The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: Our NBA Awards Ballots, Eastern Conference Thoughts, the Masters, and UFC 300 With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo and Steve Ceruti to break down the remaining playoff matchups, including Magic-Cavs, and talk about whom the Celtics should want in their series (0:47). Next, Bill and Russillo go through their MVP ballots, All-NBA teams, and the rest of their regular-season award picks (23:38). Finally, they close it out with a little Masters talk and takeaways from UFC 300 (1:25:14). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, part two of the Sunday end of the NBA season extravaganza with Brasillo is next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday Night Hockey deliver unreal plays,

the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action.

FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet at all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other

way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff, it's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly.

Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit FanDuel.com slash BS. Here's what you have to do. Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available

and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. If you missed part one of the Rosillo podcast, we put it up earlier today.

That was our playoff preview. This is part two. We're going to do a little bit on the Easter conference and then a lot on the NBA awards. We're going to talk about our ballots and what we're doing. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping part two here.

It is now five o'clock on Sunday, April 14th. What an awesome, awesome sports weekend this was. Where we had NBA was crazy on Friday and Sunday. We had the Masters. We had UFC 300. Really, really, really great stuff. Great TV, great conversations, great arguments. Hey, Rosillo. I noticed this year the NBA

really seems to be leaning into this Friday night is game 81, Sunday is game 82. We separate the conferences. We're going to try to get some conversation around just everything. I felt like it worked, but I think part of the reason it worked

is because we have so many good teams. But yesterday there were no NBA games and it was like, this is weird. But I kind of liked how it set up. The Black Swan Spurs Nuggets game we talked about in part one, leading to all these things that happened on Sunday and having time to figure out

all the different variables. I thought it was successful. Did you notice that or am I overthinking it? No, I mean, I definitely noticed it, but I thought, okay, that's kind of great because there's still so much that's on the line. And then you wondered like in game, and there were certain things that were happening this week

where I was like, okay, so if the Dallas Mavericks feel like the Clippers are going to beat Utah, then they're not going to play anybody. And granted, as great as Luke has been, I think there's one moment every game where you're like, okay, so if the Dallas Mavericks feel like the Clippers are going to beat Utah, then they're not going to play anybody. And granted, as great as Luke has been, I think there's one moment every game where you're like, is he hurt? And then he has like 40-12 and 13, and you're like, I guess he's okay. I just, I liked that everybody got a reset. You know, it wasn't going to be fair for everybody with the travel and home and away and that kind of stuff.

But for the Saturday reset, I loved it. Because Friday night was great. I thought it was great. Two East things to talk about, and then we're going to dive into our NBA awards. Just stuff that we didn't get to sneak into part one. Number one is Orlando, our producer Steve Cerruti's favorite team,

now playing Cleveland in the 4-5 in a 2009 Eastern Conference Finals rematch, the Howard-LeBron, when Dwight Howard got the best of a LeBron team. He can always take that to his grave. They were 2-2 for the series. There's a bunch of fun storylines with this because is Orlando going to be the happy to be their team? Or is there really something here?

What the hell is going on with the calves? I think all of us feel like this is probably Mitchell's last season. There's just been too much buzz. And as we've learned over the years with the NBA, always trust the smoke when it's billowing from the building. Um, this is a referendum on Ken Mitchell and Garland play together. There's some Evan Mobley stuff I'm really curious in, in this series, because I think they're going to need him. And then you have this goofy Orlando team that,

you know, when Franz is being left open by four feet, that's not awesome. But yet he'll be like the slashing K. Kavlicek and all of a sudden he looks great. Really it's Palo creating shots and that's about it for this team. Cleveland has their own everything gets stale. This feels like a rock fight of a series. And I think that's good for Orlando because Orlando can dial it up defensively as well as anybody in the league. And I kind of like Orlando. They're plus 148 on Fando to win this series. Cleveland's minus 184.

I kind of like their chances. I think they have better chemistry. I think they're, I trust their identity. And yet, as House said when we were talking about it, eh, Mitchell could just kill them in this series

and that'll be that. Hard one to figure out. Where do you stand? Really hard because we know that Mitchell has it in him where he can just go off. And I think all of us that watch that Knicks series last year you're like wait like you guys don't have enough scoring to match the Knicks scoring here but it was the

first time I ever started thinking about is this defense that was so good statistically the regular season number one a defense because the guys like Moby and Allen like is this is this this outdated thing though in the playoffs where you don't have the spacing and you have these incredible shot creators in your back court but they need a little space and now you have kind of like two guys clogging it up because alan doesn't stretch the floor and then if mobile goes like you can't have mobile playing the corner three role on offense and that was something that happened every once in a while still with that i think there could be some really weird substitution patterns here for cleveland with their closing offense where they throw out like niang and struce around garland mitchell

and alan and then i think well wait shouldn't you can't put alan on mobley or excuse me you can't put alan on paulo so you just go with Mobley on Paolo and say, hey, pick him up and do your thing because defensively you think he'd be capable of doing those things. So I probably was going to pick against Orlando no matter who they played because I just don't trust the offense.

It feels like it ends up in the fifth guy's hands far too often on some of their possessions, and you need Franz to discover his shooting again, but I don't know that's automatically going to happen here in the playoffs. I just don't believe he's this bad of a shooter as he's been this year. I think he'd get a little turnover-y-ish, but he's still really good on the drives, really good on the passing part of it.

I'm sure Orlando was going, are you serious? Once they subbed out Allen and they subbed out, I think, a core. I was looking at what they did against Charlotte. Is Charlotte trying to lose that game? And then Cleveland's like, fine, we'll just lose it. And Charlotte's like, awesome, because we might be in China next year. Some of us out here. So I'm going to get some good film.

And Orlando's probably thinking, this is incredible. Like we ended up with you, which is, I would say, of any of the top teams in the East, Cleveland's the one that nationally everybody's going to be like because that's what they felt like well they've kind of stunk for a month right five weeks where you just watch them and they seem like a mess um you can blame it on mitchell and the health but i mean when he's played it hasn't been as it was before so i i think i like orlando in this series even though i just don't, there are going to be so many, it probably goes seven

and there's going to be a couple games where Orlando looks horrible in a closing offense while Mitchell is going crazy. But I still think I like Orlando just because of the momentum, lack of for Cleveland. I like Orlando

if they're going to play Isaac 30 minutes a game, which it seems like they test drove this last week of the season and it just changes them defensively if he's actually out there for real, if you're adding him for 10 more minutes at the level that he plays defensively with Suggs and just the way that the team is just beautiful. I thought what they did, I would encourage people to go watch it if you want to nerd up and you're trying to figure out you want to bet on this series or

whatever, like go watch what they did to Milwaukee in the second quarter. Like it wasn't just them shutting them down. So Milwaukee wasn't getting shots that weren't contested, fallaways, anything. We have to bring in our guy, Steve Cerruti though, briefly for one split second here, because Cerruti, to watch your beloved magic, a-good story, I think just even being a top six seed exceeded your expectations. And then to watch Cleveland say, we want to play the Magic so badly, we're going to disgrace the game and get booed by our home crowd in the fourth quarter because we put all of our worst players out there. That's how badly we want to play the Magic.

You know the Magic, Psyche. How are they going to handle that? That is a fuck you and a half. I had to text you guys because I shut the game off. I thought the Cavs were just rolling and I was a little bit worried.

It was still the third quarter. They had the lead, but it was double digits. They wanted to cut the four. I'm like, all right. So I was locked in. And then when I saw they lost,vin clark was texting me too and he was like who do what do we have the calves i was like nah i think if we win we get the bucks

and i just didn't see that the calves just threw the game away and you know you hate to say this too because you're like wow i really wanted that matchup but yeah like if i'm if any magic fan of all the top six teams in the east you know the calves are the one you want right but i mean here's the thing too is like that the magic are probably you could say that about the magic too the calves are probably excited to get the magic over some of the other teams in the east as well so it's actually the perfect matchup for both teams i do hope there's some good bulletin board material and i'm i'm with you like i don't i don't know how you don't start jonathan isaac going forward like that what he did today i mean obviously the the defensive stuff was stupid. He and Suggs in the

second quarter were unreal, but he was knocking down corner threes. I don't know if I want to see that, the volume that it was today, but he was just a menace. So, I don't know. It's a weird series, kind of like contrasting styles, but if you're going to say, hey, our strength is these two guards on offense,

I kind of feel good about Suggs and Isaac kind of mucking that up. Couldn't agree more. And I wonder if they'd put Isaac on Mitchell and they put Suggs on Garland and just like, we're just cutting your head off, basically. Where else are you going to go?

So from a basketball nerd standpoint, it might be the most fun series. I know every game is probably going to be an NBA TV, I'm guessing, at least the first five or six. Like maybe just whatever they pick for the NBA TV announcers, just get used to those two teams, do all your research, maybe call Cerruti.

But are you nerding out on this one a little, Rosillo? Yeah, I just love Palo. You know, I've really had a hard time for the last couple spots. And I think I got sick of every entire home broadcast over the last week on league pass pushing their guys and their agenda yeah and the magic I really like the broadcast team so I'm not being critical but they've been kind of pushing the Paolo thing of like third team all NBA and then we looked at the points

the boards the assist combination, it was like Giannis, Jokic, LeBron, Luka. I think Durant might have been on there. And then it was like Paolo. It was Paolo being like the sixth guy that had played 65 or more games because I think Embiid may have been on the list too. You're like, wow, Paolo's in that group. Nobody has to try to sell me on Paolo. I think I've been fairly consistent in how much I've liked him and then that whole run that they had but there's so much of that offense where

it's just up to him and whenever I think about them and like what the next step is because they got to spend their money this summer on somebody you're like I just I want it to be another scoring outlet but I also don't want it to get in the way where it overlaps and doesn't compliment some of the stuff Powell does. So I'm really excited about the nerd part of this because I think the Mobley thing, I have no idea which way it's going to go and then what that means this summer. And then on top of that with the Mitchell part, if Mitchell isn't taking the extension, Cleveland needs to trade him. So this has a very like, whatever these teams are, they'll likely look very different starting next year.

