The Bill Simmons Podcast - Two Crazy Play-In Games, and 2026 NBA Awards Picks With Kirk Goldsberry and Joe House

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kirk Goldsberry and Joe House to recap the Hornets taking down the Heat and the Trail Blazers securing the West's 7-seed in the first two Play-In Tournament games (3:26). Then, Bill and Kirk break down their NBA awards picks for the season (57:13). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Kirk Goldsberry and Joe House Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Shop your favorite local grocers on Uber Eats! https://www.ubereats.com/brand/kroger The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by, Fandle, we're also brought to by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchable on Monday. We did Basic Instinct. It was the live show we did in San Francisco. It was awesome, had a great time. You've been at Craig on stage, we had five of us. As you know, I've always complained about five-man studio shows. Five-man live podcast kind of worked. Craig picked his spots. We were all passing the ball around. Really, really good show. Go check it out. Next week, Monday, you have six days to watch this on Netflix. We're doing kindergarten. Cop in Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic. Oh yeah. Kindergarde Cop coming next Monday.

Speaking of podcast, we released the first two episodes of Legata, a rare narrative podcast for The Ringer. We don't do a lot of these. When we do them, we go all in. And this is an amazing story. I don't even know how to describe it, but I'll just say this. If you like Scarface and Miami Vice from the 80s. If you like cocaine driven, what the F is going to happen next kind of plots, this is the one for you. Just think like if me and Chris Ryan had created a narrative podcast from scratch, we probably would have created this, even though we didn't create this. Somebody else did. But Legata, just go check it out. It's really, really something. Please listen to it. It's really, really good. I was involved in this one behind the scenes and I'm really proud of it. So Legata.

Speaking of things I'm proud of, I got Joe House to stay up late on the East Coast with Kirk Goldsbury down in Texas to react off the two playing games, Charlotte, Miami, and Portland, Phoenix, and then House left, and we go in a time machine. We go backwards in time. Yeah, backwards in time to earlier this afternoon when Kurt Goldsbury and I did our awards pick, including my MVP, which is at the tail end. So if you care about who I pick for MVP, something I changed my mind on 430 times over the weekend. That is at the tail end of the podcast. Saved it for last, like a big fat dessert.

So that is coming up next. We're going to take break and then bring in Pearl Jam and then Kirk and House late night, Tuesday after two playing games. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandul. The NBA postseason is here and Fandle knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team. Win is winning along with the game. them. Fandle, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during their playoff run. Build the same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip off. Don't forget with Fandul,

you get paid instantly when you win. Download the Fanduals Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus D.C. Kentucky, Wyoming. Game problem called 100 Gambler. Call 8887-7-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, we're recording this part of the podcast at 9.53 p.m. It is presented by New Era, thanks to them. Kirk Goldsbury is here. He's also coming up later because we did all NBA. Joe House staying up super late on the East Coast.

I've never been proud of you. What did you have? Like an Arby's bruce beef? What happened? No, no, no, no. I don't need that. I had a little bit of coffee, but I live on the fuel of Deniabia.

you guys did your all NBA. I can't wait to hear it. I'm here. Oh, wait, house. For my guy, look, I'm in my hat right here. We're putting that man's number in the rafters, the best Washington player in the last 15 years. Give that man his flowers.

I'll tell you this much. We aren't allowed to do this, but I'm going to do it. We argued about the last third team spot in an NBA, much later in the podcast. And I said I was going to give it to Scotty Barnes and that I couldn't quite get there with Denny because he barely played enough games, all that stuff.

But after watching tonight, Kirk, I'm just going to change my vote. Dude, the NBA is doing this to us or for us. I'm not sure, but they've given us another set of games to reevaluate our choices.

Yeah, to rethink things. Rethings. Traditionally, our votes would have been due by now. Instead, we're watching Khan Knieppel. We'll get to there. But yeah,

Denny, obviously playing one of the games of the year for him. and making us rethink where he should be in these awards. Unbelievable. He was awesome. It seemed like at various points house, the game was over, headed for the Blazers.

They were just going to go up by 20. Then it seemed like the game was over with the sons that they just bully balled Portland. Portland couldn't hit a shot. And I was watching, I love Portland tonight. I was really confused because I've been watching Portland in the last couple months.

And it was the first time I thought they looked a little spooked. And it was kind of like, you know, once they started really like, hey, Denny, you're not driving to the basket anymore. We're throwing five bodies in front of you. And it was like, okay, who's stepping up? Who's going to step up on this Portland team? It turned out to be the much maligned Jeremy Grant, a staple of our worst contracts drafts with Big Waz every year, hit a couple big threes, and then Obdia took over late. But how did you let this guy go? I still don't understand. well i mean i'm not going to go through the full recitation of what was going on it's a true story that his ascendance timeline wise didn't line up with the the tank uh effort so i understand

they could have got more that that's the only quibble we're not going to talk about washington the most important thing setting aside the hyperbole is that for a lot of these guys this is the most important game they've ever played in their entire basketball lives like I defy you to find another game for Denny Obdia that was more important for him than this game, this moment, this stage, this franchise, his identity in this franchise, his rise right now. And the same is true of some of those guys, you know, in Charlotte. Tell me a game that Lamello Balls played in his entire basketball life, his whole basketball life that was more important than tonight's game. Right. And, you know, I, it's a fair comparison to make. You had Denny with an incredibly efficient 15 of 22 for 41 points, 12 and 7.

And, you know, we'll get to Lamello in due time. Yeah, yeah. And didn't get a couple calls, too. Portland played all the hits, Kirk. They threw scoot out there, little hope with the scoot stop there for stuck there for a second. We saw some tibble. we saw a little Robert Williams clinging center thing

I mean big picture before we talk about the game now we have San Antonio versus Portland and if I'm San Antonio I'm beating probably either of those teams pretty handling I'm sure they're huge favorites but I would have much rather played Phoenix Portland at least has two big centers to put it on Wembe

they have a guy who's really comfortable and really good at getting to the basket in Denny although trying to get to the basket against Wembele, it would be interesting. True Holiday's been there before. I don't think it's a sweep, is my point. I think Portland will always make them work a little bit, right?

Yeah, I'm happy for the Portland fans to have some playoff games up there. That'll be cool. But yeah, this is the 23rd-ranked offense since the All-Star break, but it's the third-ranked defense. They're going to be tough to score on. And one of the things I'm worried about as a Spurs guy is the ability for these young guards to shoot their threes. We've both been really positive.

about them as the season's gone on about getting better. But the playoffs have a way of making teams cool off. We saw that with the Charlotte game tonight too. So yeah, I think that Portland defense is really, really playoff ready. And then like we saw it tonight, Denny can go out there and win a game. Like 41 and 12. Are you kidding me? Yeah, Portland I thought, Green was, how many, Green took 29 shots house.

Yeah. What's the right number for? Jalen Green field goal attempts in a playing game. I'm going to say about 17. I don't know, though. 15 to 17? What really kind of revealed itself is this overachieving Sun's team. They just, they have a talent deficit.

And that's not a knock. Like, this was supposed to be kind of a transition rebuilding year. Yeah. To wash out the horrendous taste that was left in their mouths from what they tried last year. And it turned out that, like, chemistry matters. The book of basketball, the secret. the secret that I learned from the book of basketball is that chemistry matters.

And lo and behold, here we just watched it. But, you know, they couldn't at the end of the day, outscore Portland because Portland had one guy that was unstoppable. Yeah. And, you know, they play Gillespie less because they're playing those three guards together. I thought Brooks was pretty awesome in this game. Me too. Phoenix had a couple, hey, we've been in games like this before. who felt like it.

And from the Portland side, it was really just Drew Holiday was the only guy who seemed like really comfortable in the game. But it's a weird Phoenix team. And if I'm Golden State, maybe less the Clippers

side of the Clippers game to game, who knows? But if I'm Golden State, I'm like, look, if we can get by this goofy Clippers team tomorrow night somehow, Kirk, yeah,

we could beat Phoenix too, right? We can get in the dance. We have steps. Al Horford's coming back. Who knows? I mean, we know. We know what's going to happen.

You're dying to get Steph in. You're dying to get Steph in. They're so bad. They suck. You watch that team. They suck. Get a 37 win team in the playoffs, house. That's what we need.

Steph Curry in the playoffs is something we all want. I would say whoever wins that at 9, 10 game in the West should feel pretty good about their opponent in Phoenix. That's a team that I thought the. wrong guy took 29 shots. I would rather that been Devin Booker. I'm fine with Jalen Green taking 29 shots in a world where Devin Booker is hurt, but in a world where Devin Booker is fine. I wanted him to take 29 shots. House, did you see how many he took? Ten. That's the issue. There you, well, no, Booker ended up with 17. I'm sorry, doing Brooks had 10. That booker at 17. That's the thing,

right? Take nine of Jaylon Green shots and listen. Let's have Dylan Brooks take him. Dylan Brooks, who just goes, wherever he goes, he's a winner. His team always has a positive defensive rating, just delivers wins anywhere that he goes. Let that man take some shots. He's been in big games. He's also a very hard guy to officiate.

So he ends up fouling out in the game. I think you could argue he could have fouled out in every quarter. We had 14 fouls. It was tremendous. He's doing that thing on offense too, where he's just like, bulldozing people with his shoulder and they're just like, well, we didn't call that in the first quarter. I guess we have to let that keep going now. Phoenix was, they set these, these moving

picks just constantly that they are really good at getting away with. There's a couple of teams that only who are great at that. Dick Kirk, did you feel like Phoenix blew this game or Portland won it if you had to pick one of those two sides? Well, the home team, the home team with more of the vets, the more of the playoff experience guys. Again, I would argue coming into this game with all due respect to Denny, Devin Booker has been to the finals. They have the home court. They have that guy.

They should have won it. And then when Portland went cold bill, I was already writing notes. Like, this offense just wasn't good enough down the stretch. If Denny doesn't have it going, nobody else could do anything. So there was a moment early in the fourth quarter was like, Phoenix is going to walk away with this thing.

We're going to start the podcast early. Yeah. And then Jeremy Grant hits the, those threes. And then Denny gets going. Obviously fouls dealing out with that and won. And here we go. So yeah,

I feel like Phoenix blew this chance to just get the seven seed tonight. House, which side are you on? I'm on the Portland took the game. Like to come back from 8 to 10 with four or five minutes left and take the game with some big threes, some big drives to the basket, some really good defense.

I thought Kamara on Booker was awesome down the stretch. They were doing everything they could to try to switch him off. But I felt like Portland took the game. So, House, you're the tiebreaker. What do you say? I agree with the idea that Portland took the game. And they did hit that stretch in the third quarter when Kirk was taking his very salient notes about the ineffectiveness of their offense through eight minutes and 30 seconds in the fourth quarter.

They had 22 points in the entire. entire second half. 18 through the entire third quarter and then four points in the fourth. But when Denny came back into the game, right around that 8 minute mark, 815 minute mark, he came in and immediately got an AN1, got the technical on Dylan Brooks,

and that really started tipping things. This never works. You know what, refs don't like this. When they get the seal clap for five straight seconds, That's going to get a tactical. You go through it. It's 22 minutes for Mark Williams for four points and four rebounds. I honestly don't remember him playing.

Right. Was he out there? It's 24 minutes for Royce O'Neill with seven points. It's 23 minutes for Oso with three points. Like this is the problem for Phoenix. They have a talent deficit. And that's not a knock on them. It's just who they are.

Jordan Goodwin, 29 minutes. Like, okay, okay, good job. Yeah. Portland's pretty good, man. They'll be a frisky seven. So do we call them a seven seed? What's the rule here? I guess they're a seven seed now.

They are 100%. It's not the rule. They're the seventh seed. They're the eight seed playing in the two seven seed matchup, or are they just now the seventh seed? They're now the seven seed. Did the Fox score happen? They earned it.

Does this box score exist? Does Deni have the numbers go up? What happens now? Yeah, I forget. Is this a playoff game? I think it just, they just put it over on the side, like in area, area, what's the area, the alien area, area 51. Yeah, it's in area 51.

Or area 52. This house called it area 52. Called an area 41 for Denny. There you go. There was like two moments in this game where I was like, fucking scoot, man, it's going to happen tonight. It's happening tonight. Here we go.

