The Bill Simmons Podcast - Sacramento’s Sleeper Potential, More MVP Arguments, and a Bizarre All-NBA Situation With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss whether the Kings have a legit shot at winning the Western Conference and if De'Aaron Fox is getting enough love (2:35). Then, they talk about why there’s a good chance Joel Embiid is going to win the MVP over Nikola Jokic and why Jokic shouldn't mind losing it (44:57). Finally, they close it out with some All-NBA team debates (1:12:54) and a Retradeables segment breaking down when Deron Williams got traded to the Nets. Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. March Madness, it's here. Listen to One Shining Podcast with Tate Frazier. He put up his big March Madness preview. Oh yeah, it's happening. Tate is back. March Madness is here. You can listen to that podcast right after you listen to this one. We also have some movie podcasts coming up based off the Oscars, which was tonight. Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins are doing a big picture reaction.

And then The Watch with Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald. I think that's going up tomorrow. Not a ton to talk about. Everything, ever, all, once, one. Basically everything except best actor. You know, we do the rewatchables, and you had those years where a movie just kicks everyone else's ass. And as the years go by, you're like,

oh, 1991, that was the silence of the lamb's year. 2023 is definitely gonna be the everything year. Domination, not that exciting to watch from a telecast standpoint. My guy, Jimmy Kimmel was holding it together though. I thought he did a great job. Obviously I'm biased, but I thought the monologue was really funny. I wish Tom Cruise had been there. It would have been a fun little wrinkle, but whatever. What can you do? Speaking of movies,

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Coming up on this podcast, Ryan Rossell and I are going to talk about the true sleeper in the West. We're going to do some yoke edge and bead because by law, I guess we have to do that. And a lot of all NBA stuff it is all next first our friends

from Pearl Jet all right All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is Sunday mid-afternoon Pacific time. Oscars has not happened yet. We did watch a Nuggets-Nets game just now, and we'll talk about the MVP stuff later. Rosillo, I wanted to lead with the Sacramento Kings today, and then you have the Nuggets lose

and Sacramento is five behind them in the last column. Probably can't catch them for a one seed, but they look like they're a legitimate two seed. I went on FanDuel today, this morning, and maybe the odds will have changed. And I was curious, like, what are their odds for the Western Conference? Gotta be like, what, 10 to one, maybe 11 to one, 12 to one.

What do you think the odds were, Russillo? The Kings to win the Western Conference this morning on Sunday. 25-1? 33-1. They had like the eighth best odds of anybody. And if you look at it, they're going to be the, you know,

really good chance for them to be a two seed. They're battling Memphis for that. They are 40-26 right now. They started out three and six. They're 37 and 20 cents, which is one of the five best records in the league. Philly is the best record, 39, 16. Sacramento is 37 and 20. And there's a lot of stuff about them that we can go into, but just Snapchat, Malcolm Gladwell, blink test. Do the Kings feel real to you yet? I think the standard for them has been so low

for obvious reasons that I just feel like this is awesome. But then the problem is, it's like, wait, they're a two seed and you want me to talk about them potentially coming out of the West? I just don't see it. And I really like what I've seen. This is such an awesome story. This has been an incredible two weeks. They're winning all these games. The Knicks game, think about the last time Kings-Knicks, and I was like, I can't wait for this. Right. What was that, like 1990?

I don't know. Maybe not even 90s. I don't know. 2000? C-Web versus, I don't know, maybe like C-Web versus Sprewell would be the last time.

You're right. I mean, am I crazy? No. Like, do you think they'd win the West? So here, I wanted to go through some stuff because I actually think I was sleeping

on them a little bit until today. Because there's some great history with situations like this that would indicate that we actually are sleeping with them. First of all, they're the best offense in the league. Right? That's not nothing. They're the best at a certain thing. Now, whether you say in the playoffs,

um, will that hold up? I don't know, but they're averaging 121.1 points a game. Their first and offensive rating, the Fox clutch numbers, which we have mentioned a few times on this podcast and on your podcast, uh,

are officially just ridiculous. He scored 20% more points, um, just points than anyone else in the last five minutes of a game is shooting 54%. And so if I, if I'm just looking at two things, how good are they offensively? Well, regular season, they're the best. Do they have two awesome players? I would say Fox and Sabonis. Sabonis is definitely going to be 13 ball NBA. I think Fox has a real case

for second or third team on NBA. We can talk about that later. So they have the two players, they have shooting and they have a real home court advantage and they have real success now. Like going 37 and 20 over a 57 game span, which is two thirds of the season, that's a 55 win pace. So those are my initial things I'm going to throw at you. What's your response on that? The offensive numbers, especially when you consider what they've been, I like to look at the season,

but I also like to look at last 15 all the time. And overall can lie to you a little bit, and then last 15 can lie to you a little bit. But their offense is on a tear. It's not just the best. Their last 15, they're four points better per 100 possessions than the number two offense. And that's Billy. Wow. Well, their clutch offensive rating,

I love that we can... I remember in the mid-2000s wondering, because I knew Daryl had access to all this stuff. And I think I even wrote a column about it at one point. I know there are better numbers there. We just don't get to see them. And now we get to see all these different numbers. One of them is the clutch offensive rating, where their clutch offensive rating for the season is 128.7 per 100 possessions. Utah's number two at 117. So they're 11 points better than everyone else in the league in the clutch. And I got to say, eye test wise, doesn't that add up when you watch the Kings in these last five minutes? Like remember when we used to complain about how bad the shots Fox got and the decisions he made,

that was like my biggest issue with him was I felt like he was a 44 minute point guard the last four minutes. I didn't trust his decision-making at all. Now it's the opposite. I like the decisions. You saw it again last night in that Suns game. He controlled the game. Like he was doing whatever,

getting whatever shot he wanted or getting somebody game, he controlled the game. Like he was doing whatever, getting whatever shot he wanted or getting somebody else whatever shot they wanted. And they just always seem like they have two shooters. You know, Keegan Murray was 0 for 3 last night. He's been in a swoon. And I'll just throw, yesterday it was Kessler Edwards. Just throw him out there. He made a big three.

It just always seems like they have answers combined with the Sabonis element, which he's basically like discount Jokic. So to me, it feels real. Okay, but see, that's back to like the real part where we're talking about them ending the longest playoff drought in major sports. So you're like, whoa, okay.

Yeah, that seems heavy. Then it's, can they win the West? And if I start with all the good things, it's, I'm so happy about this season for De'Aaron Fox because it got so bad at the end of games last year that you and i would like text each other being like hey king's alert and you would just see how bad it was and he forced the issue and you're like okay he's the lead guy he's really fast he's super athletic he's gonna get his 20 a game but i know that i

personally like was at a point going is he gonna be one of those guys is he gonna be one of those guys you're like yeah all right i gave up on it. I'll be honest. I did. I did a tweet, I think, in November where it's like, what would happen if the Lakers offered them Westbrook and those two firsts for Fox? And I don't know whether the Kings, they would have said no.

They probably should have said no. They would have said no. Well, the question for me was like, are those two first round picks more of an asset than De'Aaron Fox? Because I didn't see a path for him to be a top 10 point guard. And now I see a path for him to be a second team NBA guy. So from November to now, it's been dramatic. And the big thing for me is just how comfortable and confident he is in the end of these games, where he's just going against night after night, whoever, and he's either out playing them or going head to head with them and not losing. And that's what's changed. Yeah. I love it. Because if you looked at some of the numbers, you'd go, oh, well, is it that big of a difference?

And it just is his command, whether it's controlling the Phoenix game and you bring up a really good point with Kessler Edwards. Like this is somebody who I always kind of liked with the nets because of his size and how hard he played and some defensive intensity. And, you know, granted, he probably wasn't the greatest option on that fast break last night, but for him to hit that three and also look at like the part that I didn't like about Sacramento is like the starting five that we've touched on. We even mentioned it last week. But when you look at the top five lineups, they've played like 300 more possessions than the second most played lineup in the NBA. In the beginning of the year, when you saw them kind of figure it out, you're like, they play like a team that's played together for a couple of years. So normally this doesn't happen. Normally you don't have from, well, they even make the playoffs and end this drought to could they win the West? So that's always a big leap for me because it doesn't really happen in this league. The defensive numbers are always horrifying to me. So I'm like, okay, how much could I really

buy in? But when you stay on the positives, like I didn't know that they had enough bench and now they're kind of tweaking some things like Herden play a ton against Phoenix. Keegan's playing less minutes recently, which, you know, long-term is not necessarily what you want. But the fact that Metu comes in and plays his ass off and, you know, Lyles is a serviceable guy.

I've never left him. Like he's okay. So, I love the, like, even the New York game. And granted, Brunson left again with the split issues that he's dealing with. But, you know, Hart, who we just saw do a really good job just physically matching Tatum, right? He's not as big as Tatum, but he was tough. And it just made Tatum work a little bit more. They had to take Hart off of Fox. And then they put Quickly quickly on him and then they had to take him off of him. And then

they went with Grimes. And when I saw that, I'm going like, it doesn't even matter. Like they're trying to figure out a way just to slow the point of attack. And I think the best part of the Fox story is, you know, the argument that's pro him even last year with just what looked like forcing the issue is he just wasn't a trusting basketball player he just didn't trust anybody and played with Sabonis long enough Sabonis is kind of a weird fit sometimes because you're like you got to get him touches in different spots than you would normally expect with traditional guys but don't worry because he's actually going to pass it to you when you look at Sabonis's assist numbers like we rave about his dad and people saying like oh he's the original Jokic the The assist numbers for Sabonis, Arvidas,

not your Arvidas, not my Arvidas, they're comically low based on how he's remembered. Like, go back and pull him up real quick. You'll be like, oh, wait. Not to say he wasn't a great big. Yeah, we saw that kind of semi-washed up Arvidas. He was 31. He was 31 when he came to the league.

Right, so I'm not like, but the Sun, this is one of the best passing days just in the shadow of this absurdity that Jokic is, is this point guard center. So, you know, I think the best part for Fox and his development in this team

is that he's going out. There were five guys where he's thinking, or the other four, it's a group that just seems connected. I would love to see a better run defensively for me to start really thinking

about them winning the West. So I feel like it's kind of a cop-out where I'm going, hey, this whole thing's awesome, man. This whole thing's awesome. But if then you're going to be bummed because I don't think they're winning the West, I'm like, your standard is, I mean, I know that's the standard they should be playing for as a two seed, but I'm not ready for that yet. One thing on Fox, I felt like last year, he was almost like listening to a podcast at 1.5 speed versus, I like 1.2,

but it was just a little fast. Everything was like just a little rush, a little fast. And this year he's so confident. Like he has these different things he can do. The way he can drive, he can drive like naturally to the left, obviously. But he has this little funky move to the right.

So he can go either way. And then he has that little pull up at the foul line that you know it's going in when he takes it. Yesterday, I think it was Mark Jones was doing the play-by-play. He made the dagger, 15-footer. And Mark Jones said, the first name De'Aaron, last name him. And I was watching with my son. And my son was like, did he just...

Because you're not him as a big thing in teen culture right now. So they dropped that. And it was kind of justified though with Fox because he was doing whatever he wanted against Phoenix. The Sabonis thing, they have two different paths on a play because they can do that Sabonis, kind of that old school yoke edge guy's cutting and he can find somebody or he can just bulldoze his way down the foul line and beat somebody. Or they have the Fox element, which is another reason I like them. Everybody else kind of fits in off those two, but then they'll have the random Monk game. They'll have the random Herder game, right? They'll have

these dudes like Malik every, I don't know, two weeks. We'll have a game where it's like Malik has 34 points through three quarters or, you know, some crazy box score going on. And that's why in a playoff series, like I feel like he's going to have one game in a playoff series. Right. And they're going to have home court, which is the other thing. They're going to have home court in at least the first round. They get the two seed.

