Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast Two Crazy Play-In Games, and 2026 NBA Awards Picks With Kirk Goldsberry and Joe House About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kirk Goldsberry and Joe House to recap the Hornets taking down the Heat and the Trail Blazers securing the West's 7-seed in the first two Play-In Tournament games (3:26). Then, Bill and Kirk break down their NBA awards picks for the season (57:13).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: Kirk Goldsberry and Joe House
Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo
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Transcript 23,876 words · 3 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Bill Simmons? This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says The Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that The LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, now playing in theaters nationwide.
0:41 Bill Simmons? The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by FanDuel. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatch on Monday. We did Basic Instinct. It was the live show we did in San Francisco. It was awesome, had a great time. Even had Craig onstage, we had five of us. As you know, I've always complained about five man studio shows. Five man live podcast kinda worked. Craig picked his spots, we were all passing the ball around. Really, really good show. Go check it out. Next week, Monday, you have six days to watch this on Netflix. We're doing Kindergarten Cop, an Arnold Schwarzenegger classic. Oh yeah, Kindergarten Cop coming next Monday. Speaking of podcasts, we released the first two episodes of Legata,
1:25 Bill Simmons? a rare narrative podcast for The Ringer. We don't do a lot of these. When we do them, we go all in, and this is an amazing story. I don't even know how to describe it, but I'll just say this. If you like Scarface and Miami Vice from the 80s, if you like cocaine-driven, what the F is gonna happen next kinda plots, this is the one for you. Just think like, if me and Chris Ryan had created a narrative podcast from scratch, we probably would have created this, even though we didn't create this, somebody else did. But Legata.
2:02 Bill Simmons? Just go check it out. It's really, really something. Please listen to it. It's really, really good. I was involved in this one behind the scenes and I'm really proud of it. So Legata. Speaking of things I'm proud of, I got Joe House to stay up late on the East Coast with Kirk Goldsberry down in Texas to react off the two playing games, Charlotte Miami and Portland, Phoenix. And then the house left and we go in a time machine. We go backwards in time. Yeah, backwards in time to earlier this afternoon when Kirk Goldsberry and I did our awards pick, including my MVP, which is at the tail end. So if you care about who I picked for MVP, something I changed my mind on 430 times over the weekend, that is at the tail
2:46 Bill Simmons? end of the podcast. Saved it for last, like a big fat dessert. So that is coming up next. We're going to take a break and then bring in Pearl Jam and then Kirk and House, late night Tuesday after two playing games.
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4:02 Bill Simmons? All right, we're recording this part of the podcast at 9:53 PM. It is presented by New Era. Thanks to them. Kirk Goldsberry is here. He's also coming up later because we did all NBA. Joe House staying up super late on the East Coast. I've never been proud of you. What did you have? Like an Arby's roast beef? What happened?
4:22 Speaker 01 No, no, no, no, I don't need that. I had a little bit of coffee, but I live on the fuel of Denny Abdiya. You guys did your all NBA. I can't wait to hear it. I'm here.
4:34 Bill Simmons? Oh, wait, House.
4:35 Speaker 01 For my guy. Look, I'm in my hat right here. We're putting that man's number in the rafters. The best Washington player of the last 15 years. Give that man his flowers.
4:45 Bill Simmons? I'll tell you this much. We aren't allowed to do this, but I'm gonna do it. We argued about the last third team spot in R N B A. Much later in the podcast. And I said I was gonna give it to Scotty Barnes. And that I couldn't quite get there with Denny because he hadn't, you know, he barely played enough games, all that stuff. But after watching tonight, Kirk, I'm just gonna change my vote. Dude, the NBA is doing this to us or for us, I'm not sure, but they've given us another set of games to reevaluate our choices. Yeah, to rethink things. Rethink things. Traditionally, our votes would have been due by now. Instead, we're watching Con Canipal. We'll get to there. But yeah, Denny, obviously playing one of the games of the year for him.
5:27 Bill Simmons? And making us rethink where he should be in these awards. Unbelievable. He was awesome. It seemed like at various points, House, the game was over, headed for the Blazers. They were just gonna go up by 20. Then it seemed like the game was over with the Suns, that they just bullyballed Portland. Portland couldn't hit a shot. And I was watching. I love Portland tonight. I was really confused because I've been watching Portland the last couple of months. And it was the first time I thought they looked a little spooked. Yeah. And it was kind of like, you know, once they started really like, hey, Denny, you're not driving to the basket anymore. We're throwing five bodies in front of you. And I was like, okay, who's stepping up? Who's gonna step up on this Portland team? It turned out to be the much maligned Jeremy Grant.
6:12 Bill Simmons? A staple of our worst contracts drafts with big was every year. Hit a couple of big threes and then Abdiya took over late. But how did you let this guy go? I still don't understand.
6:24 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, I'm not going to go through the full recitation of what was going on. It's a true story that his ascendance timeline wise didn't line up with the, the tank effort. So I understand they could have got more. That's the only quibble. We're not going to talk about Washington. The most important thing, setting aside the hyperbole, is that for a lot of these guys, this is the most important game they've ever played in their entire basketball lives. Like I, I defy you to, to find another game for Denny Abdiya that was, that was more important for him than this game, this moment, this stage, this franchise,
7:05 Speaker 01 his identity in this franchise, his rise right now. And the same is true of some of those guys, you know, in Charlotte. Tell me a game that LaMelo Ball's played in his entire basketball life, his whole basketball life that was more important than tonight's game.
7:20 Bill Simmons? Right.
7:20 Speaker 01 And, you know, I, I, it's a fair comparison to make. You had Denny with an incredibly efficient 15 of 22 for 41 points, 12 and 7. And, you know, we'll get to LaMelo in, in due time.
7:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah. He ended and get a couple of calls too. Um, Portland put all the hits, Kirk. They threw Scoot out there, little hope with the Scoot stop there for, stuck there for a second. We saw some Tybal.
7:50 Bill Simmons? We saw a little Robert Williams clinging, uh, center thing. I mean, big picture before we talk about the game. Now we have San Antonio versus Portland, and if I'm San Antonio, I'm beating probably either of those teams pretty handily. I'm sure they're huge favorites, but I would have much rather played Phoenix. Portland at least has two big centers to put on Wemby. They have a guy who's really comfortable and really good at getting to the basket and Denny, although trying to get to the basket against Wemby will be interesting. Drew Holiday's been there before. I don't think it's a sweep is my point. I think Portland will always make them work a little bit, right?
8:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm happy for the Portland fans to have some playoff games up there. That'll be cool. But yeah, this is the 23rd ranked offense since the All-Star break, but it's the third ranked defense. They're gonna be tough to score on. And if the, one of the things I'm worried about as a Spurs guy is the ability for these young guards to shoot their threes. We've both been really positive about them as the season's gone on about getting better, but the playoffs have a way of making teams cool off. We saw that with the Charlotte game tonight too. So yeah, I think that Portland defense is really, really playoff ready. And then like we saw tonight, Denny can go out there and win a game like 41 and 12. Are you kidding me?
9:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah, the Portland at the, Green was, how many, Green took 29 shots, House.
9:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:16 Bill Simmons? What's, what's the right number for Jalen Green field goal attempts in a playing game? I'm gonna say about 17.
9:23 Speaker 02 I don't know.
9:23 Bill Simmons? 15 to 17?
9:25 Speaker 01 What really kind of revealed itself is this overachieving Suns team. They just, they have a talent deficit and that's not a knock. Like this was supposed to be kind of a transition rebuilding year to wash out the horrendous taste that was left in their mouths from what they tried last year. And it turned out that like chemistry matters. The book of basketball, the secret that I learned from the book of basketball is that chemistry matters.
9:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
9:52 Speaker 01 And lo and behold, here we just watched it, but you know, they couldn't, at the end of the day, outscore Portland because Portland had, had one guy that was unstoppable.
10:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And you know, they, they play Gillespie less because they're playing those three guards together. I thought Brooks was pretty awesome in this game, but like Phoenix had a couple, hey, we've been in games like this before, guys who, who felt like it. And from the Portland side, it was really just Drew Holiday was the only guy who seemed like really comfortable in the game. But it's a weird Phoenix team. And if I'm Golden State. Maybe less the Clippers. I had the Clippers game to game. Who knows? But if I'm Golden State, I'm like, look, if we can get by this goofy Clippers team tomorrow night somehow, Kirk.
10:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:43 Bill Simmons? We could beat Phoenix too, right? We can get in the dance. We have Steph. Al Horford's coming back. Ah, who knows? I mean, we know, we know what's gonna happen.
10:54 Speaker 01 Steph in, you're dying to get Steph in. They're so bad. They suck. We watch that team, they suck.
11:00 Bill Simmons? Get a 37 win team in the playoffs, House. That's what we need.
11:06 Speaker 02 Steph Curry in the playoffs is something we all want. I would say whoever wins that, that nine, 10 game in the West should feel pretty good about their opponent in Phoenix. It's a team that I thought the wrong guy took 29 shots. I would rather that than Devin Booker. I'm fine with Jalen Green taking 29 shots in a world where Devin Booker is hurt. But in a world where Devin Booker is fine, I wanted him to take 29 shots, House.
11:33 Bill Simmons? House, did you see how many he took? 10.
11:36 Speaker 01 That's the issue. There you, well, no, Booker ended up with 17 shots.
11:41 Bill Simmons? Dillon Brooks had 10. Devin Booker had 17.
11:43 Speaker 01 That's the thing, right? Take nine of Jalen Green's shots and let's have Dillon Dillon Brooks take them. Dillon Brooks, who just goes wherever he goes, it's a win. He's a winner. His team always has a positive defensive rating. Just delivers wins anywhere that he goes. Let that man take some shots. He's been in big games.
12:02 Bill Simmons? He's also a very hard guy to officiate. And so he ends up fouling out in the game. I think you could argue he could have fouled out in every quarter.
12:12 Speaker 01 He had 14 fouls. It was tremendous.
12:14 Bill Simmons? He's doing that thing on offense too, where he's just like bulldozing people with his shoulder. And they're just like, wow, we didn't call that in the first quarter. I guess we have to let that keep going now. Phoenix was, they set these, these moving picks just constantly that they are really good at getting away with. There's a couple of teams in the league who are great at that. Kirk, did you feel like? Phoenix blew this game or Portland won it? If you had to pick one of those two sides?
12:42 Speaker 02 Well, home team, the home team with more of the vets, the more of the playoff experience guys. Again, I would argue coming into this game with all due respect to Denny, Devin Booker has been to the finals. They have the home court, they have that guy, they should have won it. And then when Portland went cold, Bill, I was already writing notes like this offense just wasn't good enough down the stretch. If Denny doesn't have it going, nobody else could do anything. So there was a moment early in the fourth quarter where I was like, Phoenix is going to walk away with this thing. We're going to start the podcast early.
13:15 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
13:15 Speaker 02 And then Jeremy Grant hits those threes. And then Denny gets going, obviously fouls Dylan out with that and one, and here we go. So yeah, I feel like Phoenix blew this chance to just get the seven seed tonight.
13:29 Bill Simmons? House, which side are you on? I'm on the Portland took the game. Like to come back from eight to 10 with four, five minutes left. And take the game with some big threes, some big drives to the basket, some really good defense. I thought Kamara on Booker was awesome down the stretch. They were doing everything they could to try to switch him off. But I felt like Portland took the game. So House, you're the tiebreaker. What do you say?
13:57 Speaker 01 I agree with the idea that Portland took the game and they did hit that stretch in the third quarter when Kirk was taking his very salient notes about the ineffectiveness of their offense through eight, eight minutes and 30 seconds in the fourth quarter. They had 22 points in the entire second half.
14:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
14:16 Speaker 01 18 through, you know, the entire third quarter and then four points in the fourth. But when Denny came back into the game, right around that eight minute mark, eight 15 minute mark, he came in and immediately got an and one, got the technical on Dillon Brooks and that, that really started tipping things.
14:36 Bill Simmons? This never works.
14:39 Bill Simmons? You know what refs don't like this?
14:42 Bill Simmons? When they get the seal clap for five straight seconds, that's gonna get a technical.
14:46 Speaker 01 You go through it, it's 22 minutes for Mark Williams with for four points and four rebounds.
14:51 Bill Simmons? I honestly don't remember him playing.
14:53 Speaker 01 Right.
14:53 Bill Simmons? Was he out there?
14:54 Speaker 01 It's 24 minutes for Royce O'Neal with seven points. It's 23 minutes for Oso with three points. Like, this is the problem for Phoenix. They have a talent deficit and that's not a knock on them. It's just who they are. Jordan Goodwin, 29 minutes. Like, okay, okay, good, good job.
15:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Portland's pretty good, man. They'll be, they'll be a frisky seven. So do we call them a seven seed? What's the rule here? I guess they're a seven seed now?
15:23 Speaker 01 They are.
15:23 Speaker 02 A hundred percent.
15:24 Speaker 01 It's not the rule, they're the seven seed.
15:26 Speaker 02 They're the seven seed, Bill.
15:28 Bill Simmons? They're the eight seed playing in the two, seven matchup or are they just now the seven seed?
15:32 Speaker 02 They're now the seven seed.
15:34 Bill Simmons? Did this box score happen?
15:36 Speaker 01 They earned it.
15:37 Bill Simmons? Does this, does this box score exist? Does Denny have these, does his numbers go up? What happens now?
15:42 Speaker 02 I forget, is this a playoff game?
15:44 Bill Simmons? I think it just, they just put it over on the side, like in area, area, what's the area? The alien area, area 51. Yeah.
15:52 Speaker 01 51.
15:53 Bill Simmons? Or area 52. That's how it's called, area 52.
15:58 Speaker 01 Calling it area 41 for Denny.
16:00 Speaker 02 There you go.
16:02 Bill Simmons? I, there was like two moments in this game where I was like, fucking Scoot, man, it's gonna happen tonight. It's happening tonight. Here we go. And it just, uh, did not happen. All right. We talked about that game enough. Charlotte, Miami. It wasn't the game of the year, it was the drunk game of the year. This game was drunk. Amazon got drunk.
16:24 Bill Simmons? Amazon, uh, started doing shots in the fourth quarter and glitched out in OT. When it was 123 to 120 and Charlotte had the ball with 30 seconds left. And we had a Sopranos moment and it just goes away. This game was full of unbelievable shots. Massive, massive, massive brain farts. And at the center of all of it.
16:49 Bill Simmons? Was Lamelo Ball, who inexplicably injured Bam Adebayo and might be suspended for Friday. Like, let's keep an eye on that. He missed 14 threes, Kirk?
17:00 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
17:00 Bill Simmons? That's gotta be at least a playing record. I don't know if it's an NBA record, but it's at least a playing record. There's multiple times where they had a lead, especially in OT, they're up five with like two and a half minutes left, and they're running basically the four corners and then doing a grenade shot with a second left. I thought Lamelo just had some horrific moments in this game, like horrific moments that make you wonder,
17:25 Bill Simmons? is this guy just never getting it ever? Like, what is up with the decision making? And then what happens after he throws the ball away to lose the lead on a foul of Tyler Hero, which he commits for three free throws? They come out of a timeout and he makes an awesome driving layup to win the game. House, he was the player of the game and the least valuable player in the game, all in the same game.