And it just did not happen. All right. talked about that game enough. Charlotte, Miami. It wasn't the game of the year. It was the drunk game of the year. This game was drunk. Amazon got drunk.

Amazon started doing shots in the fourth quarter and glitched out in OT when it was 123 to 120 and Charlotte had the ball with 30 seconds left. And we had a Sopranos moment

and it just goes away. This game was full of unbelievable shots, massive, massive, massive brain farts. And at the center of all of it was the mellow ball, who inexplicably injured Bam out of bio. It might be suspended for Friday. Like, let's keep an eye on that.

He missed 14 threes, Kirk. Oh, my God. That's got to be at least a playing record. I don't know if it's an NBA record, but it's at least a playing record. There's multiple times where they had a lead, especially in OT. They're up five with like two and a half minutes left,

and they're running basically the four corners and then doing a grenade shot with the second left. I thought Lamello just had some horrific moments in this game. Like horrific. Moments that make you wonder, is this guy just never getting it ever? Like what is up with the decision making? And then what happens after he throws the ball away

to lose the lead on a foul of Tyler Harrow, which he commits for three free throws? They come out of a timeout. and he makes an awesome driving layup to win the game. House, he was the player of the game and the least valuable player in the game, all in the same game. Well,

I mean, it's hard to be fair with this game because of BAM going out. So, like, my inclination is to give Miami flowers for just fighting their asses off all the way through. It's really befuddling.

I'd love to get inside that. locker room and get some intel on when Tyler Hero came back, why couldn't Tyler Hero and Norm Powell be on the basketball floor together at the same time? It was one of the worst defensive combinations over the last, you know, a stretch of games, and Miami's defensive rating suffered mightily because of those two guys being on the floor at the same time. I'd love to understand what was going on. So Norm played 19 minutes tonight, and the entire second half had a look on his face like, I feel like I've lost

$30 million in free agency just tonight. This sucks. I'm really bad. What's happening? I think he's right. Yeah, it was bad. Because the first half of the season for Miami, he was awesome. It was like, how could the clippers possibly

have let him walk for so little? Kirk, we might have to do it. Fuck it. Yeah. Eric Spolster. Are we sure he's good? No, no. I mean, to your first point, Bill, you nailed it.

And Spoh was fired up after. the game about the play, which was just a weird play. I mean, it almost looked like Lamello hit his head. He just grabbing, but that was the moment. That's the moment we'll remember from this game. And I hate that I'm saying that, but as crazy as the finish was, like, that's Miami's best player. He's out.

That sucked. And then you tell me that the number one and two three-point shooters this whole season are con canipal and Lamello ball, not for Charlotte, for the whole NBA. and these guys combined to go two for 22, and you're telling me that Charlotte still's going to win that game? That's crazy. Khan got benched. Unless he's hurt, but they didn't say he was hurt.

It was just a flat out. You don't have it tonight. You're 20 years old. The lights were a little bright. Have a seat. And Diabate, too. So, like, I look at Charles Lee as, like, the MVP of this game. So Concanipal is minus 20 and 34 minutes.

Diabate is minus 17 in 36 minutes. Lamello ball plus 15 in 40 minutes. That means Charles. It's minus 14 in the 13 minutes he sat. I think Charles Lee finishing with Bridges, Brandon Miller, La Mello Ball, and Kobe White, obviously. And Grant Williams.

He went a little small with G-dub as the fifth guy. Can I give you guys my theme of the night? Yeah. Bad teams give away good players too soon. Kobe White, Davion Mitchell, Denny Advia were all on different teams a few years ago. They gave up on these dudes. They were the stars tonight, right?

Davian Mitchell played incredible. He played 48 minutes. That's one of the reasons Norman Powell didn't see the floor. Davian was playing electric basketball on both ends of the court. Obviously, Kobe White comes over from Chicago. Zach Lois is the great bit, Bill. Chicago and Sacramento should never be allowed to trade again. Well, we benefited from their trades again tonight,

watching those guys play. And then obviously Denny in the first game. But look, Kobe White was fucking awesome, man. And I was electric watching him. And I know Lamello made the play that sealed the game. But Kobe hit some big boy shots down the stretch for Charlotte to save their season. That was the trade of the year. They gave him some Amazon Prime Award.

He'd some necklace with the plays on it. Yeah. They should have given him an apology. for the stream going out with the overtime. They should have given us an apology because it was a goddamn basketball game being played in fucking Phoenix at the same time and they're doing necklace giving. There's a fucking basketball game that's being played. Points are being scored in Phoenix, Arizona.

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

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

You know, they've done a good job with the studio show. They've rejuvenated. and Van Gundy for me. I did not like him as an announcer in the three-man boosts on T&T, and I would get bummed out if he was doing a Celtic game. Like it was at that level of me. I think he's been outstanding this season in the two men with Iron Eagle. I thought he did a great job today, laying out all the storylines, what was happening, having a feel for even like the Cinnipple thing. You know, I think at one point he said something like, how long are you going to stay with him, which is like he's the third best player in the team. And

As somebody that's watched way too many Hornets games this year, he started out slow like that in games. And then he hits one, it's a lot like Clay. He hits one three and he's fine. It's just he never hit the three. And you could see him starting to lose the confidence. But Kobe White, to Kirk's point, saved it. I have no idea how he wasn't worth the first round pick.

I don't know what happened. I don't know where the rest of the league was. He was an expiring contract making like, I don't know, $14 million or something. He ends up going back home to Charlotte where he's from. He went to college there. He's going to resign there. And this team, they're a big guy away house.

Like you could feel it today. Like Diabate, who's been good in some games, other games he looks like he did tonight. And they're just missing that one. It can't be Grant Williams. It's got to be somebody better. Yeah. And we kind of had that appraisal at the beginning of the season.

One of our rare big Ws was Charlotte, our forecast for Charlotte this season was some success. We thought Conn was going to be helpful. And the big question mark was, what are they going to do at the big position? I was impressed, I will say, you know, you're looking for guys that under the bright lights. We just gave Kobe White the flowers that he deserved. Now, to me, the Kobe White addition to that team, right guy, right situation, right price, right place. Everything about it is situational for him, that success.

but you look at what Miles Bridges did and you look at what Brandon Miller did. Those three guys, they combined. They were 15 for 28 from three. That freaking Charlotte team shot 56 goddamn three-pointers. And those guys really saved their ass. And every time Bridges or Miller or Kobe White touched the ball, I was like, those are the adults in the room. And that's really, to me, more than anything, a testament to Brandon Miller.

He's the youngest guy in that group, and he's the guy developmentally who needs to be, you know, carrying the water there. I don't want to talk about lamello ball. I really, I don't, there's no kind words that are going to come out of my mouth. 31 effing attempts, 31 and 12 for 31, 2 for 16 from 3. And a lot of it was clown ball. Yeah, yeah. It's a clown car full of lamello balls. look at the clown getting out of the left side.

Oh, it's Lamello. Look at the clown climbing out of the trunk. Oh, it's Lamello. Look at the clown jumping through the front. Oh, that's Lamello. Look at the three-point attempt from just inside the logo. That's the Lemental clown climbing out of the right side of the car. What the fuck is going on with this guy?

He took like a 35-footer at one point. It's frustrating because he's so talented. And you're the leader of the team. You're the point guard. They don't have BAM. He's out in the second half. And I felt like anytime he wanted, it just felt like he could get into the pain

or get to the rim. Like he's, they weren't staying in front of him. And Kirk, he was just settling for these step back, 28 footers when none of his threes were going in. It's like, go to the rim. The one thing Miami does not want you to do

is to go to the basket. And every time you're settling. There was one big reason he didn't, dude. There was one big reason he didn't. That was Kolell Ware, dude, who was playing awesome basketball. He had five block shots, played 42 minutes without Bam out there.

He had some, one of those blocks he had where he caught the ball was a clear goal tend, the refs missed. I was pretty shocked. They missed it. But yeah, dude, I don't know whether to be impressed by the two of 16, the fact that he kept shooting those threes when he obviously didn't have it. And then when he needed to drive to the basket, it's almost more frustrating. He made the game-winning drive.

Like you could have done that like Denny did down the stretch of this other game. But that's the lack of experience, though. And that's what like... Right. The older players who know who've been in this situation. Like, to me, a good example is Jalen Brown and the Celtics. Like, in a game like that, he just would have started going on the rim. Get to the basket.

Oh, where is your last center? I'm just going to start attacking him and making him challenge me and try it. They just, they didn't have the wherewithal to do some of that smart playoff team stuff because none of those fucking guys have been in a playoff game. Grant Williams was the only one. And Tyler almost stole it, dude. Yeah, he did. Harrow almost stole it Reggie Miller style down the stretch with one of the great sequences.

But yeah, doesn't it feel like both of the inexperienced teams? Like when I started seeing Harrow get going at the end and Spoe on the sideline and, you know, Andrew Wiggins, who's won an NBA championship, Bill, I started to feel like, okay, Miami's just going to win this game. Yeah, this is an infrastructure DNA game. I was furious. I just wanted them to go away. I thought the other game was going to go that way, too. I thought Phoenix had that advantage in the other game.

And we saw both sort of young, weird teams figure it out at the last second and get over the hump. But yeah, for Charlotte, man, they got a lot of learning to do that pass that Lamello threw. Oh, man. It could have ended their season in the same way that the Duke turnover. Right. Who was that? It was Caden Boozer. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The Caden Boozer turnover ended that season. It was very reminiscent of a player under pressure who hadn't been. there before just making a boneheaded play. Well, we had, house, we had three awards or LMBA spots that might have swung tonight. Because there might have been somebody who was like, multiple people, like, I don't know who to pick between flag and Khan. Con stunk tonight. Uh, screw it. I'm going to take flag.

That's, that's diabolical. I really, I think Hawkes for six men of the year, which we do this later in the show. And Kirk has Kelden Johnson, spoiler alert, and I have Hawkes. and now Hockaz, who I didn't think was very good in the game and then had the biggest defensive fuck up at the end. He just let Lamele go by him. I don't know what he was doing. He wasn't playing six men. He was playing as a starter because Bam wasn't in the goddamn lineup.

I mean, this is the thing that I want to criticize some of the end of the game stuff for Miami. I mean, Kirk was talking about Tyler Hero. Well, I didn't love a lot of it. It felt like the same hero ball that we saw. really at the end of games last year as well, where this Miami team goes into, now again, no BAM.

So it's not really fair to criticize, but they turn one-dimensional. No, you know what's fair to criticize? You know what's fair to criticize? So Charlotte ties it on the crazy Kobe Way three. We had two crazy threes at the end of Regulation OT, one from Hero and OT, one from Kobe Way. But they tie it, timeout.

Miami has 13 seconds to set up a play. I think Grant Williams was the center for Charlotte Kirk. Yeah. So what does Miami get? Hey, let's try to get a 27 footer from Hero at the end of the, at the end of the, like, how is that your play? That was a bad possession. Get to the basket.

Go to the basket. There's 10 seconds left. Make one pass. Yeah. Every fucking set of eyes on the basketball court is looking at the guy with the ball. Nobody's eyes have to shift one time because the guy with the ball dribbles the mother effing ball the whole time. I just can't. It makes me lose my shit. Well, here's the thing. I don't feel bad for Miami because they were the 10 seed.

I didn't think they were a playoff team. And they were who we thought they were in a lot of ways. With that said, the band thing stuck. So, house, we have a San Antonio Portland line. Would you like to guess? for the series? Yeah. Oh God. San Antonio's minus 490. Oh, no.

Minus 1350. Oh, that's too much. Way too much. Yeah. Wow. What would you like to? What do you think a spurs sweep is? Oh, I mean, that's preposterous.

You don't want to guess the spurs sweep, odds? I don't want to guess. Yes. I can't. Mine is 1350. Two to one odds for the sweep, Kirk. Yeah. That's crazy. Spurs win four to one is plus 190 on Fendell. I'm betting that. The problem with 1350 is the implied concept there is that Wembe will play all the games.

That's right. That doesn't really line up with our. our recent experience. I would like for him to play all the games. I want him to be healthy for all the games. It may not make sense for him to play all the games. He may yet still need some rest. I assume he's playing all the games.

You know who's going to be playing against him, though? Donovan Klingin and Robert the truth Williams. The guys who combined two for 12 for four points tonight, those guys? Klingin's feisty, man. He'll, he will take this personally. They definitely have 12 fouls. They definitely have 12. I think Zach Lowe is the first person to point this out.

