The Bill Simmons Podcast - The 2024 Made-Up NBA Awards Show With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the captivating Mavericks, first-round playoff teams, and some All-NBA ballot thoughts (1:07) before presenting some completely fictional Alternate NBA Awards for the 2023-24 NBA season (22:34). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout rg-help.com to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, our own very special NBA awards next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back

what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff. It's crazy. The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit fanduel.com slash BS

to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. 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 is best. They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on prime. We're also brought to you by the ringer's best. They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new Rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. We did War of the Roses.

Please check it out when it goes up. You can also watch it on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons as well. If you want to catch up on all the college basketball over the weekend, check out One Shining Pod with Tate Frazier, Kyle Mann. Niffy Kyle pops on there occasionally. A lot of good college basketball. We're going to talk about it in a second with Rosilla. We are taping this.

It is a little past four o'clock on Sunday afternoon because I'm going to the Laker game tonight. So we're getting this thing out. NBA Awards. We are ripping through our own version of the awards. It's all next. First, our friends from Pro Gym. All right. We're still on watching Dallas versus Houston.

And the game is over with 13 seconds left. And I tell my son, Ben Simmons, who's we're trying to get some driving reps with him. Like we drive into Dunkin' Donuts. So we leave. Jabari Smith's about to shoot his free throws, and we leave. Come back, look at my phone, and Dallas has won in overtime. And that's the official end of Houston. But I'm trying to not get sucked in by this Dallas team,

but it's the kind of win that makes you think, eh, there's something here. They're winning a few of those. The chemistry seems great. They have a great player. They're getting the best version out of Kyrie possible. We're going to do NBA awards later, but I just felt like we had to start with that at the top. Are you starting to believe in the Mavs yet? Yeah, I think we've touched on this. It's funny because I feel like the Mavs have had these big wins on all these sundays when we've been doing the pod more recently and they're 23 and 9 in clutch games and you know even though we pointed at some of the matchups that may be a problem against bigger teams their point defense has been on a tear lately their points the paint defense i should say and then you know the greatest

thing about the kairi part of it is that he and Luka just completely figured out how to play off of each other. It's crazy. I don't get it. And Dante Exum, where did he come from? So right now, they're in that four or five spot against the Clippers. And it looked like the Clippers were going to have just a horrible, dispiriting, classic Clippers afternoon loss. And yet, Cleveland ended up having the worst loss. There's so many things changing. It's almost not worth it to talk about the standings. Minnesota Lakers is going to be after we tape this. Minnesota could be the one seed or the two seed. But I guess I'm trying to look for either teams that have won me over where I'm like, okay, I actually believe in you for a couple of series

now or teams that I'm just completely out on. And I think Cleveland's in the latter camp where I just think we have so much evidence now that whatever happened during that, what were they, 17 and one in the 18 game winning streak when Garland was out for a lot of it, whatever that was, that wasn't real. And they kind of are the team we watch today. Something's off. It feels like Mitchell's going to leave this summer. And that's the team I would want to play in round one in the East. we watched today. Something's off. It feels like Mitchell's going to leave this summer. That's the team I'd want to play in round one in the East. The team I'd want to

play in the West is the Kings, who are now probably going to be a playing team. Cleveland would be the team I'd want to see in the East, right? Mitchell today was just a classic Clippers game because you have these games with them, whether it was the first quarter the other night against Denver, and then they come back.

Then it's kind of hard to judge Denver without Murray. So I don't know that there's a lot in there where you're like, Hey, what's wrong with Denver? Well, Murray's not playing. So there's no other discussion. And so I watched this one today and I'm thinking like, all right, Cleveland's a mess. They were 11 and 16 in their last 27. So now it's 11 and 17 in the last 28, but Mitchell's not playing. And that was management, uh, injury management with him. So there's part of it but then Kawhi's out too because he hasn't played in April yet. So that's a scratch.

Right. They gave up 80 points in the first half. They're turning the ball over. The rotations are non-existent. This defense has been the worst of any contending team since the All-Star break. Yeah, right. So I watched that game in the first half and i go what

do i do with these guys and then they turn it on they actually benched harden who was questionable for the game anyway so it could have been injury but it was paul george going crazy again and then it was with four bench players and then they went small again towards the end i actually thought cleveland got some pretty good looks they went one for 13 or one for 12 over a stretch, but the Clippers, I'm not going to fall for the bad Clippers. It depends on what the matchup is in the first round, but I've convinced myself the 25 and six stretch is a better representation of who they are than this malaise defensively that they've been in. Even though the group collectively has never done anything together, I don't know that I'm going to watch them just limp through some of these games and go, okay, they stink.

I'm off of them. Because Kawhi can come back and they may be able to beat anybody. Sadly, I hate to just agree with each other all day on the podcast, but I agree. Well, what's the counter to it? I'm not counting them out. I'm not counting them in. I believe in Dallas a little bit more, but the irony that they're playing each other probably in the 4-5.

Are the two teams kind of with the highest upside lowest baseman out of all the West teams? Where you could tell me either of them is going to lose in five in round one and be like, oh man, we should have seen that. And then you could tell me, oh, they got in the West finals. I would believe that too. Let's talk about-

Is Phoenix in that group though, if you're going high ceiling, lowest floor? Because their ceiling's below Dallas. You have Phoenix's ceiling below Dallas. I do. I do. I don't believe in it. I don't think that the, we have a lot of evidence now with the three guys playing together. I just don't think Beal's been that good. I like the, the word big three has been thrown around more

liberally than just about, or the phrase has been thrown around just way too liberally the last 12 years. That is not a big three. Beal does not deserve big three status the way he's played this year. I just, I think he's at a different point in his career. I just haven't been that impressed. And I don't think they have a lot of depth. I just, I don't see it. So, Dallas. When was the Big Three

challenge the most? The Joe Johnson, Al Horford, Kyle Korver group? Were they called the Big Three? No, there's just one. I've referenced this a couple of times. There's an article,

if you go out there and find it, where the guy ranks like the top 50 big threes oh and i mean after after 20 it's like an editor should have gone hey we're hey can we just do 20 yeah i remember there was a deandre jordan snuck into a big three conversation with blake and cp once and that's when it felt like it was starting to spiral. Lakers, if you had 7, 8, 9, 10 in either conference right now, which would be New Orleans, Lakers, Sacramento, Golden State, Miami, Philly, Chicago,

Atlanta. If you just said one of those teams is going to be in the conference finals, which one would you pick? I'll give them to you again. Miami, Philly, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Lakers, Kings, Warriors. Conference finals? Conference finals. One of those eight teams could win

two straight rounds and get to a third round. Well, let's see. The way it lines up, Philly or Miami would have to beat Boston, which seems pretty challenging. I don't see it. And then, the way it lines up, Philly or Miami would have to beat Boston, which seems pretty challenging. I don't see it. And then the weird part about where Orlando is in chasing Milwaukee here is that would you rather just be the three seed and play the Cavs or Pacers?

Yes. Yes. Stay three. Right. So Milwaukee can handle the 2-7 matchup. So that's probably more about matchups and how bad offensively some of these East contenders have been here in the last

couple months, depending on how you want to sort it. Would you want to play Milwaukee if you were like a live 7th seed? Over who? New York? Orlando? Cleveland? Would you be like, oh no, we've drawn Milwaukee. I don't think I would have the fear factor

because that team can't play three games in a row that look good. This recent stretch is off the charts bad when you lose to Washington, Memphis, and then Toronto. Although, sneaky, I thought Toronto just played well in that game. But it was without Dame the first two. They're one and seven without Dame.

Middleton didn't play in the second one. Then Giannis didn't play in the third loss. So I know how bad it looks, especially when you're losing to those teams. Yeah, but the Celtics do this all the time where they rest this guy, this guy, or this guy, but they have an actual team that can rise to the occasion

if one or two people are out. Milwaukee is the opposite. It's like, oh, we lost because Dame wasn't playing. Okay, but it's all in comparison to what? Would you rather play Milwaukee to Boston? Sure. Would you rather play them than Orlando, New lost because Dame wasn't playing. Okay, but it's all in comparison to like what? Like, would you rather play Milwaukee to Boston? Sure. Would you rather play them than Orlando, New York, or Cleveland? No.

New York with no Randall. Man, the East is... Listen. It's a mess quick. I'll probably delete this text so there's no evidence of it, but I was on a Celtics thread wondering. I was like, could we do what the Cavs did with LeBron that year when they went 12-0 heading into the finals? Is 12-0 in play for the Celtics thread wondering, I was like, could we do what the Cavs did with LeBron that year when they went 12-0 heading into the finals? Is 12-0 in play for the Celtics? I was on that thread.

And then I was like, oh God, let's not. I wanted to almost unsend the text. But this is the shape the East is in now. There's no way to feel good about any team. I think with the three-point variance and some of these teams can at least play defense, but if the Celtics can somehow avoid playing Miami, it's not inconceivable. They've been so much better than everyone else in the East. They have a 14-game

lead on the two-seed. Do you ever remember anyone having a 14-game lead? That's fucking nuts. Even the year the Warriors won 73, the Spurs won like 67 that year or 66 whatever yeah it's it's staggering how we thought for a while you're like man the East has got some real depth to it like these are pretty good teams and it in the last month or so you're just like you know and even though I like Orlando, I'm not going to like closing offense

as much as Brunson is probably second team all NBA, which I know we're going to touch on a little bit. They don't have enough. They needed Randall. That's, I think that's just a dead note. And OG doesn't play at all. He doesn't. And we don't even know if he's healthy.

Orlando doesn't score at the end of games. And then you've got the Cleveland part, which we've already covered. So let me ask you the original question that I still haven't answered. Does that mean it's the Lakers? I think it is. Is the best bet to... Well, I think it is because...

Like, I watched a Cleveland game yesterday, which was a bad loss for Cleveland, but a really nice game for the Lakers. I thought LeBron looked great. I know LeBron has good stats this year, but you can catch him on different games. We'll see what happens tonight against Minnesota, but he can do the thing where he picks his spots and he can

turn it on and kind of drift for a little bit and then turn it on again. He was really engaged. His passing was great. I thought he played with great energy. I thought he was really playing hard on defense and it just seems like he's kind of talked himself into liking this team. I think this is the best. We'll see what this team. And I think this is the best.

We'll see what happens tonight. But I think this is the best stretch of basketball I've seen from them. And they're not even 100% healthy yet. So when you compare them to everybody else and you compare them to just the calls they're going to get when they get to the play-in in round one, it's going to be like what happened with Iowa in March Madness. The Lakers are just going to get more calls. All the foul data is in round one. Like, you're just, you know, it's going to be like what happened with Iowa in March Madness. Like, the Lakers are just going to get more calls.