Now you have home court in two rounds and they have an awesome home court advantage. That's a top four crowd right now. So, you know, the inexperience piece makes me nervous. Uh, Mike Brown's at least been in some good stuff. I agree with you on the defensive,

you know, the, can they get stops, which is always what we look for with playoff teams. But then you look at the rest of the West, like, who do you like? I know the Warriors won yesterday,

but was that like, was that with no Giannis? I mean, it was a nice Curry game, but it wasn't really. Yeah, it wasn't like a, I didn't feel it was a nice comeback win, but I didn't feel like it was a great win for them. I left with more questions than answers. They have not figured out the pool piece of that team at all. I don't know when Wiggins comes back and the road record is just absolutely

appalling and abysmal. And to me, it's a way bigger red flag than any king's red flag i've been hanging on to this warriors thing going you know once curry's back and everybody's there like to write them off because i felt like people were just writing them off and curry wasn't even back yet but this wiggins thing is going way longer than everybody thinks i think it's eight missed games and they had just lost to the lakers to okc and that grizzlies lost they got their asses kicked in it too and then you got brooks talking to curry you know and so brooks talking a lot of shit yeah and

i'm not sure because it's just not there and it's like i get to do all this stuff so i would tell you even with the win in overtime against milwaukee again no yannis because of this risk thing uh this is this is not a like to me this whole week for Golden State has me more... I'm not writing him off. I'm not. But I feel worse about him after this week than I do... Me too. I think they have a real issue.

They have a real issue with the pool piece because I don't think he's one of their... I mean, they don't have Wiggins and he wasn't one of the five guys you would have wanted out there anyway. They didn't play crunch time for them. Thief and Chenzo played instead. But in general, those are

going to be Wiggins' spot. And they seem like they're better with Looney. And the pool piece, all the money they gave him. I think he's been really erratic this year. I haven't liked watching him this year. And it doesn't seem like he's that fun to play with. And we've had multiple games now where his teammates just seem

bummed out by the decisions he makes. You know? And they seem off. Phoenix, which is the team that I thought had the best chance to go against Denver and still do in a lot of ways. The fact that Durant is basically not coming back until right before the playoff starts, that makes me super nervous. He's played no games with these guys.

You know, Lakers, I have no idea when LeBron's coming back. I know they're 6- two since the All-Star break, but if it's okay, I'd like to see a couple more games. But you go through and it's like, who's good? Who's the team? It's really just Denver. And Denver's been, they lost again today and Murray disappeared. Murray was five for 19, then he left. They said he was having an issue with his knee. That made me nervous. So I don't really like anybody in the West. That's why, which brings me back to Sacramento. No, it's true.

I mean, the Memphis thing, who knows what's going on there. I mean, it was bad before Ja got into this stuff. And, you know, I still cannot fathom that Stephen Adams would change you this much as a team. I also think it speaks to like as great as Jaron Jackson is as a defensive player, you know, Joss' shots being gone, you just see with Jaron Jackson, like, he's a really nice player. Everybody'd want him.

But right now, he's not that guy that's like, okay, I can take five or six more shots and carry us for stretches offensively. I just don't think that's really his game. Bane is their best offensive option. I like a lot of the pieces. No Clark. No Clark, and he's gone. 25 to 30 minutes a game

is just gone for him. Yeah, right. And then you've got the Clippers who are depends on the week. They're still trying different things. The win that they had last night against the Knicks was just really paying attention to

what Ty Lue is doing. And they've got all these pieces and you're like, man, look how deep they are and how talented this roster is. But I think at this point of the season, we're mid-March and, you know, we know who a couple of the guys are, but he's already kind of weaning himself off of Westbrook, certainly the close games. Shocking. Couldn't have guessed that one. So, I couldn't agree more. I don't know how anyone looks at the West and feels great about it. I mean, Denver's probably going to their worst stretch, which I know we're going to get to.

I really thought them getting home, they'd win this game against the Nets, but then the Nets are way better than a lot of us thought they would be moving out of all those pieces, and they have a bunch of different options. They completely kind of changed what they wanted to do in the third quarter today. And Denver, even as the one seed, like say, Bill, they clinched it by seven games and it's five now.

There's no benefit of the doubt because of history with them. And it didn't feel like it was this immovable object in everybody else's path when there are 500 team on the road, even with this great record. So you talking yourself into the Kings? Is this what this exercise is? Here's the thing with the Nuggets. They lost that Bulls game and the Bulls kind of did whatever they wanted.

That was the worst one of the three, by the way. That was the worst one. And I watched a lot of that. And I thought the Nuggets had such a big lead in the West. And I wondered like, oh, are they just going to do the thing where they kind of fade into the

playoffs? Jokic could care less about the MVP. And probably at this point with all the discourses, like, please give it to a beat. I don't, I don't even give a shit. So I was like,

all right, so they're letting up a little, but this Sunday game against Brooklyn, they, this'll be a, Hey, don't forget about us kind of game. And then they were down 10 the whole game.

You know, and we can talk about Brooklyn. No, no, they weren't. I mean, actually, I think that's the weirdest thing. Well, they came back. I mean, you know, it was classic Jokic. This bench for Denver is awful, and they're trying to figure it out right now. And if you look at their bench on-off stuff, and this is what also speaks to Jokic's numbers,

you know, any of the plus-minus stuff. I mean, he's off the charts with it. But if you look at it, I think it's going into the weekend, it's the second worst differential of any bench group that plays. And then they bring in Reggie Jackson. That's not working out. They bring in Thomas Bryant. That's not working out. I thought Reggie Jackson was going to work out for

them. I was actually surprised that it's been this bad. He was bad again in this game today. Yeah. It's kind of funny how like the buyout market everybody loses their shit right yeah and then you go you know we've been pretty good and we kind of like our eight sometimes ninth guy and it's like no no here's these two other pieces because all the contenders are supposed to do this and then you're the coach you're like all right how am i supposed to figure this out like before this when you thought of like

wait who's the big at denver and you're like, oh, DeAndre Jordan? Not really because that's not really what they want to do. And so today was a perfect Jokic first half because he comes out, they're up, he goes in, they get stomped, and then he comes in and totally dominates the second quarter and they're rebounding like crazy. But

in the third quarter, I thought the Nets, what they did defensively with Jokic and just a lot of stuff. Today was not a Jokic is not mvp game maybe the spurs won defensively which is making the rounds uh yeah but i didn't watch today going like what the hell's wrong with him i watched the rest of the team going what's wrong with you guys yeah yokich ended up 35 20 and 11 missed in two shots that could have tied the game at the end. But what the Nets were doing against them, I thought was actually something I wonder if a couple other teams are going to borrow. If they play the Clippers, I bet the Clippers defend him the same way.

They were just sending multiple people different directions and wings, and they were just leaving dudes open. Aaron Gordon, knock yourself out. We're going to give you 17 footers. I'm not worried about the Nuggets yet, but the Jamal Murray thing worries me a little bit because I don't think he's looked quite the same in the last 10, 12 games or so. It felt like he was really coming on and looking like Bubble Murray again. So I want to find out more from that. And then again, the Reggie Jackson piece where I thought he was going to be this key guy for them. It just wasn't happening. I want to take a quick break because I have some more

King stuff to throw you. I did a little homework, Priscilla. Hey, sports fans, the wait is finally over. FanDuel, America's number one sports book, now live in my favorite state of all 50 states, Massachusetts. New customers in Massachusetts can get into the action with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. When you place your first $5 bet, all you have to do is sign up at fanduel.com slash BS. Money lines, point spreads, player props, more.

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Gambling problem? Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support. 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. So the Kings were 30-52 last year. And it got me thinking

there's different versions of the out-of-nowhere team, right? Like the New Jersey Nets when they made the kid for Marbury trade. They got kid. They were immediately good. There's KG goes to the Celtics. I'm not counting stuff like that. More of the organic, a team going from,

we weren't really anything to, holy shit, we're a two seed. We won our division. And there's a couple of examples in history of teams that actually made the conference finals out of nowhere. So I'm going to give you a bunch of them just quickly, and then I'm going to dive into four that I thought were really good parallels. So the 1989 Suns, that was KJ's breakout year, Pete Chambers, Eddie Johnson, our guy. They were plus 28 from the year before. They finished 55 and 27. They were a 27 win team the year before. Three seed made the West finals. The 2001 Bucks, a team that you loved, Ray Allen, Big Dog, Sam Cassell. They were plus 10 from the previous year. Two seed, they made the East finals. Then we had that 2002 Celtics. So where I met you after one of those games,

49 and 33 plus 13 from the year before they made the East finals. The 07 Jazz, mark them down. 51 wins, 10 higher than the year before they made the East Finals. The 07 Jazz, mark them down. 51 wins, 10 higher than the year before they made the West Finals. And then the 2015 Hawks, who finished 16-22 there, plus 22 from the year before, two seed, they made the East Finals. So the three doppelgangers for this Kings team, I'm going to go through them in a row,

and you tell me what you remember. The 89 Suns, they go 55 and 27. They're first in scoring. They're first in point differential. Second in offensive rating. Fifth defensive rating, so way better than the Kings. And they had a breakout year from Kevin Johnson. Peak Tom Jambors, in my opinion, James Worthy with Worst PR.

Eddie Johnson, 21 and a half that game, our guy EJ. New coach Cotton Fitzsimmons. They beat Denver. They beat Gold State, which was that first TMC team. And then they got swept by the Lakers. And they were a three seed that

year. Now, two things about that team. Hire Cotton Fitzsimmons as the new year. Now, two things about that team. Higher Cotton Fitzsimmons as the new coach and the big trade was that Kevin Johnson, Larry Nance trade, which was like, whoa, that's a crazy trade. And the Cavs got better and the Suns got better. And it was a great trade for both sides, a little like the Sabonis thing. So I think that's a really good doppelganger for this team.

Granted, this was 44 years ago, but do you remember that team? Do you remember when the Kevin Johnson thing took off? It feels a little like the Fox piece this year, tiny bit. Yeah, they had the hammer, Armand Gilliam. So, I mean, you're never going to forget the hammer. I love the hammer because in one of Charles Barkley's books, he says that they were all living when they were younger, when they were on the Sixers, and there, he says that they were all living when they were younger, when they were on the Sixers,

and there was some unit that they were all living in. And the hammer ran an extension cord from Barkley's back deck to his house to cut off electricity or to make sure he didn't have to pay for it. Amazing stuff. I think that was the hammer. The hammer's not around anymore to defend himself on that one. So I want to make sure I'm not getting that wrong. Maybe we'll get IT on that.

Look, Kerr was on that team too. I thought that team was like a really good balance. You know how you look at teams historically, and sometimes we have it now, we don't have it, but like really good positional complementary balance. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, every kid, I think every kid was kind of on the Chambers thing

because he had that dunk, and then they put that dunk in the Sega Genesis game. And like, if you hit it just right at that angle and then hit the button, you just were like, he was a big video game guy. You're right. And he was in the NBA. It's fantastic. He was in one of those commercials. I think one of the things about that year was that was, you know, the Celtics were kind of fading out. The Lakers got old. Jordan and the Bulls weren't quite ready yet. So it was one of those who's going to step up seasons. And then the Pistons were the team that stepped up.

