The Deep 3 Podcast - We Picked Our 2026 NBA Awards Winners | Ep. 204

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

NBA awards time! #nba   Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/   Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW   Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794   Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree   Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/   Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg   Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_   Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D   0:00- INTRO 2:30- NBA AWARD WINNERS 1:40:07- NBA NEWS ROUNDUP Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Also, listen, I want you to know for the next week, don't call me, don't text me. There's a precinct. Oh, fuck you. There's a precinct a mile away. I'll meet you there on Saturday. Let's die. No, after every playoff game, we're scrapping. You can have all the money in my wallet no matter way.

If you beat me, if y'all win. All right, say less. So I got $8,000 in my pocket. You bring up. What are you about? Let's bang out. I hate you. Welcome to the episode.

As you guys here, they're ready to bang out because I should, you guys know the playoffs pretty much here last day the regular season was yesterday and we got playoff seatings confirmed hawks versus nicks in the first round the td3 bowl is here what's gonna happen it's gonna be the most toxic matchup ever a whole lot of late night face time calls wasn't the lead to bigger arguments the t3 bowl of your as a fairer team's facing each other or everybody's opinion on 2011 2012 to marty Rosen what's gonna lead to more screaming at each other honestly It's tough, right? Honestly, the mark.

The mark clears. Yeah. That was a war. You already know it's about to happen. You accepted your fate. Oh, the outcome is it predetermined? Okay, okay. So as you guys say about the title, though, we're here today to give you guys our 2026

NBA awards, winners, all the major awards, all the NBA teams, all the all NBA teams, all the all defense teams, and all to all rookie teams. Tell you guys what we think before we get into the news of this week, do a little play and preview. I guess we'll talk a little bit about the Hawks. versus Nick's upcoming series. Kind of touch on that because this week's Thursday episode will be a more in-depth playoff preview.

But we'll touch on a little bit to see which one of these guys are going to kill each other. I'm going to kill you. Listen, man. Just know that. You're not walking out of clean men either. I'm getting some licks off. That's fair.

You say, you might win. You might survive, but you're not going to come out whole. And you know, that's respectable. Yeah, you'll never be the same, but you will live. Okay. It's all I can ask for us, Underdog. When your best player is Jalen Johnson, you're not really going for the win,

you're just going to bloody someone up. Listen, man. Had your shook though Okay Exactly Okay That's it With that being said

Qatunt intro of music Let's talk about NBA awards We're throwing it back Whoa That's crazy He was bragging I don't

You didn't The cranium is crazy Oh my god Crown eaters Rejoice So let's jump straight into these NBA awards. Let's start with the top one. Let's start with the best player in the NBA for this

calendar season. Who is your 2026 NBA MVP? We're going to reveal all them at once. Beasles, show us the surprise of who we all picked. All right, here we go. Oh, Shea across the board. No dissenting opinions. Closue. Yeah. It's so funny because then we have like somewhat of a interesting argument between Yokits and Wembe or no, it was Wembe and Shay just a couple weeks ago. back when he had his all MVP buzz, back when he gave his whole spiel and all that. But at the end of the day, we all knew what it was. Yeah, yeah. I think before the last couple weeks,

Wembe had built himself a case where I think I argued for, if you want to pick Wembe, I understand you. I don't think you're ridiculous. It's not a stupid opinion, but I'm still going to pick Shea. Maybe Wembe can sway him over the last two weeks. But I think the basis for an argument for Wemby being the best playing in the league this year is there, at least at a respectable level. But listen, man, we do this every year.

last month the season comes around we've got to have some shit to talk about everybody gets an MVP case this has been wrapped up for about six weeks 100% I think the the Wembe stuff is like and even even in the last two weeks

since we had that moment I feel like I've heard a lot more of people being like wait wait don't forget about Yoki's now like Yogi's second place case is also there so I feel like that conversation honestly is a little bit more interesting for me just because I'm with you

I've had this decided for a long time. I just think that like for Wembe hit like the really it's not like a knock. Nothing is ever a knock against Wembe. It's not a knock against Yokic. It really is just the levels that Shay ascended to this year, the level of consistency, what we saw him coming off of last year,

last year's MVP race and an MVP, you know, season. And for him to come in this year, be better. Same circumstances. The Thunder, the craziest part about their two-year run is the fact that they've had some of the worst injury luck in the entire NBA. It doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter.

They've had the number one seed for now three years in a row. They're winning 60 games, two years in a row. Their defense is always elite. And they can just find people and put people into position. And Che is the head of all of it. And last year was like, okay, if we can make threes, we're unbeatable. Even this year, that's still the case. but even just regular, can we just find a bucket on any random possession?

That's been an issue and Shay's been able to uphold all of it. So he's hands down the MVP and I don't, it's, it sounds disrespectful, but it's not close for me. I agree. Yeah. And not close makes it sound like there's a, there's not some mountainous chasm between Shay and the rest of the league in terms of how good he is or like his caliber of player for this season. But as far as what MVP means, the value that's put into team success, the value that's put

into how much your team success can be attributed to you, the circumstances you're dealing with, like you said, injury luck, the level of team you rise to, not just record-wise, but how good your offense is, how good your defenses, et cetera. He checks truly all the boxes in a way that,

if it wasn't for how amazing Yokic is, that he's also one the greatest players of all time and when he's ascending to soon to be one of the greatest players of all time, this would have the makings of unanimous MVP season. It's not going to be that because Yolk is so great. And we weren't talking about him about a month ago because he dealt with an injury, came back,

Had a slow-ish start post-injury, especially on the defensive end. And the defensive end, at least from a team perspective, which he's a big part of, it's kind of the downfall of his MVP campaign. He doesn't really have a chance because the team just isn't good enough because of his defense and everybody else around him. But if it wasn't for how great he is and how good Wembe is, this Shay season completely would make sense as a unanimous type season. Last year he won MVP, 32-point-pre-game score, leading his team to a top-tier offense

with the fact that his scoring is so incredible in the half-court. he's so efficient from all levels doesn't turn the ball over leads high level offenses with the ball protection with the scoring that earned him MVP last year bro his true shooting percentage is 4% higher than last year

a 4% jump is crazy to build off of an MVP season like he is better in every single way his relative true shooting now is 8.6% higher than league average that's the shit that yokic does and we talk about him as one of the most highly efficient scores and he's doing it at over 30 points per game

this is a truly truly outrageous half court score. And I feel like when it comes to all those things, specifically his scoring, a lot of the times people look at that and just feel like it's easy. I think it's because he makes it look so utterly easy. And this is like all time stuff that we're seeing from Shea right now. Like the efficiency is ridiculous. The type of shots that he has to take is ridiculous. Again, like OKC's like a good shooting team.

They've improved offensively, but they're still not one of like the most lethal shooting teams in the NBA. Like, say still has to carry a lot of fucking burden. He still, like, he has, he starts to carry a lot of burden. J.W. is still, like, not 110% himself. Yes, he has more help. Jared McCain's there who's just another threat. I say Joe got better. And all these guys all around got still better.

But at the end of the day, this team, like, very much, like, lives and dies by shape more than any other team. Still in his conference right now, as you speak. Yeah. And people will argue against that, right? They'll say the famous line that Bill Simmons just said last week that caused a lot of conversation online. whether you agree or disagree. He said that, I think he said use Brennan Pajemski

is the name. He said, replace Shea with Brennan Pajemski and the team still wins 50 games. And people online, Shane fans are obviously like, are obviously like, you're so stupid,

you don't understand the value that he brings, how much the offense lives and dies by him. And they're right. And obviously the haters will say, yeah, it's a great team outside of him. They win games without him.

They have over 500 record. I think they win twice as many games they lose without him. You're probably right, 50 games. Even if we see that premise and say, yes, they still win 50 games,

because there's that good top to bottom roster-wise. Do you know how big of a difference winning 50 games and winning 65 and 68 last year and being champions caliber team is? Like even just the simple numbers, 15 games swing is crazy. Anyone can, damn it may anyone come 50 games, bro. That's a difference in 35 and 50.

If I told you a team who win 35 games to 50, you would say that's a crazy floor raiser. Now, we're desensitized of that because 50 wins sounds like it's so good. That's because we don't quite realize just the levels that he's taking a good team to being one of the greatest teams of his generation. So even if we buy that premise,

this is still a crazy floor and ceiling raising player. I have no idea. For me, the Shay conversation, it really is, the Shay conversation and the Webby conversation for me, both of them are on hold. And I'm ready to like to have the playoffs just because I think Shay's going to win MVP, the ThunderR title favorites.

We're going to get into like some very fun. and uncomfortable conversations around like Shays Rankin later down the line. The Wemby stuff, I want Wembe to, obviously, like, we're all massive, massive fans. We, people are trying to say that, you know, he's the best player in the world right now. And I want to, I just want to see that. Like, I think also for Wembe, how much does it matter to y'all that Wembe doesn't play as much as some of the other players? In terms of like minutes per games and stuff.

Does that does that mean anything for y'all? I don't mean a damn thing for me at all, honestly. Like, when you're there and you're like doing the type of stuff that he's doing, which has never been seen before on both ends when it comes to the combination of height, skill, and all that, I don't care. It doesn't move me at all. I don't care at all either. But I understand why people care.

And I think the simple idea of playing more is more valuable I get. I think if Wembe did play the level of minutes that Yolkish plays, 35 minutes a game, like being incredible stamina there all the time, he would be unanimous MVP. Like, it wouldn't be close. So the fact that we're talking about him is like a second, third place, already bakes that in. If he did have that level of output and could play that, he would be clear-cut MVP. So that is in our head a little bit, right? But in a general sense to your idea of like, do minutes per game matter? I think in an era in which everybody gets hurt and we're talking about the 65 game rule because the game is so physically taxing and the style of play kind of, in some cases like Wembee, necessitates less minutes. I think we have to become more and more understanding of minutes per game and all be all.

Not everybody can be Tyris Maxi. Not everybody can be Yokic. Strategically, it might make sense to deploy people less to get more out of them. Same thing that happened with Yonis in his MVP years. He was playing 31 minutes per game because Mike Boodenholzer believed that Janus was best deployed in short spurts of a million percent energy. I think that's a strategic decision that has perfect merit to it. I don't think more minutes necessarily means better, more impactful player. Yeah, it makes sense.

I just didn't know where y'all kind of fell on it. Because I go back and forth because on one hand, I completely understand the argument. And for most of the times, I'm kind of on the side of like, hey, this guy is playing, you know, X amount of minutes more like that. Just being on the court is insanely valuable. But then on the other side, we talk about like efficiency all the time in terms of how people are shooting. It's like if I can do it in 29 minutes. Exactly. Yeah.

What you're doing in 36. And my on-off numbers are still what they are. my defensive impact on the game is still what it is. If I come into the game and now we're up by 15 whenever I leave and I give everybody a crazy cushion and I'm doing that in 29 minutes, then that's also insanely impactful. And the number of minutes and the time it took for us to build up this lead shouldn't matter as much. So I understand both cases, which why I feel like for this specific season, it probably nets out as just a wash.

Yeah. And then all this stuff that we've been saying about Shay, just it comes to light even more. And then that's why he's the MVP. Yeah, I totally respect it as a thought process. And if that's a tiebreaker to you, I get it. I'm just personally, whether it be minutes per game or it be games played in an all NBA sense, I'm never going to default to that just because, like I said, the realities of the game and how physically taxing it is.

I personally am going to prefer to default to how good I think you are and, like, rewarding ability and impact on a permanent basis, I guess, you want to put it that way. That's always going to be what I'd rather applaud than just. just pure availability when availability is getting more and more difficult. And you could argue that that's making it more and more impactful and more and more important and totally understand that. But I prefer to just go award ability. Yeah.

And just a couple years ago when Steph was like in his peak of his powers, I remember like he was so good. He didn't fucking need to necessarily play fourth quarters at all. So his minute's per game were like heavily skewed. But that's a lot of, that goes back to a lot of credit from the team. And I think that's of course like the weaker side of the MVP argument, but it is a very important side of the MVP argument. That team is so well built over the course of the year. So I give more, yeah, San Antonio.

So I give more kudos to them about that than Flack to Wemby. To have that other impact still when it comes to all the numbers and that rating and the plus minus numbers while being not limited to a sense, but not fully like unloaded? It's crazy. So if we did it, if we did a full ballot, who would be second place for y'all? You'll get your Wembe. I think Wembe or Jalen Brown. Hush that, man. Listen, man.

Come on. Listen, today's the day. for combos so we'll see how that goes. I would have, I would have Shay Wembe Yokich as my, as my top. I agree. And yeah,

I agree. But I understand Yokch number two. I don't have a strong opinion on Yokch first one B. Yeah, I would definitely put Yokish number three. But that's just only because the seasons has been so like, it's not a loss season at all. Obviously they won 50 games,

13 still. But there's just so much that went through that happened that they didn't necessarily like overcome when it comes to the defense and all that. Yeah, I think his defensive weaknesses have shined a little more than usual this season. And maybe it's because the roster around him and injuries and whatnot. Not like he's different of a player. But yeah, I think they've overcome that part of his game a little bit less than they have in previous years. Yeah. But just marginally, he can still, he's obviously

still an MVP caliber player. But like you said, MVP was the easiest one. That's why we did it first. It's been written in the stars for about a month now. No debate here. Shea goes back to back. What's the next award of you souls? Next award is rookie of the year. Oh, we have dissension. This was another one that to me, is a perfect coin toss. This is really the only war that I struggled with going back and forth

for all of last night between Concanipple and Cooper Flag. I really netted out at that I don't have an opinion really, that I'm kind of happy with either than winning. I put Concanipple just to not let myself

be completely swayed by March basketball. But I think Concanible fans I've done a little too much in acting like Cooper Flag's cases all March basketball. Like it was all solidified beforehand. It only felt solidified

because Cooper Flag had gotten hurt and that was in our memory was that he's been missing games. It was 15. 50, 50 before he got hurt, and now he ended up playing 69 games. That's close enough to me that I perfectly understand going on Cooper Flagg. Dude, Cooper Flagg's been putting up like the craziest numbers. I think seeing his like growth in his center from day one of the NBA season, so now he

looks like completely different players. The numbers are crazy. Recently he's like 50, 50 points, 35, 40 numbers are crazy. He's the main creator. He has go-to moves now, things that he wasn't doing at Duke. he's doing now at the league at one of the higher levels. Again, similar to you, I don't give a damn if you pick on either as well because he's literally historic in his own right.

He made the most threes in the entire league day one. He's playing alongside the mellow ball, of course, in the high-octane offense. But still, nonetheless, like, that's fine to be a seal, to be a floor razor for Charlotte who just won 19 games last year. And now they're, what they won like 43, 44 games this year. That's completely impressive. Now he may not be the focal point of that. All the other guys being healthy helps as well.

But I can understand going that side of two. But I think Cooper flagging what he's been doing just embodies a hint, a hint more of what a rookie of the year should be. That's my question. What do we think a rookie of the year should be? Numbers. We never see races like this because we hardly ever see rookies this impactful on teams they're going to be in the playoffs like Khan.