All the foul data is what it is. And the way they play, the style, they make it really hard to officiate. So, I think I would pick them. And I'm just so happy to see Anthony Davis

play this many games. And he's at 73 now. We'll see what happens tonight against Minnesota. But if you go back to March and look at these numbers, it's 23 and 15. He had a 23 rebound game, a 19 rebound game, a 25 rebound game. And I know that it's just a cycle of, hey, did we talk about this guy enough or we talk about too much or anything?

But he's gone from, is this guy have a chance to be the best player in the league to incredibly disappointed because he was hurt all the time, and then he comes back in a different form where it's like, how come the shooting part isn't there, the thing that rounded him out as an offensive player? Whatever it is now is it's awesome, and it's underrated, and you add D'Angelo and the Rui part of it.

So if you'd asked me this a week ago, I'd probably push back a little on it because I still like New Orleans and we'll see what happens with them against Phoenix today. They came back in the second quarter. We're taping it now. It's halftime when it started. I think New Orleans is working in a lot of things as they're trying

to figure out their rotation. They were 8-3 and now they're 8-7 in their last 15 because they've lost four straight. When you watch them, I feel like they're searching for what the rotation is as they wait for Ingram to get cleared for contact, which was today. eight and seven in their last 15 because they've lost four straight. And when you watch them, I feel like they're kind of searching for what the rotation is as they wait for Ingram to get clear for contact, which was today.

And the crunch time stuff too. Don't you think New Orleans still has enough to at least be brought up in this conversation though? Or would you pick the Lakers in seven over the Pelicans? I'd probably pick the pedigree of just the Lakers having better in a bunch of big games. Right. And they're not going to play each other.

I'm just thinking of it as we look at them. Everybody's kind of writing off Sacramento, which I understand. They're just a different team. Losing Monk and Herter, they're just not the same. Warriors beating the Kings in the 9-10 and then getting to

play potentially the Pelicans in the 8-9 is their path to get in the playoffs. Because I think it'd be really hard to beat Sacramento and then the Lakers. And you have to beat the Lakers in LA. And I think the way the Lakers are playing right now, I don't see it. I'm glad you brought up Davis though,

because we're going to talk just quickly, some all NBA stuff, just with the, you know, we got a week left, but just a snapshot of where we are. And I was just like, I'm not voting for two Lakers if they're like a 500 team or around there. We have 15 spots. I'm just not doing it. I don't think that's the way to go.

But then the Lakers have turned it on enough that I actually feel okay with two Lakers now. And I think Davis is clearly second team on the NBA. I am choosing to be a little less positionless. I still want each team to make sense. I'm not going to pick five guards for the third team. But I think Davis is second team. The big arguments to me

are who gets that last spot, which I think should be Tatum on the first team on the NBA. Because I say there's some people like pushing in Anthony Edwards case. I just feel like somebody in the Celtics has to be represented in the first team and it should be Tatum. And then my big ones that I have for the third team, I'm going to throw this at you.

I really think Paul George should be a third team on NBA guy. I think he's been one of the best 15 players in the league that I've watched. And when you throw in like he's played 72 games now, he's almost a 50, 40, 90 guy. He's had games like today where he's just fucking awesome. He's the best player in the game.

And, uh, and I, it's just hard for me to leave them off. So the two got like for my third team, I have him and Jalen on it. I also have LeBron, and I'm going to cheat a little and probably play LeBron as my quote-unquote center,

and Booker, and then I'm putting Curry on as my guard over Halliburton, the way it stands now, unless Halliburton makes a big run these last four games. I just, to lose your all NBA spot, I feel like somebody has got to take it. And I don't think anyone's taking the spot. And to say Steph's not one of the 15 best players in the league is ridiculous. He's held that team together with the Draymond suspension, Chris Paul's out for two months, Wiggins comes and goes, Clay goes in a funk and that team's still going to win 46, 47 games.

So for me, he's still on there. Am I being too much of a Curry fan on that? No, I didn't think I was going to have him. And then when I did the exercise, which, again, this is all my practice work at it, so this isn't official. But the first team's pretty clear. It's Luka, SGA, Jokic, Giannis, and I had Tatum.

Me too. As the last forward. And then second team, I think it's Brunson, Ant, Anthony Davis, without question. And then the forwards, this is in pencil, not pen, Durant, Kawhi. I had that too. Oh, you do?

I hate the group thing, but that's what I had. I just think. We didn't talk about this at all, yeah. No, we did not. Katie has to be on. Find the six forwards. Every year, there's always one position where you go, what do I do?

Maybe that's the third center where you're definitely cheating a little bit with LeBron. Maybe it's the right move. I can find a way to get LeBron on there with Paul George. When it comes to center, it's kind of a Bam or Rudy Gobert thing. I'm not doing it. I don't think the gap between

Rudy's defense and Bam's defense is as significant as the gap between the offenses between the two. Then it's a Steph Halliburton thing, but if you look at Halliburton post the All-Star break, he's just not the same guy. It's brutal. Post All-Star break, he's 17-10. He's shooting 31% from three.

And just eye test doesn't look the same. He hasn't looked the same for two plus months. So you're basically, if you're voting for him for third team All-NBA, you're voting for what he did the first 10 weeks of the season, basically. And I'm not taking Curry's spot for that. The big one for me is I have Sabonis off right now. Because for me, it's either, it's too- Right, I should have included Sabonis when I was doing the centers, but I jumped it. But go ahead.

Yeah, I just, to me, it's LeBron, Jalen, Paul George, and Sabonis. And there's three spots for four guys. And I just think LeBron- What about Booker? I have Booker on there. I have Booker and Curry as the guards. It might change over the course of the next week,

but I just think... I made the case last week with Jalen. I just think he's been incredibly impactful on the team that's been by far the best team, best regular season team in the league. The way he's picked up defensively, the way he's played the last two months. I just...

I also feel he's playing 33.6 minutes a game because they're blowing all these teams out. If you do his per 36, if you jacked it up by two plus minutes, he's at 25, six and four, which is right there with all these other guys. I also think the Celtics should have two guys. They're going to win 65, 66 games. We've been pretty consistent on this over the years with all. You've been more on it. This is only my third year voting,

so I'm not. But when we talk about it in the pod, yeah, if your team's having a special season and two guys can make the top 15, they should probably make it. All right, but if I'm putting a center down, I don't know that Jalen makes it. Like he might be that 16th guy

the way Siakam has been so it becomes Jalen versus Jalen versus George and LeBron for two spots if you're going to do two forwards on that third team but I would rather bump Sabonis

and just make LeBron the fake center because if they're going to go positionless which I was like I'm doing positions but I just

I don't think Sabonis has been one of the 15 best players in the league. He's been really good. He's a really good offensive player. The league's really deep. And I don't think he's been as impactful as LeBron. And I don't think he's been as impactful to winning as Jalen or Paul Georges. So that's where I've landed. But I might change my mind over the next week, especially after everyone in Sacramento gets

mad at me. Well, that'll happen. I'm going to look at it all again because I don't want to turn it into the best 15 players and not care if you're overloaded at a position where all of a sudden you have a completely disproportionate roster. But I think there'll be years where, you know what I just said, then it's not a contradiction. It's just a year on how you're looking at the field.

And if there's, there's been years with the third team center where you go, this guy's going to be all NBA historically. And there's like 10 to 15 guys. I just think are way better than him. Yeah. So, which,

which, so now we don't have to do that anymore, which I guess is the good thing for the position list. But you know, I, I mean for the all NBA stuff, the votes are important. Like for Halliburton, I think it's an extra 40 million bucks. So I want to, I'm taking that to the last day because if I'm going to actually bump him, I want to feel like it was the right move. And, you know, it was good.

We're going to, oh, last thing on the, on the awards. Is Zion, is he close at all for you? Is he honorable mention or do you feel like he could go on a run for this last week and he might sneak in? Where are you on Zion? I wrote him down as like the others and to do a deeper dive into it. So he was on a short list. Like every time you do it, you think it's going to be hard as a voter. It usually comes down to 13

automatics, and then it's maybe five for the other two or three for the other two. It hasn't been as hard to do as I thought it would be. This was like practice today for today. I'm not married to any of this yet. It's probably the first team I'm probably

married to, but other than that. I feel like Kawhi's spot might be available too. Like if he just takes the rest of the season off, might get demoted. This is all foreplay for what we have coming up. We made our own awards. We're doing the NBA alternative awards. It's coming up next. Fandles putting the ball on your court for the rest of the NBA season. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $200 if your bet wins. I'm going to be doing some sort of boost this week on FanDuel. Stay tuned. Keep an eye on my Twitter feed.

We've been hitting the boosts. I'm just telling you. We're hitting boosts. We're on a good streak right now. Hopefully, it can continue. You can bet on the NBA with me. You can bet on a wide range of bet types, including quick bets, live same game parlays, player props, much more.

And by the way, North Carolina, FanDuel is officially live in the Tar Heel State. So visit FanDuel.com slash BS. Make your first bet a layup. FanDuel, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. You must be 21 plus and president of select states. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.

First online real money wager only. $10 first deposit required. Bonus issue does not withdraw a bonus, but it should expire seven days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think Nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that are when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious.

You don't want to load up on those heavier beers, and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age.

All right, we created a bunch of awards. They're really fun. I'm really excited for some of your answers. We're going to start with the Unicorn of the Year, an award that I didn't even tell you about. I'm going to give you nominees for each award. By the way, I'm just sitting here going, oh, we're off to a good start.

You didn't send me that one. Well, I'm going to give you the nominees, and you can blind check Unicorn of the Year. I think this is pretty easy. But our nominees, Victor Wembanyama, Zion Williamson, Krista Porzingis, and Yanis Antetokounmpo. Who is your Unicorn of the Year? It's Wembanyama. Yeah. That's why I didn't prep you on that one. I remember writing a column for The Ringer, I think 17, when we were in like full unicorn frenzy.

It was like Porzingis, Embiid, Giannis. All of a sudden, we had all these guys coming in the league at the same time. We were like, I've never seen that. I've never seen anything like that before. And there was just a bunch of them and it was super fun. That's what Wemba's been like this year. We're going to keep talking about him because the next award, which I did prep you for, it's the 2011 Blake Griffin Award for most unexpected delight. You head into the season, you don't know this awesome thing is

going to happen over the course of the season. And then it's happening. You're like, wow, what a bonus. I didn't realize. I didn't realize this was going to be part of my NBA fandom this year. So our nominees are basically Wemby's last six weeks, Anthony Edwards becoming a throwback 80s, 90s superstar, or the in-season tournament, which I think all of us were down on and turned out to be really fun. We all watched it, enjoyed it, and got content out of it. So your pick, W other products, whether it was the play-in game, whether it was the in-season tournament. And now that everybody's been through it for a year and they'll understand what the pods mean.