17:50 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, it's hard to be fair with this game because of Bam going out. So like, my inclination is to give Miami flowers for just fighting their asses off all the way through. I, it's really befuddling. I'd love to get inside that locker room and get some intel on when Tyler Hero came back. Why couldn't Tyler Hero and Norm Powell be on the basketball floor together at the same time? They couldn't. It was one of the worst defensive combinations over the last, you know, stretch of games. And Miami's defensive rating suffered mightily because of those two guys being on the floor at the same time.
18:32 Speaker 01 I'd love to understand what was going on, but like-
18:36 Bill Simmons? So Norm played 19 minutes tonight and the entire second half had a look on his face like, I feel like I've lost $30 million in free agency just tonight. This sucks. I'm really bad. What's happening?
18:49 Speaker 01 I think.
18:50 Bill Simmons? I gotta call my agent. Yeah, it was bad.
18:51 Speaker 01 Because the first half of the season for Miami, he was awesome. It was like, how could, how could the Clippers possibly have let him walk for so little?
19:00 Bill Simmons? Kirk, we might have to do it. Fuck it.
19:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:02 Bill Simmons? Eric Spoelstra, are we sure he's good?
19:05 Speaker 02 Oh, no. I mean, to, to your first point, Bill, you nailed it. And Spo was fired up after the game about the, the play, which was just a weird play. I mean, it almost looked like LaMelo hit his head. He just grabbing. But that was the moment. That's the moment we'll remember from this game. And I hate that I'm saying that, but as crazy as the finish was, like, that's Miami's best player. He's out. That sucked. And then you tell me that the number one and two three-point shooters this whole season are Con Knipple and LaMelo Ball, not for Charlotte, for the whole NBA. And these guys combined to go two for 22? And you're telling me that Charlotte's still gonna win that game? That's crazy.
19:44 Bill Simmons? Con got benched. Unless he's hurt, but they didn't say he was hurt. It was just a flat out, you don't have it tonight. You're 20 years old. The lights were a little bright. Have a seat.
19:54 Speaker 02 And Diabate too. So like, I look at Charles Lee as like the MVP of this game. So Con Knipple is minus 20 in 34 minutes. Diabate is minus 17 in 36 minutes. LaMelo Ball, plus 15 in 40 minutes. That means Charlotte's minus 14 in the 13 minutes he sat.
20:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
20:14 Speaker 02 I think Charles Lee finishing with Bridges, Brandon Miller, LaMelo Ball, and Kobe White, obviously.
20:21 Bill Simmons? And Grant Williams. He went, went a little small with G Dub as the fifth guy.
20:26 Speaker 02 Can I give you guys my theme of the night?
20:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
20:29 Speaker 02 Bad teams give away good players too soon. Kobe White, Davion Mitchell, Denny Advia were all on different teams a few years ago. They gave up on these dudes. They were the stars tonight, right? Davion Mitchell played incredible. He played 48 minutes. That's one of the reasons Norman Powell didn't see the floor. Davion was playing electric basketball on both ends of the court. Obviously Kobe White comes over from Chicago. Zach Lowe has the, the great bit, Bill. Chicago and Sacramento should never be allowed to trade again. Well, we benefited from their trades again tonight, watching those guys play. So, and then obviously Denny in the first game, but look, Kobe White was fucking awesome,
21:12 Speaker 02 man. And I was electric watching him. And I know Lamelo made the play that sealed the game, but Kobe hit some big boy shots down the stretch for Charlotte to save their season.
21:23 Bill Simmons? That was the trade of the year. They gave him some Amazon Prime award. He had some necklace with the plays on it. They should have given him an apology for the stream going out with.
21:37 Speaker 01 Given us an apology because it was a goddamn basketball game being played in fucking Phoenix at the same time. And they're doing necklace giving. There's a fucking basketball game that's being played. Points are being scored in Phoenix, Arizona.
21:50 Bill Simmons? I couldn't believe that either. The other thing with Amazon, the entire year, the audio has been a split second ahead of the video on half of the Amazon games we've watched. The three pointers halfway toward the basket. It's like, bang, it's good. You hear the crowd. It's like the ball hasn't even gone in yet. How have we not figured this out? You guys have eight kajillion dollars.
22:10 Speaker 02 They can send a tech bro to the moon, but they can't fucking broadcast a basketball game without technical difficulties. I haven't seen a technical difficulties slide on a basketball game. And since I was 12 years old, bro, and this is Amazon. Come on, guys.
22:27 Bill Simmons? And they have the plan. You know, they've done a good job with the, with the studio show. I, they've rejuvenated Stan Bangundy for me. I did not like him as an announcer in the three man boost on TNT. And I, and I would get bummed out if he was doing a Celtics game. Like it was at that level for me. I think he's been outstanding this season in the two man with Ian Eagle. I thought he did a great job today, laying out all the storylines, what was happening, having a feel for even like the canipple thing. You know, I, I think at one point he said something like, I don't, how long are you going to stay with him? Which is like, he's the third best player on the team. And as somebody that's watched way too many Hornets games this year, he started out slow like that in games. And then he hits one, it's a lot like Klay. He hits
23:12 Bill Simmons? one, three, and he's fine. It's just he never hit the three. And you could see him starting to lose the confidence. But Kobe White, to Kirk's point, saved it. I have no idea how he wasn't worth a first round pick. I don't know what happened. I don't know where the rest of the league was. He was an expiring contract making like, I don't know, 14 million dollars or something. He goes, ends up going back home to Charlotte where he's from. He went to college there. He's gonna resign there. And this team, they're a big guy away house. Like you could feel it today. Like Diabate, who's been good in some games, other games he looks like he did tonight. And they're just missing that one. It can't be Grant Williams. It's gotta be somebody better.
23:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, and we kind of had that appraisal at the beginning of the season. One of our rare big W's was Charlotte. Our forecast for Charlotte this season was some success. We thought Khan was gonna be helpful. And the big question mark was, what are they gonna do at the big position? I was impressed, I will say. You know, you're looking for guys that, under the bright lights, we just gave Kobe White the flowers that he deserves. Now, to me, the Kobe White addition to that team, right guy, right situation, right price, right place, everything about it is situational for him, that success. But you look at what Miles Bridges did, and you look at what Brandon Miller did, those three guys, they combined, they were
24:38 Speaker 01 15 for 28 from three. That frickin' Charlotte team shot 56 goddamn three pointers. And those guys really saved their ass. And every time Bridges or Miller or Kobe White touched the ball, I was like, those are the adults in the room. And that's really, to me, more than anything, a testament to Brandon Miller. He's the youngest guy in that group. And he's the guy developmentally who needs to be, you know, carrying the water there. I don't wanna talk about LaMelo Ball. I really, I don't, there's no kind words that are gonna come out of my mouth. 31 effing attempts, 31, 12 for 31, 2 for 16 from three. And a
25:22 Speaker 01 lot of it was clown ball. He's getting, it's a clown car full of LaMelo balls. Look at the clown getting out of the left side. Oh, it's LaMelo. Look at the clown climbing out of the trunk. Oh, it's LaMelo. Look at the clown jumping through the front. Oh, that's LaMelo. Look at the three-point attempt from just inside the logo. That's the LaMelo clown climbing out of the right side of the car. What the fuck is going on with this guy?
25:47 Bill Simmons? He took like a 35 footer at one point. It's frustrating, cuz he's so talented. And you're the leader of the team. You're the point guard. They don't have Bam. He's out in the second half. And I felt like anytime he wanted, it just felt like he could get to into the paint or get to the rim. Like he's, they weren't staying in front of him. And Kirk, he was just settling for these step back 28 footers when none of his threes were going in. It's like, go to the rim. The one thing Miami does not want you to do is to go to the basket. And every
26:18 Speaker 02 time you're settling. There was one big reason he didn't, dude. There was one big reason he didn't. That was Kalil Ware, dude, who was playing awesome basketball. He had five block shots, played 42 minutes without Bam out there. He had some, one of those blocks he had where he caught the ball was a clear goaltend. The refs missed. I was, I was pretty shocked they missed it. But yeah, dude, I, I don't know whether to be impressed by the two of 16, the fact that he kept shooting those threes when he obviously didn't have it. Um, and then when he needed to drive to the basket, it's almost more frustrating. He made the game winning drive. Like you could have done that, like Denny did down the stretch of this other game.
26:57 Bill Simmons? But that's the lack of experience though. And that's what like,
27:00 Speaker 02 Right.
27:00 Bill Simmons? The older players who, who know who've been in these situations. Like to me, a good example is Jalen Brown and the Celtics. Like in a game like that, he just would have started going to the rim. Get to the basket. Oh, where is your last center? I'm just going to start attacking him and making him challenge me. They just, they didn't have the wherewithal to do some of that smart playoff team stuff. Cause none of those fun guys have been in a playoff game. Grant Williams was the only one.
27:25 Speaker 02 Tyler almost stole it, dude. Tyler Harrow almost stole it Reggie Miller style down the stretch with one of the great sequences. And, uh, but yeah, doesn't it feel like both of the inexperienced teams? Like when I started seeing Harrow get going at the end and Spoh on the sideline and, you know, Andrew Wiggins, who's won NBA championship, Bill, I started to feel like, okay, Miami's just gonna win this game.
27:48 Bill Simmons? Yeah, this is an infrastructure DNA game. I was furious. I just wanted them to go away.
27:52 Speaker 02 The other game was gonna go that way too. I thought Phoenix had that advantage in the other game. And we saw both sort of young, weird teams figure it out at the last second and, and get over the hump. But yeah, for Charlotte. Man, they got a lot of learning to do. That pass that LaMelo threw.
28:09 Bill Simmons? Oh, man.
28:10 Speaker 02 It, it, it could have ended their season in the same way that the Duke turnover.
28:15 Bill Simmons? Right.
28:16 Speaker 02 Who, who was that? The who shot?
28:17 Bill Simmons? It was Caden Boozer. Yeah.
28:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. The Caden Boozer turnover ended that season. It was very reminiscent of a player under pressure who hadn't been there before, just making a boneheaded play.
28:28 Bill Simmons? Well, we had, House, we had three awards or L N B A spots that might have swung tonight. Cause there might've been somebody who was like, multiple people like, I don't know who to pick between Flag and Khan. Khan stunk tonight. Uh, screw it. I'm gonna take Flag.
28:43 Speaker 01 That's, that's diabolical. I, I, I really.
28:47 Bill Simmons? I think Hockes for six man of the year, which we do this later in the show. And Kirk has Keldon Johnson, spoiler alert, and I have Hockes. And now Hockes, who I didn't think was very good in the game, and then had the biggest defensive fuck up at the end. He didn't, he just let LaMelo go by him. I don't know what he was doing.
29:05 Speaker 01 He wasn't playing six man. He was being, playing as a starter because Bam wasn't in the goddamn lineup. I mean, this is the thing that I'm, I, I want to criticize some of the end of the game stuff for, for Miami. I mean, Kirk was talking about Tyler Hero. Well, I didn't love a lot of it. It felt like the same hero ball that we saw really at the end of games last year as well. Where this Miami team goes into now, again, no Bam. So it's not really fair to criticize. But they get, they turn one dimensional. I.
29:38 Bill Simmons? No, you know what's fair to criticize? You know what's fair to criticize? So they tie, Charlotte ties it on the crazy Kobe White three. We had two crazy threes at the end of regulation OT, one from Hero and OT, one from Kobe White. But they tie it timeout. Miami has 13 seconds to set up a play.
29:58 Bill Simmons? I think Grant Williams was the center for Charlotte Kirk.
30:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:03 Bill Simmons? So what does Miami get? Hey, let's try to get a 27 footer from, from hero at the end of the, at the end of the, like, how is that your play?
30:11 Speaker 02 That was a bad possession. Yeah.
30:13 Bill Simmons? Get to the basket. Go to the basket. There's 10 seconds left.
30:17 Speaker 01 Make one pass. Make, every fucking set of eyes on the basketball court is looking at the guy with the ball. Nobody's eyes have to shift one time because the guy with the ball dribbles the mother effing ball the whole time. I, I just can't, it, it makes me lose my shit.
30:34 Bill Simmons? Well, here's the thing. I don't feel bad for Miami because they were the 10 seed. I didn't think they were a playoff team and they were who we thought they were in a lot of ways. With that said, the Bam thing stunk. Um, so House, we have a San Antonio Portland line. Would you like to guess?
30:53 Speaker 01 Um, for the series?
30:54 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
30:55 Speaker 01 Oh God, San Antonio's minus 490.
31:00 Bill Simmons? Oh no, minus 1350.
31:03 Speaker 02 Oh, that's too much. Way too much.
31:05 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
31:06 Speaker 01 Wow.
31:07 Bill Simmons? What would you like to, what do you, what do you think a Spurs sweep is?
31:11 Speaker 01 Oh, I mean, that's preposterous. The, the,
31:15 Bill Simmons? You don't want to guess the Spurs sleep, sweep odds?
31:20 Speaker 01 I, I don't, I don't want to guess. I can't, minus 1350.
31:25 Bill Simmons? Two to one odds for the sweep, Kirk.
31:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's crazy.
31:28 Bill Simmons? Spurs win four to one is plus 190 on Fanduel.
31:34 Speaker 01 I'm betting that. It, it, the, the, here, the problem with 1350 is the implied, the implied concept there is that Wemby will play all the games and
31:47 Speaker 02 That's right.
31:49 Speaker 01 That, that doesn't really line up with our recent experience. I would like for him to play all the games. I want him to be healthy for all the games. It may not make sense for him to play all the games. He may yet still need some rest. So.
32:02 Bill Simmons? I assume he's playing all the games. You know who's gonna be playing against him though? Donovan Kling and Robert the Truth Williams.
32:09 Speaker 01 The guys who combined two for 12 for four points tonight, those guys?
32:14 Bill Simmons? Klingon's feisty, man. He'll, he, he will take this personally.
32:19 Speaker 01 They definitely have 12 fouls. They definitely have 12 fouls.
32:22 Bill Simmons? I think Zach Lowe is the first person to point this out. Klingon looks exactly like Gunther, the WWE superstar. He's gonna Gunther it up against Wemby. There's gonna be some high elbows and some shoves and Klingon's like kind of a badass. Like he's, he's willing to mix it up.
32:36 Speaker 02 He threw Dillon Brooks to, he threw Dillon Brooks to the ground. Not many people are brave enough to do that.
32:42 Bill Simmons? Kirk, I have, I have a question that's gonna send a chill down your spine. Thought about this today during the Charlotte game. These young, carefree, awesome, regular season teams or these stretches built around the young guys. Look how great this is. And then the old guys that inside the NBA come on and be like, I, Barkley does that. I don't know. I don't, I wanna see it in the playoffs.
33:12 Bill Simmons? And we're like, all right, settle down. Their offensive rating was this, blah, blah, blah. And then the playoffs come and the lights are nice and hot, bright.
33:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:20 Bill Simmons? And all of a sudden that wide open, that first wide open three didn't go in. And then your second one didn't come in. And now like you can see with Khan today, he's like rethinking, I made 275 of these and I don't know if I wanna shoot this. The Spurs have a few guys on that team that the lights might get a little bright, right? From 24 feet. You thinking about that at all?
33:42 Speaker 02 A hundred percent. I mean, these guys are 21, 22, you know, in Dillon Harper's case, 19 or whatever. Like, yeah, of course. You just hope that Harrison Barnes and De'Aaron Fox and Julian Champagni, some of these guys. Harrison Barnes is a gold medalist and a world champion.
34:00 Bill Simmons? Harrison Barnes.
34:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, so he is an NBA champ and a gold. But yeah, there's some vets there. But I think it is fair to say, and I don't think that's going to come up in a Portland series with Denny, who by the way, has never seen this stuff, or you know, Drew Holiday has, I'll give that to him. But yeah, I think both of these teams, Tiago Splitter is going to be really coaching his first playoff series, and so is Mitch Johnson. Yeah, I think you're worried about that if you're a Spurs fan. We haven't seen it. And the other thing I'd say, Bill Simmons, is the rules change. Remember last year how jarring it was once we got into the postseason? What is a contact? What are the contact allowances anymore? This was a foul for six months. Now it's not a foul anymore. How is that going to, how is that going to affect Wemby to House's point about his fragility, his
34:46 Speaker 02 durability? And just the inexperience with that, like that's kind of physicality that we're going to see here in the next few months.
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36:33 Bill Simmons? How so? You ready for the playoffs? You gotten there yet mentally?
36:36 Speaker 01 I'm there now. I mean,
36:37 Bill Simmons? Do you have an upset for us yet?
36:39 Speaker 01 Tonight was the night. No, because the first round is not lining up. The, um, the, the team that I feel like, you know, that Atlanta could give the Knicks some trouble. That's the only one where I really feel like, you know, I don't think the, unless there's some miracle happening with Luca's visit to, where did he go? Italy?
36:58 Bill Simmons? The Lions, the Lions kind of doing this. I don't know if you've noticed the series line. It's, it's going this way a little bit. Lakers now plus 530 or plus 590. I can't see because one of my contacts isn't working. Plus 530. Houston now minus 750. They used to be minus 900.
37:15 Speaker 01 I mean,
37:15 Bill Simmons? I mean, to me, the Lakers are a smash spot at that price. So I'm probably not betting it.
37:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, I honestly think you're right.
37:22 Bill Simmons? It's, it's what it's the playoffs are two and a half weeks, basically round one.
37:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:27 Bill Simmons? Um, they'll stretch it out, even if it's 2-1 after three, and then they could potentially get Luca back for the last couple. And you know, you know, I said this to Zach the other night, there's going to be the 55 free throw game. That's happening. Just pencil that one in. Um, but yeah, if they could, even if they're down 3-2 heading into game six, but Luca's back, I don't trust that Houston team.
37:52 Speaker 01 No.
37:53 Bill Simmons? I know you guys don't trust that Houston.
37:54 Speaker 01 No, not even a little bit.
37:56 Bill Simmons? Um, so then the other weird thing that happened, we had the nine, 10 game before we had the seven, eight game in the East. So we have Philly tomorrow and that line has moved. I love Philly today. Philly was like minus one and a half today. It's up to minus two and a half. Um, I really like Philly in that game. Warriors Clippers, just you might as well bet on two drunk guys having a fight in downtown LA. I have no idea what's gonna happen in that game. But Magic Sixers, who do you think, who do you think Charlotte's rooting for in this game, Kirk Goldsberry?
38:29 Speaker 02 Oh, Orlando. I don't know if you saw the rumors on the internet today, but there's turmoil in the Magic locker room.
38:35 Bill Simmons? What?
38:36 Speaker 02 Head coach Jamal Mosley, they're reevaluating his future no matter what.
38:41 Bill Simmons? No.
38:41 Speaker 02 I think your beloved Celtics, Bill, really put a, put them into a funk heading into these playoffs. I, without a question, I think it's gotta be Charlotte rooting to see Orlando, who has been a complete mess, uh, over these last few weeks. Um, and I just don't know if their offense can keep up with Charlotte on an average Charlotte night. We saw Charlotte with a really below average night tonight, beat a pretty good opponent. So if they just get back to average, I don't know if Orlando will keep up. So I would say the Orlando Magic.
39:15 Bill Simmons? House?
39:16 Speaker 01 Hmm. I don't know. The problem is how schizophrenic the Magic have been. They are the more healthy team for sure. Now, we don't have any confidence whatsoever in Mosley, but the problem is in the, in the bright lights, maybe those guys all come together. Maybe they're the, nobody believes in us team. They were supposed to win 50 games this season. They grossly underachieved, but like Desmond Bain doesn't want to look, go out looking like a bitch and Tallo, Tallo, wherever he ends up, whether he's on Orlando or not, he doesn't want to go out looking like.
39:54 Bill Simmons? Or Milwaukee or Sacramento.
39:55 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, I don't know, man. I, I'm in the direction of Orlando.
40:01 Bill Simmons? We both bet on, there was a Saturday game where Philly played in Charlotte. And really kind of bullied them and took it to them. And if I'm Charlotte, I don't want to play them.
40:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:11 Bill Simmons? I didn't like that. I didn't like how that game went for them. I thought they were really physical with their guards.
40:18 Bill Simmons? I thought they were physical with Khan. I thought they're physical with Lamelo. I just, I didn't like the matchup. I want to play the Magic for all the reasons Kirk mentioned as well. Turmoil in the Magic locker room. There was something this week about a team was anxiously waiting to talk to Jamal Mosley this, this summer. What was that story? Who was the team? I'm blanking. It was one of the teams that needed a coach. It was like the-
40:42 Speaker 01 The Taipei Tigers?
40:44 Speaker 02 The, uh, yeah, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
40:47 Bill Simmons? Somebody was excited to talk to, oh, New Orleans. That's what it was. New Orleans was really interested in talking to Jamal Mosley.
40:54 Speaker 01 Between the teams we mentioned and New Orleans? Those all sound like the same teams to me.
40:59 Bill Simmons? If you had to pick Warriors Clippers, what would you do, Hoss? Not to step on Ringer Gambling Show tomorrow.
41:05 Speaker 01 Uh, take the Clippers.
41:08 Bill Simmons? Kirk?
41:09 Speaker 02 Uh, what's the Warriors injury report? We're getting Porzingis and Horford and Curry.
41:18 Bill Simmons? I'm going to this one tomorrow night. I, the Clippers are interesting because when they play Garland and Kawhi together, they're really good. All of the minutes with those two guys on the floor, really good. Garland's the only guy on the team who can dribble. All you have to do when Garland's done out there is just press and trap whoever, just try to get the ball because they'll give it to you. Um, they don't have a backup center. Their swings kind of are hit or miss. The crowd's gonna have a ton of Warriors fans there. This is the, always the biggest issue with Clipper games is you're gonna have 5,000 Warriors fans there. And there's a real energy if Steph gets going. So it's weird. I would either pick the Warriors to win or to lose by 20. I don't think there's any in-between. I think they either get blown out or they win.
42:02 Bill Simmons? I don't think, if it's a close game, I think they win it.
42:05 Speaker 02 Is there any conspiracy bill? Um, we don't want the Clippers in the playoffs? Anything like, oh, we do want Steph Curry in the playoffs? That could be a thing. I'm not conspiracy bill. I'm just a guy over here.
42:20 Bill Simmons? House, I'm gonna put my conspiracy bill.
42:22 Speaker 01 Do it.
42:23 Bill Simmons? Do it. Conspiracy bill did notice. We did not see Scott Foster today.
42:30 Speaker 01 Oh.
42:35 Speaker 01 Now, wait.
42:36 Bill Simmons? If, on the one hand, Steph Curry. On the other hand, the team that was embroiled in some sort of weird aspiration, I don't want to call it a scandal, whatever it was, for, for a long time.
42:50 Speaker 01 Well, keep that to your conspiracy head on. What did we say was gonna be the funniest possible outcome of the lottery? When the ping pong balls get dropped? Because if the Clippers lose, then they're in the lottery, but they don't have a pick, right?
43:03 Bill Simmons? They don't have the pick. No.
43:04 Speaker 01 Who has the pick?
43:06 Bill Simmons? OKC has the pick.
43:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, we don't. That would be the worst. So, OKC gets, yeah, the Clippers win the lottery, but OKC gets the pick.
43:16 Bill Simmons? I forgot to mention, there was another outcome in that Portland game. Because they made the playoffs, they lose their pick, I think, to Charlotte. So Charlotte gets a pick in the mid first round, and if you've been following this draft at all, somebody really good is gonna fall to the middle of, of the first round in this NBA draft, and it's going to be a point guard. And it's gonna be like the kid from Alabama who just goes 16, 17, because everybody has a point guard, nobody needed to take him. So that pick's like not nothing. I think Charlotte was the one that, that has it. Um, I'm really excited for tomorrow. Zach poo-pooed my love of just seeing Steph Curry playing in any sort of a game that means
44:00 Bill Simmons? anything. Um, the minutes limit is weird. The fact that, um, the other game is gonna be the seven, eight game is also kinda weird.
44:13 Bill Simmons? We'll see how it goes. House, before we go, you wanna give us your MVP pick?
44:18 Speaker 01 Uh, I, it would be SGA for me. If I got to, if I was lucky enough to have a ballot, I would vote for SGA.
44:24 Bill Simmons? Who would be your number two?
44:26 Speaker 01 The Joker.
44:28 Bill Simmons? Wemby three?
44:29 Speaker 01 Wemby three, yeah, without hesitation or reservation.
44:33 Bill Simmons? Okay. Who would be your all NBA fifth spot? If Luca doesn't qualify and fails his weird appeal? And we have the three guys we just mentioned and Jaylen Brown in the fifth spot could be either Mitchell or Brunson or somebody else. Who would you put in there?
44:52 Speaker 01 I think I would put Mitchell in there because he he kind of held that team together.
44:58 Speaker 01 Until Harden arrived and they made the push that they made.
45:02 Bill Simmons? And for yeah, for fourth and fifth MVP, would you have Jaylen Brown fourth?
45:09 Speaker 01 Fourth seems fair. Sure.
45:11 Bill Simmons? With no Luca?
45:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, with no Luca for sure. Absolutely.
45:15 Bill Simmons? And who would be the fifth spot for you? Because this is something else we argue about in the next second. You could have Mitchell, you could have Brunson, you could have Kawhi.
45:23 Speaker 01 Could have Kawhi.
45:26 Speaker 01 It'd probably have to be Brunson for me, honestly.
45:29 Bill Simmons? Okay.
45:29 Speaker 01 Probably Brunson.
45:31 Bill Simmons? House later, we're going to send you in a soundproof chamber and later on you'll hear if your picks match the picks of me or Kirk Goldsberry. Who do you have for Rookie of the Year, by the way?
45:42 Speaker 01 Con. It's not even close to me. It's not even close. I mean,
45:46 Bill Simmons? It's funny how House and I are aligned a lot of the time.
45:49 Speaker 01 I just cannot, cannot, under any circumstance, this isn't a year where you're you're having to hold your nose and choose between bad choices. Like this is not a who who's the I'm going to use, say, somebody. Did Caleb Alexander Walker win it a handful of years ago?
46:07 Bill Simmons? No, Michael Carter Williams did. That's your thing of a different hyphen guy. Yeah.
46:11 Speaker 01 That's it. Yeah. Like,
46:12 Bill Simmons? Are you a house? Are you against hyphen guys winning these awards? What's your problem?
46:16 Speaker 01 I just knew there was a hyphen guy that won Rookie of the Year because we couldn't come up with the answer to who the Rookie of the Year should be. That's not this year. Just Dallas is a disaster. That is an absolute. I what we are doing is saying this 19 year old did things that a teenager shouldn't do. That's great. I don't have any issue whatsoever. Show me the winning basketball. I need to see the winning basketball. That's the part of it that's missing.
46:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And if it's and if it's a bad Rookie of the Year year and we're not. Comparing the winning stuff at all.
46:50 Speaker 01 Right.
46:50 Bill Simmons? And it's just like, all right, who played the best in a shit situation?
46:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's it. Then you can say, okay, let's do the counting numbers. Let's do, let's do rebounds, assists and points. But that's not this year. And and I think the force, the the force multiplier effect of Knippel on this Charlotte team, the settling effect of his coming in and being so efficient with the threes that that to me,
47:16 Speaker 01 Flag will get his flowers. Flower Flag deserves flowers, but how can you make any assessment of shit numbers on a shit team? Like it's what you're saying is he is the best 19 year old. Well, we have rankings for that. We, there's other ways to capture that, not rookie of the year in the NBA.
47:34 Bill Simmons? I'd just like to apologize to Kathy Flag for House's inflammatory comments and I hope she's still a friend of the pod.
47:42 Speaker 02 My last point before we leave.
47:44 Speaker 01 Man, I love Flag.
47:45 Bill Simmons? We all love Flag.
47:47 Speaker 01 Love that guy.
47:48 Speaker 02 I will say there's been some strange movement on and in these new fangled betting markets over the last six hours on that rookie of the year thing.
47:58 Speaker 02 So we we could be living in a world where Luca's protest. Lucas, what is it called? Not a protest. It's a.
48:06 Bill Simmons? Appeal.
48:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, his, this appeal process may have changed the outcome of this award if those market maneuvering, the movements in these markets are to be trusted. Cooper has had some positive movement over the last six hours.
48:22 Bill Simmons? Hey, last question before we go. Cause House, you didn't come on and talk about this.
48:29 Bill Simmons? Rory McIlroy won back to back Masters.
48:32 Speaker 01 He sure did.
48:33 Speaker 02 Man.
48:34 Bill Simmons? He played the Masters, two years in Rome, was the best guy each time. This is a thing that happened.
48:40 Speaker 01 Only four times in the history of the golf tournament, there's been, it's been around for 90 years. The other three guys to do it were Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Sir Nick Faldo. Three of the all time greats.
48:52 Bill Simmons? Kirk, I mean, if we had started the decade, 2020 starts the decade, right? Like January 1st, 2020, we start the decade, think of all the things that have happened this decade, including a pandemic, Trump winning reelection, and name 17 crazy sports things. Rory winning back to back Masters would have been way, way up there, way up there.
49:23 Speaker 01 Honestly, not. I have to push back a tiny bit because.
49:27 Bill Simmons? Back to back Masters?
49:28 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, but here's the thing.
49:30 Bill Simmons? That's like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus shit.
49:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, it is that. And he, he earlier in his career looked like that's the trajectory he was on. What truly makes him the figure that he is in this sporting moment is that there was a 10 year gap between him winning majors. He went on this incredible drought and the pressure built and the pressure built. And that's why last year's Masters resonated across the world in terms of, of sporting, you know, golf fandom and sports fandom because he overcame something that felt insurmountable. And even during the course of the round, he last year in 2025, he damn near lost it three or four different ways. So this year was like
50:13 Speaker 01 a validation of the true caliber of, of, you know, a legacy, a legacy kind of mark that he put down.