So usually defaults to the best player who's doing a lot because he's on a bad team, has put up numbers, and he's clearly going to be a star. and it's like the best of that ilk, right? Because most rookies, the best rookies go to bad teams and most of them are just in that environment where they're having a shoulder, a big load, right? We don't ever see a player be one, an outright impactful, great offensive player

on a good team, having a historic half-court offense from day one, and being a caliber of player that they were drafted top five. Those type of guys, if they're going to be part of good teams, are usually like obviously back half of the first round teams because they went to good teams. So this mix of top tier talent in Colin plus being on a good team is rare,

which is why I went to him, because it's just like, you matter this season. You're leading a team, in my opinion, the best offensive player on a team that has a truly historic half-court offense

that matters to me. But there's no precedent for winning games mattering a rookie of the year. When we beat Chet, when Chet was on a fucking, was he one C'd that year? Yeah,

they didn't have a one-seek of tie-breakers. And Wembe had like a 19-win team. So there's no precedent for simply being on the better team mattering. Yeah. But I do still feel. feel that way. So I look inward and I say, I don't really know what the rookie of the year should be.

You're not wrong. And I think, I disagree with what you said, though, because you were saying that, that, like, you don't, you don't care really, like, who gets to vote. Now, we're standing on something. It kind of should be the rookie of the year. Really? I feel that strongly. I actually, I actually do feel pretty strongly about it. Okay. Because I think, I think in previous years, people being on on better teams and those rookies have normally had kind of like worst numbers by a pretty decent margin yeah and so you use the argument of oh where they're actually playing games that matter as something to kind of just prop it up against somebody who you clearly know is the better player and and why i believe that cooper flag is going to be the better

player rookie of the year this specific season i think the fact that Khan has played those games and is an integral part into it. And those games actually mean something there in the in the playoff race right now going to be in the playing. I think that what Khan has done, it's, and we've been past this point for a long time. First two, three months, you look at what Khan's doing. It's like, oh, wow, you know, who's the fifth picking in the draft? But like what he's doing, it's, you know, it's nice for a rookie. It's nice for that.

He's leaving the league in threes. It's not, it's not, it's no longer just nice for a rookie. It's nice all time. It's nice league-wide in a league with all these top-top stars. Khan is the one that at the end of the year, his name is going to be at the top of it. And so I think for him to have that level of success and have that success, that success, as consistent as it's been throughout the year, I respect so much what Cooper Flagg has done. And I agree that he will be, I think that he will end up being a better player than, than, Khan, but this specific season, I think Khan got it.

See, I think for me to poke a hole in that and to talk about nuance or whatever, is that I see what Khan's doing it. It's not easy by any right at all, but the situation for him is much easier to go ahead and actually be more efficient, more productive in certain ways compared to Moe. Compared to, you read your name. That's funny as hell. Moes in the mud. I never did that.

compared to Cooper Flag compared to Cooper Flag where they were literally running him at point guard to start the year, but running him alongside Andrew Embard, DeAngel Russell, you know, AD was there for a couple of seconds too. Like that shit was actually disgusting.

Dilo's a name of a bum that you had to play with now. Delo's not in the league anymore right now, bro. So it's like, I understand that, but seeing the levels that he ascended to being a legitimate, like, I think he's a top 30 player right now. That's not crazy. But you can say similar things to Khan. Even, my bad.

Even with Khan, it's not like the Hornet stuff has been, like they turned it around. They were trashed for the first half of the year. Like a big of four and 14. That's what I'm saying. A big part of their story is the fact that they, that they were in this very dark place and they've been able to get it together. And so obviously it's a collection of everybody and like this and what Charles Lee has been doing.

That's right. bring me a fork on because I would hear what you do said and say correct they were trash right con was on those teams we're doing a lot for the nine seed or what do they finish with in the play yeah they're trash also because brandon miller was unhealthy to start out the year too he went out again with the shoulder shit as well so again that just so goes to show like his team was trash i mean not his team was trashed but brandon miller wasn't there so of course you're gonna be worse yeah like record wise they they they were trash but i'm all i'm all i'm saying is like even even whenever the team wasn't wasn't winning games even early on

on we still very much like coming out out the gate especially after like the first like three to five games where like vj it's come was the star of everything then we start looking around and it's like oh wow con's can con's game 20 tonight cons game 27 and his shooting and his score really started to show on from a very very early part of the season and so i i think that them him being able to have a driving force where when we had our rankings in in december and we were talking about like lamello con At that point, we were already saying, is Khan the best player on this team? True. When we do a month ago, the best offensive players in the league, hands down.

We're already talking about Khan as like a top 30, top 45. You mentioned the rankings. None of us considered putting Khan in our top 40 players in the NBA this season. We did do that on Christmas every year. We all, I think one of you put Cooper Flag at 40. I said I would have had him at 41 right off the cutoff. I thought about it. I thought about it.

We didn't think about that with Khan. And that was in December. and Cooper Flagg is much better now than he was in December when that was when he was fresh off the stupid-ass point guard experiment that got people fired and all that crazy era that again it really comes back to what do we want a rookie year to mean because I think for everything you're saying I agree that Khan is a highly impactful offensive player is already there

I think Cooper Flagg's defense nets them out to being just as good if not better despite the efficiency difference and the efficiency difference for the season is fucking large like con having a rounding up to 64% true shooting for the season as a rookie is crazy. He's not just a good shooter, not just a good Ricky. He is a high level offensive player already. Yeah. So is Cooper Flag in the second half of the year. And we all understand the contextual understanding of what goes through a rookie season. We understand that first half. I think we can easily all look at Cooper Flag and say his season long stats are one

thing, but we know he's currently a better player and has been for a large chunk of the season that he's a star. Like, I would you be shocked if he's an all star next year at the level he's playing right now. Listen, I think he's averaging 21, 6 and 5. Fuck no. Exactly. And I think he's already kind of playing at that level. It's not just a like projection thing. So again, I pick con in the day, but you said it's not close and I got to argue for con because I'm not going to argue for Cooper flag. I think it is crazy close. Like that Cooper flag is meaningfully better, I think. And that's, okay, not not close. Two things. One, said it because I need to get the, get the juices phone. I get him some, wipe him up. Yeah. One, it obviously like is, it is close, but I'll say,

I'm not going to lose any sleepboat over this. I feel very comfortable and very confident in my con pick. Flag's a betting favor right now. I think it really truly is 50-50. I think the sports books don't know. If he does win, will you feel like Khan was robbed? A little bit.

Okay. A little bit. I can't get there. Robbed is a very harsh word, but I will leave this. I don't think either of these could be robbed. I agree. I do think Con should get it, but I really won't feel this is one of the rare times

in an award race where the team I'm rooting against wins. Yeah. Like, player rooting against an award sense. I won't lose sleep at all. Like, I won't feel like anybody was wronged. I think just going, based off of what we've seen from the previous years. Last year was a complete shitter

style shot to Stefan Casley. It was great. But outside of that, like usually I'm going based off of what people usually try to give these what people give credit to. And it's guys who put up enormous numbers. Guys like Cooper Flagg who are, he's like the lead leader in rookies

and points. He's also top three in this top three or four in assists. He's like number four in rebounds. He's like top tier. He's top five and across all categories. actually not to think about it, including blocks as well. He embodies, like, what a rookie of the year these days should be. See, that's the part at the end. You said should be.

Is that what it should be or is that what it usually is because we don't have a con in a lot of these? And no, no, the hard part is, if the Hornets were as good as they were in the second half for the whole season, we were talking about a four seed, it wouldn't be that hard. Khan would clearly get it. They are the fucking nine seed. So we're doing a lot of, like, we know, again, we know contextually why they started slow, they had the injuries. Yeah, they got better.

They figured it out. So not to, there's no hornet slander. I put them number seven in our power rankings, right? Yeah. They are a great team today. If they had been a great team all year, this would be a different conversation. They are just the nine seed, so we can't give him too much winning luck. Well, I mean, winning bias.

But there is some considering Cooper Flags on a tanking team. There is a difference even from tanking team to play in team. So again, that was my deciding factor ultimately. But just going off that, like, it's not like the four seed, you know? Yes, but also I think like with, it's, it's, it's, that's, that's, that conversation goes a little bit for the both of them where in the second half of the year, right? And obviously, like Cooper had really, really good games even early on.

And like you said, we were thinking about putting him in top 40 in December. But these moments of like, oh, wow, he's really putting it together more towards the second half of the year, right, March basketball. Kind of the same thing for Colin where a lot of the games were like, oh, these games mean something are now that the team has turned it around and is starting to get into playoff position. And they've basically been in playoff mode since. January and

listen I'm sorry when the guy's shooting like Steph Curry when he when he's taking 8 3s a game and shooting 43% from the 3 point line that's crazy when he's literally leading the league in 3s when the most important skill that you can have in in the league regardless of

of position outside of like the top three guys is are you able to be on the floor as a as a spacer can you shoot can you can you do all these things his creation that he that he does for himself is really good the the shooting that that he does whether if it's whether if it's off the dribble off the off the catch his ability also to to be obviously like lamello is the main playmaker of that team but lemelo's not lucca lemelo's not he's not

he's not absolutely holding up this offense and i'm even listen even kate danis jenkins is out here but like it's not lemelo's not carrying that offense to that specific level and so I do think that Khan has has a lot of argument we thought it was extremely close in January Cooper flag gets hurt we all kind of oh well he's missing significant time I guess Khan's a rookie the year he's running away with it no end in sight we etching our mind he's Ricky the year right that makes us think that it's always been that makes people treat it like Khan was like the shoe in Timbottim's at his poll and Khan ran away with it I think that was a beginning of March he did that voter poll

So the con fans will say You thought it was a blowout then Then March basketball happened and Cooper Flag came back And now all of a sudden it's different In the most irrelevant part of the season That's the basis Kong con-connipal fans online are arguing about it And I think that it's a very faulty basis Because like I said before Cooper Flag got hurt

It was 50-50 Actually it was trending Cooper Flagg I think Before Cooper Flag got hurt right Then he comes back Cooper Flag has had his best stretch of the season Con has had his worst stretch of the season The last 15 games since March started 54% true shooting, 65 before that.

Meaningful slump come March time. I don't think it's crazy to say all the games matter, especially for Ricky the Year race, where whether or not we believe in March and April Hoops is one thing for contending teams and whether or not we should believe them going into the playoffs. As far as a rookie season goes,

it's a significant part of your year. Every game matters. I'm not going to care too much of a level of competition when you're a fucking rookie. So it's close. One guy comes back and then he's training the right direction, you're training in the wrong direction. It's really not crazy to say

that Cooper Flag won it in the end when Con played so far below his level for a month and a half. Yeah. At the end of the day, just to keep it simple, like, child to Khan, but you don't dribble better than him. You don't rebound better than him. Oh, wow. You don't, bro, you don't go ahead and pass better than him at all. The only thing you got over him is shooting. I get it.

And I understand it. That's the most important thing. He's the only thing you have over him is shooting. He's literally having one of the best shooting seasons in NBA history. He is one of the best shooters of all the time. Facts, I agree. I agree. Do you know how good you have to be for Cooper Flag to even be in these type of conversations?

That's ridiculous. We've made these comps so many times. But it's like you're looking at a guy and saying you don't do X, Y, and Z better than him. And the other guy's like, bro, I'm literally Claytonoff. And I do agree. I also like, I don't understand how I feel about the premise of just because Cooper Flag's life is harder as a one option that automatically makes him have more merit. We do a lot.

I've talked about it for years. of giving so much praise to guys just because of the first option, not because they're an amazing first option, but just because off the merit of they have to have a first option role that makes them automatically better than one of the best, second, third,

whatever, off ball options. And that's a very faulty premise. Now, again, for Ricky the year, I don't know what to do with that if that's like... It's rookie the year, so it doesn't really matter again. I know what to do with that when I'm ranking players.

I know what to do with that when I'm talking about the merit of your MVP case or your all NBA case where Palo Van Caro is the first option. Don't give a fuck because he's bad at it compared to somebody who was an amazing second option, right?

I know how to parse that in my mind. That doesn't make Palo Ben Carroll more valuable to me than J-dub or whatever. For rookie in the year, I don't know what to do with difficulty because it's such a different conversation. I think the only reason you're having trouble is because in years past, like winning hasn't mattered. Exactly. It truly has been a stats thing.

I do think even with the MVP conversation, like when stats are so great on both sides, then we get to nitpicking and that's where winning matters. Yeah. And that's kind of what it is. now, right? They both have amazing stats. Cooper flag has like one point for 75 possessions more than Khan, much better

defensive playmaking stats. Con is a million times more efficient. So I do think the numbers are close enough that winning can be the deciding factor. But do we want to make winning a precedent in Ricky the year when nine times out of ten players aren't going to be winning because they're rookies? But also two. For this specific one,

I think this is the one that breaks the break precedent. You mentioned earlier the the Wembe Chet race. Also, Chet's never not been the number one seed like in his life. And so that fact. Yeah. And so that was crazy. But like even there was a quick moment in that year where it was like, okay,

Chet's out here playing all, you know, he's playing winning basketball. He's doing all this stuff. Took that team from a like the 13th. I think they were 13th in defense the year prior to now we have a top 10 defense. Now we have the best defense in the world. Chet legitimately mattered on that team. Yeah. And help propel them to the number one seed.

and we looked over at a team that had 19 wins and was like, yeah, but that guy's better. I think most of the time people will default to, yeah, that player is better. I think in this specific case, even though that we know or that we think that Cooper is going to be better. It's close enough. I think it's close enough. I agree.

To where at this point, like, Khan has done all of this work to get here. He has the winning stuff. The offense has been better. That's why I would go with it. agree. I think it would be like if Chet had almost identical numbers to Wembe and was in fact better in some ways. Let's say Wemby was a very inefficient score

and Chet was an amazing score for that year. It was close enough in many ways. And then we'd say that it's rare for a rookie to be on this impactful of a team. So when it's close enough, we'll give it a nod to the guy that's an outlier. Because most years we won't have these convoes because there won't be a rookie this good on this good of a team. Yeah. At the end of day, I think the best way

to solve this, people don't like it. But fuck it, both of y'all get a trophy. Co-MVee, co-Rookie of the year. My best way to solve it, roll the ball out. You don't want that though That would be spooky That would be real spooky I don't know In one on one

In one on one With six nine Cooper flag Yeah I think I don't know Flagg's pretty well equipped To fan conned I mean he's not locking them up I think he's like I don't I don't think he's locked

I don't want to use that phrasing Because I don't know what lockup means In this instance I think he would win hand to leave If they play if they play to 11 Yeah what's the score Isaac What's the score? It's probably like

This is also the best high breaker It's it's I don't know how to be It depends on like Is it unlimited dribbles? Because that'll help someone like Cooper Or someone like Khan Three dribbles. Three dribbles.

Yeah. I don't think it's Cooper. 6.11. Yeah. Ooh. I'll go like 8.11 almost. I don't know what's calling What's gonna get off

one-on-one against Cooper in that sense? Cooper just takes up so much space. So it's hard for. I don't think Conn had to get many stops on Cooper flag in that in that scenario. He can't. Listen, you get a call him the bomb first. Coup's not seen it again.

I'll let you know that right now. Swish. All right, that's a rig of the year race. Incredibly close. The best awards race of this season by far. Slight edge to concanipple. But again, I'm not mad of Cooper Flagg wins. What's up next, B.S.