And then once we understood the score differential and getting to go see it and how intense those games were, other than the Zion game, which was like his low point, like that was the second factor. But necessary. Like in a weird way it was his

rocky three getting yelled at by injured on the beach moment like he had to get a shit together so if if i can be allowed to not like if those are the nominees because i had a different one oh god well if there's an extra nominee by all means throw it in because it's unexpected delight and it's kairi like oh hey when you just play basketball and it's and it's just it's just about the basketball and you're basketball happy i mean this is awesome what he's doing it's it's a reminder of why i think so many people have been frustrated and look the frustration for him is well deserved But when it's just basketball, it's awesome.

I had this coming up in a later award, but I'm delighted to do this now. I couldn't agree more. He was so much fun today. I've enjoyed watching his whole season. I think, you know, especially when we do this for a living and it's easy, you know, everything has to be,

you're either for somebody or against somebody. It's positive or negative. And every fan base, you hate my guy or you, you know, oh, he likes our guy, so he's good. We were frustrated with Kyrie for all those years because he's such a unique talent. It's like, get your shit together. We want to just watch you play basketball

and just be part of a winning team. And we don't want any of the baggage. Just be fun to watch, which is selfish because we're fans. But I think that's where all the frustration came from. Like when he played for the Celtics, that first 16, 17 games when they had the streak, he was incredibly fun to watch. Like we were all like, couldn't have been happier to have him on the team. Then the next year it was the opposite.

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

No, because when he was a free agent, I mean, think about how bad the market was for him. Okay. I think how many teams are just going, I can't get into business with him. But if you're Dallas, you do what a lot of teams do. You're going, I guess we'll just do the extension. And part of it is like, why is it that number? And it's like, well, if you bring him in at a lower number based on what the demand is for him, then you may have a problem. He actually got paid

as insurance against him bailing on a team again. There's no part of me that's... I don't like when this happens, when a guy plays like him bailing on a team again. So, uh, there's, there's no part of me that's like, I don't like when this happens, when a guy plays well, then all of a sudden it's like,

you know, guys really overreacted. Like, no, he didn't. Yeah, it didn't. It was,

it was a consistent mess for a ton of years. And he had seven, six, six straight years where something was funky or off or really horrible. Right. So you see today, and granted, there was a couple things that happened in the game against Houston, which was a lot of fun. Thompson gets thrown out of the game for chucking an elbow at Maxie's throat. So now you're down a defender.

Jalen Green got in foul trouble. So they ended up with Van Vliet on him. And then Houston matched Dallas by going small. So it was a free-for-all. Luke is exhausted. And then I think he was actually limping a bit there towards the end of the game. But it was all on Kyrie where based on the lack of size and the defensive matchups and the lack of just everybody was exhausted because what kind of grind this game was

to see him just be like, hey, Kyrie, you're going to have to solve every possession. And he basically did. And it was just fun. If you like basketball, you're just going, okay, I don't care what I think about him. I don't know that I want to give him a three-year extension

over 100 million bucks. But today, and for so many games now with Dallas on this run, it's just been a fun reminder to be like, this is actually why we talked about you so much because there's been frustration because you know how good you are.

I wonder if just KD passing through his life was this thing that just sent him sideways for, even you think that last Celtics year, when it was pretty obvious those guys were designing to play together, and that kind of screwed up. That was one of the things that screwed up the last Celtics year. Then the Brooklyn COVID, the vaccine, James Hard Harden all the things that happened well the suspension is the one too where you're just like alright go ahead he's only allowed to play home games

we're just we're going we're going or away games but it's just like now Durant's moved on Kyrie moved on and when he's playing next to an awesome player it seems like it brings the best out of him. It's just the way,

I don't know if he could be the focal point, the number one guy on a really good team, but when he's like the kind of the Robin who can come in and beat up some bad guys every once in a while, it seems like that's where we've seen him thrive the most. But I'm with you. It's been really fun to watch him play basketball.

I'm just like, I like watching basketball. I like watching talented players. So if you're going to do well, great. More talented players for us. I'm voting for Wemby's last month for that award, by the way. Hard to argue. It's like that Knicks game. I mean, that like set me to a whole other level with that. Because I was actively just trying not to watch too much Spurs because they made me so mad. And that was the game that I was just like, all right, he's just going on one of the TVs for the rest of the year when he's playing.

I'm just, that's it. I just want to experience it live versus on social. A cousin of this award, which I had a million years ago, the Julius Irving Award, I had for the most exciting player of the year. And I wrote that. We'll call this one the Doc with the trophy looking like his Tomahawk slam against the Lakers in 1983.

Don't you wish we'd had this award the past four decades? I could totally see checking the list and getting retroactively riled up that Dominique only won one Doc Award. I like the idea of a Doc Award. Dr. J. Doc. Who would you give that?

Would that be Ant? Not Doc Rivers? No, not Doc Rivers. Would you give it to Ant? Yeah, for the Utah Duck. What's even close? Nothing. All right, next award. This is the 1986 Bill Walton Award for biggest impact under 20

minutes a game. Bill Walton has played 18 minutes a game on the 86 Celtics, just crushing it. Our nominees. Andre Drummond. Leading the league in rebounds per 36 minutes. 19 a game. TJ McConnell. 10-point in assists per 36 this year.

Second in the league. Your guy, Sam Merrill. 4.8 threes Merrill. 4.83s per 36 seconds. And then microwave Bill Russell himself, Jonathan Isaac, who just comes in for two seven-minute stretches each game

and can guard anyone in the league as well as they can be guarded. I am voting for Jonathan Isaac, who we've discussed many times, but I think he's a runaway winner of this award. Who do you have? Well, I didn't get Jonathan Isaac, who we've discussed many times, but I think he's a runaway winner of this award. Who do you have? Well, I didn't get the nominees just so the audience understands ahead of time, because

I wrote all this stuff down this morning. Who else did you have? Well, believe it or not, and you're going to think I did it because of today's game, but it's not. It's Dante Exum. Oh, okay. Exum comes in right underneath the qualifier, 19.7 minutes a game. And we're not just talking about

hey, he's been good in his role. He was out of the league for basically three years. What was he, a partisan? He was one of those EuroLeague teams. Was he and here's the thing, it's like the last few years he was in the NBA,

he wasn't really doing anything either. So you could make an argument that Exum was like off the NBA radar. Like, oh, he's still in the league for six years. And the other three years he wasn't even in it. And so he comes in. He plays a really crucial role. He missed basically most of January, February. So you were kind of like, oh, that was kind of a fun Exum story.

Then he shoots 59% from three in the month of March. He had the huge shot against Sacramento. He had the huge three today. He didn't just have the huge three today. They're trapping people, and he's just making these really smart drive decisions where he's either going to the basket or kicking it back out.

I thought pretty high level. I was kind of shocked. He's never shot the ball. That was the thing. Even when we all loved him as a prospect because you go, okay, if this guy ever figures it out, but even if he doesn't shoot, he's so athletic. He's big. He can defend. He can drive. I remember guys talking about him. I think

it was the hoop summit. They're like, this guy's serious. Then he's immediately hurt. He played a decent amount, I think the first two years. But then if you go through his baseball card, you're like, man, he wasn't like, okay, he played in the NBA that year, but he played like 20 games.

And then that year, I think he started four games. So basically out of the league for three and then comes back and plays a major role for a team trying to contend in the West. Who's your pick? That's a really good pick. It's Isaac. I'm picking Isaac,

but I think what Exum is doing in a way is more interesting for the playoffs because if you look at his stats, he's averaging like

five points a game in the last two months. It's not like he's been amazing. I love the Isaac pick. But with Exum, they've been able to play roulette with those wings and every game kind of somebody plays well.

And I don't know how sustainable that is for a playoff series, but they've been doing it for a while. And at least with XM, he can defend, you know, if he's not helping them offensively, he can always guard people, but it's an amazing story.

And your life should be easy. Right. And off of the traps for Luca, and then you're worried about Kyrie. So you can try to get real trap heavy and teams are going to try something with luca different moments in a playoff series like let's just force the ball out of his hands and hope we have enough size to stay in front of kairi good luck but then the rest of those guys it should be easy living for dante i

mean a lot of these shots are wide open but even pj in the corner like if pj is just some kind of threat in the corner yeah they were leaving him alone in the corner. If PJ's just some kind of threat in the corner... Yeah, they were leaving him alone in the game today, but he made him. Well, you had to with the lack of size because they went small. They had the foul trouble. Vertical. Dante has been around for so long that when we were at Grantland, Danny

Chow kind of adopted him and I think wrote a big piece maybe in that draft and was kind of like the... I mean, when I say nobody was on Dante Exum Island, it was him by himself. It was like the guy who's living in the lighthouse at like the end of Maine

and there's like nobody else in the town in Maine, but them and he's just hitting the light every day. So I'm happy for Danny. The Vinnie Del Negro Award for Worst Coach of the Year. The nominees are Monty Williams, who we've discussed multiple times in this pod. Greg Popovich, I'm just throwing in there because the thinking you didn't need a point guard

with Wemby continues to infuriate me. Wes Unsell Jr. And my pick is Adrian Griffin. I don't know if you had any more nominees. I have Monty. I don't know if he had any more nominees. I have money. I didn't need any others. I don't know what he did. I don't know what he did to coach his team this year.