But it was just a lot of sea change, which reminds me this year too. The 2010 Bucs, they finished as a two seed. 2010? I'm sorry, the 2001 Bucs. They finished as a two seed. I didn't remember. I'm sorry, the 2001 Bucks. They finished as a two seed. I didn't remember this. They were second in scoring their first in offensive rating. And, you know,

we've discussed this before on the pod, but they should have beaten Philly. And that's one of the most egregiously officiated playoff series of the entire David Stern era. That was the best East team that year and they should have made it. But a little similar to this Kings team where it was like, oh man, so much offense,

but defensively, how are they going to get stops? And then they took Philly to a game seven in round three. And then the other one that I thought was a really good one for this was the 07 Jazz because they finished 51 and 31 that year. They were third offensive rating, 18th defensive rating. So a little like the Kings. They're only seventh at scoring though. But you had the breakout years that year for Darren Williams and Karolenko were the two guys that kind of ascended. Boozer was already there. You had Sloan there for a long time. They beat TMAC in round one in a really good series where they actually won the last two games of the series. It's a tough one for the TMAC kind of legacy that they didn't take care of business in seven, although I think he had like 29. But then the round two, they're playing the We Believe

Warriors and everyone is on the We Believe Warriors bandwagon. And it's like, this is great. Oh my God. And then Utah's like, no, actually we're going to go on to the next round. We're going to knock these guys out. And they beat them and they lost to a really, really, really good Spurs team. Probably the best Duncan team of all the Duncan teams. So those three, I think, are the recent ones. The Hawks one, that's a little different because those guys, the 2015 Hawks, those guys were all older. They had Millsap and Joe Johnson and Horford. Those guys were all vets. I don't think that's comparable to what we're watching with this Kings team.

But my point is, we have seen this. It's not like this would be inconceivable for the Kings to do this because we do have three examples in the last three and a half decades. The funny thing is when you kind of go back, and I really like that you did that, and you try to think of like, okay, how did I think about those teams at the time?

If we start with the 2001 Bucks run that ended up being the Sixers thing, remember how weird that all was and people like Toronto? The East was bad, man. Yeah. The East was really bad. Philly had 56 wins.

I don't know. I still think the West is more confused than it is just bad and devoid of talent. That's fair. I felt like the East then, like if you go back and look at some of those teams or like one of these teams is going to make the finals i mean next year is even worse that that really mediocre

celtics team almost made the finals yeah i'm glad you didn't include i i'm glad you didn't include them because like it's weird the last 20 plus well, I would cut it off because I think the Celtics team that lost to Miami, although I wasn't surprised, like the Isaiah Thomas Eastern Conference Finals team. It's like, okay, you're in the Eastern Conference Finals. Like, I just always bring this up all the time, you know, like Portland or Atlanta a couple of years ago. There's teams that end up there where I'm like, eh, that's, you know, I don't really

know what that means. Like, it's cool. You made it there. The O2 Celtics are the epitome of that. Like, that was just a fun ride. And then when they were in that net series, like, wait, are they actually going to win this thing? Like, this is crazy.

They were up. Yeah, 2-1. Yeah, yeah, right. They had, it says they had an 18th, they were 18th in offensive rating. I would have thought it was like 27th. I can't believe it's that high. I know.

That was like one of those baseball teams where you're going, you know, wait, wait, they're good or they're not. And they're just kind of in it. So that whole time I was like, this is house money because I can't believe this team is even competing and up on the nets. And then it's like, well, whoever wins the East is going to get killed. So I'm glad you didn't compare Sacramento to them because I think in the lesson in all of this is that I feel better about Sacramento, not only now, but moving forward than probably any of the teams of the three that you focused on.

Yeah. I mean, first in scoring, first offensive rating, 26 defense, which kind of adds up to what we're watching. And again, to me, no definitive West team. I think if Durant hadn't gotten hurt, I think the Suns, by the end of the season, we would have been like, all right, road goes through them. Especially if Murray's getting a little sketchy here. I was already there. I was already there with him without even playing.

And that's what I love about that Sacramento win last night. Because you would have thought Phoenix, even at home and without Durant, it wasn't like... And you could talk about, okay, well, the pieces that they're moving out're moving out okay fine but you thought they would have gotten that one um but sacramento's on fire right now and they controlled that game at the end too and then like all of a sudden phoenix has taken bad shots and it's like man sacramento's actually stepping up here and barnes was probably the story you know as far as the offensive balance that's what i like about them is they have a bunch of shot makers i know we, the defense goes without saying, but when you're looking at a playoff team going,

if somebody gets stuck or, you know, do they have options off of their main guys getting stuck? And Sabonis will try to attack you a bunch of different ways as well. I mean, he makes fools out of people. I can imagine he must've just learned all these post moves, trying to get the ball free against his dad in the backyard. Like, that's what I see when I look at him. I'm like, all of those times,

he's probably screwing around with his dad in the back. Like he what I see when I look at him. I'm like, all of those times he's probably screwing around with his dad in the back. He has all of these moves because he was little and tried to figure it out. And he makes people look like fools. So, yeah, I don't know. I think they're really hard to play.

And we'll see in the playoffs, we know everything slows down. The pressure gets higher. You get to look at a team over and over again. But the pace that they play and how skilled their guys are, I think they're good. Listen, it would make no sense to me if they made the NBA finals. That seems like just one of the craziest leaps in the history of the league, where you go from, you haven't made the playoffs for 17 years during the finals. I don't think that, but I think 33-1

Western Finals, at least for them to be one of the two teams, I could see it. Even if you go through 2-7... Wait, it's 33-1 to get into the Western Conference Finals? No, no, to win the West. If you have

them in the finals, you can just go against it. But, you know, you look at,, all right, who would they play? Well, you're going to pick up against the healthy Lakers in a 2-7? Well, the season ended today. Minnesota, Dallas. I mean, it's so hard to say who's going to make it. But Golden State, to me, it's almost more realistic for Golden State to drop into the playoffs than the Lakers to... I put that wrong.

I could see the Lakers being the sixth seed. Seems more realistic to me than the Warriors getting their shit together. I don't know what to make of this Warriors team anymore. I don't understand the road record at all. I'm really dumbfounded by it. And Kerr, like when he drew that play for the game winning three for Draymond last night,

I was like, all right, what the fuck is going on? Okay. I'm with you on this. Cause I went, I even tweeted about it, which,

you know, I don't do all that often. We're a hundred percent. It was for green. Where it was an inbound Curry was this like little flare. It was a hundred percent for green. You could tell by the way he was laughing. Yeah.

And then Kerr kind of had to look like, Oh, I'm glad we tried it. And I'm like, what's going on? You're on ABC and a Saturday night. You said Draymond green, try the game winning three of a,

of a, of a Saturday night game that you actually needed. I thought that was weird. I think the vibe of the team is weird where we've always talked about the on-off switch. It's a combination on-off switch, but also guys have just been hurt at these different points and they've never had their guys together. I think the reason we're afraid to count them out

is what happened last year, where all of a sudden they had all their guys together and they turned the switch. I mean, look, they're still playing. The Moody's basically out of the rotation. They're trying to figure out a way to get Iguodala in there, which I kind of don't understand. I don't get it either.

What is he, 39 now? It might just be a lack of bodies. So there's that. I mean, Jermichael Green played 23 and Ty Jerome, who I love his approach to playing basketball on offense. I just love it. But, you know, he's like a two-way guy playing real rotation minutes at this point

because of the Wiggins piece. And I'm with you on Poole. I mean, he's taking more shots and the percentages are down. We know he's a bad defensive player. And when he fucks up, it's like, oh my God, like your mom could be with you and never watch a game and she'd be like, what's that guy doing? Right. You know, I went back, I was trying to figure out how weird of a season this is. And I went through the highest point differential total for every season for the

last 30. Because this year, if you go, at least when I did this on Friday, the Cavs and the Celtics were plus 5.4. And those were the two best point differentials. And I was like, wow, that seems low. 5.4, usually we're like in the seven. So I went backwards and there were only eight teams in the last 30 years, not counting this year, that were in the sevens or lower. And the lowest was, I think 6.8 was the 2006 Spurs. And then there was another 1993. It was like the Sonics and their sons were like 7.0 and that was it. So this is historically strange

that we don't have a team that's, I'm not even saying dominant, but at least a team that's like six points a game better than somebody else. That has not happened since Apex Jordan. And to me, that makes sense because that's what we're watching. And I don't, do you have an explanation for that? Do you think we finally hit the point where there's so much talent and there are so many good guys and then the offense has gotten so good

that there's just too much variance now? Well, it's never been easier to score. We've covered that. But it's also the most talented group of players I've ever seen. I mean, the number of nights where I'm watching the eighth or ninth guy come in, I'm like, I can't believe how talented this guy is. I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, again, Cam Thomas is a bit of a, like, you know, depends on how you watch the game type of thing. But, I mean, he went on a Jordan run for a week,

and now he can't get minutes. And Seth Curry couldn't play for a week and comes in, and he's doing, you he's driving down the lane and big crunch time baskets today. I also think when I was going through the All-NVP stuff, it feels like the majority of the guys have been playing more than what was a combination of three weird years, which I reference a lot. It may be just a one-off because normally that's not what this sport is.

I also think that we went a decade plus of the groups, the one or two teams that had a third guy that was so off the charts that you looked at them going like, all right, well, if they lose, it'll be an injury or something colossally stupid goes on with them. I don't

know that it's a flat top of the league because of now this is forever. Sometimes things happen and sometimes I'll be like, is a thing happening or is something actually happening? And it would have to happen more years for me to say that the league is dramatically shifted, but it's not like this. It's not what we grew up with. It's not the way this league works. And we're sitting here legitimately saying like seven or eight teams could win a title. And that just doesn't happen when it's march yeah you go backwards i would feel the best about the bucks this is the worst i felt about the celtics all season it's got it's gotten even worse since when we talked a week ago we don't have any

celtics scheduled but i do want to just jump in here if we're going to say it because we're not going to do anything else on it i don't think today last week when you were like why don't you benchmark is smart um i watched a couple games with my dad and he would like to have that vote for you to close with Derek White. The three that he took against me. My dad was also like, I'm upset at Rosillo and next time he's at a game

I'd like to talk to him about this mark a smart Derek White thing. So yeah, the old guys are on Derek White. I think we were both on the same page about smart for a long time. My biggest issue with Smart is he probably thought he was as good as Tatum and Brown is. Did you see the game last night? I'm just saying for a second,

I thought Smart's last season is the best season he's ever played. I don't care what the numbers are. It is the best season he's ever played. And I didn't even vote for him Defensive Player of the Year. I don't know what is going on with him now. I mean, he was so bad against the Hawks.

I know he hit the big three there, but he took that huge three against Cleveland because he wanted the dagger moment when they should have run more clock. Now, a wide open three, I know what the numbers are. That's fine. I got to imagine that Missoula is going,

I'm just trying to get him back at some point because he missed so much time and we'll see what happens. I do think coaches default to, Hey, he was our guy. He was our guy that was on this ride last year. I can't abandon him.

And I think the Celtics biggest issue that you're seeing right now is like, you know, whatever you want to think about Dylan Brooks is you need somebody who will punch somebody else that never happens, but you need somebody like that. And for the Celtics, if they don't have smart, is their kind of guy,

there's no one else on that team that has that kind of personality. However, Smart's had a tough week in the Atlanta game, even though they won it. That was just an awful game from him. He was horrendous, and they should have won the game by 15. And there were multiple times when the game was over, and then Smart made a play that just significantly brought Atlanta back in the game, and they just wouldn't take him out.

The Smart piece, the fact that smart Grant Williams, I agree with you on last year and smart. We've, we talked about that last year as it was happening. The fact that Grant Williams is basically out of the rotation or he's being yanked around or they're trying to prove some point with them and smart is the worst.