Next up. D.P.O.I. Wamp, Wamp. Unanimous. No conversation. Wemby is, hopefully, unanimous DPOI for the first time ever. Yeah. There is no debate.

conversation here. I say wampwomp because sorry that's the end of this segment. Whelby is the best defender of his generation and this will be the first trophy he gets. Yeah. Never seen no shit like him before. This shit is crazy. You might have to go down to like to third place on the ballot to find non-unanimous because even

even second place, Chet. I think, yeah. I don't know if it's going to be unanimous. Some people hate on Jet regardless. Like he's going to be hated on forever. Unanimous too. What a guy. Yeah. I think every ballot should have Winby, Chet, whoever the fuck you wanted three. A SAR, Bam, Derek White, Scotty, whatever at three,

went me and Chad, got to be up top. Okay. All right. Next award. Most approved player. Wow, no dissension. We all have Nikil Alexander Walker. I had Jalen Duren for the entirety of the season.

Last night, changed the mind off of vibes. I had, I had, I had Dern basically up until five seconds before I sent things. The same last second, I switched it. Yeah. Why did you guys switch? Because I, because I, because I, because I, I think for me, like, I can tell you why exactly. Listen, man, you go ahead.

You know why I switched? Why? I was on TikTok and I saw a clip from Young Man to Three where DeKill Alexander Walker was talking about his journey and talk about how he went to the Utah Jazz after being traded from the Pelicans. And he said, yo, I think I'm a statistic. I think I'm about to be out of the league. This is getting crazy.

I'm running out of office. It's on my 13 and three years. Yeah. I'm just a guy. I got to get it together. And then I looked at those numbers and I said, damn, he got it together. I guess I'll go towards the side of everybody that wants to reinvent what most improved player is

get it back to his roots of rewarding guys who weren't supposed to be here who made a name for themselves Jalen Dern. I also kind of feel that way that he was pretty bad two years ago he was a terrible defender and now he's an all-star

all- NBA level player so in my mind that's a more important leap but the TikTok clip got to me him telling his own story got to me I said you know what he almost was a statistic let me give it to to kill Alexander Walker I wonder how many voters

like real voters think like that though they saw it and it and it's slayed their vote and I'm joking about that the only thing but like it did make me think like you know what it's a

if I'm treating this like what I expected from you this is a mountainous chasm of difference in terms of where your career is gone and maybe it's not fair to count like the whole arc of his career

yeah but I'm only human and even going to this year I thought he was good good role player didn't expect him to be at the point where he's so impactful

that you can trade trade, tray, and get better to this degree and your offense isn't even worse because he's taking more of a role for himself

and doing all things, it's the most improved in terms of what I expected from you. Before this season, we did our breakout players list. I put Jayland-Durton on there. So I already expected Jayland-Durne to get better this year. He's on track. And again, to me, I do still think it's very reasonable to pick Jayland-Duron because whether or not you see a leap coming to do a leap is still difficult. There's many young players that we see a leap coming for and they just stay shitty. So I kind of do feel like Jayland-Duron still deserves it in my heart, but you can't really hate on the Nick Kellogg's Underwalkingist. I always hated like giving young players guys who in your two, three-year

maybe four of their career, MIP. Where's that line in? Two, three, maybe four. Four is pretty deep in your career. Bro, four is kind of crazy because it's like, you should be this good. You should be expected to get better within the first four years of your career. Now, if it's like you're in year six or seven,

you've been in disappointment or whatever, some to the similar light of like Victor Lidipo and he just searches out and over there. Okay, I get it. That's a different conversation. I think like that's the line. When you're like six in your career, then it's like, okay, I think you can get that off. I don't know why.

I just explain why I'm going to Killers. Under Walker, hearing you explain it, now I want to switch. Because I hate it. I just always hate it. I always hated it. It's not fair. You're a lottery thing. You should be that.

Why? Why do we make this such a Disney ass award? Why does it have to be that? Why does it have to be such a field good award? History tells me that that's what that's what it is. That's why. I'm sticking to the side of history. History says a lot of things about awards from back in the day when award voters were

dumb as rocks. History says a lot of things. And I do think it's fine to award players that were high draft picks. Like Jalen Dern wasn't the number one. He's not jaw. Like I understand not like in the jaw thing. Jalen Dirton's not that. He was a lottery pick, so.

Isn't the Killers on a Walker lottery pick? No, he was not a lottery pick, 15 or something? He was like mid to late first round pick. I don't remember now. Nevertheless, if we were saying lottery picks can't win, like, we're doing a lot of like... They can win, obviously. They can win, but I think clearly when Darren entered the league, like, everyone knew and felt like this guy could be good.

You think that? But obviously, like, he was... The conversation was kind of nasty around him, like, a year and a half. for two years ago. Two years ago, he was a dog shit defender. Like, he was legitimately disappointing

in many ways defensively. Like, he overcame that a lot. Like, I do think he's a very worthy case. And I just wonder where the line is if we're saying, like,

any promising player to go in the top 14 picks gets dinged against him. I don't think Jill and Dern was a, like, tier one prospect that we had to say we knew he'd be a star. No, I'm not, I agree with you basically

up until, like, the top five, maybe six. Okay. I'm not really given the top three pick, like, most improved, Like you 100% we kind of already in our minds knew that you had had this talent. You were kind of on this like linear progression. Whatever.

I'm not, I'm not doing that. That's why like even the Jayae. I wasn't a massive fan of that. He wasn't. He gave that shit away to Desmond Vane. Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't really like that. I think for for Nickyne Alexander Walker, like a lot of times and historically the, the award

has gone to people. It was like, oh, your points per game went up by six points. here you got it. For him to be able to increase his score like that and not drop off defensively and not become a cone just for the sake of averaging a whole bunch of points the next year,

that meant that meant a lot. And I think that that legitimately, if you can make a leap like that, I think that's so hard. Because so, so many times you see guys go up three points a year. And they're like, man, I'm out here. I'm a bucket now. For him to become important at his job now and to still be a very, very good two-way player,

I think that that specific skill set and that specific archetype is very, very hard to achieve. And that's why I gave it to it. The part you said became important is why I picked him in the day just because he wasn't expected to be this and, like, facilitated the ability for them to make sense of change in their, like, roster construction. And that's why I went to him. It's a franchise change in leap. Yeah. Like, it was very important.

It only worked the Tray Young pivot because he was willing and able to take a step forward and they believed him to do so. That's why they got him, right? Yeah. That's why I went with him. The scoring leap plus staying good at defense and, in fact, improving.

The scoring leaps like identical to Jalen Duren. He also went from like 11 to 19 points. So the on the court, like actual tangible, how much more impactful you are in conversation, I feel like Leans Duren, but I guess I'm just like allowing myself to go toward everybody else wants to the word to go and add the like storyline element to it. And the storyline element makes it.

the killer's under Walker do you think hold on he went from nine points to basically 21 yes yes oh my bad never then i look i thought i'd look that's i saw i saw 11 last year yeah never mind that's that's ridiculous that's a 11 point difference yeah that's crazy as far and jalen durham was like eight i think i think 11 from 19 yeah so see that so yeah so you you have that and and the in the defensive side of it where the the way i'm looking at it and it's probably a little bit flawed but it's like you didn't take a drop off i'm taking you staying the same as still a little bit of a boost in terms of argument. That's, that's crazy hard.

It is. And he's more, this is the most efficient scoring year of his career. He damn near shot 40% from the three point line. Highest, and he's taken, like, obviously, volume is astronomical. He's being getting to the line a little bit more. He can shoot 90% from the line. If you look at his actual game on tape compared to him last year on the Timberwolves, like, a lot of Timberwolves fans, I remember there was this one post on Reddit that happened

like seven or eight months ago, whatever, some T-Woles. So it was like, yo, you guys be careful for Nikola Alexander Walker. This guy think he's Kobe sometimes. He hijacks the offense. He thinks that he thinks that. And he 100% damn there is that this year for his standards, but his actual counters. And his actual, like, ability to just hit shots more often. His wide open three is more often with consistency.

It's wildly important and impactful. The Minnesota Timber was knew that this is like the version of the Keel Alexander Walker that they were going to get next year. Obviously, I don't think he would be that because of the situation and expectations of shit. But if they knew that, they would ship Nazarede off to fucking Mars, bro. He would change their fucking life. I love that I keep finding myself picking a person that immediately had to argue against it because I don't fuck off at all. Because everything you're saying, I agree. But I'm like, Janeline Duren is in between the legs, mid-range tweens.

Like, I never expected that. Before I go Duren, that's the same. I agree with you. But before I go Duren, it's almost like damn near neck and neck for number two between him and Ryan Rollins. Just because it's like, you know, no one knew who you were last. year for real. People knew,

but no one really expected anything from you at all. Bro, Jalen Duren is going to be all NBA. I do think that in the, so, you know,

like the years, we'll use Jaws example. He got that one because the consensus, like, new, educated opinion on

most improved amongst voters was that it's more important and a harder leap to go from good player to all star and there's more value there. So that's the most improved as far as

the most difficult type of leap and most important type of leap for a team. And I do think that's true. So I do think that the level Jalen Dern reach, who's a better player than the Kellogg's Under Walker, like, that's a harder, more important leap, I think. And I feel like we wrote that off because we missed the days of seeing the guys who weren't supposed to be here make that win for like the emotional side, which I think is valid, like, obviously as my placement says, I do think that the nerds aren't

wrong about that. They're like, it is hard to become an all NBA level player, you know? It's not fun that way. Sure, sure. I guess. I think Jared is pretty fun though. I think it's a fun leap. Yes, but that's why, like... Is he a victim of John Morant winning? Yes. Jail and Daryland Dary and die for John Moran's sins? Yeah, I... That's crazy. It's... We're like four years removed. Get over it.

I can't. Oh, my gosh. I can't. I can't... Apparently neither can I, so I'm not... Don't with stones from glass houses. I get it. I don't know why, but one of the only things to be... Go make the all NBA team. Like, that's your prize for being in the room. Go go make that team. That is the, that is the category. that you are in.

That's your award? I'm tired of these lottery picks coming in, taking it all the awards from everybody. You got to get rookie of the year, most improved. Like, you, at, like, the literal ideal path for somebody is to get rookie of the year, year one, they have a down year two,

jump back in year three, get most improved. And now you get All-Star and all NBA and MVP, and you have that sort of, like, pipeline. I don't want to see that. And now, I'm with you. Jaylen Duren was my pick for basically all the five seconds.

90% of his day last year. 90% of the day was saying that that Jayland Durant did it. But the scoring leap. You couldn't have been that time then. Huh? He couldn't have been that time than if 99% of your day you had Jayland during.

You know what sort of not. I'm like, why did I do this? I'm like, yeah. But listen, it just hit like a like a brick wall. He didn't want to say he saw the clip too I was like you know what No I'm not gonna do this I'm not gonna put I'm not gonna put Jalen Duren

You remember your morals I like it Yeah I just like You know I always struggle with this I think if I had a vote I would be in different mindset I'd probably pick Jail and Duren Because I'd be like I gotta do what I think is right But as far as like this where it doesn't matter

I'm like I guess I gotta decide If I treat the award that everybody else wants to treat it Or I want to treat it And who am I to go against the consensus to that degree I guess I'll meet you all where your stand And this award really means improvement we didn't see coming. If that's what we're going to do,

that's what we're going to do. I'll rock with you guys and pick my best version of that. But I would probably lean towards the nerds who want to applaud like Starleafs. I feel like, I feel like now, since you don't have a vote,

should be the ultimate time for you to be like, I'm going to do what I think is right. I'd care way more if I had a vote. Then I'd be like, I'll stand alone or I'll stand ten toes. I'll tell me to do what I think is right. I don't care.

It matters. This, whatever. We don't know. I'll meet you where you guys live. I know you guys want to do the emotional side of the award and if that's what we're all going to do I'll join the crowd I think if the Hawks

you gotta start standing this you got to start standing for something I pick my best version of that I didn't just pick as everybody else is going to you if there was another heartthrob type of vote then I would pick him that I like more shit I'm gonna say what I really feel shout out Ryan Rollins man yeah yeah and I would appreciate it

given the bucks any type of award it's crazy if you actually thought that way shout to you kind of yeah I know you not really not really I can't give the bucks a single nod and anything this year. I can't let I can't let them steal away

Ryan Raw and shine. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can. I did. That team is a disgusting. Bro.

Ryan Rawls are stealing shampoo from Target, bro. And now he's every like 18 points per game. Here's my thing. See, that's what I'm that's the time of should

talk about. Like if you really want to talk about stories. Wait, is that a real story? Yes. He got cut by the Warriors because he did petty shoplifting. Oh my God.

Yeah. So now we've got to give him a war. because he made some bad decisions in the past. This make a wish ass award. Give to Jayland Dern. He's the best player. Listen, that is kind of most improved.

You've improved your character. Yeah. Improve your character. You've improved your mindset and your mental. That's a big jump. He's a fantastic player. Nicky Alexander Walker, Ryan Rollins,

and then Jaylander. All right. Make a wish award. This is the Disney. award? Who else can we get in there? Who else had a Disney Channel rise? Disney Channel Rise? Look up to NBA teams. It's tough, man.

You kind of, yeah, you kind of have to do it. There has to be one award that we get. Nemeas Kada number three. Hell no. Got it out the mud. Since apparently that's all we care about. You know, from average like two points last year to nine. All we care about is where you started, not where you ended. So Nameda's K doesn't turn on my ballot.

Hell no. That's a little one. No, no. I'm trying to kill Alexander Walk. I did pick him in the day. So he is still amazing. It's close enough with Jail and Dern I did still pick him.

It's a must. It's a must. It's a must. Yeah. Nah. But shout to you, you guys are going to get... You know what the main crux of my argument is?

I truly never in my heart at all believe that Jail and Duren make an all-N-Ba team two years ago. Like, I did not see, at least this fast. Like, I did not see two years from now he'd be an all-N-B-A player. And that's a part for me that

I don't have the feeling in my mind of like he's too good of a prospect. to, again, two years ago and even the start of last year, there was zero part of me that were predicted in 2026 he'd be an old NBA player. Seven, I think.

Something like that? Seven. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some like that. And a good pick. Like, he was the youngest player

in the draft. Like, it made sense he was raw two years ago. I just, I made me, again, it's because he was so young and took him a while relative to his peers

who were a little bit older. So it's not surprising looking back. But again, two years ago, that man could not move his feet on defense at all. He was picked 13, actually. You took 13?

Yeah. Jalen Dern, this is your award. I'm changing my vote. Yeah, honestly. I thought he was seven. I don't remember. My memory is so bad. Yeah, he was picked 13.

Shaden Sharp was seven that year. Why did I think seven? That's so different. My memory is terrible. Yeah, I think you may have thought, because that was the year that Ivy was selected at five. Yeah, nobody,

because even lottery picks, shout to y'all. Nobody ever thinks that, like, that late lottery picks are going to end up being. The killer was under Walker was 17. Are y'all flipping the pitch or not? Yes. There's a Jayloran.

I'm staying there. Sorry. I'm still late at Alexander Walker, but. So Isaac's flipping. Yeah. Flipping like shit. Okay. But it's not crazy though.

Dude, that's crazy. I was so, like every time I thought about Jalen Dern in the past two years, I've thought number seven picked my mind for some reason. That's funny. I don't know how the fuck I got there. My memory is trash. Mandela effect.

