Coming up, our own very special NBA awards. Next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. I have a new rewatchables coming for you. On Monday night we did War of the Roses. Please check it out when it goes up. You can also watch it on YouTube.com billsimmons as well. If you want to catch up on all the college basketball over the weekend, check out one shining pod with Tate Frazier. Kyle Manny nephew Kyle pops on there occasionally. A lot of good college basketball. This we're going to talk about in a second with Rasilla. We are taping this. It is a little past 04:00 on Sunday afternoon because I'm going to Laker game tonight. So we're getting this thing out. NBA awards. We are ripping through our own version of the awards. It's all next. First, our friends from projet. All right, Rosillo. I'm watching Dallas versus Houston and the game is over with 13 seconds left. And I tell my son Ben Simmons, who we're trying to get some driving reps with him like we drive into Dunkin donuts. So we leave. Yeah, Jabari Smith's about to shoot his free throws and we leave.

Come back, look at my phone. And Dallas is one in overtime. And, uh, that's the official end of Houston. But I'm trying to, trying to not get sucked in by this Dallas team. But it's the kind of win that makes you think is something here. They're winning a few of those. The chemistry seems great. They have a great player. They're getting the best version out of Kyrie possible. We're going to do NBA awards later, but I just felt like we had to start with that at the top. Are you starting to believe in the Mavs yet?

Yeah, I think we've touched on this. It's funny because I feel like the Mavs have had these big wins on all these Sundays when we were doing the pod more recently and they're 23 and nine in clutch games. And you know, even though we pointed at some of the matchups that may be a problem against bigger teams, their point defense has been on a tear lately. Their points in the paint defense, I should say. And then, you know, the greatest thing about the Kyrie part of it is that he and Luka just completely figured out how to play off of each other.

It's crazy. I don't get it. And where and Dante Exom, where did he come from? So right now they're in that four or five spot against the Clippers and it looked like, the Clippers were going to have just a horrible, dispiriting classic Clippers afternoon loss, and yet Cleveland ended up having the worst loss. There's just. There's so many things changing. It's almost not worth it to talk about the standings. Like Minnesota Lakers is going to be after we tape this. Minnesota could be the one seed or the two seed, but I guess I'm trying to look for either teams that have won me over where I'm like, okay, I actually believe in you for a couple of series now, or teams that I'm just completely out on. And I think Cleveland's in the ladder camp where I just think we have so much evidence now that whatever. Whatever happened during that, what were they, 17 and one in the 18 game winning streak when Garland was out for a lot of it, whatever that was, that wasn't real. And they kind of are. The team we watched today, they. Something's off. It feels like Mitchell's going to leave this summer, and that's the team I would want to play in round one in the east.

The team I'd want to play in the west is the Kings, who are now probably going to be a playing team, but Cleveland would be the team I'd want to see in the east, right?

No, Mitchell today. Today was just a classic Clippers game because you have these games with them, whether it was, what, the first quarter the other night against Denver, and then they come back. But then it's kind of hard to judge Denver without Murray. So I don't know that there's a lot in there where you're like, hey, what's wrong with Denver? Well, Murray's not playing, so there's no other discussion. And so I watched this one today, and I'm thinking like, all right, Cleveland's a mess. They were eleven and 16 in their last 27, so now it's eleven and 17 in the last 28. But Mitchell's not playing. And that was management, injury management with him. So there's part of it. But then Kawhi's out, too, because he hasn't played in April yet. So that's a scratch, right? They give up 80 points in the first half. They're turning the ball over. The rotations are non existent. This defense has been the worst of, like, any contending team since the Clippers. Yeah, right? So I watched that game in the first half and I go, what do I do with these guys? And then they turn it on.

They actually benched Harden, who was questionable for the game anyway, so it could have been injury, but it was Paul George going crazy again. And then it was with four bench players and then they went small again towards the end. I actually thought Cleveland got some pretty good looks. They went one for 13 or one for twelve over a stretch. But the Clippers, I'm not going to fall for the bad Clippers. Like I'm not going to. It had depends on what the matchup is in the first round. But I've convinced myself the 25 and six stretch is a better representation of who they are than this malaise defensively that they've been in. Even though the group collectively has never done anything together. I don't know that I'm going to watch them just limp through some of these games and go, okay, they stink. I'm off of them because Kawhi can come back and they may be able to beat anybody.

Sadly. I hate to just agree with each other all day in the podcast, but I agree.

Well, what's not counting to it?

No, I'm not counting them out. I'm not counting them in. I think I believe in Dallas a little bit more. But the irony that they're playing each other probably in the four or five, are the two teams kind of with the highest upside, lowest basement at all the west teams where you could tell me they're either of them is going to lose in five around one. I'd be like, oh man, we should have seen that. And then you could tell me, oh, they got in the west finals. I would. I would believe that too. Let's talk about Phoenix.

Is Phoenix in that group though? If you're going higher ceiling, lowest floor because there's ceilings below Dallas, you have Phoenix's ceiling below Dallas.

I do. I do. I don't believe in it. I don't think that the, we have a lot of evidence now with the three guys playing together. I just don't think Beal has been that good. I like the, the word big three has been thrown around more liberally than just about or the phrase has been thrown around just way too liberally the last twelve years. That is not a big three. Bill does not deserve big three status the way he's played this year. I just, I think he's at a different point in his career. I just haven't been that impressed and I don't think they have a lot of depth. I just, I don't see it. So, Dallas, when was, when was the.

Big three challenge the most? The Joe Johnson it, Al Horford Kyle Korver group.

Were they called the big.

Three no, there's just one. I've referenced this a couple of times. There's an article, if you go out there and find it where the guy ranks, like the top 50 big threes, and I mean, after 20, it's like an editor should have gone, Hayward.

Hey, can we just do 20? Yeah. I remember there was a DeAndre Jordan snuck into a big three conversation with Blake and CP once, and that's when it felt like it was starting to spiral. Lakers out of the. If you had seven, 8910 in either conference right now, which would be New Orleans Lakers, Sacramento, Golden State, Miami, Philly, Chicago, Atlanta. If you just said one of those teams is going to be in the conference finals, which one would you pick? I'll give them to you again. Miami, Philly, Chicago, Atlanta. New Orleans Lakers, Kings, warriors. Conference finals. Conference finals. One of those eight teams could win two straight rounds to get to a third round.

Well, let's see. I mean, the way it lines up, Philly or Miami would have to be Boston, which seems pretty challenging.

I don't see it.

And then the weird part about where Orlando is in chasing Milwaukee here is that would you rather just be the three seed and play the, the Cavs or Pacers game, then you would, right? So Milwaukee can handle the two seven matchup. So that's probably more about matchups and how bad offensively some of these east contenders have been here in the last couple of months, depending on how you want to sort it.

Would you want to play Milwaukee if you were like a alive seven seed?

Over who?

New York? I'm just saying in general, would you be like, oh, no, we, we've drawn my Milwaukee. I don't think I would have the fear factor because that team can't play three games in a row that look good.

This recent stretch is off the charts bad when you lose to Washington, Memphis and then Toronto. Although sneaky, I thought Toronto just played well in that game, but it was without Dame. The first two, they're one in seven. Without Dame, Middleton didn't play in the second one. Then Jonas didn't play in the third loss. So I know how bad it looks, especially when you're losing to those teams.

Yeah, but like, the Celtics do this all the time, where they rest this guy, this guy or this guy, but they haven't actual team that can rise to the occasion if one or two people are out. Milwaukee is the opposite. It's like, I'd rather stay wasn't playing.

Okay. But it's, it's all in comparison to like what? Like would you rather play Milwaukee? The Boston? Sure. Would you rather play them than Orlando, New York or Cleveland?

No. New York with no Randall, man, the east is. I. Listen, it's a mess. Quick, I'll probably delete this text so there's no evidence of it. But I was on a Celtics thread wondering. I was like, could we do what the Cavs did with LeBron that year when they went twelve and oh heading into the finals is twelve and oh in play for the Celtics? I was on that thread and then I was like, oh, God, let's not. I wanted to almost like, unsend the text, but this is the kind, this is the shape the east is in now. There's no way to feel good about any team. I think with the three point variance, and some of these teams can at least play defense. But if the Celtics can somehow avoid playing Miami, it's. It's not inconceivable. Like, there's. They've been so much better than everyone else in these. They have a 14 game lead on the two seed. Do you ever remember anyone having a 214 game lead? That's fucking nuts. Even the year the warriors won 73, like, the spurs won like 67 that year, or 66, whatever.

Yeah, it's staggering how we thought for a while. You're like, man, the east has got some real depth to it. Like, these are pretty good teams. It, in the last month or so. You're just like, you know, and even though I like Orlando, I'm not going to like closing offense as much as Brunson is probably second team all NBA, which I know they don't have.

They needed Randall. That that's. I think that he doesn't. And we don't even know if he's healthy. Orlando doesn't score at the end of.

Games, and then you've got the Cleveland part of it, which we already covered. So let me, let me ask you the original question I still haven't answered. Does that mean it's the Lakers?

I think it is. Well, I think it is because, like, I watched the Cleveland game yesterday, which was a bad loss for Cleveland, but a really nice game for the Lakers. I thought LeBron looked great. I know LeBron has good stats this year, but you can catch him on different games. We'll see what happens tonight against Minnesota. But he can do the thing where he picks his spots and he can turn it on and kind of drift for a little bit and then turn it on again. He was really engaged. Like he. His passing was great. I thought he played with great energy. I thought he was really playing hard on defense and it just seems like he's kind of talked himself into liking this team and I think this is the best. We'll see what happens tonight. But I think this is the, the best stretch of basketball I've seen from them and they, you know, they're not even 100% healthy yet. So when you compare them to everybody else and you compare the, them to the just the calls they're going to get when they get to the play in round one, like, you're just, you know, it's going to, it's going to be like what happened with Iowa in March Madness.

Like the Lakers are just going to get more calls. All the foul data is what it is. And the way they play the style, they make it really hard to officiate. So I think I would pick them.

And I'm just so happy to see Anthony Davis play this many games and he's at 70 now. We'll see what happens tonight against Minnesota. But if you go back to March and look at these numbers, it's 23 and 15. He had a 23 rebound game, a 19 rebound game, a 25 rebound game. And I know that it's just a cycle of, hey, did we talk about this guy enough or we talk about him too much or anything, but he's gone from is this guy have a chance to be the best player in the league to incredibly disappointed because he was hurt all the time and then he comes back in a different form where it's like how come the shooting part isn't there? The thing that rounded him out is enough. Whatever it is now is, it's awesome and it's underrated and you add D'Angelo and the Rui part of it. So if you'd asked me this a week ago, I'd probably push back a little on it because I still like New Orleans. And we'll see what happens with them against Phoenix today. They came back in the second quarter. We're taping it now.

