and-shoot guy. And I'm not gonna make the case against Con, but to contextualize it, I would say every opponent, when they were playing this lowly Mavericks team, their game plan was built around stopping Cooper Flagg. Right. When you played the Hornets, you have other players to deal with. Specifically, LaMelo Ball. At the end of the year, Cooper leads all rookies in scoring. He has more points per game, more assists, more rebounds, more steals than blocks than Concanipple. He is the first rookie, Bill Simmons, since Michael Jeffrey Jordan to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. He is going to be an All-NBA player for an eternity.

Maybe next year. Yeah.

And this shouldn't come into the discussion, but remember, this should be his freshman year in fucking college. I know he reclassified. That shouldn't be a criterion. Don't get me wrong on this. I'm fired up because I think he's just— and I appreciate how you look at the ward. There is some ambiguity here. Khan has played more meaningful minutes for a more meaningful team that I hope makes the playoffs.

In higher pressure situations too, is the other thing. Like we're just game to game. Playing teams that these are real games, whereas Flag's playing games where they're just down 20 in the second quarter, you know.

And some of it's vanity. I don't want to be the guy who didn't vote for Cooper Flag in 10 years because I know where this is going with Coop. And so I get it, tend to look at it a little differently. And then the last thing I'd say is players like Wemby, who were Rookie of the Year, were on awful teams. Um, and we've seen this a lot.

You know what, I went back and looked at that Wemby year because I remember voting for him. And I went back and looked at my notes and he was like borderline Defensive Player of the Year that year as a rookie. I had him go bear. I had a whole thing on my notes of like, it's got to be Gobert, but goddamn, I kind of want to vote for Wemby. And yeah, he was just way more impactful. He also averaged like 24, 10, and 5. And the guy that he was competing— I think he was going against Chet. His stats were just way better. Flag stats aren't way better than Khan's. But anyway, keep going.

And then Khan is, is handed the ball and 80% of his shots are assisted, right? And then for that number for, for Koup is like 40 to 50.

I know, but I think there's more there with— I feel like they could have done more with Khan on that. Like, I, I actually kind of liked when he would around the foul line and be physical and try to like either take guys to the hoop or do that little pull-up. Yeah. I just think, I just think that team had a lot of masters to serve offensively, whereas Dallas did not.

I respect, I respect your take. And like I said, Khan has a lot more shit to his game than I would've ever expected. Off the bounce, getting rebounds, playing defense. This is not what I thought. So if you're, if the award were to find like who's the most surprising rookie, Khan's, I mean, if they redrafted, Khan is probably third. I'm still taking Dylan Harper too.

Third or fourth.

It's tough to pass Dylan Harper. It's one of the, we did this the last time you were on. It's one of the great top fours we've had. So if you switch these guys on their teams.

Yeah, let's do that.

The Hornets are good. That's actually like, he could have fit in. It changes their style a little bit for that. Not the same kind of 3-point thing, but he's bringing defense, rebounding. He could probably like, he'd probably phase back from the offense a little and concentrate more on the glue guy stuff that he was so great at and is great at. And con is—

Yeah, would give Charles Lee like his Jason Tatum character from his Boston era, right? Like this giant forward who can break guys down, get you a rebound, play incredible defense.

So I think, and I think Khan would've had around the same stats. I just, he probably would've taken more threes, maybe wouldn't have shot the same percentage 'cause they wouldn't have been as good looks most of the time. I don't, I really hate this 'cause I don't even want to pick between these guys, but my move over the years has always been if winning is a tiebreaker, I gotta think about it. It's not Flag's fault he was on a shitty team.

Do you think we can take Michael Carter-Williams' Rookie of the Year trophy and give it to whoever loses this year's?

And Tyreek Evans's, that would be another one I'd take. VJ Edgecomb third?

Uh, God, I haven't even thought about that. Yes, definitely. No, VJ, I have to see, this is the one I have to do. Dylan Harper or VJ Edgecomb? Have you, were those the two?

It's not stats-wise, it's not close, but Dylan Harper you know, was just in a different situation.