But when he had that moment a few months ago, I was like, hey, it's Jaden Ivey. If you really lock... Because I was watching so many of their games at the beginning of the year because I wanted to see if Cade would respond. And I think that part of it's good. We've already covered, like,

they just shouldn't have the record that these other awful teams have. Even though they're young, they're more talented than some of these other teams. Like, Charlotte's talented guys don't even play, so there's that part of it. Washington has no one on the roster you're really excited about,

unless I can offer you in some heady Denny Avia play or some Kispert makes. I like both of them. Maybe. The big Euro, who Draymond will probably punch next year, he's been all right. So look, I just, I couldn't believe, I know they weren't going to be good, but I couldn't believe some of the closing rotations that he had with that team. Yeah. And you look at what Taylor Jenkins had

to work with in Memphis and that team has had some nice wins and has developed young guys and seems organizationally to at least be like moving forward. You would not say the same about Detroit. One more award before we go to a break. The Freeman Williams Award for Biggest Black Hole. Freeman Williams has one of my favorite basketball reference pages. On the 1980-81 Clippers, he played 24.1 minutes a game. He averaged 19.3 points a game and took 16.8 field goals. 16.8 field goals in 24.1 minutes, which if you do the per 36, projects to like 25 shots a game,

and he was like the seventh man on the Clippers. So I was debating whether to name it after him or John Drew, but he was just way more black hole-y. Super John Williamson could have been a good one too. This, I mean, this is Cam Thomas's award to lose. I don't even know who else I would throw in there. Like you look at Colin Sexton, the field goal attempts per minute are pretty high,

but at least he passes a little bit. To me, this is a Cam Thomas's award to lose. You have any other nominees? Cam Thomas was my first thought, but to be fair to Cam Thomas, he's jumped dramatically in his assist rate so if you go per 100 possessions he was whenever you're in the single digits it's like really scary yeah where you almost feel like you want to bring the guy to like counseling and go you know you can actually pass this thing once you have it um but it's jumped up to like 16

percent and the assist numbers like it's at least I don't always love some of the Cam Thomas games, and I think there's a bigger Nets discussion where you go, how is this team almost like, you know, I would say average at best, and then falls off a cliff. Is it because of Spencer Dinwiddie?

That doesn't seem to make any sense. So, I don't think Cam should win it. I started looking at what did you have for Williamson on his shot attempts per 36 that year? Do you still have it? John Williamson? Yeah, I don't. It wasn't as good as Freeman.

He had a couple good ones, though. Okay, all right. Because Brandon Boston is not afraid. Oh. He takes, for his career, he's 22 shots per 100 possessions. Wow. So, it's like every fifth time he's coming down. And if you remember, too, it was, oh, you know, he didn't shoot it well in college because his hand was hurt. Remember he had those stretches where he just went off for a little while? Yeah. It's like, man, this guy's really, really talented. I went to one of the games of the Clippers when he came off the bench and I think he had like 30

and it was like, oh my God, it's like he's like a lottery pick. They stole him. And then he was never seen again. Right. He's under 40%. He's just under 40% from his career for the floor. I'm going to give it to Michael Porter Jr. His assist ratio is 6.3% for his career, 6.7% for this season. He's a heck of a player, but I think even the most hardcore Nuggets fan would

tell you, I don't know if that level, if it's ever going to get there. Because I think you could even argue, you saw it with Jalen Brown and Tatum for a really long time, where it's like, you guys are great great individually but at some point to be on a good team you have to understand that there still may be another option other than you taking the shot and I think that would be like the next ceiling of what the Nuggets could be but when like I said when you're in the single digits that number it's a pretty scary it basically every time you watch a certain guy, you'll go like, I wonder if he ever passes the ball.

You're like, oh my God, 5% assist rate. Even bad guys are like at 14%. It's a great choice. I just feel like the first half of the season, Cam Thomas, he built such a lead. It almost became insurmountable. People stopped showing up to the ballot to drop off a ballot. They're like, hey, the projections are no one else's even yet. You have to judge this by how the guys on the other team are reacting

to the guy, where it's like the ball goes after half court and he gets in. Guys just stop moving. They're like, he's going to fucking shoot. I'm not even going to pretend I'm to cut or go in the corner. I know he's launching this. I think he had the most of those. I would not have even allowed another name two months ago, three months ago. Well, you know what's funny? Jalen Green played himself out of the nominees. I think Jalen Green

would have been a nominee two months ago, but I think he's shown that he's a little offensively savvy. Coming up, one of our big awards of the podcast, the Kendrick Perkins thinks Jokic pads his stats award for worst media take of the year. That's next. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring,

he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache,

you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors, Sunnybrook was the only hospital in Canada who could provide Andy with something special. Three neurosurgeons, two scientists, one movement disorders coordinator, 58 answered questions, two focused ultrasound procedures, one specially developed helmet, thousands of high intensity focused ultrasound waves, zero incisions. And

that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special alright this is a big one this is like in the Oscars when all of a sudden they bring out it's all of a sudden we're doing best supporting actors like oh

this is a big award this is the Perk Thanks Jokic Pads of Stats Award as the worst media take of the year which was the worst media take of the decade

at least so far when he was trying to push the Embiid thing so hard that that ended up happening. Here are the nominees. Perk saying after the Beale trade in June

that Phoenix was now the best team in the league. Us, meaning you and me, adamant that Charlotte fucked up not taking Scoot over Brandon Miller. I'm going to nominate ourself. I'm not going to give up on that yet, but it's not looking great. Perk saying on Wednesday

night's NBA countdown that Milwaukee is the best big three in the league. As Brian Windhorst kind of sat next to him, unsure what to do. And then Perk hating the Porzingis trade and saying Marcus Smart was the heart and soul of the Celtics. That was my favorite was the heart and soul of the Celtics.

That's my favorite. The heart and soul of the Celtics was always a good one coming out of the market. A lot of multiple people had that. What other nominees do you have for this? The Marcus Smart stuff you've literally not heard since the season started, which is funny because a lot of people went with that. I always felt like how he felt about Smart was a really good test for how you saw his... People can have different opinions on players, but I never felt like, uh-oh,

what are they going to do? They don't have Marcus Smart. I never felt that once. And I probably didn't like him as much as other people did anyway. Look, Perk has been on a run here. We were first introduced to his thoughts in 2019. I believe he tweeted out, Trey Young We were first introduced to his thoughts in 2019. I believe he tweeted out Trey Young's better than Steph in his first two years easily.

And it's not even a debate where I would argue that they had potentially slightly different roles. The first couple of years coming in, one guy was allowed to do whatever he wanted. I didn't understand why that would even be argued. But I think we got to go with the new man on the scene. And that's Gilbert Arenas. Oh, who just cannot stop. He called Jokic the worst MVP in the last 40 years.

Yeah, that was tough. He's basically destroyed everybody as of late. He said that the NBA basically wanted euros in to promote the game, but now the game is soft, even though if you look at the top five players in the league, they're all international guys. So I think there might be some American pride in that

where it's, hey, what's going on? I don't know where I, and you know, like, look, once he becomes aware of Cooper Flagg, somebody just better tell him he was born in the States because then he would destroy him too. Because he said after the Draymond hit with Nurkic, he said, quote, taking care of the Euros one at a time. So I didn't know if Gilbert Arrhenius was eligible or not because I can't tell if he's doing a time. So, I didn't know if Gilbert Unis was eligible or not

because I can't tell if he's doing a bit. Is he doing a bit? Because every time he says one of these things, it becomes a video and it goes online for a day,

which seems like a win for him. It is a win for him. So it's like the crazier thing he can say than the podcast is being discussed. Whereas likekz, on NBA Countdown sometimes, and he's saying Milwaukee is the best big three in the league. I just don't know how to react to that. I'm going to give it to us though for thinking Charlotte fucked up taking Brandon

Miller over Scoot because Brandon Miller is awesome. And I just think we we should get an award at some point. Yeah, Miller's awesome. And Scoot had a minus 58 and a minus 57 this year. I'm not giving up on Scoot, but we were pretty adamant

that this was an apocalyptic disaster. And so far we've been dead wrong. Yeah, but you shrapneled me a bit on this one. Like I loved Scoot and then you took it to a level where you were the one who said,

I think. No, we both love Scoot. We shared custody of the love of Scoot. No, that's not what I'm fucking saying. I'm not saying that. I obviously loved Scoot, but then you turned it into you're an idiot for taking,

not taking Scoot because of LaMelo Ball, which I didn't say that. And that's the one that makes it look even worse. So when it's in the pictures, I'm in the montage first and then you're after me. Here's what happens is I like a prospect and then you dump gasoline all over the way I'm into the guy and then it becomes this inferno that's uncontrollable we are wrong about Brandon Miller versus Scoop we are wrong about it I screwed this up

alright alright but I'm not giving up on Scoop not out of stubbornness but because I'm not giving up on somebody this young that was just thrown out there to play point guard which I think he has to take his lumps and by the way I don't know I know he got off to a bad start in the Boston game,

but he's actually played better the last couple of weeks. Like there's real positive signs. Yeah. Where I know people want us to just like, what's the goal? Do you want me to say, yep, he sucks and he's going to suck forever? I would never do that with a player I liked or a player I hated the first year in at this young. I'm just saying we're losing the take so far.

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

It was like, wait, what? That's like the past moving to Hartford. Remember they did the whole layout and they're going to be like, there's going to be a mall. Yeah, it's going to happen. The nominees are LeBron needs a three-year $150 million extension from the Lakers.

The NBA is thinking about expanding to Mexico City and Vancouver. Don't rule those cities out. And my favorite, my winner, Adam Silver, has talked to all the guys and trust us, the All-Star game is going to matter again this year. Because that was like a news cycle. It was like, this means a lot to Adam, guys. And then what happened?

They scored 700 points in the All-Star game and literally nobody ran back. It's definitely not Silver's fault, though. And I would pick the All-Star one because after it, it turns into all these different ways it can be fixed. It's like, hey, you know what's not going to get fixed? That.

Yeah, it's not. It's unfixable. They're not going to fix it. These guys now have clearly decided they don't care. It would be uncool to try. He said he was on that Charles Barkley, Gayle King show. And I was actually randomly watching it. Who, Scoop?

No, Adam Silver. For some reason, I was watching it. And, Scoop? No, Adam Silver. For some reason, I was watching it and I don't know how I ended up, I was flicking channels. I don't know what happened. Good for you. And he made it seem like he might, like the All-Star game might be like going.

Like they might just get rid of it and come up with a different idea. I was surprised. He was pretty candid about it. It's awful. I don't think it can be fixed. And then, oh, have it be international. I think that was his point. Remember when it was like, oh, they're going to draft the teams. That's going to be amazing. I think hockey did it too. And you were like, this is going to be so cool. And then no one cares. And whatever new thing that you do to it to try to gain it,

it might be something we talk about but then the only positive is they get all this how to fix it content and i know the person in charge is the one that's always blamed but silver being blamed for players that don't want to play in the game it's not silver's fault like you can't go in there and give them a fucking halftime speech you can't crimson tide this thing yeah we. We agree. Well, here's a big award. The McKeskey Award for the best American white guy. Been giving this one out

since I had my column in the mid-2000s. Our nominees, unless I miss somebody. Tyler Hero, who's only played half the season. Sam Houser,

who's turned into an incredible three-point shooter. Walker Kessler, or my pick, Chet Holmgren, who's been really good. And I think he's almost a runaway winner, unless you can come up with another name that you like. Well, we can't nominate Isaiah Hartenstein again. Yeah, unbelievable. Well, how did we know? Yeah, he did a podcast.