He's looked really since his probably rookie season. This is the least athletic he's looked. This shot, the bad shot selection is back and it's the worst version of him we've seen in years. And Rob Williams doesn't play. Rob Williams plays for eight games and then he's gone again. And these were the three guys that were the linchpin of when they turned it around last year. And I don't feel good about any of them. Now White's been way better, but so anyway, they have the second best record in the league. I don't feel good about any of them. Now, White's been way better. So anyway, they have the second best record in the league. I don't feel good about them. Philly, I'm starting to feel better about. Cleveland, I'm starting to feel better about.

How could you not feel good? Well, I don't know. You just have to tell me Harden and Embiid are going to be healthy for two to three more months. I just want to see that. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, I mean, if we're doing that. I don't trust them physically from a health continuity standpoint, but I think from a basketball standpoint, this is the best they've looked. And Mobley, what he's doing with Cleveland now, they've become more interesting. You know, so it is wide open,

which brings us back to the whole reason I started with the Kings team because it might just be one of those years where like home court advantage and the ability to outscore people in in these 129 to 125 games and then some lucky injuries and Durant not coming back and whatever's going on the Wiggins and then all of a sudden we're looking at the Kings with a 2-1 lead in the West Finals I'll add one more thing to the Kings Mike Brown would be my coach of the year vote. And I think at one point, you're like, you didn't really know what to make of him as a coach. Because when you coach LeBron, you're not

really coaching him. He's going to run what he wants to run. And by the way, it worked forever. So this isn't even... I remember asking Advanced Scout once, I go, hey, what do they run? And he was like, Mike Brown actually gets you into some stuff. He's like, but then LeBron just kind of resets it, wants to play slow, dissect it it and it's a pretty good formula and you're like

yeah no argument and then the Lakers thing was kind of a mess and it was on the way out so you didn't really quite know you were like everybody raves about him and if Kerr has him as his number two then he must be really good in his preparation he must be really good in what he sees but I don't even know that he got a chance to be this kind of coach. And I feel good for him that he's in a place where there isn't this one dominant figure that ultimately you're deferring to whether you're the head coach or not. And I think it speaks to like, whether it's the organization top down, all the stuff like these guys being receptive to coaching. And I see them do stuff over the course of the season. I mean, again, I'm not watching every single Kings game, but you know, whether it was the, the Minnesota game where I think Sabonis had fouled out and they went with Trey Lyles. Uh, it's the Phoenix game last night. Um, how they use Mitchell at certain times. Uh, I, I'm really just impressed with the entire thing. It seems it's, it's rare that you would have a group that's this new together where there seems to be so much buy-in.

I feel like I've pulled you on my side a tiny bit. By the way, I'm not predicting the Kings are going to win the West. I just think nobody has taken them seriously the whole season. And I think we're at the point where they should be taken seriously at the very least. They should be mentioned with some of these teams. I'll ask you one other thing. It's funny how propaganda works for the MVP and campaigning.

And back in the day when we were younger, you couldn't win the Heisman unless the previous year they'd already started that and it took place over the summer. Now everything moves so fast, it's almost like worse being the Heisman favorite. I'm not voting for De'Aaron Fox or MVP, but the fact that with his numbers

and the clutch numbers and the fact there are two seed in the West and that i don't i hate the hey this guy needs some mention and then on a tv show and you're like cool then pick right nobody's picking him but it is kind of funny that he's never ever like allowed to even be thought of as a top five guy despite the profile being the number one option and being a really good regular season record. Does that make sense? A hundred percent makes sense. It's one of my least favorite TV talking head moves where they go. I hate it too.

I just did it. Nobody's talking about Kevin Durant and how good he's been. It's like even Kevin Durant, the 50th best player of all time is averaging 30 points a game again. No, we're talking about it. It's, it's, it's,

but you're right with Fox. Like it's nobody. I was going through the award stuff and I went, oh, wow. I can't wait to do that with you because everybody's focused on this MVP, which has just become this blood war for whatever reason. And there's some real fun All-NBA stuff too. Let's take a break. And I want to go through some of the,

the MVP, not in the way you think we're going to talk about in the all NBA, just like a snapshot of where we are, because there's some, there's some voter dilemma stuff that I don't think people fully realize. So that sucks. 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.

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no preset spending limit. More cash on hand to grow your scale with no preset spending limit more cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400 airport lounges worldwide redefine possible with business platinum that's the powerful backing of american express terms and conditions. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right. So you led your podcast on Thursday. You had a nice little monologue about the MVP race and how toxic it's been. And you made the same point that I made in my little quick thing I did at the top that the whole reason we have all these voters is because sometimes you have years where

people disagree on stuff. And then it comes down to, hey, we polled 100 people and 60 people thought this and 40 people thought this. And that's how it went. I think with the MVP, to me, it's crazy how in the last, I went through all the races. I wrote down every single MVP race that was separated by 150 points or less. And in the last guy, where Westbrook had 888 points, 69 first place votes. Hardin had 753 points, 22 first place votes. And then other than that, there's been pretty much consensus every year, which is I think the part people have missed with the Jokic stuff the last two years. There was pretty major consensus that he won. When Bird won his three MVPs, there was a ton of consensus for that. For the most part, we've had consensus.

I went back though. I was surprised. Both of Duncan's MVPs were way closer than I remember. Do you remember that? I remember the kid one being a debate. I didn't remember that the next year, him versus Garnett was like one of the closest ones we've ever had.

I just remember that like G year him versus garnett was like one of the closest ones we've ever had i just remember that like garnett felt like it's a little bit like dirk we're like when's this guy gonna win his yeah um and maybe that's what mb is going through right now you know watching these games and watch them every night and then you know going wait that guy ended up not winning one like when's he gonna get his i mean that was certainly the carl malone one where it was like all right we got to get this guy one which again is fucked up but uh i i was so pro duncan like i was so pro duncan me too every time i i just almost felt like he was still underappreciated in the moment you're like do you understand that you're penciling your team in for 50 plus wins every single time and And like something has to go wrong for them. Not even though they have some earlier exits than you would maybe realize on on the team resume throughout that run. But yeah, I'm sure back in the day I was always arguing with Duncan.

That one was 954 to 897 for Duncan Kidd. 57 first place votes to 45 for Kidd. Yeah, that's close. Yeah, really close. Okay, but remember the newness, though. Like, never forget, voters are writers.

Writers like stories. They like to tell stories. That's the Westbrook vote. You know, Westbrook's the guy that kept the money, stayed in OKC, the anti-Durant triple-double that's a great story.

You know, so never forget the impact of storytelling, which is wrong, but it happens. But, so that shifts in the mid storytelling, uh, which is wrong, but it happens. But so that shifts in the mid two thousands. And I wanted to get to that. The Oh three Duncan Garnett, nine 62 to eight 71. Duncan had 60 first place boats.

Garnett had 43. Basically they had the same season except Duncan's team is better. Um, Nash shack is the single closest one we've had other than Irving Bird in 1981. That's the old five one? Yeah. Nash was 1066. Shaq was 1032. Nash had 65 first place votes. Shaq had 58. I have MVP columns that you can go back and read dating back to like 2004. And then I did a bunch of stuff for my book about it, about all the years I went through every year. I had Shaq, I voted for Shaq that year. I had Nash sixth on my ballot. Um, and I was just like, I was just

like, I don't see it. And I had LeBron and Wade over him and I had Dirk over him. Wow. Wait, in Nash's first year with Phoenix? Yeah, I had him sixth. You had him sixth? Because that's a classic new car smell. Like, Nash has completely changed this team, even though they're still good. But, like, it was something that everybody, if you were a neutral fan,

it was kind of like some Warrior stuff before Durant got there and everybody got pissed about it, which I understand. But it was like, oh, the Suns are on? Like, I want to watch this. You know? There's two big things that were going on.

One was that the league was horrible to watch. It was a horrible product in 03 and 04. And they changed the hand check rules. But Nash, that was like just a fun team

to watch. And we just loved watching them. And he got the most blame. But man, when you go back and you look at their stats, Omar is incredible that year. And the advanced stats are like really favorable to Omar that actually he probably got fucked over. He should have been top five MVP that year. They had Marion, they had Joe Johnson, they had Quentin Richardson who had the best year of his career. And you could have made the case like there were a lot of nights where you didn't even know Nash was the best guy in that team. 06, I picked Kobe. I think I had Shaq fifth in 06.

Kobe to me, that was another, that was kind of an anti-narrative thing where people just didn't want to vote for him because of the trial and the Colorado stuff three years. But that's why he didn't win. You can spin it all you want now and you can say he got boned over,

but people just weren't ready to vote for him. I voted for him. The 07 one was the one I thought Nash should have won. And that one was 1138 to 1013, 83 for Nowitzki, 44 for Nash. And Nowitzki won because he was due and because of the 67 win thing. I bring this up because I think as we hit the late 2000s and the internet got better and the stats got better, and also the backlash to people because Twitter, if you had some guy who's like, you know what, I'm just voting for Jason Tatum for MVP. I don't care about this Jokic and Bidjianas thing. I covered Tatum and I watch him and I just really value what he does. And I don't really care. That's going to be my vote. You can't do that anymore. So I think for the most part, I think if you go through, I've had the same vote as the MVP since 2009 with the 2017 year accepted. I voted for Harden in 2017 over Westbrook. But every other year I've had the MVP vote. And I think most people had, we've just had consensus. And I think one of the reasons with 2023, why it's become so contentious is because it's the first time we haven't had consensus with four weeks left. Like it's really,

to me, I don't know who I'm voting for. I like, if anything, I'm, I might be a slight lean to Embiid right now. There's 14 games left. And if it's okay with everybody, I'd like to watch three more weeks of basketball and kind of see what happens. Embiid had an awesome game winner the other night. Jokic had a chance to have a game winner today. Missed it. Tiny moment, but it matters

a little bit. They're playing head-to-head in a week. I'm going to watch that game. If Embiid beats the shit out of Denver again, that's going to matter to me. My point is, can you give us the 80 games? Do we have to decide in game 63 and start yelling at each other? I don't understand it.

I think the problem too is that Tim Bontemps, who does the straw poll, it came out February 16th and Jokic had 77 of 100 and Embiid had only 6, which is in third place to Giannis, who had 11. By the way, someone in the straw poll gave Durant a fifth place vote.

You know, I mean, look, I can't... By the way, that straw poll was totally fair a month ago. Embiid over the last month... I know the 77-6 fell off, but Jokic was in the lead a month ago. He was. Like, Jokic got off to the bad start, at least

on the straw poll, because then Tatum, they're what, 20-5, 21-5? And it's like, all right, Tatum's clearly better player this year, which I think we'd all agree on. And then Jokic goes on his tear again. I mean, I could sit here all day. I think the problem is the rising tide raises all boats

is that when you look at any stats, if I wanted to just sit here and stump for one guy i could go 30 minutes would be pretty boring podcast but i go 10 straight minutes and you listen to my cell and you go how is that guy not the mvp and what makes it so hard this year is i could do the exact same thing with the two other guys even though janice is metric some of the analytic stuff for janice is like almost undervaluing him a little bit and i don't know if that's you know the plus minus stuff that comes into it gets really weird. Because if you look at Jokic, it's off the charts.

It's off the charts, but the bench is so bad. So you're like, okay, he's great. That skews a little bit. Yeah. It should be one thing you look at, but not the thing. No. And that's where it hurts Embiid where it's like, okay, you know, Embiid's plus minus is still really good. But do we go Jokic has that much more of an impact on a game,

or does Philly just have a little bit more balance to it where there isn't that much of a drop-off? And that would be unfair to Embiid. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff. You know, there's a defensive one. And again, I'm just kind of bringing these up because they're going to be used all the time, so I'm just sort of warning everybody ahead of time.