50:22 Bill Simmons? Kirk, the, my favorite part of the Masters, other than betting on Justin Rose and thinking that he was going to win the Masters and then he just turned into a pumpkin on the ninth hole. Scottie Scheffler, kind of, he kind of sucked the whole tournament and he was like minus 11. It was the equivalent of watching somebody put up a 35, 11 and 12, not making a shot from outside like seven feet.
50:47 Speaker 01 It was like watching LaMelo Ball. Like he struggled all.
50:49 Speaker 02 Game and then you end up.
50:50 Bill Simmons? He just got his stats was unbelievable.
50:52 Speaker 01 Don't that is so disrespectful to Scottie Scheffler.
50:55 Bill Simmons? No.
50:55 Speaker 01 I can't abide it.
50:56 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you can't. Don't compare it to the.
50:58 Speaker 01 You said LaMelo Ball to Scottie Scheffler.
51:02 Speaker 02 Let me come back around. Scottie Scheffler went to the University of Texas and studied at this business school that I teach in. We are huge Scottie fans. I thought the same thing, Bill. He is playing terrible. And that's how good he is right now. He played a terrible round by his standards. All of his drives were crazy. Every time he needed a big shot, he hit it off into the woods. He missed a birdie putt that would have, I thought, really put the pressure on. I want to say the 12th or 13th hole. Uh, and that, and that stretch of holes house where they all gained ground. He had a chance.
51:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:32 Speaker 02 Um, I was rooting for him the whole time. I still think he's the best golfer in the world, uh, but hats off to Rory. It was a great Sunday at the Masters. It was a great weekend of golf.
51:42 Bill Simmons? It was really fun.
51:43 Speaker 02 I was happy to see it, but now I'm ready for the NBA playoffs, Bill.
51:46 Bill Simmons? House, I love, I love watching great athletes struggle and get mostly to where they need to go anyway. It was like my favorite Jordan game, other than the, uh, the flu game and the last game of his, of his Bulls career was that game seven against the Pacers when he just didn't have his legs and he's like, I gotta figure this out somehow. And he's just kind of patching together plays and stats with nothing. Those are always the best.
52:11 Speaker 01 Hallmark of a true champion, winning with your B, B minus game.
52:15 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
52:15 Speaker 01 Me, maybe it was closer to B plus for him. For Rory, we're speaking of because of how good his putting, his short game was, especially in the first two rounds, but he shot over par, um, you know, on, on Saturday and, and only one under on Sunday and still.
52:32 Bill Simmons? Rory just basically played two awesome back nines. Right?
52:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:37 Bill Simmons? Where he was like one of the back nines, he was like minus six. And then the other one was the Sunday back nine. But Scheffler, I don't think put together any good back dides.
52:47 Speaker 01 No, Scheffler on the weekend was a lot. He was even par going into the weekend. And then he did not make a bogey on Saturday or Sunday. He shot 11 under par on Saturday and Sunday. He just could not score on the back nine par five. He only had one birdie. The entire golf tournament and those are the most memorable holes.
53:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, that was a miracle. Yeah, he saved that.
53:13 Speaker 01 You're right, KG. An incredible birdie.
53:15 Speaker 02 Rory's second shot on 18, man. After he hit that errant drive, as somebody's rooting for Scottie. I was like, did he just do it? I think, because that was almost going to be one of the most painful moments in golf. Depending where that ball landed, man.
53:28 Speaker 01 The true Rory experience. That's it. That's the roller coaster ride you go on with.
53:32 Bill Simmons? I mean, they missed a lot of replays and live shots, but they didn't have the perfect replay of that one Rory shot. When it seemed like it was going to ding and bounce backwards, which is usually what happens, and it just didn't.
53:43 Speaker 01 It would, somebody will cobble it together. There is emerging now some camera angles that seem like they captured it. But it would have been fun to see in real life.
53:54 Bill Simmons? I have another thing I'm going to do as sports czar. After I settle Amazon's audio video issue, where the audio is before the video of the game I'm watching. That's, that's number one on my agenda.
54:07 Bill Simmons? I think the Masters, and this is the only event that you should be able to do this with the Masters. They should be able to grab the best announcers from all the other networks.
54:20 Bill Simmons? Like, we should just have Tirico and Van Pelt and Joe Buck should all be on holes.
54:28 Speaker 01 Van Pelt is there.
54:29 Bill Simmons? No, but he should be on a hole. He should be on a hole.
54:32 Speaker 02 I like this.
54:33 Bill Simmons? 15, 16, 17. I want Van Pelt, Tirico and Joe Buck. And they're just there. We don't want anything else. We'll fly you in. You get your own house. Just work this hole on Saturday and Sunday. It's a two day thing and just do your thing. And let's go with the big boys.
54:50 Speaker 01 But Torrico does the radio call. He didn't do it this year because he went to the Olympics, but he, he does cover the Masters.
54:56 Bill Simmons? Well, I don't listen to the Masters on the fucking radio.
54:59 Speaker 01 I know, I understand.
55:00 Bill Simmons? Put him, and who would you have on the 16th hole if you could have anybody?
55:04 Speaker 01 Vern Lundquist. Yeah, that's the answer. AI Vern. I want Vern for the rest, forever, for the rest of my life.
55:11 Bill Simmons? What hole would you put Eric Collins on?
55:16 Bill Simmons? Would you put him on, what would be the most exciting Eric Collins hole? 15?
55:22 Speaker 01 Lot, lot of big things happen on 15, maybe 12, like.
55:25 Bill Simmons? Oh, 12's good. Yeah, yeah, 12's good.
55:27 Speaker 01 The drama there, real catastrophes happen on 12.
55:32 Bill Simmons? Oh, Jim, a toothpick in my throat. He's in the water.
55:37 Speaker 01 That's it. There you go. Yeah.
55:39 Bill Simmons? I love it.
55:39 Speaker 01 Justin Rose hit it over the green and then flubbed the chip. How would Eric Collins handle that?
55:44 Bill Simmons? I'm telling you, just get all these dudes. We just get them for two days. It's best of the best. It's like, it's like when they make those Avengers movies for the Marvel, when they put all the great actors in one movie. Let's just do it for the last two days. Nobody's against this. Kirk Goldsberry, pleasure to see you as always. We look forward to your Masters shot chart map that I'm sure you're working on. By the way, that would be a good idea.
56:07 Speaker 01 Do that. I could do that. Do it right now. I'll buy one. I'll send you the memo right now. I love your charts.
56:14 Bill Simmons? Joe House, thanks for staying up late. We appreciate it. Seeing the Ringer gambling showing on Fairway Roland and I'll be, I'll be making you pop on during the playoffs as well. We're gonna take a break. Coming back, me and Kirk Goldsberry are gonna go through all the awards. Let's go. As you know, I've been doing Wednesday bets on FanDuel. I actually won the last two. We hit a big parlay on Wemby. That was like nine to one. And then Justin Rose, top five Masters, plus 650. That one hit two. Almost won, Justin Rose, to win the Masters. I think it was 35 to one. He let me down. But he still got the top five. So let's see if we can keep the streak going. I already jumped the gun. I did my, my play-in bet Tuesday night, Portland. That was my favorite bet of the four playing games.
56:57 Bill Simmons? But I also really like Philly. I think Philly beats Orlando. I love betting on the NBA on FanDuel. It's a brand I trust, easy to build by bet. You know you get your winnings instantly. Playing tournaments is always fun. Do parlays. I did like a Charlotte Portland Philly parlay. That was like five to him, but I like Philly straight up. I just think Orlando is ready for the season to end and they couldn't stop maxing the regular season. I am a Philly money line, maybe throw that in with, with the Cavs to beat Toronto in the series, something like that. Go nuts, do whatever you need to do. So don't forget to check out my middle of the week bets. Usually be Wednesday, but there might be a Tuesday I like on Fanduel, using the Fanduel Sportsbook app.
57:41 Bill Simmons? Don't forget to use your profit boost token to increase your potential winnings before you place it. Fanduel, play your game. All right, we just traveled in a time machine backwards to before the playing games when Kirk Goldsberry and I banked this whole segment because we want to talk big picture round one playoffs. I wanted to do my award picks. More importantly, what an honor for you. You have a vote? I can't remember.
58:05 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah, democracy is back in America, Bill.
58:09 Bill Simmons? Have you said your vote publicly yet?
58:12 Speaker 02 No, we're gonna do this right now.
58:14 Bill Simmons? Let's fucking do it. We'll talk about the playoffs later.
58:18 Bill Simmons? So this Luca thing is so weird.
58:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
58:22 Bill Simmons? It screws up the top five MVP because he would be fourth on my ballot if he's eligible. We don't know if he is. We, there's some sort of weird appeal process we have to go through. I don't know why the NBA doesn't care about podcast content and dumb shows like ours where we obsess over this stuff. And then it, it screws up first team all NBA, it opens up a spot for somebody and it adds a spot on the third team for somebody because everybody moves up a spot. So I want to do all NBA first. We'll finish with MVP and we'll hit all the other categories. So I had first team Jokic, Wemby, Luca, SGA and Jalen, which I think is chalk, right?
59:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
59:02 Bill Simmons? You had that as well? Okay.
59:04 Speaker 02 On the Luca in version of my spreadsheet. Now I have a Luca out version of my spreadsheet to your point.
59:09 Bill Simmons? Let's talk about that because that's more interesting. So Luca's in if they do the weird ruling and they're like, oh, he flew back for the birth of his child, that somehow counts as a game. It would be funny, I've said this before, but if Silver said, you know what? We reject the appeal. He would have played 65 if he hadn't gotten 16 technicals and maybe he'll learn his lesson now and then, and we just all moved on. All right, Luca out, alternate first team.
59:38 Bill Simmons? I have Mitchell in the Luka spot. Who do you have?
59:42 Speaker 02 I have Kawhi Leonard, which was sort of surprising as I went through this bill. But you look at this dude's numbers and he's nearing 50, 40, 90. At 28 points a game, he's obviously a defender. But I just couldn't justify any other pick. I know it's a controversial season for Kawhi. I know the Clippers aren't that great, but this is probably his best season as a scorer of his career. If he's ever been first team all NBA, there's an argument that it should be this year. So I want Kawhi.
1:00:15 Bill Simmons? I can't kill it. So he was sixth and sixth in scoring in the league this year. He was 7.5 net plus, played 32 minutes a game.
1:00:26 Bill Simmons? Career high points per game, which I couldn't believe.
1:00:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. 27, 9, was that what it was?
1:00:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Third highest year 14 points per game ever. So of any year 14 guy, third highest we've ever had, and I think the other two were Durant and Curry. Both of whom played in the 50s for games that year. Defense was there.
1:00:53 Bill Simmons? I think it's a good pick. I just, I had a hard time putting him first team all NBA. When the team was barely 500 and he was there for a bunch of those when they started, when they were six and nine. I just couldn't get past that. Whereas Mitchell, you know, that, that was a top 14 the whole year. They had some injuries. I think there's some MVP conversation for him too. And was pretty steady for them for the most part. I thought he had. I thought he had a, a good year. He played over 70 games, 33.5 minutes a game. Seven points per game. He was a 28, five and six and. I just felt like, I don't really feel like either of them are first team all NBA's to be honest. But if Luca's going to be out, who else did we lose? We lost one more bad one.
1:01:40 Speaker 02 What do you mean? We lost Ant Man? What do you mean? We lost?
1:01:42 Bill Simmons? We lost Ant. I think Ant would have been the other one who could have swam in that swimming pool.
1:01:48 Speaker 02 Oh, for sure.
1:01:49 Bill Simmons? But did not. Okay. So we disagree on Mitchell versus.
1:01:52 Speaker 02 Sorry, Cade Cunningham.
1:01:54 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Cade had that spot forever and then just didn't make it. By the way, just missed it.
1:02:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, too much load management, maybe too much lung management. I don't know what we're gonna call it this time around, but Cade Cunningham, what a travesty.
1:02:10 Bill Simmons? Well, so let's say you could have voted 60, like, let's say 60 games and up instead of 65.
1:02:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:02:22 Bill Simmons? Would Luca and Cade have made it for you?
1:02:25 Speaker 02 I had to put Jalen Brown in there, man. Uh, Jalen Brown and Cade. I, I know other people are gonna roast me for this, but I ended up with Jalen. He reinvented his game. That team had no business going on the run that it went on, and he was the best player on that team, uh, all year long as they went through that incredible, surprising run. I'm not mad at anybody who had Cade Cunningham above Jalen Brown, but it would have been Luca and, uh, Jalen for me.
1:02:51 Bill Simmons? I feel the same way. Um, played almost 2,500 minutes. Everything he did peaked in his 10th season, which is just incredibly unusual for the NBA. There's really no, I had a whole thing. I was looking up guys who made first team NBA for the first time in their 10th season.
1:03:11 Bill Simmons? John Stockton in 1994, and that's it. It's the only one. And he had six seconds leading up to this. So you could say in some ways, this is one of the great aberration seasons anybody has had 10 years or later in their career. But there were reasons for it, including Tatum, him having to take the higher usage rate. Um, I've made the case for Jalen over and over again. Uh, you kinda had to see the season and see how limited the Celtics were from can we get a reliable basket anywhere night to night, not knowing if Pritchard was gonna be on or not. I love Pritchard, but he's a little bit on off. White shooting wasn't there the whole year, and it's, Jalen had 30 points or
1:03:51 Bill Simmons? more 35 times out of the 70 plus games he played. And they needed him all the time. It was just always nice to know, like, all right, whatever happens, we have somewhere to go in the fourth quarter. We have somebody, we're getting, we know we're getting 30 to 35 from this guy. We know he's gonna get to the line. On top of it was taking on defensive challenge over and over again against people like Shay and Kawhi. Um, anytime they needed a stopper, it seemed like he ended up on the bigger scores. And, uh, I thought from a leadership, physicality, attitude standpoint, he's the biggest reason they won 56 games by far.
1:04:28 Speaker 02 Yeah, and we didn't get to see what Cade would have done down the stretch. So we were robbed of that, and that's why this is a hypothetical. If Cade had finished, I mean, the case for Cade is the Detroit offense without Cade. Until he got hurt was a awful, awful unit. And when, as soon as he came in the game, everything was fine. He ran that thing as well as John Stockton. He was like, he was the conductor of that orchestra. And also just a great leader. And so, you know, we were robbed at the end of that.
1:04:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:04:59 Speaker 02 But yeah, Jalen ended up coming, absorbing on his, not easy, Bill Simmons, to deal with Jason Tatum just sliding back into the fold after doing what you do for 66 games. Now, now let's get back into the Jason Tatum, and he handled that as perfectly as anybody could have expected.
1:05:15 Bill Simmons? I'm really glad you mentioned that because I don't know if that would have gone the right way all the time. Like, Jalen gets credit for, come on back in, let's figure this out, how this is going to work. If Cade had played 70 games and we had Luka, and I think Luka trumps both those guys. Jalen versus Cade would have been an awesome argument, but we were sadly robbed of that opportunity. All right, second team, if Luka's in, I am looking at Jalen Dern, Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, Jamal Murray, and Jalen Brunson, three guards, which I don't love. I, let's talk about this now. I'm just always voting a center for each team, or at least some sort of big.
