The 2026 Made-Up NBA Awards With Zach Lowe

Summary

The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode: The 2026 Made-Up NBA Awards With Zach Lowe

Date: April 6, 2026
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Zach Lowe
Special Guest: Joe House (recurring co-host for awards)

Overview

This episode delivers the annual, much-anticipated “2026 Made-Up NBA Awards,” an irreverent but deeply obsessive look at all things weird and wonderful about this NBA season—players, teams, stats, media, feuds, and subplots. Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe (with Joe House for part/a lot of the show) dive into their original, often hilarious categories—ranging from the “Unicorn of the Year” to the “League Pass MVP”—celebrating standout performances, statistical oddities, and truly bizarre NBA moments, all with the enjoyable language and banter fans expect from them.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wemby vs. Jokic: Game of the Year (00:00–08:22)

• Opening breakdown of the San Antonio Spurs vs. Denver Nuggets game, hailed as the “Game of the Year.”

• Simmons and House gush over the generational battle between Victor Wembanyama (“Wemby”) and Nikola Jokic (“Joker”), invoking old-school center rivalries.

• Joe House on the matchup:

  "They danced around each other for a lot of the game before Wemby kind of took the Jokic assignment. ... Jokic did not guard Wemby much, but sometimes on switches... here we go. Wemby just big-boyed him on a couple postups, just ate his shot alive. Jokic with footwork and a little weirdo hook over him. Just a masterpiece performance by both guys." [02:21]

• Both rave about Aaron Gordon's defense on Wemby, Cam Johnson’s big moments, and how the game will influence All-NBA ballots and rotations down the line.

• Discussion highlights Wemby’s growing dominance and stamina questions; Fox’s fit beside him remains a subtle Spurs storyline.

2. Early Playoff Thoughts, Injury Updates & The Race for the Top (08:22–21:20)

• A rapid-fire discussion of injury timelines (esp. Lakers), playoff seeding chess, and teams peaking at the right time.
• “OKC wins no matter how this shakes out. It's probably leading to Denver and San Antonio having a bloodbath in Round 2, OKC playing a much weaker team. ... Thank God for them." – Simmons [18:52]
• Lively speculation about who contenders actually are; House leans toward Denver/Boston as the only teams who can reach the ceiling of play seen in the “game of the year.”

3. All-NBA Voting, Eligibility & The 65-Game Rule (10:15–16:47)

• Breakdown of confusion surrounding All-NBA eligibility due to the 65-game rule, technicals (Luka), time missed, and “extraordinary circumstance” appeals.
• Playful criticism:

  “If you didn’t get 16 technicals, you would have played 65 games already and you’d be in the All NBA.” – Simmons, about Luka Doncic [12:19]

• Sneaky Devin Booker eligibility issue revealed: games under 10 minutes.
• Voters debate keeping history (one center per team) vs. current style (top 5, positionless).

4. Broad State of the NBA: Tanking, Coaching, New Rules, and the Culture Wars (21:21–44:11)

• Evergreen NBA issues of tanking, rule changes, and the state of beloved NBA institutions like “Inside the NBA.”
• The notorious “tanking Friday” where nearly every game was a blowout.
• “It’s ongoing and just the noise drowned out everything. ... It is utterly embarrassing.” – House [36:46], on the tanking “crisis.”
• Extended riffing on the chaotic Blazers front office situation, speculation about major trades and potential wild-card franchises.

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Made-Up Awards: Winners, Nominees, and Notable Commentary

Each award comes with a mix of nominations, heated/funny debate, then a winner (or winners).

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Unicorn of the Year (24:44)

Nominees: Victor Wembanyama, Peyton Pritchard, LeBron James, Jalen Johnson
Unanimous Winner: Wemby

“Almost Unicorn of the Decade is in play for Wemby.” – Simmons [25:25]

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2011 Blake Griffin Award (Most Unexpected Delight) [26:22–29:35]

Nominees:

• Jayson Tatum’s comeback
• Charlotte Hornets surprise season
• The All-Star Game
• Bam's 83-point game
• Wemby leaping into superstardom
• Jamal Murray revival
• Kawhi’s 2019 resurgence

Additional by House: Hawks’ post-Trae Young turnaround

Winner: House casts a sentimental vote for Jayson Tatum’s recovery; Simmons concedes, calling it “a flashbulb moment in NBA history.”

“For him to come back this early and look like this... is beyond a delight.” – House [29:19]

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Gold Club Trial Award (Funniest NBA Story or Moment) [31:14]

Nominees:

• Michael Jordan joining NBC coverage (then ghosting them)
• Matt Ishbia’s trash talk
• Paul George’s suspension and Philly’s tax shenanigans
• Doc Rivers’s despondent pressers
• No one going to Chris Paul’s party
• Joe Mazzulla renouncing Coach of the Year
• Ben Simmons becomes a fisherman
• Wizards’ catastrophic April Fools joke

Winners:

• House: Ben Simmons becomes a fisherman
• Simmons: Michael Jordan’s NBC debacle
  Both agree these stories are “an honor just to be nominated.”

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Halliburton for Sabonis Award (Best In-Season Trade) [33:06]

Nominees:

• Zubac to Pacers
• Jaren Jackson Jr. to Utah
• McCollum for Trey Young
• J. Harden and a 2nd round pick for Darius Garland
  Winner: Harden for Garland—straight-up challenge trade. House: “A crazy vote of no confidence in the younger guy.” [34:33]

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Luca Trade Award (Most Cataclysmic Moment) [35:02]

Nominees:

• KD burner scandal
• Tanking Friday (unanimous winner)
• 65-game rule backfire
• Inside the NBA backlash
• Blazers’ coaching, NBA draft tampering
• Brief fear of OKC going 76-6

“Every time people get tired of talking about it, something like Friday night happens...” – Simmons [37:21]

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1986 Bill Walton Award (Big Impact, Under 20 MPG) [40:49]

Nominees:

• Alex Caruso
• Hugo Shireman
• Ron Holland
• Grant Williams
• Andre Drummond
• Dennis Jenkins

Winner: Dennis Jenkins (Pistons) jumps from obscurity to difference-maker.

“Whatever’s happened with him these last four weeks—he can come into a game and flip it.” – Simmons [42:24]

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1984 John Drew Award (Random Statistical Achievement) [45:37]

Nominees:

• Con Knippel leads NBA in 3s as rookie [Winner: Knippel]
• SGA: 55% FG, 31 PPG
• Scotty Barnes: 100+ steals, 100+ blocks
• Derrick White: about to notch 100 blocks
• Klingen: 4.5 OREBs/game
• Wemby: 25 PPG in less than 30 MPG

Honorable mentions: Zion staying healthy, Bam’s 83-point game.

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Worst Coaching Performance: Monte Williams Award (49:19)

Nominees: Doug Christie (Kings), Ime Udoka, Brian Keefe, Willie Green, Jamal Mosley, Doc Rivers
Winner: Doug Christie, unanimously.

"With Doug Christie, we have the answer already. We will never see him coach again." – Simmons [50:59]

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Brad Stevens Award (Most Untankable Coach) [52:25]

Nominees: Joe Mazzulla, Jordan Ott, Thiago Splitter
Winner: Joe Mazzulla

“The Celtics are the two seed, gap year label—they rejected it.” – House [53:42]

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Chauncey Billups Award (Best Reason Not to Sell Your Stock) [57:10]

Nominees: Lamelo Ball (winner), Jared McCain, Anthony Black, Duncan Robinson, Peyton Watson

"Lamelo has single-handedly paid for seven vacations I’m going to take..." – House [59:53]

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Freeman Williams Award (Biggest Black Hole) [61:49]

Nominees: Cam Thomas (winner), Zach LaVine, Ace Bailey, Malik Monk

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2007 Kevin Garnett Award (Player Who Needs to Escape) [62:51]

Nominees: Steph Curry, Giannis, Sabonis, Markkanen, Trey Murphy
Winners: Split between Trey Murphy (Simmons—"Put him on a real team") and Sabonis (House)

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Perk Thinks Jokic Pads Stats Award (Hottest Media Take) [66:04]

Nominees:

• Perk: Kawhi = worst FA ever
• Stephen A: Luka fakes injuries
• Perk: Charlotte limits Lamelo to trade him
• OKC writer: Seattle must apologize before getting Sonics history back (overall winner, because “wildly insulting to an entire metropolitan area”) [68:16]
• Stephen A: Jaylen Brown for MVP
• Stephen A: LeBron ruined dunk contest

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Virginia Beach Kings Award (Most Contrived Story) [69:41]

Nominees:

• Expansion approval fiction
• LeBron uses podcast to push for Austin Reaves trade
• Stephen A feuds with Pelicans (winner)
• “Can the Jays coexist?”
• Clippers want LeBron
• “LeBron doesn’t like Memphis”

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McKeskey Award (Best American White Guy) [72:31]

Nominees: Cooper Flagg, Con Knippel, Peyton Pritchard, Chet Holmgren (winner, back to back), Austin Reaves, Donovan Klingon

“It’s an absolutely loaded field.” – Joe House [73:07]

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Rodman Award (Ongoing Distraction) [75:32]

Nominees: Giannis vs. Milwaukee (winner), Ja Morant, Kawhi/Aspiration, Tanking, 65-game rule

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DeAndre Blatch Award (Most Regrettable Contract/Extension) [77:18]

Nominees: Paolo, Jaren Jackson, Miles Turner, Dorian Finney-Smith, Chris Paul
Winner: Jakob Poeltl (House goes off-menu: “Most inexplicable contract of the summer... Why?” [79:16])

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Ewing Theory Award (Most Likely to Be Ewing Theory’d Next Year) [80:02]

Nominees: Giannis, Zion (Simmons’ pick), Kawhi, Ja Morant (House’s pick), KD

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Most Valuable Poku (MVP for Tanking Stealth-Weapon) [82:01]

• Next year’s award; tough to match the original Poku’s combo of hope and futility.