So I listened to Legs on your podcast, who I, I thought did a great job. But yeah, he made the point, well, if Dylan Harper's on the Wizards or whatever, yeah, he's seeing a lot more numbers.

At least, yeah.

So Dylan's dropped into a really healthy environment where he's the third guard, uh, and gets those minutes. But dude, you talk about a guy who's getting better and better and better. The case for Dylan is he's on a team that won 60 games. He too has become a much better shooter earlier than we thought.

I kind of like him the most when he's out there with Kessel and Vassell and Wemby and a shooter.

It's not gonna take long before he's the answer.

I know the most interesting, all rookie, I had Flag Con, BJ Harper, and I had Fears as my 5th guy. Fears played 82 games. Fears was— there the whole time. And I thought he had a couple games this year, we were like, wow, what's going on here? Uh, second team, I had Coward, Ace, Bryant, Queen, and, uh, I guess Will Riley. I don't, I don't even know. I'll figure out the 10th guy. But, uh, who did you have as your 5th guy on the first team?

Yeah, so I think it's like the MVP race. There's 4 solid guys on the first group of 5. Uh, but yeah, so we go Koupkan, Vijay, Harper, And then I threw Joe Dumas a bone and put Derek Queen there because he gave up so much for him. You gotta give him that, right?

Nice.

Then Coward Fears, Ace Bailey, your guy Hugo Gonzalez, and then Will Riley.

So, oh, that's who I'll put as my 10th guy. Hugo. Great.

Is it Hugo or Hugo?

It's Hugo, but I really wanna call him Hugo. Clutch. Clutch. I'm going SGA, Brunson, and Jokic in that order.

I have the exact same, and it's SGA and then a big gap for me.

Most improved is not a battle because it's gonna be Nikhil Alexander-Walker, unless you haven't been watching the season. 9.4 points to 21, got better as the year went along and is just a complete wildcard threat for the playoffs now. 'Cause he's an absolute heat check. He's even more than a heat check guy. He just kind of takes over games. So I had him first, I had Duren second, and I put Keita third, and I'll make the case for it in a second. What did— who'd you have for your three?

I have, uh, Nikhil by leaps and bounds, and then you said Duren was second?

I had Duren second, yeah.

And then I put Castle there because I didn't— I didn't give Castle the award, uh, and I know some people don't like the second team, second year jump thing. You might be one of those people.

I'm— I violently oppose This is my least favorite Kirk Goldsberry moment of the podcast. Well, I'll tell you, he should be better this year. It's his second year. He's the fourth pick of the draft.

I'm not mad at you, Bill, but that's the same ding I'm giving Jalen Duren. Like, you're a lottery pick, late lottery in his case. You're supposed to get better as you go through.

Did you ever think he was gonna be a 21-11 dominant center? I never did.

I won't say I did, but the first time I saw him in person, it was one of those like, holy shit, look at that guy moments that you get in an NBA arena.

He's now out of the 1990s. He's like, he looks like he's Alonzo Mourning or—

He looks like Ben Wallace.

Yeah, Ben Wallace.

He's the perfect piston. He's the— I always say he's the perfect piston. But ultimately, I think the story here is Nikhil Alexander-Walker, who scored 9 points a game last year for a very good team.

And was a stand in the corner and don't do anything else and we'll call you when we need a 3.

And then Atlanta gives him a nice deal, comes over, 21 points a game on over 60% true shooting. So one of the only times in my career as an analyst in the NBA where I've seen somebody go from 9 points a game to 20 points a game, and then their efficiency jumps too. Yeah, like that's, that's crazy. And for me, this is the easiest vote on the whole ballot except for Defensive Player of the Year. Nikhil Alexander-Walker in a walkaway.

Couldn't agree more.

Shout out to Atlanta. Great signing.

The case for Keita, he played, he, first of all, he, this is his 5th NBA season. He'd never played more than 13 minutes a game. Yeah, he turned this year into a 10-8 guy. Over a block a game. He's played 25 minutes a game. He's gotten better as the year went along. There's actually a little more offense to all the advanced metrics. Rim protection stuff with him is really solid. He's just a good player now. And it's something like you would watch him come in the first, like my daughter always loved him. She was like, why doesn't Keita play more? I was like, I don't know. We would watch him and you'd be like, there's something here.