If you go defensive plus minus for every player in the NBA, defensive box score plus minus, do you know who's number one? Tatum? Jokic. Really? Now, even I think the guy that came up with the box

score plus minus thing was like, it can be really flawed because if you're a terrific offensive player, it's still a plus minus, Matt, that looking at right and yokich is that good offensively that i think it skews into the whole thing like there's a play there's an alley-oop to claxton where i actually didn't think yokich was bad defensively today at all so we'll see what the kids on twitter do with it they were asking him to do a lot they were having him come way out and show they were trapping spencer dinwiddie that's why he had a million assists because he was like, look, they were blitzing the hell out of me. He was talking about in the postgame.

And then there's an alley-oop to Claxton where I go, okay, that's a play there where they can't do that to Embiid. Like they can't throw that alley-oop and have Claxton dunk it over the top of him because Embiid is going to make you feel something. If I want to be completely unfair to Embiid, which I wouldn't want to do because I still may end up voting for him because I think he's fucking awesome. And he's on this absolute tear and philadelphia is now flirting with like a real seating thing here yeah which would kind of cancel out where denver felt like they were running away from it but now philly's playing so well but if i wanted to i could cut up some stuff of like him having to stay in front of lillard which no center is going to be able to do you know which would be unfair to mb or the times he's late to show in the first half of the three-point shooter because

guess what guys that are seven1", that weigh that much, aren't going to close out hard on three-pointers all the time. So I never remember it ever being this nasty. There's certainly more skin in the game for me because it's my second year with a vote, and I care about it this much. But when I look at the defensive box score stuff, which Jokic voters will use if they vote for him and will use that and say, oh, his defense actually is way better and look at all the metrics because there's like contested stuff and i'm like yeah

but my eyes don't tell me that my eyes don't tell me that he's the best defensive box score guy even though whenever i've looked at some of that plus minus stuff bill i feel like it tells the truth at the extremes because after yokich which again is nuts mb it's 10th by the way if you look at who else is in the top five, it's Caruso, it's Giannis, it's Jaron Jackson, and it's Draymond Green. So you're like, okay, wait, that makes sense. But I think it actually speaks to the fact that Jokic

is so off the charts offensively that it raises some of that stuff up. Because, and I'll finish here, if you go to the extremes of the high usage scores that we all think suck on defense, well, who are a bunch of the negatives? Oh, Dame, Beal, Jordan Poole, Trey Young, and then Jalen Green, whatever Houston's trying to do right now,

which I know they're trying to lose a million games. It's just bad basketball to watch. No, it's working. But I would end it this way. I don't know what I'm going to do, and it's a really, really hard vote. By the way, that's where you should have landed. Why would you know what we're going to do. And it's a really, really hard vote. By the way, that's where you should have landed. Why would you know

what we're going to do yet? There's not even in the 70 game market. That's the part. It should be fun that this is this wide open. All of this to me is fun. It's not fun. It's not fun at all. But on the other hand, I don't think... Somebody like my dad doesn't care that people are giving

other people shit on Twitter or whatever. I think what's getting lost in a weird way is how great the three players have been. And specifically, I want to talk about Embiid for a second. I do feel like he's better this year than he was last year. I do feel like, and people could throw a hundred stats at me, but no, no, actually it's the same. You look at last year and this year, like I'm just telling you, watching the game, I test like that Portland game the other night, doc calls timeout the last, last play of the game and beats going to have a game winner. He's got Nurkic on a one-on-one. It's a matchup you want

every time. And doc calls timeout with eight seconds left. So he can get Embiid a worse shot, which Embiid makes anyway. I thought the shot was going to go in. Like to me, Embiid has reached this point where his fucking offensive toolbox that he has now, his face up stuff, his ability to overpower people. I was thinking about watching Ewing, like, I don't know, late 80s Ewing when he really had his knees and he was just this awesome, could face up, could hit long shots, could hit the

little jump hook. And he had this whole package. It's like, wow, Ewing, it's really got it together. Like to me, Embiid is just offensively better than Ewing was. And Ewing was one of the 40 best players of all time. He came really close to the finals a couple of times, lost to Jordan. I think I'm not ready to go there with a keen, but I think he's a better offensive player than David Robinson was. I think he had more stuff to his game than Shaq ever did.

Shaq was a little more overpowering, but Embiid, I think, brings more to the table. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Say that Shaq part again? I think, brings more to the table. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Say that Shaq part again? I think Shaq was more overpowering. I think Shaq's footwork was insane, man. But I'm saying he didn't have the ability

to bring people away from the basket like Embiid does. I would say near the basket, Shaq still has the edge. Yeah, this is where the generational comps can kind of... Right, sure, right, okay. I'm never ready to mess with Hakeem ever. Yeah, I'm not. Hakeem, we're putting over there.

We're putting him on the side. But I think it's just been amazing to watch him and Bede's journey over the last six years because he's still like the first couple years even he was gifted,

there was still a clumsiness to him. I remember he would fall down a lot or you'd always be worried like he was going to get hurt. I don't know that that's gone away. I'm worried about him getting hurt. But like a pro-MB thing would be like there's other players who I think are really talented. We talk about all the time.

And then you look at the playoff resume. I actually never really have felt that way about him. I mean, it's a good argument winner if you want to go there with somebody. I just don't really want to because I like him so much. And I actually have liked him this much the whole time. You were like, oh, we'll get out of the second round. I mean, the problem is like if Jokic wins this MVP and they don't win

and they're not some overpowering Denver team. Okay. And I'm not just talking about this week. If they don't win, Jokic It's better for Jokic not to win. Let's be honest. Well, I don't know about that. I mean, I want to be the guy who's the third dude ever to win three MVPs in a row. I'm saying from a pressure for trying to win the playoffs this year, in a weird way, it's better for him if Embiid gets this MVP and then it could be like,

all right, let's just try to win the title here. And that's why the Giannis thing is so crazy because I have a monologue in my head that I haven't quite done. And maybe we, but we're such dicks. We're dicks when we talk about these guys. And Giannis was headed for dick town. He was right in the crosshairs. Bud was going to get fired. It was going to be, oh, this guy, okay, cool. He wins an

MVP. And those are just the rules. And sometimes I think it's totally accurate when you're looking at somebody's playoff runs and going, how come this guy doesn't win? I'm like, you know, that's really what we're doing here and paying attention to. And with Embiid, I'm not, I don't know, maybe I'm being too easy on him. And then the Miami series last year was a mess. The Toronto series is the toughest one for him. It is. I know Simmons is a piece of that, but. But that's why, like, that's another entry into, like, the mind of Ben Simmons, not your kid.

But, like, when he does the stuff and starts talking about, like, what Embiid didn't do in the Toronto series, and you're like, fuck, are you serious? Like, Embiid... At least I know when I'm watching Embiid, if he's losing the playoffs series, I don't even count that heat one, because that whole thing was a mess.

Like, I think that guy is ready. He's up to the task. There's some late stuff when you're a big guy. The game is just tough for a bigger guy to get all of his stuff on his own anymore. the benefit of the doubt the way a quarterback does? Where when you watch Jokic control everything offensively, and he has more weapons offensively as an offensive player than Embiid does. I mean, the passing alone, right? Not that Embiid isn't a terrific passer, but I mean, you know, this Jokic stuff is insane. Do you think that Jokic almost is treated like a quarterback in comparison to the non-quarterback in the NFL where the voter has a hard time going, well, how can this other guy be as important as this dude who literally dictates

everything they're doing in every offensive set? It's a good question. I think you have to go back and you have to compare him to Bird and Magic and probably Nash to some degree, but especially those three MVPs that Magic wins, a lot of it had to do with he makes everybody better.

He elevates everybody. Every single player he plays with is a better version of themselves because they're on Magic's team. And I think you could say the same about Jokic and that's the best case for him. Embiid is more of the traditional, he lifts the team up because he's so good.

You know, and like that shot he hit at the end of the game on Friday night, that's like the traditional, awesome MVP shot that we're used to, right? Jokic missed his today. That's not really why you have Jokic. He's more of, yeah, whatever. He, Jokic is a connector and he's an elevator and Embiid is an overpower. And sometimes it can be a taste thing, which is why it's good that you have a hundred voters. All right. Let me ask you another question kind of along the same lines is, you know,

when I see these videos are popping up more and more now about Kobe and players talking about Kobe, right? Like there's this reverence. And I think it also is this incredibly sad ending to his life. That's a big piece of it. Can prop up. People just don't want to start sitting there and criticizing somebody who's not around anymore, right?

I mean, we do it with musicians all the time or whatever. But Kobe was so impressive physically. There was this dynamic ability, like beyond all the numbers and all this other stuff. You knew when it was like, what are you going to do with this guy? You talk to talk to other teams right like other people in the front office would be like that guy and the same thing happens with ex-players and yet i and i you know sure plenty of people think i'm wrong here like i would rather have duncan to be the anchor of my franchise especially then when you go through the duncan and kobe career like i would just rather have what duncan was you know where I stand on that one. Right, right.

Like, when I see these all-time lists, and people are like, I think Arenas had another, and he's been on a heater all season. He once, I think he said, Russell Westbrook was the key for who was coming out of the West. He was like, if you don't have Kobe in your top five,

and I'm thinking like, okay, wait a minute, does that mean Duncan? I think most people would have Kobe ahead of Duncan. So the reason I bring that up is this question to you. Do you think, Do you think Jokic is kind of Duncan and Embiid is Kobe in that when Embiid is going physically, it's so much more impressive than anything Jokic does? was pretty obvious the whole time. Like Duncan's teams were always 55 wins no matter who was on his team. And he won a title in 03 with really nobody and beat Shaq and Kobe together.

And I don't think he had an all-star on that team other than him. I think the problem with this MVP thing is that we just have three awesome choices. Now Giannis might fade out because he's doing things like he skipped a Saturday Night ABC thing. Like if Giannis could have played in that Warriors game yesterday, I know he's a little banged up, but he could have put up 42 and 25 against the Warriors yesterday.

And then people would be going today. Oh, it's Giannis. I just think the choices are really hard. I remember I went back. One of the things I did in my book was I was trying to figure out the 1981 MVP race. And this was a different era where everybody kind of would decide who the MVP was halfway through the season. And everybody decided it was Julius Irving's MVP. It was time for him to win one. And then something weird happened down the stretch where the Celtics started playing really well and Bird started to have some monster games. And it was kind of closer than people realized. Final game of the season they're playing in Boston. Celtics beat them. Bird's great. Bird has like five steals in the first quarter and he's just the best part on the floor. But Irving won the MVP because it had kind of

already been decided. It was like, whatever. Nobody really cared about the MVP the same way back then. I think that's an old way of thinking about the MVP where people would kind of decide around game 60 who was going to win it or what the narrative was. And that was kind of what takes hold. Now people get mad at the narrative, even when nothing has unfolded yet. And it's game 63 and people are flipping out and accusing people of already decided of whatever. Jokic was the MVP favorite for the first two thirds of the season. I think Embiid, with what he's done in the last month, not only has closed the gap, but I think he's going to pass them. I think Embiid or Giannis is going to win the MVP because I don't think the West matters as much to the Nuggets or Jokic and I see them fading back. So on FanDuel today, Embiid was plus 250. To me, Jokic and Embiid should be even because Embiid's on a mission. And I got to say, as a voter, if it's dead even, and I'm looking at it, I'm like, man, should Embiid have one of these? If it's two to one, Jokic versus Embiid versus 3-0, that is going to be a factor this

year for people. Maybe it won't be one of the top 10 variables, but it'll be something you think about. He is kind of due. If it's this even and the records are even and everything's even, yeah, fuck it. I think that's why he has a real chance. Yeah, I think you're right. I think the recency thing, even with Giannis, I had a moment, I don't know, two weeks ago where I started flirting in that direction where I was like, I might

just do it. He's the best player in the league. They're going to be the one seed in the East. I'd pick them against any other team. Like, what do I need to make it this complicated? Like I saw a stat the other day that talked about how Embiid was on pace for the best scoring per 36 that we've seen since Will. And I was like, wait, what? And Giannis is actually ahead of that at per 36, but Giannis is technically a center. So I was like, okay, that felt a little disingenuous. It's like, we've never seen anybody ever do this before. And it's like, well, we're actually seeing another guy do it. They just have a different letter

next to their name when they check in a game. So if there's a lot of it, it'll be funny because everybody thinks all the Jokic stuff was because of advanced metrics, which it wasn't because Embiid was terrific in the same metrics. He was just behind Jokic in a lot of them last year. It would be funny if Giannis ended up winning it because the metrics,

he doesn't really stand up to the other guys. And it depends on how much importance you put on it. Like, I don't know how many of the hundred voters are like default Vorp guys. You know, I think that there's a lot. I just don't think it's 50. I don't know if it's 10. I don't know if it's 20.