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Best Broadcast Team (League Pass Crew of the Year) [84:19]

Winner: Charlotte Hornets (Eric Collins & Dell Curry)

“Eric Collins is like everything you’d ever want from your local play-by-play guy. … He just has this endless thing of crazy comments.” – Simmons [87:21]

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Lou Brown Award (Out of Nowhere Team) [88:29]

Winner: Split, but ultimately Atlanta Hawks (post-Trae Young). Runner-up: Phoenix Suns.

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ML Carr Jordan Trade Memorial (Goofiest Real Offseason Subplot) [90:45]

Nominees: Warriors trying to get Kawhi (House pick), LeBron as Warriors player-coach, Paolo for Giannis, Celtics trade Jaylen, OKC trades Jalen Williams (Simmons).

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Zaza Pachulia Rule Award (Rule That Must Be Changed) [93:35]

Winner: 45-second limit on reviews (unanimous—“Done!” [94:15])

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Baron Davis Mail-In Award (Best Individual Mail-In) [95:20]

Winner: Simmons—Mark Cuban for “mailing in” by selling Mavs then throwing GM under the bus
Runner-Up: House—Ja Morant for literally quitting mid-season.

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Worst GM/Franchise Performance: David Kahn Award [100:58]

Nominees: Kings (perma-chaos), Pelicans, Bucks, Bulls (winner—Arturas, “abysmal for five years”)

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LeBradford Smith vs. MJ Award (Saddest NBA Feud) [102:23]

Winner: Cuban vs. Nico (Simmons & House); “no one is rooting for anybody, everyone is rooting against all parties.” [103:12]

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Try to Trade for Retired Jordan (Goofiest but Possibly Real Subplot) [90:45]

• Warriors for Kawhi, LeBron as Warriors player-coach, Paolo for Giannis, Celtics move Jaylen Brown, OKC trades Jalen Williams.

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Other Notable Awards, Quick Hits:

• Most Unabashed Tank: Wizards (House); “traded for two good players, played neither.” [105:44]
• “Sorry, Just Don’t Like Watching Him” Award: Zach LaVine (unanimous) [107:41]
• Artest Melee Award: Isaiah Stewart (obvious, two time “full court run” champ)
• Best Comeback (Travolta Award): Jayson Tatum (“it’s like, you know he’s getting it, front row, ESPY-style”)
• 2026 League Pass MVP: Wemby (unanimous, with deep love for Jokic; “the pang of FOMO I get has exceeded the Jokic FOMO... it’s Victor Wembanyama” – Lowe [117:26])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “[Wemby] is honestly like watching a horror movie where the alien creature is gaining intelligence over the course of the movie.” – Bill Simmons [05:11]
• “If you didn’t get 16 technicals, you would have played 65 games already and you’d be in the All NBA.” – Simmons [12:19] (about Luka)
• “To me, the seatbelt is off with the Blazers for the next three months. We are going to take the speedboat out into the ocean and fucking floor it to 110 like Sonny Crockett.” – Simmons [38:08]
• “Sometimes with these coaches, you wonder if he’ll get another head coaching job. With Doug Christie, we know: we will never see him coach again.” – Simmons [50:59]
• “Eric Collins is like everything you’d ever want from your local play-by-play guy … he’s a 10 out of 10.” – Simmons [87:21]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–08:22 – Wemby vs. Jokic game breakdown, “Game of the Year”
• 10:15–16:47 – All-NBA debates and injuries, 65-game rule, voting chaos
• 21:21–44:11 – State of NBA (tanking, coaching, rule change riffs)
• 24:44–123:28 – “Made-Up NBA Awards” segment by segment, including nominees, rationales, and banter for all categories; see above for award-specific timestamps.
• 115:49–123:03 – League Pass MVP & closing major awards

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Final Thoughts & Tone

The episode is a marathon but breezy, dense with basketball obsessions and sardonic humor, full of long-standing Simmons/Lowe bits (awards about everything from best white American to most regrettable contract). Their chemistry is evident—both willing to go “off-menu” (as House frequently says), with playful jabs, genuine exasperation at league issues, and a clear reverence for NBA history's weirdness.

The awards segment is the episode’s foundation, but the openers and in-betweens—whether delving into all-NBA voting madness or the existential drama of tanking—give fans the rich, detail-packed NBA nerdery expected from this crew.

If you missed the episode but want to follow NBA’s pulse, inside jokes, and most ridiculous headlines, this comprehensive rundown is all you need.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by the Home Depot. Spring is starting, so it's time to wake up your yard. And at the Home Depot, they've got everything you need to do it. With low prices, guaranteed mowing your lawn is a dream. With top brand outdoor power tools like the Ryobi 40 volt mower. With up to 50 minutes of runtime, you can add a pop of color with spring blooms and fresh plants. And refresh your garden beds with earth. Earth grow mulch. Five bags for just $10. Start your spring with low prices. Now through April 1st. Available at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See home depot.com price match for detail. The Bill Simmons podcast live on Netflix. That's Zach Lowe that you're looking at. He's at an undisclosed location. By the way, Rewatchable is coming tomorrow night. We are doing Eddie and the Cruisers. Uh, it's the tail end of CR month and then Zach's got a podcast on Tuesday. We're gonna do the made up NBA awards later in the episode. Zach, Game of the year. Yesterday we always say game of the year after there's a great game. But this really was the game of the year. San Antonio, Denver was on Amazon. I like these early Saturday afternoon PT games on Amazon. Cause they're all over the country. Like if you're in Europe, you're watching it like you're watching on Saturday live. And we had Wemby and Joker kind of playing for the number two MVP spot, not to mention San Antonio trying to play the smackdown. Denver trying to get to the three seed. And the two centers just brought it out of each other and we went into overtime. It was the biggest game of the year for Denver to win. I thought it was a good loss for San Antonio, as weird as that sounds. But more importantly, two generational guys, a really special sporting event. Like I'm still, I'm still glowing 24 hours later.

[Joe House]

What more can you ask for? These two guys are absolutely unbelievable. They danced around each other for a lot of the game before Wemby kind of took the Jokic assignment. For most of the down the stretch, Jokic did not guard Wemby very much at all, but just sort of sometimes they would come into contact on switches and it would be like, oh, here, here we go. Here's what we paid for. And like Wemby just big boy them on a couple post ups, like just ate his shot alive. And then Jokic would get him like footwork the body, get a little like weirdo hook over him and just masterpiece Performance by, by both guys. And you could just see the sort of strategies that both teams were toying with with an eye on like maybe, maybe down the line, this could be a thing.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, it's funny, the league was built on centers way back when. George Mikin, Russell versus Chamberlain, Kareem. This was the first 25, 30 years of the league. You had to have centers. And then we moved toward perimeter guys a little bit here. We've had some great ones. Watching two centers battle like that, even though Jokic wasn't guarding Wemby that much on the other side, but just watching two unstoppable guys go at it like that, I don't think there's anything like it. As much fun as it is to watch Curry vs Kobe or LeBron vs KD, all the great stuff we've had over the years, there's something different when it's the centers. I mean, Jokic made that turnaround, he made an ot.

[Joe House]

I don't even know if that was a sombor shuffle by categorization or not, but it was like I screamed, I yelped, I did the yoke at yo one of those guys.

[Bill Simmons]

I was the best shot anyone's made all season. I can't believe it went in. Wemby couldn't believe it made it went in. The point of the game when he made it was was unbelievable. But Wemby shot to end regulation that he missed where he had Gordon and that was like by. This is why you could not give up on Denver at any point this regular season. Because we didn't see yesterday as Aaron Gordon on the Stembert team. We saw it yesterday, but Gordon plays perfect defense. Wemby ends up basically just careening out of bounds on the left side, but then somehow gets this line drive shot. But because he's an alien, it was actually a good shot and it probably should have gone in. And if he made that, I'd never have seen anyone make that shot in the history of basketball before. At least in that situation, eight foot

[Joe House]

wingspan, half your body can be flying in one direction out of bounds and you just reach out and it's like, oh, my arm is actually in semi normal position and I'll flick this shot. No, just out. Outrageous. And Aaron Gordon played 41 minutes, guarded Wemby for a lot of the game. Did everything that Aaron Gordon always does on offense and just I liked when he and Stefan Castle, by the way. I had like the big boy off where like Stefan Castle actually got into him and put it up and Then the next possession, Aaron Gordon knocked him over. That was fun. Stefan Castle's like, yeah, Aaron Gordon, you're one of the preeminent like ass kickers in the NBA. How about I just go right at you? That guy fears nothing.

[Bill Simmons]

He had a I might be the third best player in this game vibe to him that, that entire time. The wimpy thing, it's honestly like watching a horror movie where the alien creature is starting to gain intelligence over the course of the movie. And it's like this alien was scary in the first 20 minutes, but now it's starting to figure shit out. The competitiveness and just him understanding what he can and can't do. And I actually thought it affected Fox negatively. I think Fox, if I'm a Spurs fan, the things I'm nervous about two and both of them popped up yesterday. Wemby, when you have to put more than 30 minutes on him, which is also the MVP argument with him too, he can give you a great 30 minutes. He's the baseball starter that can throw you six awesome innings. But if I need you to go into the ninth and throw like 130 pitches, can you do it?

[Joe House]

It's the entire New York Mets rotation, baby. Let's go.

[Bill Simmons]

Right there. You. I thought he looked worn out in OT just because he's not used to that kind of level of intensity for three hours. And it was a long game too. The other thing was, was the Fox piece of it. Fox, who was this great clutch player in the Kings who was really good, but the offense revolved around him. How do I kind of figure out how to float in and out of this when I have an alien on my team? What's my place? How often do I take over? Should I be taking over? Am I just kind of over here? And if I'm over here, I'm not really de' Aaron Fox. I think they have to figure that out over the next two months.

[Joe House]

Which it's weird because for the whole season we've been praising de' Aaron Fox for finding that exact right balance in his game. And it felt a little. I mean, he missed some shots, right? He missed some like good shots for him. And that's part of it. Like those go in and we're talking about a different sort of discussion. And yeah, I mean that's, you know, the three headed monster of Harper Castle and Fox is super imposing. It gives them all kinds of optionality. They can keep two of them on the floor at all times. Medium term, long term, they're going to have to answer some questions about, you know, is there enough. If there is there enough ball for all of them. But right now it's been perfect. I'm going to just chalk up yesterday to a hiccup, but just a fascinating game all around. Like Christian Brown, go ahead and shoot a million corner threes. He kind of made him pay for it. Denver, like, do we play Valanchunas? Do we not play Valentius? It was just an awesome, awesome basketball game.