1:05:56 Bill Simmons? I want my, my NBA team to look somewhat like a basketball team. I'm not going to do like just handing out the trophies for everybody. There's, what are there, 100 votes, 110 votes? I forget how many votes there are. Everybody approaches it differently, that's the way I approach it. I value the eight decades of history. We had centers every year for the first seven plus decades of the league. And I'm not just going to dump that because Joel Embiid and Jokic got weird with first and second team. It got weird with Russell, and well, I've talked about this ad nauseam. So I have Dern, Kawhi, Mitchell, Murray, and Brunson. Who do you have?
1:06:38 Speaker 02 So I have Kawhi in this world where Luca's in, then Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant, and I go Chet. I go Chet Holmgren here largely because I wanted a center in there and because defensive conversations aren't well represented in all NBA and he's one of the most impactful. He's definitely the second most impactful defender in the league right now.
1:07:00 Bill Simmons? I battled Chet first during, went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on it. Fairly similar case, Dern's stats are better, minutes are around the same, yeah. The defensive stats for Chet are better and Chet's rim protection stuff was, was pretty nuts. I actually, as recently as like three, four weeks ago, I had him on the bubble because I hadn't done the deep dive on all the defensive stats. Like, holy shit. He's second in rim protection, they're first in defensive rating just in general. They're 56 and 13 when he played. So 56, 36, 79 guys. So the statistical case is there. I thought, the reason I went
1:07:40 Bill Simmons? with Dern is, I just thought he meant more to that Detroit team where him and Cade were the guys that the physicality, the competitiveness, the attitude that that team had came from those two guys and spread down and everyone else kind of carried themselves the same way too. And when Cade went out, I was so impressed that they kept winning and I felt like every time I watched Dern, I'm just like, that guy's a fucking badass. So I think that's a, you could go either way, I'm fine with it. I, I didn't feel 100% on it, but 28 minutes a game for him, 70 games, they're plus 1.8 net when he played, he was sixth in rebounds
1:08:23 Bill Simmons? and I thought he really grew as an offensive guy. He's going to come up in another award. But I was really, I didn't know he had this in him, I guess is my bigger point.
1:08:32 Speaker 02 And he was there. I mean, J-Dub wasn't there. I thought it was a good chance for him to sort of emerge in an offensive role, but also sort of the second banana role. But for me, ultimately, it's like, dude, this guy is one of the big reasons they're the best defense in the NBA for the second straight year.
1:08:47 Bill Simmons? You're talking about Chet?
1:08:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, who are you talking about?
1:08:49 Bill Simmons? Well, I was talking about Jalen before, but you're talking about Chet now, yeah.
1:08:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, I was talking about Chet, my fault.
1:08:53 Bill Simmons? No, that's all right.
1:08:56 Speaker 02 This is very confusing, by the way, for the audience, to have this Luca, non-Luca thing. I think Bill and I are very, very confused. So thanks, NBA.
1:09:05 Bill Simmons? So Luca out.
1:09:08 Bill Simmons? I have Durin, Kawhi, Murray Brunson and Kevin Durant.
1:09:14 Bill Simmons? And I didn't feel great about it, but here's the case for Durant.
1:09:22 Bill Simmons? Second in minutes in the league, played 79 games, played 36 minutes a game. He was 26, 6 and 5. He was a 52, 41, 87 guy. That team didn't have a point guard, basically at all. And, uh, and he carried that. And I thought statistically, if you remove all the burner scandal stuff and some of the weird chemistry that team has.
1:09:49 Bill Simmons? Statistically, pretty incredible season. We've only had three guys 37 years or older ever averaged 25 plus points a game. Him, Steph and LeBron seems like a fitting class.
1:09:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:10:00 Bill Simmons? And, uh, I didn't, I had him third team because the burner scandal really bothered me. And the whole thing, I thought it affected the team. I thought you could see it. I don't know how culpable he was in it, but I just didn't like it. But ultimately, like, I just, with all these other dudes out, I think he has to nudge up. So who did you have in that, uh, that extra spot if Luca's out?
1:10:23 Speaker 02 I put Jamal Murray in my second team with Jalen Brunson, Durant, Chet and Donovan Mitchell.
1:10:30 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:10:32 Bill Simmons? So we're basically, we're basically the same, except you had Mitchell in the non-Luka first team. Oh, I had Mitchell in the non-Luka first team and you had Kawhi in the non-Mitchell first team.
1:10:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's exactly right.
1:10:45 Bill Simmons? Did you think at all about Brunson third team, second team? Or were you just good to go with that?
1:10:50 Speaker 02 I'm so impressed by him. And maybe it's bleeding over from the playoff run, but he's just so clutch and so important for that team. And ended up earning a three seed in the East. And, you know, frankly, the other guys on the team bill are so inconsistent that he, he just has to be so high usage and so reliable as their go-to scorer. When your best, second best player is Kat, who I'm sure we're going to talk about here in a second. It just impresses me. So Jalen Brunson elevating this Knicks team to, to the third seed. In a world where there's so much inconsistency around him offensively, whether we're talking about Bridges or Ananobi or Josh Hart or whoever else, I've always been sort of a pro Brunson guy. So I had him second team.
1:11:35 Bill Simmons? Yeah, if Luca, if Luca and Cade had played, I think I would have had Murray over Brunson.
1:11:44 Bill Simmons? Because of Murray was, he ended up playing 76 games or 75 games. He was sixth in minutes, he was fourth in made threes, 25, 4 and 7 every night. Almost, he's a 48, 44, 88 guy. And I just thought he had a harder job than Brunson, as weird as that sounds, as good as Brunson is, where that entire Knicks team is built around Brunson. To Denver, you have to figure out, Jokic has the ball all the time. He's figured out completely how to play off Jokic, how to carry non-Jokic minutes, playing with this rotating cast of swings that were either hurt or Cam Johnson's not playing well. And I just thought he was so steady and so good all season.
1:12:29 Bill Simmons? But there was no drop off with him month to month. I didn't look at his monthly splits, but they couldn't have been much different every month. I thought he was just so impressive.
1:12:37 Speaker 02 It was, yeah, his best year ever, right?
1:12:39 Bill Simmons? Yeah, so I was thinking like, if you switch them,
1:12:44 Bill Simmons? would the Knicks be worse? Would Denver be worse? I think if you switch them, I think the Knicks would be around the same. I think Murray could do a lot of the stuff Brunson was doing for them, but I think the Nuggets would have been worse. It's a dumb way to think about it, but I think the way Murray played, I feel like he could fit into any team. I was just really impressed by him this year. Brunson, you know, as a crunch time guy, the confidence that he has and the connection he has, but there's, there's great things with him too. Lot of good teams this year, lot of good players this year. Okay, now we're gonna get wonky because we have a third team with some guys that, that I just can't believe are even in the mix.
1:13:27 Bill Simmons? I have for my Luca, if Luca counts, here's my five. Chet?
1:13:34 Bill Simmons? Who you had, KD, who I had bumped up to second team without Luka, but he's third team if Luka's involved. Chet, KD, Jalen Johnson,
1:13:45 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
1:13:46 Bill Simmons? Steph Castle.
1:13:48 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:13:48 Bill Simmons? And Tyrese Maxey. That's my five. I did it.
1:13:53 Speaker 02 I heard you talking about it.
1:13:55 Bill Simmons? So if Luka's out, that leaves me with Chet, Jalen Johnson, Castle, Maxey, and Scotty Barnes, which I just don't feel great about, but uh, I'll give you the Barnes case. Well, I'll give you, you give me yours and then we'll talk about some of the cases here.
1:14:15 Speaker 02 So with Luka in, I have Murray, Maxey, Jalen Durin. Okay, there's my big Jalen Johnson and Cat. So that's.
1:14:22 Bill Simmons? So you had Cat. Okay. Interesting.
1:14:24 Speaker 02 I did have Cat. And then on my Luka out, I have Maxey, Durin, Jalen Johnson, Cat. And then Shangoon is the beneficiary if on my ballot, if.
1:14:36 Bill Simmons? Interesting.
1:14:38 Speaker 02 If Luka is not included. So it's crazy, just for the audience. This decision is going to affect two people in a grand way. Luka Doncic, obviously, but the 16th best player in the NBA in theory is going to become all NBA, a third team or the 16th candidate. And in my case, that's Shangoon.
1:14:58 Bill Simmons? I mean, really, he's the 17th best because.
1:15:00 Speaker 02 Or the 23rd.
1:15:02 Bill Simmons? And so I guess that was down to 18. I looked at Shangoon. First of all, I didn't want to have two Rockets because I hated watching them. For the most part, they drive me crazy.
1:15:16 Bill Simmons? I had him first half of the year. I didn't love how the second half of the year went. I thought the chemistry stuff like.
1:15:24 Bill Simmons? I always go down to like, how much fun would would so and so be to play with with Shengun? I'm not always positive he'd be the most fun to play with. His teammates seem like they got really frustrated with him. So he didn't even. He wasn't, I had a, I just couldn't do two rockets. So I'll make the case for Castle first because you see, I had him either way. So he finished 17, five and seven, 47, 33, 73 on the shooting. Played high 60s, played 30 minutes a game. So one of the most impressive players I saw in person. I just couldn't believe what a badass he was on both ends of the floor and goes after every single play.
1:16:07 Bill Simmons? And then when you watch him on, I don't have to sell you, you love the Spurs.
1:16:10 Speaker 02 I love them.
1:16:12 Bill Simmons? Just every play doesn't take off. I feel like there's more there. I feel like he sacrificed stuff for the team. I think if he was on a shittier team, Dylan Harper was another one that I thought sacrificed.
1:16:24 Bill Simmons? I think if Castle was on a mediocre team. Or, you know, a playing team or whatever. I think his stats could have been better. I think he kind of just, I think he's just all about how are we winning? How are we winning? How are we winning? I think guys hate dribbling up against him.
1:16:42 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:16:42 Bill Simmons? Trying to, trying to beat him off the dribble, trying to post him up. They fucking hate playing him. He got way better as a shooter as the year went on. And that's the other thing, I care about that with all NBA, that you actually got better as the year went along. He was over 40% from three second half of the year. I thought his threes were going in when he took them during that streak. And I just thought he was their second best player and that team won 60 plus games.
1:17:08 Speaker 02 He was their second best player. And you know, one thing he didn't say that I think is huge with the Spurs season is he's the biggest reason, Bill. I think they give the Thunder a hard time, aside from the obvious Victor Wembanyama.
1:17:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:17:19 Speaker 02 He is longer and stronger than almost any of their guards, which is insane. It's insane to even say that. That's what the Thunder are. They're just ferocious perimeter hounds. And he gives them a. Personality, not only to counter that, but to supersede it in some ways. So he's one of my favorite players, if not my favorite player in pro basketball right now. I love to watch him. It's a treat to go to the Spurs games. He's a huge part of their team. Ultimately, his numbers don't justify his inclusion on this for me. But I'm happy to hear the sports guy giving this dude some praise.
1:17:56 Bill Simmons? There's one other thing with him and it's, it's a weird. We have no stat for it. It's a, you know, when you see it, he's really malleable with their lineups.
1:18:11 Bill Simmons? And like the best guy ever for this was John Havlicek a million years ago. John Havlicek could be a guard or a forward, depending on who else was on your team. It's like, we actually have more forwards now. You can be a guard, like, cool. Uh, nah, we're, we're a little light on forwards. Can you play up? Sure. Can you guard this guy? Great. Can you guard this guy over here? Awesome. Can you fit in? And I think that Swiss Army knife thing with swing men are really hard to find. And one of the things I love about Castle is like, he can be in any lineup they have. You want to go four guards? Cool. Play him at the fucking four. You want to play point guard for you and handle the ball? Like, he can do that. Like, I think when you have a guy like that, it just becomes so much easier to be good.
1:18:54 Bill Simmons? That team was really good, but like his flexibility, I thought was the second biggest reason that they were as good as they were. Pick, pick a lineup, pick a situation he could handle it.
1:19:06 Speaker 02 It's a great point because he can blend scoring the ball, driving it. He's so ferocious with two feet in the paint. He's a great passer. He has these turnover issues that I'm sure he's going to get past because he's just so determined. But he does have turnover red flags. The shooting has come along, but I have the stat that Stephon Castle is the seventh player in NBA history to average 15 points, seven assists and five rebounds at age 21 or younger. So this might not help him for all NBA, but the guys are Magic, LeBron, Chris Paul. And then there's a couple of funny ones. Ben Simmons, whatever happened to that guy? Luka Doncic, LaMelo Ball, and then Stephon Castle. So his blending, filling up the box score as a guard with those kinds of numbers.
1:19:49 Speaker 02 Obviously he's physical enough to get boards, get extra possessions. He's, he's a big part of the Spurs culture and I think even more so than Wemby gives them a toughness.
1:19:59 Bill Simmons? Totally.
1:19:59 Speaker 02 With, with the other teams in the West. I adore the player. I think that's coming through. I know Zach loves this player as much as I, I do and you do too. So I hope he gets third team all NBA as a homer, but as an analyst, I ended up with a different answer there.
1:20:14 Bill Simmons? So Scotty Barnes, 18, seven and six, 50% shooting, but couldn't hit threes. Was down to 30 by the end of the year. Did a lot of stuff for them. They ended up with a five seed. Now the five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 were all like two wins apart. And Toronto, I think was 500 the last 60 games. It's not like this was an awesome team, but he was the key guy in the team, did the most. Defensively, I don't know if I have him in first team, but he was right on the fringe. I think I put him second team all D and you know,
1:20:52 Bill Simmons? I versus putting two guys from the same team versus having a guy who was number, a number five seed, who's their best player. I'm okay with it. It's hard for me to wrap my head around him being a third team all NBA guy. But the only other one I was looking at was Avdia. And you know, he barely hit the minimum. He's 24, seven and I just couldn't get there with Avdia. I didn't think the team was, Toronto's team was better than Portland's team. And that's, I don't know, the winning piece matters to me at least a little bit.
1:21:22 Speaker 02 That's how I derived at some of these tough decisions too, is you know, show me when, show me what you did in the standings to some extent and in the Western Conference. So Shangoon for me is like, yeah, the West is, is a harder thing to, to win in. You know, it is really thin. I looked at Denny too, and hats off to him. What a, what a, what an incredible most improved player case he has.
1:21:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:21:44 Speaker 02 Uh, I did not see this coming with him as an attacker, learning the dark arts of foul baiting as well as almost any other player his age in the league. For me, just can't shoot it well enough. To justify that, I'd like to see him get Portland to a next level and I could see him doing that next year. Credit to him. If this continues, he's clearly got an all NBA future if he continues to improve like he did this year.