Is halftime when it started? I think New Orleans is working in a lot of things as they're trying to figure out the rotation, but the last, you know, they were eight and three and now they're eight and seven in their last 15 because they've lost four straight. And when you watch them, I feel like they're kind of searching for what the rotation is as they wait for Ingram to get clear for contact, which was today and the crunch. Don't you think New Orleans still has enough to at least be brought up in this conversation though, or would you pick the Lakers in seven over the Pelicans?

I'd probably pick the pedigree of just the Lakers having been in a bunch of big games.

Right. And they're not going to play like they're not going to play each other. I'm just thinking of it as we look at them because, you know, everybody's kind of writing off Sacramento, which they should.

Yeah, they're just different teams. Like losing. Losing mach and herder. They're just not the same. Warriors beating the Kings in the 910 and then getting to play potentially the Pelicans in the eight nine is their path to get in the playoffs. Cause I think it'd be really hard to beat Sacramento and then the Lakers and you have to beat the Lakers in LA. And I think the way the Lakers are playing right now, I don't see it. I'm glad you brought up Davis, though because we're going to talk just quickly some all NBA stuff just with the, you know, we got a week left, but just a snapshot of where we are. And I was at the. I was just like, I'm not voting for two Lakers, that they're like a 500 team or around there. We have 15 spots. I'm just not doing it. I don't think that's the way to go. But then the Lakers have turned it on enough that I actually feel okay with with two Lakers now. And I think Davis is clearly second team. Omb I am choosing to be a little less positionless. I still like the. I still want each team to make sense.

I'm not going to pick five guards for the third team, but I think Davis is second team. The big arguments to me are who gets that last spot, which I think should be tatum on the first team on NBA. Cause I say there's some people like pushing and Anthony Edwards case. I just feel like somebody in the Celtics has to be represented in the first team and it should be tatum and then my big ones that I have for the third team. I'm going to throw this at you. I really think Paul george should be a third team all NBA guy. I think he's been one of the best 15 players in the league that I've watched. And when you throw in like he's played 72 games now he's almost a 50, 40, 90 guy. He's had games like today where he's just fucking awesome. He's the best player in the game and it's just hard for me to leave him off. So the two guys like, for my third team, I have him and Jalen on it. I also have LeBron, and I'm going to cheat a little and probably play LeBron as my, quote unquote center and booker.

And then I'm putting curry on as my guard over Halliburton. The way it stands now, unless Halliburton makes a big run these last four games, I just to lose your all NBA spot, I feel like somebody's got to take it, and I don't think anyone's taken the spot. And for to say Steph's not one of the 15 best players in the league is ridiculous. You know, he's held that team together with the Draymond suspension. Chris Paul's out for two months. Wiggins comes and goes, Clay goes in a funk, and that team's still going to, you know, win 46, 47 games. So for me, he's still on there. Is that. Am I being too much of a curry fan on that?

No, I didn't think I was going to have him. And then when I did the exercise, which, again, this is all like my. My practice work at it. So this isn't me, too. But the first team's pretty clear. It's Luka, sga, Jokic, Giannis. And I had Tatum. Me, too, as the last forward. And then second team, I think it's Brunson, Ant, Anthony Davis, without question. And then the forwards, you know, this is in pencil, not Penn, Durant, Kawhi. I had that. Oh, you did?

I hate the group thing, but that's what I had.

I just think we didn't talk about this at all.

Yeah, no, we did not. Well, Paul George has to be on.

Look, find the six forwards. You know, when you do it this every year, there's always kind of like one position where you go, what do I do? And then maybe that's the third center where you're definitely cheating a little bit with LeBron. Maybe it's the right move, but I can find a way to get LeBron on there with Paul George. And then when it comes to center, you know, it's kind of a bam or Rudy Gobert thing.

I'm not. I don't think that.

I don't think the gap between Rudy's defense and bam's defense is as significant as the gap between the offenses between the two. And then it's a Steph Halliburton thing. But if you look at Halliburton Post, the all star break, he's just not the same guy.

It's brutal. So break. He's seven and 1017 and ten. He's shooting 31% from three. And just. Eye test doesn't look the same. He hasn't looked the same for two plus months. So you're basically, if you're voting for him for 13 miles NBA, you're voting for what he did the first ten weeks of the season, basically. And I just. I'm not. I'm not taking Curry spot for that. The big one for me is I have Sabonas off right now because for me, it's either. It's. It's too early.

I should have. I should have included Sabonas when I was doing the centers, but I jumped it. But go ahead.

Yeah, I just. To me, it's LeBron, Jalen, Paul, George and Sabonis. And there's three spots for four guys. And I just. I have Booker on there. I have Booker and Curry as the guards. Um, and it might change over the course of the next week, but I just think I made the case last week with Jalen. I just think he's been incredibly impactful on the team that's been by far the best team, best regular season team in the league. The way he's picked up defensively, the way he's played the last two months. I just, I also feel he's playing 33.6 minutes a game. Cause they're blowing all these teams out. If you do his per 36, you know, if you jacked it up by two plus minutes, he's at 25, six and four, which is right there with all these other guys. So I also think the Celtics should have two guys. They're going to win 65, 66 games. You know, that's kind of how that, like, we've been pretty consistent on this over the years with all.

You've been more on it. Go. This is only my third year voting, so I'm not.

But when we talk about, yeah, if you. If your team's having a special season and. And two guys can make the top 15, they should probably make it, you know.

All right. But if I'm putting a center down, I don't know that Jalen makes it. Like, he might be that 16th guy the way si occam has been.

So it becomes Jalen versus Jalen versus George and LeBron for two spots. If you're going to do two forwards on that third team. But I'd rather bump Sabonis and just make LeBron the fake center. Cause if they're going to go position this, which I was like, I'm. I'm doing positions, but I just, I don't think Sabonis has been one of the 15 best players in the league. He's been really good. He's a really good offensive player. The league's really deep. And I don't think he's been as impactful as LeBron, and I don't think he's been as impactful to winning as, as Jalen or Paul George's. So that's where I've landed. But I might change my mind over the next week, especially after everyone in Sacramento gets mad at me.

Uh, well, that'll happen, but, yeah, I'm going to look, I'm going to look at it all again because I still.

Right.

I don't want to turn it into the best 15 players and not care if you're overloaded, a position where all of a sudden you have, like, completely disproportionate roster. But I think there'll be years where, you know, what I just said then it's not a contradiction. It's just a year on how you're looking at the field. And if there's, there's been years with the third team center, where you go, this guy's going to be all NBA historically, and there's like ten to 15 guys I just think are way better than him.

Yeah. So, which, so now we don't have to do that anymore, which I guess is the good thing for the position list. But, you know, I mean, for the all NBA stuff, the votes are important. Like, for haliburn, I think it's an extra $40 million. So I want to, I'm taking that to the last day because if I'm going to actually bump him, I want to feel like it was the right move and, you know, it was good. We're going to. Oh, last thing on the, on the awards is Zion. Is he close it off for you? Is he honorable mention, or do you feel like he could go on a run for this last week and he might sneak in? Where are you on Zion?

I wrote him down as, like, the others and to do a deeper dive into it.

Yeah.

So he was on a short list. Like, every time you do it, you think it's going to be hard, like, as a voter, and it usually comes down to like, 13 automatics, and then it's maybe five for the other two or three for the other two.

Right.

So it hasn't been as hard to do as I thought it would be. And I, this was, like practice today for today, so I'm not married to any of this yet. It's probably the first team I'm probably married to, but other than that, yeah.

I feel like Kawhi's spot might be available, too. Like if he just takes the rest of the season off, might get demoted. This is all foreplay for what we have coming up. We made our own awards. We're doing the NBA alternative awards. It's coming up next. Fanduel's putting the ball in your court for the rest of the NBA season. Right now, new customers get dollar 200 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's dollar 200 if your bet wins. I'm going to be doing some sort of boost this week on Fanduel. Stay tuned. Keep an eye on my twitter feed. We've been hitting the booths. I'm just, I'm just telling you, we're hitting boosts. We're on a good streak right now. Hopefully it can continue. You can bet on the NBA with me. You could bet on a wide range of bet types, including quick bets, live same game parlays, player props, much more. And by the way, North Carolina FanDuel is officially live in the tar heel State. So visit fandor.com BS make your first beta layup FanDuel official sportsbook partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus and president. Select states gaming problem.

Call 1800 Gambler. Visit rg dash help.com first online real money wager only $10 1st deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Seat terms at sportsbook dot fanduel.com. All right, we created a bunch of awards. They're really fun. I'm really excited for some of your answers. We're going to start with the unicorn of the year, an award that I didn't even tell you about. I'm going to give you. Not ideally, by the way.

I'm just sitting here going, oh, we're off to a good start. You didn't send me that one.

Well, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you the nominees and you can blind check unicorn of the year. I think this is pretty easy, but our nominees, Victor Wembonyama, Zion Williamson, Christop Porzingis, and Janus and Tetacupo. Who is your unicorn of the year?

It's Wembanyama.

Yeah, that's why I didn't prep you on that one. I remember writing a column for the Ringer. I think 17, when we were in like full unicorn frenzy was like Porzingis, Embiid Giannis, all of a sudden, we had all these guys coming in the league at the same time. We were like, I've never seen that. Never seen anything like that before. And there was just a bunch of them, and it was super fun. That's what wendy's been like this year. We're gonna keep talking about him because the next award, which I did prep you for, it's the 2011 Blake Griffin award for most unexpected delight. This is, you head into the season, you don't know this awesome thing is going to happen over the course of the season, and then it's happening. You're like, wow, what a bonus. I didn't realize. I didn't realize this was going to be part of my NBA fandom this year. So our nominees are basically Wemby's last six weeks, Anthony Edwards becoming a throwback eighties nineties superstar, or the in season tournament, which I think all of us were down on and turned out to be really fun. We all watched it, enjoyed it, got content out of it.

So your pick, Wemby Ant or the in season tournament?

In season tournament. Because once I understood it and that it wasn't really going to disrupt the schedule at all, and then you figure out that the NBA is trying to have more event driven revenue, you know, what other products, whether it was the playing game, whether it was the in season tournament, and now that everybody's been through it for a year and they'll understand what the pods mean, and then once we understood the score differential and getting to go see it and how intense those games were, other than the Zion game, which was, like, his low point, that was, that was the necessary.

Like, in a weird way, it was his rocky three getting yelled at by Adrian on the beach moment. Like, he had to get a shit together.

So if. If I can be allowed to. Not, like, if those are the nominees, because I had a different one.

Oh, God. Well, if there's an extra nominee, by all means, throw it in because it's.