So, Rudy, you might be in the position where Orlando's trading for Mitchell after beating him in round one. The old Derink Golden State 2016 scenario. Listen, I would do it now. You brought up Paulo, too. At the beginning of that game, I was like, wow, he might have to do this all by himself today. It was that bad early. Nobody was hitting shots.

But I would just thank Bill, you and House, for just giving our guy Franz a boost. Because you texted us and were like, Sruti, how long have I been talking? Is Franz good? That was harsh. It was pretty harsh. I didn't realize he had reached everybody staying four and a half feet off him when he has the ball in the corner stage of his offensive. But then he got it going.

He started attacking the basket. It helped that nobody in Milwaukee was moving side to side. I should, by the way, I should just correct something I said there. I said both teams could look very different. Orlando's going to look exactly the same except for one expensive piece.

They'll add a score, yeah. Or they'll sign Malik Monk. They'll add a score, yeah. Or they'll sign Malik Monk. They'll do like the Fred VanVleet contract with Malik or somebody else. We know their five guys are going to be in. Cole's been really good.

So if you throw Cole in with Franz, with Paolo, with Suggs, and then Wendell, and then Isaac, like they're actually going to look, there's just, you know, there's this one other piece that they're missing where it's like if that

other guy could consistently get some shots without being a high usage guy, I think it's just going to lock a lot of stuff. Some Jed Howard buzz coming out of the G League. Oh my God. Did he put up big numbers in the G League? Has anyone

ever done that before? I love watching Orlando play defense. I like how hard they play. And Palo, you know, we've said this before, but there's a whiff of LeBron when he's going to the basket where he's just big and strong and fast, and he's getting in the rim. It doesn't really matter who's in the paint.

He's getting there. Youngest player ever to lead his team in points, assists, and rebounds in a full season. Youngest player ever. I mean, and it's not a bad team. That's the thing, too. It's not like he's, this isn't like LeBron, those LeBron Cavs teams. Like, there's a lot of good players,

but he's just that good. I hate to call out new media here, though, too. Like, when Pat Bev was saying, Orlando, everybody's talking about them. How come they're not good? And you're like, dude, some of those guys have been there 11 months.

I don't even like that you brought it up. I don't even like giving it. It's such a bad take. In the back of my mind, did you see Franz, by the way? He did some sort of spin move, went over the top of him and gave him the two short to Pat Bev and the broadcast team speaking to them was like, oh, look at Franz giving it to him. They knew

what Pat Bev had said. Good to them. They knew what Pat Beavitt said. So, good for them. So, if I gave you guys Paolo, Halliburton, Darius Garland, Tyrese Maxey, Zion,

I'll just do those five as round one. Oh, my God. Everybody goes nuts. Because those five as round one oh my god everybody goes nuts because that happens every round one there's some young guy who makes a leap at least in the first half of the series and everybody loses their fucking minds Paolo is probably the favorite

for me in that conversation I could see him going nuts in the first two games and people would be like Paolo wow didn't know as they watch NBA TV. Well, I mean, they've only had one or two national TV games all season for a five seed. I'm going to use my soapbox now to see

can we just get a couple more? Although they're going to basically be on non-national TV with the NBA TV slate here, so who knows who's even going to see it. So people probably haven't even seen a ton of Paolo, like guys that aren't Magic fans, other than just like YouTube highlights. So it could be him. Although I think Hal Burton,

if he's actually healthy against that box team, I don't, I could get, that's a good one too. Wait, hold on. I'm getting where they've sold two of the magic calves games to HBO three. That's,

that's who bought that. All right. So Rudy, good luck. We're rooting for you. I feel like we've covered the Orlando Magic on the ringer better than anyone else. I'm really proud of us. Definitely. Thanks, guys.

All right, last E-Series talk to Rosillo. Talk about Boston. Probably playing their old nemesis, Miami, would be my guess. Unless they can get lucky with Chicago somehow beating Miami. But let's just say it hasn't been awesome against Chicago either.

Here's the Celtics season where they finished. Did you see some of the stats where they finished the year? What, in point differential? Yeah, they're the third best net rating ever, 11.7 behind the 96, 97 Bulls. Point differential, 11.4, fifth all time. 72 Lakers, 71 Bucks, 96 Bulls, 17 Warriors. All four of those teams won the title. And yet, I texted you, Perk, on Friday on ESPN where they have those videos where it's somebody on one of the NBA shows

attacked somebody on a team or a player. And Perk had, the video was titled, Why Perk Has High-Level Concern for the Celtics. It was a video and the screen grab of Perk and Porzingis. The Celtics finished 64-18. They haven't played a meaningful game in a month. They've literally had nothing to play for.

I don't have high-level concern for the Celtics, at least for the first couple rounds. But I know this is going to be a narrative. It's like, oh, Miami. Miami has their number. They're a completely different team. With all that said, if they lose this series to Miami in round one after going 64 and 18,

after doing the Holiday and Porzingis extensions, after going all in on this nucleus, like nothing we've seen, and then they blow the Miami series and Miami beats them again, that would be in the running for worst non-championship slash finals losses of any Boston team. I mean, what an absolute, like there's been some Bruins ones where the Bruins were like the best team in the league and they lost in round one, but I think this would actually be worse. This is statistically the best Celtics team in 16 years. They've had all the battle scars. Everything is leading to this playoff series. The East has broken for them in the perfect ways with Embiid and Giannis.

There's no good East team at all. Even the Knicks who have been playing really well, they don't have Randall. If they blow this, holy shit, what happens? The hockey thing isn't even a good... I know what you're doing and I think it makes sense, but it

just doesn't matter. Yeah, hockey is more random than basketball., but it just doesn't matter. Yeah, hockey is more random than basketball. Right. It just doesn't matter because hockey, like that's kind of a sport even though the year that the Bruins lost, you're like, wait,

what's happening here? They can't lose. They have more pressure on them than any other team. If they make it to the NBA finals, lose to the Nuggets, I don't think there's necessarily going to be shame in that,

but they've been a really interesting group in that it feels like it's been around forever, and then you realize how young everybody is. And I've already done this segment far too many times of them being way ahead of schedule and probably getting further along that actually counts against them now as more failures. So their failures are just bigger.

But if they don't get out of the East this year, it'll be the biggest disappointment of any team in the playoff field. Yeah, if there's no injury, if they're healthy and they just lose before June, basically, easily the most disappointing. Everyone else will have some sort of excuse, or Denver could be like, well, we did win last year. They got nothing.

If it's first round, you'll have a documentary in the works in five years if they were to lose in the first round. If it's first round, I will be recreating the Chris Paul son's game seven 30-point loss year demeanor in that, but it'll be like crossed with like Requiem for

a Dream kind of level darkness. It's going to be awful. I don't want it to happen, but for the sake of the pod, would you retire? No. Listen, I would show up like I always did. I wrote a column after Pat's Giants 2007. That was the toughest one. I wrote a column after Red's Giants 2007. That was the toughest one.

I wrote a column after Red Sox-Yankees, the Aaron Boone game. You didn't have as much money then. Not true. Okay, you might do a pod after that game, but would it be I'll see you guys like week four of the NFL? I'm just like... If they lost to Miami, okay, If this team with that point differential that you just mentioned, this point differential tells you, you win an NBA title. Okay. Yeah.

There's, there's no doppelganger that hasn't won the NBA title with all of the stats they have. Yeah, you're right. And, and I would agree. My concerns are not high level, which I couldn't believe when i saw it but then again i kind of could but if they were to lose to miami i would i wouldn't be shocked to hear like the front page of variety in six months bill simmons done no he's retired wife has moved out no this here's my can i walk you into my nightmare? Please. The NFL draft is at the end of this month, right?

It's in the heart of this Heat Celtics series. My nightmare is the Celtics are down like 3-2 against the Heat, going to Miami for game six. And right around the same time, the crafts have decided, you know what? Let's get smarter than everybody else. We're going to trade back. We're going to trade back. We're going to trade.

We're going to do that Vikings trade and we'll get the 11 and 23 and a first and a second in 2025 and we're smarter than everybody else. That's my nightmare. Us not getting Drake May. Or them overthinking it and trading back and getting JJ McCarthy and picking up like an extra something with Arizona. It was like, JJ was our guy all along. It's like, cool. Jake May is going to be better than JJ McCarthy. What are we doing guys?

Yeah. Anyway, it's going to be a rollercoaster ride for me in April. I'll tell you that much. And then John Henry does an interview with 60 Minutes, and he goes, I never want to sell this team. Ask me how many innings of the Red Sox I've watched this year. How many innings of the Red Sox have you watched this year? How many do you think I've watched this year? Season's like two weeks old. Based on this, two weeks old.

Let's say, what are we at? Almost 14, 15 games. 25 innings. Zero. What? I'm actually doing it this year. I'm just out. I'm out. I'm so mad at them, I'm out.

I'm not out for life. I'm just out. I'm not wasting any of my time this year watching Red Sox. They don't give a shit about the team, so I'm not going to care either. Even at 6-2? No. I haven't watched an inning. They don't care. They don't care if shit about the team so i'm not gonna care either even it's embarrassing but they did no i haven't watched an inning they don't care they don't they don't care if the team's good they're just positioning to sell it so fine good luck to everybody i'll watch that i'll watch them when we have new owners or a team that uh you actually like gave a shit about this is some

real eddie annelman stuff bobby dahlbeck is still in the team. Bobby Dahlbeck still gets at bats for this team. We were done with him two years ago. I can't do it. I'm too old. I don't want to spend my time watching this team nobody cares about. I still love the Red Sox. I'll watch them when they give a shit about the team.