[Bill Simmons]

Cam Johnson, I thought had a couple really big moments that he, he probably needed more than anyone in the game really came through, I thought. And just in general and I thought Van Gundy did a great job yesterday. I haven't always been high on him as an announcer, but I think he's been really good this year. And I thought he captured the moment in the fourth quarter. Just talking about the level of play, like this is like what we're watching right now. This is as high of a level as we're going to get in basketball in 20, 25, 26 and OKC can get there. I think the Celtics can get there like even today watching them just house Toronto and without they weren't even making threes and they were up pretty comfortably. I think there's four teams that can get to that level. I don't know if anyone else can, especially now that we have the. All these Lakers injuries that I want to talk about in a second. I don't know if anyone else has it in them.

[Joe House]

It's funny you say that because in the middle of right before Luka got hurt, Thunder, Lakers the other night I got a text from someone high up in the league, not in the league office, just in the league saying, man, another. Another blowout. Like there's two teams playing at a different level and then there's everybody else. And I replied and I think we're getting to the point that the only two teams that can actually push them are Denver and Boston. And you know, it's hard to make a case for anyone else because the level of play is just so high. And the Nuggets reminded everyone. You mentioned Cam Johnson. That's super on point. He's very quietly had a good last month like playing with a lot more verve, giving them what they need. If they. And they didn't have Peyton Watson, we'll see when he comes back. He's week to week which is like the new thing. People are now week to week with things now which I don't know how to, how to, how to.

[Bill Simmons]

We should start this with our pods we'll just release that Zach might might have a pot on Tuesday. Maybe not. He's week to week.

[Joe House]

Week to week. But yeah and Cam Johnson has had a good month and the Nuggets sort of remind and a game it felt like the Nuggets needed like even though they've won, they're on a. Everyone at the top of the league is on a winning streak because the third of the league is not trying to win games. It felt like they needed a power win and they got a major power

[Bill Simmons]

win and they never really had the lead. They were always on the fringe of being down 15. It kept fighting off. If I'm the Spurs I'm just looking at that like we were in charge of that whole game and we shouldn't have let it get toe t. It went toe t. We lost. But that was a good loss. We learned some things from it. San Antonio it's like it feels like if they've. How many times I wonder have they even been down by eight points in the last three months? I can only think of like two games. It just feels like they're in control from the moment these games start doing whatever they want to do and they're so good. I had a Castle question for you actually really quick.

[Joe House]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

He might be on a third team. All NBA for me.

[Joe House]

You've mentioned this now four or five times and I feel like you are asking for permission. I feel like you're doing.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not asking for permission. I just like you're testing it out.

[Joe House]

You're testing out. You want someone to tell you it's okay, do it. And I think you should do it if you want to do it. I wouldn't do it but he's been unbelievable.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, some people have Scotty Barnes on there now that. No, some people have them now that we've had. Some guys fell off like Luka's now probably out, Cade's probably out, so on and so on. And people are trying to talk himself

[Joe House]

wouldn't give up on Luka. They're actually going to do this thing where they appeal it.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Joe House]

Because he's going to get to 60. He's at 64 games. They're going to do the extraordinary circumstances appeal because he was in Slovenia for the birth of his child. Can you imagine if the NBA is like, you know what, let's get our lawyers, let's get our top notch litigation like get Wachtel in here. We're going to go against Luka Doncic and his agent and this extraordinary Circumstance. We don't care that you were present for the birth of your child. We're sticking by the 65 game rule. Love. If the league just dug in, imagine how bad that would look. I bet he's. We'll see. We'll see. That's all I'm saying.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, can they figure that out before we have to send in the votes?

[Joe House]

Well, this is what this, I joked about this. What are you supposed to do? Put the ballots I TBD arbitrators ruling pending.

[Bill Simmons]

Like we'll see different ballots. I have a zag. So Luca and I. I didn't come up with this because a couple listeners emailed this too. But since I'm obviously not a huge Laker fan, I really enjoyed it. I'm going to pass it forward. Luka, 16 technicals this year. Got suspended for a game. Now he's one game short.

[Joe House]

Wow. So you're saying he deserves it.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe he should look in the mirror.

[Joe House]

Wow. You've been, you've been, you've been waiting.

[Bill Simmons]

How about this? Maybe, maybe behave a little bit better during that. Maybe set a better role model example to the kids out there.

[Joe House]

You hit him with behave and you

[Bill Simmons]

hit him with 16 technicals.

[Joe House]

You hit him with.

[Bill Simmons]

If you didn't get 16 technicals, you would have played 65 games already and you'd be in the All NBA.

[Joe House]

We're talking about Barkley in 1990. Role models. What was it Old Spice? Was that the commercial? I am not a role model. Was it Old Spice?

[Bill Simmons]

It was Nike.

[Joe House]

Was it Nike?

[Bill Simmons]

No, it's not. Voting for Luca would be. I just don't understand how we're going to fill out these ballots and not have them on. Can I give you the 64 instead of 65?

[Joe House]

Can I give you the sneaky one that people haven't realized yet? What? Devin Booker is not going to be eligible because it looks like on games played he is going to be eligible, but two of his games are sub 10 minute games because of injury and you've got to get to 20. I think it allows for like one or two under 15 minute games. Those can count. And so he's going to max out at 64, which I don't think a lot of voters have realized yet because I see him and I think they are potentially going to look at appealing it too because again, we're just like running out of guys. I actually haven't sat down appealing this

[Bill Simmons]

to what is there like a Judge Judy for the NBA just waiting to accept the dumbest appeals ever for all NBA.

[Joe House]

I assume it's some sort of independent arbitrator that hopefully it takes. It does not take as long as the aspiration investigation. So we're filling out the 2026 All NBA team in like eight months from now, retroactively. But yeah, I am. I haven't actually sat down and redone my list yet because I got to cross off like four more guys.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I had. That's why I was thinking about Castle. Because if Booker is out, do it. Booker's out. Well, like I want. I like Scotty Barnes, but like I watched him today. I just think Castle's. When I test wise. Plus I saw in person and Castle was one of the guys that really jumped out to me this year in person. I. Especially since the. I think like the last two months since the All Star break, he's at like 43% from three. I just think he's turned into an awesome, awesome second guy. I got a great mailbag question from Hamster in Buffalo.

[Joe House]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Luca is at 64 games. They play Utah the last game of the year. Utah is going to need that loss. Luca should dress in full uniform and stand in the corner of the court for 20 minutes while the Lakers play 4 and 5 and Utah still tries to lose. This would be incredible entertainment. Right? I'm down for that.

[Joe House]

I mean, look, it can't get any worse. Wizards nets today. I mean, you better believe I'm not watching a second of that. But just the injury report alone, it was outrageous. And yeah, Utah, it'll be interesting to see if they're just like locked into.

[Bill Simmons]

They.

[Joe House]

They have the Same sort of 99.4% chance of keeping their pick if they're. If a win actually matters to them. But yeah, why not Luka on one leg roll them out there on crutches. Like, what are you going to do? Who's going to stop him? Kyle Phillipowski is going to stay in front of Luca with crutches on. I don't think so.

[Bill Simmons]

No way. Just the term now went on terminated on Friday. He's going old school with his all NBA ballot, which I don't think I'm going to do, but I really respect it. Where it's like we have 75 years of we had a center on each team and now we've thrown this away. And he's like, I don't know if I'm voting for Jokic or Wemby for first team all NBA center, but whoever I have, I'm putting the other guy in second team to keep the history And I'm like, I really want to do that. I really respect it. But the catch for me is I do feel like Jokic and Wemby could belong on the same team. I know Jokic is a center, but he's could. He's not. No, I'm just saying, like, hypothetically. No, I'm saying it's Patrick Ewing and Shaquille o'. Neal. Like, Jokic is a point guard. He's. He's all kinds of stuff.

[Joe House]

It's not even a question. If you put them on the same team, you would have the starting blueprint for the best team in the NBA, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So? So I feel like that's the out, but I still feel like if this was Shaq and Hakeem Olajuwon or something, that's two real centers, right? Jokic, I don't know what he is. Nobody knows what he is. He doesn't. What position is he? I have no idea.

[Joe House]

Well, we. We did this with Embiid and Jokic, right? And this is part of the reason why the rule, I think, got altered is because one of them had to be a second team all NBA center when they were, like, jostling for the mvp.

[Bill Simmons]

I kind of like it. And then I just like the mindset

[Joe House]

of, you can't tell me what to do. I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's the thing. There's 100 votes, right? The whole point of having 100 votes is that everybody's going to come up to their own conclusions and have their own, own attitudes on this. I am going to have Jalen Duran on my second team. I don't know if he's a second team all NBA, but I'm going to have a center on the second team. And if I'm going to have Jokic and Wemby, first team, I'm putting a center on the second team. I'm not going to have a forward and four guards. I just think at that point, I'm basically doing the mvp.

[Joe House]

Val.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just not doing that. Can we talk Lakers really quick?

[Joe House]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

So do you believe the timelines they're doing out, or do you think they're being intentionally padding the weeks that Luka and Reaves are going to be out and those guys will actually be back sooner than that. I never, never really know what the agenda is when they just tell you the weeks where sometimes it'll be faster, other times it'll be slower. In this case, I just find it hard to Believe Luka's going to be out for five weeks. And I find it hard to believe Reaves isn't going to play with a hurt oblique in the first round. I mean, because all my Laker fan friends are freaking out.

[Joe House]

We've seen the oblique stuff is no joke. Like, Banchero and Franz Wagner both got it last year and they were both out for a while. I don't know if it's the exact same injury, but, like, that stuff's no joke. Look, the Reeves timetable was like pretty precise four to six weeks. The Luka one, I think was like maybe a little vaguer. I can't remember exactly, but I'm going to trust that. I'm going to just ballpark a month.