That's crazy. That's so different from 13. All right. Next award. coach of the year I'm alone I don't blame you I don't blame you

I wanted to go that way so bad You better not flip this time man This was another one Where I was going I was going back and forth I kept deleting each of their names And kept putting the other ones Vody listeners

I have Mr. Joe Mazula Everybody else in this panel has J.B. Bicker staff Yeah I What really swayed me away from from Missoula to Biggerstaff,

I think these last couple games that they had without Cade. Yeah, fair. Really, really was like, that meant a lot for me in how I view the Pistons and in how I view J.B.

Bickersaf of like, you can build something you can have this team to where even whenever you are losing this player that if you played 65 games is going to be first team, all NBA, is going to have all these things, is carrying your team like that.

And the way in which your team operates, the culture that you have built there and what you guys have done is able to sustain that. And you are able to hold off the Boston Celtics and the team that everybody's like, oh, yeah. Without kid, you guys can't get buckets. You guys can't win games. You guys can't do this, can't do that. And they're still able to go out and thrive on a night-to-night basis. And it's a large part in because of the culture that Jamie Brickersap has set. the non-K games really swayed for you.

That's fair. It brings to light the strength of their foundation outside of Chet. I mean, outside of Cade. Joe Mozilla got Jalen Brown, the perennial 17th best player in the league, into MVP talks. Joe Mozilla got Nemeas Kada to being the anchor of a top five defense in the league. He got Jordan Walsh, Hugo Gonzalez, and Baylor Shireman to being a more than adequate playoff of wing rotation. He dealt with the fact that Jason Tatum wasn't there all year and he still got the

two seed. He made the, he got to the fact that Derek White can be your lead guard with the worst shooting he's ever had of his life and still get the most value out of him because the system is that strong. I can't remember the time a team got the most out of players to this regard to the point where not only are you winning more games than you show at their talent level, not only are you dealing with injuries more than you should, you are the best team in your conference, in my opinion, in terms of what will translate to the playoffs. In a gap year, quote unquote, with a band and misfit young players that obviously the front office believed in, that they believe could get to this level.

I don't think should have got here this fast, if not for Joe Mazzula being incredible to optimizing players that not to take away from them, did their part develop well, Amia's evolution as a player is beautiful, fantastic shot blocker, right? They have a top five defense with the Miasqueda and Vucevich and Luca Garza hoops at the rim. It is insane that fucking juice that he has squeezed out of these fruit. Yeah. But I also feel like I can say the same exact thing for J.B. Bickersaf in terms of everyone

knew you're going to be like good this year. You just won like 44 games last year. The year before that, you won like 13, 14. So the intention, like, was clearly coming. You guys are going to be always a respectable team. But no one thinks you have, like, elite level talent on your roster still. You don't, like, shout to Kate, of course. He's a top five, top six or seven MVP candidates similar to Jalen Brown.

Shout out to Jalen during his rise as well. But this team doesn't have top in town, especially offensively as well, too. Like, he's squeezing the fuck out of every ounce that he's getting from God's like Dennis Jenkins. And he's buying these guys. And he's also, in my opinion, as well, developing these guys into something. So same thing. When it comes to Sarr Thompson, great player. He's made leaps in his own right, too, when it comes to defensively and how he's

even better and more impactful with a cutter. Same things can be said about Ron Holland who's still not there yet offensively. He's getting guys like Paul Reed is still. He's still making these guys useful in all types of ways and more important than all that, similar to like Joe Missoula. And also you could say Mark Dagonal too, but that's a past. conversation. He's getting, he is making these guys play so incredibly fucking hard. Yeah. Every night. Very deserving for everything you just said. I do think that, you know,

they win with defense. Number two defense in the league have been that all year. Number 10 offense for the season, which ended up pretty strong. So that that is a coach of the year case. But they win with defense, not offense. And I'm not going to pretend their defensive talent is mid. It's incredible. They're the best wing defender in the NBA. Asar has like undoubtedly been number one to me in terms of wing defenders. Jalen Durenz made leaps defensively, big body there. I say a Stewart is a fantastic big compared to him, I mean paired with him, I should say. Ron Holland is a fantastic defender.

I considered him for my third team, all defensive that existed. Yeah. Like, they have fantastic defensive talent. Cade, very good, impactful defender at the room. Like, they win with defense and they have immense defensive talent. Mm-hmm. The Celtics win with offense.

Number two, offensive league for the season, I think? Mm-hmm. Yes. I don't think they have amazing offensive talent. They don't have Asar Thompson, who is a top five pick because he's such a gifted defender. They have good offensive talent, and they maximize it.

Like shout out Pritchard, shout of Derek White. Obviously, that type of role player that gets to knock compared to All-Stars all the time for a reason. He is incredible, not because of Joe Mozilla. Shout out Jalen Brown. Fantastic player, not because of Joe Mazula. All these players are producing so much more in the sum of their parts. And I think that's, like, directly attributed to Joe Mazula. I agree.

I think even teams, though, that, like, have, one, I would say that with the offensive talent that Detroit does have, the fact that they were able to finish top 10, I think that's, I think that's crazier than the Celtics finishing, finishing what they did. And I think that part, part of it may be just because we've seen the Celtics be competent offensively for longer,

so we kind of expected, but like if you go down the roster, like they're, their playoff rotation guys who are playing 19, 20 minutes a game, right? Jayland Duren doesn't take threes. Assar Thompson, 25% from three, beefs through 33%. Kevin Hurter,

29% Ron Holland 25% Cam Carousel Avert 33% You have so many guys Even Cade, Cates at 34%. You have so many guys on your team That legitimately are not only below league average But some of like the Like you know 25% tiled shooters in the league

And the fact that you can still make that work is crazy And then on the other side Teams that are really like really built off a defense Those teams are good and we've seen those teams like yo very nice 3C very very nice you know very nice four seed you guys got out the mud your culture shining all of that 60 wins at a time the best record in in the league there's a lot that's 60 wins is a lot they have 60 yeah they're 60 yeah they got they got there which fair again shot i'm not i don't think jub jub jv's a bad pick at all for that exact reason you hit a certain

threshold it's like all right i do think part of us though needs to recalibrate what we expect or what we think of these offensive players you just named reasons why why their offensive ecosystem isn't the strongest, and you're not wrong, but you focus on the shooting. They have a lot of talent outside of just shooting, you know? Like shout out Dennis Jenkins, give them another ball handler. They're a fantastic transition team because they have crazy athletes. They're a great cutting team.

They're really good at making use of the space without being good shooters. They're fantastic at cutting from the dunker spot and all that. Jalen Dern isn't a shooter. Great offensive player this year. Obviously, they have Cade, who's maybe the best player in the league this season. They have a lot going from offensively outside of the shooting to make up for it. It's not just like magically, you know? But that's all the-

think that's all because J.B. Bickerstaff is helping influence these things as well. I could say similar things about the Houston Rockets. It's like they have. They're not the most talented shooting team at all. But I mean, Udoca has his hands in his pocketbook of the time and he's not using the athleticism or the cutting that these guys could have. He's not walking out of road. To be fair, they have a better offense than the pistons, but they have Kevin.

Yeah. But they have Cade, though. But they have Cade. So I don't know. But again, I agree with you. He's a close second to me. But I think that I think the talent, there's more talent in that roster, I think. talent. I think there's better players on Joe Mazzula's roster because Joe Mazzua.

I think a lot of these guys, you put him on other teams, you wouldn't know Baylor Sharmine's name if you put them on the Hornets. It would take him a while to get more impactful. Maybe he'll be good still. The first guy that you shouted out though, right? Because you were talking about the ball handling. You said shout out Dennis Jenkins. Dan Jenkins played 3.3 minutes a game last year. Which is why he seconds me. I'm not. You know, you know, like, no, but that's when those things were like in terms of just talent, I think there's a couple guys on this for this team that are like if they if they go somewhere else they're either getting buried in the in the rotation or you're not really going to get them an opportunity to really grow and thrive

and stuff like that and that's why i i think that what what detroit has done and it's kind of like this for durin in the most improved um conversation as well i feel like for them it's like a it's like a rolling two-year aggregate of like the improvement that jeline durer has made over the last two years really, really stands out. And for the Pistons, for them being, what, like 15, 17 wins the year before and then to get to the playoffs last year and then now to get to the number one team, we're looking at this entire new era of what they're doing. And now you're looking at this and say, okay, you really have taken the steps to

truly, truly get better. So I think that even for this specific year, missing Cade for 18 games and still being able to be the number one seed in the Eastern Conference that's not as weak as Eastern conferences of past yeah me have the Celtics there yeah and to out to outwin them in your own conference that's why I think J.B. kind of gets it yeah that's fair and he's probably gonna win right like the odds are saying he's gonna win I think so so it'll be deserved it's not bad at all I do it hurts me a little bit the Joe Mazzula the season is gonna go so unnoticed because I know that's like the roster is full of Dennis Jenkins yeah but not to that degree they're

first round pick so it's not guys completely out of nowhere that that game against the magic last night. Oh my God. Five Dennis Jenkins put Palo in the dirt into the game that mattered for seating. Bro, the magic were really trying. And they couldn't beat Baylor Shimon and Luca Garza, bro. I know what else is?

Joe Mazzula is so ahead of the curve schematically too, which we just talk about the outcome and like where you are relative expectation from a team perspective. The shit they do to optimize their roster is genius. And not to discredit what J.B. Bickshap does because it's still obviously, it's important to be like the effort culture coach

that goes into young teams and makes them play hard. the shit Joe Missoula does on offense. They, if you watch them, you're watching modern basketball in the truest sense. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I'm not, I'm not mad at you for any of those things. I came into the season feeling like this is with all the things that Joe Missoula has like gone through throughout his coaching career and how he just like randomly got brought up and promoted as the head coach,

went to NBA finals as side dude, won the NBA finals as the main dude, while also having to sit down and deal with like figure out and be through the noise of all the. Oh, can J.B. and Tatum work, yada, yada, yada. Sitting down and having to watch Tatum tear his fucking Achilles and figure out ways to really insulate all those things through all these new guys, like you said, Beyer and all that. Like, it's wildly impressive. And for me, I had this year as like, okay, if you're like an actual elite level coach of this decade, show me. And he exactly showed me that. And I think he's like, for me personally cemented himself in my mind as like one of the top coaches for the for the 2020s easily. for what he's done this year. I did want to ask, Donovan, how much did those no Cade games really hold weight to you?

Because I would just like to make the case that, like, isn't that Joe Mazzul his whole season, not having Jason Tatum? That's fair. They did hold, hold weight. I think the idea, though, that they were just, like,

Cade merchants. And as soon as Cade goes down, the number one thing was like, yo, are they going to lose the number one seed? Like I think even as Boston was starting to roll and JT's coming back and we're all like as soon as they get Tatum We're like well the subjects are number one in the east like they're making their push Once that happens then a lot of stuff about their season started to go you know or we had the thought that it could go sideways

And the fact that that just didn't happen was was really really telling and because We've had conversations about the Pistons all year long and even still like we're gonna have conversations on on Thursday about their like their playoff outlook And the number one thing is like Can they're often survive in a playoff environment? And not to say that those thoughts are completely out of my mind But I do feel better about the Pistons now Than I did two and a half weeks ago You know?

And it survived a regular season environment It can survive a regular season environment Which still matters for you do games So whether or not like it works in the playoffs To a finals degree It works for 82 games and that's all those awards for It's so crazy They went from 44 games

And didn't really make any massive changes on their in their starting lineup at all. Tobias is still there. They inserted Duncan Robinson because they had to lose Malik Beasley from all those shit that he did too. And they won 60 games, right? That's an insane jump. That's an insane leap with no real changes other than, of course, not real change. Because all these young players got better.

So I'm not going to say here and act like they didn't like do anything this offseason. But come on, man. This is me. This is meaningful to me. So I don't want this to be forgotten for JB because this is the only time in his life where he will probably win some like this. Damn. Shit.

Being honest. It was like his reputation league. Like he's been around for a minute. No, but this is like the second time that he's had a very successful season with the team. Yeah. Yeah. So like he could if it,

if something goes wrong, he ends up coaching another team like soon. He could do this again. No, man. 60 games. It's a lot. But yeah. But yeah,

they had a lot of a lot of in and out. But I do. Yeah. J.B. is my coach. Yeah. For this year. but Missoula is at least for me Missoula is a much closer second than with the odds are

1A 1B for me I thought he's been the favorite for a minute No jb's a very heavy favorite right now The Tatum storyline like it's With Tatum there it doesn't look quite as To the casual experience It doesn't look quite as Getting it up the mud anymore

I would The Js are there Yeah that's fair It's not fair but I understand it Yeah it's not fair I see I see the vision Yeah, I understand. El Vision.

El Vision. I'll think the complete opposite. Wow. I agree. It's hard to reintegrate him, but so be it. All right. Next award. Clutch player of the year.

I still don't have a grasp of like how to think about this one outside of just like numbers. Yeah. These new awards kind of. It's literally just clutch numbers and or moments honestly. It's a spreadsheet award. Yeah. I don't care about this one at all. But shout out.

It wasn't the running like or he was like running away with this at first. And then their season went the way it did. Shout out a trophy and Chase. case. I don't care to talk about it very much. Yeah. This one is very little interest to me. All right. Let's see what the, so the difference in points. He had 175, 175 points in, in club situations.

Jamal Murray was second with 166. Nicole Eukens was third with 155. However, then he shot 51 and a half percent in clutch. Shaded? Yeah. In clutch situations. That's insane. Very solid. Salute. Next award. Saloon. Six man of the year. What fuck is all my screen?

Let's see that dead ass Who is that? Real question, who is on my screen right now? So I guess when you Google Keldon Johnson Sometimes ESPN shows you the wrong picture That looked like fucking Chris Dunn's cousin

Or something like that, man Okay, when you Google Keldon Johnson, look at that. Who is that? I don't know. Sometimes ESPN's database shows you the wrong picture and we put our name Keldon Johnson

and Andrea is not an NBA fan, obviously. So she Google Keldon Johnson and we always took on the Pee's G and G's. This is what pops up. I don't know who this man is. It's supposed to be an end of bench player. Sometimes they have a random like 15th man

go to someone's picture. That's what happened. ESPN was good. Is a dude's name Kelton Johnson? I don't know, but it's so weird because if you click on the page and it takes you to Kelton Johnson's page. Oh, really?

And it's a real, like the real Kelton Johnson is there. That is David Jones, Garcia. What the fuck? You ESPN, what's up, man? Wow. He was an undrafted player in 2024 who had a brief statement with Utah and Philadelphia

on two-way deals. He also played for the Mexico City team in the Jew League. Yo, these are my favorite moments, man. Oh, bad. Now, as for the real Kelton Johnson. I've never seen him play. I'd never seen him a day in my life.

He's a new dude to me. This is my brother Johnson and Hamer Hawkins Jr. I went towards a guy in the good team who, my thought of the team before the season of why I didn't view them being a two seed. I had them being a lower tier playoff team because I thought their wing group wouldn't be good enough. And a big part of that was Kelton Johnson to me pretty disappointing for the first like five years of his career.