He said he's biracial, so he's out, but he would have been a nominee. I didn't know his dad, and now I'm more familiar with his game. So Chet's the pick. Chet's the pick. And there were some Kevin Love years where it was like he had the award the second day of the season. This, I think Hero looked pretty good at the start of the year. At least could have been a debate, but he just hasn't played enough. I didn't tell you we're doing this award

because it's pretty obvious who the winner is, but the Dennis Rodman Award for the biggest ongoing distraction of the season. Draymond Green. I don't see how anybody else would be in contention for that one. And it's not quiet with him.

It's not quiet with Draymond for 10 straight days. Nope. It's just not. Be like, man, the Warriors are doing good. They've won six in a row. Oh, here comes something. I did this one for you. The Jem Coughlin Award

for you think you're better than me? Which I think we have to hand. The JJ LeBron podcast, I'm glad they're doing it. But the first 15 minutes of the pod when they were lecturing everybody that the basketball discourse is so bad so they're here to save the day,

I was personally offended. It's like, hey man, we're trying. We're trying to have smart basketball conversations. What was that day like for you? I was like, all right, guys. Congrats. There's a lot of a lot of people

trying to have smart conversations about basketball we've been trying to do that for the last 15 20 years on podcast so I was gonna I was gonna go like Grant Williams was was a

potential winner of a bunch of these for me but I think Grant Williams is a very good like if you think about the core of Jim's beliefs like what you think it's if you think about the core of Jim's beliefs, like, what, you think it's me? You think it's me?

Oh, that's interesting. So you twist it in a different way. I like this. Yeah. Like, wait, you think it's, you think, like, hey, man, last Friday we went out, like, two guys got arrested

and the guy got his eye socket broken. And Jim's like, so that's my fault? That's a good one. Next award is the Andre Blatch Jordan Poole Award. I couldn't name it on, I was going to name it the Andre Blatch Award, but I just think that's disrespectful to Jordan Poole. For most immediately regrettable extension. There's two types of extension.

One is the extension you gave and like two years later, you're like, oof. to Jordan pool for most immediately regrettable extension. There's two types of extension. One is the extension you gave. And like two years later, you're like, Ooh, man, wish we hadn't done that. Then there's like the Andre Blatch, which this will never be topped. They gave him the extension and the amnesty clause was kicking in the next year when the extension was kicking in and they use the amnesty to on the extension, which will never happen again. It's, it remained all kinds of history. Um,

this year's nominees, Zach Collins, who got the two years for 34 add to his thing that starts next year. Did you know Isaiah Stewart got a four year, $60 million extension? Big Stu. Yeah. Yeah.

Draymond Green, four for $100. And our winner, I think... I think they had to do it. I know they had to do it. Well, the team that won this had to do it too. LaMelo Ball, five for $204. Do you have any other nominees? Steven Strasburg, $245 million for 530 pitches

is that true? yeah baseball's tough 530 pitches we're in this I'm in that AL Keeper auction the league of dorks and somebody spent $26 on Shane Bieber and he blew out his elbow three days later like pitchers

there's no sport like baseball where you're just, oh, I like this pitcher. He's out for the year. See him in 18 months. This just happens to 50% of the starters. They're going to run out of pitchers. There's going to be guys pitching. You think Toronto's rosters get weird certain nights? There's going to be

guys pitching in a game. You're like, who is this guy? And they'll be like, oh, Disney's already making a movie about him. He's going to the second one that's the whole series uh jordan pool still has three years 96 million left his win share is actually his win shares per 48 is negative you don't see that very often it's hard to be below zero and he's below zero and i have no idea so you're saying he went you're saying he's going back to back two straight years he wins this award because there's not that many bad contracts. There just aren't.

For this award, I went through and kind of did all the stuff that we normally do. You try to stay on top of it, and you're looking through it, and you go, there's just not that many bad ones. Now, I do think that this offseason could have the first run of contracts where you go, what the hell was going on there? Because it's a lot of teams that have a lot of cap space that aren't very good. And whether it's LeBron getting his number, which I would still imagine is with the Lakers. I don't know what you do with Harden's number if you're the Clippers. That feels like it could fluctuate series to series if they have an early exit on all of this. They've already extended Kawhi where it's $150 million for him years 33, 34, and 35 seasons. OG Ananobi, as good as he is,

and he's good. I don't think he's amazing. He plays 55 games a year. He doesn't play enough. And then Tobias Harris. You just know Tobias Harris has $100 million written on him for some team that can't get

anybody in free agency that isn't any good. And he's just like, all right, I'll just take their money. If I say over or under $90 million for Tobias Harris this summer, what do you think it is? I think it's under. The way he played without

a need, I think he's looking at a Bruce Brown type of two for 50 type of thing. I think the Van Vliet, Bruce Brown type contracts are going to be where we go with the teams that use these cap space

where it's like, we'll overpay you a little. Let us use our cap space and, you know, you'll make more in two years than you would in three. But,

this helps us. I feel like that's how it goes. Do you agree though? There's not, it's not the same. Like, I don't know you guys did the worst contract podcast recently. There's just not.

It used to be hilarious. I mean, if you really want to go way back. It's going to circle back this year because of all the cap space. I think the Ananobi contract is terrifying. I have a lot of Knicks fans, friends of my life, and none of them feel great about paying him five years, 200 million or whatever it is when the guy can't seemingly stay on the court. Cause those are the contracts you can't escape. But I mean, we thought Kyrie three for 120 seemed crazy last year and that one worked out. So, you know, it's a 30 team league. You got to pay three guys, right? With how high the salary cap is, you have to pay $130 million a year for three guys, basically,

to have a good team. So there's going to be mistakes. The Ewing Theory Award. For the star, most likely to be Ewing Theoried. Hypothetical. for the star, most likely to be Ewing-theoried, hypothetical, which means the person gets hurt and the team, for whatever reason, starts playing better when he's not there. And by the way, this might not happen, and we might not even happen until next year,

but our nominees are Julius Randle, Carl Anthony Towns, Donovan Mitchell, Kawhi Leonard. Anybody else you have for this? Nope. What's your answer? It's not Kawhi, it's not Mitchell. Okay. There's just no way that the Clippers are actually better without Kawhi right Kawhi is technically not eligible because he already won the title I'm shocked that this would even be

he would be nominated for this listen I'm just reading the nominations I don't this is what the committee came up with the problem is there's no perfect... There's no Patrick Ewing for the Ewing theory this year. I mean, there's a reason why it's named after him. Towns is probably the closest because Towns is making $60 million a year. And it would be funny if he had some sort of setback and they just kept winning without him. I think he fits the premise the best. The Lou Brown Award for the Out of Nowhere team that surprised you the best. The Lou Brown Award for the out of nowhere team

that surprised you the most. Our nominees are Indiana, Orlando, and OKC. What was the biggest surprise for you out of those three? I liked Orlando a lot, you know, based on like the way I like

the talent of Detroit's roster. But again, I didn't think Orlando was going to go 13 and 65 because if you watched them last year, you were like, wait, this team's kind of in some of this stuff. You know, they felt like, you know, you better show up when you're playing the Magic for whatever reason.

This is a tough team. If the Magic end up with a three seed, and part of that's the way Miami treats the regular season, the Embiid injury, you know, Atlanta constantly constantly be disappointing Chicago just being kind of meh like to be the three or the two seed I think it's them because I I always thought that the line that we have 10 1 through 10 in the west and then 11 through 15 is basically what you thought especially with Memphis's injuries yeah the instinct would be well why is OKC? They have a chance to get the one seed. But a lot of people were on OKC before the year, including me. That was probably

the thing I was the most passionate about. I remember when we did, so these are all three teams that we all went over when we did the over-under pod with house, which we did really well on. And we all loved Indiana to go over. I think their over was like 38. And we got to Orlando and we talked it out. We were like, I kind of like it, but not really. think their over was like 38. And we got to Orlando and we talked it out. We were like, I kind of like it, but not really. And the over was like 37. And then we kind of all collected. We were like, yeah, Cerruti's here. Let's do it for Cerruti. And we took the over because it was like, ah, it'll be fun. I don't think any of us were thinking three seed at any point of that combo. So I think they have to be the winner. Yeah, it's not like I said they'd suck,

but they're still in play for the two seed and they're most likely going to be the three seed. So I just think it's a really nice leap where if they were in the play-in, they get balanced, they're not really in the playoffs, you go, okay, 24-25, this is the year. And it's nice that whatever,

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

I don't feel like Franz has played that well. He hasn't because he hasn't. His shooting numbers are bad. It's weird to me is I don't feel like Franz has played that well. He has it because he has it. His shooting numbers are bad. It's weird. He like teams are playing off him now. I think it's one of the problems they have laying games is teams are treating him not like full Draymond, but I think teams are like fine if he wants to shoot a 24 footer.

And I always felt like that was going to become this key part of his game. And he kind of went backwards on it. So the fact that they're going to be a potential two or three seed without him really taking a leap, I thought was really surprising. The Zaza Peculia Award. Peculia? Peculia? Peculia? Peculia? Peculia? Go for six. Peculia? Got it. The Zaza Pachulia Award for the rule that absolutely fucking needs to be changed.

Our nominees. The 65 game rule for awards. Positionless ballots. Or being able to review a block charge. And I know you probably have more nominees, but my winner and one of my passions now in life is for us not to review block charges anymore. Take them out of the game.

Just let the ref call it and let's move on. Please, for the love of God. Of the nominees, I would go with that. No one cares about our ballots. And the 65 game thing, I think the NBA had to do something to make their partners in television feel better about it.

And for the most part, it's going to work out. Like we had some really lean years there. Yeah. If you looked at some of the top scoring players, you're like, hey, these guys are missing a huge chunk of the season collectively. So they've corrected that a bit. And you knew no matter what,

like if the principal announces some rule change and everybody decides they don't like it, so then it becomes a Players Association Ownership League thing where it's like how come they come up with 65? Like Halliburton came back early and played when he was hurt because he was worried about the extension and the bonus and all that kind of stuff. You're like, alright, well that sucks for him.