Yeah.

But now this is somebody that conceivably could be playing 25 minutes a game in the Finals. This was a team before the year where you're like, well, they're losing Porzingis and Horford. Who's gonna play center? I don't know.

And Tatum's out and they have no rebounding.

Yeah, I guess Garza, by the way. Yeah, we lost Kornet. It's like, I guess Garza and this, remember Keita? I guess he's gonna be there. And turned into a real guy. And you watch these games, I've only— there was only a couple times this year where you, you kind of could feel this was a guy that was on Sacramento 3 years ago. Yeah, for the most part he was awesome for what the expectations were.

And that's the key point, dude. I remember there were— this was the second apron casualty that they dismantled this team. I thought a year ago I was like, okay, there goes Porzingis and Horford, Luke Kornet's cast away, Tatum's out. That's their front court. That's their championship front court. And I remember when I was looking into the Celtics season, and I'll put my hand up, I was like, this team's not gonna be able to rebound. This team is not gonna be able to protect the rim. And that's where I would say Keita deserves part of this conversation. They are now a very good rebounding team. It's part of their signature is turning missed shots into second chance points. He's the biggest reason for that.

Yeah.

And I did not see that coming ever for this young man. So hats off to him and that Celtics staff for finding him and developing him.

They also, they redid, I mean, they, they redid some strategy stuff with that, with them. One of them was these little handoffs at the top of the key, which became like the bread and butter of their offense that he was just better at than Porzingis and Horford. Yeah. And then the offensive rebounding was the other thing. He's just a good offensive rebounder. He's got good hands around the rim. So you really feel it when he is in the game. Like the best version of them usually is when he is in the game. I'll be interested to see against the Nets. Right there in crunch time against Towns, whether they go smaller with Tatum, I think they're saving that. And I could see Keita getting bounced or maybe Keita getting moved to the Mitchell Robinson portion of the game where it's like, just go toe to toe with this dude and try to hold him to a standstill. We'll see. Sixth man, I have Jaquez. I put Keldon Johnson second, and then I have a wild card at third. Who'd you have?

I only have two. I haven't figured out the third. I'll probably just steal yours. I'm a Keldon Johnson man. I thought, I get it. Culturally he's great. They won 62, 60 games. He was in most of those games, led all players in win shares off the bench. And again, over the Miami Hawkeyes. God, I just had a brain fart. The more substantial contribution in the league this year off the bench was Keldon Johnson.

I battled back and forth. I don't feel great about it, but I thought Hawkeyes has basically been 15, 5, and 5 off the bench and he can't shoot threes. But when you watch, he's pretty impactful in an old school, like 1970s, '80s, like he's doing weird, like kind of half post-ups, or he's trying to beat guys off and he's banging into dudes. He's one of those guys. He's one of those guys when you're watching him, you're going, could this guy have his own team? But obviously he can't. But he'll have moments where you're like, man, Man, um, a great Heat player.

I remember when they drafted him, it was all—

it was—

this is what we were— we knew we were getting it, and they got it.

My third pick for this category, and there's a million— there's a million people that— the, the shame of it is Pritchard should have been a sixth man, but he started too many games. Yep. I went with Mamu.

Oh wow.

Yeah, I'm not stealing this.

You're gonna have to convince 22 minutes a game. He was 11-5. He was a 52-39-75 guy. His advanced stats are nuts. And eye test-wise, I actually thought he probably should have played more. I feel like he would— he was one of the only bench guys I thought this season that consistently he would come into— their bench was the biggest reason they started out well the first month and a half, but he would come into games and I felt like he would take over games for like 2 minutes.

That's—

and it's—

yeah.

And I think like if you're just talking about like a pure 6-man coming off the bench, swinging a game, he did it as well as anyone I saw this year. And I couldn't come up with a— I couldn't shake that he was the 3rd best guy I saw do that this year. So that's who I have. Who did you have in your possibilities?

Reed Shepard, I feel like, is the choice, right? But now he started the last 10 games.

I couldn't get there with Reed because I don't feel like his coach was like, ah, I don't know if we should play him for 6 months.