This happened to me with the Bruins in the mid-90s. It passed a point where I was like, I don't know if I can come back from this, and I never did. I am excited, though, about Tanner Howe, finally, because I never sold that stock. I just always loved his arm slot. But I do like the reliever they have, Slayton. I might have watched some pitches and some innings

on MLB.com. I don't know if that counts. I'm just saying I haven't put them on a TV. I've been like, I'm going to put the Red Sox, I'm going to put them on. But I might have watched some stuff. I still know what's going on. We're going to take a break and come back with the words.

This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that are when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full.

Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age.

This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way.

Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially,

giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters. Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations, or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada, Insurance designed for life. All right, it's awards time. Russillo has a ballot. I have a ballot. I talked to Zach Lowe over the weekend. He gave up his ballot this year.

He already has regrets. He's ready to get back in. He's ready to have a taste. We'll do MVP ballot first. I think these are our official ballots. We're just going to announce them here. We have to send them into the league in a couple days. Can I allow myself just a little wiggle room?

Far more in pen than last week. But since we know we're not getting... I'll take the same wiggle room. Right. It's probably what it's going to be, but I need to look it over a second time is my point. I worked on it last night. Yeah.

I worked on it all last night. I worked on it again this morning. I even emailed the NBA. It was like, Hey, I don't have the ballot. And we're like, I actually not going to be getting it until later on.

I'm like, all right, I just want to make sure I didn't get it. And then once I had that, I was like, I'm ready to do this, but I've just, we know how it works.

Okay. There's a chance I could possibly change something, but these, this is pretty close to what I'm going to do. All right. That's my. So you, so you're using a really nice pencil, but not a Sharpie. Yeah. It's a pen if I'm going to get technical about it, but I have other pages.

Yeah. As you know, I'll do my, my annual preamble. I love the awards. I think they're really important. It's an important snapshot of the season. It's fun to look back on. It's fun too when you're comparing these guys historically someday and you talk about,

oh, NBA teams and where they placed on the MVP ballot, stuff like that, it matters. We take it very seriously. The MVP ballot, I have Jokic first. SGA climbed to second for me because they got the one seed. I had him third heading into the weekend behind Luka. And then Oklahoma City getting the one seed with the year that SGA had. I'm second. I have Luka third. I did it, man. I put Jalen Brunson fourth and I put Giannis fifth. So Jokic, SGA, Luka, Brunson, Giannis is going to be individual season to do what he did is something that needs to be ahead of some of the other guys. I struggled a lot with the last two spots, but I went SGA and there's plenty of statistical numbers that would tell you if Ford might even be low for him. And then based on the way I did my first team all NBA and then the MVP thing and how I did it, I ended up putting Brunson down fifth.

And then I'll explain what I did on all first team NBA later on. Yeah. So we have the same five. Yeah. Different order. So I'm going to have Brunson second team all NBA and fourth MVP because I think they're two slightly different honors. We didn't talk about this ahead of time, but that's exactly what I did too

because I was like, I'm not removing Tatum from first team all NBA, and I'm going to acknowledge what it is that Brunson has done in the valuable sense of it. So that's funny. We didn't talk about this at all, and we ended up doing basically the same thing, even though you have him fourth. I thought about having him third because to get to 50 wins,

as we discussed in part one with Randall missing 60% of the season and Mitchell Robinson out and a couple new teammates, I just thought it was really impressive what he means to the franchise and the team, how, because he's there, that DiVincenzo ends up coming there.

I think stuff like that matters when you have a real guy. When you think people are arguing about, oh my God, did they overpay for Brunson? And I remember you and I telling people, that deal's fucking awesome, man. You're not going to regret Brunson. I never thought he'd be this. I promise you.

No, neither of us did. But we knew that was a good deal. You're getting a guy who proved that he could play in a playoff series and have, and be impactful. We never knew he was going to be a 29 point a game guy. Um, I had him ahead of Giannis just because, I mean, first of all, they finished with a higher seed than the Bucs. I think that the winning piece of it matters a little bit, but the whole Buck season was so strange with the two coaches and it was so choppy with, with Giannis and Dame sometimes offensively. And, um, you know, they spent a lot of money on that roster, whether it was the right roster and it's the right group of guys. Like, you know, they went all in, they traded all their picks for holiday and then for Dame. Um, they spent a lot of a lot of money on the side pieces on the roster.

I just felt like he was in a good situation and the team underachieved. So I couldn't put him higher than five. Right. Well, the reason they finished in the three seed behind New York is because he wasn't playing. He was the first player to ever score 30 a game and finish at 60% or better from the floor.

First guy to ever do it. And when I add in the defensive stuff that I think he does where, you know, over the years, we've looked at this Milwaukee defense and I go, you know, the real thing is just Giannis being able to screw everything up. And yet he never gets all defense mentions ever right so he played 73 games this year and i do probably look at like all of us look at it differently that have our votes you don't want somebody like being a complete wild card with it but the seating can matter for me and then it can kind of not matter and i think that's where i'd get some pushback on having sga fourth it's like hey well they were the one seed and you go well you, Boston, if there was a Boston MVP candidate that was tied with somebody else, I would go, OK, well, look, they finished that many games ahead of everybody else. I'm going to recognize that and put that in there.

I just feel like Giannis is at worst the third best player in the league. And he just had one of the great historical seasons. He plays a ton of defense. He plays hard every single night. He played basically a full season and it came down to the last day in a game where he wasn't playing for the last few. So even though they were sort of a mess, they still only finished one game behind Milwaukee. So it wasn't like I was going to put Brunson ahead of him. I mean, look, I had Giannis too most of the year until Luca just put together this stretch and Dallas, you know, collectively was far better than what we saw from Milwaukee.

By the way, we should say being five this season, there's no shame in that compared to some of the other seasons we've had in the past. Ten years ago, there were guys getting the four spot and the five spot in MVP where you're like, maybe I'll put this guy here. In this case, Tatum not being on it when the Celtics go 64-18, that tells you how deep and how awesome I think a lot of the players were this year.

I did the same thing, though. Tatum was always fourth or fifth, probably more fifth, which is not really a knock on him. It's more about the team. It's hard for Tatum because you can't be like, oh, well, he's that great, yet we sit here and look at the starting five and go, this has statistically been one of the best starting fives in the history of the league.

So I look at it as a recognition of Brunson and an incredible accomplishment where Knicks fans are going to go, well, he should have been... There's just no world I was ever going to vote him ahead of a couple of these other guys. And just as great as this run has been,

I don't think he's those, you know, of the 500 guys that play, okay, I have them higher than 495 of them. But I'm not going to put him ahead of guys like Luka or Jokic. It's a good argument. I don't know if there's a right answer. I feel good about Brunson at four.

Shea at two. I'll just make the case really quick. So the one seed to me does matter with that because we watched so many games this year where I couldn't believe they won the game and they basically won the game because of the shit he did down the stretch where I felt like if you put other players in that spot on that OKC team, his two way play,

the burden that he had offensively, the way he was always getting to his spots, no matter who they're playing against and the consistency of just like, and we talked about this last month with him about just how many good games that dude has. I think, what was the stat? He had like 52 30-point games, something like that. The consistency, his ability to get to the line over and over again, they're plus 10.8 net when he plays.

He played 2537 minutes, 2537 minutes. Him with Jalen Williams together, they're over 12 net rating. He led the league in steals 2.1. And I just thought he had like a kind of unnatural burden because Milwaukee, like they would have nights where it's like, all right, it's a Dame night. You know, all right, Giannis just had, all he has to do is run around and, you know, get some rebounds and get some

lobs. And this is kind of, this is going to be the night Dame has 45. There was never a night like that for SGA. SGA was like, we don't really have a center. I'm relying on dudes who are 22, 23, 24 years old. We're going to other people's houses and winning. I was just so impressed. I thought about him a tiny bit for actual MVP. No kidding. And then I took a glass of water. I'm like, what am I doing? Jokic is the best player in 10 years. But no, I was just like, all right, this guy got the one seed. Denver got the two seed. Let me think this out in my head. And then I was like, all right, Jokic is obviously the MVP. But he made me pause for two seconds, which was inconceivable a month ago.

I always find that interesting that you would feel a certain way about MVP and then the seeding can change in the last 12 hours. Well, but part of it to me is like, who had a harder job, right? And Jokic, the reason this is where I landed with Jokic, like the reason he didn't get the MVP was because Murray didn't play enough games. I think Murray ended up with 58. They had to rest Murray down the stretch for what was he sat out like eight games.

And I just don't think when Murray doesn't play, I just don't think that team's that special around Jokic, you know. But it was at least a conversation. But Jokic is the MVP. He's the best player in the league. For the metric stuff, which was always

funny about the Jich and bead arguments because in bead people will be like oh you guys are just using these stupid numbers you'd be like oh you mean the ones were in beads like off the charts and all of them yeah like some of these numbers tell you like oh hey if yokich has the most win shares in the league this year like okay that's pretty good but then the wind shear stuff per was probably more susceptible to falling victim of like really overvaluing big guys that rebounded a lot maybe didn't shoot that much they had a higher field goal percentage because they were really stretching it out the fact that sga like this is an argument for your side of the sga thing of having him too like he's

only behind yokich and some of that stuff and for a a Peruter guy, a lot of it's the... Well, I don't need to mention the free throw part of it. He's just that good at adding the free throw part to the rest of the game. You know what my favorite SG is, by the way? Do you think he'll finish second in the overall voting? I don't know. I think it's going to be between him and Luka for second.

And I honestly don't know. I think it's going to be close. Do you think he's better than Luka? No. Okay. I'm not doing this because I think you're wrong. I'm just, I'm asking. I think he had a better regular season than Luka did because his job was harder.