Klingen looks exactly like Gunther, the WW superstar. He's going to gunger it up against Wembe. There's going to be some high elbows and some shoves. And Klingan's like kind of a badass. Like he's willing to mix up. He threw Dylan books to the ground. He's brave enough to do that. Kirk, I have a question that's going to send a chill down your spine.

Thought about this today during the Charlotte game. these young, carefree, awesome regular season teams or these stretches built around the young guys. Yeah. I think how great this is.

And then the old guys and inside the NBA come on and be like, Barkley does that. I don't know. I don't, I want to see it in the playoffs. And we're like,

all right, settle down. Their offensive rating was this, blah, blah, blah. And then the playoffs come and the lights are nice and hot, bright. Yeah.

And all of a sudden, that wide open, that first wide open three didn't go in. And then your second one didn't come in. And now, like you can see with con today, it's like rethinking, I made 275 of these. And I don't know if I want to shoot this. The Spurs have a few guys in that team that the lights might get a little bright, right, from 24 feet. You thinking about that at all? 100%.

I mean, these guys are 21, 22, you know, in Dylan Harper's case, 19 or whatever. like, yeah, of course. You just hope that Harrison Barnes and Deerrin Fox and Julian Champany, Harrison Barnes is a gold medalist and a world champion. Harrison Barnes. Yeah, so he is an NBA champion and a gold. But yeah, there's some vets there, but I think it is fair to say. And I don't think that's going to come up in a Portland series with Denny,

who, by the way, has never seen this stuff. Or, you know, Drew Holiday has. I'll give that to him. But yeah, I think both of these teams, Tiago Splitter is going to be. be really coaching his first playoff series and so is Mitch Johnson. Yeah, I think you're worried about that if you're a Spurs fan. We haven't seen it. And the other thing I'd say Bill Simmons is the rules change. Remember last year how jarring it was once we got into the postseason? What are the contact allowances anymore? This was a foul for six months. Now it's not a foul anymore. How is that going to

affect Wembe to House's point about his fragility, his durability? And just the, this, the, the inexperience with that, that kind of physicality that we're going to see here in the next few months. I can't wait. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to by Fandul. The NBA playoffs are here in the form of the playing tournament, which goes on for half a week. You can get better payouts. This NBA plan on Fandual, all Fandall customers can claim a profit boost every single day of this tournament.

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Howse, are you ready for the playoffs? You gotten there yet, mentally? I'm there now. Do you have an upset for us yet? Tonight was the night, no, because the first round is not lining up. The team that I feel like, you know, that Atlanta could give the Knicks trouble. That's the only one where I really feel like, you know, I don't think the, unless there's

some miracle happening with Luca's visit to, where did he go? Italy? Spain. The line's kind of doing this. I don't know if you noticed the series line. It's going this way a little bit. Lakers now plus 530 or plus 590. I can't see because one of my contacts isn't working. Plus 530. Houston now minus 750. They used to be minus 900. I mean, to me, the Lakers are a smash spot at that price. I'm probably going to end up betting it.

Yeah, I honestly think you're right. It's what it's the playoffs are two and a half weeks, basically round one. Yeah. They'll stretch it out. Even if it's two one after three and then they could potentially get Luca back for the last couple.

And you know, you know, I said this to Zach the other night. There's going to be the 55 free throw game. That's happening. Just pencil that one in. But yeah, even if they're down three, two, heading into game six, but Luca's back. I don't trust that Houston team.

No. I know you guys don't trust that Houston team. No, not even a little bit. So then the other weird thing that happened, we had the 9-10 game before we had the 7-8 game in the east. So we have Philly tomorrow and that line has moved. I love Philly today. Philly was like minus one and a half today. It's up to minus two and a half.

I really like Philly in that game. Warriors Clippers, just you might as well bet on two drunk guys having a fight in downtown O.A. I have no idea what's going to happen in that game. But Magic Sixers, who do you think Charlotte's rooting for in this game, Kirk Goldsbury?

Oh, Orlando. I don't know if you sell the rumors on the internet today, but there's turmoil in the Magic locker room. What? Head coach Jamal Mosley. They're reevaluating his future no matter what. No. I think your beloved Celtics, Bill, really put them into a funk heading into these playoffs. Without a question, I think it's got to be Charlotte Routen to see Orlando, who has been a complete mess over these last few weeks.

And I just don't know if their offense can keep up with Charlotte on an average Charlotte night. We saw Charlotte with a really below average night tonight beat a pretty good opponent. So if they just get back to average, I don't know if Orlando will keep up. So I would say the Orlando Magic. House? I don't know. The problem is how schizophrenic the magic have been. They are the more healthy team.

For sure, we don't have any confidence whatsoever in Mosley. But the problem is in the bright lights, maybe those guys all come together. Maybe they're the nobody believes in us team. they were supposed to win 50 games this season. They grossly underachieved. But like Desmond Bain doesn't want to go out looking like a bitch. And Palo wherever he ends up, whether he's on Orlando or not, he doesn't want to go out looking like a bitch and Toronto.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, man. So I'm in the direction of Orlando. We both bet on there was a Saturday game where Philly played in Charlotte and really kind of bullied them and took it to them. And if I'm Charlotte, I don't want to play them. Yeah. I didn't like that. I didn't like how that game went for them.

I thought they were really physical with their guards. I thought they were physical with Khan. I thought they're physical with LaMello. I just, I didn't like the match up. I want to play the magic for all the reasons Kirk mentioned as well. Turmoil in the magic locker room. There was something this week about a team was anxiously waiting to talk to Jamal Mosley this summer. What was that story?

Who was the team? I'm blanking. It was one of the teams that need a coach. It was like the Taipei Tigers. The, yeah, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

Somebody was excited to talk to. Oh, New Orleans. That's what it was. New Orleans was really interested. Is there a difference between the teams we mentioned and New Orleans?

Those all sound like the same teams to be. If you had to pick Warriors Clippers, what would you do, Hess? Not to step on ringer gambling show tomorrow. Take the Clippers. Kirk?

What's the Warriors injury report? We're getting Porzingis and Horford and Curry. I'm going to this one tomorrow night. The Clippers are interesting because when they play Garland and Kauai together, they're really good. All of the minutes with those two guys on the floor really good. Garland's the only guy in the team who can dribble. All you have to do when Garland's done out there is just press and trap whoever,

just try to get the ball because they'll give it to you. They don't have a backup center. Their swings kind of are hit or miss. The crowd's going to have a ton of Warriors fans there. This is always the biggest issue with Clipper games is you're going to have 5,000 Warriors fans there. And there's a real energy if Steph gets going. So it's weird. I would either pick the Warriors to win or to lose by 20.

I don't think there's any in between. I think they either get blown out or they win. I don't think if it's a close game, I think they win it. Is there any conspiracy bill? We don't want the clippers in the playoffs. Anything like, oh, we do want Steph Curry in the playoffs. That could be a thing. I'm not conspiracy bill.

I'm just a guy over here. House. I'm going to put my conspiracy bill on. Conspiracy bill did notice. We did not see Scott Foster today. Now wait. On the one hand, Steph Curry. On the other hand,

the team that was embroiled in some sort of weird aspiration, I don't want to call it a scandal whatever it was for a long time. Well, keep that to your conspiracy head on. What did we say was going to be

the funniest possible outcome of the lottery when the ping-pong balls get dropped because if the clippers lose, then they're in the lottery, but they don't have the pick, right? They don't have the pick. No. Who has the pick?

OKC has the pick. Yeah. We don't, that would be the worst. So OKC gets, yeah, the Clippers win the lottery, but OKC gets the pick. I forgot to mention there was another outcome in that Portland game. Because they made the playoffs, they lose their pick, I think, to Charlotte. So Charlotte gets a pick in the mid-first round. And if you've been following this draft at all, somebody really good is going to fall

to the middle of the first round in this. NBA draft and it's going to be a point guard. And it's going to be like the kid from Alabama who just goes 16, 17, because everybody has a point card, nobody needs to take them. So that picks like not nothing. I think Charlotte was the one that that has it. I am really excited for tomorrow. Zach poo poohed, my love of just seeing Steph Curry playing in any sort of a game that means

anything. The minutes limit is weird. The fact that, um, The other game is going to be the 7-8 game is also kind of weird. We'll see how it goes. House, before we go, you want to give us your MVP pick? It would be SGA for me. If I was lucky enough to have a ballot, I would vote for SGA.

Who would be your number two? The Joker. Wembe three? Wembe three, yeah, without hesitation or reservation. Okay. who would be your all-MBA fifth spot if Luca doesn't qualify and fails his weird appeal and we have the three guys we just mentioned and Jalen Brown in the fifth spot could be either Mitchell or Brunson or somebody else who would you put in there I think I would put

Mitchell in there because he can't kind of held that team together um until Hardin arrived and they made the push that they made. For fourth and fifth MVP, would you have Jalen Brown fourth? Fourth seems fair, sure. With no Luca? Yeah, with no Luca for sure, absolutely. And who would be the fifth spot for you? Because this is something else we argue about in the next second.

You could have Mitchell, you could have Brunson, you could have Kauai. Could have Kauai. It'd probably have to be Brunson for me, honestly. Okay. Probably Brunson. House later, we're going to send you a. a soundproof chamber and later on you'll hear if your picks

match the picks of me or Kurt Goldsbury. Who do you have for Rookie of the Year, by the way? Khan. It's not even close to me. It's not even close. I mean, it's funny a house and I are aligned a lot of the time. I just cannot cannot under any circumstance. This isn't a year

where you're having to hold your nose and choose between bad choices. Like this is not a, who who's the, I'm going to use say somebody, did the Kail Alexander Walker win it a handful of years ago?

Michael Carter Williams did. That's the way. I knew there was a three guy. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Are you, how else are you against hyphen guys

winning these awards? What's your problem? I just knew there was a hyphen guy that won rookie of the year because we couldn't come up with the answer to who the rookie of the year should be. That's not this year. Just,

Dallas is a disaster. That was an absolute. What you're doing is saying this 19 year old did things that a teenager shouldn't do, that's great. I don't have any issue whatsoever. Show me the winning basketball. I need to see the winning basketball.

That's the part of it that's missing. And if it's a bad rookie of the year, year, and we're not comparing the winning stuff at all, then it's just like, all right, who played the best in a shit situation? Yeah, then you can say, okay, let's do the counting numbers. Let's do rebounds, assists, and points. But that's not this year. And I think the force, the force multiplier effect of C Cnipple on this Charlotte team,

the settling effect of his coming in and being so efficient with the threes, that to me, flag will get his flowers. Flagg deserves flowers. But how can you make any assessment of shit numbers on his shit team? What you're saying is he is the best 19 year old. Well, we have rankings for that. There's other ways to capture that, not rookie of the year in the NBA. I'd just like to apologize to Kathy Flagg for House's inflammatory comments,

and I hope she's still a friend of the pot. My last point before we leave. I love Flagg. We all love Flag. Love that guy. I will say there's been some strange movement in these newfangled betting markets over the last six hours on that rookie of the year thing. So we could be living.

in a world where Lucas protest, Lucas, what is it called? Not a protest. It's a appeal. This appeal process may have changed the outcome of this award if those market maneuvering the movements in these markets

are to be trusted. Cooper has had some positive movement over the last six hours. Hey, last question before we go? Because House, you didn't come on and talk about this? Rory McElroy won back-to-back Masters. He sure did.

He played the Masters two years in Rome was the best guy each time. This is a thing that happened. Only four times in the history of the golf tournament. It's been around for 90 years. The other three guys to do it were Tiger Woods, Jack Nicholas, and Sir Nick Faldo. Three of the all-time greats.

Kirk. I mean, if we had started the decade, 2020 starts to do that. decade, right? January 1st, 2020. We start the decade. Think about the things that have happened this decade, including a pandemic,

and Trump winning re-election, and name 17 crazy sports things. Rory winning back-to-back masters would have been way way up there. Way up there.

Honestly not. I have to push back a tiny bit. Because... Back-to-back Masters? Well, I mean, but here's the thing. That's like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicholas shit. Yeah, it is that. And he, he earlier in his career looked like that's the trajectory he was on. What truly makes him the figure that he is in this sporting moment is that there was a 10-year gap between him winning majors.