I think in the general sense, it was something that the players have clearly responded to. And if you look at the history of the guys making all NBA and the MVP, it's not like it was this absurd number that hasn't been reached before. It just was, oh, we got people in charge, made this announcement, so now we're going to push back from the whole thing. So I'm with you on the block charge thing,

but I am so happy about the officiating since the midway point. And if you look at the best players, it's not like they're all scoring 18 a game now because the game is more physical. There's less tricking, which was my entire point. So it's never going to be perfect, but I just think it's so much better now, even if there's going to be times where a guy ends up in the stanchion and didn't

get a call because I'd rather it be this way than what we had in the beginning of the year we need to get through one more week where there's not a giant fight because the only thing that could ruin this is a giant fight and there's been some games this year where it's edged that way but it didn't happen

that would be my fears. The games are so physical now that I just think, not like our test melee level, but we haven't had a full like guys just throwing haymakers at each other. And it's kind of inching toward that because some of this shit is just super physical, super violent. It's been amazing for some of the players is just super physical super about it's been amazing uh for some of the players who love to play that way but if you're like Steph not awesome like cool

I'm just getting crushed look at look at the best players and there's a couple people on the free throw rate stuff where like I looked at it with Brunson where you're like okay that's dropped off Damian Lillard was between seven to nine free throw attempts per game, and it looks like the last couple months he's in the four range. Yeah. So you're like, whoa. And I don't know that that's the main reason

Milwaukee's struggled again here. I think they're still trying to find themselves. And we already covered the guys in play during that awful three-game stretch there. But if you look at the overall scores, they're still such great players they're still going to find a way to score but what you're seeing less of is let me use this possession to try to trick the officials into something which is a win for all of us

we're going to take a break and then one of my favorite awards is coming up next. Upper Canada College inspires boys from senior kindergarten to year 12 to find their passions and realize their potential. An IB World School, UCC offers a supportive environment, cutting-edge facilities, and a best-in-Canada financial assistance program. UCC, a place where tradition, excellence, and innovation meet. Learn more at our open house events on October 15th and 16th. Register now at causeandeffect.ucc.on.ca. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference.

Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters.

Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations, or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada. Insurance designed for life. All right, Rossello, this is a big one. This award is called the ML Car Trying to Trade for Retired MJ Award. For goofiest... Can you repeat that story though? Also, before I interrupt your title of the award, but I need to hear this again too. So just keep going. But tell us the backstory of what this award is inspired by. It was the year Jordan was retired.

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

Go ahead. You just signed Dee Brown, right? Would you trade him? The ML car trying to trade for a retired MJ word for goofiest, but real off season subplot because the, the, the, he really did try to trade for Jordan. It wasn't a fake story. Will a team draft Bronny James to go after LeBron?

This was the subject of a lot of texts this week. Bronny did not have a good freshman season. That is an understatement. He was not one of the closing five guys on a USC team that I think finished under 500 and was in a bad conference and was just not a good basketball team.

It's hard to fathom that he would be one of the 58 players drafted because first of all, two people forfeited their picks. So there's only 58 available. And yet, I do wonder,

will somebody, I really do wonder if somebody in that 38 to 58 range will draft him as a way to get LeBron to sign for a free agent mid-level exception, something like that. Thinking like, these picks after pick 35, it's a fucking crap shoot anyway. Let's just spend one here and maybe LeBron will want to play with this son. Maybe we can pull him in. And I think it would have to be a contender. So some possible spots.

And this is, I read this on Tankathon, so these orders might switch. But the Knicks right now have the 38th pick. Philly has 41. Miami has 44. The Clippers have 45. Boston has 53. Golden State, 54.

Denver, 57. And Dallas has 58. I think he's going to get drafted, even if he is not one of the best 58 guys in the draft. Yeah, the real conversation is how high can a team select him without assurances. And I still don't think he wants to leave LA. I think the next chapter for LeBron is that he still would need to be in LA, which is a

motivation for him to come out here in the first place. So that's something he's got to factor into the decision. If you're telling me, hey, would a second round team not know and say, you want to just give it a shot? Yeah, absolutely. I think he could get drafted, especially with teams that have multiple second round picks going like, all right, you know what we normally do is like we don't want a third second round guy in here. So let's trade this second for a future second with protections and maybe it expires, whatever. I don't think LeBron would ever play in Boston. So that would be a waste of time for them and they wouldn't have the cap way. Kind of a brilliant move by Boston. Why? They draft Ronnie. It's like, hey, go and play with him. We know you hate Boston,

but you're going to have to come. You'd probably just call it. One year for two million. He would just call his kid and be like, hey, we're going to demand a trade after camp. Yeah. Yeah, this is...

Welcome to the league. You're demanding a trade. I think... The second round, I think it's alive., I think it's alive. I do think it's alive in the second round because teams are just going, ah, whatever.

So I went through the last seven years because I do think there's a cutoff point with the second round where it becomes a 5% to 10% chance that you're even getting a rotation player. 23. These are after pick 40. Gigi Jackson, 40.

Kamara was 52. Jackson Davis was 57. So Jackson Davis is your best case scenario for end of the second round. 2022, Vince Williams was 47. 2021, Aaron Wiggins was 55. 2020, there was a bunch of dudes, but that was the black swine year. I don't think anyone knew what the hell the draft was going on. Trey Jones, Nick Richards, Nuwara, Isaiah Joe, KJ Bart, and Paul Reed all after 40. 2019, Horton Tucker, 46, Terrence Mann, 48. 2018, Vanderbilt, 41, Bruce Brown, 42, D'Anthony Melton, 46. 2017, Thomas Bryant, 42, Hartenstein 43

Dylan Brooks 45 Monty Morris 51 that's pretty good for guys who are rotation guys and maybe even a little bit better I just feel like if it's a 10% chance

you're landing somebody who might make a rotation and you're a contender why not take him and hope that LeBron's dream would be I just want to play with my son I won four titles.

I've made a kajillion dollars if I have a chance to go to a contender. And I think Philly is the most interesting one out of all that teams because they have cap space too, right? So if they took Bronny at like 40 or 41, then they're like, hey, LeBron, you know, come on.

Embiid, Maxie, like, let's go. You play with your son. Kind of enticing. I think it's realistic second round absolutely absolutely because weird stuff happens in this league so despite what you think even if you're the most anti

him as an NBA prospect and he didn't really give us a ton this year to go okay you know like we're ESPN ESPN had him as the 10th pick the first mock before the season started which I do think might have been motivated by like hey LeBron if his kid is in your lottery preview

you know probably not going to be a terrible idea to get people to pay attention to it right so but if you start talking about picks in the 40s and 50s teams would definitely do it, but

they have to be smart about alright, is this even a 1% possibility? Because if it isn't, then we're wasting it unless we really like the player as a top 58 guy, which I don't know how many teams do. Yeah, and if you want to get cynical, you could say

he could wink wink to one of the teams just trying to get his kid drafted and then end up staying in the way. Lakers offered me $150 million. I didn't realize. But this would be good leverage for him with the Lakers because he doesn't really have a ton of leverage right now. He's not going to go to a bad team. He's got to go to a contender if he was going to leave LA for whatever reason. So that's basically Philadelphia. They have cap space. It's really nobody else. Nobody else who he'd want to play for. It would have to be some sort of sign-and-trade. If you're the Lakers, why am I doing a sign-and-trade and taking on your bad contract? Let's say he decided this summer I'm going to Dallas. And Dallas is like, cool, we'll trade Tim Hardaway.

The last year, his deal. And you can get Dwight Powell, whatever bad contracts they have. The Lakers will be like, no, we're not doing that. Fuck off. If you want to sign him, you can sign him for your mid-level. I do feel like this gives him a little bit of leverage, but if Bronny wants to

actually have an NBA career, he should stay in college for a year and try to have a really good college year. This last college year he had was about as bad as it could have gone. Starting with like, he had the cardiac arrest, the fact that he ended up on a terrible team, the coach left right after the season. They didn't even make the, you know, I'm sure they would have gotten invited to the NIT, but I would want to try to run that back and have a good college season before I entered the draft.

But if you're LeBron, you're like, I don't know if I have one year left, two years left. I want to play with my son. You can talk yourself into it, right? Yeah. And if a team wants to do that for him, they'll do it for him. Yeah. They will. But I would have to, like, is he going to go somewhere where it gives him less of a chance of winning just to play with his son? It might be more important to him.

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

I'd imagine. To play with your kid? Yeah, but I bet that he's like, okay, I'm not worried about it for 24-25. This offseason, it's getting the most money I can, hopefully out of the Lakers. They take care of me the way they took care of Kobe. Maybe there's some sort of option thing on the third year. Let me get this in my back pocket.

Yeah, maybe it's like $100 million for two years, but he's got an opt-out after the first year and can rig it that way. Right, and okay, maybe they have a nice little run in the West and there's a tweak here because they have more picks they can trade. I still would think there's a big part of them who's going like, all right, I've got to make sure I'm positioned the best way I can. But then the default way of explaining it would be

if those things don't work out, then you can say, well, this was always more important anyway. And it's like, okay, was this more important or was this just an easier out because the other options weren't put together as well? I just am looking forward to it because if they are on the same team and they do play together next year, it'll be the first time you've had the country just cheer on nepotism.

We'll see how it goes. I'll tell you that Joe House is rooting for the Wizards to take him with any of their second or third first round picks. He's all in. He's like, we can get LeBron. Let's do it. Next award is the Ben Simmons Award for the best Ben Simmons moment. I didn't tell you we were doing this. Our nominees. Ben Simmons is quoted in October. I think being a leader is one of those things you can lead in many different ways. For me, I try to lead by example. I've been blessed with the opportunity. I think I've been a leader is one of those things you can lead in many different ways. For me, I try to lead by example.

I've been blessed with the opportunity. I think I've been a great leader so far. There's one. Ben's agent, Bernie Lee, blaming himself for Ben not being ready to play this year. Ben playing 15 games, going six for 15 free throws and zero for zero from the three-point line. So for the critics who say he wasn't working on his game, and he's played 57 games since the 2021 playoffs, what is your pick for the Ben Simmons moment of the year?

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

Right? You have a window in their soul. Ben Simmons explained his side of the story, and I felt even worse about his prospects. That doesn't happen very often. He opened up. The interview was incredible. JJ was great with him. And then after I listened, I was like, oh, no. Right. This is not salvageable. Yeah. It's everybody else's fault is always tough as a strategy. Hey, the 2010 Baron Davis Award for best mail-in. I'll give you December Zion before he got in shape. It's very good. It's hard to find the full season, but that was pretty good.

December Zion's in there. Joe Engels, who I really love and respect because he reminds me of myself playing pick up hoops just running from three point line to three point line basically you know hanging on and then my winner is Sam Presti's trade deadline which I think they mailed in and I still don't understand it and we've talked about it seven times and I'm not going to do it again

and I know you think they made the Hayward trade to save some money down the road that's fine but they have a chance to make the finals and they did nothing at the trade deadline. And they have 29 fucking first round picks do something. I don't need to add to that. Um, I'm not going to go with that.