1:22:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah, the problem, I think they were two and 16 against the top three teams in both conferences. They got swept by the Celtics and they got swept by the Knicks. And that's where, that's where the all NBA, like voting him all NBA, it's the, it's the one I might change my mind on before we have to hand in the ballots, but right now that's who I have. I didn't consider Towns. Of the, it would be funny, we're taping this before the playing game today, but it would be funny if the playing game swung any of this stuff mentally, even though it's not supposed to. I couldn't get there with Towns. So he was 20 and 12, 50% shooting.
1:22:44 Speaker 02 That's good.
1:22:45 Bill Simmons? I just, I couldn't get there because it just, he's a lot. He's just a lot in the game. There's games where you're just like, wow, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?
1:22:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:22:56 Bill Simmons? And I just, I couldn't totally get there. I thought about him for the, for the center spot, but I just don't think he had a case against Durant and Chet.
1:23:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, I put him in that sort of front court, the vague front court position. I think what he does statistically is really impressive. I think rebounds remain one of the more underrated metrics in this league.
1:23:15 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:23:16 Speaker 02 And you can't get a stop. Yeah, well, it's true. The Celtics really were a rebounding juggernaut this year. It's a big part of their story. And then I think what he does on offense, even when he doesn't have the ball, just stretching out the defense is so important for Brunson and helping the Knicks be such an effective offense.
1:23:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:23:34 Speaker 02 Cat's fingerprints are on that. That put me there. But again, this is a team that's in the top half of their bracket, a third seed. That means a lot to me. And so I had Cat there.
1:23:47 Bill Simmons? Ineligible were Cade, Ant, Booker and LeBron, if you wanted to get crazy. Harden is the only one who I took a look at. When Zach does this, Zach has like 48 guys. And he's down looking at like all of the Hornets and he loses his mind. I, I don't go that far. Harden.
1:24:09 Bill Simmons? That traded mid-season.
1:24:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, that bothers me too.
1:24:12 Bill Simmons? I thought he made the Cavs worse defensively, like almost overnight. Like they just dropped down to 15, 16s defensively. I just couldn't get there. All right. So that's where we go. So my, my all NBA right now with no Luca is Jokic, Wemby, SGA, Jalen Mitchell, Durin, Kawhi, KD, Murray and Brunson, and then Chet, Jalen Johnson, Castle, Maxey, and Barnes. That, we didn't talk about Jalen Johnson. That was another one, like figuring out second team, third team all NBA with me. He was 23, 10 and 8.
1:24:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:24:49 Bill Simmons? End of games, I just, I'm not, he, he's not there. And I, they really kind of needed CJ to be the guy. And then Alexander Walker when he's hot. And so it's, it's almost like he's the overqualified third banana on that team sometimes. He's doing a lot, but I don't, I didn't, it just didn't feel like he was one of, had a case for being one of the 10 best players in the league, even with all the injuries. Seemed like a lot for him.
1:25:14 Speaker 02 No, if the season started in January, maybe because the Hawks were that good since then, but it didn't. And you're right about the CJ stuff and, and you know, I'm a big Hawk supporter, but when they play a good team down the stretch, it is too much CJ. And I'm worried about that in the playoffs. And that's got to, that's got to ding Jalen Johnson a little bit.
1:25:33 Bill Simmons? And then Maxey was first, first in minutes per game, fifth in points, fourth in steals, 28, 4 and 7. And if you just want to have a second team of all guards, he makes it. Probably bumps if you do want to care about a center. Okay. Quick break and then we'll do coach of the year. Coach of the year is between Missoula and Bickerstaff. Who did you have as your third guy in this?
1:25:59 Speaker 02 I put Mitch Johnson right there, maybe even with JB Bickerstaff. I'm a big believer in what Mitch and that staff was able to do this year to help the team go from a tanking team to, what was their over under? I don't mean to put you on the spot.
1:26:12 Bill Simmons? Forty two and a half, yeah.
1:26:14 Speaker 02 Forty two and a half to a 60-win team, Bill Simmons.
1:26:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:26:18 Speaker 02 We, when something, again, that's one of the things that matters to me for this category, coach of the year is what did we expect from you in October? And where did you end up in April? And so Mitch Johnson has a very impressive answer to those questions. And so he's clearly in this conversation for me.
1:26:35 Bill Simmons? He was for me as well. I, I thought there were four choices for this.
1:26:41 Bill Simmons? I, I have Mitch Johnson as well. I had Jordan not for a while.
1:26:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:26:48 Bill Simmons? And, uh, and I feel bad. I wish, I kind of wish we could have four choices for this just in general. I don't know why they limited it to three. I think that's, that's weird.
1:26:58 Speaker 02 You know what? That's a really good point. I never thought about that.
1:27:01 Bill Simmons? At least a mount coach more for the year.
1:27:03 Speaker 02 There's really good coaches. If we have to go 15 deep for all NBA and five deep for, for rookie and, and where 10 deep for rookie, why can't we do five deep for coaches?
1:27:12 Bill Simmons? I don't know.
1:27:14 Bill Simmons? The Suns finished 45 and 37. I thought they were very well coached.
1:27:21 Bill Simmons? But Mitch Johnson, I mean, they, they were the best team in the league for four months. Nobody saw that coming. I thought he did a really good job managing everybody's minutes. Not playing people too much, figuring out different lineups. Um, so I had him third. I have Missoula first and Bickerstaff second. And I switched on this a bunch of times and I see the case for Bickerstaff. I just thought when, when they won all those games without Cade, that was nuts. It was like, holy shit. You don't have a single guy who I completely trust to create a shot. How are you still winning?
1:27:56 Bill Simmons? The Missoula thing's nuts. Their over under was 42 and they went 56 and 26. The team played hard. I think they took maybe three games off out of the 82.
1:28:08 Bill Simmons? The thing that impressed me the most is how they brought Tatum back into it. And I think that's what pushed it for me. The fact that they won 56 games, but also brought this star back. That upsetting anything that they had just built over the last four months. I thought he had the hardest coaching job in the league of any successful
1:28:26 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:28:27 Bill Simmons? team by far. I don't even think it's a question. And then ironically, that game 82 was like a perfect example of why they should win. The team is just wired a certain way and he's the most important. It's not, I said this Sunday night, it's not Jalen's team or Jason's team. It's Missoula's team. That's
1:28:45 Speaker 02 Right.
1:28:45 Bill Simmons? everything they do is based on the fact that he's just a competitive psycho. Uh, in a good way. So I have him first. I have Bickerstaff second. I feel bad, but I, I just think that's the way it has to go.
1:28:57 Speaker 02 I don't think it's close. I mean, I agree with what you said about bigger staff. I remember I was on Zach's show when the morning that we found out that Cade had the lung injury. And we were like, oh, are the Celtics going to catch them? And it was like a realistic possibility. I was looking at their schedule and I was like, well, if you look at these numbers without Cade, they haven't been very. It was a really good stretch without Cade and bigger staff deserves some flowers for that. However, this is exactly what Joe Missoula did from October to March, right? The whole stretch, he did that and he turned the main red claws into a fucking juggernaut. And it was impressive. And like I've compared, I think on your show before, it reminds me of
1:29:38 Speaker 02 the pop 2010 Spurs when we're load managing Manu and Tony and Kawhi. And it's all of a sudden it's Boris Diaw, Gary Neal and Danny Green out there beating anybody. They have that Baylor Shireman, Hugo.
1:29:56 Speaker 02 That whole team has no business where they ended up. And it to me is the most impressive coaching job. And one other point I want to get to you, I, nobody talks about Brad as much as they should, but it reminds me of Brad Stevens, the butler coach, like the mid-major, the chip on your shoulder mid-major guy, how he's able to turn these guys, find these guys, these, to extend the college analogy, he takes a three-star recruit and turns them into a player that can beat Duke or North Carolina or Florida in a tournament game. That's what it feels like to me. So like, I feel like his, his college coaching and his player development era has come to life here, but ultimately it is Joe Missoula's job to get
1:30:40 Speaker 02 those lineups out there to make this a really competent two-way juggernaut with players that nobody thought could do that six months ago.
1:30:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And also losing Simons, basically, they basically turned Simons into Tatum, but they only have two guards and he's got to really manage those minutes. And when there's the nights when Tatum wore Brown was sitting out. And then you're basically just hoping you can get 35 to 30, 35 minutes from each guard and 36 from Tatum. And then you're hoping Baylor Shireman can run some of the offense like that. Like some of the shit that was going down was crazy. I, the other crazy thing about the Celtics season, I really thought they should have won more than 56 games. Like if you just look at Denver was the other team like this. Dumb games, you should go 50 50 on dumb games, right? Like, whoa, that was a dumb win.
1:31:32 Bill Simmons? I can't believe we stole that versus, ah, I can't believe we blew that. Denver was like four and 16 in those games. Like they, they always seem to lose games they should have won. And the Celtics, there's a bunch of them where, where there was a couple, like end of the game, rug got pulled out of them, stupid losses. They had, I think, two to Philly. There was the road games against San Antonio and OKC where weird shit happened both games. I felt like they could have. So anyway, I, I actually thought they could have done even better than 56, which is nuts.
1:32:05 Speaker 02 Yeah. You talk about it being Missoula's team. I love that take. And to me, we talk about culture way too much now in the NBA. It's become a cliche.
1:32:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:32:14 Speaker 02 But when you look at how this story started, why your team ended up hiring Joe Missoula and when, and that.
1:32:21 Bill Simmons? How fortunate that turned out to be. Yeah.
1:32:24 Speaker 02 Yeah. And now it's like, that's the coach of the year. What a story that is. But ultimately, like I said, Bill, this team has his personality. He has one of the strangest, sort of most aggro, competitive, unique personalities I've ever seen a head coach in this league have. And it works. It is contagious in the locker room. And my favorite moment of game 82, and you already talked about this a little bit on your show with Legs or maybe it was Zach, but that ATO, just to drop that two for one, where is it? Is Luca Garza shooting from 27 feet? And I know that was the play.
1:32:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:32:59 Speaker 02 And that's an insane play and it works. And it was one of those guys who nobody thought would make a meaningful shot this entire season. And it was just a great moment and it comes from the mind of Joe Missoula.
1:33:09 Bill Simmons? Incredible coaching job and a little bit of revenge for him because I think he was really upset with the Knicks series and those two games and just, you know, I think he was in the workshop. Defensive player of the year, Wemby's gonna win. Everyone's picking Wemby.
1:33:26 Bill Simmons? Top five is interesting. So I'll just give you my, you won't be surprised to know I am not a, I'm putting five centers on my first team defensive team. I'm just not doing that. I would do maximum two. I still want each, I still want the guards to be represented a little and a swing. So we both had Wemby and Chet, I'm guessing.
1:33:48 Speaker 02 Yep.
1:33:49 Bill Simmons? Did we both have a Sarr Thompson?
1:33:52 Speaker 02 No, I put both Thompsons on the second team.
1:33:54 Bill Simmons? Okay. All right. I'll tell you my, I had Wemby and Chet. I had a Sarr Thompson. I had Castle. And I had Kason Wallace, who I thought was the most devastating defensive guard I saw all year. I could not believe what a nightmare he was. I, and I actually think they're going to have to get rid of Dort so he can play more next season would be my guess with what they're going to do. But that, to me, Wallace was the best defensive guard. I thought a Sarr Thompson was the best swing and I thought Castle was the best, kind of back and forth, like attitude swing. And then Wemby and Chet were the two centers. So who'd you have?
1:34:34 Speaker 02 Well, I have three centers. I, I, I look at it the other way. Centers are by far the most important defenders in the sport. So I put three on here, um, three legendary defenders, in my opinion. Wemby, who is on another level. Chet, who second best defender in the league right now. And then Rudy Gobert, who's won Defensive Player of the Year so many times. So, you know, I know that's not the sexiest pick, but then I add two perimeter players because I also value that. I don't want to over index on guys who just protect the rim. Um, I put Dyson Daniels on there, who you talk about a nightmare, is a walking deflection and steal and somebody who I bet Jalen Brunson is going to be very sick of seeing here in a couple of weeks. I can't wait
1:35:16 Speaker 02 to watch him in the playoffs. And then Derrick White, Spurs great, uh, but also single-handedly one of the best shot blocking guards at that position. Always seems to be in the right place on defense. Might not be the athlete, obviously, that the Thompsons or Stephon Castle is, but Derrick is just the headiest perimeter defender and one of the most effective in the league. So I end up Wemby, Chet, Gobert, Derrick White, Dyson Daniels.
1:35:43 Bill Simmons? Interesting. I had White on my second team. I had Gobert on my second team. I had Amen Thompson on my second team.
1:35:51 Bill Simmons? I have Ananobi on my second team. And I put Scotty Barnes. I did not put Bam. Bam was the toughest cut for me. And I also did not have Dyson Daniels on either team.
1:36:06 Bill Simmons? Only because I thought as you made the case. I also feel like teams were pretty easily scoring on Atlanta all year and it was the same reason I left Bam off. You're one of the 10 best defensive players in the league at a key position, but everybody seems like they can go for 130 on your team. Like, so I have to reward that.
1:36:29 Bill Simmons? Gobert, definitely, it's just tough to knock him off, but Ananobi was the guy that I really thought was really jumped out to me a couple of games this year, but there's just nobody really, Zach and I talked about him a little Sunday, like his size, physicality and just his style is so unique. That if I was a six foot eight scorer, I think out of anybody, he'd be the guy I wouldn't want to see.
1:36:54 Speaker 02 He's so important for them. You mentioned this earlier. We still have time to submit our ballots. I do not have OG and now I'm questioning that.
1:37:02 Bill Simmons? So who'd you have for a second team?
1:37:04 Speaker 02 So I have both Thompson bros. I do have Bam. I have your guy, Kason Wallace, and then I have Steph Castle. So that's guard heavy. I love it. OG though, you're convincing me, dude. I think OG is so important to guarding the exact type of players like Boston, right? Like that series last year, he's a big reason for that. He is a big reason for the headaches that Boston has when they play the Knicks.
1:37:28 Bill Simmons? Tatum has real trouble against him.
1:37:30 Speaker 02 He's such a big, big, strong wing defender. Yeah.
1:37:36 Bill Simmons? Trying to think if there are any other tough omissions for me here. And we're good. We can move on. Rookie of the year.
1:37:43 Speaker 02 Oh, we're gonna disagree here.
1:37:45 Bill Simmons? I know. I've conned.
1:37:47 Speaker 02 I ran in, funny story, Spurs Mavs game Friday night, Bill Simmons, I ran into Kelly Flag. She says hello. She says she's very interested who you're gonna choose for Rookie of the Year.
1:37:58 Bill Simmons? Did she really say that?
1:38:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:38:03 Speaker 02 It was like one of those mafiosos.
1:38:05 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:38:06 Speaker 02 Say, say hi to Bill for me.
1:38:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:38:09 Speaker 02 You know, one of those.
1:38:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:38:13 Bill Simmons? Listen, Kelly Flag, we still love you. We still have your, uh, your condo ready for 2031 when your son joins the Celtics. I have Khan and it comes down to, um,
1:38:26 Bill Simmons? being on a good team and all the stuff he had to do versus Flag being on a crappy team that just gave him the car keys and said, make all the mistakes you want.