He went on this incredible drought and the pressure built and the pressure built. And that's why last year's Masters resonated across the world in terms of sporting golf fandom and sports fandom because he overcame something that felt insurmountable and even during the course of the round last year in 2025 he damn near lost it

three or four different ways. This year was like a validation of the true caliber of a legacy, a legacy kind of mark that he put down. Kirk, my favorite part of the masters other than betting on Justin

Rose. and thinking that he was going to win the masters and then he just turned into a pumpkin on the night pole. Scotty Sheffler, he kind of sucked the whole tournament and he was like minus 11. It was the equivalent of watching somebody put up a 35, 11, and 12 not making a shot from outside like seven feet.

It was like watching lamello ball. Like he struggled all game and then you end up. He just got his stats. It was unbelievable. That is so disrespectful to Scotty Schaeffler. No, how dare you? I can't abide it. Yeah.

You can't, don't compare it to the Melmelo Ball. You're going to play in the house. Let me come back around. Scotty Schaeffler went to the University of Texas and studied at this business school that I teach in. We are huge Scotty fans. I thought the same thing, Bill. He is playing terrible. And that's how good he is right now.

He played a terrible round by his standards. All of his drives were crazy. Every time he needed a big shot, he hit it off into the woods. He missed a birdie putt that would have, I thought, really put the pressure on. I want to say that 12th or 13. 13th hole. In that stretch of holes house where they all gain ground, he had a chance. I was rooting for him the whole time. I still think he's the best golfer in the world, but hats off the roar. It was a great Sunday at the Masters. It was a great weekend of golf.

I was really fun. I was happy to see it, but now I'm ready for the NBA playoffs, Bill. House, I love watching great athletes struggle and get mostly to where they need to go anyway. It was like my favorite Jordan game other than the flu game and the last. game of his of his bull's career was that game seven against the pacer's when he just didn't have his legs and he's like i got to figure this out somehow and just kind of patching together plays and stats with nothing those are always the best hallmark of a true champion winning with b minus game yeah me maybe it was closer to b plus for him for rory we're speaking of because of how good his putting his short game was especially in the first two rounds but he shot over par

you know, on Saturday and only one under on Sunday. Well, yes, Rory just basically played two awesome back nines, right? Yeah. Where he was like one of the backdines, he was like minus six. And then the other one was the Sunday back nine. But Shephler, I don't think put together any good backdines. No, no. Shepler on the weekend was a lot.

He was even par going into the weekend. And then he did not make a bogey on Saturday or Sunday. He shot 11 under par on Saturday and Sunday. He just could not score on the back nine part five. He only had one birdie, the entire golf tournament. And that was the most incredible one. Yeah. And that was a miracle.

He saved that. You're right, Kagee. An incredible birdie. Rory's second shot on 18, man, after he hit that errand drive, as somebody was rooting for Scotty, I was like, did he just do it, I think? Because that was almost going to be one of the most painful moments in golf. depending where that ball landed, man.

The true Rory experience. That's it. That's the roller coaster ride. I mean, they missed a lot of replays and live shots, but they didn't have the perfect replay that one Rory shot. It seemed like it was going to ding and bounce backwards, which is usually what happens, and it just didn't. Somebody will cobble it together.

There is emerging now some camera angles that seem like they captured it, but it would have been fun to see you in real life. I have another thing I'm going to do as sports are. after I settle Amazon's audio video issue where the audio is before the video of the game I'm watching. That's number one on my agenda. I think the Masters, and this is the only event that you should be able to do this,

with the Masters, they should be able to grab the best announcers from all the other networks. Like, we should just have Toriko and Van Pelt and Joe Buck should all be on hold. Bampel is there. He should be on a hole.

He should be on a hole. I like this. 15, 16, 17, I want Van Pelt, Toriko, and Joe Buck. And they're just there. We don't want anything else. We'll fly you in. You get your own house.

Just work this hole on Saturday and Sunday. It's a two-day thing. And just do your thing. And let's go with the big boys. But Toriko does the radio call. He didn't do it this year because he went to the Olympics. But he does cover the Masters. I don't listen to the Masters.

on the fucking radio. I know, I understand. And who would you have on the 16th hole if you could have anybody? Burn lung, Chris. Yeah, that's the answer. Hey, I burn. I want burn for the rest, forever, for the rest of my life. What hole would you put Eric Collins on?

Would you put him on, what would be the most exciting Eric Collins hole? 15? A lot of big things happen on 15, maybe 12. Oh, 12's good. Yeah, yeah, 12 is good. The drama there. Real catastrophes happen on 12. Oh, Jim, a toothpick in my throat. He's in the water.

That's it. There you go. Yeah. I love that. Justin Rose hit it over the green and then flubbed the chip. How would Eric Kahn handle that? I'm telling you, just get all these dudes. We just get them for two days. It's best of the best.

It's like when they make those Avengers movies for the Marvel, when they put all the great actors and one movie. Let's just do it for the last two days. Nobody's against this. Kurt Goldsbury, pleasure to see you as always. We look forward to your master's shot chart map that I'm sure you're working on. By the way, that would be a good idea. Do that.

I'll buy one. Do it right now. I'll buy one. I'll send you the memo right now. I love you in both charts. Joe House, thanks for staying up late. We appreciate it. Seeing the Ring or Gambling show and on Fairway Rowland.

And I'll be making you pop on during the playoffs as well. We're going to take a break. Coming back, me and Kurt Goldsbury are going to go through all the awards. Let's go. As you know, I've been doing Wednesday bets on Fanduel. I actually won the last two. We hit a big parlay on Wemby. That was like 9 to 1.

And then Justin Rose, top five Masters plus 650. That one hit two. Almost won Justin Rose to win the Masters. I think it was 35 to 1. He let me down. But he still got the top five. So let's see if we can keep the street going. I already jumped the gun.

I did my playing bet Tuesday night, Portland. That was my favorite bet of the four playing games. but I also really like Philly. I think Philly beats Orlando. I love betting on the NBA and Fandle. It's a brand I trust. Easy to build by bet. You know, you get your winnings instantly.

Playing tournament's always fun. Do parley's. I did like a Charlotte Portland, Philly Parlay. That was like five to him. But I like Philly straight up. I just think Orlando's ready for the season to end. And they couldn't stop Maxie in the regular season. I am a Philly money line,

maybe throw that in with the Cavs to beat Toronto and the series, something like that. Go nuts. Do whatever you need to do. So don't forget to check out my middle of the week bets. Usually it would be Wednesday, but there might be a Tuesday I like on Fandall using the Fandall Sportsbook app. Don't forget to use your profit boost token to increase your potential winnings before you place it. Fandle, play your game.

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This episode is brought to you by Tell us Online Security. Oh, tag season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah. Cybercriminals love tax forms, but I've got Telos online security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season. Plans start at just $12 a month.

Learn more at Talus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. All right, we just traveled in a time machine backwards to before the playing games when Kurt Goldsberg and I banked this whole segment because we want to talk big picture round one playoffs. I want to do my award picks, more importantly, what an honor for you. You have a vote? I can't remember.

Yeah. Yeah, democracy is back in America, Bill. Have you said your vote publicly yet? No. We're going to do this right now. Let's fucking do it. We'll talk about the playoffs later. So, this Luca thing is so weird.

Yeah. It screws up the top five MVP because he would be fourth on my ballot if he's eligible. We don't know if he is. There's some sort of weird appeal process we have to go through. I don't know why the NBA doesn't care about podcast content and dumb shows like ours where we obsess over this stuff. And then it screws up first team all NBA. It opens up a spot for somebody.

And it adds a spot on the third team for somebody because everybody moves up a spot. So I want to do all NBA first. We'll finish with MVP and we'll hit all the other categories. So I had first team, Yokech, Jwembe, Luka, SGA, and Jay, which I think is chalk, right? Yeah. You had that as well? Okay.

On the Luca in version of my spreadsheet. Now, I have a Luca out version of my spreadsheet, to your point. Let's talk about that, because that's more interesting. So Luca's in, if they do the weird ruling and they're like, oh, he flew back for the birth of his child, that somehow counts as a game. It would be funny. I've said this before, but if Silver said, you know what, we reject the appeal. He would have played 65.

if he hadn't gotten 16 technicals, and maybe he'll learn his lesson now. And we just all moved on. All right. Luca out. Alternate first team. I have Mitchell in the Luca spot.

Who do you have? I have Kauai Leonard, which was sort of surprising as I went through this bill. But you look at this dude's numbers and he's nearing 50, 40, 90 at 28 points a game. He's obviously a defender.

but I just couldn't justify any other pick. I know it's a controversial season for Kauai. I know the clippers aren't that great, but this is probably his best season as a scorer of his career. If he's ever been first team all NBA, there's an argument that it should be this year. So I want Kauai. I can't kill it.

So he was sixth in scoring in the league this year. He was 7.5 net plus, played 32 minutes a game. career high points per game, which I couldn't believe. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. 27-9, was that it was? Yeah. Third highest year-14 points per game ever.

So of any year-14 guy, third highest we've ever had, and I think the other two were Durant and Curry, both of whom played in the 50s for games that year. Defense was there. I think it's a good pick. I had a hard time putting him first team Ombia when the team was barely

500 and he was there for a bunch of those when they started when they were six and nine. I just couldn't get past that. Whereas Mitchell, you know, that was a top four team the whole year. They had some injuries. I think there's some MVP conversation

for him too. And it was pretty steady for them for the most part. I thought he had I thought he had a good year. He played over 70 games, 33.5, minutes a game, seven points per game. He's a 28, 5, and 6. I just felt like, I don't really feel like either of them are first team all-MBAs, to be honest, but if Luca's going to be out, who else did we lose? We lost one more bad one. What do you mean? We lost Ant, man. What do you mean? We lost.

We lost Ant. I think Ant would have been the other one who could have swim in that swimming pool. Oh, for sure. But did not. Okay. So we disagree on Mitchell versus. Cade. Sorry. Oh, Cade is the Yeah, Cade had that spot forever and then just didn't make it. By the way, I just missed it. Yeah, too much load management. Maybe too much lung management. I don't know what we're going to call it this time around, but Cade Cunningham. Long management.

Long travesty. Well, so let's say you could have voted 60, like, let's say 60 games and up instead of 65. Yeah. Would Luca and Cade have made it for you? I had to put Jalen Brown in there, man. Jalen Brown and Cade. I know other people are going to roast me for this, but I ended up with Jalen.

He reinvented his game. That team had no business going on the run that it went on, and he was the best player on that team all year long as they went through that incredible, surprising run. I'm not mad at anybody. He had Cade Cunningham above Jalen Brown, but it would have been Luca and Jalen for me. I feel the same way.

I played almost 2,500 minutes. everything he did peaked in his 10th season, which is just incredibly unusual for the NBA. There's really no, I had a whole thing. I was looking up guys who made first team O MBA for the first time in their 10th season. John Stockton in 1994, and that's it. It's the only one. And he had six seconds leading up to this. So you could say in some ways this is one of the great aberration seasons anybody has had 10 years or later in their career.

But there were reasons for it, including Tatum, him having to take the higher usage rate. I've made the case for Jalen over and over again. You kind of had to see the season and see how limited the Celtics were from, can we get a reliable basket anywhere night to night, not knowing if Pritchard was going to be on or not. I love Pritchard, but he's a little bit on off. White shooting was near the whole year. And Jalen had 30 points or more, 35 times out of the 70 plus games he played. And they needed them all the time.

It was just always nice to know like, all right, whatever happens, we have somewhere to go in the fourth quarter. We have somebody we're getting, we know we're getting 30 to 35 from this guy. We know he's going to get to the line. On top of it was taking that defensive challenge over and over again against people like Shay and Kauai. Anytime they needed a stopper, it seemed like he ended up on the bigger scores. And I thought from a leadership, physicality, attitude standpoint, he's the biggest

reason they won 56 games by far. Yeah, and we didn't get to see what Cade would have done down the stretch. So we were robbed of that, and that's why this is a hypothetical. If Cade had finished, I mean, the case for Cade is the Detroit offense without Cade until he got hurt was a awful, awful unit. And as soon as he came in the game, everything was fine. He ran that thing as well as John Stockton. He was like he was the conductor of that orchestra.