And he needed, there needed to be a consistency. Wait, you think Dallas? You think, geez, I don't know about that. OKC's a better roster than Dallas. But Luka had the Kyrie piece, though. Yeah, but what about our guy, Jay Williams? Or one, not two. I love Jay Williams and thought about him as like a fringe,

can I talk myself into him, third team on NBA. But at the end of these OKC games, it was kind of SGA or bus. There was a couple of times where Jalen Williams was doing the Kauai thing that we talked about what last week or two weeks ago, where you'd start going by people. But for the most part, you knew where OKC was going every time.

I don't know. I was impressed. Um, the best SGA staff for me on two point field goals, he shot 58%, which for a guard is nuts. That's just not, you know, but it speaks to like when you watch him and just how he'd get to his spots and you get his points or he'd get fouled. Uh, I thought Luca was awesome.

Luca was 34, nine and 10. He made 284 threes his usage was lower, 36 he played the most minutes he's ever played, 26-24 so and Dallas got better as the year went

along, which I think matters more than anything but, you know, OKC had a better season, so you mentioned Jokic. He led the league in PR, wind shares, wind share 48 and Vorp. He played the most minutes he's ever played this year over 2,700.

He crushed it in Vorp, by the way. Huge Vorp this year for that guy. Uh, plus 11.6 net. 27, 12 and nine every night, not to mention some of the greatest like team chemistry stuff

and you know murray was i wouldn't say like lou gehrig this season there's another thing i was looking at with yokich's numbers before the all-star break 33.8 minutes per game then they cranked it up to about 37. He took one more shot. That's always been the thing with him at certain times. One of the years we won the scoring, or excuse me, when he won the MVP, we were like, do you know how low he is in shot attempts in comparison to these other guys?

And this guy's won MVP. This is all the hours of watching it. And I couldn't imagine coming up with a different conclusion than Jokic. Just the number of times where he controlled everything. And as I say that, it's like, oh, wait, Doncic doesn't do that as well? And you're just like, okay, you're right, but there's just this puppet master element of Jokic

that's happening every second he's out on the floor. And I, I couldn't, you know, I just didn't struggle with it as much this year because it wasn't the Embiid showdown. Now, if Embiid had finished the year with the highest ever PER, like imagine the wrench that throws and all this stuff. And scoring 35 a game and 70 games. And yeah, I'm with him. Um, the other part with Jokic, which we talk about every year, is something about how he plays transfers to some of the other guys in the team. And they're a little more unselfish and a little more thoughtful about passes

and extra looks than I think they would be if they were on like Charlotte. So I just wanted to mention that. You think it'd be different on Charlotte? Yeah, I think it'd be a little different. You don't like Michael Porter Jr. in Charlotte? Not as much. I don't know if Reggie Jackson is as impactful off the bench.

Just out of curiosity, because Shea versus Luka, I think, I think it was closer than it seems like you think. I also don't think Shea is the player he's ultimately going to be. I don't think this was his career apex. He's never going to be better than this. If he starts shooting threes, let's say he becomes a 40% three-point shooter and starts making, I don't know, two and a half, three threes a game

on top of everything else he's doing. I do think there's a world where he swims in that pool with Luka and those guys, and he might already be there. He's going to have to do it in the playoffs, which we haven't seen yet, and that's the last piece of this, and that's why we're always careful with regular season versus playoffs. I want to see him do this in a playoff series with a team that's playing against

him for two straight weeks, that's planning for him, thinking about ways to fuck with him. We've never seen it. But I do think if he adds a three-point shot, his stats might not be that far away from Lucas. But whenever there's a scoring peak for a player, it usually comes down to like, all right, well, what else is around him? So I would agree that if SGA cranks it up to 37, 38% from three

and starts taking five or six of those a game, as opposed to I think just over three now. Yeah. Like maybe you could just keep adding it. But what I would see on the horizon for the Thunder is that he may score less because the team continues to get better. Because Chad and JL Williams get better. Yeah, you're right.

And all the assets of what that ends up turning into because there's probably one other big piece coming. So your toughest MVP ballot omission was who? Probably Tatum, because I felt like, hey, I know I'm going to have Tatum in the five. Yeah. Like, I can't believe it, but I just, that's where I split the difference on the all-first-team NBA.

Like, that's so funny we did the same thing, because I thought like, hey, that's kind of a way I feel the all first team NBA. Like, that's so funny. We did the same thing. Cause I thought like, Hey, that's kind of a way I feel like I'm acknowledging both. Yeah. Tatum for me too. First team on BA. So I guess we have the same Yoke,

edge Luca, SGA, Giannis, and Jason Tatum is my five. We do. Any thought to having Brunson? Yeah. A lot of thought actually.

Here's where I landed. Tatum was 27, 8, and 5. I don't want to do the thing where we just read math when we do the all-NBA stuff, but his stats were... Give me his free throw attempts per game. Free throw attempts, 6.8. He played over 2,600 minutes. He was 12.2 net

which was I think first in the league the case for Tatum is this the team was the best team in the league by far he was the biggest reason because he got better as an offensive thinker picking his spots

I just thought there was a sophistication that was a slight level above where it was last year. I thought his rebounding was really good, especially in games where they really needed it. The defense, I thought he was, as a two-way guy, was way more committed this year game to game than maybe he used to be. And the engine of this team was Tatum and Brown together and how hard those guys just wanted to win every night. And really, their record could have been better than 64-18.

I mean, think about how many dumb games that team lost. In the dumb game, win-loss, like the swing, seesaw, they're probably like minus four

for just, they should have just been, really, it was like a 67-68 win team. With that said, the clutch stuff was bad. And, you know, it's been well documented. And that's probably, if you're talking about why you leave them off the MVP ballot, it's

the crunch time offense just wasn't that good. And I think that's the negative. The positive though, Roussel, is this. I think Tatum and Brown specifically sacrificed some numbers for this team to succeed the way they did. And if you put them in different situations, I think Tatum, if he wanted to average 31, 32 a game, I think he could. And I think if Jalen Brown wanted to average 27, 28 a game, I think he could. But I think those guys gave up something to be part of what this team did, which is why both of them have to be all NBA guys for

me this year. That's the SGA point, is that if the team gets better, he should probably be taking less shots. And he will. Some of the Maxie stuff that you have to talk about is you go, Maxie's awesome. He's in the conversation for me for third team. I know, I think he's the betting favorite for most improved player, but there's also a massive shot spike. And that's the part of the Brunson conversation where you go, okay, the last, however, three months, he's taken almost 25 shots per game. And the fact that he's kept that up, I think it's at least a little bit fair. And I still end up having Brunson fifth and MVP over Tatum. But when you talk about sacrifice, that's a sign of, well, okay, the team is better. Like the team wouldn't, it wouldn't make any sense for Tatum or Brown to be

guys at like 23, 24. I mean, once you're north of 22, 23 shot attempts per game, it usually means the rest of your team is so bad offensively, or you're just like a ridiculous human being and brunson i think it was really by necessity and the fact that he stayed at 49 48 47 percent and 40 percent from three right yeah and by the way in april after brunson had a bit of a free throw decline i hate to say this after all the hard work there's a few games now where I'm starting to notice some stuff on the free throw deal where I'm like wait like we did so much hard work guys we finally got there because Brunson had had a pretty significant drop off going back to March and then he was at nine free throw attempts again so some of the the raw numbers are also your your situation so I would agree with the point on Tatum

like it's good that he doesn't have the opportunity to take that many shots because it's a reflection of how deep the team is and also maturing because it's like, okay, cool. What do you want to do? Do you want to score 35 or do you want to win some games and have everybody feel involved? He made the right choice, but I think he gets credit for that. I will say this. Tatum has been prominent now for the entire time he's been in the league.

Even as a rookie, the Celtics were really good. There's never really been a moment when he wasn't relevant. I do think he's been around so long that people kind of miss how unique he is as a player. The size that he has, his ability to guard. Him and Jalen both can guard all types of players on the other side from all sizes.

And the fact that, you know, if you need some rebounds and that there's just things that he brings to the table, that is pretty uncommon. I think Durant feel the same way about him to some degree, this Phoenix season that he had, where there was times when he was like their rim protector.

There was times when he was like, rim protector. There was times when he was like their, really their only rebounder. And I think that's the piece with Tatum. Like I just think people are used to Tatum. So now you start like, oh, look at his clutch numbers and start picking it apart. We're going to take a break and then we're going to do second team, third team, all NBA. Today's Retradables is brought to you by nissan suv if you ever wonder what's around the next corner what happens when you push further what's over the horizon then you need a nissan suv the 2024 range includes the nissan rogue with class exclusive built-in google the pathfinder and the

armada go find your next adventure with a nissan suv Learn more at nissanusa.com. All right, so we're so for retreadables. We got to do this because they just gave them an extension. Drew Holiday, just going backwards six months. Here's the trade. The Blazers got Malcolm Brogdon. They got Robert Williams who immediately got hurt. They got a 2024 first round pick from the Celtics,

which is number 30 in the worst draft in 24 years. And they got a 2029 unprotected first round pick. And that was the haul for Drew Holiday, who has been one of the great glue guy Celtics in a long time. And I was so delighted when they re-signed him. But looking back, I don't know, could they gotten a little more for that one? Feels like it.