Unexpected delight and it's Kyrie, like, oh, hey, when you just play basketball and it's. And it's just. It's just about the basketball and your basketball. Happy. I mean, this is awesome, what he's doing. It's a reminder of why I think so many people have been frustrated. And look, the frustration for him is well deserved, but when it's just basketball, it's. It's awesome.

I had this coming up in a later award, but I'm delighted to do this now. I couldn't agree more. He was so much fun today. I've enjoyed watching his whole season. I think, you know, especially when we do this for a living and it's easy, you know, everything has to be. You're either for somebody or against somebody. It's positive or negative. And every fan base. You hate my guy or you, you know, oh, he likes our guy, so he's good. We were frustrated with Kyrie for all those years. Cause he's such a unique talent. It's like, get your shit together. We want to just watch you play basketball and. And just be part of a winning team. And we don't want any of the baggage. Just be fun to watch. Which is selfish cause we're fans. But I think that's where all the frustration came from. Like when he played for the Celtics that 1st, 1617 games when they had the streak, he was incredibly fun to watch. Like, we were all like, couldn't have been happier to have him on the team. Then the next year it was the opposite. And I think there's been such swings with him, but just fundamentally the guy can do shit that no guard in the history league has been able to do.

He is to me, the most coordinated, left handed, right handed, just. I don't even know what his dominant side is. Kind of a guy out of anybody I've ever watched. If there's no shot he can't make, there's no direction he can't go. I think he would be impossible to guard. And you can see why the other players really respect them. And I think what he's doing this year is what we always wanted to see. But I'd given up on it, like, hadn't you? I never, I never in a million years thought this was happening again with him.

No, because when he was a free agent, I mean, think about how bad the market was for him, okay. There weren't many are just going, I can't get into business with him. But if you're Dallas, you do what a lot of teams do, going, all right, I guess we'll just do the extension. And part of it was like, why is it that number? And it's like, well, if you bring him in at a lower number based on what, what the demand is for him, then you may have a problem. Like, he actually got paid as insurance against, like, him bailing on a team again. So there's no part of me that's like, I don't like when this happens. When a guy plays well, then all of a sudden it's like a guy's really overreacted. Like, no, he didn't he didn't. It was a consistent mess for a ton of years.

And he had six, six straight years where something was funky or off or really horrible.

Right? So you see today, and granted, there was a couple of things that happened in the game against Houston, which was a lot of fun. Thompson gets thrown out of the game for chucking an elbow at Maxie's throat. So now you're down a defender. Jalen Green got into foul trouble, so they ended up with van Vliet on him. And then Houston matched Dallas by going small, so it was a free for all. Luke is exhausted. And then I think he was actually limping a bit there towards the end of the game. But it was all on Kyrie, where based on the lack of size and the defensive matchups and the lack of just everybody was exhausted because what kind of grind this game was to see him just be like, hey, Kyrie, you're going to have to, like, solve every possession. And he basically did. And it was just fun. Like, if you like basketball, you're just going, okay, this is. I don't care, like, what I think about him. I don't know that I want to give him a three year extension, over a hundred million bucks. But today, and for so many games now with Dallas on this run, it's just been a fun reminder to be like, this is actually why we talked about you so much, because there's been frustration.

Cause you know how good you are.

I wonder if, like, just Katie passing through his life was this thing that just sent him sideways for, you know, even you think that last Celtics year, when it was pretty obvious those guys were designing to play together and that kind of screwed up. That was one of the things that screwed up the last Celtics year, then the Brooklyn COVID, the vaccine, James Harden, all the things that happened.

Well, the suspension's the one, too, where you're just like, all right, you know, go ahead.

He's not. He's only allowed to play home games. We're just. We're going, we're going. No away games or away games. Yeah, yeah. But it's just like, now Durant's moved on. Kyrie moved on. And when he's playing next to an awesome player, it seems like it brings the best out of him. It's just the way, I don't know if he could be the focal point, the number one guy on a really good team, but when he's like the kind of the robin who can come in and beat up some bad guys every once in a while, it seems like that's. That's where we've seen him thrive the most. But I'm with you. It's been really fun to watch him play basketball. I'm just like, I like watching basketball. I like watching talented players. So if you're going to do well, great, more talented players for us. I'm voting for Wendy's last month for that award.

By the way.

That next game, I mean, that, would that, like, set me to a whole other level with that because I was actively just trying not to watch too much spurs. Cause they made me so mad. And that was the game that I was just like, all right. He's just going on one of the tvs for the rest of the year when he's playing. I'm just. That's it. I just want to experience it live versus on social. A cousin of this award, which I had a million years ago, the Julius Irving award I had for the most exciting part of the year. And I wrote that. We'll call this one the document. With the trophy looking like his Tomahawk slam against the Lakers in 1983. Don't you wish we'd had this award the past four decades? I could totally see checking the list and getting retroactively riled up that dominique only won one Doc award. I like the idea of a Doc award. Who. And, you know, Doctor J Duck. Who would you give that? Would that.

Not Doc Rivers?

No, not Doc Rivers. Would you give it to ant? Yeah.

For the Utah duck.

Yeah.

I don't even know what, what's even close?

Nothing. All right, next award. This is the 1986 Bill Walton Award for biggest impact under 20 minutes a game. Bill Walton, he's played 18 minutes a game on the 86 Celtics just crushing it. Our nominees. Andre Drummond leading the league in rebounds per 36 minutes, 19 a game. TJ McConnell, ten point and assists per 36. This year, second in the league. Your guys. Sam Merrill, 4.8 threes per 36 second and then a microwave. Bill Russell himself. Jonathan Isaac, who just comes in for two seven minute stretches each game and can guard anyone in the league as well as they can be guarded. I am voting for Jonathan Isaac, who we've discussed many times, but I think he's a runaway winner of this award. Who do you have?

Well, I didn't get the nominees just so the audience understands ahead of time because I wrote all this stuff down this morning.

Who else did you have?

Well, believe it or not, and you're going to think I did it because of today's game, but it's not. It's Dante Exum.

Oh, okay.

Exem comes in right underneath the qualifier, 19.7 minutes a game. And we're not just talking about, hey, he's been good in his role. He was out of the league for basically three years.

Where was he on partisan? He was one of those Europe teams.

And here's the thing. It's like the last few years he was in the NBA, he wasn't really doing anything either. So you could make an argument that exum was, like, off the NBA radar. Like, oh, he's still in the league for six years. And the other three years, he wasn't even in it. And so he comes in, he plays a really crucial role. He missed, basically, most of January, February. So you were kind of like, oh, that was kind of a fun exim story. Then he shoots 59% from three in the month of March. He had the huge shot against Sacramento. He had the huge three today.

And he just had big all three today. They, he was, you know, they're trapping people, and he's just making these really smart, like, drive decisions where he's either going to the basket or kicking it back out. It was like, I thought, pretty high level. I was kind of shocked. Speaker two.

He's never shot the ball. He's never like, that was the thing, even when we all loved him as a prospect. Because you go, okay, if this guy ever figures it out, but even if he doesn't shoot, he's so athletic. He's big, he can defend. He can drive. Like, I remember guys talking about him. I think it was the hoop summit. They're like, this guy's serious. And then he's immediately hurt. And he played a decent amount, I think, the first two years. But then if you go through his baseball card, you're like, man, he wasn't like, okay, he played in the NBA that year, but he played like 20 games. And then that year, I think he started four games, basically out of the league for three, and then comes back and plays a major role for a team trying to contend in the west. Who's your pick?

That's a really good pick.

It's Isaac.

So I'm picking Isaac. But I think what exum is doing, in a way, is more interesting for the playoffs, because now if you look at his stats, he's averaging like five points a game the last two months. It's not like he's been amazing, but.

I love the Isaac pick.

Yeah, well, that, but with exem, they've been able to play roulette with those wings and every game kind of, somebody plays well. And I don't know how sustainable that is for a playoff series, but they've been doing it for a while. And at least with exem, he can defend. You know, if he's not helping them offensively, he can at least guard people. But it's an amazing.

And your life should be easy, right. And off of the traps for Luca, and then you're worried about Kyrie. So, like, you can try to get real trap heavy and teams are going to try something with Luca at different moments in a playoff series is like, let's just force the ball out of his hands and hope we have enough size to stay in front of Kyrie. Good luck. But then the rest of those guys, it should be easy living for Dante. I mean, a lot of these shots are wide open, but even PJ in the corner, like, if PJ is just some kind of threat in the corner.

Yeah, they were leaving him alone in the game today, but he made him because you.

Well, you had to with the lack of size. Cause they went small. They had the foul trouble again, vertically covered it.

Dante has been around for so long that when we're at Grantland, Danny Chao kind of adopted him and I think wrote a big piece, maybe heading in that draft and was kind of like the. I mean, there was. When there was. When I say nobody was on Dante X Am island, it was him by himself. It was like the guy who's living in the lighthouse at like the end of Maine. And there's like nobody else in the town in Maine but. But them. He's just hitting the light every day. So I'm happy for Danny. The Vinnie del Negro award for worst coach of the year. The nominees are Monty Williams, who we've discussed multiple times in this pod. Gregg Popovich. I'm just throwing in there because the thinking you didn't need a point guard with Wemby continues to infuriate me. West sun sell junior. And my pick is Adrian Griffin. I don't know if he had any more nominees.

I have money. I didn't need any others. I don't know what he did. I don't know what he did to prep, to coach this team this year. But, like, when he had that moment a few months ago where it was like, it's Jaden Ivey.

Yeah.

What's that really locked. Because I was watching so many of their games at the beginning of the year because I wanted to see if Cade would respond. And I think that part of it's good. We've already covered. Like, they just shouldn't have the record that these other awful teams have. Even though they're young, they're more talented than some of these other teams. Like, Charlotte's talented guys don't even play. So there's that part of it. Washington has no one on the roster you're really excited about, unless I can offer you in some heady Denny Avia play or some kispert makes.

I like both of them.

Maybe the big euro, who Draymond will probably punch next year. He's been all right. So look, I just, I couldn't believe, I know they weren't going to be good, but I, I couldn't believe some of the closing rotations that he had with that team.

Yeah. And you look at what Taylor Jenkins had to work with in Memphis, and that team has had some nice wins and has developed young guys and seems organizationally to at least be like, moving forward. You would not say the same about Detroit. One more award before we go to a break. The Freeman Williams award for biggest black hole. Freeman Williams has one of my favorite basketball reference pages on the 1981 Clippers. He played 24.1 minutes a game. He averaged 19.3 points a game and took 16.8 field goals. 16.8 field goals in 24.1 minutes, which, if you do the per 36 projects to like 25 shots a game. And he was like the 7th man on the Clippers. So I was debating whether to, to name it after him or John Drew, but his, he was just a way more black. Holy super. John Williamson could have been a good one, too. This, I mean, this is Cam Thomas's award to lose. I don't even know who, who else I would throw in there. Like you look at Colin Sexton, the field goal attempts per minute are, are pretty high, but at least he passes a little bit.