And also just a great leader. And so, you know, we were robbed at the end of that. Yeah. But yeah, Jalen ended up absorbing on his, not easy, Bill Simmons, to deal with Jason Tatum just sliding back into the fold after doing what you do for 66 games. Now, now let's get back into the Jason Tatum. And he handled that as perfectly as anybody could have expected. I'm really glad you mentioned that because I don't know if that would have gone the right way all the time.

Like, Jaylon gets credit for come on back in. let's figure this out how this is going to work. If Cade had played 70 games and we had Luca, and I think Luca Trumps both those guys, Jalen versus Cade would have been an awesome argument, but we were sadly robbed of that opportunity. All right, second team, if Luca's in, I am looking at Jalen Duren,

Kauai Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Murray, and Jalen Brunson. Three guards, which I don't love. Let's talk about this now. I'm just always voting a center for each team or at least some sort of big. I want my OMBA team to look somewhat like a basketball team. I'm not going to do like just handing out the trophies for everybody. There's what are there, 100 votes, 110 votes.

I forget how many votes there are. Everybody approaches it differently. That's the way I approach it. I value the eight decades of history. We had centers every year for the first seven plus decades, the league. And I'm not just going to dump that because Joelle and Beatt and Yokage got weird with first and second team. It got weird with Russell and Will. I've talked about this ad nauseum. So I have Duren, Kauai, Mitchell, Murray, and Brunson. Who do you have? So I have Kauai in this

world where Luca's in, then Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant. And I go Chet. I go Chet home here largely because I wanted a center in there and because defensive conversations aren't well represented in all NBA, and he's one of the most impactful. He's definitely the second most impactful defender in the league right now. I battled Chet first, Duren, went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on it. Fairly similar case. Duren stats are better. Minutes are around the same.

Yeah. The defensive stats for Chet are better. And Chet's rim protection stuff was pretty nuts. I actually, as recently as like three, four weeks. weeks ago. I had him on the bubble because I hadn't done the deep dive on all the defensive stats. Like, holy shit. He's second in rim protection. Their first and defensive rating just in general. They're 56 and 13 when he played. So 56, 36, 79 guys. So the statistical case is there. I thought the reason I went with Duren is, I just thought he meant more to that Detroit team where

him and Cade were the guys that the physicality, the competitiveness, the attitude that that team had came from those two guys and spread down and everyone else kind of carried themselves the same way too. And when Cade went out, I was so impressed that they kept winning. And I felt like every time I watched her and I'm just like,

that guy's a fucking badass. So I think that's a, you could go either way, I'm fine with it. I didn't feel 100% on it, but, minutes a game for him, 70 games. They're plus 7.8 net when he played. He was sixth in rebounds.

And I thought he really grew as an offensive guy. He's going to come up in another award. But I didn't know he had this in him, I guess is my bigger point. And he was there. I mean, J. Dub wasn't there. I thought it was a good chance for him to sort of emerge in an offensive role, but also sort of the second banana role. But for me, ultimately, it's like, dude, this guy is one of the big reasons.

They're the best defense in the NBA for the second. straight year. Yeah, who are you talking about? Well, I was talking about Jalen before, but you're talking about chat now, yeah. Yeah, I was talking about chat. My fault. No, that's sorry. This is very confusing, by the way, for the audience. To have this Luca, non-Luca thing, I think Bill and I are very, very confused.

So thanks, NBA. So Luca out. I have Duran, Kauai, Murray Brunson, and Kevin Durant. And I didn't feel great about it. but here's the case for Durant. Second and minutes in the week, played 79 games,

played 36 minutes a game. He was 26, 6 and 5. He was a 52, 41, 87 guy. That team didn't have a point card, basically at all. And he carried that. And I thought statistically, if you remove all the burner scandal stuff

and some of the weird chemistry that team has, statistically pretty incredible season. We've only had three guys 37 years or older, ever average 25 plus points a game. Him, Steph and LeBron. Seems like a fitting class. Yeah. And I didn't, I had him third team

because the burner scandal really bothered me. And the whole thing, I thought it affected the team. I thought you could see it. I don't know how culpable he was in it, but I just didn't like it. But ultimately, like, I just, with all these other dudes out, I think he has to nudge up.

So who did you have in that extra spot if Luca's out? I put Jamal Murray in my second team with Jalen Brunson, Durant, Chet, and Donovan Mitchell. Okay. So we're basically the same except you had Mitchell and the non-Luca first team. Oh, I had Mitchell in the non-Luca first team. And you had Kauai in the non-Mitchell first team. Yeah, that's exactly right.

did you think at all about Brunson third team, second team, or were you just good to go with that? I'm so impressed by him. And maybe it's bleeding over from the playoff run. But he's just so clutch and so important for that team and ended up earning the three seat in the east. And, you know, frankly, the other guys on the team bill are so inconsistent that he just has to be so high usage and so reliable as their go-to scorer. when your second best player is cat, who I'm sure we're going to talk about here in a second, it just impresses me.

So Jalen Brunson, elevating this next team to the third seed in a world where there's so much inconsistency around him offensively, whether we're talking about Bridges or Annobe or Josh Hart or whoever else. I've always been sort of a pro-Brunsen guy, so I had him second team.

Yeah, if Luca and Kate had played, I think I would have had Murray over Brunson. because of Murray was he ended up playing 76 games or 75 games he was 6th in minutes

he was fourth and made threes 25 4 and 7 every night almost he's a 48 48488 guy and I just thought he had a harder job than Brunson is where does that sounds as good as Brunson is where that entire Knicks team is built around Brunson

Yeah Denver you have to figure out Yokuch has the ball the time, he's figured out completely how to play off Yokic, how to carry non-yokage minutes, playing with this rotating cast of swings that were either heard or Kim Johnson's not playing well. And I just thought he was so steady and so good all season. But there was no drop-off with him month to month.

I didn't look at his monthly splits, but they couldn't have been much different every month. I thought he was just so impressive. It was, yeah, his best year ever, right? Yeah. So I was thinking like if you switch them, would the Knicks be worse, would Denver be worse? I think if you switch them, I think the Knicks would be around the same. I think Murray could do a lot of the stuff Brunson was doing for them.

But I think the Nuggets would have been worse. It's a dumb way to think about it. But I think the way Murray played, I feel like he could fit into any team. I was just really impressed by him this year. Brunson, you know, as a crunch time guy, the confidence that he has and the connection he has. but there's great things with him too. A lot of good teams this year. A lot of good players this year.

Okay. Now we're going to get wonky because we have a third team with some guys that, that I just can't believe are even in the mix. I have for my Luca, if Luca counts, here's my five. Chet, who you had, KD, who I had bumped up to second team without Luca, but he's third team if Luca's involved. Chet KD, Jalen Johnson, Steph Castle,

and Tyrese Maxie. That's my five. I did it. I heard you talking about it. So if Luca's out, that leaves me with Chet, Jalen Johnson, Castle, Maxi, and Scotty Barnes, which I just don't feel great about,

but I'll give you the Barnes case. Well, you give me yours, and then we'll talk about some of the cases here. So with Luca in, I have Murray, Maxie, Jalen Durant. Okay, there's my big, Jalen Johnson, and Kat. So that's my Louca.

Okay. Interesting. I did have Kat. And then on my Luca out, I have Maxi, Duren, Jalen Johnson, Cat. And then Shengoon is the beneficiary, if on my ballot, if.

Interesting. if Luca is not included. So it's crazy just for the audience. This decision is going to affect two people in a grand way. Luca Donchurch, obviously, but the 16th best player in the NBA, in theory, is going to become all NBA, third team or the 16th candidate.

And in my case, that's Shangoon. I mean, really, he's the 17th best because Kay and Luca. And it's out, so I guess that was done at 18th. I looked at Shangoon. First of all, I didn't want to have two rockets because I've hated watching them. For the most part, they drive me crazy. I had him first half of the year.

I didn't love how the second half of the year went. I thought the chemistry stuff, like, I always go down on like how much fun would so-and-so be to play with. With Shangoon, I'm not always positive. He'd be the most fun to play with. His teammates seem like they got really frustrated with him. Um, so he didn't even, he wasn't, I had, uh, I just couldn't do two rockets.

So I'll make the case for Castle Firth because you see, I had him either way. So he finished 17, 5 and 7, 47, 33, 73, uh, on the shooting, played high 60s, played 30 minutes a game. So one of the most impressive players I saw in person, I just couldn't believe what a badass he was on both ends of the floor and goes after every single play. And then when you watch him on, I don't have to sell you, you love the spurs.

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

I think his stats could have been better I think he's just all about how are we winning how are we winning how are we winning I think guys hate dribbling up against him trying to beat him off the dribble trying to post him up

they fucking hate playing him he got way better as a shooter as the year went along that's the other thing I care about that with the NBA that you actually got better as the year went along he was over 40% from three second half of the year I thought his threes were going in when he took them during that streak.

And I just thought he was their second best player and that team won 60 plus games. He was their second best player. And, you know, one thing you didn't say that I think is huge with the spur season is he's the biggest reason, Bill, I think they give the thunder a hard time aside from the obvious Victor Wenbanyama. Yeah. He is longer and stronger than almost any of their guards, which is insane. It's insane to even say that.

That's what the thunder are. They're just ferocious perimeter hounds. and he gives them a personality, not only to counter that, but to supersede it in some ways. So he's one of my favorite players, if not my favorite player in pro basketball right now. I love to watch them.

It's a treat to go to the Spurs games. He's a huge part of their team. Ultimately, his numbers don't justify his inclusion on this for me, but I'm happy to hear the sports guy giving this dude some praise. There's one other thing with him, and it's a weird, we have no stat for it it said you know when you see it

he's really malleable with their lineups and like the best guy ever for this was John Havichick a million years ago John Havichick could be a guard or a forward depending on who else was on your team it's like we actually have more forwards now you can be a guard like cool

nah we're a little light on forwards can you play up sure can you guard this guy great can you guard this guy over here Awesome. Can you fit in? And I think that Swiss Army Knife thing with swing men are really hard to find. And one of the things I love about Castle is like he can be in any lineup they have. You want to go four guards? Cool. Play him at the fucking four. You want to play point guard for you and handle the ball? Like he can do that. Like I think when you have a guy like that, it just becomes so much easier to be good. And that team is really good. But like his flexibility I thought was the second biggest reason.

reason that they were as good as they were. Pick a lineup, pick a situation, he could handle it. It's a great point because he can blend scoring the ball, driving it. He's so ferocious with two feet in the paint. He's a great passer. He has these turnover issues that I'm sure he's going to get past because he's just so determined. But he does have turnover red flags. The shooting has come along.

But I have the stat that Stefan Castle is the seventh player in NBA history to average 15 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds at age 21 or younger. So this might not help them for all NBA, but the guys are Magic, LeBron, Chris Paul, and then there's a couple funny ones, Ben Simmons, whatever happened to that guy, Luca Donchich, Lamello Ball, and then Stefan Castle. So his blending, filling up the box score as a guard

with those kinds of numbers, obviously he's physical enough to get boards, get extra possessions. He's a big part of the Spurs culture, and I think even more so than Wembe gives them a toughness with the other teams in the West. I adore the player. I think that's coming through.

I know Zach loves this player as much as I do and you do too. So I hope he gets third team all NBA as a homer, but as an analyst, I ended up with a different answer there. So Scotty Barnes, 18, 7, and 6, 50% shooting, but couldn't hit 3s. It was down at 30 by the end of the year. Did a lot of stuff for them. They ended up with a five seed.

now the 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 were all like two wins apart. And Toronto, I think it was 500, the last 60 games. It's not like this was an awesome team, but he was the key guy in the team, did the most. Defensively, I don't know if I have him in first team, but he was right on the fringe. I think I put him second team all D. And, you know, versus putting two guys from the same team versus having a guy. who is a number five seed, who's their best player.

I'm okay with it. It's hard for me to wrap my head around him being a third team all-MBA guy, but the only other one I was looking at was Avdia, and, you know, he barely hit the minimum. He's 24-7 and set. I just couldn't get there with Avdi. I didn't think the team was,

Toronto's team was better than Portland's team. And that's, I don't know, the winning piece matters to me, at least a little bit. That's how I derived at some of these tough decisions, too, is, you know, show me when, So me what you did in the standings to some extent and in the Western Conference. So Shangoon for me is like, yeah, the West is a harder thing to win in. You know, it is really thin.