Yeah. Feels a little late. I just wonder how much research they had done on the Rob Williams part of it. I mean, clearly, it's not zero. But if you're going, okay, so Brogdon, who gets hurt a lot, and then the defensive anchor that we're going to put next to Aiton, even when Williams was healthy, you thought he was hurt. I mean, it was really tough because he clearly impacted the games,

but there'd just be that landing where you go, uh-oh, is this six to eight weeks? And that feels kind of like who he is, even though he was on a really affordable contract. And so you get the early pick now. Who knows? I mean, who knows? We could do a podcast in 29 and you're like, oh my God, they have the number two pick. I mean, there's probably no protection on 29, right? and the downside of Robert Williams is, oh, he doesn't look right playing with Aiton. But then there was also the injury downside,

which every Celtic fan was acutely familiar with because he was so, you know, you'd feel great about him, then all of a sudden he's walking up the tunnel again. Anyway, that is the Drew Holiday trade and the retradables. Today's retradables was brought to you by Nissan SUV. Go find your adventure with the 2024 Nissan Rogue with class-exclusive Google built-in. You've got an always up-to-date assistant you can call on for almost anything.

No need to connect your phone. You've got Google Assistant maps and Play Store built right into the 12.3-inch touchscreen infotainment system. Learn more at NissanUSA.com. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator,

58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high-intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions. And that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca special. As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like Potash to support sustainable food production. This is why BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada.

Essential resources responsibly produced. This is what BHP has committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future. Upper Canada College inspires boys from senior kindergarten to year 12 to find their passions and realize their potential. An IB World School, UCC offers a supportive environment,

cutting-edge facilities, and a best-in-Canada financial assistance program. UCC, a place where tradition, excellence, and innovation meet. Learn more at our open house events on October 15th and 16th. Register now at causeandeffect.ucc.on.ca. All right, second team on the A, Rosillo. I'm guessing we had the same four, and then the fifth one is a wild card. Jalen Brunson, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, and Kawhi Leonard as four of the five. Do you have those four in your second team on NBA? I do. Before we get to the fifth spot,

we did the Brunson credentials. We talked about AD in the first segment who had his best year, I think since probably 2018 and played a ton of minutes too. Durant. Do you know Durant played almost 2,800 minutes this year,

which is his most since 2014. This is a recurring theme of the all NBA this year. A lot of guys set like minute highs. Um, he hasn't played this many minutes in 10 years. He's basically 27, seven and five. He was almost a 50, 40, 90 guy. Um, played 37 minutes a game, which is nuts. His usage was under 30. He had a great season. Uh, that team was a little weird and a little off. I didn't love the body language all the time, but it seems like they've set in a good place. And then Kawhi, who ends up at 68 games, somehow played 23-30 for minutes, which is his most since 2017. Another guy, 24-6-4, almost a 50-40-90 guy. Missed it by one percentage on the free throws played 68 games plus 8.2 net and

had stretches where it just seemed like he was one of the five best players in the league so we agree on those four and we can move to the fifth guy unless you have anything else to say about those four yeah Durant oddly enough like if you look at some of the numbers from last year some of the advanced stuff he's like dropped off pretty significant

in PER dropped off pretty significantly in the win shares of 48 because the true shooting percentage dipped and then his free throw rate dipped. But I would say there were too many moments in the course of the season where I'm like, wait, what other forwards am I going to put ahead of him when I've already put the two ahead of him with Giannis and paid him? And then the Kawhi discussion, we already agree there. So whatever you want to look at there with the Durant part of it,

it's 74 games in the season, as you already mentioned, the minutes. And Phoenix, okay, fine, they weren't a top three seed. But it's not like they suck. Yeah. So I think there's just a lot of pro Durant arguments in there. I went with Ant as the other guard on my second team. So did I. 26-5-5.

He played almost 2,800 minutes. His advance numbers were surprisingly good across the board, and I think there's a lot of room to grow for him, especially at three-point shooting. The big thing for me is when Towns went out, I really feel like he grew his game and filled in the blanks in a bunch of different ways. I think this would be a lot easier

if they had ended up being the number one seed, they'd end up being number three. But the two-way stuff with them, I thought was, that was what was in my head when I had him second team. Like the defense that he's been playing in some of these games, when he really wants to, he can go to this level that's very few swings occupied defensively. So that was a pretty easy one. There's one guy I had in the

third team that I really thought long and hard about. We should mention, we did, I know it's positionless ballots, but I think both of us are trying to keep these picking five that at least look like a basketball team. We're not going to do the thing where it's like DeAndre Jordan on my third team in 2016 because he's a center. I think when you start doing that, that's nuts. But for the most part, we want it to look like a basketball team, right?

Yeah, I'm not going to marry myself to anything because what if we have one year where it's just absurd that there are four guards that are completely off the charts and you go, hey, those are four

of the five best players in the league, then maybe I'll do it. But I don't feel wrong about anything so far. It's a really hard task because I started by going, hey, no matter what you do, it's not going to be perfect. So go into it with the minds like the first one I ever did. I was like, all right, I want this to be perfect. But I stuck to it. And that's where I think the third team, maybe you have a little bit more and look, every voter can do whatever they want. But I think the third team is maybe where it allows you to,

to have a little bit more creativity with it, because I don't like over the years, some of the times we did put that third center in and you're like, this guy's not even close to the other 14 guys as far as stature in the game. And he's going to make all the day. And then it's going to, you know,

then the guy's going to have been in the hall of fame. It was like, Oh, I made four, all three, you know, you're like, what is this? Third team. as far as stature in the game. And he's going to make all NBA. And then the guy's going to end up in the Hall of Fame. He's like, oh, he made four all three. What is this? Third team. So LeBron James was my guy that I thought about for the ant spot in the second team. No kidding. He played over 2,500 minutes.

He was 26, 7, and 8. Almost a 50, 40, 80 guy. He shot 41% from three, best he's ever done. He shot over five threes a game and almost six free throws a game. He played 71 games. They're 41 and 30 when he played. He played 2,500 plus minutes this year, which was his most since 2018. Another guy. And I just thought the ceiling of some of the games that he was in where he was just kicking the ass of the other team, like he did today against New Orleans. I was like, how is he not second team all NBA? And I don't know if it's

the right choice. I kept going back to that December, January stretch show where I just felt like from a leadership standpoint, with the stature that he holds, having some of those guys dangling around the trade rumors, I just didn't feel great about that two-month stretch for them. And I think it's something he could have squashed and he just didn't. And then as soon as the deadline passed, that team fell into place. But he's still one of the 12 best players in the league. And I think him versus Ant is a really tough one. I just didn't want to put two Lakers in the top 10 spots in all NBA when they're not even a playoff team. They're a playing team.

So at some point, somebody's got to lose. It just felt like a lot of nights that Ant had to carry it offensively for a team that very well could have been the one seed where this sounds like I'm then applying to the Bill Simmons school of the seating mattering so much. But I mean, it just depends on who you're comparing each other to. So I felt fine about Ant. And I mean, at one point you were like, is LeBron going to make the third team? And then by the time you're done with it, like he was one of the easiest picks. There was like four or five weeks ago, it seemed like, it seemed like,

it was like, man, I don't know if I'm going to vote for two Lakers if this team goes 42 and 40. Like, I'm not doing it. But they turned it on. They played really well down the stretch and I think he earned it. It was easy. I mean, did you think about

putting him ahead of Kawhi? I did. I did. You know, you look at the Clippers, though, and the Clippers won 51 games. They had a big trade during the season. They lost their center for a while. And I don't know, I felt like he was so good, it kind of levitated them a little up a level. And I just had to give them that. But I did think about that. So the rest of the guys, I'll do three more and then I'll talk, we'll talk about the last spot, which I had the most

trouble with. To me, Paul George was a no doubt about it. I thought he was especially down the stretch was awesome. Um, he played over 2,500 minutes this year, which was his most since 2019. Another guy, I don't know if this game limit, uh, shifted it for people. He was plus 9.1 net. He was almost a 50, 40, 90 guy. And I test wise, I thought the way he was peeking down the stretch, I thought it was some of the best basketball I've ever seen him play. Not to mention the two-way stuff. So I had him, I had Jalen Brown for all the reasons we mentioned earlier. And then I had to put Steph on because I thought what he dealt with this season, all the Draymond drama, which it seemed like it just never ended. Chris Paul missed half the season. Wiggins disappeared twice. The West was brutal.

He still was able to get to his 26, four and five every game. He had 357 threes. He played 74 games. There were 43 and 31 when he played. And he's just clearly one of the best 15 players in the league still. So those were four of my five. Did you not have any of those guys? No. Four for four, man. This is ridiculous. By the way, we should mention we didn't compare notes at all. Well, we did touch on it last week. We already knew. I think we had both the same first 10. Yeah, but I'm saying for the final edit, yeah.

Well, we didn't talk prior to that. Step one was easy for me. The team was still good enough despite being the play-in, but I go, okay, is he one of the 10 best players in the league? And he played 74 games. Let's not make this complicated. No problem. Booker, I think, ended up, what,

sixth in scoring this year. Oh, so you have Booker because I haven't talked about my fifth spot yet. Oh, I thought you said... I think maybe I was just remembering from last week I thought you had Booker in there. Okay, so I put Booker, LeBron, Paul, George in there and I'm going to do some more digging

for the 15th and final spot because I don't know what to do. So I have Jalen. So you don't know what to do. So you don't, you don't necessarily have Jay. What's the case against Jalen in your opinion, your argument, because it's the best, because it's the best team by far that they deserve the second player.

I'm like, I don't know. I don't know that I would do that. I mean, I'm giving you a hard time a little bit here. I wrote down Zion and then cross it out. I promise I didn't do it after just today's game. That's not the exercise. There's some Halliburton guilt there where

I think if it's close and a contract extension is on the line, I'd be more likely to vote for that player. So I'm having a really hard time with the 15th spot because I like, well, because I've told myself in the past, like, hey, if it's somebody with the contract thing on the line and it's like really close, like I don't even like talking about this, but I'm just trying to be transparent. Like I probably should feel the need to vote. And I mean, I know this is why Zach Lowe is like, I don't want to do this anymore because of this specific reason. And I know people hate that the media even does this,

but there's a real argument that like Halliburton hasn't been the same guy for a long time. So am I going to feel guilty leaving him off of this, knowing that he's eligible for this extension? It sucks. It's the worst part of this. So I had for my last spot between Booker, Sabonis, Halliburton, and Wemby. Halliburton post-All-Star break, he's 18-9.