Well, he should be Fifth Man of the Year, to piggyback on Wild's, uh, point. Why don't we just have a First Man, Second Man, Third Man? Reed Shepard should be Fifth Man of the Year. Emei, if you're listening.

So Reed was the other one I just couldn't get there. I, I don't know.

It is weird because the predicament in Houston is so weird. I mean, in a world where Freddie VanVleet Reid is there and Steven Adams is there. Reid is definitely like the heat check guy off the bench and they didn't figure out—

So you're going Reid?

I think so. Yeah.

All right.

I don't feel great about the Mamu, but I just, I don't know. The heart wants what the heart wants.

The heart wants Mamu.

All right. MVP.

Oh boy.

So we have Luka 4. We both have Luka 4.

Yeah, I have Luka clearly 4.

So if Luka's bounced, I am going— it's interesting because I had Donovan Mitchell first team all-NBA. Yeah, but for MVP, I'm putting Brunson 5th and Jaylen Brown 4th. That's what I have, just because that Knicks team, for better and worse, is just built around Brunson having to put a superhero cape on for the last 5 minutes of every game, whereas the Cavs can get, I don't know, it's just, it, it, I, I'm basically splitting the vote with Mitchell as first 2 All-NBA, but Brunson in my MVP ballot. So that's what I have for 4 and 5 without Luka. I have Wemby third, I have Joker second, and I landed on SGA first, and I switched SJ and Joker all weekend. And really wanted to do Joker. And ultimately, like, the win difference.

Yep.

And how great SGA was in the clutch.

Yeah.

I just felt like, as you know, I love Joker, and Joker's probably my favorite non-Celtic in the league other than Curry. And I just felt like, I want to do this correctly. There's too much SGA evidence. I feel like I'm not— if I do Joker, it's almost like a personal pick versus like, what's the right pick? I just couldn't 100% get there. The real problem, if Joker hadn't gotten hurt, I think, I think he gets it. Because not only did he miss all those games, but then he came back and he wasn't 100% when he came back. And, you know, and the other thing was the clutch stuff with that team, just in general, not taking care of business near the end. and that's kind of his job, and they weren't good enough. Whereas SGA, like, every time last 3 minutes, he just took care of business. And I think his job was easier because of that team. They're so good defensively. All he has to worry about is basically, let me just be awesome and get to the foul line, and then the last 3 minutes, I'll score every point. Not an easy job.

Whereas Joker was doing everything. But to not vote for a guy who led the league in rebounds and assists, and was 6th in points and did all the shit he did and had the best offensive career. I don't feel good about it.

I don't think anybody's gonna do this with the respect that the task deserves is gonna feel good about who's 3rd and, or in some cases, who's 2nd.

Yeah.

This is the deepest one of these I've ever thought of. Like, we have 3 legitimate candidates for MVP.

We do.

And we have better numbers than ever. 4. I'll start with 4 and 5. I have the same Jalen. Shout out to Jalen Rose, by the way. Big, big year for Jalen's on the MVP ballot. Now we have 2 of them on our, our top 5. I have Joker 3rd, which is crazy. But again, Bill, my ladder is gonna be informed a lot by how the standings turned out, you know? And I think that deserves respect here. And so I have Wemby 2nd, which was hard. By the way, not a homer pick. I, I wanted to put him first, other times I wanted to put him third, and then I also ended up with SGA. I mean, he's just— the team is too good. He is on, as you keep pointing out so astutely, one of the best runs we've ever seen from a guard in the history of the sport.

Yeah.

Once again, here we are with a net rating over 11. Uh, they're just the most dominant team in the NBA, and he's it. But Joker, dude, let me, let me give him some flowers. I was looking at on/off splits like all the nerds do when, when it's time to do this exercise.

Yeah.

The Nuggets are -7 in net rating when he's off the floor. Like that's, that's a lottery team, Bill. They're, they're, they're, they, they have the statistical profile of the Utah Jazz.

No, no. Gordon half the year.

Yeah.

Cam Johnson not really healthy most of the year. You lose Peyton Watson. Listen, this was like when I was thinking this weekend whether I was gonna vote for him or not, and I was like, I'm definitely the one thing. And he played 400 more minutes than Wemby. And when Wemby skipped the last game of the year, which I just thought was really weird.