And he made a big leap this season. As everybody does that plays next to Wembe, you know, he kind of is a rising tide for all role players around him. And Kelden Johnson understood that and answered the assignment and made himself a much better player on both sides of the court. His ability as a 6-8 wing with some girth to him that can defend up to power forwards is a huge part of why this team is such strong. bench units. Difference to him to high made to me was contribution to a team

that I think can win the finals. That was kind of the deciding factor. Yeah, that's fine. Dude, it's so crazy. One of my favorite storylines is seeing players who are like probably not the best suited,

not best suited to be like a number one or two or maybe even three scoring option on a championship team and scale down completely and completely like changed their identity. We shouldn't happen time and time again. One of the more famous ones tend to be like Aaron Gordon,

but that's like obviously like the best of the best scenarios that we see. And for Kelton Johnson to go back into what year 2020. Year 2023, he averaged 22 points. Shot 45% from the field, 32% from three. He could have easily like had a massive ego and be like, nah, man, I'm here to stay using my shots and yada, yada, yada, yada. Get this guy on my screen. Get him out of my screen. This guy, this is about the real Kelvin Johnson, man. We're giving him a big sign. Should I switch up? You thought something about

You know what's funny What you do with Kelden Johnson It's like 100 pictures of Kelton Johnson Around the P&G Of this random guy And they look Nothing I like It's so crazy

I'm not I'm doing like that But for Kelden This is the most efficient year Of his career From the field From the three point line You find his role completely

Sheved his head bald And Wemby bro with like camaraderie's there. He is the vet of this team. And bro, he might be a Spurs life for at this point. Yeah, I think the,

unironically, the vibes aspect weighs very heavily in this. That like the, the way that Codin Johnson comes into these games and, and interacts with the team everywhere else, legitimately feels like the,

like a six man. And Jaime Hakez, shout to him, right? The vibes are off. No, Not necessarily that the vibes are off. This is a different point.

You're getting too close to actual rotation guys. It's playing 28 minutes a night. You're too close to 30, right? They said the same thing about like Jamal Crawford back then. Kelton's at 23. Oh, come on, man. That's real six-man stuff. Nah, that's real six-man.

I don't like that. That's nasty. You're playing 30 minutes a night. So, bro, how many minutes is Ronald Genoble playing at his peak in Jamal Crawford? That's not a. And Lou Williams. That's not a six-man. man.

All you're nasty. You are the five and a half man. Get the fuck. You're playing you're playing start a bit. You're playing 28 minutes a night. It doesn't matter. You're coming off the bench. It's not minutes, man.

If I come off the bench and I play 35 minutes a night. Like if, am I, am I the sixth man of the year? I mean, if you're coming off the bench and you're the first man off the bench, yeah. I think that's important.

If you're so good off the bench you're capable of closing games, that's not a negative to me. Yeah. If I, wait, And to answer my question, though. Yes.

Yeah. You would vote for somebody. 100%. They were playing 35 minutes? If they play 35 minutes a night, but for some reason, for some reason they're, like, if Joe Missoula was like, you know what, Jena Brown? I just don't want you to play the first, the first five minutes of the game. Yeah.

After that, 35 minutes. Okay, well, speaking in practicality sense, like, if that was actually happened, that would mean to me because there's an incredible value to come out of the bench. I guess he likes them coming in with the first of the bench units that has a lot of value in the coach's mind, but he's so good that he also adds value in closing games. Exactly. That's like, that's just a really important bench player.

I don't know. That's what's more important to me. That's not a negative to me. I don't condone that big bro. You add all these, all these narratives, these awards. Now I'm going to pick the highest minutes just because you're pissing me off. I can't do that. Who's the highest minutes bench playing to leave me? I can't do that. Wait, inherently if that happens, would another

starter? That's not a six man. No, but that's what I'm saying, would another starter only have to play like 11 minutes for that to happen? Not necessarily 11 months. It's, it's essentially like, Like last year, the, like, the Knicks playoff roster, like, they were, like, Josh, I can't remember the exact thing. But the argument was like, like, Josh Hart was coming off the bench, but he's still playing all these minutes. And so it's like, you're still essentially doing the, doing the same thing. Like.

He's more into the archetype of what I think of six-man. I'm going to give him the nod simply because A.J. Mitchell did not play 65 games. If he did, I wouldn't have thought twice. This would have been to A.J. Mitchell's award. Same. Wouldn't have been a conversation to me. All right. That's tough.

Shout out David Jones Garcia. Yeah. I hope you can mention it again on the show. Friend of a show. Friend of the show. Six men of the year, David Jones Garcia. Salute. AJ Mitchell, right in that range, 25.5 or 25.8 minutes.

You're nasty. That's good. There you go. That's six-man behavior. Next award. I think we're on to all NBA teams now, if I remember correctly. Okay. We have first team all NBA.

So Luca obviously played 64 games. He's currently doing an appeal. I treated this like he wins the appeal because it's not to me he would win his appeal quite easily. So I did Shea, Luca, Wembe, Yokic, Jalen Brown. Wow. Pretty much you have the same list. Yeah, I have the same five. I treated, I treated Luca winning his appeal because.

quite frankly, I didn't want to have the arguments on the third team. I was tired of moving people up. So we're just going to treat this like Luca wins the appeal. And that is my five. I shouldn't make Kate win his appeal too because apparently it's up to me as a voter voter here. I would give Baltimore because I hate this rule. But Kay's not on here.

He would be clearly on here. Honestly, he'd probably be on there above Jalen Brown if he was. Oh, 100%. Yeah. That's crazy. And you did the same thing except you put Kauai. I put Kauai. I had Kaua under the whole time.

Then I was like, damn, man. Couldn't finish the top eight seed. Listen, you sold the first You sold the ability to get the seven seed in the playing? Nope, nine. No, so I understand that, but he's levels ahead of Jalen Brown as a player. Levels ahead. Let's not get disrespectful for you.

I know you, he's better. He's levels ahead of Jalen Brown. He's a level ahead of Jalen Brown this season. Levels? Meant by two levels. Okay, sure, he's two levels ahead of Jalen Brown. If your levels are real small. This season, this individual year, I think he's like no worse than a top six player for

this first year. You know what? This version of Jalen Brown is all. also like great. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, like the 11th best player. This is 20, there's 29 minutes a game. He's there every single night playing 71 games in the, in the season.

He's a two-way guy as well. I'm giving Jalen Brown the credit on the number two seed. Like we're giving, we're giving Missoula a lot, a lot of credit. And I'm not saying that it's undeserved at all. But I don't want to, I don't want to downplay the leap and the level to which Jaylon Brown has played this year. And it's not all just like, oh, Joe Missoula has now turned you into into this, into this player. He, he, by himself has done a little bit of leveling up.

And I would like to respect that more than what Kauai has done this year. I would like to downplay the level of leap that Jailen Brown has made this season. See, this is ridiculous. I knew you were going to get out. No, he's nowhere near as good to Kauai. But in all NBA, I go towards teams of success a good amount. Okay. So team success with the exciting factor.

I think team success matters a lot for all the NBA, I'll at least you have some short weekly to most people. And like I said earlier, I'm trying to meet people where they live and trying to go off the basis everybody else does. So for that, with team success being a huge part of all NBA, the golf is just too big. The Celtics are just way too much better than the Clippers. Yeah, I feel you.

I think the storyline of like coming from being literally like one of the worst teams in the Western Conference, people being scared about you guys, given the OKC Thunder potential NBA champions at the end of the year, a top four or five lottery pick, seeing how him and Harden did this reclamation project. And then after that, okay, fuck, you go ahead and trade for Garland Gurans out there for a little bit. And you have to man down the ship playing with literally like just random parts. Shout out to John Collins, you know, shout out to Zubach for a little bit.

Yacchonis is there for a little bit. Brooke Lopez has been holding out of that ship for the most part. Running with Chris Dunn as his main one to two guard at times. Yonik. Yeah. Oh, I said Yacochonis. I was like, who? Yeah, I said Yacotanis.

My bad. Yeah, Yonik. and then there's Garns here to have to figure out that whole situation while also like maintaining your game while also like being hyper-efficient across all levels of the field only guys compared to you efficiency-wise in this league at this volume, Shea. Yeah, it's crazy.

He's again, he's much better than Jalen, so I'm with you. Yeah. Changed it because I've decided to be consistent with team success, but I'm with you. Everybody else is kind of a debatable. Those are just those guys. Yeah. Second team, all-N-BIA.

I have a typo. This was not the final version of my list. I'm going to say the final version of my list. Tyrese maxi's on here. He's actually 13. My real second team. Kauai Leonard, Chet Holmgren,

Donovan Mitchell, Kevin Durant, Jalen Brunson. Okay. Take off Maxie? Yeah, Maxie's 13. Gotcha. I had Jaylen Brunson,

Tyrus Maxi, Chet, Jamal Murray, and Kawhi. Fuck the 65 games. I'm putting Kade on my list. Fair. I also put Tyrese Maxie.

Wait, that's great. Okay, okay. He wanted his appeal. He won his appeal? No, no, no. No, it's crazy that you have Cade winning his appeal and him not being first team. That's true. That's fair.

Okay. That's fair. That's what I find crazy. Would you say Kauai's levels above Kade? He's a level above Kade maybe. Yeah, maybe one. Maybe one. I respect the 60 game.

That's a good point. So levels. Kauai's two levels above Jalen Brown. In between them is Kade. One level of the separation. Now we understand our levels. Now the 60 game, that's fair thing. I should have put, I should have put Kade at first team all NBA for that same line.

So I agree. Then I had Brown and then Jim Brunton and Donovan Mitchell too. Wow, you got a hunger major. Woo, second team. Chet is, wow. Chet's legit. Chet's legit. And I, like, again, from the day he walked into the league, he's just been this guy.

He's just been one of the most, you know, impactful defensive players in the league. And we already understand that if it wasn't for the French dude, he'd be DPOY. and he probably hopes that that first dude had never been born because he's been tormenting him for years. But Chet on both sides of the ball specifically defensively is just otherworldly. And I think that

I think that we're once again going to see his value in the playoffs and this next stretch of the season. But what Chet does on a night to night basis is it's crazy. Yeah. He only has to play 28 minutes because they beat the fuck out of teams. So you average of 17

points. But he's having his most of his most efficient season by far. If he wasn't on a team that had to sit fourth quarters because they were being the fuck out of teams, he would probably be averaging 19 and a half, maybe 20. So I'm not going to hold that type of like threshold of counting stats against him. So in my mind, he is a DPI level defender.

He's Rudy O'Bare with the ability to average an efficient 20-ish points per game while stretching the court as a five-out spacer. There's a reason he walks into every single basketball court and gets the one seed across every stage of his life because that is just one of the most impactful, important players in basketball no matter what level you're at okay i like that i also i wish i made room for chat on my second team and also jamaama murray too because jamaul murray is tough that came down to

him versus brunson for me yeah and i was like i guess it's just like second option bias i guess but that that's a tough one i'm not mad at put jamaul marie over brunson yeah i feel you i think they're damn near tied in my eyes like jamaul marie's having like usually one of the most efficient years in NBA history, only guys who can compare to him for this singular years, like, Steph Curry across all levels of the court, considering, like, the volume of threes that he takes as well. For Brunson, I mean, like, the captain, I can't disrespect him. He does it every single time.

I'm just like at this point in time, like here, like second seed like every year. Yeah, three point shooting wise, very highly like all time efficient season. But Jamal Murray is not like he has like a 70% true shooting or anything. It's not one of the more efficient seasons of all time. So I was able to keep one third team and I feel too bad about it. Because again, his three point numbers are crazy, like seven and a half attempts, highly difficult attempts to, at 43.5% for the whole season, that's fucking bonkers. But if the interior scoring was as good as that, this would be like an MVP level player.

He's obviously not that. 62% true shooting is very good. Lower than concan nipple. Come on now. He's no con. He's no con. Lower than concan nipple. What the fuck?

It is. It is. Who cares? No, I'm just, you said it's one of the greatest most efficiency of all time. What do you want me to say? It's not one of the most efficiencies of all time. so I didn't have to put him second or first team off the strength of that is all I'm saying. Third team felt okay despite the amazing season he's having.

I respect the second team shout out though. Kevin Durant made it there. He's Kevin Durant. Donovan Mitchell, he's Donovan Mitchell. I really debated Brunson versus Tyrus Maxi. The numbers are like almost identical in like every regard. Their per setting five possession scoring is within 0.2 difference of each other. Their true senior percentage is within 0.5% of each other.

They are almost identical in every way. And Maxy's a better defender. I think Baxie might have a better season. It's just the team success isn't there because the team was all injured around him so he's not as good of a team. But I don't really feel strongly that Brunson deserves a spot over Maxie.

People always, I feel like in a lot of the conversations that I've heard about like second team and third team, people have always been starting to parse Maxi versus Brunson. Really? It's common. Yeah, but I'm not putting them against each other. They're, those two were two of the first

names on my, like them two and Kauai were the three names for me on the second team where I was like this is 100% where you guys deserve to be. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not thinking about moving you guys You kicked off Durant then. Yes, I did. Okay, that was the one you kicked off. Yes. Okay, I'm fair. Obviously, we all know it went into the rocket season. We all know the pitfalls of their lack of playmaking and lack of rebounding after losing Steve Adams and Fred Vend of Lee. Kind of put Durant into an inopportune scenario where he has to be the lead playmaker, not his game. still Kevin Durant He's still really good

I don't know I feel that I also it's I'm sorry KD file stacks Yeah fair okay

Yeah that an old for me it's over with Okay well let's see your 13 I'm assuming he's there Correct Thank God Not for me

Oh well You're bastard 13th 13tholeby I have Jalen Johnson Jalen Johnson Jalen Duren Jamal Murray

Scottie Barnes and Tyrese replacing Jet I don't like you Why You put BAM out of buyer Kevin Durant

I put Bam, I put Jalen Dern. Jelan Johnson, like y'all. I got Jamalbury and Chet. Shout out to Bam, man. I'm not a fan of your work, man. We got to find some sticks and swing them at you. I'm being honest.

You're being honest? Do you think Bam has had a better season than Kevin Wayne Durant? Have you seen Bam on defense this year? Sure. He scored 83 points this season, too. Okay. I'm not going to say he leveled up as an offensive player, but he's... He did not.

He's more interesting. He's more interesting as an offensive player. But more so, this, like, puts him... This is more a deeastern. defense's slanted conversation. It's why chest number two for us. So it's like, I got it. But his team also sucks.

This is why. Bam. This is why I was so heated at air expulsion to Miami for doing what they did. Because now, you give us talking points. You gave us material. That's what I'm saying.

The rest of. Of time. Of history of conversations have to go like this. I had Jalen Johnson, Jalen Duren, Donovan, Mitchell, James Hardin, and Kevin Durant on my direction. I love the Hardin placement. I thought about Hardin.

I ended up going Jalen Johnson over Hardin. mostly because it's kind of remarkable that they secured that seed they secured and Janele Johnson is probably a little bit overrated by the point of business. So Jayne Johnson was one of your last cuts? Yeah, I mean, I could have been John Johnson was the first name that didn't get cut

like he was the last name on there. He barely made it to me just because like I think he's probably a little bit overrated by the points to your business merchants who are like he's the next guy. He's really good and he's on here for a reason. But it's not a lock to me because I don't think he's the sole reason that team stayed in the playoff hunt. We talked about the killers

Under Walker who I think he's Dana just as good. Dyson Daniels defense has gotten like forgotten about because his offensive start the year, still a great defender. Everything about them kind of like is a very team-oriented thing. So I didn't feel like Jaylon Johnson was owed a spot. But I ended up, you know, splitting a hair, putting him just above Hardin. Yeah. Jamie Johnson was, so for me, Hardin was the last name on the list.