Eye test doesn't look the same. And I don't feel like he's jumped off the TV in the same way. And I kept coming back to that. His first 10 weeks were awesome. And he was in the running for first team on NBA. And since then, he hasn't looked the same. And you can give him credit for the style of that team. It's a little like what we talked about with Jokic.

Like that team is go, go, go, go, go. And he's put that imprint on it. He's also, I think, the worst defensive player of anyone we've talked about so far, which I think matters. And it just feels like his season kind of peaked in December range. So that was the case against it. I think it's hard.

I think one of the problems here is we probably have 20 guys for 15 spots, which is unusual. Booker, who- I think it's like five, six guys for one spot. That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. 25 guys for 15 or 22 guys for 15 spots whatever it is booker the sons were 42 and 25 when he played he played almost 2450

minutes a share which is most since 2020 27 points five rebounds uh seven assists he was a 49 36 89 guy and i thought about leaving him off because putting two sons in seemed crazy to me. But then watching the Minnesota game today, it's like, he's one of the best 15 players in the league. And that was where I landed. Right. Top 15 is low for Booker. But the one through 10 is really, really hard. I mean, is Ant going to get one MVP vote this year? He probably will from somebody along the way. He'll get a fifth place from a couple people, I think. He probably will because that's just kind of the way it works. But I had no problem.

I went into it probably thinking, I was like, okay, how am I going to do the final guard pairing? And then once I was done with it, I don't mind defaulting to, hey, this guy played a full season. The team was good enough. He put up huge numbers. Like we said, he was sixth in scoring. And I think he's one of the 15 best players in the league. So I'm going to do it. Yeah, one thing I was thinking about, especially with Curry,

once you hit a certain level of stature as a player, and LeBron obviously is the best example of this, you shouldn't lose your spot if you had a typically really good season. There should be some sort of... It's almost like a UFC when it's a five-rounder.

You have to kind of take the title. I don't know if anyone took the Booker spot. I think Hal Burton was damn close, but I don't feel like he really took it. Sabonis, there's great cases, right? He played 2,900 minutes, most of anyone in the league. He averaged 19, 14, and 8. He's a really, really skilled offensive player, not as good defensively, but they're plus 0.4 net when he's out there. I don't think he passes the, does he jump off the TV test? I don't think any of us

feel like he's one of the 20 best guys in the league. And I just wasn't going to put him on all NBA because we needed a center. Like I'd rather just play LeBron as center on my fake team. I got to be honest, Wemba Nyama gave me more trouble than Halliburton. Like I really went down the process with it thinking like since the all-star break, he's 24, 12 and five with almost five blocks a game watching some of the games like that Denver game the other night,

his per 36 would be 26 and 13. His numbers with like his as 2010 guys with blocks and steals combined stocks 4.8 and above it's Robinson, Hakeem, Kareem, and Ewing at any point of their careers. And he was just so impactful down the stretch. To me, it's like the reverse of the Halliburton argument. Halliburton was so impactful the first 10 weeks of the season and Wemby was so impactful the last 10 weeks. It almost cancels the arguments out because you can't make the Halliburton case, but then not

make the Wemby case. Now, Wemby's team sucked, but Wemby, he didn't perform like it was a lottery team. Like he really gave a shit in these games. Wasn't like fake stats. It was real shit. So anyway, I left them off, but I want to mention it. I can't believe that you're the one arguing for Womanyama on All-NBA when we argued quite a bit about the rudy wendy thing for defensive player of the year but you know it's all kind of a moving target here so bonus i'll admit i always feel guilty about because i'm like oh what do you have again tonight oh 28 14 and 11 and just go yeah i don't know i don't know like it just feels like he gets hosed despite putting up these numbers that are incredible um because i also think that there's a limitation on this team

because of him. As skilled as he is and as great as the numbers are all the time, I'm like, do I really think he's one of the 15 best players in the league? And I don't. And the Halliburton off of the Wemby point, I didn't even think about Wemby for this. I feel stronger about a different category. But for Halliburton, after the all-star break 43 before 25 after it he went from 40 from 3 to 31 the assist dropped off a couple the scoring dropped off by like five points like if you look at who he is post all-star 29 games at 1910 and terrible three-point shooting you're like no i'm really gonna put that guy and i'd say'd say the same thing. He wasn't a jump out of the TV guy. So what are you going to do? I'm putting Booker. So my third team is Paul George, Jalen,

Steph Curry, LeBron James, and Devin Booker. And I think that's a good snapshot of the season. And Sabonis, Halliburton, and Wemby Nyama were the toughest ones for me. And Zion, I think has to be mentioned. I never was seriously thinking about putting him there, but you know, Zion played the most minutes he's ever played and really came on second half of the year to the point that he felt like a force. But then you watch a game like tonight and LeBron kicked his ass.

You know, he's not, he's not ready to be a top 15 guy yet, but there's flashes. Yeah. But I mean, I can't, I can't put too much into the A, you know? No, there's flashes. Yeah, but I mean, I can't put too much into that. No, I'm just saying, I don't think he's there as a top 15 guy,

is my point. I think he showed a lot of flashes. If you wanted to get on his case a little bit, even if you go with the pre-All-Star, post-All-Star splits, because there's so many more games

before the All-Star game. Yeah. I wish they would just do like a 41-game split or something, and that's so many more games before the all-star game. Yeah. You know, I wish they would just do like a 41 game split or something and that's how they would bring up the splits instead of this all-star stuff.

But it's the way that it's sorted so many times on different websites. Like even when he was out of shape and... He was still getting stats. Right. So there were games.

I remember one game that was outside of the in-season tournament. I was like, oh my God, he looked terrible. Like, what is he doing? And then I think the next night, I forget, maybe it was the Golden State game. They lost in January or something. And I was like, oh man, he doesn't look good.

And then he went for 30 back to back the next two games. And I was watching it. I think going, I still don't know that he looks good. He just looks better now. He just looks so much better. And I think this week was terrific up until today's afternoon game. I feel bad about the Halbert thing.

Coach of the year, I had Dagnall, Finch, and Missoula third. Missoula third. Missoula third. Has your dad signed off on that? Yeah. He won 64 games. And I'll tell you this. If you're making the case for Joe Missoula, the way he managed

the team... Don't listen to me the previous six months. Well, don't listen to me the previous six months, but the way he managed the team, the bench is actually peaking like Pritchard's playing the best he's ever played. Hauser, Cornette, like he's figured out how to weave these guys in and give them confidence and rest dudes. But the Celtics have rested their dudes for the last six weeks where so-and-so's not playing one game. So-and-so's not playing the next game. Two guys aren't playing the next game and they're still winning these games.

I think he has to get credit for that. They won the East by 14 games. At some point, you got to credit the coach. Who'd you have for your three? Dagnall won. Again, youngest team ever to clinch one seed in NBA history. A jump from last year where

they played in the play-in and they lost the second game. That's significant. What were they, 40-42 last year where they played in the play-in and they lost the second game. So that's significant. What were they, 40-42 last year? Yeah. I have Tibbs second. You lose Randall from January. You get your team to just bust their ass again.

I just love Tibbs, man. And it's funny to think about it. You know what? You swayed me. Actually, I'm getting rid of Missoula and I'm putting Tibbs third. You're right. Tibbs should be third. Or second. OG, I can't make it in today. Ananobi. Right.

He doesn't have a center. That's a great call. I fucked up. I'll put Tibbs third. Alright, and I have a different one for third. I'm going to go Yudoka. Imei Tibbs third. Alright, and I have a different one for third. I'm going to go Yudoka. Imei, just for the Jalen Green rejuvenation? Wow. Emotional stuff.

He got a young team that looked lost. Lost. They suck on defense. They have no concept of what they're supposed to be doing. It's all young guys. And then they bring in Brooks and Van Vliet to kind of have the adult in the locker room despite the price tag that went along with it. But the fact that they were playing defense

that they showed, like some people tell me I'm nuts. They didn't finish 500. You can't do that. I don't care. I mean, nobody's actually voting on who they think the best coach is. I've told myself I was going to vote Spoh like second five years in a row just out of respect of him being clearly the best coach. Well, he still might be a better coach than every single guy. I think he is. But that's not really how this award has been defined. So if you want to go third place on somebody, I don't feel bad

using my third place vote on Yudoka. Turning this Houston thing into something that feels real, it was way more fun. And it's like, man, this is a group of young guys that seem pretty lost and they responded to him. And that's a really hard transition for a head coach in the NBA. And I feel so much better about the Rockets than I did 12 months ago. Great case. Defensive player of the year, I put Gobert one, Wemby two, and Anthony Davis three. Okay. You're doing it, aren't you?

You going for it? I'm voting Wemba Nyama one, yeah. You're doing it. Okay. I am. All right, look. I'm voting on the Yamaha one. Yeah. You're doing it. Okay. I am. All right. Look, I'm not against it. Rudy versus all possessions.

You got me there. Points per possession, like 0.85 points at the rim. It's like 0.9. Isolation. It's 0.728. You've got me there. And then I looked at distance travel on the tracking stuff

he's traveled more not with the ball he's probably going to call for traveling more but you get the point he's traveled more distance throughout the course of a game throughout the course of a season than Wimbanyama has this isn't just about the stocks where combined stock

steals and blocks for Wimbanyama is 342 and for Rudy it's 211. The deflections a game for Wemba Nyama are double. The defensive rating when he's off the court is a minus 12 differential where Rudy's a minus 4. If you want to tell me Rudy's the anchor of the best defense of a team that up until today was in the mix for one seed, I can't tell you you're wrong.