Oh.

That to me, like he, he put himself in the third spot because they should have tried to win that game and get Denver the fuck out of the three seed. Like, what are you guys doing? Take him out.

Spurs homer. I couldn't agree more. I, I was perplexed by that.

So he, Wemby played 1,866 minutes this year. He played 29 minutes a game and he missed missed, I thought, a fair enough amount of games that he probably could have showed up for the 82nd one and tried to knock him out. I just, I didn't like that. Joker led the league in PER for his 6th straight year. It's 31+ every year. 2nd straight triple-double season. He's with Wilt now. As I talked about the other day with Wilt was 4th, 1st, and 2nd and 5th, 1st, and 3rd. So if you add that up, less than 10. Joker was 8, 1, and 1, so 10. Offensive rating, they 126 when he played. He led the league in rebounds, assists, PR, and VORP, 10.8 net. His highest usage ever, 57% shooting, like really one of the great offensive seasons and somehow didn't win the MVP. And I can't believe it, but their record wasn't good enough. SGA, like like, um, I don't know, there was a lot of close games when he just took care of business at the end. I think that has to matter, the consistency of it. Um, and then from some of my MVP questions, you know, one of them is how you remember the year.

One of the ways we're going to remember this year is OKC becoming a little villainy and SJ and the foul baiting. Like, that was a big part of the season, whereas for Joker, it was another great Joker year. I don't really stats that was good, but we're really gonna remember Wemby and SGA, I think, before— Just, it was a typically unbelievable Joker year. It didn't really stand out from the other 3, I guess.

I think that's right. And I remember you doing those questions with Laegler, and he was— His knee-jerk reaction was Wemby. For me, that's it to that question. The minutes thing with Wemby is really fascinating, right? 'Cause you and I both know agree on one big thing. There's too many games. And what the Spurs have to do with this dude is try to keep him upright and get him into the playoffs. And again, I thought Mitch Johnson did a great job. Yeah, Victor Wembanyama is healthy. I wish they would have played him game 82, by the way, but healthy going into these playoffs. That's the number one job. And in an era of calf strains and hamstring injuries, like, just be thankful we have Wemby. So I almost don't want to ding Victor for minutes because that's, that's what's gonna happen with him his whole career in the regular season. As long as we're playing 82 games and 16 back-to-backs or whatever it is, and the NBA Cup that they win, went in and played the extra game in.

Well said.

SGA deserves credit for having a better record, better statistical indicators, and you know, ultimately, like you said, had just the most impressive end-to-end season of a high-volume player in the NBA.

And not having J Dub for most of the year. Plus 16.3 net, 9.0 free throws a game, made 7.9 free throws a game, which was first. Clutch points, 175 points, first. 59 free throws in the clutch, shot 52%. Yeah. Field goal in the clutch. There's also some games where they just killed teams and he didn't really play. Actually, I think he could have been around 33 minutes a game if some of their games have been closer. Last 4 years, he's 31 a game. Last 2 years, OKC is 133-31. I think that's correct. The 31 losses. And he's the biggest reason by far. When you know that night after night, night, your guy, it's a little, it's the rich man's version of what Jalen did for the Celtics. You know, night after night I'm getting this from my best player. At the end of the games, I'm getting this. And I'm just, and I know I have that every game. With you throw in the win totals and the minutes, he should, he should be the MVP, man. The defense, I can't believe Jokic isn't gonna win though. I just can't believe it.

I was telling my students earlier, I was like, if you would've told me that somebody would have John Stockton amount of assists and Dennis Rodman amount of rebounds when I was growing up, that's insane.

Nobody's ever gonna be able to— They have nothing in common with one another. You just shouldn't lead the league in both of those categories.

In fact, they're, they usually happen in different parts of the floor. Like, it's crazy that, that he's like, I don't think people are talking about that enough.

Yeah.

This has definitely gotta be the best season of anybody who's ever finished third. If he finishes third.

I think he's gonna finish second, but we'll see.

I think it's gonna be close.