That Baron Davis year is really like, it's almost insulting to how great that year is to then nominate someone for it right it is Jimmy Butler for your consideration okay let's hear it he's really good and we know there's playoff Jimmy regular season Jimmy but

there's some traditional stats to tell you like no no he's still awesome and the shooting percentage we look at those like yeah he hits threes he doesn't take a lot so it's not like as much of a weapon it's kind of like when mobley they're like oh he's starting to hit some threes and you go okay but the other part is you have to take them yeah 40 to mean something you're going to be taking four or five of these a game so i have watched a lot of miami, and I still feel like he coasts way too much. And I don't know that I'll ever understand him.

I talked about him on my pod on Thursday about the explosiveness as a scorer does not seem to be on the same level that it was last year. I don't know whether he's playing, but we've learned to not trust anything we see from Miami in the regular season. It seems like it's harder for him to score this year. He doesn't get free throws. And look, he was terrific today against the Pacers, but he took 12 free throws and hit all of them. But he gives you the extra up fake that you're not expecting.

And if you're prepared for it, like if you're playing Miami in the playoffs, you are just constantly on your guys. Stay on your feet with Jimmy and traffic. Stay on your feet. Stay on your guys. Stay on your feet with Jimmy and traffic. Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Just when you think he's done up faking, he's going to throw you one more. And he lives that way offensively a lot in games. These guys can't help themselves. I didn't have a winner for this award. It's the Shane Battier Award for Sloan Conference stat nerd, darling du jour. We didn't really have one this year unless people want to talk themselves into Wemby. Some of the

Wemby stats. Like Derek White. What is it though? Is this guy's really good because it's like Sloan somebody does a slide. Remember Sloan that there was like a two year Shane Battier run where it was like you don't understand this is like the 21st best guy in the league because of all these weird

stats that nobody understands. And they were kind of right. It's like, look at his on-off stuff. Yeah, except then you could be like, hey, I don't think Shane Battier is as good as these other 10 guys. Well, then it flipped. I think Sloan's dangerous. It's like doing a speedball.

I would probably give it to Wemby, but I didn't really come up with a good one. The David Kahn Award for Worst GM Performance. Troy Weaver, the Detroit Pistons. San Antonio's year one plan for building around Wemby, which just two big giant thumbs down. Brooklyn, just being in no man's land and just super confusing.

I don't know what their strategy is. And then Jimmy Pitara and Burke Magnus not protecting themselves against Doc Rivers possibly leaving to go back to coaching. Those are our four nominees. I was not expecting that last one. That's the transaction

maybe maybe see that one coming he was interviewing for the Phoenix job in like mid-July what about Karnashovas in Chicago did you know

oh that's a good one the the well he hasn't made a trade involving players since August of 21. What? Look it up. There's some second round rights thing to a player that was transactional, but player traded for another player.

I don't believe he's made a trade since 21 of August. Does he know he's allowed to make trades with players? Or maybe he'll find out from this podcast. That's a good one. Michael Porter Jr. has him on the podcast. And he's like, man, they told me I could start getting assists. And he was like, I... Passed to the other guys?

They kept saying trade deadline. I was like, I don't... Stocks? I can trade these every day. That's a really good nomination. I'm going to back it. And that's for somebody not to make a trade involving players in three years is historic.

So that's our winner. The Vitaly Potapenko Award for Worst Deadline Trade. This goes back to the lockout season, 1999, Patino. The Celtics just inexplicably traded their first round pick for vitality topical who is a banger center i who's the equivalent of him now in 2024 who's patapico eubanks drew eubank like a like a little bit better drew Eubanks he's better than Eubanks but there's nights where you're like okay there's a reason why like people would want you on a team

and Patino didn't care because he knew is it Nurkic yeah it's somewhere between Eubanks and Nurkic Patino didn't care because he knew if the trade didn't work he was going to leave the next year anyway ended up being I think the 8th pick in the draft or the 9th pick 8th pick and Andre Miller and Sean Marion were on the board and Cleveland got to take Sean Marion. Worst deadline trades,

the Hayward deal, which was OKC's big move, he barely plays. Bogdanovich to the Knicks, those are really the two. I don't really have any of the nominees. Bogdanovich, a trade we really like, but it just doesn't seem like Tibbs wants to play him that much. But I am going with the OKC trade for all the reasons we discussed earlier. Yeah, I'm looking it up again. I think the only thing that would qualify as a trade is the Julian Phillips transaction. Oh, for the Bulls? You're still on the Bulls? Okay. No, because I just wanted to make sure, because I read it today, and now it's just so absurd.

I felt like I was like, you better double check this, even though I did a couple times. But that was a draft thing where they were trading around second round picks. So I don't think he's done a player. Maybe he's trying to break a record. Maybe nobody's ever done four years without a player trade. I think the number is there's no player for player trade since August of 21. That's amazing. I hate to get that wrong, but I know I've seen it a couple different times today.

I don't really know that there was a bad trade because the trade deadlines suck. Like Bogdanovich with the healthy Knicks, everybody was freaking out about it. But at the same time, I'm like, I don't even think he closes with this team. Yeah. If everybody's playing. But now they've needed him. And he's a nice pickup because he stayed offensively impactful this late in his 30s. So it was such a terrible deadline.

We already covered the OKC thing. And that's still not as bad. Think about some of the trades that have happened at the deadline. There's nothing even close to it this year. Maybe taking on Grant's money. So I thought about Grant Williams and be like, do you really want to take on that money?

But they got a 27 first out of it. So I can't get mad at Charlotte for that. Just some quickie words. The LeBradford Smith Award for saddest NBA feud. Probably Terry Eason versus the Warriors this week. It's just bizarre.

He's in street clothes trying to start shit with the four-time champs. Just bizarre behavior. I guarantee you, your teammate didn't like it. I'd love to see what he does because he just gets out there and he freaks out and it's awesome. But he put on a Warrior shirt and then did a video where he's like, Warriors come out to play. He's out for the season. They lost. And then he still talks shit after. It has to be a generational thing where like, you know, your buddy comes over and you're like, what did you do today? I'm like, oh, insulting Ryan Gosling on Twitter.

Like, oh, yeah. How'd that'd that go well he responded like in 16 so i'm gonna get him to respond again like awesome that's what you did today how's work it's been a little slow just the afternoon i think it's a generational thing where some people have just grown up with it where you're like no you just fuck with everybody all the time and be like yeah but you're not playing and you lost nah you just you just keep fucking with them but yeah but you're like, no, you just fuck with everybody all the time. You're like, yeah, but you're not playing and you lost. Nah, you just keep fucking with them. Yeah, but you're not at their level and you're out for the year. Even if you hate the Warriors, you go to the collective resumes. You're going to talk shit to these guys.

You're going to make videos. You're going to wear the shirt. You're going to do all this stuff and you're not playing. Look, I don't go to TNT to confirm every thought I have about basketball, but when it's those three guys up there that played and they come back from that story and the Clay quote, and they're on TV and they just all are looking at each other like, what is this? It just looked dumb. I can't imagine he may have liked it. All right, we got to go quick because we have the big ones are left. The Bank Shootout and Heat Award for most fun shootout goes to that Indiana 157, Atlanta 152 game. That game was awesome.

Back when the new rules or the... We hadn't had the new rules yet and we were just allowed to go back and forth and go nuts. The T. Morant Award for best or most polarizing NBA family member. I think it's back to back unless you want to go with Thanasis because Thanasis had some runs. I actually like Thanasis, but Thanasis

had some runs where there were some YouTube clips and TikToks about mixtapes. What do you like about Thanasis? He just seems like a nice guy. I like his podcast. Dominique foxworth had him in studio on his pod when i went on he's like yeah he was here earlier today in studio i was like you know what i love that move it was convenient they were in town we reached out he said no problem he showed up in studio and fox was like

i loved him yeah Yeah. Great guy. He's like, he gets it. Yeah. He gets his place. The Reggie Lewis, I don't know. I just like this guy word. For the young guy who doesn't play that much, but you still like, named after Reggie Lewis that one year when Casey Jones wouldn't play him in his rookie year. And every time he played, we were like, ah, I kind of like this guy.

I'm going to give you a bunch of names. Jabari Walker, Danny Avgia, Kispert, Sam Merrill, we mentioned. Cam Whitmore had some moments. Gigi Jackson, Peyton Watson probably doesn't qualify, but I'm throwing them in there anyway. And Kamara, I thought had some good defensive moments. My favorite, I think, is Danny Abdiah, who I think is actually going to have a real moment on a good team at some point in his career. Who is yours? Who's your pick? A lot of good picks in there,

because this is really obscure. When Cam Whitmore comes to the game, it's awesome. He had a drive on Luka today where he was like, I'm going to try to get you. Luka stayed in front of him, and then he's like, now I'm going to slam into you. And Luca actually got called for a foul that he didn't commit, which Luca handled well. But it's just so much fun when he gets in there.

And he's like one of the most fearless rookies in the entire league. But if I had to go off the menu, I like the Denny pick. Banton for Portland. So my dad, like four days ago, we're talking about this. No, he's like, what's up with this Banton guy? Why did we let him go? He made

it a why did we let him go Bob Lobel style. I mean, I was like, used to say he looked like a chicken running around with his head cut off when he played for us. I don't think anyone saw this, but yeah, he's been pretty good. Yeah, he's been pretty good for him with his head cut off when he played for us. I don't think anyone saw this. He's been pretty good. He's been pretty good for him. He played seven minutes a game for Boston. It also speaks to there's one rotation that's a little tougher

to crack. You're going to be asked to be doing things. The freedom that he has in Portland, you kind of think about the Celtics front office and go, they weren't wrong on this guy. They weren't, but it just wasn't really going to fit. The Carol Dawson Award for most unabashed tank job goes to Toronto.

We don't need to debate that one. Toronto's just like, we're out, man. We're getting into the top six. This is a thing that's going to happen. This is a fun award. Probably one of the most Russillo-y awards on the docket. The Dwight Howard

Sorry, dude. I can't help it. I just don't really like watching you play basketball award. Our nominees DeJounte Murray, Cam Thomas, Daniel Tice, Cam Reddish, or Darius Garland

and Donovan Mitchell together? Combo. No, you can't do that last one. Yeah, no, we're doing it. Doing it. The combo. Those two together. I was just going to say campaign.

Campaign. That's a great one. Sorry, dude. It's nothing personal. I just don't really enjoy watching you play basketball. I mean, he'll hit a three in the second quarter down 12, and he kind of looks around wondering why they haven't stopped the game. They haven't addressed the make at center court. I'm going with Murray. Murray taking 44 shots against the Celtics, hitting the game winner,

and then celebrating it for a minute and a half when they're like 35 and 42. I'm like, I'm out. I'm done with you. Did I interest you in some non-Trey Young stats? Sure. Let's hear them. All right.