I looked at Denny too, and hats off to him. What an incredible most improved player case he has. Yeah. I did not see this coming with him as an attacker, learning the dark arts of foul baiting as well as almost any other player his age in the league. For me, just can't shoot it well enough. to justify that, I'd like to see him get Portland to a next level, and I could see him doing that next year. Credit to him. If this continues,

he's clearly got an all-MBA future if he continues to improve like he did this year. Yeah, the problem, I think they were two and 16 against the top three teams in both conferences. I got swept by the Celtics and they got swept by the Knicks. And that's where the all-MBA, like voting him all-M-BA, it's the one I might change my mind on before we have to end. the ballots, but right now that's who I have. I didn't consider Towns. Avdia, it would be funny, we're taping this before

the playing game today, but it would be funny if the playing game swung any of this stuff mentally, even though it's not supposed to. I couldn't get there with Towns. So he was 20 and 12, 50% shooting. That's good. I just, I couldn't get there because it just he's a lot.

He's just a lot in the game. There's games where you're just like, wow, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? Yeah. And I just, I couldn't totally get there. I thought about him for the, for the center spot, but I just don't think he had a case against Duren and Chet. Yeah, I put him in that sort of front court, the vague front court position.

I think what he does statistically is really impressive. I think rebounds remain one of the more underrated metrics in this league. Yeah. And you know, I agree. Yeah. Well, it's true. The Celtics really were a rebounding juggernaut this year. It's a big part of their story.

And then I think what he does. on offense, even when he doesn't have the ball, just stretching out the defense. It's so important for Brunson and helping the Knicks be such an effective offense. Yeah. Kat's fingerprints are on that. That put me there. But again, this is a team that's in the top half of their bracket, a third seed. That means a lot to me. And so I had Kat there. Okay. Ineligible were Cade, Aunt Booker, and LeBron, if you wanted to get crazy. Hardin is the only one who I took a look at. When Zach does this, Zach has like 48 guys. And he's down looking at like all of the hornets and he loses his mind.

I don't go that far. Harden, that traded midseason. That's a tough one. Yeah, that bothers me too. I thought he made the Cavs worse defensively, like almost overnight. Like they just dropped down a 15th, 16th defensively. I just couldn't get there. All right.

So that's what we go. So my LNBA right now with No Luca is Yokage, Wemby, SGA, Jalen Mitchell, Duran Kauai, KD, Murray, and Brunson, and then Chet, Jalen Johnson, Castle, Maxie, and Barnes. We didn't talk about Jalen Johnson.

That was another one, like figuring out second team, third team all-in-bay with me. He was 23, 10, and 8. Yeah. End of games, I just, I'm not, he's not there. And I, they really kind of needed CJ to be the guy.

and then Alexander Walker when he's hot. And so it's almost like he's the overqualified third banana on that team sometimes. He's doing a lot. But I don't, I didn't, it just didn't feel like he was one of, had a case for being one of the 10 best players in the league, even with all the injuries. It seemed like a lot for him. Now, if the season started in January, maybe,

because the Hawks were that good since then. But it didn't. And you're right about the CJ stuff. And, you know, I'm a big Hawk supporter. But when they play a good team, down the stretch, it is too much, CJ, and I'm worried about that in the playoffs. And that's got a, that's got a ding Jalen Johnson a little bit. And then Maxey was first, first of minutes per game, fifth and points, fourth at steals, 28, 4 and 7.

And if you just want to have a second team of all guards, he makes it. Probably bumps. Yeah, he's great. If you don't want to care about a center. Okay. Quick break, and then we'll do coach to the year. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice.

I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. Coach of the year is between Missoula and Bickerstaff,

Who did you have as your third guy in this? I put Mitch Johnson right there, maybe even with J.B. Bicker staff. I'm a big believer in what Mitch and that staff was able to do this year to help the team go from a tanking team to what was there over under? I don't mean to put you on the spot. 42 and a half, yeah. 42 and a half to a 60 win team, Bill Simmons.

Yeah. When something, again, that's one of the things that matters to me for this category, coach of the year is what do we expect from you? you in October and where did you end up in April? And so Mitch Johnson has a very impressive answer to those questions. And so he's clearly in this conversation for me. He was for me. Well, I thought there were four choices for this. I have Mitch Johnson as well. I had Jordan not for a while. Yeah. And I feel bad. I kind of wish we could have four choices for this. just in general. I don't know why they limit it to three. I think that's

weird. You know what? That's a really good point. I never thought about that. At least a Mount Coach Moore for the year. But there's really good coaches. If we have to go 15 deep for all NBA and five deep for rookie and 10 deep for rookie, why can't we do five deep for coaches? I don't know. The Suns finished 45 and 37. I thought they were very well coached. But Mitch Johnson, I mean, they were the best team in the league for four months. Nobody saw that coming. I thought he did a really good job managing everybody's minutes, not playing people too much, figuring out different lineups. So I had him third. I have Missoula first and Bickerstaff second. And I switched on this a bunch

of times. And I see the case for Bickerstaff. I just thought when they won all those games without Cade, that was nuts. It was like, holy shit, you don't have a single guy who I completely trust to create a shot. How are you still winning? The Missoula thing's nuts. They were over under was 42 and they went 56 and 26. The team played hard. I think they took maybe three games off out of the 82. The thing that impressed me the most is how they brought Tatum back into it.

And I think that's what pushed it for me. The fact that they won 56 games but also brought this star back, that upsetting anything that they just built over the last four months. I thought he had the hardest coaching job in the league of any successful team by far. I don't even think it's a question. And then ironically, that Game 82 was like a perfect example of why they should win. The team is just wired a certain way. And he's the most important.

I said this Sunday night. It's not Jalen's team or Jason's team. It's Missoula's team. That's everything they do is based on the fact that he's just a competitive psycho in a good way. So I have him first, at Bickerstaff second. I feel bad, but I just think that's the way it has to go. I don't think it's close. I mean, I agree with what you said about Bickerstaff.

I remember I was on Zach's show when the morning that we found out that Cade had the lung injury. And we were like, oh, are the Celtics going to catch them? And it was like a realistic possibility. I was looking at their schedule. And I was like, well, if you look at these numbers without Cade, they haven't been very. It was a really good stretch without Cade and Bickerstaff deserved. some flowers for that. However, this is exactly what Joe Missoula did from October to March, right? The whole stretch, he did that. And he turned the main red claws into a fucking juggernaut.

And it was impressive. And like I've compared, I think on your show before, it reminds me of the pop 2010 spurs when we're load managing Manu and Tony and Kauai. And it's all of a sudden it's Boris Diyang, Gary Neal, and Danny Green out there beating anybody. They have that, Baylor Shireman, Hugo. That whole team has no business where they ended up. And it, to me, is the most impressive coaching job. And one other point I want to get to you. Nobody talks about Brad as much as they should.

But it reminds me of Brad Stevens, the Butler coach, like the mid-major, the chip on your shoulder, mid-major guy, how he's able to turn these guys, find these guys. To extend the college analogy, he takes a three-star recruit and turns them into a player that can beat Duke or North Carolina or Florida in a tournament game. That's what it feels like to me. So I feel like his college coaching and his player development era has come to life here. But ultimately, it is Joe Missoula's job to get those lineups out there to make this a really competent two-way juggernaut with players that nobody thought could do that. that six months ago.

Yeah, and also losing Simons, basically, it basically turns Simons into Tatum, but they only have two guards. And he's got to really manage those minutes. And when there's the nights when Tatum War Brown was sitting out, and then you're basically just hoping you can get 35 to 30, 335 minutes from each guard and 36 from Tatum. And then you're hoping Baylor Shireman can run something in the offense.

Like some of the shit that was going down was crazy. The other crazy thing about the Celtics season, I really thought they should have won more than 56 games. Like if you just look at Denver was the other team like this, dumb games, you should go 50-50 on dumb games, right? Like, whoa, that was a dumb win. I can't believe we stole that versus,

oh, I can't believe we blew that. Denver was like 4 and 16 in those games. Like they always seem to lose games they should have won. And the Celtics, there's a bunch of them where there was a couple, like end of the game, Rug got pulled out of them, stupid losses. They had, I think,

two to Philly. There was the road games against San Antonio and OKC where weird shit happened both games. I felt like they could have. So anyway, I actually thought

they could have done even better than 56, which is nuts. Yeah. You talk about it being Missoula's team. I love that take. And to me,

we talk about culture way too much now in the NBA. It's become a cliche. Yeah. But when you look at how this story started, why your team ended up

hiring Joe Missoula and when and that story that turned out to be. Yeah. Yeah. And now it's like that's the coach of the year. What a story that is. But ultimately, like I said, Bill, this team has his personality as one of the strangest sort of most agro competitive, unique personalities I've ever seen a head coach in this league have. And it works. It is contagious in the locker room. And my favorite moment of Game 82, and you already talked about this a little bit on your show with legs. or maybe it was that, but that ATO just to drop that two for one where is it, is Luca Garza shooting from 27 feet? And I know that was the play.

Yeah. And that's an insane play. And it works. And it was one of those guys who nobody thought would make a meaningful shot this entire season. And it was just a great moment. And it comes from the mind of Joe Missoula. Incredible coaching job. And a little bit of revenge for him because I think he was really upset with the Nick

series and those two games and just, you know, I, I think he was in the workshop. Defensive player of the year, Wemby's going to win. Everyone's picking Wemby. Top five is interesting. So I'll just give you, you won't be surprised to know.

I am not a, I'm putting five centers on my first team defensive team. I'm just not doing that. I will do maximum two. I still want each, I still want the guards to be represented a little and a swing.

So we both had Wembe and Chet, I'm guessing. Yeah. Did we both have Assar Thompson? No, I put both Thompson's on the second team. Okay. All right, I'll tell you, I had Wembe and Chet, I had Assar Thompson, I had Castle, and I had Kasonne Wallace,

who I thought was the most devastating defensive guard I saw all year. I could not believe what a nightmare he was. And I actually think they're going to have to get rid of Dort so he can play more next season would be my guess with what they're going to do. But to me, Wallace was the best defensive guard. I thought Assar Thompson was the best swing. And I thought Castle was the best kind of back and forth, like, attitude swing. And then Wembe and Chet were the two centers.

So who'd you have? Well, I have three centers. I look at it the other way. Centers are by far the most important defenders in the sport. So I put three on here, three legendary defenders, in my opinion. Wembe, who is on another level, Chet, who second best defender in the league, right now. And then Rudy Gobert, who's one defensive player of the year so many times. So, you know, I know that's not the sexiest pick. But then I add two perimeter players because I also value that. I don't want to overindex on guys who just protect the rim.

I put Dyson Daniels on there, who you talk about a nightmare, is a walking deflection and steel. And somebody who I bet Jalen Brunson is going to be very sick of seeing here in a couple weeks. I can't wait to watch him in the playoffs. And then Derek, White, Spurs great, but also single-handedly, one of the best shot blocking guards at that position. It always seems to be in the right place on defense. Might not be the athlete, obviously, that the Thompsons are Stefan Castle is. But Derek is just the headiest perimeter defender and one of the most effective in the league. So I end up Wembe, Chet, Gobert, Derek White, Dyson, Daniels. Interesting. I had White on my second team.

I'd Gobert on my second team. I had Amman Thompson on my second team. I have Ananoby on my second team. And I put Scotty Barnes. I did not put Bam. Bam was the toughest cut for me. And I also did not have Dyson Daniels on either team. Only because I thought as you made the case,

I also feel like teams were pretty easily scoring on Atlanta all year. And it was the same reason. I left Bam off, you're one of the 10 best defensive players in the league at a key position, but everybody seems like they can go for 1.30 on your team. So I have to reward that. Gobert, definitely, it's just tough to knock him off.

But Ananobe was the guy that I really thought was, really jumped out to me a couple games this year. There's just nobody really, Zach and I talked about him a little Sunday. Like his size, physicality and just his style is so unique. that if I was a 6'8 score, I think out of anybody, he'd be the guy I wouldn't want to see.

He's so important for them. You mentioned this earlier. We still have time to submit our ballots. I do not have OG, and now I'm questioning that. So who do you have for a second team? So I have both Thompson Bros. I do have Bam.