To me, this is a Camp Thomas's award to lose. You have any other nominees?

Cam Thomas was my first thought, but to be fair to Cam Thomas, he's jumped dramatically in his assist race. So if you go per 100 possessions, he was. Whenever you're in the single digits, it's like really scary.

Yeah.

Where you almost feel like you want to bring the guy to like, counseling and go, you know, you can actually pass this thing once you have it, but it's jumped up to like 16% and the system, like, it's at least. I don't always love some of the Cam Thomas games. And I think there's a bigger nets discussion where you go, how is this team almost like you know, I would say average at best and then falls off a cliff. Like, what is it because of Spencer Dinwiddie? Like, that doesn't seem to make any sense. So I don't think Cam should win it. I started looking at what did you have for Williamson on his shot attempts per 36 that year?

Do you still have John Williamson? Yeah, I don't. It wasn't as good as Freeman. He had a couple of good ones, though.

Okay, all right, so. Cause Brandon Boston is not afraid. He takes for his career. He's 22 shots per 100 possessions. So it's like every fifth time he's coming down. And if you remember, too, it was, oh, you know, he didn't shoot it well in college because his hand was hurt. Remember he had those stretches where he just went off for a little while?

Yeah.

Like, man, this guy's like really, really talented.

I went to one of the, one of the games of the Clippers when he came off the bench and I think he had like 30, and it was like, oh, my God. It's like he's like a lottery pick. They stole him and then he was never seen again.

Right? He's under 40%. He's just under 40% from his career for the floor. I'm going to give it to Michael Porter junior. His assist ratio is 6.3% for his career, 6.7 for this season. He's a heck of a player, but I think even the most hardcore Nuggets fan would tell you, like, I don't know if that level is, if it's ever going to get there. Cause I think you could even argue, saw it with Jalen Brown and Tatum for a really long time where it's like, you guys are great individually, but at some point, to be on a good team, you have to understand that there still may be another option other than you taking the shot. And I think that would be like the next ceiling of what the Nuggets could be. But when, like I said, when you're in the single digits with that number, it's a pretty scary. Basically, every time you watch a certain guy, you'll go like, I wonder if he ever passes the ball. You're like, oh, my God, 5% assist rate. Like, even bad guys are like a 14%.

It's a great choice. I just feel like the first half of the season, camp Thomas, he built such a lead, it was almost became insurmountable.

People stopped showing up to the ballot, like, to drop off a ballot. They're like, hey, the projections are no one else's even.

Yeah, you have to judge this by how the guys on the other team are reacting to the guy where it's like the ball goes after half, Courtney gets in, guys just stop moving. They're like, he's going to fucking shoot. I'm not even going to, like, pretend I'm to cut or go in the corner. Like, I just, I know he's launching this and I think he had the most of those.

I would. I would not have even allowed another name. Two months ago, three months ago.

Well, you know, it's funny. Jalen Green played himself out of the nominees. I think Jalen Green would have been a nominee two months ago, but I think he's shown that he's a little offensively savvy. Coming up, one of our big awards of the podcast, the Kendrick Perkins thinks Jokic pads his stats award for worst media take of the year. That's next. All right, this is a big one. This is like in the oscars when all of a sudden they bring out. It's all of a sudden we're doing best supporting actors. Like, oh, it's a. This is a big award. This is the. Perk thinks Jokic pads his stats award as the worst media take of the year, which was the worst media take of the decade, at least so far, when he was trying to push the emb thing so hard that that ended up happening. Here are the nominees. Perk saying after the Beale trade in June that Phoenix was now the best team in the league. Us.

Tough one.

Us meaning you and me, adamant that Charlotte fucked up, not taking scoot over Brandon Miller. I'm going to nominate ourself. I'm not going to give up on that yet, but it's not looking great. Perk saying on Wednesday night's NBA countdown that Milwaukee is the best big three in the league as Brian Winhorse kind of sat next to him, like unsure what to do. And then Perk hating the poor zingas trade and saying, marcus Smart was the heart and soul of the Celtics. That's my favorite. The heart and soul of the Celtics was always a good one coming out of the market. A lot of multiple people had that. What other nominees do you have for this?

The Marcus Smart stuff you've literally not heard since the season started, which is funny because a lot of people went with that. I always felt like smart. How you felt about smart was like a really good test for how you saw his. Like, people can have different opinions on players, but I never felt like, uh oh, what are they going to do. They don't have Marcus smart. I never felt that once, and I probably didn't like him as much as other people did. Anyway, look, Perk has been on a run here. We were first introduced to his thoughts in 2019. I believe he tweeted out, Trey Young's better than Steph in his first two years, easily. And it's not even a debate where I would argue that they had potentially slightly different roles. The first couple of years coming in, one guy was allowed to do whatever he wanted. I didn't understand why that would even be argued, but I think we got to go with the new man on the scene. And that's Gilbert Arenas. Oh, who just cannot stop. He called Jokic the worst mvp in the last 40 years.

Yeah, that was tough.

He's basically destroyed everybody as of late. He said that the NBA basically wanted euros in to promote the game, but now the game is soft, even though if you look at the top five players in the league, they're all international guys. So, like.

Right.

I think there might be some american pride in that where it's, hey, what's going on? I don't know where I. And, you know, like, look, once he becomes aware of Cooper flag, somebody just better tell him he was born in the States, because then he would destroy him, too. Because he said, after the Draymond hit with Nurkic, he said, quote, taking care of the euros one at a time.

So I didn't know if Gilbert was eligible or not because I can't tell if he's doing a bit. Is he doing a bit? Because every time I don't think he is one of these things, it becomes a video and it goes online for a day, which seems like a win for him.

It is a winner.

Crazier thing he can say than the podcast is being discussed. Whereas perks, like on NBA countdown sometimes, and he's saying Milwaukee is the best big three in the league. And I just don't know how to react to that. I'm going to give it to us, though, for thinking Charlotte fucked up taking Brandon Miller over Scoot because Brandon Miller is awesome. And I just think we. We should get an award at some point.

Yeah, Miller's awesome.

And Scoot has had a -58 and a -57 this year. I'm not giving up on scoot, but we were pretty adamant that this was an apocalyptic disaster and so far we've been dead run.

Yeah, but you shrapnel me a bit on this one. Like, I loved Scoot, and then you took it to a level where you were the one who said, I know.

We both love scooter. We shared custody of the love. Now, that's not what I'm fucking saying.

I'm not saying that. I obviously loved scooped, but then you turned it into you're an idiot for taking. Not taking scoop because of Lamello ball, which I didn't say that. And that's the one that makes it look even worse.

Cause so. So I. So when it's in the pictures, I'm in the montage first, and then you're after me.

Here's what happens is I like a prospect, and then you dump gasoline all over the way. I'm like, into the guy, and then it becomes this inferno that's uncontrollable. We are wrong about Brandon Miller versus scoop. We are wrong.

I screwed this up.

All right. All right. But I'm not giving up on scoop. Not out of stubbornness, but because I'm not giving up on somebody this young that was just thrown out there to play point guard, which I think he has to take his lumps. And by the way, I don't know. I know he got off to a bad start in the Boston game, but he's actually played better the last couple of weeks. Like, there's been a couple good ones.

Yeah.

Where I know people want us to just like, what do you. What's the goal? Do you want me to say? Yep, he sucks and he's going to suck forever? I would never do that with a player I liked or a player I hated the first year in at this young.

I'm just saying we're losing the take so far.

Yes, absolutely agree.

Brandon Miller is really good. Big win for KFC. All right, next award. I didn't tell you we were doing this one. The Virginia Beach Kings award for most contrived story on a slow news day. Remember that? There was a day when Sacramento was moving to Virginia beach. It was like, wait, what?

That's like the Pats moving to Hartford. Remember they did the whole layout and they're going to be like, there's going to be a mall.

Yeah, it's going to happen. The nominees are. LeBron needs a three year, $150 million extension from the Lakers. The NBA is thinking about expanding to Mexico City and Vancouver. Don't rule those cities out. And my favorite, my winner, Adam Silver, has talked to all the guys, and trust us, the all star game is going to matter again this year because that was like a news cycle. It was like, this means a lot to Adam, guys. It's not what happened. They scored 700 points in the all star game, and literally nobody ran back.

It's definitely not silver's fault, though. And I would pick the all star one because after it, it turns into all these different ways it can be fixed. It's like, hey, you know what's not going to get fixed?

That. Yeah. It's not.

They're not going to fix it. These guys now have clearly decided they don't care. It would be uncool to try.

He said he was on that Charles Barkley Gayle King show, and I was actually randomly watching who scoot? No. Adam Silver. For some reason, I was watching it, and I don't know how I ended up. I was flicking channels. I don't know what happened to you. And he made it seem like he might like that the all star game might be, like, going. Like, they might just get rid of it and come up with a different idea. I was surprised. He was pretty candid about it.

It's awful. I don't think it can be fixed. And then, oh, have it be international. Okay, but remember when it was like, oh, they're gonna draft the teams. That's gonna be amazing. I think hockey did it, too. And you were like, this is gonna be so cool. And then no one cares. And whatever new thing that you do to it to try to gain it, like, it might be something we talk about, but then the only positive is they get all this how to fix it content. And I know the person in charge is the one that's always blamed, but Silver being blamed for players that don't want to play in the game, it's not Silver's fault. Like, you can't go in there and give him a fucking halftime speech. You can't Crimson Tide this thing.

Yeah, we agree. Well, here's a big award, the McKesky award for the best american white guy. Been giving this one out since I had my column in the mid two thousands. Our nominees, unless I miss somebody. Tyler hero, who's only played half the season, Sam Houser, just turned into incredible three point shooter Walker Kessler. Or my pick, Chet Holmgren, who's been really good. And I think he's almost a runaway winner unless you can come up with another name that you like.

Well, we can't nominate Isaiah Hartenstein again.

Yeah. Unbelievable. Well, we had arena. Yeah. He did a. Did a podcast. He said he's biracial, so he's out. But he would have been a nominee.

I didn't know his dad. And now I'm more familiar with his game. So Chet's the pick.