I've watched the Minnesota broadcast. I've watched Mike Inouye give us the whiteboard breakdown of why Rudy is number one. But I'm telling you that I've never seen anything like Wimbanyama in a game. And I can't believe I'm saying this after a rookie season. But I think there are more U-turns, more, I want nothing to do with this moment. What was the one, there was the three-on-one U-turn. Three-on-one. It was a couple of days ago.

Three-on-one. The guy had a three-on-one and was like, fuck this, and tripled it back out. I'm not making this a one-game sample, but there was even a difference. I would love to get a couple of beers in Jokic and go, when Rudy's on you one-on-one or when Benyama's on you one-on-one, how do you feel? And I noticed a difference in his aggressiveness and his plan of attack against both guys. And I think when Benyama actually being younger and the springiness that you would have. He's in a play later than Rudy is. And yeah, if I'm going to make my case, I'll keep making my case. Think about the guys playing perimeter defense for San Antonio over the course of this year versus the guys playing perimeter defense on Minnesota's team. So having said all that, it's Victor one, it's Rudy two, and I'm going to switch it up a

bit because I know if I did, and this is where the positionalist thing happens in all defensive teams, then more often than not, I'm just going to favor rim protection. But I'm going to give Herb Jones some love here for versatility because I've seen him just, it's not just the block on Paul George, but it's just seeing all the different ways that they could use him. A vote for AD isn't a bad vote, but that's my three. Do you think I'll be the only person that'll vote for Wimonyama? No, I think

he'll get more votes than people expect. To me, it came down to two things. One is the second half of his year versus the first half, whereas Gobert was steady the whole year. Minnesota's defense was just so much better than San Antonio's. But I also feel like, and listen, this is why we all have votes.

Everyone interprets things a little differently. I do feel like defensive player of the year, at least a little bit, is a team award. And other people might feel like, no, that's not true at all. It's an individual player. The rest of your team doesn't matter. This is the same thing I said with Marcus Smart a couple years ago. When I voted for Marcus Smart, I think he ended up winning, but I was like

they had the best defense and he was the biggest reason for it. Hence, that's why I'm voting for him. And I think with Gobert, that's where I landed. But listen, you can't when you brought up the Wembley defense thing like a month ago and I'm like, what? That team's got 14 wins, but I mean, what he's done since the All-Star break,

he's got to be in the top three for that award. He's also winning Rookie of the Year. Chet's second. We both have Miller third. Right? Yeah. That's done. Sixth man, I had Nas Reid winning.

I have Bobby Portis second. I have Malik Monk third. And I had Westbrook. I wish I had a fourth spot because I would vote for Westbrook if it was four spots because I thought Westbrook, they were 45 and 23 when he played.

He was 11, five and five. I thought, as I've said before, the energy that he brought, I really thought he had a really good bench season. But Nas Reed was the most impactful bench guy for me because ideally you want a guy who can impact the game off the bench, but if somebody's hurt and he starts, he can also be awesome when he starts. And for me, it's him. Who'd you have?

I'm going with Nas as well. He played 80 games this year, but he only started 14. Yeah. And maybe this isn't the way it should be done because I think if you start a certain number of games and it's kind of like, all right, well, you've started this many games, like Bogdanovich for Atlanta, like, look, he's not going to get votes to be first, but he also started 32 times.

And whatever that imaginary number each voter has in its head, it's like, okay, well, you started almost half the season, so can I really give you that? But Nas at 14 starts and kind of manning the ship with cat being out and having to raise his aggressiveness offensively and still continuing to be just such a terrific player and fitting in with what they needed like ant desperately needed somebody else you can rely on offensively, that helps Nas Reed's case,

not taking away from it because he still only started 14 of the 80 games. So I have him one, I have Monk two, and I went Norm Powell three. I thought about it. I couldn't even decide if he was the best sub on his team. I thought Westbrook was actually just as impactful. I get it. Most improved. I'll just tell you my thinking of this. And again, we all have votes. Everybody thinks about it differently, but I agree with the philosophy of, and I wish I had thought about this before, but people really sold me on this, that if you're going from year one to year two, maybe you should have went most, most improved or year two to year three. Um,

you should be improving. You should be getting better. It's like, of course, like, so Jalen Williams is somebody I was like, I want to vote for him in the top three, but then I'm like,

eh, he was really good down the stretch last year. It's the second year. Like he should be getting better. Maxie was another one. I've been this case before. I just, to me,

Maxie was really good last year. He was a 20 point a game guy and he was another one. I've been in this case before. To me, Maxie was really good last year. He was a 20-point-a-game guy and he was really effective. And now he just had more shots. I don't see how he's most improved. I want improved where it's like, I look at a guy from last season and I'm looking at a guy this season going, Jesus Christ, what the hell happened? So Kobe White, being a guy who came off the bench averaging 10 points a game to now he's 19 and five every night. You're watching Bulls Knicks today. He's carving up their defense down the stretch and getting in the rim. He's clearly one to me. I have Denny Abdiah as number two on a shit Wizards team. Denny Abdiah last year averaged nine points a game and shot 29% from three and 43% field goal. This year,

he was 51% field goal, 38% from three. He averaged 15 and seven. And every time I watched the Wizards, I was always like, man, I love this guy. Can this guy be on a good team? So I have him second and Hartenstein third. Hartenstein, who carried the Knicks when they, basically, if he didn't play well, they were fucked. Played 25 minutes a game, plus 9.8 net, and was a borderline all-defense team guy for me. I just think, I watched that dude in the Clippers. I always liked him. He went to a level I did not expect. So those are my three. I like it. I like the way you're thinking. I like the work you're putting in, Bill. The funny thing about the Maxie-Kobe-White thing,

because I brought up Kobe probably a month ago when we first started talking about it, because you brought up a good point with Maxie. It's like, okay, but if you go from 15 shot attempts to 20, are you actually that much better? I mean, this is where the award can be a little silly. You're like, did you improve, or did you just become the number two option

and then became a number one option i felt like he was just about this good last year he just didn't shoot as much yeah right and you you could also say like wait the previous two seasons he shot 43 from three and this year he's at 37 and 45 from the floor overall is the lowest number of his career and i'm voting for him for most improved right but. But what it becomes is, hey, you know who's pretty good is Maxie. And then it's like, do you realize Maxie? I voted him an all-star starter. Yeah.

So the same thing could be said for Kobe, where you're like, wait. So Kobe was 44% the last couple of years. But he basically had a massive jump in minutes. And like his, his thing is kind of like maxi light. It's just opportunity. The argument for Kobe would be, you thought it might just be like,

ah, you know, we may not want to extend them at some point in his career. Yeah. They signed him for 33 for three. And we were like, ah, you know, we may not want to extend them at some point in his career. Yeah, they signed him for 33 for 3 and we were like, ah, I guess. It was one of those. Now it's the best contract probably of any starter.

So it really depends on like, hey, I like the fact that Maxie turning into the ceiling guy despite some of the dip in numbers. And the dip in numbers is that he was tasked with having to take way more shots than he probably, well, I think he likes taking the shots, but it's a little bit like the steph stuff like people go hey you know steph's slumping or whatever it's like do you see the shots he's now accepting as a decent shot late in these games because he knows this shot even though

it's bad it's probably still better than whatever he's ducking under two guys and double pumping one-handed 25 footers for the minute left in the game those are the shots he's getting now so i think that's in the maxi numbers there a little bit um is a is a vote for sam merrill really what this award would be about so i looked at that and it wasn't like that dramatic but i did i did have sam in my thoughts i i did check out his candidacy. If you play 11 games total in the NBA the previous two years and then you play

in 61 this year and shoot 40% per three, like, if you're at one point learned China buddy to in a playoff team's rotation, isn't that the essence

of most improved? I got excited about Grayson Allen for a split second and then I looked at his last three years and I was like, ah, he's pretty, pretty good statistically compared to this year.

So I couldn't do it. I'm not talking about the clutch award. I'll vote for it on the ballot, but I don't think it deserves our discourse. All defense, let's just do top five. Who'd you have first team all defense? Did you go just putting the five best defensive players or did you try to make it kind of look like a team? I'm trying to make this look like a team because if I don't

then I'm going to end up with like nine rim protection guys and I don't want to do that so I'm going to try to keep this as a team let's see I got that's my all rookie which is fun I've got Suggs, Caruso

Wembenyama, Herb Jones, and I put Rudy on there just to break it up a little bit. So I got the Twin Towers going. Because I wasn't going to put Rudy's second team after voting him second in Defensive Player of the Year. I mean, everybody's going to be pissed off at me enough after that one. No, you're going to get some. There might be some Defensive Player of the Year.

I had the exact same five. This is nuts. Herb Jones, Suggs, and Caruso are the perimeter guys that jumped out the most to me other than Jonathan Isaac, who I don't think qualified. He's not there yet. I really thought Herb Jones, like New Orleans' defensive stats were really good and kind of backed up the eye test. They didn't look good today, but a lot of it had to do with how good he is and all the different things he can do. And he had some of the best individual guarding guys possessions. It was like probably him, Isaac and Suggs of just like, oh my God, he fucking annihilated that guy. Oh, he swallowed him up. So anyway, had to mention them. I just want to say I have Derek White, Andrew Holiday on my second team.

All rookie, Wemby, Chet Miller. Who were your other two starters for the first team? And then we're done. I'm fascinated. Like I sent Saruti a text. I go,

try to write down 10 rookies. We have to do all 10. Yeah, we have to do all 10 because that's where it's actually interesting. Same three. I went Pajemski and then Hawkes. I did too.

Now it gets exciting. Who'd you have for the next five? Okay, I felt good about Cason Wallace. I felt good about Cason Wallace. Yeah. I felt good about Jackson Davis. And I think Lively was really important to the Mavs. Had him. So I gave it to him.