I have your guy, Kaysen Wallace, and then I have Steph Castle. So that's guard heavy. I love it. Ogie, though, you're convincing me, dude. I think OG is so important to guarding the exact type of players. Like Boston, right? Like that series last year, he's a big reason for that.

He is a big reason for the headaches that Boston has when they play the next. Tatum has real trouble against him. He's such a big, big, strong wing defender. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there are any other tough omissions for me here. And we're good. We can move on. Rookie of the year.

Oh, we're going to disagree here. I know. I ran in. Funny story. Spurs maps game, Friday night, Bill Simmons. I ran into Kelly Flag. She says hello. She says she's very interested who you're going to choose for rookie of the year. Did she really say that? Yeah. It was like one of those mafiosos. Yeah. Say hi to Bill for me. Yeah. Say it tell Bill would. Yeah. Listen, Kelly Flagg, we still love you. We still have your condo ready for 2013. When your son, joins the Celtics. I have con and it comes down to being on a good team and all the stuff

he had to do versus flag being on a crappy team that just gave him the car keys and said, make all the mistakes you want. You're going to be awesome someday. You'll be better in game 82 than you are in game one. Just keep plugging away and go and no mistake is bad and learn from this. and by the end of the year, you're going to be in a good place, which he was. Yeah. If I'm a rookie,

I would rather be in that situation than the situation Khan was in where he was basically playing a playoff game every game from January on because they had dug such a hole for themselves early that they, you know, they're doing this,

trying to climb into the playoff picture. I think if Khan was on a bad team, I thought he could have scored more than he did. Hmm. And you look at the advanced metric stuff, and Kahn stuff versus Flag like Flagg's three point shooting was bad I think Flagg's a better player

just like from a talent ceiling standpoint and I think Flag has a chance to be a generational star I don't really know how to vote for the rookie is my other issue with this. Am I just voting for who jumps out as they're going to be awesome 10 years from now or is it am I just am I just evaluate in the year

because if I'm evaluated in the year I've made this case a couple a couple pods ago. Like, Khan had an incredible season. He led the league in threes. He rebounded, he played defense.

I felt like his gravity and all the movement he has was the key to how their offense really worked. He played the whole year. He never got, I think he played like 79 games. And his team was,

you know, we'll sit, we're taping this before the playing game tonight, but his team turned out to be a, I thought, one of the 10 best

teams of the last four months of the season. And to me, that just matters where I'm always going gravitate toward the winning. Yeah, I had no idea Khan could translate this well to the NBA, let alone this well, this fast, an incredible Clay Thompson-esque catch-and-shoot season. And I don't say that lightly. If you look at Clay Thompson and Steph, or the only people combine volume and efficiency like this. Unlike Steph, he's doing a lot of it as a catch-and-shoot guy. And I'm not going to make the case against Khan, but to contextualize it, I would say every opponent, when they're playing this lowly Mavericks team, their game plan was built around stopping Cooper Flag. When you played the Hornets, you have other players to deal with, specifically lamella ball. At the end of the year, Cooper leads all rookies in scoring.

He has more points per game, more assists, more rebounds, more steals. than blocks, then con canipal. He is the first rookie Bill Simmons since Michael Jeffrey Jordan to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. He is going to be

an all-MBA player for an eternity. Maybe next year. Yeah, and this shouldn't come into the discussion. But remember, this should be his freshman year in fucking college. He reclassified. That shouldn't be a criterion. Don't get me wrong on this. I'm fired up.

because I think he's just, and I appreciate how you look at the ward. There is some ambiguity here. Khan has played more meaningful minutes for a more meaningful team that I hope makes the playoff. In higher pressure situations, too, is the other thing. Like, we're just game to game. He's playing teams that these are real games,

whereas flags playing games are they're just down 20 in the second quarter. Yeah. And some of it's vanity. I don't want to be the guy who didn't vote for Cooper flag in 10 years because I know where this is going, Coop. Yeah, so I get it. tend to look at it a little differently. And then the last thing I'd say is players like Wembe,

who are rookie of the year, were on awful teams. And we've seen this a lot. You know, I went back and looked at that Wembe year because I remember voting for him. And I went back and looked at my notes. And he was like borderline defensive player

of the year that year as a rookie. I had him, Goberra. I had a whole thing on my notes of like, it's got to be Goberr, but God damn, I kind of want to vote for Wembe. And he was just way more impactful. He would also average like 24, 10, and 5. And the guy that he was competing,

I think he was going against Chet, his stats were just way better. Flag stats aren't way better than cons. But anyway, keep going. And then Khan is handed the ball. And 80% of his shots are assisted, right? And then for that number for Coup is like 40 to 50%. I know, but I think there's more there with,

I feel like they could have done more with Con on that. like I actually kind of liked when he would get around the foul line and be physical and try to like either take guys to the hoop or do that little pull up. I just think I just think that team had a lot of masters to serve offensively, whereas Dallas did not. I respect. I respect your take. And like I said, Khan has a lot more shit to his game than I would ever expect it off the bounce, getting rebounds, playing defense. This is not what I thought. So if you're, if the award were to find like who's the most surprising rookie, uh,

cons, I mean, if they redrafted, Khan is probably third. I'm still taking Dylan Harper, too. Third or fourth. It's tough to pass Dylan Harper. It's one of the, we did this the last time you run. It's one of the great top fours we've had.

So if you switch these guys on their teams, yeah, let's do that. The Hornets are good. That's actually like he could have fit in. It changes their style a little bit for that, Not the same kind of three-point thing, but he's bringing defense,

rebounding. He could probably, like, he'd probably phase back from the offense a little and concentrate more on the glue guy stuff that he was so great at and is great at. And Khan is- Yeah,

would give Charles Lee like his Jason Tatum character from his Boston era, right? Like this giant forward who can break guys down, get you a rebound, play incredible defense. So I think he'd be, and I think Khan would have had around the same stats. I just,

he probably would have taken more threes, maybe wouldn't have shot the same percentage because they wouldn't have been as good looks most of the time. I really hate this because I don't even want to pick between these guys. But my move over the years

has always been if winning as a tiebreaker, I got to think about it. It's not flags fault he was on a shitty team. Do you think we can take Michael Carter Williams Rookie of the Year trophy

and give it to whoever loses this year's rookie of year? That would be another one I take. VJ. Edgecoe. home third? God, I haven't even thought about that. Yes, definitely.

No, V.J. I have to see, this is the one I have to do. Dylan Harper or Vijay Edgecom. Were those the two? It's not, stats-wise, that's not close. But Dylan Harper, you know, was just in a different situation. So I listened to Legs on your podcast, who I thought did a great job. But yeah, he made the point, well, if Dylan Harper's on the Wizards or whatever, we're seeing

a lot more numbers. He would have been a lot of eight guy at least. Yeah. So Dylan's dropped into a really healthy environment where he's the third guard and gets those minutes. But dude, you talk about a guy who's getting better and better and better. The case for Dylan is he's on a team that has won 60 games. He too has become a much better shooter earlier than we thought. I kind of like him the most when he's out there with Castle and Visell and Wembe and a shooter.

It's not going to take long before he's the answer there. That's the most interesting. all rookie I had Flagcon VJ Harper and I had Fears as my fifth guy. Fears played 82 games. Fears was there the whole time and I thought he had a couple of games

this year. We were like, wow, what's going on here? Second team I had coward, Ace, Bryant, Queen and I guess Will Riley. I don't even know. I'll figure out the 10th guy. But who did you have as your fifth guy in the

team. Yeah, so I think it's like the MVP race. There's four solid guys on the first group of five. But yeah, so we go Kupon, Vijay, Harper, and then I threw Joe Dumar Zabone and put Derek Queen there because he gave up so much for him. You got to give him that, right? Nice. Then Coward Fears, Ace Bailey. Your guy, Hugo Gonzalez, and then Will Riley. Oh, that's what I'll put us, my 10th guy, Hugo. Great. Is it Hugo or Hugo? It's Hugo, but I really want to call him Hugo. Clutch. Clutch, I'm going.

SGA, Brunston, and Yokage in that order. I have the exact same. It's SGA and then a big gap for me. Most improved is not a battle because it's going to be Nikiel Alexander Walker, unless you haven't been watching the season. 9.4 points to 21. Got better as a year went along and is just a complete wildcard threat for the playoffs now because he's an absolute heat check.

He's even more than a heat check guy. He just kind of takes over games. So I had him first. I had Dern second. And I put K to third, and I'll make the case further in a second. Who'd you have for your three? I have Nikiel by Leaps and Bounds.

And then you said Duren was second. I had Dern second. And then I put Castle there. Because I didn't give Castle the award. And I know some people don't like the second year jump thing. You might be one of those people. I'm violently opposed. This is my least favorite Kirk Grohl's

moment of the podcast. He should be better this year. It's the second year. It's the fourth pick of the draft. I'm not mad at you, Bill, but that's the same ding I'm giving Jalen Duren. Like, you're a lottery pick, late lottery in his case.

You're supposed to get better as you go through this process. Did you ever think he was going to be a 21 and 11 dominant center? I never did. I won't say I did, but the first time I saw him in person, it was one of those like, holy shit.

Look at that guy moments that you get in an NBA arena. He's now out of the 1990s. He looks like he's Alonzo morning or. He looks like Ben Wallace. Yeah, or Ben Wallace. Piston. He's the, I always say he's the perfect piston.

But ultimately, I think the story here is Nikiel Alexander Walker, who scored nine points a game last year for a very good team. And was I stand in the corner and don't do anything else and we'll call you and we need a three. And then Atlanta gives him a nice deal, comes over, 21 points a game on over 60% true shooting. So one of the only times in my career as an analyst in the NBA

where I've seen somebody go from nine points a game to 20 points a game and then their efficiency jumps too. Yeah. Like that's crazy. And for me, this is the easiest vote on the whole ballot, except for a defensive player of the year. Nikiel Alexander Walker and a walk away. Couldn't agree more.

Shout out to Atlanta. Great signing. The case for Kada, he played, first of all, this is his fifth MBA season. He never played more than 13 minutes a game. Yeah. He turned this year into a 10-and-8 guy over a block a game. He's played 25 minutes a game.

He's gotten better as the year went along. There's actually a little more offense. All the advanced metrics, rim protection stuff with him is really solid. He's just a good player now. And it's something like you would watch him come in. the first, like my daughter always loved them. She was like, why doesn't K to play more? I was like, I don't know.

But you'd watch them and you'd be like, there's something here. Yeah. But now this is somebody that conceivably could be playing 25 minutes a game in the finals. This was a team before the year. We were like, well, they're losing Porzingis and Horford. Who's going to play center?

I don't know. And Tatum's out. Yeah. No rebounding. Is it like, I guess Garza. By the way. Yeah, we lost Corvette. It's like, I guess Garza.

and this member, Kada, I guess he's going to be there and turned into a real guy. And you watch these games, I've only, there was only a couple times this year where you kind of could feel

this was a guy that was on Sacramento three years ago. Yeah. For the most part, he was awesome for what the expectations were. And that's the key point, dude. I remember there were, this was the second apron casualty

that they dismantled this team. I thought a year ago, I was like, okay, there goes Porzingis in Horford, Luke Coronet's castaway, Tatum's out. That's their front court. That's their championship front court. And I remember when I was looking into the Celtic season and I'll put my hand up,

I was like, this team's not going to be able to rebound. This team is not going to be able to protect the rim. And that's where I would say, Kada deserves part of this conversation. They are now a very good rebounding team. It's part of their signature is turning missed shots into, second chance points. He's the biggest reason for that. Yeah. And I did not see that coming ever for this young man. So hats off to him and that Celtic staff for finding him and developing him. They also, they redid, I mean, they redid some strategy stuff with that, with them. One of them was

these little handoffs at the top of the key, which became like the bread and butter their offense, that he was just better at than Porzingis and Horford. And then the offensive rebounding was the other thing. He's just a good offensive rebounder. He's got good hands around the rim. So you really feel it when he's in the game. Like the best version of them usually is when he's in the game. I'll be interested to see against the Knicks. Right. They're in crunch time against towns, whether they go smaller with Tatum. I think they're saving that. And I could see Katie getting bounced or maybe Katie getting moved to the Mitchell Robinson portion of the game where it's like, just go toe to toe with this dude and try to hold him those standstill.