[Bill Simmons]

And we're trusting the intel plus or

[Joe House]

minus a month, and that takes him out of the first round of the playoffs. And I think if those guys are both out, I think the Lakers clearly surpass the Rockets as the team that you'd most want to play in the first round if you were one of the best Western Conference teams in the top six. And so that gets you to thinking, like, if you're Denver, you know what, what seed do you want to chase? Do you want to chase the three seed or do you want to stick in four or five and stick with the Rockets? It's a whole, like, it's a, it's a whole calculation.

[Bill Simmons]

Now, if I'm Denver, I want to be the three seed and I want to, I want to play San Antonio over OKC and round.

[Joe House]

Yeah. So that's, so that's the route for Denver is like if we're three, we get Minnesota instead of Houston, but we get San Antonio in the second round.

[Bill Simmons]

If we're four, well, they might get Houston with the 3 6, too. Like, I still think the 56 is up in the air. Right?

[Joe House]

Good play. Yeah. But the Lakers, obviously, if those guys are out, then they're not winning a first round playoff series. I don't know what's interesting about that. That's just what it is.

[Bill Simmons]

Here's the big winner, okc. However this played out, OKC wins because it's probably leading to Denver and San Antonio having a bloodbath in round two and OKC playing a significantly weaker team than either of those teams in round two. OKC potentially getting Portland in round one, and then, I don't know, Houston, Minnesota, a depleted Lakers team which isn't going to get out of first round without those guys. Like, this is amazing for okc.

[Joe House]

I'm glad they caught A break.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Thank God. Thank God for them.

[Joe House]

Houston's two up on the wolves for the wolves are playing as we're doing this.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joe House]

For the fifth spot. And let me look at the tiebreakers real quick. Rockets tiebreaker still in play. They play once more. That's right. They play on April 10th. It's going to be a head to head showdown. So that's going to be one of the biggest games of the season in terms of seating.

[Bill Simmons]

The other seeding thing that's going on, whatever is going to happen with 7 and 8 in the east, where you had Toronto lose today, the Celtics just look really comfortable against Toronto. If that ends up being the seventh seed, they'd be the seventh seed. Now Philly, who everybody's so terrified of, just actually defecated on the court yesterday against Detroit. It was a full defecation. It was awful. Every time everybody's like, well, Philly, watch out. They just go backwards. I know Ibi was up.

[Joe House]

I mean, I was going to say a very important player did not play.

[Bill Simmons]

I get it, I get it. But I just thought it was notable. And you have Charlotte looming. And I am just on multiple Celtics text threads with the who would you want to play the most and the least? Cause even Charlotte. I don't think Charlotte's ready to win a playoff series.

[Joe House]

Bandwagon driver just, you know, cautiously switching lanes here.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's, it's, I think, a little early for them to expect to just go in and beat Boston. With that said, I don't want to see them in the 27 matchup.

[Joe House]

Okay?

[Bill Simmons]

I just don't. I don't want to see the. I don't want to see their dudes. I think they play with no fear, the three point shooting. I just don't want to see them. There's other teams I would rather play in that spot. And then the other one is Cleveland, who thought they were playing this perfectly. And it's like, oh, yeah, four or five. We'll play Toronto, we'll beat them. Then we'll play Detroit. We love playing Detroit. We can beat them. And now they have to play this incredibly frisky Atlanta team that lots of Hawks fans are saying you refuse to talk about now.

[Joe House]

But just who are these Hawks fans? I had like a three minute monologue at the end of my last podcast with Michael Pina about a Nikhil Alexander Walker, Jalen Johnson inverted pick and roll. How beautiful it was.

[Bill Simmons]

I got one email from a disgruntled Hawks fan.

[Joe House]

Look, if the, if the Cavs, the Hawks are, are, are a very good team and this has been one of the few we're going to get to this. It's one of the great stories of the NBA season. This sort of identity post Trey Young that they have. They, it was like half of their identity with Trey Young and then it just blew up and became their whole identity once he was gone and the awkwardness was lifted away from them. And they've, they're what? They're a million and just a few losses in their last 25 games. They've been outrageous. If Cleveland can't beat the Hawks in a first round series in which they have home court advantage, if they're even like wobbling in fear of the Atlanta Hawks, just, just break it up already.

[Bill Simmons]

If Cleveland lost to the Hawks in round one, they will be in trade podcasts that I do, you do, we do together, everyone else does. They'll just be the number one go to team for all Giannis trades like Palo pick a guy could have been Is it time to trade Mitchell? Oh, the Knicks are out too. Here we go. Mitchell. The Knicks, like it'll just, it'll set up a chain reaction. It's time. We're going to take a break. And then the 2026 made up NBA awards.

[Joe House]

Feel that pressure.

[Bill Simmons]

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA post season is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. Fanduel the best place to bet the teams, players and plays during their playoff run. Build a same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip off. Don't forget, with FanDuel you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat this episode is brought to you by PayPal. We've seen some legendary athletes don the number four jersey. Now, I can't name names, but you guys know who I'm talking about. In fact, if you look at my studio, there's a framed picture of one of my favorite number fours. He played hockey. Anyway, you know what else is game changing for PayPal? Pay in four. No fees, no interest, no impact on your credit score. Just the flexibility to pay the way that works for you. And it's available at millions of online stores. Pay in four with PayPal subject to approval learn more at paypal.com payinfor paypal inc. Nmls910457 all right, it's the 2026 made up awards. We will be doing all of our real stuff, the NBA, all NBA mvp, rookie of the year, all that stuff. We have weeks to talk about it, but not the made up awards. We always do it the week before the end of the season. Bunch of awards. I sent you a whole master list. I sent you some nominees. Feel free to chime in. Extra nominees. The first award, one of the most important ones we like to for the made up awards we like to have a big one first. Like in the oscars when they bring out the best supporting actress. Like, oh, I'm never ready.

[Joe House]

I'm never ready. Even though I know it's coming. I'm like, I just sat down. I'm not ready for this.

[Bill Simmons]

It's unicorn of the year. Normally a controversial award with a lot of good options. This year the nominees are victor wembed yama, Peyton pritchard, Lebron James and Jalen Johnson. I don't know if you had any more nominees to throw in.

[Joe House]

It's an interesting set of nominees. Lebron is obviously up there for his age. I would imagine. Peyton Pritchard, we can talk about whether he deserves to be mentioned in this group or this is like blockbuster movie that just got tossed in for best picture. But I did not add any additional nominees because the answer is obvious and I don't know what else there is to say.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's almost unicorn of the decade is in play for Wemby. Peyton Pritchard, I put in because of the bizarre stats about his two point shooting and him near the rim and just this weird one man post up offense that he's been able to do this ISO ball banging to you around. I've just never TJ kind of veered toward a lot of this and then Pritchard took it and grabbed it and took it to another level. But I've just never seen anybody do it like this. Okay.

[Joe House]

At 6:1. Yeah, for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Not a lot of mystery for that first one. The next one though, the 2011 Blake Griffin Award for most unexpected delight. And the reason we had this award, this was the year before lab city. Blake's out his rookie year, hurts his knee, comes back the next year. Baron Davis is on this Clippers team. He's probably 20 pounds overweight. DeAndre Jordan's feeling it out. I don't remember who the coach was. Maybe it was Vinnie Delneo. Vinny yeah, Vinnie.

[Joe House]

Vinnie.

[Bill Simmons]

Not a lot of high hopes. And then Blake came in and just ran amok and was dunking on everybody and it was like, oh, my God, this is. The Clippers have never had a guy this fun. The nominees for this award, in no particular order, Jayson Tatum's comeback, the Charlotte Hornets just in general, the all star game, Bam's 83 point game, Wemby leaping into the stratosphere, Jamal Murray being fucking awesome again, and Kawhi Leonard at age 34 becoming 2019 Kawhi One more time. Any other additional nominees for you?

[Joe House]

I added one, and it's the hawks going like 14 and one in 15 games and 20 and three in their last 23 or whatever it is post Trae Young. I mean, there are like mini runs. This is like a schedule aside. This is like an epic turnaround in the middle of the season and, like, just scorched earth on the entire Eastern Conference. So I put them. And they're super fun to watch, the way they cut and move and pass and play.

[Bill Simmons]

I agree.

[Joe House]

So I put. That was my only extra nominee. It's a heavy category already.

[Bill Simmons]

And you forgot to mention Quinn Snyder looking like he's in Steve Carell's Rooster show as, like, the other teacher who may or may not be involved with one of the coeds. He just has that kind of vibe tone. Well, just like he's. There's mystery to him. You don't know. You don't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy. My answer to this, I don't think I could recover from that unexpected delay. Yeah, Bam's 83 point game was the winner for me. Just out of nowhere, watching somebody try to score 83 points against the tanking Wizards and humiliate them when I wasn't expecting it on, like a Tuesday night, was my number one. So what is it for you?

[Joe House]

Did you see Jaime Haka Jr. On my pod last week talking about this game?

[Bill Simmons]

What did he say?

[Joe House]

He was just like, we were sitting there in shock that the Wizards just were continuing to let him go one on one. We were like, what are they? What are they doing? Like, the guy just put up 35 in the first quarter. You're not sending a second guy. They were, like, utterly in disbelief.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you see what he did in the last game they played the Wizards again? He had 14 points. He had 83. Went from 83 to 14.