That's also because it became pretty slim pickings. And I know what people are going to wonder. And I think Scoot's going to make second team All-NBA because his counting stats are still higher on the rookie thing. I said, talk to me next April. I'm not voting him second team All-NBA.

So I didn't. I put Keontae George down and then I put Amen Thompson because of his defense. So I have George. I have Lively. I have Wallace.

I felt really bad about not putting Scoot but I couldn't do it you didn't put him down either he's gonna make it his counting stats he has too many of the there's too many voters are gonna look at that and go whatever like I'm not

I've not taught, called my broker and said, get me out of this. Okay. And he's been better the last month. He's definitely more comfortable. He's more assertive. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

There's still a million turnovers. And it's, he doesn't, it was any good game. He had was good staff, bad team stuff. Which Thompson did you have? Can you clarify for the audience?

Amen. Thompson. So I had Gigi Jackson as my last one. I love it. I love Gigi Jackson. I got to be honest. I thought about him for first team all rookie. I thought he was that good in the second half of the year. I can't believe some of the games he had.

I couldn't believe what I saw in person from him. And I was just really impressed. He had 44 today in a loss against Denver. You know what? He's one of the best 19. You can take it. I took one of yours. You can take Gigi.

Put him on. Yeah, but then I'm taking somebody off. Take somebody off. I announced it. I took off my coach and put Tibbs on that's oh i sorted it is he allowed on in 47 no he is doesn't matter right this is the 60 not for the rookies that would have been that you know i'm gonna leave thompson there i just thought for a rookie especially you know i know he came in a little bit older and the shooting is terrible we understand

but I was desperate to find a 10th guy Gigi might be the answer because the offensive output there so I could change that one later on we'll see okay before we go Masters really quick Scotty Shepherd wins the second green jacket pretty blah

tournament for the most part I love the Masters every year so every year the ceiling for me most part. I love the Masters every year. So every year the ceiling for me is like, I mean, the floor for it is a B plus for me. But this one, it really felt like unless somebody made a run at Sheffield in the first four or five holes, he was winning, which he did.

Did you have any Masters takes? Yeah, I did. I mean, Max Holm was my guy and it was different because I just don't have a lot of things that make me feel but i had that feeling in my stomach you know he played so well and then was just steady yesterday steady again on saturday so i'm thinking like okay he's got he's got like a real chance at this the announcers are saying how well he's striking the ball and he's never looked more confident it was like It was a lot of homo buzz.

Yeah, right. I mean, he'd gone a really long stretch without a birdie, but at least he wasn't getting hurt anywhere. And then there was a moment where I let it creep into my head. I was like, this might actually happen for the guy. I mean, this is somebody who lost his tour card, got it back. But we had him back on the pod way before anybody because somebody said somebody said hey you two guys would like each other he invited me out to riv and like me and uh everybody's favorite manhattan beach resident teddy purcell they were like i'm gonna bring teddy and then we i was like is it cool if we actually do this with you on and he's like yeah it's wednesday so we walked with max and

he bullshitted with us the whole time during the pro-am and so you know from that point on i was like okay i'm just gonna be rooting for this guy and then you start to think like oh he's been playing so much better it's been consistently he's been better like you just hope that he can be in that spot when he got a 12 or excuse me not a 12 when he got a 5 on 12 because those stupid fucking hedges um the setup for those to be a penalty and i'm like this sucks the only thing like i felt terrible like it was something i haven't felt in a long time wow like i like my stomach and i was like oh come on you know and the only thing that made me feel a little bit better about it is that scheffler just runs away with it so home of finishing up today would have been 73 after

yesterday yeah right like there's a version of it where you're like, man, if you don't get the five on 12, does that mean, you know, you would have been within a stroke or tied or whatever. But Scheffler is just a machine right now, especially for this course. So I watched a ton. That's probably the most I've watched since I went in 2017. And it was fun rooting for somebody that, again, it's not like we're BFFs here, but he's just such a great dude. And I shot him, you know, whatever. I mean, obviously I FaceTimed him at like 2 a.m. the other night, hammered, but he was cool with it.

We, uh, last thing we were trying to figure out what, what the score would be that one, me and house and Nathan. And it felt like somebody had to get to double figures. Right. And it was like minus nine wasn't going to do it. So when you start looking at the board that way, and it's like, this is going to take a 66, 67 for somebody to vault Scheffler, unless he just falls apart, which, you know, he's not because he's a machine and that list all of a sudden shrinks. And it's like Morikawa it's Homaoma, it's the Swede, and it's Scheffler. And it seemed like it was going to be the Swede for a second because the Swede has that, you know, he's like on those Netflix shows where they dub the people's voices and the

true grime. And they have that handsome, buff Swede guy who's just like an assassin. But then he fell apart. All of a sudden, that was it. The Masters just gets big for these people that haven't been there. That's why they talk about the experience. Oh my God, this would be amazing. This is his first major. Nobody does this. It's like, yeah, this would be fucking amazing. This would be like OKC winning the title this year in the NBA. So anyway, home of the 12 is the key. Because he needed, you had to be in the basically mid-60s to really sniff this and you can't have a hole like that.

So that was that. But it still wouldn't have mattered if he had parred it. Well, it matters in the sense, at least if you're close to somebody, they're thinking a little bit differently on 15 and 16. Or it's like, oh man if i mess this up this guy's right beat right on my heels nobody's on sheffield's heels for the last six right so he can play differently so so he pars 12 so he's six under he's still five back in sheffield so if he had finished up where sheffield was minus seven to win the tournament say and, and Homa was minus six, going in with three holes to play there with a par five in front of you too. You're like, all right. But then you get minus six, then 13, 14, 15. Maybe you can grab two more on that. Now you're at eight.

You're at least putting some breath on his neck. Nobody was able to breathe on poor Scheffler. It just sucks to fly the green on 12. putting some breath on his neck. Nobody was able to breathe on poor Shuffler. I just deny it to anybody. To fly the green on 12, there's all these things back there, but it's like, okay, one of them is actually going to be a penalty where, not to be golf guy, but most setups, unless it were

water, if I'm just to the left, I'm in the pine straw. If I'm there, I'm in the bunker, but if it actually gets caught in this hedge, then it's a drop. A bunch of people were doing that all week though. Whatever it is about that hole. Yeah, 12 just, it's like the, I don't know. It's just the Jedi mind tricks you. Scheffler though is like the hands of a Jeff Ogilvie with like the mentality of a Ken Venturi. That's what I see. That was good. That was old school. You did that for Bert Lundquist. I'm going to miss Bert Lundquist. I love them. Last thing, UFC 300. Holloway has...

Was it the greatest knockout in the history of the UFC? It's in the conversation at least. Yeah, it would be like the greatest game winner in the NBA, but it's not even in the Western Conference Finals probably. But I don't know that it's applicable because for you to be up on the cards against a guy like Gaethje, who, you know, it's not really somebody you want to mess around with, point to the center of the ring and be like,

let's just throw blows at each other and end this thing like that's what i always loved about john jones is that at his peak he knew he was going to win the fight but he still wanted to fight and he would change different ways and most of these guys are kind of wired this way anyway especially at that level but for to be that moment where you don't expect it to happen and then a great fight's elevated to this historic status we have anik on the the pod on Tuesday who had the call. So I'm fired up. Anik was great. We had, my son had six friends over and we had a couple other people here. And when that happened, they were all running around the room and jumping into each other and absolutely lost their mind. Like it was like a walk off grand slam. This is fucking crazy.

That never happens. Like he points to the middle and you're like, what are you doing? And then all of a sudden they're throwing bombs. It was great. And then Pereira in the last fight, waving the ref off and then just immediately get the knockout. That was nuts. We were saying that's a top five just when you see the guy in the TV, you're like, that guy's scary. UFC doesn't exactly have a lot of choir boys, but there's certain guys that just have a look where you're like, yeah, that guy.

Wouldn't want to run into that guy anywhere. Yeah, and it's going to rank one through 300, all of them. That sounds great. Who's your number one, I wouldn't want to see that guy, that UFC guy in the history of UFC? Jon Jones. No, I'm not talking about fighting. I'm talking about how they actually look. Tank Abbott?

Tank Abbott's a good one. All right. I loved UFC 300, except for I don't know why they put the five-round women's match between the Gaethje fight and the main event. It was just weird. I would have made that the last prelim because that was going to be a certain style of fight, but what do you mean? Are you saying it's not for you? No. Just be careful. I'm saying

that you want to get that second-to-last match. You want that to be a fast one, right? At that point, you're at the point in the card where you want to go, all right, we know this match is going to be awesome. We know this last match is going to be awesome. You know what we don't need is like 50 minutes here. I want like a knockout match. I would have put the Holly Holm match second to last and just flip those.

You're not with me i like that card was over at 11 o'clock right uh it's just funny that i think it's going to be people are going to forget that max wasn't the headliner two years from now yeah it's fair well that max never i mean he had that became his his moment right his great moment yeah yeah but did he have one before that it was like he had some good wins but it wasn't he didn't have like a signature incredible here's my seven second youtube clip to remember me by no but he's not a guy look i don't know it as well as people listening to this, but I would say that he's had one of those awesome careers,

but not the icon level of a very short list of fighters. That's all. Yeah. All right. UFC 300. Very fun weekend. Russillo, I will see you in a week. We will be talking about playoff games.

And who knows what the seven, eight and each conference is going to be, but can't wait to find out. Good to see you. I feel it's working on the wayside. I'm a person I never was and I don't have to be. Must be 21 plus, 18 plus DC and present in select states. Fandle offering online sports wagering Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambit problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLE or visit fando.com slash RG. In Colorado, D.C., Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey,

North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona, 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 809 with it in Indiana. 800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 877-770-STOP in Louisiana.

mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. 800gambler.net in West Virginia. 800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY

or text HOPE-NY in New York.