You got Scottie Barnes compared to me. Yeah, I definitely got Scottie Barnes too. I think. Bammerer Scottie, Stones. The last couple names. For me, yeah, the last couple of names for me, Hardin, Scotty, Cat a little bit. I thought about it for a quick second. But Jaylon Johnson, I feel like the consistency of his season, the consistency of even with all, like this actually being the year that Tray Young is now gone and that major shift happening in the team and him continuing just to every single night go out, do, you know, do what he does on the offensive side of the ball.

for a lot of people the hawks underachieve they still are the five seed like they're a very very good playoff team and we're able to to make this final push in the second half of the of the year so i feel like janin johnson had a had a spot on here um james hardin the the way he turned up once he got to cleveland yeah that that really meant a lot to me of how good he was playing there and so that's why he got the last spot i think scotty barnes is like after wemby in convo for best defender in the world i think he's i think he's i think he's this year he's had a better defensive season than Bam out of bio. Better than Chet?

I put Chad's second team, so no. But similar reasons. I think we'll get to all defense. Guess who's on my first team? Scotty Barnes. Yeah. Guess who's not? Bam out of bio.

So, like, amongst those defenders with iffy offense, I think Scottie Barnes is a little bit better of defender this year, but just a little bit. Obviously, Bam is amazing too. And his team's better. So there's a slight team success bump there compared to the heat who are just the heat. I don't think, I don't really regret

Scottie Barnes, but I can understand going James Harden in that spot. Yeah. Bam, I cannot respect. Listen, man, it's more so like, he's having a really bad score. I need it. I needed to put someone there and I'm like, I just can't put Katie there right now. Scottie Barnes. I can't respect.

Scottie Barnes has been to it. Ben is crazy. It's Bam! What do you mean too inconsistent? Yeah, honestly, listen, man. Since Bambs scored 83. I needed to put someone there. I'm not going Scotty.

Why not? Why not? Why do you keep saying that? Like, you can't. Like, he stinks. He doesn't stink. Like he smells bad. Great player.

It's not. Okay. He scored E3. Fair he did not. Can I argue against that? Okay, those are all NBA teams. Pretty much just one or two differences of players, almost consensus across the board.

Now to all defense, I think is next. Yes, first team all D. No debate for me. These top five are going to be there no matter what. Wemby, Chet, Gobert, Asar, Scottie Borns. I have the same exact list as you. Okay. I have Wembe, Chet, Bam, Asar,

Derek White. So you replaced Gobert and Barnes to second team. Yes. Okay, fair. Yeah, I think Bam is, every single year, Bam is just, you know, one of the best centers in the world. I feel like a lot of the conversation that we've had with Bam over the last like year and a half, 18 months, has been a lot of frustration because his offense hasn't, hasn't really stepped up in the way. And, you know, Wembe has come in, surpassed him. Chet has really, you know, surpassed him. And to, you know, you have those two guys that have kind of knocked them out of, you know, these like top four, top five, whatever, like these center rankings. But if that offense was there, then we would talk about them in a different light

because the defense year in and year out is so, it's so consistent. It's so good. So I feel like he had to be on the list. And then Derek White, this is just one of the best defensive guards of all time. Yeah. I was going about that too. It's just that good. I had the same thought to myself.

I'm like, oh, this is one of the defining guard defenders of modern NBA history. Yeah. That's crazy. And so I can't, it's very hard for me to not reward Derek White and to not have him on, on my first team when I feel like any guard in the league, Derek White, you can put Derek White on him can, and he can disrupt them on the perimeter. He's so good as a shot blocker, as a room protector provides so much value there, the way he can get around screens.

Like he just moves differently as a defender than basically. every other perimeter oriented defender in the league he had to be first team for me. Yeah. I thought about putting him over to Gobert, just because Gobert has had a little weird end to the season with the whole team. Strange. There's a top five defense for the season, though. I'm like, that's such an amazing accomplishment that is only possible with Rudy

Gobert that I didn't ding him for the end of the season. But I definitely thought about putting Derek White above him. Yeah. Yeah. It's so crazy. Rudy O'Ber, he's pushing it. He's like, what, 32? 33 years old or something like that.

And I think I remember, yeah, I remember you said something a couple episodes ago, Isaac, where you're like, yeah, he's 33. You feel like certain type of players, defensive standard players, age way faster than, you know, offensive side of players for all those given reasons because they rely a lot more on just natural things. Like your hip mobility and all that and your reaction time and those things, naturally just way off, way and way and way and away. And Gobert is not necessarily at the peak of its part, obviously. but for him to be this level of good at age 1.32, 33 is ridiculous. Yeah, and it helps that he's absolutely gigantic. And maybe one of the three highest IQ room protectors of all time. Like his ability in the drop coverage is like truly all time level.

Like he doesn't have the mobility on the perimeter like a wind bee to be like one of the grace defenders of all time on like the short list in Mount Rushmore. But there's a reason he has all these DPOIs. He is a true genius level rim protector that he's aging grace because of that. and his length is just outrageous. Salute. So we go bare. Last good thing we'll say about him this year. Second team, Aldi.

I have. Bam out of bio. Derek White. Amen Thompson. Stefan Castle. Kason Wallace. I feel like Amen has gotten ridden off because people were like,

oh, offensively he improved. Defensively took a dip. I haven't felt that way at all watching them this season. I understand the logic of why we say that. And like I'm sure the activity numbers aren't quite the same.

I still feel like he's the best defensive player on a top-tier defense. Okay, the Houston Rockins are on top of your defense. Were they five for the season? No. Where they finish it? You can you can red double check that. Yeah, they finish that five in defensive rating for the season.

They're five defensive rating? Yeah. Wow, that doesn't feel like that at all. And without having their offense rebound advantage to win the possession battle, the number five. And that's on data baller. Maybe this. Yeah, I don't think this is like cleaning glass that filters out garbage time. On the actual NBA list, they're six.

Yeah, so this might filter out garbage time like cleaning glass does. Leverage out, take out low leverage minutes. $11. offensive rating. Same as Minnesota. It's 0.1 difference. Wow. Tied with Boston on data baller. Oh, so maybe that they flip the tile on NBA.com slightly. Okay. They both have 113. They're 112.1 on NBA.com. Houston is? Okay. See, they have low leverage minutes in there. Yeah. So either way, five or six, whatever, still fantastic. And some people would want to say Jabari Smith Jr.'s

Guy who deserves a nod there, I still feel like the problems the men bring is a point of attack defender to give any ball handler hell. still one of the most impactful defenders to me, especially in a, it doesn't count for this, it's not the award, but translate into a playoff setting. I still think that's a crazy weapon to have

to chase around the best player. He's not Asar, Assad of his first team for a reason. I think there's a difference. There's a meaningful gap there, but I still think he's an all-ambate-level defender. Yeah, that's fair. I got Bam, Stefan Castle.

Evan Mobley still a fine defender. He, dude, Cleveland lives and dies by his defense. It looks like a such different team defensively without him. And then I got Derek right, of course, for all those reasons, an all-time defender. And then Dyson Daniels. He doesn't have the crazy steel numbers that he did last year, but he's still wildly and back.

You know what I had written down for the whole week? A men slash Dyson Daniels. That was my last debate was those two. I forgot about him. I forgot about him. I wanted to make room for case and walls, but I'm like, I just don't know. I don't know who to sacrifice in this level right now. It may have been Stefan Castle, if I'm being honest at you.

But I think I wanted to give, I wanted to give Stefan this nod for this one time. Yeah. I had Gobert, O.G. and N. Obie, Scotty Barnes, Stefan Castle, Kaysen Wallace. Kaysen, this year and last year has been super funny because I remember going into last year's playoff and we're talking about J-Dub. We're like, bro, J-Dadeb has some of the best hands of all times.

He just rips the ball from people and he's so good, he's so active, all the deflections. And so he's been out this year and Kays and Wallace is like, listen, brother, I got you. Like your legacy will live on through me. Kason Wallace does all the exact same stuff where he can just rip people. He's super active.

Like he's been there the entire year. he's he wasn't one of the one of the the cuts for me like he he was firmly on on my yeah i guess in the in the top 10 of all defensive teams and the short list and all of that and so we have that we know what stephon castle does the one guy that i can understand that's like the fifth spot that's just rotating i just i had oj in there because i think oj on ball on ball and off ball and his versatility i think is super super valuable and for a team that has two and even like like that Kat's defense has been better this year. We're a team that has Kat and Jalen Brunson

and can still finish in top 10, top six in defense. A lot of that is OG doing all of the same things of, I can guard your best player, I can switch out here, I can be a help guy. He does so much for the next. Last spot, you win OG. You win Dyson Daniels. I should have went Marcus Mart.

You should have. I wanted to give him a nod. He didn't play a little games, but it would be nice. No love for Lou Dort. So next question. He probably didn't play enough games too. I don't even know what you played. I don't even think about looking.

So that is all defensive teams. A couple interesting spots on the second team. I think you only have to play 58 for some of these stuff. It's like some weird. Also, Ludo play 69, so he's good either way. Nice. Tough. First team all rookie to round this out.

Concanipple, Cooper Flag, Dylan Harper, Sedric Coward, BJ Edgecombe. Oh, you read all of our list. Nice. Exact same is what it is. All these guys deserve their spots. I didn't have much hard time at all with this one, actually. Yeah, I think the Sedge a coward, I've seen, most of the time, like, the top four, I think is very solidified in Flagg, Harper, VJ, Khan.

And everybody knows those four, then the fifth spot is the rotating one. I've seen other people put other rookies ahead of Sedge a coward. And a lot of them are like, oh, you know, he hit the rookie wall, which is true. but honestly it's lowkey kind of the same and like the last 15 games of the year he's been he's been good and he's been scoring his deficiency is backup I looked on on data baller

first half of the year second half of the year numbers are basically the same like he's he's been as consistent as you'd want for a rookie to come in and score you know 14 15 points a game he had to be on the list for me so yeah that's first no disagreement here

second team Colin Murray Boyles Jeremiah Fears Derek Queen Ace Bailey and Ryan Culkrenner Thank you for reading my list No Maxime Raynalt

Oh my God Yeah I thought about it for a second And I was like There's no world where I think I'd rather Have him than Colkwinner Let me go ahead and take him off Listen man So I got Fears Bailey

Cald Murray Boyles Raynall and Colchbrenner Yeah Raynor over Queen Come on Say again So you put Raynaud over Queen Um

Yeah I did Yes I did. Queen has been brutal, right. He has been brutal. He's been brutal.

He's been brutal about 20 games. Now, me, like, of course, like, the first half was fun, though. Brutal is the right word. I feel like the highs for Derek Queen have been higher than. Yeah, it ended out the second team for me, for what you just said.

But the second half, I understand 20 games, brutal's the word. It's been a tough watch. Like, all around on both ends. Like, yo, man, like, this can go really bad, really quick. And this could be looked at as, like, one of the worst trains of all time.

I don't, I don't think it will be. I have like hope and faith in him and all that. Do you? I do. I want to be. But it's not, I'm not, I'm not scratching out of the realm of possibility. I wanted to, someone I really wanted to put into this list was Seon James on the Hornage too, because he's so important for that team.

But then I looked at his efficiency. He's like 36% from the field. And I'm like, ah, man, I can't do this. It's too nasty. So I put Paul brand there. But yeah, I couldn't go. I couldn't go, I couldn't go queen. I couldn't go to.

Bro, can you imagine? if Queen ends up and like all the all the deficiencies really come to light next year and it's like man you just really can't do it and then the Hawks get a top four pick this year yes I can imagine it we've been talking about from buds I can perfectly imagine it's it's not he's not a shoe win at all sucks yeah he's not a shoe win at all yeah it's tough I'm not writing him off in the second half a lot of people online are writing them off being like up look at this bum I told you can't defend yada yada can't do that again like we said in our tier list when we did every rookie stands to reason that this guy with this body type

and this level conditioning would get beat the fuck out by the rookie wall. I think it makes total sense that he couldn't get through 82 games with the same level of stamina. I'm gonna choose to believe that early part of the year was real as far as the flashes go.

We'll see because even the early part of the year it's not like he was some great defender. So still has a question marks long term if he can win with this play style. It's a very tough play style to become effective with in this league. But I'm not like out on him because the rookie wall beat the shit out of him.

Yeah, I'm not, but I don't want to at least see like there's just like a lot of The delacons is up at first I think it's the pelicans is a whole at least I don't What I wonder is apparently there He just stood there This is damn that's high This is a report that they're committed to Zion Williamson That's what I was saying this team is weird and he's been fucked by that too If they're committed to zon williamson, Derek Queen's fucked and so is Zion those two

I find a hard to believe you'll maximize either of them with the other one on the court. And you have to, like that has to be the goal long term. Those are two starters. Boy, I don't like Joe Dumares. Dude. I love him. And it's hilarious. Like, Desonte Murray came back and he's been like fantastic.

And he's been like a literal spark of life, literal new fresh pair of lungs for this team. And are we committed to him to? But then it's like, yo, you don't play well with either of these guys too. I never committed to Monmarie. I mean, Dejante Murray, too? Because him and Jeremiah, I fear is they got to start long term. That's your back court. Yeah.

So you got two big starting. don't defend the rim, don't shoot well, two guards starting, they need the ball in their hands, don't shoot exceptionally well. We got to take this team in a team. This team is stupid. Louisiana, man, this is crazy.

That's what I'm saying. LeBron should have been talking, got to take the team out of New Orleans. We can take a ball. Someone got to be stupid. Yeah, his name is Joe. That's crazy, man. We can point directly at Joseph.

El Joe. El Joe. Zion Queen and Fears. What do you think the net rating was for this year. Negative five. Minus 11. Minus 15. Ooh, shit. I knew it would be terrible. God damn.

That's hilarious. Zion and Queen minus 10. Yeah. Fears and Queen, minus three. They need to trade everybody, bro. Why is Ray Murphy still on this fucking roster? Why is Herb Jones here? For what? That is the end of our awards

for this season. Minus 15 for your three building blocks. And that's probably not super uncommon for rookies. I feel like I've never seen that before. Like this is the weirdest situation. It's probably common for rebuilding teams. But the good thing is the rebuilding teams that suck with their core players get a top pick. These guys in a generation of draft, no help is on the way.

No help is on the way. You better bet on internal growth, buddy. No help is on the way. No help. In fact, it'll get worse before it gets better. They are not coming to save you. That's the end of our awards section. Let's do a quick roundup of this week's news.

before we get out of here on this shorter Monday episode ladies and gentlemen we got them we got them we got them hey what happened who got got

Glenn Rivers is no longer employed by the Milwaukee Bucks per Shamsarania Doc Rivers is departing as head coach of the Bucks sources tell ESPN after a 32 and 50 season

the Bucks will embark on their third head coaching search in the last three years this is phrased like he might have quit which is pretty funny because he just did an interview

with I think Fandall TV where he was talking about the article that came out from Shams a few weeks ago that was detailing the chaotic nature of this locker room in this Janus era

and how everything's gone to shit around him Mr. Glenn went on TV and said it's a whole crock of bullshit you're listening to the sources I could tell Shams said something out for us he basically threw Cam Thomas

presumably under the table under the bus and said a certain player was talking to him you can take a guess who it is did everything but take accountability and here we are like six days later apparently quits his job.