[Joe House]

I found everything about it delightful, too. I found the discourse, which I was set up to feel like the discourse was going to be insufferable. And I found it delightful nonetheless, I loved it. I went, I went serious and sappy with this one. Jayson Tatum's injury last year is a flashbulb moment in NBA history. It's the same night as Cooper Flagg going to Dallas in the lottery or Dallas winning the lottery. A night I'll never forget exactly where I was, what I was doing when it happened, the whole thing. And I just given, given the history of Achilles injuries I was like my expectation I'm going to level set at he just doesn't play the next season because this is conference semifinals. And my optimistic take is going to be like he'll come back and look like, you know, half of himself because that's what happens in these things. For him to come back this early and look like this for a team with this many wins is like beyond a delight. So I picked him.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't want to pick that because it would have been a homer pick. But now I'm jealous you picked it. Maybe I should have picked it as well. All right, we award that to Jayson Tatum. I think you, you want. Well, we each make our case and then we decide. So Jason Tatum wins that. All right, this is one another really important award. The Gold Club Trial award for funniest story or moment of the season. Our nominees are. Michael Jordan joining NBC's NBA coverage and it turned out to just be edited from some 10 minute interview he did where he didn't say anything. Matt Ishbia trash talking everyone when the Sunset 32 wins even though he's traded 17 first round picks and had to pay Bradley Beal $100 million to go away to get into the luxury tax. Paul George's suspension helping put Philly under the tax. They had to make a trade too. Every Doc Rivers press conference after the Bucks got blown out where if you just left the TV on and it cuts to Doc in the thing and he just looks like he lost his dog and he's just like what did? Why am I here? Nobody going to Chris Paul's party. Tidbit from Ramona Shelburne. After what went wrong with Chris Paul and the Clippers and about how he threw like a Halloween party and only two Clippers showed up. Joe Missoula renouncing coach of the year award. They was asked if he and he's like I don't care about that award. Don't ask me about that again. It was the worst campaign of all time. And then last but not least, Ben Simmons becoming a fisherman I don't know if you have any to add.

[Joe House]

Absolutely loaded category. Kudos to everyone. It's an honor, truly, to be nominated. The only other one I thought of was the Wizards April Fool's joke gone wrong from last week, which is a great one. Which got even funnier when they issued a press release apologizing for it. So serious that it was like, is this the White House apologizing for some weird, some horrible thing or something? Like, it was just out. The whole thing was ridiculous to me. I did think there was a clear winner. Not a clear winner, but a winner. That was, for me, the winner. Should I just say it or do you want to say who you.

[Bill Simmons]

You go.

[Joe House]

I think Ben Simmons becoming a professional, semi professional, amateur, professional, whatever. Fisherman takes the cake for me. Because it was framed in the story by Mark Spears that kind of broke this or whatever terminology you want to use. It was framed as, like, you know, he's taken a break from the NBA and this is what he's doing while he kills time until he decides what to do with his comeback in the NBA. Is that really what's going on? So in a loaded field, I took that one.

[Bill Simmons]

It's great. I'm going with Michael Jordan's NBC stuff, which led to so many jokes and so much comedy, including on your podcast.

[Joe House]

I haven't done one in a while. I had a running bit, just insights to mediocrity.

[Bill Simmons]

I just thought they presented it like he was gonna be this hugely important part of their coverage. And then it was just this interview they clearly filmed over, like, margaritas at 6 o'. Clock.

[Joe House]

Do you think there was. Do you think there was a conversation at some point after the first level of backlash where NBC was like, yo, Michael, like, this is not going well.

[Bill Simmons]

Can we do another.

[Joe House]

Can you just come in for like, it'll be 20 minutes. Just wear a different outfit, different location. He was like, no, I'm good. I did exactly what you asked. We're not doing that.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. It was very Megan and Harry Ish. Next award. This is a fun one. The Halliburton for Sabonis award for most fun in season trade. Only four nominees. Zubats to the Pacers with the Clippers getting back that weird five through nine possible pick plus Matheran, triple J to Utah. McCollum for Trey or James Harden. And a second round pick for Darius Garland. What do you have?

[Joe House]

First of all, I like that CJ McCollum is now the headliner in the trade for you. It's CJ McCollum. For Trey Young as the headliner in the description. I had a couple other nominees, but I.

[Bill Simmons]

What's here? What are your other nominees?

[Joe House]

I just think the Jared McCain trade is, is, is interesting on a number of levels, including how angry it made and continues to make our own. Chris Ryan on a daily basis, losing, all the Philly fans losing their mind about it. This came down. I mean, these are, three of these four are very interesting. I don't, I don't find the Trey one all that interesting. I went Harden for Garland because it's almost like a straight up challenge trade, except one guy's 10 years older than the other guy. So it's also just a crazy vote of no confidence in the younger guy for a team that has an enormous amount at stake right now in this very season. So that one beat the Zubots one by a hair.

[Bill Simmons]

I agree. And that's our winner for this year. And we'll see five years from now. Who regrets that trade more? My guess would be Cleveland. Oh, speaking of trades, this is a new category that was created last year. It's called the Luca Trade Award for the most cataclysmic moment of the season. Our nominees, the KD Burner scandal. All Star Sunday, the February tanking crisis with the Utah Jazz. Whatever happened that two days before when everybody went nuts, including me. Chauncey Billup's arrested after the first game. Coaches won Blazers game arrested. Jimmy Butler, the knee injury bummer. But also felt like an official maybe end to the Curry Draymond whole curve, steep curve warriors era. The 65 game rule just completely backfiring over the course of three weeks here, America kind of turning on inside the NBA, one of our most beloved institutions for the first time feel like there's some real animosity toward maybe these guys don't like the league as much. I think they'll work it out. I'm going to bet on Barkley, who's the best media guy we've ever had. And then this was, this was brief. It was in November. It was when it seemed like OKC was going to go 76 and 6 while the Clippers were in a free fall. And we had two weeks there where we were terrified OKC was going to go 75 and 7, but then also get the first pick in the draft. So any other nominees for you in this category?

[Joe House]

No, I think you covered all of them and I will congratulate you because inside the NBA's public perception of it being nominated here feels like, feels like if the president of the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was like, I really love this Norwegian film about death and mortality. We're putting it in the best picture nominees. Okay, we're putting it in there. Yeah, I'm going tanking. Crisis because it's ongoing and just the noise drowned out everything else about a prolonged period of the NBA season. It is utterly embarrassing. I mean, that slate Friday night, two nights ago, top three worst night of NBA basketball in the history of the league. I mean, every game was unwatchable.

[Bill Simmons]

And what was the stat about? It was like 25 points a game was the disparity of all the games that night. And it was like one of the two worst nights ever for was something like that.

[Joe House]

The stat you're citing is by Tim Reynolds at the ap. I don't remember exactly what it was. It was something like it was either the point spreads or the final margin had only been equaled one other time in the NBA. And it was also this season. So I. And they're going to change the rules and everyone's just talking about it constantly. So in an absolutely loaded field, I mean, you're talking about a coach getting arrested, rules gone haywire, a burner thing. I'm going tanking.

[Bill Simmons]

I think you're right because the story still will not die. And every time people get tired of talking about it, something like, Friday night happens and then we're off again. And honestly, we would have talked about it all weekend if the Wemby Joker game hadn't happened.

[Joe House]

So can we. Can we also just congratulate the Blazers on bookending the year with Chauncey Billups at the beginning? And this like, bizarre. Two front office employees get fined and so does the team for illegal contact with Hanson Young before he was draft eligible. That was a new one for me.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that was. And it was a couple of years ago, right?

[Joe House]

Yeah, yeah. Before it was draft eligible.

[Bill Simmons]

We. I mentioned this in my mailbag the other day with House. We haven't talked about it, but I. To me, the seatbelt is off with the Blazers the next three months.

[Joe House]

I agree with you.

[Bill Simmons]

It is. We are just. We are going to take the speedboat out into the. Into the ocean and we're going to fucking floor it to 110 like Sonny Crockett with the Blazers. I am prepared for anything. Like Giannis trade new coach. Maybe they bring in a coach, gm, any sort of wheeling and dealing. This new owner coming in who already has this proven thing from hockey of like, I'm coming in, I'm rolling up my sleeves. Let's go. And I just think they're the wild card team this year. I, if I had to bet on Ianna's team, we don't have the odds for this, although I'm sure the prediction market does, which sadly he invested in one of them. I think I would bet on Portland in the number two spot behind the Knicks. I would have the Knicks one and I would have Portland two. For Giannis destination, that's, that's Cleveland three.

[Joe House]

You could make, you could make a lot of money if it, if it comes true based on what I think the odds would actually be. And by the way, kind of forgotten stage, you know, offstage this year, all time franchise icon Damian Lillard coming back to play basketball for the Blazers next year amid all of this, could he

[Bill Simmons]

come back for the, for the 89 game or the 78 game?

[Joe House]

I have not even considered this possibility.

[Bill Simmons]

Imagine that Dame just shows up.

[Joe House]

He won the three point contest, so why not?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you know what's changed? We didn't, I don't want to talk about the Bucks and Giannis. I just don't. But I think the one thing that's changed is it's acrimonious enough now that I think he's lost the. Okay, we'll accommodate whatever Giannis wants. We'll trade you to whatever city you want to go to. Now I think it's like, hey, Giannis, you're going to Portland. I think that's what's flipped. They're going to make the best trade for them and they're not going to worry about if his feelings are hurt or not. That would be my take. Next award, you know, an important award, almost like best cinematography, the 1986 Bill Walton Award, biggest impact under 20 minutes a game guy. This is the true six man award. Alex Caruso, Hugo Shireman, Ron Holland, Grant Williams Quietly plus 14 for the, for the Hornets this year, Andre Drummond. And my pick for this, Dennis Jenkins, who has just been a revelation for, for, for the Pistons and I think has thrown his hat into the six man award as well, because he's been the definition of a six man, a bench guy who when you actually need him to start for a couple weeks, he can do it and carry you. It's a great story. I think he went to four colleges. He's somebody I never really noticed until at some point during this season, like, wow, that that guy's kind of frisky. And then it's like, man, that Jenkins might be good. And then by the end of the year it's like, could this guy run a team? He's my pick for this one.

[Joe House]

I do want to point out that Hugo Gonzalez played one minute of garbage time today. Just, just, I just want to point that out. And the initial list of nominees. You've changed it. You're changing up on me. Had Bones Highland on it. And he's apparently been disqualified from the award.

[Bill Simmons]

I took Bones off. I felt like I maybe shot my wad on that one a little too excitedly. Cause he was good for about a week.