Chet's the pick. And there were some Kevin love years where it was like, he's. He had the award the second day of the season. This, you know, I think hero looked pretty good at the start of the year, and it was like, at least could have been a debate, but he just hasn't played enough. I didn't tell you we're doing this award because it's pretty obvious who the winner is, but the Dennis Rodman award for the biggest ongoing distraction of the season, Draymond Green. I don't see how anybody else would be in contention for that one. And it's not quiet with him. It's not quiet with Draymond for ten straight days. Nope. It's just not be like, man, the warriors are doing good. They won six in a row. Here comes something. The. I did this one for you. The Jim Coughlin award for, you think you're better than me, which I think we have to handle. The JJ LeBron podcast. I'm glad they're doing it, but they're the first 15 minutes of the pod when they were lecturing everybody that the basketball discourse is so bad. So they're here to save the day. I was personally offended.

It's like, hey, man, we're trying. We're trying to have basketball conversations.

What was that day like for you?

I was like, all right, guys, congrats. There's a lot of people trying to have smart conversations about basketball, and we've been trying to do that for the last 1520 years time on podcasts. So I was gonna.

I was gonna go like, grant Williams was. Was a potential winner of a bunch of these for me. But I think Grant Williams is a very good. Like, if you think about the core of gems beliefs, like, what? You think it's me? You think it's me?

Oh, that's interesting. So. So you twisted it a different way. I like this. Yeah.

Like, wait, you think it's. You think, like, hey, man, last Friday, we went out, like, two guys get arrested, and the guy got his eye socket broken, and Jim's like, so that's my fault.

That's a good one. Next award is the Andre Blatch Jordan Pool award. I couldn't. I couldn't name it on. I was going to name it the Andre Blatch award, but I just think that's disrespectful to Jordan Pool for most immediately regrettable extension. There's two types of extension. One is the extension you gave and, like, two years later, you're like, oof, man, wish man done that. Then there's like DeAndre Blatch, which this will never be topped. They gave him the extension and the amnesty clause was kicking in the next year when the extension was kicking in and they used the amnesty to on the extension, which will never happen again. It remained all kinds of history. This year's nominees. Zach Collins, who got the two years for 34 AD to his thing that starts next year. Did you know Isaiah Stewart got a four year, $60 million extension?

Big stew.

Yeah. Yeah. Draymond green, four for 100. And our winner.

They had to do it.

I know they had to do it. Well, they. The team that won this had to do it too. LaMella Ball five for 02:04 do you have any other nominees?

Steven Strasberg, 245 million for 530 pitches.

Is that true? Yeah, baseball's tough.

530 pitches.

We're in this, I'm in that Al keeper auction, the league of Dorks and somebody spent dollar 26 on Shane Bieber and he blew out his elbow three days later. Like pitchers, there's no sport like baseball where you're just you. Oh, I like this picture up. He's out for the year. See him in 18 months. Just 50% of the starters.

They're going to run out of pitchers. There's going to be guys pitching like you think Toronto's rosters get weird certain nights. There's going to be guys pitching in a game. You're like, who is this guy? And they'll be like, oh, Disney's already making a movie about him. Like, he's going to be the second one. It's the whole series. Jordan pool still has three years, 96 million left. His wind share is actually his win shares per 48 is negative. You don't see that very often. It's hard to be below zero and he's below zero and I have no idea what.

So you're saying he went, you're saying he's going back to back two straight years. He wins this award because there's not.

That many bad contracts. There just aren't, like for this award I went through and kind of, you know, did all the stuff that we normally do. You try to stay on top of it and you're looking through it and you go, there's just not that many bad ones. Now, I do think that this offseason could have the first run of contracts where you go, what the hell was going on there? Because it's a lot of teams that have a lot of cap space that aren't very good. And whether it's LeBron getting his number, which I would still imagine is with the Lakers, I don't know what you do with Harden's number if you're the Clippers. Like, that feels like it could fluctuate series to series if they have an early exit on all of this. They've already extended Kawhi where it's 150 million for him years. 33, 34, and 35 seasons. Og an Obi, as good as he is, and he's. He's good. I don't think he's, like, amazing. Plays pretty good. Five games a year, he doesn't play enough. And then Tobias, like, you just know Tobias Harris has 100 million written on him for some team that can't get anybody in free agency, that isn't any good.

And he's just like, all right, I'll just. I'll take their money. Like, if I say over under 90 million for Tobias Harris this summer, what do you think it is?

I think it's under. I think it's under the way he played without. Indeed. I think he's looking at, like a Bruce Brown type of two for 50 type of thing. Yeah. The option, I think the van Vliet Bruce Brown type contracts are going to be where we go with the teams that use these cap space, where it's like, we'll overpay you a little, let us use our cap space, and, you know, you'll make more in two years than you would in three. But this helps us. I feel like that's how it goes.

Do you agree, though?

There's.

There's not. This not the same. Like, I don't know. You guys did the worst pont, a worst contract podcast recently. There's just not. It used to be hilarious. I mean, if you write that way.

Back, it's going to circle back this year because of all the cap space. I think the anobi contract's terrifying. I have a lot of Nick's fans friends in my life, and none of them feel great about paying him five years, 200 million, or whatever it is when the guy can't seemingly stay in the court. Cause those are the contracts you can't escape. But, I mean, we thought Kyrie three for 120 seemed crazy last year, and that one worked out. So, you know, it's a 30 team league. You gotta pay three guys, right. With how high the salary cap is, you have to pay $130 million for a year for three guys, basically, to be. Have a good team. So there's going to be mistakes. The Ewing theory award for the star most likely to be Ewing theory hypothetical, which means the person gets hurt and the team, for whatever reason, starts playing better when he's not there. And by the way, this might not happen and we might not even happen until next year. But our nominees are Julius Randall, Carl Anthony, towns, Donovan, Mitchell, Kawhi, Leonard. Anybody else you have for this? Nope. What's your answer?

It's not Kawhi. It's not Mitchell.

Okay.

There's just no way that the Clippers are actually better without Kawhi.

Right. And Kawhi is technically not eligible. Cause he already won the title.

I'm shocked that this would even be. He would be nominated for this.

Listen, I'm just reading the nominations. This is what the committee came up with.

The problem is there's no perfect, there's no Patrick Ewing for the Ewing theory this year. I mean, there's a reason why it's named after him.

Towns is probably the closest because towns is making 60 million a year. And it would be funny if he had some sort of setback and they just kept winning without him. I. I think he fits the premise. The best. The Lou Brown award for the out of nowhere team that surprised you the most. Our nominees are Indiana, Orlando and OKC. What was the biggest surprise for you out of those three?

I liked Orlando a lot, you know, based on, like, the way I like the talent of Detroit's roster. But again, I didn't think Orlando was going to go 13 and 65 because if you watched them last year, you were like, wait, this team's kind of in some of this stuff. You know, they, they felt like, like, you know, you better show up when you're playing the magic. For whatever reason, this is the play hard team. If the Magic end up with a three seed. And part of that's the way Miami treats a regular season in beat injury. You know, Atlanta constantly be disappointing, Chicago just being a kind of meh, like to be the three or the two seed. I think it's them because I, I always thought that the line that we have ten one through ten in the west and then eleven through 15 is basically what you thought, especially with Memphis's injuries.

Yeah. The instinct would be, well, why isn't OKC? They have a chance to get the one seed. But a lot of people were on OKC before the year, including me. That was probably the thing I was the most passionate about. I remember when we did. So these are all three teams that we all went over when we did the over under pod with house, which we did really well on and we all loved Indiana. To go over. I think the over was like 38. And we got to Orlando and we talked it out. We, we were like, I kind of like it, but not really. And the over was like 37. And then we kind of all collected. We were like, cerudis here, let's, let's do it for Cerudi. And we did. We took the over. Cause it was like, ah, it'll be fun. I don't think any of us were thinking three seed at any point of that combo. So I think they have to be the winner.

Yeah.

It's not like I thought they'd suck.

But they're still in play for the two seed and they're most likely going to be the three seed. So I just think it's a really nice leap where if they didn't have, they were in the play in, they get bounced. They're not really in the playoffs. You go, okay, you know, 24, 25. This is the year.

Yeah.

And it's nice. It's nice that whatever. And they certainly have their problems offensively late and that kind of stuff, but they didn't have another linger year where they don't do anything. And you're going, man, I like some of the guys, but are they ever going to put this together? And I think based on who they are, this is a really impressive season.

What's weird to me is I don't feel like Franz has played that well.

He hasn't because he hasn't. His shooting numbers are bad.

It's weird. Like teams are playing off him now late. I think it's one of the problems they have late in games as teams are treating him not like full Draymond, but I think teams are like, fine, if he wants to shoot a 24 footer. And I, I always felt like that was going to become this key part of his game and he kind of went backwards on it. So the fact that they're going to be a potential two or three seed without him really taking a leap, I thought was really surprising. The Zaza. Peculiar. Peculiar. Peculiar. Peculiar. Peculiar. Number six, Petulia.

Got it.

Zazzapuchulia word for the rule that absolutely fucking needs to be changed. Our nominees. The 65 game rule for awards, positionless ballots or being able to review a block charge. And I know you probably have more nominees, but my winner and one of my passions now in life is for us not to review block charges anymore, take them out of the game. Just let the ref call it and let's move on, please, for the love.

Of God of the nominees, I would go with that. No one cares about our ballots and the 65 game thing. I think the NBA had to do something to make their partners in television feel better about it. And for the most part, it's going to work out. Like, we had some really lean years there where if you looked at some of the top scoring players, you're like, hey, these guys are missing a huge chunk of the season collectively. So they've corrected that a bit. And you knew no matter what, like, if the principal announces some rule change and everybody decides they don't like it, so then it becomes a players association ownership league thing where it's like, how come they come up with 65? Like, Halliburton came back early and played when he was hurt because he was worried about the extension and the bonus and all that kind of stuff. And you're like, all right, well, that's. That sucks for him.

Yeah.

But I think in the general sense, it was something that the players have clearly responded to. And if you look at the history of the guys making all NBA and the MVP, it's not like it was this absurd number that hasn't been reached before. It just was. Oh, the people in charge made this announcement, so now we're going to push back from the whole thing. So I'm with you on the block charge thing, but I am so happy about the officiating since the midway point. And if you look at the best players, it's not like they're all scoring 18 a game now because the game is more physical. There's less tricking, which was my entire point. So it's never going to be perfect, but I just think it's so much better now. Even if there's going to be times where a guy ends up in the stanchion and didn't get a call. So I'd rather it be this way than what we had in the beginning of the year.

We need to get through one more week where there's not a giant fight because the only thing that could ruin this is a giant fight. And there's been some games this year where it's edge that way, but it didn't happen. That would be my fears. The games are so physical now that I just think not like our test melee level, but we haven't had a full, like, guys just throwing haymakers at each other and it's, it's infring, it's, it's kind of inching toward that because some of this shit is just super physical, super violent. It's been amazing for some of the players who'd love to play that way. But if you're like, steph, not awesome, like cool. I'm just getting crushed.