I don't know if it's all wind shares because you start doing that stuff. I would never just look at that and go, okay, that's my vote. You know what's funny about this though is that isn't it good not to have groupthink to have people disagree? Isn't that the whole point of this? I think everybody complains, especially in the last six years in the country where it's like, oh, everybody is so polarized on these one or two sides. You have to either have to think your side or the other side. And there's no nuance. There's nothing in between. This is the ultimate example of how there should be nuance. And it is way like, like right now we're taping. It's 433 down Pacific time. The Sixers are up 10 halfway through the third quarter against Washington. And Embiid has 26 points already. Like he's going to have another 40 point game. There was some stat about how he'd had, I think 23, 35 point games this year. And this is looking like this is going to be his 24th.

Like he's probably going to end the season with 32 to 35, 35 point games. And I know the stats are weird this year and they've been harder than ever to compare history to now because the offense is so up. But he's having

one of the best offensive seasons by a center ever from a scoring standpoint. So... And he stays on this tear. I think your recency thing, like the reason

I didn't get to it, but like if Giannis had gone off on a Saturday ABC game, even against a Warriors team that we can't figure out, you're right because it would have

turned into a hey, and you have to wonder, what's the percentage of voters that are actually impressionable enough to see a week of, is Giannis the guy coverage that actually makes that person think differently about their vote?

It's not zero. Again, I know, I think the NBA tries to do a really good job. Remember this happened with Westbrook. Remember this happened. Westbrook, it was dead even, everybody, and then Westbrook had a couple big. Westbrook, it was dead even everybody. And then Westbrook had a couple of big games. I remember he had one awesome Sunday night game.

He had like a comeback win game. And then all of a sudden it was just everybody's like, all right, vote for that guy. And that's the whole point. Like when you have even races like this, it is going to come down in the last couple of weeks and you can call it recency bias. But in this case, these guys are really playing for something. The Sixers have a chance to get the two seed now. They might even have a chance to get the one seed. They're just trying to hold on to their one seed, and the Bucs are trying to hold on to the one seed.

There's real stakes. Teams are playing head-to-head, and I think the next, I don't know, I don't think it's rocket science that the next three weeks are going to decide it, and I think that's okay. Yeah, and I have no idea. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I think like a lot of people before this Embiid tear, you were like, yeah, Jokic is probably the favorite. And it felt like the right call. You shouldn't go, well, I'm not voting for him because I don't want it to be a

three in a row. But I don't, yeah, look, man, I can't say it. Can I ask you one question? I don't know. Yeah, go ahead. One of my MVP questions that, you know, and I read the MVP column, I would have the four questions and one of them was like, who will you remember first about this season? Stuff like that. And one of them is, if it's a pickup game

and you could take anyone in the league, who's the first pick based on how they're playing this season? I would take Giannis. I would take Giannis too. I might want to play with Jokic more and then I'd be like, well, who's calling his own fouls? And I think

Giannis would call the least amount of his own fouls. I think Jokic might call the most. But if Harden were playing with Embiid in the pickup game, then I'd be like, well, if they're together, then they're calling their own fouls. Like, we might as well just pack up. I think I'd be the most afraid.

Yeah, if that happens. Did you see the NBA tweeted out Harden's free throw record thing? I almost said something, and I was like, don't. Just let it go. Let it go weak. I will say, in that pickup game question, I think Embiid is the guy in the league now that if he's not taken first, he would take it the most personally.

And you'd probably be in the most danger. AKA the Kobe Bryant rule. He was like, Embiid's like, I went third. Like even in the all-star game, Embiid fucking tried in the all-star game. Like Jokic could have given a shit, right? He's like, why am I here? This sucks. I hate this. There's nothing. There's nothing from the all-star game and beat fucking tried in the all-star game like yokage could have given a shit right he's like why am i here this is i hate there's nothing there's nothing from the all-star game i'll ever know i know but i was like i'm just saying and bead and bead is always gonna gonna give some sort of shit about the game he's in where i don't know that meant mean nothing

might need anything i just feel like who would i want to play with though yeah i probably want to play with yokage because you get shots. But you'd have to make sure you put the right team with him, right? You'd be like, oh, we don't want Jordan Poole with Jokic because now we have a Bones Murray, Bones Highland situation.

I almost said Bones Murray. I don't know who Bones Murray is. Let's take a break. I want to throw some of these all NBA questions at you. Life and death were two very realistic coexisting possibilities in my life. I didn't even think I'd make it to like my 16th birthday, to be honest. I grew up being scared of who I was. Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions.

Just taking that first step makes a big difference. It's the hardest step. But CAMH was there from the beginning. Everyone deserves better mental health care. To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Elevate your morning coffee ritual. From the first sip of coffee in the morning to the on-the-go cup. Make every morning unforgettable with Nespresso. Discover a world of possibilities with or without milk. Visit Nespresso.ca to learn more or an espresso boutique near you.

All right. So I want to do this every week because just an all MBA snapshot. As you know, I love the all MBANBA. I take the all-NBA as seriously as probably anyone in the history of any all-NBA conversation. And it's either Jokic or Embiid for the center spot right now. Giannis and Tatum have the forward spots locked up for first team. And Luka has a guard spot locked up. So first team all-NBA guard, which seems like at this point, we should at least have an idea who the favorite is. I could give you John Morant. I could give you Dame Lillard with a losing record. I could give you Darren Fox. I could give you James Harden. I could give you Shea Gilgis-Alexander

with a losing record. Some people would throw Donovan Mitchell in this conversation I would not if you had to pick a favorite for the second guard spot on first team all NBA a conversation that's not happening at a lot of cocktail parties right now who would you take? I'm going to actually put Mitchell down right now first team? yeah wow I have a lot of stats to throw you I'm going to actually put Mitchell down right now.

First team? Yeah. Wow, I have a lot of stats to throw you. Well, start with the non-stat stuff, and then we can get to the stat stuff. I mean, his clutch stats are bad. And I think he shot them out of games. And I actually think their record should be better than it is. I think he's been pretty hit or miss.

I'd have him as one of the best 15 players in the league, but I'm not sure I'd have him as one of the best six guards. If you want to go with De'Aaron, I get it, but I wouldn't put Dame over him. Well, where do you stand on the losing record thing? Because in the past, I've been pretty committed to this, but this year it's so fucking weird where two-thirds of the teams are right around 500.

So do you just throw away that rule this year? Well, look, I've only done it one other time, so I don't really know. I think it's a good rule. I think it makes sense. But like anything, it's even going back to the MVP, like each year the standard changes, right? You can only, you can only yeah

you can't like some guys when they argue this stuff it'll be like well yeah but you know five years ago you did this and then whatever it's like yeah but now this year's different like this year's vote is different than so I feel like Cleveland like when I watch basketball games he's one of the 15 best players without question in league this year um I know you know the bad part of him can be a little reckless, but I also think he's impossible. When he's at his best, he's impossible. Fair. And I

think there's a little bit more juice to him than a De'Aaron Fox, who I think is the only real other option when you want to talk about talent in combination with a team that you feel like has been playing for something all year. So Ja would be the other one.

But we don't know when Ja's coming back. Ja would have been my other first team. He would have been prior to now. What if Ja comes back in four days? Then he's back in the first team. That's how I feel too. But do we think Ja will be back in four days? I have no idea.

I mean, based on the pictures, I'd still be hung over. But I... I... You know, I have a friend who worked there. I was thinking about introducing myself as Shotgun Willie Simmons for the podcast today, but decided against it. I'd get you a t-shirt. I'd get you an employee discount on a t-shirt.

I'd fucking love a t-shirt. That'd get you an employee discount on a t-shirt. I'd fucking love a t-shirt. That'd be great. Yeah, I had a friend. I had a good friend who worked there for a little while. Long time ago. Anyway, yeah, so like, I have all my selections on my worksheet here. This is simply workshopping worksheet, whatever

you want to call it right now for me. I don't know how definitive you are in your picks. Oh, that's why I said it's a snapshot. It's March 12th. We got four Sundays from now this season ends. 16 games. Lots of stuff could change. It's pages of notes

and possibilities or whatever. Ja is a Ja dot dot dot like TBD. And if he comes back soon, which is probably, I don't, you know, I shouldn't speculate

on anything. I hope he comes back soon. I hope everything's good to go. And they get this turned around because I think when Memphis is good, it's a lot of fun for the league. I do have some Memphis questions though. Like, is this a suspension? Is he getting paid?

Did the league do this? Wasn't it presented as a team thing? Okay, but how does that work? I thought usually the league laid down a suspension. so is he suspended with pay or without pay and does he get paid during his leave of absence

like how is this working the details have been sparse right but if it's a bigger issue where it's something that like leads to wanting to respect I don't

you know what I'm just going to stop because I don't know I only know I've read a million different things and I don't know what to make of any of it I don't know what to make

any of it either that That's my point. I have Ja first team all NBA still, but he's so he's played 53 games. The Grizzlies have paid have played I have it right here. They have played

66 games. So there's only 16 games left and I think he's got to come back pretty soon and be 66 games. So there's only 16 games left. And I think he's got to come back pretty soon and be at a good level to keep that first all-in base spot. All right. Second team, Jokic or Embiid at center.

I think the forwards are pretty set for me. And man, I don't feel great about breaking my losing record rule, but I also can't blame Markkinen for the Jazz having a losing record. Now, if they tank the last four weeks and they end up like 33 and 49 or some weird record like that, I'll reconsider. But for now, I have Butler and I have Markkinen. And Butler has been awesome.