[Joe House]

My two other initiations is I did a basketball reference search that fit the criteria. I think Mitchell Robinson deserves a hello and Clint Capella deserves a hello. I'm going to say I made a dramatic decision on this. I think the correct answer is Alex Caruso. But last night, watching Detroit, Philadelphia, watching Dennis Jenkins yet again lead Detroit with his ball handling, with the shot creation, with his defense, and all of it to another easy win without Cade Cunningham. I mean, you can pick whether it's him or Jalen Duran. He, he's the most important reason why they have not only stayed afloat without Gay Cunningham, but just death grip on the number one seed for a week and a half now. They never slipped for a second. So I'm flipping my vote from Caruso because Caruso, we all know Caruso. It's boring. Let's have some fun. Let's honor a guy who's really one of the stories of this particular season. Dennis Jenkins. Come out from the back row, wherever they sit you at this ceremony, you're getting this award.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm really happy for him. Did a great job. And actually I thought increased the ceiling of the Pistons because one of the things, I just didn't take them as seriously as a true playoff contender. Cause I didn't really trust their bench and I didn't feel like they had like the, the right kind of guy who could come in and maybe swing a game or a quarter. And, you know, who knows? When Cade comes back, he doesn't have the car keys in the same way. But I, I, I do feel like whatever's happened with him the last four weeks, he can come into a game now and flip the game, which is what they had with Schroeder last year too. Do you think when you're thinking about big picture guys who, if you're another team, like, should we target this guy? Is he, he's trapped behind another asset. Maybe we can get this guy. I was thinking him and A.J. mitchell are the two guys that if I'm another team trying to Figure out how to think outside the box with assets and picks. Those would be the two I would look at. Is there anybody else you would put in that category? Somebody who's basically really good but maybe is being blocked by somebody or is in the perfect situation or might become available because of salary cap.

[Joe House]

Off the top of my head, I think Kayson Wallace would also maybe qualify for this or is he overqualified for this?

[Bill Simmons]

I just, I'm not, I'm just not trading him. Teams.

[Joe House]

Teams are.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you trade, would you ever trade him if you're okc? I wouldn't ever consider it.

[Joe House]

I mean OKC is going to have a whole bunch of different decision trees based on, you know, do we keep all three of these stars together for as long as possible on their max numbers? Do we not? What do we do? Like people are going to have to go one way or another. It depends what his number is going to be too. I mean is, is he, does he get to restricted free agency and someone throws a massive offer sheet at him? I don't know. I think teams are thinking about Colin Gillespie like this on a lower, but

[Bill Simmons]

I mean he kind of has a team.

[Joe House]

Yeah. You know, but now that he came off the bench today for the first time in a long, long time because they started Jordan Goodwin over him and I think they're just experimenting. Do we want to, now that Jalen Green's a full time start, do we want to just stagger our ball handling? You know, there are like Isaiah Collier on a lower level. I don't think that he's a, you know, that great of a starter kind of candidate, but I'm sure I can think of others.

[Bill Simmons]

The 1984 John Drew Award for most stunning random statistical achievement. I knew you would love this one. So I have six nominees and I'm sure you found a couple. Some of them are easy con. Leading the NBA in threes as a rookie. Bonkers SGA, 55% field goal percentage and 31 points a game as a guard. Scotty Barnes, 100 plus steals, then blocks. Derrick White, I don't know if he had a block today, but heading into Today he was 10th in the league in blocks. He had 98 blocks. Derek White is going to get to 100 blocks. Donovan Klingon leading the league in offensive rebounds with 4.5 per game. And then Wemby averaging almost 25 points a game. In less than 30 minutes a game he's 24.7, 29.7. His per 36 I think is at 30. So those would be my candidates. Do you have any other nominees?

[Joe House]

Wait, did you, did you wipe knipple off?

[Bill Simmons]

No, I had, I had con lead in the NBA in three.

[Joe House]

First of all, Derek White had no blocks today. He. There was one play where he. Someone went up and he kind of deflected it. But I guess they called it either just a deflection or maybe the guy was passing. It would be very funny if he had 99 blocks going into the last game of the season and started just chasing blocks like some guys chase triple doubles, chase assists at the end of games. Just trying to swat everything in sight just to get.

[Bill Simmons]

He's like roping people into shooting so he could go at them.

[Joe House]

Yeah. Just to, just to cinch. Just to cinch this random award. I mean, I guess it's not a season long thing. I thought Bam's 83 point game would be in here and I would even put.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I was thinking for the year. But you're right, Bam. So if it was single, single game is eligible. Bam would win.

[Joe House]

But I mean that was just such a like outlier event. And at the SGA Wilt Chamberlain 20 point streak, you know, it's not a year, it's more than one year. I thought that was interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a good one. That's a good one.

[Joe House]

I went basic on this. Call me basic like the teenagers do. I went Conquey nipple leading the entire NBA in threes and walking into the league as the best shooter in the entire world. Not named Steph Curry, which I think is what he's established himself as in year one. The volume, the different ways he can get shots off, movement off the dribble both sides of the floor. It's just you could not say enough superlatives for how great of a shooter he is in year one on a team that has been one of the stories of the season. So I went with sort of the just most boring counting stat one of all of these.

[Bill Simmons]

It's boring, but it's the right answer because you can actually bet this before the season on FanDuel and I always like to. I'll do like a couple bets where I'll have Curry for most threes parlayed with like Wemby for most blocks. And dude, those are the two chalk ones. And then put other stuff. I don't think Khan even had odds. So when you look at it from that perspective, because they probably have 20 guys that they'll put in there and it'll be like everybody you can think of. Right, Jaylen Brown, like everybody, Khan didn't have. As far as I remember, Khan didn't have odds. So to go from that to leading the league and made threes as a rookie, which is an achievement in itself. And you know, he as a shooter I thought just looked like peak prime. Klay Thompson, right. With some of the stuff, the quick release stuff that he was doing was like it took Klay Thompson four years to get to that point and Khan's already there. And I don't even know where we go from here with Khan. It's not like his release can get faster. I guess he could maybe get. Move it five feet out would be the only. I don't know what else he could even add. He's just finished already.

[Joe House]

Can I give you two more nominees that I forgot. Zion playing 51 out of 52 games and counting. I don't know what that. That seems to be something and it another single game, one that just was crazy. So maybe it doesn't qualify. Was the night that Khalil Warehead double digit points and rebounds and seven blocks and five steals off the bench. And no one had ever done that coming off the bench ever before in the history of the NBA. So I have just a little oddity for you.

[Bill Simmons]

I actually, I don't mind when they give us those things. Like he's the first guy since 1963 to have 30 points, 18 rebounds, four assists, five blocks and three steals. Like when they do those hodgepodge things. Yeah, but it's a little over the top with how many times like to me it's like jokic had a 20, 20 and 20. That's like a real. That's one where it's like, all right, I can put that into some sort of context. All right. Two coaching ones really quick. I know that this is where you. Zach gets uncomfortable. Zach does.

[Joe House]

I'm not uncomfortable. I'm ready. I'm ready.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it's the Monte Williams award for worst coaching performance. First of all, do you think Monty Williams is the right person to have this award named after? Do you think he. Can you see his face on the bust? Is there somebody else you would put here?

[Joe House]

It's got to be somebody else. Because that year with the Pistons was everyone. It felt like everyone immediately agreed on day one. You know what? This was a bad idea. The money was too much. Everyone got carried away. This is a horrible idea. And he had just coached the team to the finals and 60 wins and all that. So I feel like we could, we could do better.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, I'll work on that. I'll talk to the committee nominees. Doug Christie of the Hindenburg Kings. Ime Udoka had to throw him on there. Just a lot of clogged toilet at the end of these games and the team seems super unhappy. Brian Keefe who did not double bam out of bio for three quarters during a three point game. Willie Green no longer with us. Jamal Mosley, who's been on it feels like the quiet hot seat now for for a month and a half. And then I listen, I gotta call it like it is. I think Doc Rivers is on here as well. When you have this many 20 plus point losses, I, as much as I love the guy, I have to just throw him on there. For sake of accuracy, my winner is Doug Christie. I don't know if we have the same guy.

[Joe House]

The committee is unanimous. Congratulations to Doug Christie. It's truly been an experience to watch across the board.

[Bill Simmons]

The best thing you can say about it, to really capture the moment is sometimes with these coaches, it's like, I wonder if he'll get another head coaching job. With Doug Christie, we have the answer already. We will. He will never have another head coaching job. It will never happen. No other team will hire Doug Christie. It's the nicest thing you could say about it. We've had NFL coaches like this too, where you're watching the tail end of the season, the guy's going to get fired. It's like I'm never going to see the Patriots had Jared Mayo like that. It's like we're never going to see this guy again. Doug Christie we will never see again. As a head coach, remember predicting this?

[Joe House]

I had forgotten about that about this until someone reminded me a couple weeks ago. Remember the brief? This guy's a Hall of Fame level accomplished almost. But remember the brief John Beeline Cleveland Cavaliers era, which was over in weeks. And then all these funny stories came out. The players were like, yeah, he names plays after animals. So we're out there calling panda and Anteater and everyone's like, what are we doing here? That was a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

See, I had this thing when I did the mailbag with House about when we go to commercial for league pass instead of seeing the people dancing for the Jumbotron, it's little two minute mini documentaries about players, teams. That would be a funny wrinkle to it. It's just a two minute John B. Line documentary about the guy who had to leave in 40 games and name plays after animals. And we just.

[Joe House]

I think it was animals. I think it Was animals hippopotamus

[Bill Simmons]

a more positive award. The Brad Stevens Award for most untankable coach named after Brad Stevens 2015 performance. When the team was built to tank, was supposed to tank and just wouldn't tank. So our nominees are Joe Missoula, Jordan Ott and Thiago Splitter. Unless you can think of anybody else.

[Joe House]

Well, all the coaches who would have been like Jordy Fernandez would have been in this conversation a year ago. Turns out you can tank with Jordy Fernandez as your head coach. Even with Rick Carlile as your head coach. If you try hard enough, you can tank with a Hall of Fame. Thousand games, won all that kind of head coach. So I could not. I had no other nominees.

[Bill Simmons]

I think my answer. Oh man, this is a tough one because this is basically one of the proxies for a coach of the year, at least who you think is going to be second. It's between Missoula and I and I, I can't decide. So you're going to have to decide.

[Joe House]

I went with Joe Missoula. I, I don't think Charles Lee deserved maybe a mention here as well as, as a nominee because I don't think the Hornets had any idea. I don. Think Hornets brass ownership had any idea that any of this was in play at the start of the season. In fact, I think they would have preferred like, hey, let me get another bite at the apple.