Atlanta with Trey. 10th in offense. 117 points per 100. Defense 30th. 120 points allowed per 100. One loss record 24-32 Offense post-tray Dips a bit here

12th, 115 You also could equate in the officiating Being part of that The defense jumps from 30 with a bullet To 21st worst defense Or I should say 21st Best The point differential

is still a positive before it was negative three and the one loss record is 12 and 10. I think we are entering real decision time. Trade time? In the victory lap, one man will do

will be insufferable. But I don't do victory laps, so maybe I won't. I don't know. The Ray Allen 2010 playoffs trick-or-treat award. Remember Ray Allen in the 2010 playoffs? He was either 39 points in seven threes or he was like one for 11.

Trick-or-treat nominees, Dallas, Zion, Miami, New Orleans, James Harden, or the Clippers? I think it's the Clippers because I think it's Kawhi. Yeah. His numbers in those first two games against Phoenix last year,

you're like, wait, Phoenix isn't going to win this series? No, it's the Clippers. This is one of my favorite awards. The white chocolate Was a Problem Award for the 2024 guy whose season was much better in 40-second Twitter highlights. Our nominees, Lamello Ball,

Jalen Duren, or the Thompson Twins. Again, combo. Combo nominee, the Thompson Twins., combo, combo nominee, the Thompson twins, or somebody you want to throw in there. I don't want to do that. It's really edging toward LaMelo ball was a problem in 2042 when we're just

like, Oh my God, that guy is amazing. They were playing the playoffs. Now he never made it. I can't do it to Dern. It's 12 boards a game in 29 minutes. I mean, at least he's out there busting his ass would you say he's a problem uh no i mean he's still only 20

no i like him too i just was trying to come up with names for this no because this is a great category where early yannis was kind of like this oh yeah where you went oh my god and it's like yeah but you watch like the other 20 minutes i mean yannis is a 27 footer right his development uh and what he turned himself into is is one of the most i think most remarkable developments of like the modern era of the NBA. So what's your answer? He got bigger. Probably LaMelo. But it feels a little unfair because he just hasn't played enough this year.

Three more awards. We already talked about this, but the John Travolta and Pulp Fiction comeback of the year, our nominees are Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Dante Axelman, and Kyrie Irving. And I think it's Kyrie. It's weird to call it a comeback because the year. Our nominees are Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Dante Axum, and Kyrie Irving. And I think it's Kyrie. It's weird to call it a comeback because the stats are pretty similar, but it feels completely different. And I'm in. All right. This is one of the big awards.

We have two awards left. The League Pass MVP, which is our last award, but then this is really your award. It's the 2024 Shamit Face Award for who had Shamit Face this year. I'm not allowed to vote on this. This is just you're the voting community. Did you have a Shamit Face 2024 guy? Yeah, it's Amir Coffey. You're dying right now. I didn't know it was going to go over like this. It's so random.

Okay, make the case. When Amir Coffey ends up with the basketball, I'm not worried about it. Amir Coffey's a good basketball player. He made a huge three today in the Clipper game. He made one of the biggest shots in the game. I filled out my ballot this morning. I didn't even need that today.

Because when I watch the Clippers, I go, all right, Norm six, Plumlee seven, Westbrook's eight, maybe Westbrook's six, whatever it is. We're talking about Coffey maybe being the ninth guy you think about after all the other players it's like what position is he is he a power forward is a small forward what is this guy but usually that guy sucks and i know he's not shooting three as well

um i know last year he had a dip from it and you know you go back to minnesota and was like he put up huge numbers i think he was like a legend in high school he was Mr. Minnesota in high school but I find myself when the Clippers are swinging the ball around and it's late in the shot clock it's like oh well you know there's Mr. Minnesota showing up like you can put it on the floor a little bit here yeah yeah he's at 41% after like last year you were a little like concerned you go what's going on but he's consistently shot it well from three. There's just not a lot of counting numbers you're going to be really excited about.

But if you think about rotations in the NBA and how far down he is on the Clippers and that when the ball ends up in his hands, you're actually open-minded about the outcome, he's a better basketball player. But he's got a real specific look. The 2024 League Pass MVP. First of all,

everyone who got nominated for this, congratulations to our four nominees. Yeah, that's just that in itself. Really a special category. Our nominees are Nikoli Jokic, Victor Wembanyama, Luka Doncic, and Anthony Edwards.

Your League Pass MVP is... Who is it? It's Ant for me. It's Jokic for me. You know, that's like picking De Niro. I can't tell you you're wrong, but Ant makes me feel like a kid. I don't have moments where I'm at home and I'm like walking around my living room going, holy shit.

And as great as all these other players are, I did a whole open on this where I was kiddingly calling him Basketball Viagra, where I feel like a little kid with him a couple times a month where I'm just so excited to see him do this stuff. And look, he or Steph are my favorite players in the league. I have him third as my third favorite non-Seltic. Jokic one, Curry two. I still love Curry. Still love watching him. But Ant to move up into that territory

is just, that speaks to how crazy of a year it's had. Like you kind of, if Minnesota's playing anybody decent or better, you kind of have to throw him on a TV. If they're playing somebody bad, I'll be like, okay, he got subbed out. And then I'll try to be like, okay, normally he comes back in at this time. And then I check back in to see if he came back in.

It's like when you said the best shootout, and I didn't know you were looking for like an ABA score on that one. But I was thinking about the Steph at the Lakers game. And granted, Anthony Davis only played nine minutes. His eye got scratched up. So it completely changed the game and the freedom that Golden State had offensively. But Curry went nuts. LeBron went for like 40 in a way. That game was awesome.

Yeah, you're right. That game should have won. That was a Saturday night one too. It was like 2015 finals LeBron where he's just like, I'm going to try to do everything I can possibly do on my own. It's probably one of my favorite LeBron games

that's not a playoff game in recent years. And then as I was thinking about that, I'm like, yeah, but you haven't had more fun. You haven't had more yelling in a house by yourself moments than Ant against the Pacers where he does what he does late and then he gets the block. Or Ant against the Celtics. He's had a couple where he just for three minutes just completely destroys the other team and talks shit the Celtics. He's had a couple where he just, for three minutes, just completely destroys the other team and talks shit the entire time. Okay, if Ant Minnesota calls and they go,

look, I know this is a little weird, a little outside the box, a little Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio here, but actually none of it would work. So let's forget all the rules. Let's forget all the cap rules and all that kind of stuff. If they offered Ant for Tatum, what would you say? Ant's younger, so you'd have to do it, right?

You're getting four extra years. From a basketball trade standpoint, you'd have to. You'd have to. I don't know where he's going to rank on the trade value this summer, but he will be in the top five. The question is, is Wemby at number one yet? Because after what we saw the last six months, it's hard for me to believe there's another asset in the league

you'd want going forward than that guy. But Jokic is a guaranteed title every year, or a guaranteed finals appearance every year if he has a good team. Right. I can't wait to see what the second phase of the Jokic thing is around it

because he just elevates people because they're going to have to figure it out. I don't know. They're still pretty young, actually, those guys. Maybe they just run it back for a really long time. Is Jokic the only one the other GM hangs up on? Like if San Antonio calls and says, hey, it's Wemby for Jokic, Denver's the only team that says no,

and then everybody else says yes for every single player in the league. Is that where you're at? I think so. Luka, maybe. Luka, Dallas, I don't know. I don't know how attached they are to Luka, but I think that's probably a longer meeting in the office.

I'd say pretty attached. My thing with Jokic for league pass MVP is it just kind of doesn't matter who's playing that night for them. He's still so much fun to watch. It's like, oh, they're at Murray. All right. I guess he'll make it work with Reggie Jackson and Christian Brown bringing the ball up. It'll be fine. He'll get

to his 27, 15, and 14 or whatever. Just the most reliable night-to-night offensive performer. Probably I don't even know how far we'd have to go back, but it's way up there. I'm going to really miss

him. He's still young enough, but I don't think you have to worry about it ahead of time. No, I'm saying like 10 years from now. I remember thinking this with Brady in 2014, being like, man, I'm going to fucking enjoy every Brady game because this is, I just don't know how many, I know I'm going to 10 years from now be like,

fuck, I should have appreciated this more. I'm not going to be that, so I'm going to enjoy all of this. like, fuck, I should have appreciated this more. I'm not going to be that. So I'm going to enjoy all of this. And I feel the same about the Jokic. Just throwing them on TVs is the fucking, it's everything I want from basketball. My favorite part of it is that you can tell what he wants to do. It's like an alarm, almost like there's a thing on the ticker that'll say Jokic is going to look to exploit this for the next six minutes.

And then now Jokic isn't going to shoot. Okay, now Jokic is going to shoot based on game. He's a little easier to kind of identify what it is he's trying to do. Granted, he has more touches than anybody in the game. But he will really change. Like LeBron does this too. There's a lot of really great players that kind of use that first quarter to feel each other out. But with Jokic, it just seems easier to notice, which makes it more fun for everybody.

Because you can just see that game-to-game opponent defensive strategy against him because so many people try different things against him. Be like, oh, okay, this is what you're going to try to do. Now I'm going to try to do this. Or you thought I was going to do this. I'm actually not going to. I think the Miami game he took six shots in the first quarter. He took two the rest of the game and he still

was the best player. Now Graham Bam was incredible what he was doing against him, but he dominated the game taking two shots the rest of the game. Now he's reached that last level where I feel like sometimes because it's a long season. He'll just be like, I'm going to fuck around today

during this game against Toronto. And I'm just going to try to see how many alley-oops I can get Aaron Gordon. I bet I can get him eight. And that's just going to be... This is like the truly, truly great players going to random games and be like, I wonder if I can make like 10 threes in this game.

Or I wonder if I can get to eight Gordon alley-oops. I wonder if I could make like 10 threes in this game. Or I wonder if I can get to eight Gordon alley-oops. I wonder if I could just run the same play with Jamal Murray over and over again how many times before they stop it. Like, I just feel like he's at another level. Anyway, those are our awards for the 2024 season. Next week, we will give you our real awards. You can hear Rosillo on his podcast Tuesday and Thursday. This was produced by

Steve Seward and Kyle Creighton as always. Any last words, Marcelo? No, great job on this. Yeah, this was fun. I don't have a few years with him. On the wayside, I'm a Bruce O'Leary. I don't have a few years with him. Must be 21 plus in present and select states. Fando is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit Fandle.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan,

New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800-NEXTSTEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona, 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut 800-9-with-it in Indiana 800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas 877-770-STOP in Louisiana mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland

800-GAMBLER.NET in West Virginia 800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York.