Butler against the Magic last night was just classic, where it's like, oh, the Magic have this. They're going to win by 20. And then it's like, oh, it's only eight. It's like, uh-oh, Jimmy's got to look to him. And then all of a sudden, we're going in overtime. And he makes one of the craziest threes. I think Butler's been spectacular. And he's playing. You go through the Butler baseball card, you're like, wait, he's played 70 games or more twice in his career. It's crazy. And this year, his efficiency stats... Well, it's not happening this year either. the shooting it's there's some other stuff in there that tells you it's incredible which maybe is your anti Mitchell stuff for me a little bit you know

whatever I think we covered it oh now I'm anti Mitchell see that now you're doing this is this is great I just didn't have them in my top six for guards I'm not anti I got him top 15 as a player yeah but you were the most dismissive you were the most dismissive of him as a first teamer of all the other guys

mentioned. You'd be more likely to put Lillard first team than Mitchell? Lillard is 32 and 7. He's 47, 38, 92 percentages. He's played 53 of 66 games. He's having the best statistical season of his career. And I can't blame him for losing some of these games where it's like you lost because your center's Yusuf Nurkic and he couldn't guard Joel Embiid and that's why he lost this game. But yet, do we think Portland, are they going to go for the 10 seed? I feel like they will

I actually think they're going to end up with a 500 record because I think they're going to go for the 10 or the 9 seed that's what I see I mean you see something different I think they're playing basketball I think they're going to go for it so that makes me feel like he will end up in one of the top two teams

would be my guess right now I had Dame and De'Aaron Fox as my guards for this second team. Because if the Kings are going to get a two seed, I'm putting Fox on either second or third team on NBA. I just don't.

Fox was easier to pencil in the second team because of everything we've already talked about. So I didn't even really think that one. As of right now, again, I hate to say it's not debatable because it's totally debatable. There's a lot of work left.

Yeah. All right. So third team. Can I just run through it again? So you had Tata Mignones as your forwards, right? Yeah. And then second team. Are you okay with marking in for second team so far?

No. So who's your placeholder for second team forward? What did you do with Sabonis? Oh, you wanted to get crafty with the Sabonis positioning? Well, I'm afraid to do that because we went through this with the rules last year where it can penalize the guy if you put him in as a forward when he's a center.

To me, he's a center. I watch a lot of Kings. He's always a center. He's definitely a center. To me, it's like, sorry. You're going to leave Bam out of all NBA? Yeah, Bam's out. Bam loses.

Yeah, I don't like how definitive you are about that because I feel like... Well, Sabonis has to be on one of these teams. He just has to. He has to be. For me, I mean, he might go in a massive slump next four weeks, but right now, he has to be. He's 19-12-7, 62% shooting,

and he's played 62 of 64 games. Yeah, is this something stupid, though, where Sabonis is listed as a power forward? Well, that'd be great. If he's listed as a power forward, this gets way easier because then... But it's also bullshit, too. You know, I I mean it would be

so who else would play center for them no he's I mean he's center can you name it like Rashawn Holmes doesn't play they don't have another center no it's Metu or they'll go Lyles it's small so what about Mark as a default second

team forward right now so this LeBron injury LeBron injury is wiped him off the board for you? He's played 47 games. He's going to end up not making it. If he could have come back and played 58 or something, I think he makes it on to at least the third team. No question. My cutoff for this has always been 55

because that's like two-thirds of the season. It's not as big of an issue. It's not as big of an issue this year as it has been in some of the last years, but go ahead. Durant's 42 games and he's not going to be back in time. So we lose LeBron and we lose Durant, which is stupid. I'll just go through third

team quick and then we can talk about the forwards and the guard spot. I had Sabonis at center so far. I had Randall, I think has to be one of the 13 forward spots. He's 25 and 10 again. The durability is incredible. He's played all 67 games. I don't know, that matters. And in the year 2023, durability to me has to be considered a skill along with this other stuff. And if you're telling me I get somebody for the entire season every game, I think that matters.

He's playing 36 minutes a game, too. He's going to lead the league in minutes. And then I'll talk about the second forward spot in a second. But I had Harden and then either Mitchell or SGA as my third team guards. I feel like SGA is going to check out because I think OKC is going to check out as we get close here. Don't you think? SGA is going third team guards. I feel like SGA is going to check out because I think OKC is going to check out as we get close here. Don't you think? SGA is going to have a calf injury? Well, they haven't yet. I mean, there's some stuff

that OKC could have done to be more pro-tanking. There's stuff they could be doing with the rotation, but it's not happening. So I know everybody thinks the SGA thing is like, oh, but if they were tanking, they would do some of these other stuff. I mean, what the Nets did the other night. Did you see the Detroit lineup the other day? Oh my God. I thought

they were going to call up the kid from Detroit Mercy to play. They didn't have anybody. They just were like, we're really fucking going. Again, I don't blame anybody for that. I think Randall's a lock because he's played so many games. He's been so good again. And the other thing when you look at Randall, like the

rebounding numbers are nuts here too. And he's meant so much to this team. The back and forth with he and Brunson. So you don't have Brunson or you just have him in the group of... The guards are too tough this year. I had Brunson on that kind of next level.

To me, Drew is a tougher cut than Mitchell in a lot of ways. But I'm admittedly probably higher just as a tougher cut than Mitchell in a lot of ways but I'm admittedly probably higher just as a Drew fan than others because the two-way stuff with him is just so dramatically in his favor. He's such a good defensive player

and I really value what he did in some of those games when they were banged up because I don't think he's not the most awesome lead creator guy. He can be a little... But sometimes they kind of had to have him do that and he could

get away with it. I don't know. 25 and 7 for him. And he's played enough games. So I was thinking about him too. Siakam is the one that I'm surprised dropped off. But I think he's really fallen off since the Purtle trade.

Like, have you watched the Raptors? Siakam doesn't seem like the same guy anymore. No, I mean, honestly, every time I think I, you know, have like, and again, doubts with Siakam is just, is he actually

one of the 15 best players, which I don't think is a huge knock. And then he'll go on like this fucking tear. Like, I think he might've been my last decision last year. And I, I, it's the opposite this year.

Right. So, I mean, I have them on my list. I have the Rosen. It's not going to happen. Um, the Randall thing is pretty easy.

The Butler thing's pretty easy. Although I'd add this Butler doing the LeBron walk-off thing. Like I'm not with these guys. That's such bullshit. And, you know, look, Miami's trying. I think they've done a really good job with not a great offensive team

of finding a way to keep that they don't have, you know, really much of a rotation. He can't help himself sometimes. Yeah, I just don't like it. And I'm saying it. It wouldn't keep me from voting him from beyond this, but it's like, okay, so where's this going? Like, well, we need everybody to be...

But again, look at them last year. They got in the huge thing with Spoh and they're a shot away from playing for an NBA championship. So, you know, maybe none of this matters. I just don't really like it all that much. I hate leaving Bam off. I'll tell you that. I don't feel good about it either. Unfortunately, he's the fourth best center in the league this year.

So the second forward... Man, it's tough. Let me ask for a ruling. Can Jalen Brown be eligible for that forward spot, in your opinion? Well, he certainly plays small forward minutes, even though he's considered a guard. Because they play two guards with Tatum and Brown a lot. They do.

So I think that makes it easier. I mean, he's 26 points a game, seven rebounds. He's played a bunch of games. He's only missed 12. When we think about the Celtics, it's like those two guys are the reason that they're good, right? It's Tatum and Brown, Tatum and Brown, Tatum and Brown. So big picture wise, it makes sense to me. But I also like, you know, I'm sensitive of the whole, oh, you're just like it because he's a Boston guy. It's just like, to me, it's him or DeRozan. And the Bulls have been one of the most forgettable teams on league pass this whole season. And DeRozan's fine. He's 25 a game. But to me, I don't think he's one of the 15 best players in the league.

DeRozan hasn't played in the game that's mattered for like two months. Okay. And there are moments where Jalen Brown has to carry this team. And I would say there's times with Jalen where he's the aggressive one, where he's like, you know what? I've had this shit. Like I, I,

I love the way Jalen Brown has played stretches this season when it's like, feels like some things are falling apart or, you know, the defense is totally locked in on Tatum or Tatum's just having a night where again, a lot of the guys, I think that kind of speaks back to like the Tatum's just having a night where, again, a lot of the guys, I think it kind of speaks back to the Tatum thing of being just maybe a slight level down in between the tier that he's not in and the next tier that he's above everybody else in.

And I think you can see Jalen even understand that. I think the great thing of those two guys playing together for this long is that Jalen notices it or he feels it. And that's one of the great things about basketball. It's kind of knowing the moment a little bit. I know what DeRozan's numbers are. He's terrific. That contract ended up working out for Chicago. Everybody knocked it and all that

kind of stuff, but I would have a hard time. The tiebreaker for me is how many big games has it felt like Jalen's had to do something that really matters where the Bulls stink. How many Bullseye games has he played in? That's the other thing where it's the biggest game of the month for the other team. As we're talking, Embiid is up to 34 points

as we have a whole fourth quarter. So he might get 50 in this game today. I guess I didn't declare it, so I don't know what it is. I feel pretty good about Jalen in that spot for now. It's really weird, though though where you have no Curry because he's not going to play enough games. No LeBron. No Durant.

And no Kawhi who you could argue at least for the last two months or the last six weeks of the season has been one of the best six forwards. I don't think there's any argument on that. He's just not going to play enough games either.

And then the only other people like Booker didn't play enough games. Yeah, I was just going to ask you about Booker. I can't get there with Paul George. Davis isn't going to even get to 50 games, it doesn't look like. And then I think Bam is probably the most egregious. Anthony Edwards is on my list as like a, you know, what if they put together a little bit of a run here?

Could you weasel him into the forward spot potentially? is like a, you know, what if they put together a little bit of a run here? Could you weasel him into the forward spot? Potentially, I was thinking about that one too, like same way with Jalen. Like, because they have had some lineups where there's like two guards plus him. What was it last year? Everybody got mad because they were trying to figure out how to put Jokic in and B.

Well, that was stupid. Yeah, I was like, oh no, just put, just. Well, didn't you almost do it? I did until I found out what the rule was, which is like, it's only the votes for the center position. So, if you have a forward voter, it doesn't count. I was like, well, that doesn't seem fair to Jokic.

It should go to... I don't think it should be... I was thinking about this the other day, because there's been some centers over the years that are going to end up being like, look at this Hall of Fame resume, and you're like, third team, all NBA center. And you're just like, there's certain years where you're like, well, who's the third center? Like, where is he? What do I need to do here?

This year, certainly with Sabonis, because he does play center. I just know that on some of the sorting, I think he's listed differently, which is also bullshit, too. It's like, okay, so wait a minute. So Sabonis can be a forward in the 2023 all NBANBA voting because he played with Miles Turner two years ago? Right. Right, like that doesn't seem to make any sense. But instead of just the two guards, three front court guys, which is probably what they should do, should the NBA just call it the top 15? Can you imagine the content that you would have where we spend all this time, where I do it twice a year, where I do my top 10, right? So I do my top five, top six.

We just bullshit about it. I always kind of do like a top 10 twice a year just to see kind of where I'm at and see if I surprise myself. I remember did it one year. I had John Wall ninth. I know that sounds crazy. That one year, I don't think it was nuts. I also have my own little process of like, it's not just the 10 best players this season, but whatever. But if you said the NBA just goes,

for the season, we're going to rank who the 15 best were, like college football, wouldn't that actually be awesome? And then also be fair for when these guys retire onto like, hey, he had like six top 12 finishes on NBA top 15. Yeah, it should almost be a separate thing to the all-nba i i really am hesitant to change the all-nba because it to me it traces back the history of the whole league right we have years where it's like russell or chamberlain or you had the years in the 90s where it's like hakeem robinson ewing shack pick three right the all pro for the nfl when you see a guy had like

four first team all pros yeah you know it really meant something so like when C-Web beat KG and Duncan I forget who he beat out in 01 it's like that's meaningful those guys were fucking amazing he was better than them in a year so I was thinking about it though how stupid this was because

your center point in 2016 a year that had an awesome LeBron James season, an awesome Kawhi Leonard season, and an awesome Kevin Durant season. 2016, that was the year that Durant's second team and our first team all-NBA center was DeAndre Jordan. First team.