[Bill Simmons]

You know who had an idea? He's got two thumbs and he's.

[Joe House]

You.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I'll go. I'm trying to tell you, I'll go.

[Joe House]

Joe Missoula. Just because he's, he's. The Celtics are the two seed. He's going to win coach of the year. They have gap year stamped all over them by everybody and they rejected the label and like just threw it in the trash. And I have to ask you then when he wins coach of the year, because I think he's going to win coach of the year. Having denounced the entire notion of the award, what do you think he should do when he's given the award? Do you think he should just let his whole staff come up and accept it? Do you think he should throw it in a garbage can? Do you think he should like, like give a, like a speech about how stupid the whole thing is? Do you think he should let the players accept it? I'm serious. Like, what should he do? He has preemptively said this award that I'm about to get is a piece of garbage. That is dumb. So what does one do then? Upon Receiving it.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm looking at the odds now. Bickerstaff is still favored. He's minus 240. Missoula is plus 230. I don't think. I think Bickerstaff's gonna win.

[Joe House]

You're right. Maybe Bickerstaff, you know, with the way they've. I, I'm, I would vote for Missoula, but with the way they've played, it says a lot about the culture that he's instilled there and all that. So, yeah, that's. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong.

[Bill Simmons]

To answer your question, I think he would refuse to hold it. Almost like NHL players refusing to hold the conference, whatever trophy that they get because you're not allowed to touch anything until the Stanley Cup. And I think he'd be dismissive of it and probably have a speech about how dumb awards are for people trying to lead their players, make everybody feel bad they voted for him.

[Joe House]

You know what the real award is? It's the journey. It's not the destination, it's the journey.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think it is Missoula, because I still don't know how this team's going to win like 56 games. It just seems impossible. Now. I know they had health, good fortune with the best three guys in the team. Jalen, Pritchard, White. Those guys have stayed healthy and that's really helped them. Tatum didn't play for the first three fourths of the season. I just don't understand how they're going to finish 56 and 26. It's impossible. They're 14 wins higher than the over under. All right, we're going to take a break on Spotify. We're going to keep going on Netflix. This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like an expert coach, TaxAct offers step by step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way. Add expert assist to talk to tax experts and let our experts do your taxes for you. With Expert full service, TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details.

[Joe House]

If we knew more about our sleep, what would we do differently? Would we go to bed at a consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep?

[Bill Simmons]

With Sleep score, Apple Watch measures your

[Joe House]

bedtime consistency, interruptions and sleep duration. Then every morning it combines these factors into an easy to understand score from 1 to 100. So you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from okay to very high know your sleep score With Apple Watch iPhone 11 or later required protein is now at Starbucks and it's never tasted so good. You can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks.

[Bill Simmons]

The late 1990s Chauncey Billups Award Best reason never to sell your stock so explanation for this award. Chauncey Billups, drafted by The Boston Celtics 1997. Watched him play for 50 games. There was some talent there. My big takeaway was I'm not sure this guy's a point guard. I don't know if I great athlete. I don't know if I see it. They turned him into Kenny Anderson. One of my more regrettable takes. I had my old website at this time and I was like I kind of like to trade. Kenny Anderson's a real point guard. Didn't realize at that point that he had had some personal issues going on. Bill bounces around. I can't think of anybody who would have kept their stock with him. Lands in Minnesota, turns his career around and then goes to Detroit and the rest is history. I don't know if you have your version of Atranci Billups where you learned your lesson not to give up on great talent.

[Joe House]

Is there somebody from there definitely is but I'm blanking on the spot because I was so focused on the nominees. All right, we'll do the nominees prestigious award.

[Bill Simmons]

This is a really important award. Lamelo Ball, Jared McCain only because of Darrell. Darrell said we sold high on Jared McCain. Maybe he didn't sell high enough. Anthony Black I can report firsthand. I gave up on this guy Duncan Robinson who I think we've all given up on at least four different times over the course of his career. And then he always rallies back and then Peyton Watson. I never saw it with Peyton Watson. Never thought he'd be a guy and there's probably others but those were the five. Who else did you have as nominees by the way?

[Joe House]

You know who else they didn't give up on? Peyton Watson but they made a very clear decision. We're paying one guy and not the other and we paid Christian Brown and not Peyton Watson. I would nominate just late season, late season nominees. Cody Williams is like flirting with next year's list. Maybe Bones Highland, the entire Atlanta Hawks franchise. And and I'm going to preemptively argue with you again and Goldsberry again. I am just going to stake my claim to the Amen Thompson portion of this argument now and Say anyone who labels him a disappointment or sells their stock is going to regret it.

[Bill Simmons]

Leading the league in minutes. Did you know that?

[Joe House]

Is that good, bad, nothing.

[Bill Simmons]

What is saying like it's not like he's having a bad season. I just wonder. I wonder what the next level is in. But you might be right and we might bet it might have been too harsh. I think our winner for this category is Lamelo Ball. I don't know if you have you never sold your stock. You could always get mad as people

[Joe House]

as someone like I'm checking my retirement accounts every every day and like I've just Lamelo has single handedly paid for seven vacations that I'm going to take in a couple years. So I I no brainer for me it's Lamelo Ball.

[Bill Simmons]

There was a moment even this summer, definitely even in the when they were 4 and 14 first like 20 games of the year when it was Lamelo, it was Trae Young and Ja and I think I might have even done a podcast segment of which guy would you bail on the fastest? Who would you kind of hold onto? And Lamelo was the clear choice out of the three. Like I would give this one a little longer but the point is he was closer to that conversation than is this one of the best point guards in the league. That conversation the seesaw had swung to this side and he's rallied out. This will be when you talk. We'll do next week. We'll do the 25 most intriguing guys in the playoffs on this spot.

[Joe House]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

You're giving me the play. We did that last year. Yeah, we did that last year. We did it at Grantland way back when. One of the last Grantland basketball hours.

[Joe House]

Grantland.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, remember Grantland? Great website.

[Joe House]

Funny.

[Bill Simmons]

But we'll do that last week. I'll be interested to see where Lamelo falls in the 25 most intriguing players of the playoffs. There's a world where he's just fucking awesome and basically pulls the 2009 Derrick Rose against the no kg Celtics. And I'm here.

[Joe House]

How many years did that series take off your life? A year. A full year. I mean six months minimum.

[Bill Simmons]

The two best first round series ever were that one and Spurs Clippers. Right.

[Joe House]

I mean you still probably have Ben Gordon PTSD from that series.

[Bill Simmons]

That was the one where a lot of people Ben Gordon became bitcoin where you bought in hard on Ben Gordon and it came back to bite you. So you agree on Lamelo?

[Joe House]

I do.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Joe House]

I do.

[Bill Simmons]

We'll go quickly here. The Freeman Williams Award for biggest black hole. Go look at Freeman williams as basketball reference.com if you want to have a good time. Nominees. Cam Thomas, Zach Levine, Ace Bailey. Not his fault he's on a team that wants him to shoot. And then Malik Monk. I don't know if you've watched him recently on the Kings, but he's really like, I want to get traded this summer. I need some tape. And has been dialing it up. It's got to be Cam Thomas, though. I just think as long as he's in the league, I think he has to get this.

[Joe House]

I abstained from. I abstained from the voting.

[Bill Simmons]

Because you got into it with one of the nominees over the summer. Well, he got into it with you.

[Joe House]

I felt it was appropriate and respectful of the process to abstain from the voting.

[Bill Simmons]

Fair enough. Cam Thomas is The winner. The 2007 Kevin Garnett Award. So this is literally an award with Kevin Garnett's face from the 200607 season. You have to capture the face of trap star who needs help escaping the most. Nominees. Steph Curry, Giannis Demonta, Sabonis, Lori Markkanen. And my personal winner, Trey Murphy.

[Joe House]

Oh, wow. I didn't see that one coming.

[Bill Simmons]

Save Trey Murphy, get him to a real team. I've had enough. Enough of him on a. Not a real team. Let's put him on a real team. Let's put him on a team that has chemistry, that has guys that seem to like each other, that doesn't need five basketballs. Let's put him in a good situation. Let's put him on the Spurs. Let's put him on the Thunder. Let's put him on the Nuggets.

[Joe House]

Let's not put him on those.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's put him on the Celtics. No, no. Let's put him on the Pistons. Let's put him on the Hornets and go fucking crazy. Put Trey Murphy somewhere else. No, Trey Murphy on New Orleans.

[Joe House]

The world does not need Trey Murphy on the San Antonio spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder. No, we don't need that.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, from a fear title standpoint, yeah, fair. I'm just looking out for Trey Murphy. I feel bad for him. Put him on a real team.

[Joe House]

Here's my thought process. Feels a little early for Trey Murphy to win this award. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Markkanen's finally coming out of four years of Utah purgatory onto a good team next year. Giannis is. I'm just. We don't want to talk about it. It's whatever. And steph Doesn't. I don't think, want to leave the Warriors. And then I look around and I'm like, damonis, Sabonis. Do you think he cries every night when he goes to sleep? I mean, do you think he actually weeps just like his.

[Bill Simmons]

He probably looks at his. He probably looks at his plus minus on that NBA site and sees the minus 15.5 or whatever it is.

[Joe House]

Do you think he watches YouTube clips of himself lighting the beam three seasons ago? Just. Just. And his wife is like, hey, Thomas, are you doing it again?

[Bill Simmons]

Come to.

[Joe House]

Come to bed. Are you doing it again?

[Bill Simmons]

It's over. We're not lighting the beam anymore. He's an interesting one. I would still have Trey Murphy, so maybe we'll split the vote. Sabonis is an interesting one because I think people have given up on him as like, you could actually win three straight playoff rounds with this guy as one of your four best guys.

[Joe House]

How about one playoff round? Yeah, all four best guys is too many guys. But. But this is why. So this is how I interpreted the award. Who needs help escaping the most? I think he needs help in the form of another team valuing him more highly than the rest of the league and the consensus around the league and that they probably should. I think he needs that kind of help.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know what the team is because the defense stuff with him. On the other hand, I think he's an incredibly skilled offensive player that if you put him with other really high IQ players, I always thought, like, if you just put him on the warriors with the way they play and the kind of guys that they get, I feel like he would thrive for them.