The thing for Wemby, Bill, is the defensive stuff is insane. I get it. So the Brooklyn Nets are the worst shooting team in the NBA. Okay. They're tanking. Their effective field goal percentage is 52, 30th in the NBA. When Victor Wembenyam was on the court this year, opponents had an eFG of 48 or 49, 49.7. So he essentially turns your offense into a tanking level offense just by being on the court. I wish we had better metrics in our discourse for evaluating defensive impact. 'Cause we're always citing things like points, rebounds, assists, triple doubles, and that's gonna favor Joker and SGA. It's really challenging us to quantify the impact of Victor on defense because that's gonna be his case for years to come and we have to get better. I'll take it on, on as me, I have to do better to articulate his greatness on the end of the floor.

What's that commercial where they're like, yep, nope?

That's the E-40 song Choices. No, Bay Area. That's a Chipotle commercial.

Yeah, that always makes me think of Wimby when the guys, the guys driving to the basket, he's like, nope, just jumping a dribble back out. Now it's gotten to the point where the guys don't even consider it. No, they're starting to do the move. It's like, oh yeah, I can't do that today because we're playing the Spurs, and they just reset chat. If Denver had gotten— I was trying to figure out how many wins they would have had to have for me to flip my vote. And I think it's 4. They're 54-28. I think if they'd gotten a 58-24, I think I would have voted for Jokic, as dumb as that sounds. 10 wins behind OKC with the same kind of season where Aaron Gordon's out for half the year, so is J Dub. Yeah. OKC's team's obviously better, but I just, I weirdly felt like Denver should've won more games than they did. And he's gotta get dinged on that too. They finished with a 12-game winning streak and still were only 54 and 28.

But they, I know that was a, and they beat the Spurs in the game of the year. Like it was, that was an MVP moment when he hit that fadeaway over Wemby.

They had a stretch, 39-game stretch where they were 19 and 20. And I think that kills him, but I can't believe he's not gonna win. We'll see if he finishes second. I think SGA is gonna win. And we'll see between Wemby and Jaylen Brown. All right, Kurt Goldsberry.

See you soon.

What's your— do you have a playoff upset?

I, I, if I had to pick an upset, I got two candidates. It's Minnesota, Denver, because we've seen it before. Denver, but I think Atlanta-New York is really interesting too. If Atlanta can find offense beyond CJ McCollum.

I think Denver's gonna beat Minnesota, and I actually like that so many people, including myself, are scared of Minnesota in this series 'cause they've had so much success.

Yeah.

I think a fun zag is actually Denver's gonna kick their ass. Atlanta's the one I'm looking at. I wonder, is there, I, I just wish Toronto wasn't so lousy against basically every good team. I wish everyone's just penciling Cleveland in for that series and I don't trust them at all. 'Cause I don't think they can, I, I just think they give up points to everybody. And if Toronto, the question for me is I just don't think Toronto's good enough offensively to haunt them. But Cleveland, if Atlanta didn't play Cleveland, I think I would've picked Atlanta in that series.

Like for real, Atlanta is, Atlanta has all the makings of a team that is, you know, if you look at the game the way I do analytically, they look like the best statistical profile of any team that's an underdog right now in the last 3 months of the season, with the exception of maybe Charlotte. Hmm. Who we'll find out shortly if they're even in the tournament.

Yeah, that'll be the top of the pod in the time machine. I think Atlanta takes the Knicks to 7 and loses because of their bench. Bench. I don't like their bench. I think that's interesting.

They played a hell of a game the other night. Yeah.

Their bench is like, you just never know night to night. All right, Kirk Goldsberry, pleasure as always. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Don't forget about La Gata, our new narrative podcast, which has cocaine and Miami and Colombia and all kinds of great stuff. You should check it out, Kirk Goldsberry. New rewatchables coming on Monday is going to be Kindergarten Cop. With me and Kyle Brandt, and I will see you all on Thursday. Must be 21+ and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. Or 18+ and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. No purchase is necessary. Limit 1 entry for Profit Boost token. Opt-in required. Must apply Profit Boost token on select market. Restrictions apply. See full terms, including methods of entry, at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut it, 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.