1:38:39 Bill Simmons? You're gonna be awesome someday. You'll be better in game 82 than you are in game one. Just keep plugging away and go and no mistake is bad and learn from this and by the end of the year, you're gonna be in a good place, which he was.
1:38:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:38:54 Bill Simmons? If I'm a rookie, I would rather be in that situation
1:38:59 Bill Simmons? than the situation Khan was in where he was basically playing a playoff game every game from January on because they dug such a hole for themselves early that they, you know, they're doing this, trying to climb into the playoff picture. I think if Khan was on a bad team, I thought he could have scored more than he did.
1:39:18 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:39:19 Bill Simmons? And you look at the advanced metric stuff and Khan stuff versus Flag, like Flag's three-point shooting was bad.
1:39:26 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:39:27 Bill Simmons? I think Flag's a better player, just like from a talent ceiling standpoint, and I think Flag has a chance to be a generational star. I don't really know how to vote for the rookies, is my other issue with this. Am I just voting for who jumps out as they're gonna be awesome 10 years from now? Or is it, am I just, am I just evaluate in the year? Cause if I'm evaluate in the year, I've made this case a couple, couple pods ago, like Khan had an incredible season. He led the league in threes. He rebounded, he played defense. I felt like his gravity and all the movement he has was the key to how their offense really worked. He played the whole year. He never got, I think he played like 79 games.
1:40:09 Bill Simmons? And his team was, you know, we'll see, we'll, we're taping this before the playing game tonight, but his team turned out to be a, I thought, one of the 10 best teams of the last four months of the season. And to me, that just matters more. I'm always gonna gravitate toward the winning.
1:40:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, I had no idea Khan could translate this well to the NBA, let alone this well, this fast. An incredible Klay Thompson-esque catch and shoot season. And I don't say that lightly. If you
1:40:38 Bill Simmons? It was Klay Thompson.
1:40:40 Speaker 02 And Steph are the only people who combined volume and efficiency like this. Unlike Steph, he's doing a lot of it as a catch and shoot guy. And I'm not going to make the case against Khan, but to contextualize it, I would say every opponent, when they're playing this lowly Mavericks team, their game plan was built around stopping Cooper Flag. When you played the Hornets, you have other players to deal with, specifically LaMelo Ball. At the end of the year, Cooper leads all rookies in scoring. He has more points per game, more assists, more rebounds, more steals than blocks than Khan Canipal. He is the first rookie Bill Simmons since Michael Jeffrey Jordan
1:41:24 Speaker 02 to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. He is going to be an all NBA player for an eternity.
1:41:34 Bill Simmons? Maybe, maybe next year.
1:41:36 Speaker 02 Yeah. And this shouldn't come into the discussion, but remember, this should be his freshman year in fucking college. He reclassified. That shouldn't be a criterion. Don't get me wrong on this. I'm fired up because I think he's just, and I appreciate how you look at the war. There is some ambiguity here. Khan has played more meaningful minutes for a more meaningful team that I hope makes the playoffs.
1:41:57 Bill Simmons? And higher pressure situations too, is the other thing. Like we're just game to game, he's playing teams that these are real games, whereas Flags playing games where they're just down 20 in the second quarter.
1:42:09 Speaker 02 Yeah. And some of it's vanity. I don't want to be the guy who didn't vote for Cooper Flag in 10 years because I know where this is going with Coop. And so I tend to look at it a little differently. And then the last thing I'd say is players like Wemby, who were Rookie of the Year, were on awful teams. And we've seen this a lot.
1:42:28 Bill Simmons? You know what? I went back and looked at that Wemby year because I remember voting for him. And I went back and looked at my notes and he was like borderline defensive player of the year that year as a rookie. I had him go bear. I had a whole thing on my notes of like, it's gotta be go bear, but goddamn, I kinda wanna vote for Wemby. And he was just way more impactful. He also averaged like 24, 10 and 5. And the guy that he was competing, I think he was going against Chet, his stats were just way better. Flag stats aren't way better than Khan's. But anyway, keep going.
1:43:03 Speaker 02 And then Khan is handed the ball and 80% of his shots are assisted, right? And then for that number for for Coop is like 40 to 50%.
1:43:13 Bill Simmons? I know, but I think there's more there with, I feel like they could have done more with Khan on that. Like, I actually kinda liked when he would get around the foul line and be physical and try to like, either take guys to the hoop or do that little pull up. I just think, I just think that team had a lot of masters to serve offensively, whereas Dallas did not.
1:43:33 Speaker 02 I respect, I respect your take. And like I said, Khan has a lot more shit to his game than I would ever expected off the bounce, getting rebounds, playing defense. This is not what I thought. So if you're, if the award were to find like, who's the most surprising rookie, Khan's, I mean, if they redrafted, Khan is probably third. I'm still taking Dylan Harper too. Third or fourth.
1:43:55 Bill Simmons? Tough to pass Dylan Harper.
1:43:59 Bill Simmons? It's, it's one of the, we did this the last time you were on. It's one of the great top fours we've had. So if you switch these guys on their teams.
1:44:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, let's do that.
1:44:11 Bill Simmons? The Hornets are good. That's actually like, he could have fit in, it's, it changes their style a little bit for that, not, not the same kind of three point thing, but he's bringing defense, rebounding, he could probably like, he'd probably phase back from the offense a little and concentrate more on the glue guy stuff that he was so great at and is great at. And Khan is-
1:44:31 Speaker 02 It would give Charles Lee like his Jason Tatum character from his Boston era, right?
1:44:35 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:44:35 Speaker 02 Like this giant forward who can break guys down, get you a rebound, play incredible defense.
1:44:42 Bill Simmons? So I think, and I think Khan would have had around the same stats. I just, he probably would have taken more threes, maybe wouldn't have shot the same percentage because they wouldn't have been as good looks most of the time. I, I don't, I really hate this because I don't even want to pick between these guys. But my, my move over the years has always been if, if winning is a tiebreaker, I gotta think about it. It's not Flag's fault. He was on a shitty team.
1:45:07 Speaker 02 Do you think we can take Michael Carter Williams Rookie of the Year trophy and give it to whoever loses this year's?
1:45:13 Bill Simmons? And Tyreek Evans's, that would be another one I'd take. VJ Edgecombe third?
1:45:19 Speaker 02 Uh, God, I haven't even thought about that. Yes, definitely. No, VJ, I have to see, this is the one I have to do. Dylan Harper or VJ Edgecombe? Have you, were those the two?
1:45:28 Bill Simmons? It's not, stats wise, it's not close, but Dylan Harper, you know, was just in a different situation.
1:45:35 Speaker 02 So I listened to Legs on your podcast who I, I thought did a great job, but yeah, he made the point, well, Dylan Harper's on the Wizards or whatever. We're seeing a lot more numbers.
1:45:45 Bill Simmons? Eight guy at least.
1:45:46 Speaker 02 Yeah. So Dylan's dropped into a really healthy environment where he's the third guard and gets those minutes. But dude, you talk about a guy who's getting better and better and better. The case for Dylan is he's on a team that has won 60 games. He too has become a much better shooter earlier than we thought.
1:46:05 Bill Simmons? I kinda like him the most when he's out there with Castle and Vassell and Wemby and a shooter.
1:46:12 Speaker 02 It's not gonna take long before he's the answer there, right?
1:46:15 Bill Simmons? Most interesting. All rookie, I had Flag Khan, VJ Harper, and I had Fears as my fifth guy. Fears, Fears played 82 games. Fears was there the whole time and I thought, he had a couple of games this year. We were like, wow, what's going on here? Second team, I had Coward, Ace, Bryant, Queen.
1:46:37 Bill Simmons? And I guess Will Riley. I don't, I don't even know. I'll figure out the 10th guy. But who did you have as your fifth guy on the first team?
1:46:46 Speaker 02 Yeah. So I think it's like the MVP race. There's four solid guys on the first group of five. But yeah, so we go Coop, Khan, Vijay, Harper, and then I threw Joe Dumars a bone and put Derek Queen there because he gave up so much for him. You gotta give him that, right?
1:47:01 Bill Simmons? Nice.
1:47:02 Speaker 02 Then Coward fears Ace Bailey, your guy Hugo Gonzalez, and then Will Riley. So.
1:47:07 Bill Simmons? Wow. That's who I'll put as my 10th guy. Hugo. Great.
1:47:12 Speaker 02 Is it Hugo or Huga?
1:47:13 Bill Simmons? It's Hugo, but I really want to call him Hugo. Clutch, clutch. I'm going SGA Brunson and Jokic in that order.
1:47:21 Speaker 02 I have the exact same and it's SGA and then a big gap for me.
1:47:25 Bill Simmons? Most improved is not a battle because it's going to be Nikhil Alexander Walker, unless you haven't been watching the season.
1:47:35 Bill Simmons? 9.4 points to 21, got better as the year went along and is just a complete wild card. Threat for the playoffs now because he's an absolute heat check. He's even more than a heat check guy. He just kind of takes over games. So I had him first. I had Duran second and I put K to third and I'll make the case for it in a second. What did, who'd you have for your three?
1:47:57 Speaker 02 I have Nikhil by leaps and bounds. And then you said Duran was second.
1:48:03 Bill Simmons? I had Duran second, yeah.
1:48:05 Speaker 02 And then I put Castle there because I didn't, I didn't give Castle the award. And I know some people don't like the second team, second year jump thing. You might be one of those people.
1:48:14 Bill Simmons? I violently oppose. This is my least favorite Kirk Golds favorite moment of the podcast. He should be better this year. It's his second year. He's the fourth pick of the draft.
1:48:23 Speaker 02 I'm not mad at you, Bill, but that's the same thing I'm giving Jalen Duran. Like you're a lottery pick, late lottery in his case. You're supposed to get better as you go through this process.
1:48:32 Bill Simmons? He was going to be a 21 and 11 dominant center. I never did.
1:48:38 Speaker 02 I won't say I did, but the first time I saw him in person, it was one of those like, holy shit, look at that guy moments that you get in an NBA arena.
1:48:46 Bill Simmons? He's now out of the 1990s. He's like, he looks like he's Alonzo Mourning or.
1:48:51 Speaker 02 He's looks like Ben Wallace. He's the perfect piston. He's the, I always say he's the perfect piston. But ultimately, I think the story here is Nikhil Alexander Walker, who scored nine points a game last year for a very good team.
1:49:04 Bill Simmons? And was a stand in the corner and don't do anything else and we'll call you and we need a three.
1:49:09 Speaker 02 And then Atlanta gives him a nice deal, comes over 21 points a game on over 60% true shooting. So one of the only times in my career as an analyst in the NBA where I've seen somebody go from nine points a game to 20 points a game, and then their efficiency jumps too. Like that's, that's crazy. And for me, this is the easiest vote on the whole ballot.
1:49:29 Bill Simmons? I agree.
1:49:29 Speaker 02 Except for defensive player of the year, Nikhil Alexander Walker in a walk away.
1:49:34 Bill Simmons? Couldn't agree more.
1:49:36 Speaker 02 Shout out to Atlanta. Great signing.
1:49:38 Bill Simmons? The case for Kada, he played, he, first of all, he, this is his fifth NBA season. He'd never played more than 13 minutes a game.
1:49:47 Speaker 02 Yep.
1:49:47 Bill Simmons? He turned this year into a 10 and eight guy.
1:49:52 Bill Simmons? Over a block a game, he's played 25 minutes a game. He's gotten better as the year went along. There's actually a little more offense. All the advanced metrics, rim protection stuff with him is really solid. He's just a good player now and it's something like you would watch him come in the first, like my daughter always loved him. She was like, why doesn't Kada play more? I was like, I don't know.
1:50:15 Bill Simmons? We would watch him and then he'd be like, there's something here.
1:50:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:50:19 Bill Simmons? But now this is somebody that conceivably could be playing 25 minutes a game in the finals. This was a team before the year where we're like, well, they're losing Porzingis and Horford. Who's going to play center? I don't know.
1:50:31 Speaker 02 And Tatum's out and they have no rebounding. Yeah.
1:50:34 Bill Simmons? I guess Garza, yeah, we lost Cornet. It's like, I guess Garza and this member Kada, I guess he's going to be there. And turned into a real guy and you watch these games. I've only, there was only a couple of times this year where.
1:50:50 Bill Simmons? You kind of could feel this was a guy that was on Sacramento three years ago.
1:50:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:50:55 Bill Simmons? For the most part, he was awesome for what the expectations were.
1:50:59 Speaker 02 And that's the key point, dude. I remember there were, this was the second apron casualty that they dismantled this team. I thought a year ago, I was like, okay, there goes Porzingis in Horford, Luke Cornet's cast away. Tatum's out. That's their front court. That's their championship front court. And I remember when I was looking into the Celtics season and I'll put my hand up, I was like, this team's not going to be able to rebound. This team is not going to be able to protect the rim. And that's where I would say Kada deserves part of this conversation. They are now a very good rebounding team. It's part of their signature is turning missed shots into second chance points. He's the biggest reason for that.
1:51:40 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:51:40 Speaker 02 And I did not see that coming ever for this young man. So hats off to him and that Celtics staff for finding him and developing him.
1:51:47 Bill Simmons? They also, they redid, I mean, they, they redid some strategy stuff with that, with them. One of them was these little handoffs at the top of the key, which became like the bread and butter of their offense that he was just better at than Porzingis and Horford. And then the offensive rebounding was the other thing. He's just a good offensive rebounder. He's got good hands around the rim. So you really feel it when he's in the game, like the best version of them usually is when he's in the game. I'll be interested to see against the Knicks.
1:52:14 Speaker 02 Right.
1:52:14 Bill Simmons? If they're in crunch time against Towns, whether they go smaller with Tatum, I think they're saving that. And I could see Kada getting bounced or maybe Kada getting moved to the Mitchell Robinson portion of the game where it's like, just go toe to toe with this dude and try to hold him to a standstill. We'll see. Sixth man. I have Hockes. I put Kelton Johnson second and then I have a wild card at third. Who'd you have?
1:52:38 Speaker 02 I only have two. I haven't figured out the third. I'll probably just steal yours. I'm a Kelton Johnson man. I thought.
1:52:43 Bill Simmons? I get it.
1:52:44 Speaker 02 Culturally, he's great. They won 62, 60 games. He was in most of those games, led all players and win shares off the bench. And again, over the Miami, Hockes, God, I just had a brain fart. The, the more substantial contribution in the, in the league this year off the bench was Kelton Johnson.
1:53:04 Bill Simmons? I battled back and forth. I don't feel great about it, but I thought, uh, Hawk has has basically been 15, five and five off the bench and he can't shoot threes. But when you watch, he's pretty impactful. In an old school, like 1970s, 80s, like he's doing weird, like kind of half post ups or he's trying to beat guys off and he's banging into dudes. He's one of those guys you watch. He's one of those guys. When you're watching him, you're going, could this guy have his own team? But obviously he can't, but he'll have moments where like, man.
1:53:40 Speaker 02 A great Heat player. I remember when they drafted him. It was all, it was, this is what we were, we knew we were getting it and they got it.