We'll see. Six man. I have Hawkes. I put Kelden Johnson second and then I have a wild card at third. Who'd you have? I only have two. I haven't figured out the third. I'll probably just steal yours. I'm a Kelton Johnson man. I thought, you know, culturally, he's great. The 162, 60 games, he was in most of those games, led all players and win shares off the bench. And again, over the Miami Hawkes, God, I just had a brain fart. The more substantial contribution in the league this year off the bench was Kelton Johnson. I battled back and forth. I don't feel great about it. But I thought Hawkes has basically been 15,

5 and 5 off the bench and he can't shoot threes. But when you watch he's pretty impactful in an old school like 1970s, 80s like he's doing weird like kind of half post-ups or he's trying to beat guys off and he's banging into dudes.

He's one of those guys you watch. He's one of those guys when you're watching him, you're going, could this guy have his own team? But obviously, he can't, but he'll have moments. They're like, man. A great heat player. I remember when they drafted him.

It was all, this is what we were, we knew we were getting it. And they got it. My third pick for this category. And there's a million, there's a million people. The shame of it is Pritchard should have been a six man, but he started too many games. Yep. I went with Mamu. Oh, wow.

Yeah. I'm not stealing this. You're going to have to convince me. 22 minutes a game he was 11 and 5 he was a 52 39 75 guy his advanced stats are nuts

and I test wise I actually thought he probably should have played more I felt like he was one of the only bench guys I thought this season that consistently he would come into their bench was the biggest reason they started out well the first month and a half but he would come into games and I felt like he would take over games for like two minutes.

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

I will read Shepard, I feel like is the choice, right? but now he started the last 10 games. I couldn't get there with Reed because I don't feel like his coach was like, I don't know if we should play him for six months. Well, he should be fifth man of the year to piggyback on Wilde's point. Right. Why don't we just have a first man, second man, third man? Reed Shepard should be fifth man of the year, E. May, if you're listening.

So, Reed was the other one. I just couldn't get there. I don't know. It is weird because the predicament in Houston is so weird. I mean, in a world where Freddie Van Fleet is there and Steve. Adam's is there. Reed is definitely like the heat check guy off the bench. And they didn't figure out.

So you're going to read. I think so, yeah. All right. I don't feel great about the Mamu, but I just, I don't know. The heart wants what the heart wants. The heart wants mama. All right. MVP.

Oh, boy. So we have Luca four. We both have Luca four? Yeah, I have Luca clearly four. So if Luca's bounced. I am going, it's interesting because I had Donovan Mitchell first team O NBA. Yeah. But for MVP, I'm putting Brunson 5th and Jalen Brown fourth.

That's what I have. Just because that Knicks team for better and worse is just built around Brunson having to put a superhero cap on for the last five minutes of every game. Whereas the Cavs can get, I don't know. It's just, I'm basically splitting the vote with Mitchell as first two MBA and Brunson in my MVP ballot. So that's what I have for four and five without Luca. I have Wemby third. I have Joker second and I landed on SGA first.

And I switched SJ and Joker all weekend and really wanted to do Joker. And ultimately like the wind difference. Yeah. And how great SGA. was in the clutch. Yeah. I just felt like, as you know, I love Joker, and Joker's probably my favorite non-Seltic in the league other than Curry.

And I just felt like I want to do this correctly. There's too much SGA evidence. I feel like I'm not, if I do Joker, it's almost like a personal pick versus like, what's the right pick. I just couldn't 100% get there. The real problem, if Joker hadn't gotten hurt, I think I think he gets it. Because not only did he miss all those games, but then he came back and he wasn't 100% when he came back and, you know, and the other thing was the clutch stuff with that team just in general, not take care of business near the end. That's kind of his job and they weren't good enough.

Whereas SGA, like every time last three minutes, he just took care of business. And I think his job was easier because of that team. They're so good defensively. All he has to worry about is basically, let me just be awesome. and get to the foul line, and then in the last three minutes, I'll score every point. Not an easy job,

whereas Joker was doing everything, but to not vote for a guy who led the league in rebounds and assists and was sixth in points and did all the shit he did and had the best offensive career, I don't feel good about it. I don't think anybody's going to do this

with the respect that the task deserves is going to feel good about who's third and in some cases who's second. This is the deepest one of these I've ever thought of. We have three legitimate candidates for MVP. We do. And we have better numbers than ever.

I'll start with four and five. I have the same. Jalen, shout out to Jalen Rose, by the way. Big year for Jalen's on the MVP ballot. Now we have two of them on our top five. I have Joker third, which is crazy. But again, Bill, my latter is going to be informed a lot by how the standings turned out. And I think that deserves respect here.

And so I have Wembe second, which was hard, by the way, not a Homer pick. I wanted to put him first. Other times I wanted to put him third. And then I also ended up with SGI. I mean, he's just, the team is too good. He is on, as you keep pointing out so astutely, one of the best runs we've ever seen from a guard in the history of the sports. Yeah. Once again, here we are with a net rating over 11.

They're just the most dominant team in the NBA and he's it. Um, but Joker, dude, let me, let me give him some flowers. I was looking at on, off splits like all the nerds do when, when it's time to do this exercise. Yeah. The nuggets are minus seven in that rating when he's off the floor. Like that's, that's a lottery team, Bill. They're, they have the statistical profile of the Utah jazz. No, no Gordon half the year.

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

that to me, like, he put himself in the third spot because they should have tried to win that game and get Denver the fuck out of the three seed. Like, what are you guys doing? I mean, I'm Spurs Homer. I couldn't agree more. I was perplexed by that. So, yeah,

when they played 1866 minutes this year, he put 29 minutes a game, he missed, I thought, a fair enough amount of games that he probably could have showed up for the 80s second one and tried to knock him out. I just, I didn't like that. Joker led the league in PR for his six straight year. It's 31 plus every year. Second straight triple double season. He's with Wilt now, as I talked about the other day with,

Wilt was fourth first and second and fifth first and third. So if you add that up less than 10, Joker was 8-1-1-1, so 10. offensive rating 226 when he played he led the league in rebounds, assists, PR, and VORP 10.8 net his highest usage ever,

57% shooting, like really one of the great offensive seasons and somehow didn't win the MVP. And I can't believe it. But their record was a good enough. SGA, like, I don't know. There was a lot of close games

when he just took care of business at the end. I think that has to matter, the consistency of it. And then from some of my MVP questions, you know, one of them is how you remember the year. One of the ways we're going to remember this year is OKC becoming a little villainy and SGA and the foul-baiting. Like that was a big part of this season, whereas for Joker, it was another great Joker year.

I don't really, you know, stats that was good. But we're really going to remember Wembe and SGA, I think, before just it was a typically unbelievable Joker year, didn't really stand out from the other three, I guess. I think that's right. And I remember you doing those questions with Legler and he was, his knee-jerk reaction was Wembe. For me, that's it to that question. The minute's thing with Wembe is really fascinating, right? Because you and I both agree on one big thing. There's too many games. And what the Spurs have to do with this dude is try to keep him upright and get him into the playoffs. And again, I thought Ms. Johnson did a great job.

Yeah. Victor Wemba Yama is healthy. I wish they would have played him in Gaming Hedey 2, by the way. But healthy going into these playoffs. That's the number one job in an era of calf strains and hamstring injuries. Like, just be thankful we have Wembe. So I almost don't want to ding Victor for minutes because that's what's going to happen with him his whole career in the regular season.

As long as we're playing 82 games and 16 back-to-backs or whatever it is in the NBA Cup that they win, went in and played the extra game in. And SGA deserves credit for having a better record, better statistical indicators, and ultimately, like you said, just the most impressive end-to-end season of a high-volume player in the NBA. And not having J-dub for most of the year,

plus 16.3 net, 9.0 free throws a game, made 7.9 free throws a game, which was first. Clutch points, 175 points first. 59 free throws in the clutch. Shot 52% field goal in the clutch. There's also some games where they just killed teams

and he didn't really play. I actually think he could have been around 33 minutes a game if some of their games have been closer. Last four years, he's 31 a game. Last two years, OKC is 133 and 31. I think that's correct. But 31 losses. And he's the biggest reason by far.

When you know that night after night, your guy, it's a little, it's the rich man's version of what Jalen did for the Celtics. You know night after night, I'm getting this for my best player. At the end of the games, I'm getting this. And I know I have that every game.

With you throw in the win totals and the minutes, um, he should, uh, he should be the MVP. I can't believe Yokic isn't going to win, though. I just can't believe it. I was telling my students earlier,

if you would have told me that somebody would have John Stocklin amount of assists and Dennis Rodman rebounds when I was growing up, that's insane. There are two stats that have nothing in common with you just shouldn't lead the league in both of those categories. In fact, they usually happen in different parts of the floor.

Like, it's crazy that he's, like, I don't think people are talking about that enough. Yeah. This is definitely got to be the best. season of anybody who's ever finished third if he finishes third. I think he's going to finish second. But we'll see. The case for Wemby, Bill, is the defensive stuff is insane.

I get it. So the Brooklyn Nets are the worst shooting team in the NBA. Okay, they're tanking. Their effective field goal percentage is 52, 30th in the NBA. When Victor Wemignam was on the court this year, opponents had an EFG of 48 or 49, 49.7. So he essentially turns your offense into a tanking level off. offense, just by being on the core. I wish we had better metrics in our discourse for evaluating defensive impact, because we're always citing things like points, rebounds. It's just triple doubles.

And that's going to favor Joker and SGA. It's really challenging us to quantify the impact of Victor on defense, because that's going to be his case for years to come. And we have to get better. I'll take it on as me. I have to do better to articulate his greatness on the defensive end of the floor. What's that commercial that are like, yep. Nope. That's the E40 song choices in the Bay Area. That's a Chipotle's commercial now. Yeah, Chipotle.

That always makes me think of Wembe when the guys, the guys driving in the Basque is like, nope, just jumping to dribble back out. Now it's gotten the point where the guys don't even consider it. No. They're starting to the move. It's like, oh yeah, I can't do that today because we're playing the spurs. And they just reset. If Denver had gotten, I was trying to figure out how many. wins they would have had to have for me to flip my vote.

And I think it's four, they're 54 and 20. I think if they had gotten a 58 and 24, I think I would have voted for Yoko, which as dumb as that sounds. 10 wins behind OKC with the same kind of season where Aaron Gordon's out for half the year. So is J. Dub. Yeah. OKC's team's obviously better. But I just, I weirdly felt like Denver should have won more games than they did.

And he's got to get dinged on that, too. finished with a 12-game winning streak and still were only 54 and 28. I know. That was a run. And they beat the Spurs in the game of the year. Like it was, that was an MVP moment when he hit that fade away over Wemby. They had a stretch, 39-game stretch where they were 19 and 20. And I think that kills him. But I can't believe he's not going to win. We'll see if he finished his second. I think SGA is going to win.

And we'll see between Wembe and Chainland. All right, Kurt Goldsbury. See you soon. Do you have a playoff upset? If I had to pick an upset, I got two candidates. It's Minnesota, Denver, because we've seen it before. But I think Atlanta, New York is really interesting, too. If Atlanta can find offense beyond C.J. McCollum.

I think Denver's going to beat Minnesota. And I actually like that so many people, including myself, are scared of Minnesota in the series because they've had so much success. I think a fun zag is actually Denver's going to kick their ass. Atlanta's the one I'm looking at. I just wish Toronto wasn't so lousy against basically every good team. I wish everyone's just penciling Cleveland in for that series. And I don't trust them at all because I don't think they can,

I just think they give up points to everybody. And if Toronto, the question for me is I just don't think Toronto is good enough offensively to haunt them. but Cleveland if Atlanta didn't play Cleveland I think I would have picked Atlanta in that series like for real Atlanta is

Atlanta has all the makings of a team that is you know if you look at the game the way I do analytically they look like the best statistical profile of any team that's an underdog right now in the last three months

of the season with the exception of maybe Charlotte who we'll find out shortly if they're even in the tournament yeah that'll be the top of the pot in the time machine I think Atlanta takes the Knicks to 7 and loses because of their bench. I don't like their bench.

They played a hell of a game the other night. Yeah. Their bench is like, just never know night tonight. All right, Kurt Goldsbury, pleasure as always. Thanks to Gahou and Eduardo as well. Don't forget about Lagata, our new narrative podcast, which has cocaine in Miami and Columbia and all kinds of great stuff. You should check it out, Kirk Goldsbury.

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