Look at, look at the best players. And there's a couple people on the free throw rate stuff where, like, I looked at it with Brunson where you're like, okay, that's dropped off. Damian Lillard was between seven and nine free throw attempts per game, and it looks like the last couple months he's in the four range. Yeah, you're like, whoa. And, you know, I don't know that that's the main reason Milwaukee's struggled again here. I think they're still trying to find themselves. And granted, we already covered the guys in the play during that awful three game stretch there, but if you look at the overall scores, they're still such great players, they're still going to find a way to score. But what you're seeing less of is let me use this possession to try to trick the officials into something which is a win for all of us.

We're going to take a break and then one of my favorite awards is coming up next. All right, Rosillo, this is a big one. This award is called the ML car trying to trade for a retired MJ award for goofy.

Can you repeat that story, though, also, before I interrupt, your title of the award, but I need, I need to hear this again, too, so just keep going. But tell us the backstory of what this award is inspired by.

It was the year Jordan was retired. ML Carr, I think, had gotten some sort of position of power and made a big deal about how he was going to try to trade with the Bulls to get the rights to Michael Jordan if he came out of baseball. And this became a two day news story for some reason, I'm pretty sure the Bulls weren't like, yeah, you know, let's trade some. Let's trade some ideas. ML. Anyway, this is called Kevin Gamble. Sign.

Go ahead.

You just signed Dee Brown, right? Would you trade him the mo card trying to trade for a retired MJ award for goofiest but real offseason subplot because he really did try to trade for Jordan. It wasn't a fake story. Will a team draft Bronnie James to go after LeBron? This was the subject of a lot of text this week. Bronny did not have a good freshman season. That is an understatement. He was not one of the closing five guys on a USC team that I think finished under 500 and was in a bad conference and was just not a good basketball team. And it's hard to fathom that he would be one of the 58 players drafted, because, first of all, two people forfeited their picks, so there's only 58 available. And yet I do wonder, will somebody, I really do wonder if somebody in that 38 to 58 range will draft him as a way to get LeBron to sign for, like, a free age at mid level exception, something like that. Thinking like, these picks after, like, pick 35, it's a fucking crapshoot anyway. Let's just spend one here, and maybe LeBron will want to play with the sun.

Maybe we can pull them in, and I think it would have to be a contender. So some possible spots. And this is, I read this on Tankathon. So these orders might switch, but the Knicks right now had the 38th pick. Philly is 41, Miami is 44, the Clippers have 45. Boston has 53, Golden State 54, Denver, 57, and Dallas has 58. I think he's going to get drafted even if he is not one of the best 58 guys in the draft. Yeah.

The real conversation is, how high can a team select him without assurances? And I still don't think he wants to leave LA. I think the next chapter for LeBron is that he still would need to be in LA, which is a motivation for him to come out here in the first place. So that's something he's gotta factor into the decision. If you're telling me, hey, would a second round team not know and say, you wanna just give it a shot? Yeah, absolutely. I think he could get drafted, especially with teams that have multiple second round picks going, like, all right, you know what we normally do? Like, we don't want a third, 2nd round guy in here. So let's trade this second for a future second with protections, and maybe it expires, whatever. I don't think LeBron would ever play in Boston, so that would be a waste of time for them, and they wouldn't have the cap space on top of everything else.

So, whoa, flip it the other way. Kind of a brilliant move by boston. Why they draft ronnie. It's like, hey, if you want to play with them, we know you hate Boston, but you're gonna have to come. You probably just call it one year, 2 million.

He would just call his kid and be like, hey, we're gonna demand a trade after.

Yeah, yeah, this is. Welcome to the league. You're demanding a trade.

I think the second round, I think it's alive. I do think it's alive in the second round, his teams just go, whatever.

So I went through. I went through the last seven years because I do think there's a cutoff point with the second round where it becomes a five to 10% chance that you're even getting a rotation player. 23. These are after pick 40. Gigi Jackson. 40. Camaro is 52, and Jackson Davis was 57. So Jackson Davis is your best case scenario for end of the second round. 2022. Vince Williams was 47. 2021. Aaron Wiggins was 55. 2020. There was a bunch of dudes, but that was the black Swan yard. I don't think anyone knew what the hell the draft was going on. Trey Jones, Nick Richards, Noira Isaiah Joe, KJ, Bart, and Paul Reed, all after 40. 2019. Horton Tucker. 46. Terrence man 48. 2018 Vanderbilt. 41 Bruce Brown 42 D Anthony Melton. 46. 2017 Thomas Bryant. 42. Hartenstein. 43. Dylan Brooks 45. Monty Morris. 51. That's pretty good. Four guys who are rotation guys and maybe even a little bit better. I just feel like if it's a 10% chance you're landing somebody who might make your rotation and you're a contender, why not take him and hope that LeBron's dream would be, I just want to play with my son.

I won four titles. I've made a kajillion dollars if I have a chance to go to a contender. And I think Philly's the most interesting one out of all. That seems because they have cap space, too, right? So they took brawny like 40 or 41. They're like, hey, LeBron, you know, come on, Embiid, maxi. Like, let's go. You play with your son. Kind of enticing. I think it's realistic.

Second round? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because weird stuff happens in this league. So despite what you think, even if you're the most anti him as an NBA prospect, and he didn't really give us a ton this year to go, okay. You know, like, for ESPN. ESPN had him as the 10th pick, the first mock before the season started, which I do think might have been motivated by, like, hey, LeBron, if his kid is in your lottery preview, you know, probably not going to be a terrible idea to get people to pay attention to it, right? So. But if you start talking about picks in. In the forties and fifties, teams would definitely do it, but they have to be smart about. All right, is this even a 1% possibility? Because if it isn't, then. Then we're wasting it. Unless we really like the player as a top 58 guy, which I don't know how many teams do.

And if you want to get cynical, you could say he could wink, wink to one of the teams just trying to get his kid drafted and then end up staying in the way. Lakers offered me 150 million. I didn't realize, but this would be good leverage for him with the Lakers. Cause he doesn't really have a ton of leverage right now. Philly's got. He's not going to go to a bad team. He's got to go to a contender if he was going to leave LA for whatever reason. So that's basically Philadelphia. They have cap space. It's really nobody else. Nobody else who he'd want to play for has. It would have to be some sort of sign and trade. If you're the Lakers, why am I doing a sign and trade and taking on your bad contract? Like, let's say he wanted to go. Let's say he decided this summer I wanted to go to Dallas and. And Dallas is like, cool, we'll trade Tim hardaway the last year, his deal, and you can get Dwight Powell, like, whatever bad contracts they have, and the Lakers, like, no, we're not doing that. Fuck off. If you want to sign them, you can sign them for your mid level.

So I do feel like this gives him a little bit of leverage. But, I mean, if Bronnie wants to actually, like, have an NBA career, he should stay in college for a year and try to have a really good college year, right? Like, this was. This last college year he had was about as bad as it could have gone, starting with, like, he had the cardiac arrest, the fact that he ended up on a terrible team. The coach left right after the season. They didn't even make the, you know, I'm sure they would have gotten invited to the NIT, but I would want to try to run that back and have a good college season before I entered the draft. But if you're LeBron, you're like, I don't know if I have one year left, two years left. I want to play with my son. You can talk yourself into it, right? Yeah.

And if a team wants to do that for him, they'll do it for him.

Yeah.

Like, they will, but I would have to, like, is he going to go somewhere where it gives him less of a chance of winning just to play with his son because it might be.

More important to him. Who knows? Yeah, maybe he's won a bunch of MVP's and a bunch of titles, and he has the most points of all time. He's checked probably every box. Everyone had check in his career, and this is the last box. So my guess is that he's going to, if the kid ends up being in the draft, he's going to want to play with them and that will trump any other desire he has as a basketball player, I'd imagine to play with your kid.

Yeah, but I bet that he's like, okay, I'm not worried about it for 24, 25 this offseason. It's getting the most money I can, hopefully out of the Lakers. They take care of me the way they take care of Kobe. Maybe there's some sort of option thing on the third year. Let me get back pocket.

Maybe it's like 100 million for two years, but he's got an opt out after the first year and rig it that way. Right.

And okay, maybe they have a nice little run in the west and there's a tweak here because they have more picks they can trade. Like, I still would think there's a big part of them who's going like, all right, I've got to make sure I'm positioned the best way I can. But then the default way of explaining it would be if those things don't work out, then he could say, well, this was always more important anyway. And it's like, okay, was this more important or was this just an easier out because the other options weren't put together as well? I just am looking forward to it because if they are on the same team and they do play together next year, it'll be the first time you've had the country just cheer on nepotism.

We'll see how it goes. I'll tell you that Joe House was rooting for the Wizards to take him with any of their second or 3rd, 1st round picks, he's all in. He's like, we can get LeBron. Let's do it. Next award is the Ben Simmons award for the best Ben Simmons moment. I didn't tell you we were doing this. Our nominees. Uh, Ben Simmons is, quote, in October. I think being a leader is one of those things. You can lead in many different ways. For me, I try to lead by example. I've been blessed with the opportunity. I think I've done it, been a great leader so far. There's one, um, Ben's agent, Bernie Lee, blaming himself for Ben not being ready to play this year. Ben playing 15 games, going six for 15 free throws and zero for zero from the three point line. So for the critics who say he wasn't working on his game and he's played 57 games since the 2021 playoffs. What is your pick for the Ben Simmons moment of the year?

His podcast is JJ Reddick, where John Steinbeck said, if you know a man, you can't hate a man.

Right?

And I've thought about that quote. I read a piece of his work the other day, and I thought, like, oh, you know, there's some real truth to that. Like, we can watch each other on tv, we can hear each other on podcasts, but they're all, like, detached because we don't really know the person. So it's easier to actually hate that person. And then it's funny, once you get to know someone, even if you disagree on certain parts of the conversation that's swirling around, you're like, okay, I disagree with you, but I still like you because I know you.

Right? Yeah. You have a window in their soul.

Ben Simmons explained his side of the story, and I felt even worse about his prospects. That doesn't happen very often. The key opened up. The interview was incredible. JJ was great with him. And then after I listened, I was like, oh, no.

Right. This is not salvageable. Yeah, it's everybody else's fault is always tough as a strategy. Hey, the 2010 Baron Davis award for best mail in, I'll give you December Zion before he got in shape.

It's very good. That's a very. Cause it's hard to find the full season. But that was pretty good.

December zions in there. Joe Engels, who I really love and respect because he reminds me of myself playing pickup hoops, just running from three point line to three point line, basically, uh, you know, hanging on. And then, uh, my winner is Sam Presti's trade deadline, which I think they mailed in. And I still don't understand it. And we've talked about it seven times, and I'm not going to do it again. And I know you think they made the Hayward trade to save some money down the road. That's fine. But they have a chance to make the finals, and they did nothing at the trade deadline, and they have 29 fucking first round picks. Do something.