This goes down in history. And that's where the wheels come come off where it's like what are we doing like so part of me wonders i don't know you i love the history part of it because you're right but when i go through the exercise before i even had a vote i'd be like i don't think this player deserves to be remembered now and Andre Drummond, third team all NBA. Andre Drummond. All right, we're wrapping up, but we got to do our retradables.

I threw at you a trade from 2012. It was the Darren Williams trade with the Nets, which I remember where I was when it happened. I was going to visit like the Apple Facebook headquarters with a couple ESPN people. I missed that one. Yeah, you weren't about it. And it was like, yeah, Darren Williams got traded to Brooklyn.

It's like, what? This was the era of no whispers, no rumors, no anything. This trade came out of nowhere. And I almost wonder, was this the last kind of monster mega trade where we had no inkling whatsoever that there was even like a potential of a trade? Because Darren Williams was the second best point guard in the league when this trade happened. Come on. There hasn't been one surprise in 12 years? Like, out of nowhere. Not even like

whispers the day before. Nothing. It was very quiet. Remember, because it was Utah. They didn't even shop them. Remember? Everyone was mad. It was like, wait a second. Darren Williams. It was like one of those, wait a second. Darren Williams is available. Well, that was the all-timers. I mean, I had teams that wouldn't even call was the all-time was the Pau Gasol. Gasol, that was the best. I mean, I had teams that wouldn't even call me back.

They called me to complain about that one. Hey, Ryan, first time long time. So here's the trade. This was right after he had been battling with Jerry Sloan, and they trade him to Brooklyn. They get back Derek Favors, who'd been the number two pick in the draft. They get a 2011 first which ended up being

the third pick in the draft because I think it belonged to somebody else. And then a 2013 first. The 2011 number three pick became Ennis Cantor. And the 2013 pick became I can never say his name. Gorgie Daniels. and the 2013 pick became...

I can never say his name. Gorgie Dang? Gorgie Jang. Gorgie Dang. Hard G, soft G. Really tough one for me. And that was the whole trade. Nowadays... Deron Williams over here.

Nowadays, that trade, I feel like there's, what, four more first rounds in that trade? Four feel like there's four more first rounds in that trade? Four more first rounders? By the 2023 standards? Well, there would be because Darren Williams was that good

at the time. What's the equivalent? Who is he now? This is like trading sga right now uh i know people would hear you say that and resist i don't think that's crazy at all well i don't so in but people are arguing i remember granted it was very utah based but people were arguing he was better than chris paul oh for five years i used to take get the shit from it from the ut fans. 2010, second team on NBA. Utah fans used to be tougher.

Back then, Utah fans, they were badass. A couple of these documentaries have been a little out, I think. 2008, he was second team on NBA, and 2007... That's it. He had two second team on NBAs up to that point. Plus, he had had real playoff success. They had won like five playoff series with him in three years. He had two second team on base up to that point. Plus he had had real playoff success.

They had won like five playoff series of them in three years. Like he was a winning player. I liked it. Yeah. That's the thing is that he was an established dude where you felt like, wait, if we get this guy, like now we're in a different conversation,

not certainly guaranteed for like championship contention, but this is how good he was. I mean, he was impossible in transition. I remember I interviewed him once. I go, when you do that crossover and you barrel into a dude and send him flying and you get the call every time,

do you ever feel bad for the defender? And he was like, yeah. I mean, like, it's always a foul on them. It's like, awesome. Because he initiated all the contact and he was like laughing going, yeah, I know exactly what I do, clearly. And they never get the call.

Well, they had him and Baron Davis at the same time during that stretch. Two of the most physical point guards in the history of the league. So Brooklyn does this trade. Utah just says, fuck it. And they reboot. And they had lost Booza the year before, too. Then a year later, Brooklyn does one of the craziest trades, I think, in the last 20 years. They trade a top three protected first halfway through the 2012 season for Gerald Wallace.

Yeah. Because they're afraid Darren Williams might not re-sign with them and he likes Gerald Wallace. Nobody's ever been able to figure out why it was only a top three protected. Well, they said- I think Portland would have done top 10 protected. They would have been psyched. Right. But I remember there was a quote that came out after the fact where I think Billy King said, we thought it was a three-person draft. Yeah. Oh no, he did. He 100% said that.

Yeah. He said that. So they get Jared Wallace. They also have to give Jared Wallace a new contract, which then a year later they have to dump in the KG trade and put even more picks for there. So that was kind of their reboot. And then the last one was the Joe Johnson one they did that summer, which was Joe Johnson. They basically took Joe Johnson's crazy contract from Atlanta. They gave up Anthony Morrow, a protected 2013 first, and they did pick swaps in 14 and 15. 2013 pick was Shane Larkin, number 18. Kind of liked him out of Miami. Pick swap 2014, not exercised. I know you love when pick swaps are thrown in trades and then not exercised. 2015 swap was exercised. Atlanta moved up to number 25. Brooklyn moved back to number 29. Kelly Oubre, number 15.

And Chris McCullough was the number 29th pick. So when you look back at all the stuff Brooklyn gave up to get all these guys, it actually was like pretty good prices except for the Gerald Wallace thing, which is an out-and-out catastrophe and something they're probably still licking their wounds for all these years later.

All they had to do was make it a top seven protected and they would have kept the pick. It's really easy to go back and, you know, looking at this knowing, and I think retreadables is actually the right thing because it's just like we do the rewatchables. Like you do the thing and then you talk about it,

but then you go, here are all these little facts. Yeah. Research, picking nets. So it is kind of the same mechanism. He was that good. I mean, despite my defense of Chris Paul at the time and the argument, because I thought that part of it was silly.

You felt like the nets were desperate to feel like they've arrived. They were pursuing Carmelo the entire time. The pieces that were in this trade were involved in the trade that they did for Melo with the Nuggets. And Melo was like, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. Or if you want to do it, you can do it,

but I'm not signing and you're going to really be pissed at yourself. And so Mello was actually, I believe, traded the day before officially to the Knicks on the 22nd.

And then this deal happened on the 23rd. And Utah, remember the Utah part of this, was that Darren Williams had a problem with Jerry Sloan. He has since said in a million different interviews that he wished he could do it all over again because

he just did it the wrong way, which is like a lot of young people. It's not specific to basketball players, but that Utah was like really old school about it from the stories that you heard. They were like, okay, guess what? You don't want to fucking be here? See ya. and that's why this happened where i just pulled up new york times piece howard

beck's like in a thing that shocked to your initial point you're right this was like wait what well the other piece with that is the one time a team proactively sniffed out a player that was about to become perpetually unhappy and just proactively said, nah, fuck this. We're not signing up for this. We're for you pouting for the next six months and toward free agency. I think he had a year and a half to go before his free agency and they just jumped the gun. And I got to say, I wonder why teams don't do this more often.

Because it's so hard to get these guys. Because it's so hard to get these guys. You don't know how to get rid of them. But I'm saying that year before the free agency year where you basically know how it's going to play out, but you see a lot of times teams going, oh man, I hope he stays. Maybe it'll get better. And then they kind of panic to put more stuff around the person. It's like trying to save a bad marriage. In this case, Utah acted proactively. Now, they really haven't been that relevant since, or it took them, I guess, nine, 10 years to get back to at least playing

in round two of the playoffs again. By the way, I have one more retrade. It's not enough fun for a retradeable. I think Williams may have... I think he already had done his rookie extension, which also made this weird. Yeah. No, but they had to resign him

because he was going to be the big sweepstakes. Remember, it was like him and Dwight Howard are going to play together. One more Utah retradables, which I thought was fun. And I did this draft. Oh, he did a shorter one. He did a shorter extension.

So nevermind. Go ahead. 2013. Utah is the number 46 pick. Denver is picking 27th. Denver takes Rudy Gobert and trades him to Denver for number 46 in cash.

And the pick becomes Eric Green. And that's how Utah got Rudy Gobert, which I totally forgot. So that trade of moving up 19 spots for Cash and Rudy Gobert, he wasn't invited to the draft. I remember, I think he came out of the stands. It's like, oh, giant French guy

comes out of the stands. Like, look at this guy. And then Utah ends up turning that only into nine good years and then that giant Minnesota trade which is one of the great trades of all time a little addition to Ennis Kanter goes down as the most confusing guy to back or not back in like political history because you're like I would normally never take this guy's side but I don't like lebron it's an amazing riddle because like some of the dudes that are so pro canter you're like you would never be pro canter well you would never be

pro canter in a vacuum but then you're like wait am i up are we aligned politically or oh wait am i not and no no that was a good tweet be like wait what the fuck was that like i don't know what to do. That's really hard to pull off. And Cantor pulled it off. He's elaborate. He was bad for the Celtics last year, unfortunately. I think, like, there would have been an awesome black ball case for him if you hadn't actually watched Celtics games last year.

Yeah, all you have to do. He just seems really slow and just wasn't good anymore. He wasn't effective. I mean, the next time he goes on Fox News and the graphic says, you know, former NBA star, and then, you know, he goes on Fox News and the graphic says former NBA star and then he's going to push the black ball thing big time. It's like, pick and rolls also were a problem.

He was unplayable last year. I think they actually would have been psyched to play him. And I really like him. I remember he came on this podcast once and I actually liked his game. I think I was one of the last holdouts for, oh, this guy's style, it still can matter in the NBA today.

There were certain matchups where it was just you were like, you got to get him out of there. You got to get him out of there. And the problem is it's too bad just from the basketball standpoint. It's too bad because he's an incredibly offensively skilled guy. And around the rim he's a total pain in the ass. It's tough dealing with him.

1974, he would have just wreaked havoc um all right riscilla we're gonna pack it up this was another episode of sundays with riscilla it was really fun i enjoyed every piece of it keep an eye on the sacramento kings oh let me give you one last and beat update he is now at i finished finished with 34. I guess they're blowing out the Wizards now. I don't know. Back on Jokic. So the Wizards are now in a tailspin and the Bulls are the 10 seed and they're 31 and 36. I don't know if they're playing today, but like nobody wants the last two seeds.

It's like they're going to be the saddest play ever. It's like, here's Toronto. They lose every game in the last five minutes and seem like they hate each other. And here's Chicago. They've been terrible all year. And that's who we're going to get for the play. And it looks like that's why Orlando

is only four back, Cerruti, in the loss column with 14 to play. It's not inconceivable. Look, I mean, I don't know if Saru's jumping in there. Chicago's not playing today. They're actually off again tomorrow.

Speaking of Sacramento. Magic play the Spurs Tuesday? I can't wait to see what happens with Milwaukee and Sacramento. So that'll be fun because you wouldn't think they have the best matchup if Giannis is back from the wrist thing,

but I don't know the latest on that. That'd be a good one. But I mean, OKC's a half a game out, I think, of the playing matchup if Giannis is back from the wrist thing, but I don't know the latest on that. That'd be a good one. OKC's a half a game out, I think, of the playing on that side, too. So you're sitting here looking at Chicago. I mean, hell, it felt like Washington played Atlanta for two straight weeks. Every time I turn on TV, I'm like, what? Did they have

some rainouts? What's going on here? I'll tell you, it was a tough week for Joe Has Tech's about Bradley Beal. The anger went to another level for the 50 million a year contract. All right, Rosillo, I will see you next Sunday and you can hear Rosillo on his podcast, which he's doing twice

a week. We never talked about the Panthers trade, but you can talk about that on your own podcast. Good to see you. Yeah, Kevin Herter on this week. We're going to get to the bottom of what the hell he was doing in Salt Lake City the night before the three-point contest. Great. Can't wait to hear. He was at Shotgun Billy's, apparently.

Oh, no. Thanks to Kyle Crate for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerutti as well. I'll see you on this feed on Tuesday. ... ...... I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them. On the wayside, on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.