He quit? He couldn't, bro. He quit. He quit. They didn't say fired. Okay. Careful language. I don't know if it's a respect thing.

They want to put it out there that it was mutual or whatever. It doesn't stance the reason he would have been fired either way. He wanted to control his narrative, man. Oh, you know what? I'm leaving. No, buddy. I don't want to see. Yeah.

I don't want to see Doc Rivers close to an NBA sideline ever again. Yeah. I need them on podcast, Mike's. No, that's too close to play by play. analysis. That's just, that's just, you don't want them to tell, tell cool stories on all the smoke. No. No. I can't, I can't do it. I feel like if, if the, if an NBA team hires Doc Rivers at this point, Adam Silver come in, find the team, you know that they're tanking. You know that they don't have serious winning on their agenda. It's not like winning basketball

games is not going to be at the top of their list. We've seen, we, we, I think we've seen the end of Doc Rivers as an NBA. I haven't seen the end of one thing, though. I have not seen the end of Janus lying. Janus was asked about this. He said, it's a shock to me. He also called Doc Rivers an incredible coach and says he's immediately

going to call Doc Rivers after losing to the Sixers. He did not see this coming. He had no idea, Dr. Rivers would be fired and he thinks he's incredible. Can we listen to this? I suppose we could.

Let's hear the tone of voice. He's lying, bro. He's like, wow. I never heard it yet. This shit is a shock to me, but, hey, he said, 25 years as a coach, incredible coach.

15, almost 15 years as a player. He's been in the NBA for 30, 40 years. He's definitely an NBA legend. As you guys know, it's a Hall of Famer. He's great working. He's just saying all this because his brother got PT. That's why. He says shit about this year, shit about last year.

Hey, man, it's a Hall of Famer. 25 years. He's been doing it. That's what you say when somebody sucks now, but you got to respect their name because you're trying to be polite. He said everything about his old. Nothing about his recent ones.

And this chat GPT-ass response, man. He's listed accolades in his Wikipedia. Come on, bro. He's just trying to go home, bro. Yeah, I think LeBron, so I think LeBron has like the all-time title in this category, but I think right now, Janus is the best liar in the league.

He probably has the best lying efficiency. Liar of beer. I'm not best lying volume. It's kind of an shay season of lying. Let's rank all the I definitely I think this is I think this is up there

I think what he's done this season from a lying standpoint is I think it's up there we should we should do a tearless one in the biggest lies and that be history the funniest lies I do have it written down

its upcoming video I play the greatest lies in history I do have the written down we'll do that this Thursday yeah yeah and this comes shortly after what I mentioned the article written by Shams

in which he was outlining a locker room incident in which a player had something to say to Mr. Glenn and Glenn said in response, look at my resume, Google me. I took teams to the playoffs and championships that weren't supposed to be there. I thought this was one of them.

Look my resume, Google me. And again, then he went on Fandall TV and talked about this article and said that, you know, the context he didn't include a certain player was talking to me about his stats. And I'm guessing he's not about Cam Thomas reading the lines. Camp Thomas must have been like,

I've dropped 50 before, give me the ball. And then Mr. Glenn said, I was good in 2008 Google me, Chuck He said I took teams to the playoffs And championships That weren't supposed to be there

The 08 Celtics were supposed to be there The 2010 Celtics were supposed to be there They honestly were supposed to be there All the way through 2012 And you had different injuries So outside of that They did Loki underachieve You can make a legitimate argument

Don't say Loki The Clippers were supposed to be there at some point Yeah Yeah famously weren't there The Sixers were supposed to get at least so a conference finals. They never did that.

So who else? Yeah, so who was the story? Who was they he take to the championships? Oh, oh, oh, oh, bro. Didn't they make an in-season tournament finals? You're right, you're right. He took them to the championship. My bad.

You're right. Or was that with Adrian Griffin? And maybe it was Adrian Griffin. You're right, actually. Never mind. Because they fired him. Yeah, it was before you. Because they fired Adrian Griffin.

After the end-season tournament. Yeah, after like, they won, like, I think after like 42 games of the year or some crazy like that. They were 30 and 13 with Adrian Griffith. Yeah. Wait, the year before Kauai and PG came, was he, was Dock and Ristow the coach? The year before Kauai and PG came. Yeah, that was like Pat Bev, Lou Will, Montrez, Harrell.

I know they made it to the playoffs. Ty Lou became the coach in 2020. Yeah. He became the coach the year Frank Vogel got hired by the Lakers, which was 20-20 season, right? That was his first year they won the championship? I think 2019 was still Luke Walton. Did the ball play for the Colton? Because, yes, because Vogel went in 1920.

Yes, but was he the coach in 1819? I can't remember. No, who's the first year? It was still Luke Walton. Yeah. Yeah. So, God Rivers was the coach for those feisty clipper teams. Yeah.

That's the only year that he can really hang on and say, yeah, his team overachieved. What's the profit shit for that year? Outside of that, I can't think of another year. Okay. Yeah, I have nothing nice to say about the way Doc Rivers handles himself. It's just because there's one thing to be a mediocre coach that was good once upon a time and that has kind of just clearly dwindled

into being average for the last 15 years. It's another thing to be that and to be like incapable of self-reflection and not to say he's going to come on TV and be like Ahmed, of course he's going to defend himself. Everybody has the right to. Why wouldn't he think highly himself? He's Doc Rivers. He's a Hall of Famer. He's accomplished.

But man, a certain way that he goes about it is just hard to feel reverence for at this age of his career. Whenever someone just goes around and say, Google me, I already know you lost a conversation. Oh, buddy. Hang it up, buddy.

And every year it goes wrong. He throws people under the bus. He's like, listen, it wasn't me. I didn't miss those shots. That's James. That's him while he's breaking threes. There's always some reason throws somebody in the bus.

Well, it's been so long since anybody has thought you're a high-level coach. He's better off coaching college at this point, honestly. Hey, in 2020, this random report here that Beesles pulled up. Several members of Doc Rivers staff felt Hardin was a driving force and his firing. I wonder who put that out there. It's three Doc Rivers burners. See, man, so does this help the ability for the bucks to keep Janus in the building? Fuck, no.

Nothing does. Well, I don't know. Moving off from Doc Rivers is a pretty easy way to say I'll be better next year. Bro, that shit is done, bro. I'm so tired. I'm so tired of the Janus experience, Doug. I'm this close. I tweeted out yesterday.

I'm this close to blocking the word Janus on my timeline. I'm so tired of it. Just getting no news. Yeah, no news. Y'all let me know, like old school style, man. I'm a walk in here. one day, y'all gonna have to tell me Yon just got trade.

Oh, word, cool. That's what we doing. Uh, I'll send you a fucking raven. Said you a bird, you have. Like an owl from Harry Potter? Yeah. And we Yon has

Like his game is own. Yeah, yeah, here. Yeah, he's over. He just, yeah, he shouldn't have another uh, coaching opportunity in the NBA again.

I think, no, I feel like the last, the last couple stops that he's had, the ending has been very less than great. A lot of it has come with very underwhelming circumstances. And so he probably is just going to go back to play-by-play announcing and podcasting and stuff like that. And honest, at this point, bro, just do you. I'm going to shoot my toe off if yon.

This is a buck next year. All that's so weird. You're going to shoot your toe off. Yeah, bro, I got to sacrifice my toe. Like, what do you mean? Like, you and your team are in a few talking about something. They won't let me play, though? You went to the league office, right?

And I understand because since we talked about it on the last episode, they did cost them some money when it comes to endorse some money from Nike and all, which I understand. But it's like, yo, man, like you had, to what I remember, three serious injuries that are like season altering. You hyper-extended your knee, and then you had two different occasions where you had calf strains. You know who would have let him play?

Who? Another team. Had he just asked for a trade. He probably could have been somewhere else that would have allowed him to play. Treelbler just would have loved to let you play. God, no, please. Listen, that's not bad. No, it's terrible.

No one wants to see that. All right, man. Did you guys see Udana's Haslam? Yonnas Klingin? Amen. It's kind of filthy. I've seen him putting Klingin on second team all defense. I should have did it.

He's nice. Did you guys see Adonis Haslam be the kindest man in the world? What do you do? He told DeAndre Aidan after a game in which, I forgot who they beat. DeAndreighton had 21 points, had a very good game, beat up on some shitter that they just clobbered on the inside. Went on Amazon Prime. And Edonis has him to his face. Told him, I want you to know you are still that guy.

The highs and lows the season may hit you. Just know you are still him. LeBron James doesn't go to be a third option and think I'm no longer him. He maintains his ability to have self-confidence while adjusting to what the team needs from him. That needs to be you. You are that man. almost took Yandre into tears because it was so kind.

How did you guys feel about this? You know it's crazy? I completely misread this quote. I thought he said, I want you to know you're still not that guy. You know why you thought that? You might as so weird towards hate.

Because you have been you've been trained by years of Shaq and Charles Barclimbing utter assholes on TV to think that it must be slander if a man on TV is talking about an NBA player

but nope, good old support of you done is Haslam. Yeah, I was like, damn, you these kind of a dick. Yeah The comments We were like Shack would have told him

To shoot a soul Yo is this He cultureed the big 2-6 All right All the comments are straight Shaq would have told him Jump off

for Bridget and die Which is like true Shack would have gone on the TV And been like Hey yeah Aiden good game tonight I still want you to know You've been soft all year

I'm not happy with a level performance But you did good tonight I still need to do good And he's like yes sir Yes sir Yeah, man, this shit's crazy. Shout out UD.

Shout out to UD. I don't like, this is like our first year seeing the whole peacock thing again and then also, or NBC and then also. So true. This is our first year seeing the NBC thing in the Amazon Prime. And out of every, out of every new panel is on their analyst, I think someone who's surprised me in the most is definitely UD. I didn't not know who would this be like wildly entertaining. He has his moments where he tripping here and there.

But also he's insightful funny and like seeing all like I think he's been like the the most improved, not even improved, but the most surprising guy who I'm like, oh, I really enjoy watching. Yeah, cool moment overall. I mean, obviously everyone thinks what they want about your Andre Aden, but for him to be in that situation and say it at the home and that platform, most people wouldn't like feel inclined to even do that even if they believed it. Just for like, it's awkward to get up there and be like, you rock man. He did it and it worked. It was cool. Yeah. Rock on Aidan.

Good job. I should have mentioned the top. Last episode we did our power rankings, and we spent like five minutes of me talking about the fact that I want to choose to believe that we'll get a healthy Joelle and Bede right now because he's healthy right now

going to playoffs or finally hold Paul George coming back. I spent five minutes writing fan fiction where I said, you're probably right. I have no reason to believe historically that Joelle and Bito will stay healthy. You say in this moment.

In this moment, we haven't heard anything. In this moment, we haven't heard any reports of him dealing with stuff. He's just doing normal maintenance. In this moment today, he's good. I want to believe

it'll stay that way. So while history says you'll be right to hate and put them low, I want to believe in this. And that's why I stopped you because I said it's not hate. It's not hate.

I said it is not smart or safe to assume that he is going to be there in the playoffs. Correct. And I said, you're right, but I want to believe. I said, I'm doing fan fiction.

That came out. We recorded that. Oh, that was about 30 minutes in the episode. That was like 9.45 a.m. Thursday. At 2.29 p.m. Tramseparanda tweets,

76-year-star, Joelle and Bid has been diagnosed with appendicitis and it will undergo surgery this afternoon. Your prediction couldn't even last seven hours, man. Fuck. And it wasn't your prediction. It was hope. Hope. I try to tell you all.

Hope for Joelle and Bede to be lucky, not just lucky, for Juele and Bid to be normal and not fucking cursed. Hope for Juel and Bede to have one normal season, one normal playoff run. Hope for Juelan Bid to not be eternally bined by unluckiness lasted for less than seven hours appendicitis isn't even an injury you're just unlucky as fuck he is unbelievably cursed we've been saying this for years what do he do to deserve this i don't know but it keeps getting worse that's what do you say what he said he was like yo it's that time of the year again man do you really yes i i swear i'm i'm i'm gonna pull it up as you guys talk okay oh i didn't know

i did not see that deuce if he said that what the hell yeah i didn't i didn't see that are you Yeah, oh man. Did you get false act or do you really say that? I'm looking up. I hope I didn't get false acts. That's crazy. Your legacy's on the line right now, man. Your legacy's on the line because I'll be insane.

Why would he say this? But this is 100% why it's like, you can't ever believe. You can't ever believe in the Sixers. Legitimately and like at this point, it's not, it's not even hate until MB is not on the Sixers and not getting paid $65 million, $70 million once this extension is over,

you're not going to be able to take the Sixers seriously as a playoff contender because you just have, again, $70 million allotted towards a guy that, listen, we're talking about ravens and owls and all this stuff. It legitimately is some like game of zones, some type of curse, some, some hex, some witch somewhere.

There's something to join the numbers on his name. People were tweeting me. You jakes them. I'm like, oh, fuck, I guess I did. But yeah, this is just,

this is why you can't do it. I did find the, the quote. Hopefully it's, it's real. Derek Bodner, NBA, who is this?

Yeah, who is this man? It says, six just for Philly sports. Oh, it's real? It's not real. Yeah.

Okay. Wow. Dark Rivers on Joel and B being sideline with appendicitis. This time of year, right? I feel bad because I still believe.

Six straight years of not being held in the playoffs, and none of this is his fault. Stuff just happens. Okay. Okay, it's better than what you made it sound like. Yeah. Well, it's that time of the year again. That's what he said.

He did. Yeah, that part, that part. But he's right. Six or eight years of utter nonsense happening to him. This is unbelievable. Again, I can't even hope that he will be normal. I look crazy for hoping. Dude, I didn't predict.

I hoped. I'm not crazy. I'm not going to lie. I'm kind of nervous at this point. Wait, why? Just because, like, appendicitis is so ridiculous. As to, like, what can happen. It's crazy.

So like, if we get to this time next year, what's going to happen? Like, I don't, I don't know. It already looks like it hurts when he plays, like right now. Yeah. I feel so bad, genuinely watching the beat. It is, it is bad. It is sad. That's crazy, man.

So, so, yeah, the Sixers. Isn't that crazy? It's a bad take to hope. Yeah. That's where he's at in this life. I stayed away from that completely, man. You got that conversation. So you don't dare to hope.

I said, I stay away from all times. Jalen Brown was asked whether or not he believes his. the MVP. Analytically, probably not. The analytics don't quantify who I am and who my spirit is. So next year, how much are you all going to put spirit into your MVP odds and your MVP equation? Like 40% spirit?

20% spirit, 40 too much? Maybe about 32. That's a lot of spirit. 32%. Who wins the spirit vote this year? Is it Jalen Brown? Mind you, we, so we're in a year where if, and if next year is somewhat like this year, even if it's like half of this year, because right now,

if Luca had was was eligible we would have four guys playing at an all-time level all of them have crazy cases at at some point spirit does have to come in as a tiebreaker and that's the thing wemby had a hell of spirit but what is like spirit to you whatever jane brown does i guess yeah it's delusion yeah but it's not even fair it's not even delusion honestly but but analytics don't quantify his spirit so it's not illusion that's why and i actually i actually don't hate this because you have to make a campaign for yourself somehow. Thank you, God. At spirit, it is.