I don't need to add to that. I'm not going to go with that. That Baron Davis year is really like. It's almost insulting to how great that year is to then nominate someone for it.

Right. It is.

Jimmy Butler for your consideration.

Okay, let's hear it.

He's really good. And we know there's playoff Jimmy, regular season Jimmy, but there's some traditional stats that tell you like, no, no, he's still awesome. And the shooting percentage, we look at those like, yeah, he hits threes. He doesn't take a lot. So it's not like as much of a weapon. It's kind of like when Mobley, they're like, oh, he's starting to hit some threes. And you go, okay. But the other part is you have to take them for the 40%. That means something. You get to be taking four or five of these a game. So I have watched a lot of Miami games and I still feel like he coasts way too much and I don't know that I'll ever understand him.

I talked about him on my pod on Thursday about the explosiveness as a score does not seem to be on the same level that it was last year. I don't know whether he's playing, but we've learned to not trust anything we see from Miami in the regular season. But he just, it seems like it's harder for him to score this year.

He doesn't get free throws. And look, he was terrific today against the Pacers, but he took twelve free throws and hit all of them.

Yeah, but he's, he's, he gives you.

The extra up fake that you're not expecting. And if you're prepared for it, like if you're playing Miami in the playoffs, you are just constantly on your guys. Stay on your feet. With Jimmy in traffic. Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Just when you think he's done upfaking, he's going to throw you one more. And he, he lives that way offensively a lot in games. Cause guys can't help themselves.

I didn't have a winner for this award. It's the Shane Battier award for Sloan conference. Statner darling du jour. We didn't really have one this year unless people want to talk themselves into Wemby. Some of the Wemby stats like Derek White.

What is it though? Is it is this guy's really good because the slice. Sloan. Somebody remember Sloan?

There was like a two year Shane Battier run where it was like, you don't understand. This is like the 21st best guy in the league. Cause of all these weird stats that nobody understands. And they were kind of right. It's like, look at his on off stuff. And yeah, except then you could be.

Like, hey, I don't think Shane Baddie is as good as like these other ten guys.

Well, then it, then it flipped.

I think Sloan is dangerous.

It's like doing a speedball. I would probably give it to Wemby. But I didn't really come up with a good one. The David Khan award for worst GM performance. Trey Weaver, the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio's year one plan for building around Wemby, which just two big giant thumbs down. Brooklyn just being in no man's land and just super confusing. I don't know what their strategy is. And then Jimmy Pitaro and Burke Magnus not protecting themselves against doc Rivers, possibly leaving to go back to coaching. Those are our four nominees.

I was not expecting that last one. That's the transaction.

Maybe see that one coming? He was interviewing for the Phoenix job in like mid July.

What about Karnashovas in Chicago? Did you know?

Oh, that's a good one.

Well, he hasn't made a trade involving players since August of 21.

What? Look it up.

There's some second round rights thing to a player that was transactional, but player traded for another player. I don't believe he's made a trade since 21 August.

Does he know he's allowed to make trades with players? Or maybe he'll find out from this podcast. That's a good.

Michael Porter junior has him on the podcast and he's like, man, they told me I could start getting assists. And he was like, I passed the other guys. They kept saying trade deadline. I was like, I don't stocks. I can trade these every day.

That's a really good nomination. I'm going to back it. And that's for somebody not to make a trade with involvement players in three years is historic. So that's our winner. The Vitaly Patopico award for worst deadline trade. This goes back to the lockout season 1999. Pitino. The Celtics just inexplicably traded their first round pick for Vitaly Pitapako, who is a banger center, who's the equivalent of him now in 2024. Who's Patapico?

Eubanks.

Drew Eubanks? Like a little bit better drew Eubanks.

He's better than Eubanks. But there's nights where you're like, okay, there's a reason why people would want you on a team.

And Patina didn't care because he knew.

Is it Nurkic?

Yeah, it's somewhere between Eubanks and Nurkic. Patina didn't care because he knew if the trade didn't work, he was going to leave the next year anyway. Ended up being, I think, the 8th pick in the draft or the 9th pick, 8th pick. And Andre Miller and Sean Marion were on the board and Cleveland got to take Sean Marion. Worst deadline trades. The Hayward deal, which was OKC's big move. He barely plays Bogdanovich to the Knicks. Those are really the two. I don't, I don't really have any of the nominees. Bogdanovich who a trade we really like, but it just doesn't seem like Tibbs wants to play him that much. But I am going with the OKC trade for all the reasons we discussed earlier.

Yeah, I'm looking it up again. I think the only thing that would qualify as a trade is the Julian Phillips trade for the bull.

Oh, we saw the bulls.

Okay. No, because I just wanted to make sure because I'd read it today and now it's just so absurd. I felt like I was like, you better double check this, even though I did a couple of times, but that was a draft thing where they were trading around second round picks. So I don't think maybe he's trying.

To break a record. Maybe nobody's ever done four years without a player trade.

I think the number is there's no player for player trade since August of 21. I hate to get that wrong, but I know I've seen it a couple of different times today. I don't really know that there was a bad trade because the trade deadline sucked. Like Bogdanovich with the healthy knicks, everybody was freaking out about it. But at the same time, I'm like, I don't even think he closes with, with this team. If everybody's fine now, they've needed him and, you know, he's a nice pickup because he's, he stayed offensively impactful this late into his thirties. So it was such a terrible deadline. We already covered the OKC thing, and that's still not as bad. Like, think about some of the trades that have happened at the deadline. There's nothing even close to it this year. Maybe taking on Grant's money. So I thought about Grant Williams and be like, do you really want to take on that money? But they got a 27 1st out of it, so I can't, I can't get mad at Charlotte for that.

Just some quickie awards. The Le Bradford Smith Award for saddest NBA feud, probably Terry Eason versus the warriors this week. It's just bizarre. He's in street clothes trying to start shit with the four time champs. Just bizarre behavior. I guarantee he may didn't like it.

We all liked Hari Eason. I was bummed when he got hurt because he was one of the many, like, I call him, the fun Rockets. Hey, what's going on? Nothing. Oh, the Rockets are on. I'm in. And I'd love to see what he does because he just gets out there and he freaks out, and it's awesome. But he put on a warrior shirt and then did a video where he was like, warriors come out to play. He's out for the season. They lost, and then he still talks shit after. It has to be a generational thing where, like, you know, your buddy comes over and you're like, what did you do today? And be like, oh, insulting Ryan Gosling on Twitter. Like, oh, yeah. How'd that go? Well, he responded, like, in 16. So I'm going to get him to respond again, like, awesome. That's what you did today.

How's work? It's been a little. Just the afternoon.

I think it's a generational thing where some people have just grown up with it, where you're like, no, you just fuck with everybody all the time and be like, yeah, but you're not playing. And you lost. Nah, you just. You just keep fucking with them. Like, yeah, but you're not at their level. And you're. You're out for the year. Like, at least the war. Even if you hate the warriors, you go the collective resumes. Like, you're gonna talk shit to these guys. You're gonna make videos, you're gonna wear the shirt, you're gonna do all this stuff, and you're not playing. And look, I don't go to TNT to confirm every thought I have about basketball, but when it's those three guys up there that played and they come back from that story in the clay quote and they're on tv and they just all are looking at each other like, what? What is this? It just looked dumb.

I can't imagine he may liked it. All right, we gotta go quick. Cause we have. The big ones are left. The. The bank shootout and heat award for most fun shootout goes to that Indiana 157 Atlanta 152 game. That game was awesome. Back when the new rules are the. We hadn't had the old rules yet, and we were just allowed to go back and forth and go nuts. The t Morant award for best or most polarizing NBA family member. I think he. I think it's back to back. Unless you want to go with Thanasis. Cause Thanasis had some run. I actually like the nasus, but the NASA's had some runs where there were some YouTube clips and TikToks about mixtapes.

What do you like about Thanassus?

He seems like a nice guy. I like his podcast.

So Dominique Foxworth had him in studio on his pod. When I went on, he's like, yeah, he was here earlier today in studio. I was like, you know what? I love that move. It was convenient. They were out of town. We reached out, he said, no problem. He showed up in studio and Fox was like, I loved him. Yeah, he's like, he gets it.

Yeah, he's, you know, he gets his place. The Reggie Lewis. I don't know, I just like this guy. Award for the young guy who doesn't play that much. But you still, like, named after Reggie Lewis that one year when Casey Jones wouldn't play him in his rookie year. And every time he played, we were like, I kind of like this guy. I'm going to give you a bunch of names. Jabari Walker, Denny. Avja Kispert, Sam Merrill. We mentioned Cam Whitmore sets moments. Gigi Jackson, Peyton Watson probably doesn't qualify, but I'm throwing him in there anyway. And Kamara, I thought, had some good defensive moments. My favorite, I think, is Denny Abdia, who I think is actually going to have a real moment on a good team at some point in his career. Who is yours? Who's your pick?

A lot of good picks in there because this is really obscure. When Cam Whitmore comes to the game. It's awesome. He had a drive on Luca today where he was like, I'm going to try to get you. Luca stayed in front of him and then he's like, now I'm going to slam into you. And Luca actually get called for a foul that he didn't come mitt, which Luca handled well, but it. It's just so much fun when he gets in there and he's. He's like one of the most fearless rookies in the entire league. But if I had to go off the menu, I like the Denny pick bantam for Portland.

Oh, my dad. So my dad, like four days ago, we're talking about. No, he's like, what's up with this bantin guy? Why did we let him go? He was, he put it, he made it a. Why did we let him go Bob low Bell style? I mean, I was like, he used to say he looked like a chicken running around. This head cut off when he played for us. I don't think anyone saw this, but, yeah, he's been pretty good.

Yeah, he's been pretty good for him. I mean, look, he played seven minutes a game for Boston. It also speaks to, like, there's one rotation that's a little tougher to crack. You're going to be asked to be doing things. They could be, but the freedom that he has in Portland, you kind of think about the Celtics front office and go, hey, they weren't, they weren't wrong on this guy. Like, they weren't, but it wasn't really going to fit. Yeah.

The Carol Dawson award for most unabashed tank job goes to Toronto. We don't need to debate that one. Toronto is just like, we're out, man. We were getting into the top six. This is a thing that's going to happen. This is a fun award. Probably one of the most racily awards on the, on the docket, the Dwight Howard. Sorry, dude. I can't help it. I just don't really like watching you play basketball. Award. Our nominees, Dejante murray, Camp Thomas, Daniel Tice, Cam Reddish or Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell together. Combo.