1:53:47 Bill Simmons? My third pick for this category. And there's a million, there's a million people that the, the, the shame of it is Pritchard should have been a six man, but he started too many games.
1:53:57 Speaker 02 Yep.
1:53:58 Bill Simmons? I went with Mamu.
1:54:01 Speaker 02 Oh, wow.
1:54:02 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:54:02 Speaker 02 I'm not stealing this. You're gonna have to convince me.
1:54:05 Bill Simmons? 22 minutes a game. He was 11 and five. He was a 52, 39, 75 guy. His advanced stats are nuts. And eye test wise, I actually thought he probably should have played more. I feel like he would, he was one of the only bench guys I thought this season that consistently he would come into, the, their bench was the biggest reason they started out well, the first month and a half. But he would come into games and I felt like he would take over games for like two minutes. And it's, yeah. And I think like, if you're just talking about like a pure six man coming off the bench, swinging a game.
1:54:48 Bill Simmons? He did it as well as anyone I saw this year and I couldn't come up with a, I couldn't shake that. He was the third best guy I saw do that this year. So that's who I have. Who did you have in your possibilities?
1:55:00 Speaker 02 Reed Shepard, I feel like is the choice, right? But now he started the last 10 games.
1:55:06 Bill Simmons? I couldn't get there with Reed because I don't feel like his coach was like, ah, I don't know if we should play him for six months.
1:55:12 Speaker 02 Well, he should be fifth man of the year to piggyback on Wild's point. Why don't we just have a first man, second man, third man? Reed Shepard should be fifth man of the year, E. May, if you're listening.
1:55:24 Bill Simmons? So Reed was the other one. I just couldn't get there. I don't know.
1:55:27 Speaker 02 It is weird because the predicament in Houston is so weird. I mean, in a world where Freddie Van Fleet is there and Steven Adams is there, Reed is definitely like the heat check guy off the bench. And they didn't figure out.
1:55:38 Bill Simmons? So you're going Reed?
1:55:40 Speaker 02 I think so, yeah.
1:55:41 Bill Simmons? All right. I don't feel great about the MAMU, but I just, I don't know. The heart wants what the heart wants.
1:55:49 Speaker 02 The heart wants MAMU.
1:55:50 Bill Simmons? All right, MVP.
1:55:52 Speaker 02 Oh, boy.
1:55:53 Bill Simmons? So we have Luca four. We both have Luca four?
1:55:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, I have Luca clearly four.
1:56:01 Bill Simmons? So if Luca's bounced, I am going, it's interesting because I had Donovan Mitchell first team NBA.
1:56:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:56:09 Bill Simmons? But for MVP,
1:56:13 Bill Simmons? I'm putting Brunson fifth and Jaylen Brown fourth. That's what I have just because that Knicks team, for better and worse, is just built around Brunson having to put a superhero cap on for the last five minutes of every game, whereas the Cavs can get, I don't know. It's just, I'm basically splitting the vote with Mitchell as first team NBA, but Brunson in my MVP ballot. So that's what I have for four and five without Luca. I have Wemby third. I have Joker second, and I landed on SGA first, and I switched SJ and Joker all weekend and really wanted to do Joker and ultimately like the win difference.
1:57:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:57:00 Bill Simmons? And how great SGA was in the clutch.
1:57:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:57:07 Bill Simmons? I just felt like, as you know, I love Joker and Joker's probably my favorite non Celtic in the league other than Curry. And I just felt like I want to do this correctly. There's too much SGA evidence. I feel like I'm not, if I do Joker, it's almost like a personal pick versus like, what's the right pick? I just couldn't 100% get there. The real problem, if Joker hadn't gotten hurt, I think, I think he gets it. Because not only did he miss all those games, but then he came back and he wasn't 100% when he came back and, you know. And the other thing was the clutch stuff with that team, just in general, not taking care of business near the end. That's kind of his job and they weren't good enough.
1:57:49 Bill Simmons? Whereas SGA, like every time, last three minutes, he just took care of business. And I think his job was easier because of that team. They're so good defensively. All he has to worry about is basically, let me just be awesome and get to the foul line and then the last three minutes, I'll score every point. Not an easy job, whereas Joker was doing everything. But to not vote for a guy who led the league in rebounds and assists and was sixth in points and did all the shit he did and had the best offensive career, I don't feel good about it.
1:58:22 Speaker 02 I don't think anybody's going to do this with the respect that the task deserves, is going to feel good about who's third and in some cases, who's second. This is the deepest one of these I've ever thought of. Like, we have three legitimate candidates for MVP.
1:58:37 Bill Simmons? We do.
1:58:38 Speaker 02 And we have better numbers than ever. I'll start with four and five. I have the same, Jalen, shout out to Jalen Rose, by the way. Big, big year for Jalen's on the MVP ballot. Now we have two of them on our, our top five. I have Joker third, which is crazy. But again, Bill, my ladder is going to be informed a lot by how the standings turned out, you know? And I think that deserves respect here. And so I have Wemby second, which was hard, by the way, not a homer pick. I, I wanted to put him first, other times I wanted to put him third. And then I also ended up with SGA. I mean, he's just, the team is too good. He is on, as you keep pointing out so astutely, one of the best runs we've ever seen from
1:59:21 Speaker 02 a guard in the history of the sport. Once again, here we are with a net rating over 11. They're just the most dominant team in the NBA and he's it.
1:59:34 Speaker 02 But Joker dude, let me, let me give him some flowers. I was looking at on off splits like all the nerds do when, when it's time to do this exercise.
1:59:41 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:59:42 Speaker 02 The Nuggets are minus seven in net rating when he's off the floor.
1:59:47 Speaker 02 Like that's, that's a lottery team, Bill. They're, they're, they're, they, they have the statistical profile of the Utah Jazz.
1:59:56 Bill Simmons? No, no Gordon half the year. Cam Johnson not really healthy most of the year. You lose Peyton Watson. This was like, when I was thinking this weekend, whether I was going to vote for him or not.
2:00:08 Bill Simmons? And I was like, I'm definitely, the one thing, and he played 400 more minutes than Wemby. And when Wemby skipped the last game of the year, which I just thought was really weird. Um, that to me, like he, he put himself in the third spot because they should have tried to win that game and get Denver the fuck out of the three seed. Like, what are you guys doing?
2:00:24 Speaker 02 I mean, I'm a Spurs homer. I couldn't agree more. I, I was perplexed by that.
2:00:28 Bill Simmons? Wemby played 1866 minutes this year. He played 29 minutes a game and he missed, I thought, a fair enough amount of games that he probably could have showed up for the 82nd one and tried to knock them out. I just, I didn't like that. Uh, Joker led the league in PR for his sixth straight year. He's 31 plus every year. Second straight triple double season. He's with Wilt now, as I talked about the other day with, Wilt was fourth, first and second and fifth, first and third. So if you add that up, less than 10. Joker was eight, one and one, so 10. Um, offensive rating, they
2:01:04 Bill Simmons? 126 when he played. He led the league in rebounds, assists, PR and VORP. 10.8 net. Um, his highest usage ever, 57% shooting, like really one of the great offensive seasons and somehow didn't win the MVP. And I can't believe it, but their record wasn't good enough. SGA like, um, I don't know. There was a lot of close games when he just took care of business at the end. I think that has to matter, the consistency of it. Um, and then from some of my MVP questions. You know, one of them is how you remember the year. One of the ways we're going to remember this year is OKC becoming a little villainy and SGA and the foul baiting like that was
2:01:46 Bill Simmons? a big part of the season. Whereas for Joker, it was another great Joker year. I don't really, you know, stats that was good, but we're really going to remember Wemby and SGA, I think before just it was a typically unbelievable Joker year. It didn't really stand out from the other three, I guess.
2:02:05 Speaker 02 I think that's right. And I remember you doing those questions with Legler and he was, his knee jerk reaction was Wemby. For me, that's it to that question.
2:02:15 Speaker 02 The minutes thing with Wemby is really fascinating, right? Because you and I both agree on one big thing. There's too many games. And what the Spurs have to do with this dude is try to keep him upright and get him into the playoffs. And again, I thought Mitch Johnson did a great job.
2:02:29 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
2:02:29 Speaker 02 Victor Wembanyama is healthy. I wish they would have played him game 82, by the way, but healthy going into these playoffs. That's the number one job in, in an era of calf strains and hamstring injuries. Like just be thankful we have Wemby. So I almost don't want to ding Victor for minutes because that's, that's what's going to happen with him his whole career in the regular season. As long as we're playing 82 games and 16 back to backs or whatever it is. And the NBA cup that they win, went in and played the extra game in.
2:03:03 Bill Simmons? Well, so.
2:03:04 Speaker 02 And SGA, SGA deserves credit for having a better record, better statistical indicators. And, um, you know, ultimately, like you said, just the most impressive end to end season of a high volume player in the NBA.
2:03:19 Bill Simmons? And not having JDub for most of the year. Plus 16.3 net, 9.0 free throws a game, made 7.9 free throws a game, which was first clutch points, 175 points first, 59 free throws in the clutch, shot 52% field goal in the clutch. Um, there's also some games where they just killed teams and he didn't really play. I actually think he could have been around 33 minutes a game if some of their games have been closer. Last four years, he's 31 a game. Last two years, OKC is 133 and 31. I think that's correct. The 31 losses.
2:04:01 Bill Simmons? And he's the biggest reason by far. When you know that night after night, your guy, it's a little, it's, it's the rich man's version of what Jalen did for the Celtics. You know, night after night, I'm getting this for my best player. At the end of the games, I'm getting this. And I'm just, and I know I have that every game. With you throw in the win totals and the minutes.
2:04:27 Bill Simmons? He should, uh, he should be the MVP.
2:04:29 Speaker 02 And the defense.
2:04:30 Bill Simmons? I can't believe Jokic isn't going to win though. I just can't believe it.
2:04:33 Speaker 02 I was telling my students earlier, I was like, if you would have told me that somebody would have John Stockton amount of assists and Dennis Rodman rebounds when I was growing up. That's insane.
2:04:43 Bill Simmons? There are two stats that have nothing in common with one another. You just shouldn't lead the league in both of those categories.
2:04:49 Speaker 02 In fact, they're, they usually happen in different parts of the floor. Like it's crazy that, that he's like, I don't think people are talking about that enough. This has definitely got to be the best season of anybody who's ever finished third, if he finishes third.
2:05:02 Bill Simmons? I think he's going to finish second. But we'll see.
2:05:05 Speaker 02 The case for Wemby Bill is the defensive stuff is insane.
2:05:09 Bill Simmons? I get it.
2:05:10 Speaker 02 So the Brooklyn Nets are the worst shooting team in the NBA. Okay. They're tanking, their effective field goal percentage is 52, 30th in the NBA. When Victor Weminyam was on the court this year, opponents had an EFG of 48 or 49, 49.7. So he essentially turns your offense into a tanking level offense just by being on the court. I wish we had better metrics in our discourse for evaluating defensive impact. Um, cause we're always citing things like points, rebounds, assists, triple doubles. And that's going to favor Joker and SGA. It's really challenging us to quantify the impact of Victor on defense because that's going to be his case for years to come.
2:05:52 Speaker 02 And we have to get better. I'll take it on, on as me, I have to do better to articulate his greatness on the defensive end of the floor.
2:05:59 Bill Simmons? What's, what's that commercial where they're like, yep, nope.
2:06:02 Speaker 02 Uh, that's the E40 song choices, the Bay Area. That's a Chipotle's commercial now.
2:06:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah. That always makes me think of Wemby. When the guys, the guys driving to the basket is like, nope. Just jumping a triple back out. Now it's gotten to the point where the guys don't even consider it.
2:06:19 Speaker 02 No.
2:06:19 Bill Simmons? They're starting to move. It's like, oh yeah, I can't do that today because we're playing the Spurs and they just reset.
2:06:26 Bill Simmons? If Denver had gotten, I was trying to figure out how many wins they would have had to have for me to flip my vote.
2:06:33 Bill Simmons? And I think it's four, they're 54 and 20. I think if they had gotten a 58 and 24, I think I would have voted for Jokic, as dumb as that sounds. 10 wins behind OKC. With the same kind of season where Aaron Gordon's out for half the year, so is J Dub.
2:06:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:06:51 Bill Simmons? OKC's team's obviously better, but uh, I just, I weirdly felt like Denver should have won more games than they did. And he's got to get dinked on that too. They finished with a 12 game winning streak. And still were only 54 and 28.
2:07:06 Speaker 02 I know, that was a, and they beat the Spurs in the game of the year. Like it was, that was MVP moment where he hit that fadeaway over Wemby.
2:07:13 Bill Simmons? They had a stretch, 39 game stretch where they were 19 and 20, and I think that kills him, but I can't believe he's not going to win. We'll see if he finishes second. I think SGA is going to win.
2:07:25 Bill Simmons? And we'll see between Wemby and uh, Jaylen Brown. All right, Kurt Goldsberry.
2:07:31 Speaker 02 See you soon.
2:07:31 Bill Simmons? What's your, do you have a playoff upset?
2:07:37 Speaker 02 I, I, if I had to pick an upset, I got two candidates. It's Minnesota, Denver, because we've seen it before. But I think Atlanta, New York is really interesting too. If, if, if Atlanta can find offense beyond CJ McCollum.
2:07:53 Bill Simmons? I think Denver's going to beat Minnesota. And I actually like that so many people, including myself, are scared of Minnesota in this series because they've had so much success.
2:08:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:08:04 Bill Simmons? I think a fun zag is actually Denver's going to kick their ass.
2:08:09 Bill Simmons? Atlanta is the one I'm looking at. I wonder is there, I, I just wish Toronto wasn't so lousy against basically every good team. I wish. Everyone's just penciling Cleveland in for that series and I don't trust them at all because I don't think they can. I just think they give up points to everybody. And if Toronto, the question for me is, I just don't think Toronto is good enough offensively to haunt them. But Cleveland, if Atlanta didn't play Cleveland, I think I would have picked Atlanta in that series.
2:08:37 Bill Simmons? Like for real.
2:08:37 Speaker 02 Atlanta is, Atlanta has all the makings of a team that is, you know, if you look at the game the way I do analytically, they look like the best statistical profile of any team that's an underdog right now in the last three months of the season, with the exception of maybe Charlotte, um, who we'll find out shortly if they're even in the tournament.
2:08:56 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that'll be the top of the pot in the time machine. Um, I think Atlanta takes the Knicks to seven and loses because of their bench. I don't like their bench.
2:09:05 Speaker 02 They played a hell of a game the other night. Yeah.
2:09:07 Bill Simmons? Their bench is like, you just never know night to night. All right, Kurt Goldsberry, pleasure as always. Thanks to Gahow and Eduardo as well. Um, don't forget about Legata, our new narrative podcast, which, uh, has cocaine in Miami and Columbia and all kinds of great stuff. You should check it out, Kurt Goldsberry. Uh, new rewatch was coming on Monday. It's gonna be kindergarten cop with me and Kyle Brandt and, uh, I will see you all on Thursday.
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