You do. You got to find your angle. Yeah, like somebody asked him, Ramon Sheldberg is asking him if he believes that he's the MVP. Obviously, Jaden Brown is a very confident player. And he knows I'm not scoring 32 like Shay. I wasn't leading the league in scoring like, like Luca. I'm not the pastor that Yokic is and I'm not the defender that that wouldn't be it.

So then everyone's like, okay, well, how do you get to me the MVP? these are the avenues in which he builds this case. I like it. He's a critical thinker. He's thinking outside the box to make an argument for himself. I respect it. And this is very consistent with the way that Jane and Brown thinks. But also he said probably not.

So he did acknowledge he's not the MVP. But then he acknowledges his spirit is so large and so bountful. The spirit is so ever present. But he's not to level the spirit wins an MVP. So he's saying I have so much spirit I should be like second or third. Well, so the question is we need a, there should have been a follow up because he says analytically probably not. Okay.

Is there a, is there a frame in which you think probably yes? Spiritfully, that is. Yes. So do you think spiritually you are the MVP? That's the follow. You're hooping right now. Just doing that. That's the question.

And so if you ask him that and then he says probably yes, cool. Now we know in what avenue you are the MVP. And my follow question to that would be. Okay, now give me your ballot of spiritual MVP's. Who becomes second, third, fourth, fifth, spiritual MVP. I can only imagine Wembe would be the second most spiritual MVP. Third, I guess Kyrie Irving, even though he didn't play this year. He doesn't have spirit to make up for it.

Fourth? Very tough. Now it gets tough. Very tough. Pardon? What the fuck? No. Spiritually?

Yeah. I think so. Honestly, I think even spiritually, Wemby might be too. Yeah. he might be too. So we've done a lot of hating over the last couple weeks about getting your journalism major and your degree. I think what we just did in teaching people how to think critically and how to ask follow questions and dig deeper into topics. I think that's a, that's a prime example of why you should go get that degree.

So you can ask the correct questions and deduce the actual answer that you want to do. Yeah, figure out the spiritual MVP. That's why I get a 40 degree. Adam Silver is reportedly enthusiastic about a new lottery reform proposal that would give the bottom three teams worse odds than teams ranked four through 10. So basically, if you're bottom three,

you have like a 10% odds. If you're 4 through 6 or even 4 through 10, you have like 12% of getting the top 4 pick. So it's a little bit higher that would encourage teams that in the season that are shitters like the Jazz this year. Instead of encouraging them to bench everybody for March, then they got to try to win.

And then the teams that are 4 and 5, got to try to win a little bit too, to not fall into bottom 3. so you tank for a lot of the year but at the end of the season you have the reason to not be bottom of the barrel. Not gonna lie,

I think he kind of cooked. I think this could work as far as making March more watchable because these shady teams will have to try. And now like the last two weeks if there's a tanking team I'm like why would I watch this right now?

Like it's just, it's impossible the last two weeks to find two games a night that matter. This might help that. Now I guess the point of like, damn, some these teams just really suck and they're in the bottom three and they're hurt because of it.

They're not even tanking. They just suck. makes it harder from the get out the mud. Like the kings. Yeah, like the kings. Like they're not, they kind of, maybe they want to be good. The pelicans want to be good, I promise. And now it's kind of hard to get out of that.

So there's give and take, but how do we feel about this in general? I think anytime I see Adam Silver is enthusiastic about something, I get nervous. At this point, I really don't trust his judgment on anything. And, and like, there's some. Even on food? Like, imagine he's giving, like, food wrecks. He could tell me the sky. He could tell me the sky is blue and I'm like, okay, I get it.

But are you sure? No, he's that numbers on your brain, man. Who told you that Twitter? Every, bro, every single thing that I've seen about tanking and about the draft lottery coming from an idea that Adam Silver has, it makes me so upset because there's such a clear answer of like, bro, just be the commissioner of the league and just find people like, you're trying to make 18 million rules to stop tanking. Meanwhile, you still like the lottery.

You still like the incentive. You're still going to have a little TV program. and have the draft lottery televised and sell ad spots on there. Could you think that is good for business? What's really good, right? What's actually here? I'm not, I'm not with it.

Okay. Yeah, apparently they had their GM meeting and there's a lot of things going to around. They're going to do something. That much is clear by all the reports and how people talk about what happened in those convos. There's going to be reform happening. They just are at the point where they cannot allow the tanking to be such a blight in the league. Yeah.

And we've talked about a lot, obviously. I'm a. I don't enjoy the fact that they're going to make it harder for the shitty teams to get unshitty because they're going to put it on the onus on them and say, well, just draft better. And I think you have to have some. I think the NFL draft works for a reason because the worst teams get the best players and it promotes parity. But I do understand that the NBA has an issue right now of losing some fanfare. And I do think making the end of the season more watchable is important long term.

So I've come around to I'm okay with them doing something as long as it's not outrageous. I found the best solution that I saw on Twitter last week. I forgot who tweeted out. They said, everybody starts the season. You sell beer at $10. Oh, my gosh. With every win, with every win, the price of beer goes up. Every loss, the price of beer goes down by like 20 cents.

And so they were saying that like the Wizards at this point in the year, people will be paying like 17 cents or something for a beer. And you kind of love that. That's meaningful gate revenue difference. That's a huge deal for teams. A bunch of drunk people at D.C. Man. Oh, yeah.

But also, what? If those games started at like seven and beers are $17, it's packed out. It's packed out. If we have happy hours... We're outside. That's what I'm saying. If we have happy hour at the Capital One arena

because we have 17 set beers, come on now. Tuesday night, Washington plays Utah. The streets are fucked up. Tuesday night in Washington, D.C. It's going to be the first of them. Last thing you can do It's just a quick TikTok

Before we get out of here First thing we're going to do Have this randomizer here I have 350 players in here Oh my God Across modern NBA And all-time NBA Who knows who we're gonna get

I want to repeat We're gonna drop If you get a repeat That's outlandish We're gonna get three players To protect us Three players that are trying to kill us Okay

We have to see if we survive We had to see if we survive What are we doing man In 2012 2012? No The first thing we get are going to be on our team to protect us. The next three are going to be attacking us.

We got to decide to be survivor or not. Okay. Okay. First player up to protect us. And this is everybody at the peak of their power. We got Kareem to protect us. Yeah, 100%. I like it. And we have a karate wielding seven foot two demon.

Okay. I'm pretending that these guys are like my body guards. Exactly. We're starting off pretty goddamn safe. Yeah, very thoughtful. I think I'm like his strategy. his defense strategy as well. Yeah,

and he's a genius. Correct. Next name we got Bruce Lee. Okay. Who's the, John Stomton? I want to see you try to attack me. No, he's in our team.

Are we doing hand-to-hand combat? Sure. Or nobody brings weapons. Oh, okay. That sucks. You got John Stockton. I'm sure John Stockton's garage is like a show rule.

I'm sure he's good. Okay, fine. John can bring something in his garage one item. Well, everybody, one item. Perfect. If you're, if you are six, three, and under, you get one item. That shit is a gold fortnight chest box. Got a scar in there or something. A scar.

Oh, we got Stockton, man. This is not a great, not a great point. Damn. Last player protect us. CJ McCollum. Just throwing off strategy. See, there. Kareem and John Stockton are going to be talking about strategy.

And CJ is going to be like, well, that's what. Play dead was that kid but do y'all think we should do this and it was like oh my the three guys

you show up the tagos and CJZ and say guys it's talking out everybody stop what about attack's apron

stop you're hurting him what's that man's problem all right all right let's see if we survive I'm not gonna

a lot money you all right now no right now we're dead boogie oh god we're dead all right so

boogie and kareem they can box in the corner that's kind of let's call that even that they'll duke it out come on come on come on i don't like this i don't like this at all we're not safe baddie a very neutral he seems like he seems like a pacifist ray of sunshine i don't know pacifist and miss seger just in the corner having a meaningful debate he strikes yeah he strikes

no fear of my heart literally last day putting on suits having a person we're okay right now we're okay right now okay oh we're good oh yeah he's not even going to be there we're straight he's not showing yeah he's gonna have a tummy egg son we're good I ain't worried about him at all we're straight over here honestly and he's too long isn't there even

he can beat up in like Lithuanian he got joke yeah there was like he had like a busted busted John Stockton got him John Stockton got him

he's not safe at home John Stock definitely not safe around John Stock can go home court advantage we got him I think we survived this I think we have an extreme

size disadvantage KP gigantic but also we have like extreme circumstances Shane Badiye and K.P. But remember, John Stockton has a gun. True.

We straight. I think we might be okay. We straight over here. Bro, he got like bazookas. He's got heart poons. Yeah. He's like a Tropic Thunder character. Dressed as a nine in jungle gear.

He has an F-16. He got kill streaks, dog. He does have the tuli on him. So we might be okay. Oh, my God. I got it. Next thing we're going to do, we're going to try our hand again

in a team-based draft where we all draft together. Oh, my God. Let's see how this goes. Okay. This time we're building a player. We're going to pull random teams. We're going to see if we can build a point guard. Better than Cade Cunningham.

That's the bar. We have to clear. Better than Cade. Body, IQ, three-point shot, mid-range shot, rim scoring, defense, and passing. And we're using other point guards from these teams. Yes, from current day teams. Today's rosters.

Don't be tough. Can we build a player better than Cade? So, you know, we don't got to build best in the world. We've got to build a top 10 player. All right. Only point guards. No cheating on positions. So first team up.

Who do we got? Please. Okay. Pelicans. Okay. Fears and Dejante. Zion body. Dejante body is too bad.

Zion body. I think Desartre is moving really well. Lengthy. We can go body. Yeah. I said I'm worried about size. We could do that. Yeah.

I guess we can have a better. Yeah. Oh, we point mid-range? He's a good big-range shooter. That's his bag. I'd rather have somebody a little bit stronger than Okay. Dejante mid-range then.

Okay, that's fine. Yeah, we can live with Dejante mid-range. I love it. Next team. Please don't give me a tanker. Do it. Sacramento. The tanker.

Fuck. Passing. Okay, so it's Russ. I think Russ, Russ body might be the way to go. He's still athletic. Oh, Russ passing. Obviously, what the fuck?

Body or passing. The passing IQ is never going to leave him. We can't quite move the same. anymore to like open those passing lanes. If we have a better person to create blow by people these days, I think we can live a Russ passing. A bunch of just drop off passes.

I don't know, but no one's calling one of the best passers. I kind of want to reserve this. He's not one of the best pastors anymore because the body's not the same. He can't get by people and create those open looks as much. Prime Westbrook though.

You know what? You make a good point because Russ passing with someone else's IQ, that's yield. Yeah, Russ passing. Let's do it. That's really been the story

of Russ's career where everybody's watched everything they said. And it's like, we just have another brain in there. So, so rude. It is. It is rude. And I do feel very bad.

And at this point, now I'm scared that rest of going to see this in runoff. Orlando magic. Ooh. I'll be like that one. Jalen sucks. Defense. 100%. Yeah.

I'm sorry. Easy. Yeah, sucks defense. All right. This is, I think we're on track right now. Okay. So far, no misses. Everything's good.

I need something. Lakers. Oh, there we go. Luca. three point look iq i i would well actually know i i would go three point the ability to create it off the dribble yeah we're even over here

wait are we overthinking brawn body am i these are point guards yeah and even then bronze body isn't like yeah he's 41 yeah 41 yeah yeah yeah so luca if one difficult off triple threes or IQ if you want a genius now rust passing with luca iq ms chitch does lucca

Can we find better three-point shooters? Can we find better three-point shooters in Luka right now? We can find a good three-point shooter that maybe the gap isn't so big. But I'm thinking about off the triple three. Let's go IQ. Yeah, Luke IQ is a good thing. There's other good shooters out there.

If we get a manual quickly shooting, like, it's fine. Next one. I can live with that. We need a body. Body. Respin. No, no two teams. I feel like we should do two teams.

It would be funny. Houston Rockets. Is it Men Thompson a point guard? Fuck. Because Fred Ben's gone. Is a man point guard this year? Yes, he is. Is that?

We're taking a men body. I don't know if it's fair not, but I'm taking a man's body. Okay. Okay. Yeah, is that or we take Fred Van Blu? He's not playing right now. He's not a men starting now.

So it's like, ah, but he started out the season as a point guard. So I think we can get away. That should be fair. Because re-sheper to point guard? Re-shepherd threes? We could do that, but I'm fine with a man, though. I'm fine with a man. What's more in the spirit?

What's fair? Is a man a point guard? What's he listed as? I'm gonna go to Rockets Dept chart on ESPN.com. That'll be a deciding factor. If a man is listed at point guard, I'm taking him.

A man is listed at point guard. Reshepard a shooting guard. Perfect. And I don't think a men's a shooting guard at all, so. Yeah. Um, basketball reference is a point guard too. So we move.

Half the name doesn't fit. Perfect. A man body. Oh, we clear Kate already. I don't care who we get. What type of shooter or rim finish are we getting there? We're already a god. I mean, he kind of,

I need to see. Brooklyn, that's, Fuck us I told you. God. Now this is the worst Yeager Dement? Yeah, Yagor's shooting.

I guess we'll live. Yeah. We will, bro. If a man could shoot like Yeager, or Deman, he would be all NBA. That's all he does. That's such a crazy sentence to put together. All he does is shoot three is,

Yeager Dement. Listen, Likito? I hate this, man. I don't hate it. We'll live. If we get a good rim finish year, we will live. Because if we had a great shooter,

we'd have just God. We can still put Bronn. Milwaukee Bucks. Who. I mean, Ryan Rollins isn't known for his room finishing, but... You know, you can't be great at absolutely everything. He's not a bad room finishing. You can't be the perfect player.

Cam Thomas. Ken Thomas is unemployed. Not on this. Nor are point guard. Yeah. But also, I reiterate... Damn sure not a point out of point. I reiterate, unemployed.

Ryan Rollins shoots 64% at the rent. That is good enough. We are still better than kid coming him. Let's go. Is this better than kid? Hell, yeah. We got a men's body with shooting and elite passing. Lucas I like you.

I think Cade's a better shooter. We clear the fuck at a Cade, man. Look, we have a men's body with skill, with shooting. A men's body sets it apart alone. It's hard to lose that a man's body. Also, sucks defense. It's dumb. That's crazy.

It's hard to lose when you got a man's body. You got the best body in the NBA. Body crazy, curvy waist. Facts. All right. Got that body, yadi, okay. Literally. Okay.

All right, man. Nice. You like that one? No, it's cool. It's cool. It's good. It's good. It's got like it.

It's funny. Very comfy. Very comfy. Very comfy. Very comfy. So like a parent. Copy. Right.

Copy. I would hate to have a parrot. God. You're so annoying. Well, that's a very real thing that you can prevent. You can stop by a parent. It does not say nonsense. Yeah.

crazy shit all the time. You would hear yourself. You got a pair. Kinky. Kinky. Performative. That actually would be hell annoyed.

That's what I'm saying. They got to be like a bottom five pet to have. Yeah, you don't even need to say anything cancel. You're just repeating everything you say. Come on. I don't fucking hate that, man. And that's the end of this episode. Goodbye.