Oh, you can't do that. Last.

Yeah, no, we're doing it. Doing it. The combo. Those two together.

I was just going to say campaign.

Campaign. That's a great one. Sorry, dude. It's nothing personal. I just don't really enjoy watching you play basketball.

I mean, he'll hit a. He'll hit a three in the second quarter, down twelve. And he kind of looks around wondering why they haven't stopped the game, haven't like, addressed the make at center court.

I'm going with Murray. Murray taking 44 shots against the Celtics, hitting the game winner and then celebrating it for a minute and a half when they're like 35 and 40, 42. I'm like, I'm out. I'm done with you.

Can I interest you in some non Trey Young stats?

Sure. Let's hear them. All right.

Atlanta with Trey, 10th and offense, 117 points per 100. Defense 30th, 120 points allowed per 101. Loss record 24 and 32. Offense post tray dips a bit here. 12th, 115. You also could equate in the officiating being part of that. The defense jumps from 30 with a bullet to 21st worst defense. Or I should say 21st best. The point differentials still a positive before it was negative three. And the one loss record is twelve and ten. I think we are, we are. We are entering real decision time.

Trade. Trade time.

And the victory lap. One man will do. Will be insufferable. But I don't do victory laps, so maybe I won't.

I don't know. The Ray Allen 2010 playoffs trick or treat award. Remember Ray Allen in the 2010 playoffs? He was either 39 points and seven threes or he was like one for eleven. Trick or treat nominees. Dallas Zion, Miami, New Orleans, James Harden or the Clippers.

I think it's the Clippers. Cause I think it's Kawhi his numbers in those first two games against Phoenix last year. You're like, wait, Phoenix isn't going to win this series?

No, it's the Clippers. This is one of my favorite awards. The white chocolate was a problem award for the 2024 guy whose season was much better in 42nd. Twitter highlights our nominees. Lamello Ball, Jalen dern, or the Thompson twins. Again, combo. Combo nominee. The Thompson twins or somebody you want to throw in there I think is really edging toward Lamella Ball was a problem in 2042 when we're just like, oh, my God, that guy is amazing. They ever play in the playoffs? No, he never made it.

I can't do it to Dern. It's twelve boards a game in 29 minutes. I mean, at least he's out there busting his ass.

Would you say he's a problem?

Uh, no. I mean, he's still only 20.

No, I like him, too. I just was trying to come up with names for this.

No, because this is a great category where early Giannis was kind of like this.

Oh, yeah.

Where you went, oh, my God. And it's like, yeah, but you watch, like, the other 20 minutes.

I mean, Yanis, the pull up 27 footer.

Right. His development and what he turned himself into is one of the most, I think, most remarkable developments of, like, the modern era of the NBA.

So what's your answer?

He got bigger, probably LaMelo, but it feels a little unfair because he just hasn't played enough this year.

Three more awards. We already talked about this, but the John Travolta and pulp fiction comeback of the year. Our nominees are Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Dante Exum, and Kyrie Irving. And I think it's Kyrie. It's weird to call it a comeback because the stats are pretty similar, but it feels completely different. And I'm in. All right, this is one of the, one of the big awards. We have two awards left. The league pass MVP, which is our last award. But then this is really your award. It's the 2024 Shamit Face award for who had shamit face this year. I'm not allowed to vote on this. This is just. You're the voting community. Did you have a shame at face 2024 guy?

Yeah, it's a mere coffee. You're dying right now. I didn't know it was going to go over like this.

It's so random. Okay, make the case.

When Amir coffee ends up with the basketball. I'm not worried about it. Amir Coffee's a good basketball player.

He made a huge three today in the Clipper game. He made one of the biggest shots of the game.

I filled up my ballot this morning. I didn't even need that today because when I watch the Clippers, I go, all right, Norm, six, plumlee, seven, Westbrook's eight, maybe Westbrook, six. Whatever it is, like, we're talking about coffee maybe being the 9th guy you think about after all the other players.

It'S like, what position is he? Is he a power forward? Is a small forward? What is this guy?

But usually that guy sucks. And I know he's not shooting threes. Well, I know last year he had a dip from it. And, you know, you go back to Minnesota, it was like he put up huge numbers. I think he was like a legend in high school. He was Mister Minnesota in high school. But I find myself when the Clippers are swinging the ball around and it's late in the shot clock, it's like, oh, well, you know, there's Mister Minnesota showing up. Like he can put it on the floor a little bit here. Yeah, he's at 41% after, like, last year, you were a little, like, concerned. You go, what's going on? But he's. He's consistently shot at well from three. Like, there's just not a lot of counting numbers you're going to be really excited about. But if you think about rotations in the NBA and how far down he is on the clippers, and that when the ball ends up in his hands, you're actually like, open minded about the outcome. He's a better basketball player, but he's got a real specific look.

The 2024 league pass MVP. First of all, everyone who got nominated for this, congratulations to our foreign nominees. That in itself really a special category. Our nominees are Nikola Jokic, Victor Wembonyama, Luka Doncic and Anthony Edwards. Your league pass mvp is. Who is it? It's for me. It's jokic for me.

You know, that's like picking Dinero. I can't tell you. You're wrong, but Ant makes me feel like a kid. I don't have moments where I'm at home and I'm like walking around my living room going, holy shit. And as great as all these other players are, I did a whole open on this where I was kidding, like calling him basketball Viagra, where I feel like a little kid.

Yeah.

With him, you know, a couple times a month where I'm just so excited to see him do this stuff and, you know, look, he or Steph are my favorite players in the league.

I have him third as my favorite, third favorite non Celtic. Jokic one, Curry two. I still love Curry, still love watching him. But ant to move up into that territory is just. That speaks to how crazy the year has had. If Minnesota is playing anybody decent or better, you kind of have to throw him on a tv if they're playing somebody bad.

I'll be like, okay, he got subbed out, and then I'll try to be like, okay. Normally he comes back in at this time, then I check back in to see if he came back in. Like when you said the best shootout, and I didn't know you were looking for, like, an ABA score on that one, but I was thinking about the Steph at the Lakers game, and granted, Anthony Davis only played nine minutes. His eye got scratched up, so it completely changed the game and the freedom that Golden State had offensively. But Curry went nuts. LeBron went for like 40. In a way, that game was awesome.

Yeah, you're right. That game should have won. That was a Saturday night one, too. It was.

It was like 2015 finals. LeBron, where he's just like, I'm going to try to do everything I can possibly do on my own. It's probably one of my favorite LeBron games that's not a playoff game in recent years. And then as I was thinking about that, I'm like, yeah, but you haven't had more fun, you haven't had more yelling in a house by yourself moments than ant against the Pacers, where he does what he does late, and then he gets the block, so.

Or in the Celtics, he's had a couple where he just, for three minutes, just completely destroys the other team and talks shit the entire time.

Okay, if Ant Minnesota calls and they go, look, I know this is a little weird, a little outside the box, little Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio here, but in, actually, none of it would work. So let's forget all the rules. Let's forget all the capitals and all that kind of stuff. If they offered amp for Tatum, what would you say?

It's younger, so you'd have to do it, right. You're getting four extra years. From a basketball trade standpoint, you'd have to. You'd have to. I. I don't know where he's going to rank on the trade value this summer, but, um, he will be in the top five, right? The question is, is Wemby at number one yet? Because after what we saw the last six months. It's hard for me to believe there's another asset in the league you would want going forward than that guy. But Yokich, how many people are guaranteed title every year or guaranteed finals appearance every year if he has a good team, right?

I can't wait to see, like, what the second phase of the Jokic thing is around it, because he just elevates people because they're going to have to kind of figure it out on the floor. I don't know. They're still pretty young, actually, those guys. Maybe they just run it back for a really long time. Is Jokic the only one the other GM hangs up on? Like, if San Antonio calls and says, hey, it's Wemby for Jokic, Denver's the only team that says no. And then everybody else says yes for every single player in the league. Is that where you're at?

So I, Luca, maybe Luca, Dallas, I don't know. I don't know how attached they are to Luca, but I think that's probably a longer meeting in the office.

I'd say pretty attached.

My thing with jokic for league pass mvp is. It just kind of doesn't matter who's playing that night for them. He's still so much fun to watch. It's like, oh, that Murray. All right. I guess he'll make it work with Reggie Jackson and Christian Brown bringing the ball up. It'll be fine. He'll get to his 20, 715 and 14 or whatever. Just the most reliable night tonight. Offensive performer, probably. I don't even know how far we'd have to go back, but it's way up there, and I'm going to really miss him.

Well, he's still young enough. I don't think you have to worry about it ahead of time.

Not saying, like, ten years from now. I remember thinking this with Brady in 2014, being like, man, I'm going to fucking enjoy every Brady game because this is. And I just don't know how many, you know, I'm going to. I know I'm going to ten years from now, be like, fuck, I should have appreciated this more. I'm not going to be that, so I'm going to enjoy all of this. And I feel the same about the Jokic. Just throwing them on tvs is the fucking. It's everything I want from basketball.

My favorite part of it is that you can tell what he wants to do. It's like an alarm, almost like there's a thing on the ticker that'll say Jokic is going to look to exploit this for the next six minutes. And then now Jokic isn't going to shoot. Okay, now Jokic is going to shoot based on game. He's a little easier to kind of identify like what it is he's trying to do. Granted, he has more touches than anybody in the game, but he will really change. Like, LeBron does this too. There's a lot of really great players that kind of use that first quarter to feel each other out. But with Jokic, it just seems easier to notice, which makes it more fun for everybody. Cause you can just see that game to game opponent, defensive strategy against him. Cause so many people try different things against him. Be like, oh, okay, this is what you're gonna try to do now I'm gonna try to do this? Or you thought I was gonna do this. I'm actually not going to. I think the Miami game, he took six shots in the first quarter, he took two the rest of the game, and he still was the best player.

Now, Graham Bam was incredible what he was doing against him, but he dominated the game, taking two shots the rest of the game.

No, he's reached that last level where I feel like sometimes. Cause it's a long season, he'll just be like, I'm going to fuck around today during this.

Totally.

It's Toronto and I'm just going to try to see how many Elliot's I can get. Aaron Gordon. I bet I can get him eight. And that's just going to be like, what? Like, this is like the truly, truly great players going to random games and be like, eh, wonder if I can make like ten threes in this game? Or I wonder if I can get to eight Gordon. Alley oops. I wonder if I could just run the same play with Jabal Murray over and over again. How many times before they stop it? Like, I just feel like he's at another level. Anyway, those are our awards for the 2024 season. Next week we will give you our real words. You can hear Rosillo on his podcast Tuesday and Thursday. This was produced by Steve Sterling. Kyle Creighton is always. Any last words for solo?

No. Great job on this.

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