[Joe House]

Maybe the Bulls could get Sabonis if they take back Levine and DeRozan and just put all of the morass of players who have switched teams into one team.

[Bill Simmons]

Trump ruled two days ago. The Bulls and Kings are not allowed to trade.

[Joe House]

This has been my rule. This has been my.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe that should listen to you. He did it on True Social. So you have Sabonis. I have Trey Murphy.

[Joe House]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, this is one of the big awards. Okay. The Perk thinks Jokic pads his stats award for the most scalding hot media take of the year. Perk did say this a couple years ago. That wasn't even the hot. That wasn't even there when he said that.

[Joe House]

I was not. If I. I was not on TV with him, but I was there at espn. That was not even the most scalding thing he said about that MVP race.

[Bill Simmons]

I remember first of all, I want to apologize because I should have been keeping track of these during the year and I didn't. So I had to kind of go off memory and some Google searches. But here's what we have for this category. Six nominees. Perk says in December that Kawhi Leonard was the worst free agent signing ever. That one actually burned my eyebrows. Stephen A. Recently, I think this happened after the OKC game. Suggesting Luka fakes injuries when he's not playing well. That became a whole thing.

[Joe House]

I missed that one.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that became a thing. Perk said Charlotte limited Lamelo's minutes to lower his scoring average so he won't be an All Star, and that would make him easier to trade. There was an OKC writer Clemente Almanza when the expansion thing started, who said Seattle fans, before they get the Sonics back and their history back, should have to apologize to Oklahoma City fans before they get their history back. In other words, we're going to hold your history until you apologize to us. Mark that one down. Stephen A. Pushing Jaylen Brown for MVP in mid March. I love Jaylen Brown, but that one had. That ship had sailed. And then Stephen A. Blame LeBron for ruining the slam dunk contest, which he was never in.

[Joe House]

But that's why he ruined it, though

[Bill Simmons]

the take was he should have been in it. But one of the things with LeBron, he really only has like two dunks. I mean, he was smart to avoid the dunk contest. He's like a cockback and one hand dunk guy. There was a reason he never wanted to be in it. My winner for this, Unless you have any other. Do you have any other nominees?

[Joe House]

I don't.

[Bill Simmons]

The winner is the OKC writer demanding an apology from the Seattle fans. I thought that was absolutely unbelievable. I was in awe of that take.

[Joe House]

I couldn't decide what to do with that one because I don't know how to say this. It feels more appropriate to deflate Stephen A. Smith and Kendrick Perkins than it does to deflate him. But that was so wildly insulting to an entire metropolitan area. And not only that. How would it work exactly? Are these handwritten letters that everyone in certain zip codes has to write?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, you have to digitally sign it.

[Joe House]

Is it the mayor? Is it like, what. What exactly are you asking for? And you're holding the Sonics earned history. The stuff that happened in Seattle over their head, like ransom for like. Like a kidnapping.

[Bill Simmons]

You guys won the title last year and it was like the second title for the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise. The first one Was in Seattle. All right, another really important word. The Virginia Beach Kings award for most contrived story on a slow news day. Remember the Virgin Virginia Beach Kings? I do remember when that had like a minute. All right, nominees here. Expansion being approved for 20, 28, 29 without any bids or 22 votes from the 23 votes from the owners. That somehow became a story. We picked the season and the cities. Well, you don't have bids or owners yet. LeBron using Rich Paul's podcast on the ringer to try to get the Lakers to trade Austin Reeves. This was an actual thing people thought, Stephen. A feuding with the New Orleans Pelicans. This happened.

[Joe House]

Another one that I missed completely and I googled it and I was like, oh, wow, this is real, real thing.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like a two day feud. Can the Jays coexist in Boston was the thing that kept happening over and over and over again. The Clippers want LeBron to replace the vacated Kawhi cap space. This was a recent one. I really enjoyed this one. It would have to involve live dominance. Kawhi somehow being. Somehow, somehow his contract being voided. What are the odds of that? Like, honestly, like Ron Artest, his Latrell Spree roll. His contract didn't get voided when he choked his coach.

[Joe House]

We'll find out when the elite law firm of Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen and Katz finishes its investigation in 20, 25 years from now.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And then last but not least, the recent one. LeBron doesn't like Memphis.

[Joe House]

Well, that's not a contrived story. That was. He said, I don't like. Basically said it and then doubled down

[Bill Simmons]

and said, I don't like Memphis either. I mean, I'm Milwaukee either. Your answer for this or do you have any other nominees?

[Joe House]

I don't know if these fit. I just remember a lot of media noise about, you know, we gotta wait to see what the Bucks really are. We can't judge the Bucks until Kevin Porter Jr. Comes back and plays with Giannis. Like, we gotta wait. We gotta wait for that. Can the three guards coexist in San Antonio or do they just need to trade the Aaron Fox, like right now? Because these two young guys are so good. I thought that was silly. And it's burbling up now. We're going to talk about versions of it coming up, but specifically, like, did or did Jason Kidd not know or know about the Luca trade ahead of time? Are all nominees for me and another one that I might actually vote for. This might have been limited to Lebatard's platform and we all love Dane Lebatard and his show, but there was a day like a month.

[Bill Simmons]

Speak for yourself.

[Joe House]

There was a day like a month ago where they had. Unless it was AI and I always assume everything is AI, but it was like a long clip. I saw they finally had the discussion of like, basically, are we sure Eric Spoelstra is a good coach? Are we sure, like none of this is his fault.

[Bill Simmons]

I was like, wow, SPO.

[Joe House]

Yeah, I am sure Eric Spoelstra is a good coach.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. That was a segment.

[Joe House]

So of all your nominees, I think I would go with Stephen A feuding with the Pelicans because it's ridiculous. It's just. Just saying it out loud is like the tagline of a ridiculous movie that happened. And like. But. But it's like, yeah, so I'd go with that one.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that's the winner as well. All right. One of our big ones. This is like bringing up best actor right now, the McKeskey Award for Best American White Guy. Previous winners, again, it's an American White guy. Previous winners include Chet Holmgren, Tyler Herro, Kevin Love, Mike Miller.

[Joe House]

Do two bunch of them. Do two of them come out and introduce the nominees. Like Kevin Love, come out.

[Bill Simmons]

We like. And please welcome Kevin Love and Mike Miller with Tyler Hansborough. I. I'm in awe of how loaded this class is.

[Joe House]

It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.

[Bill Simmons]

Nominees. Cooper flagg just scored 51 points as a 19 year old. Con Knippel, Peyton Pritchard, Chet Holmgren, Austin Reeves and Donovan Klingon. Anybody else who needs to be a nominee here?

[Joe House]

Well, first of all, when I told my wife about this award, she as a Croatian person was like, wait a second. Why just American White Guy, you know, wouldn't we Yugoslavians clean up and sort of. I was like, well that's, that's the point. Like we just have. You have so many overqualified people.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joe House]

I had no notes on the nominees. It's an absolutely loaded field other than I might. Although he's missed so many games. I think Tyler Heroes had a sneaky good season. I went with it. I agonized over this. Austin Reeves career year, Cooper flag and Kipple, what they're doing. Consistency, defensive dominance, health. This year, dominant team. I'm giving Chet Holmgren a repeat win for this award. It's a tough one.

[Bill Simmons]

So I thought about it long and hard and it comes down to which of these guys is the most reasonable. All NBA vote. If they. If one of them Ended up on a third team. All NBA. Which means the answer is Chet Holmgren. We have rookie of the year for flagging knipple. The other guys. I think Reeves before he got hurt. Yeah. If he hadn't gotten hurt, I think there's a real chance he could have taken this. But I think it's Chad Holmgren. Back to back McKeskis for Chad Holmgren.

[Joe House]

I think agents have to start working this into their contracts for, like, if he gets the McKesky Award, $15,000 bonus. Not a huge. Not a huge bonus by NBA standards, but if he gets The Bill Simmons McKeskey Award, 15K.

[Bill Simmons]

It would be funny if they put it in the CBA and you got like a 5% salary cap pump. We did an old ESPN or Grantland column. I did. We actually. Somebody made a fake McKeskey trophy for this, and it's one of the funniest things we ever ran. It's McKeskey's face on this bronze. Whatever. And as always, I encourage people to go onto YouTube and watch McKeskey highlights. Okay.

[Joe House]

It's the fact that you have to say, as always about that. As always, as I frequently tell people.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, listen. The Dennis Rodman award for biggest ongoing distraction. There's not going to be a lot of mystery here. Or maybe there will be because we have Giannis versus Milwaukee. We have John Morant, whatever the hell was going on with him in Memphis. Kawhi and the aspiration scandal. Is it a scandal we still don't know. And then tanking. Any other nominees for you here?

[Joe House]

65 game rule.

[Bill Simmons]

Yep. Okay.

[Joe House]

Burner scandal, whatever you want to say. Mark Cuban versus the Adelsons versus the ultimate regret of life. It's Giannis. It's Giannis because it's the worst kind of distraction because it will never stop. And it's reached a point of over saturation. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's kind of amazing to me that Kawhi and aspiration isn't gonna win this. But I think people tuned this story out a while ago, and I think a lot of people, including myself, were like, can you just tell me what happened? When we have a final verdict, we can't escape this Yanis story. This is like. Every time you think, you think it's like poison ivy. Every time you think you got rid of it, all of a sudden it's back again. And it's been going on since August and it's been going on in a way that people are now, I think, vehemently tired of it. When he started going against him this week because they wouldn't let him play. And I don't even think people wanted to report it anymore. I think people are just like, just fucking trade them. At the end of the year, we're all done with this. Just trade them.

[Joe House]

This latest round was bordering on the absurd on a lot of different levels of whether he's healthy enough to play. We'll talk more, whatever we, maybe we won't talk more about it, but that's my pick.

[Bill Simmons]

DeAndre Blatch Award most immediately regrettable contract or extension last 12 months. Named after Andre Blatch who signed an extension that didn't kick in for a year. And over the course of that year they became so unenamored with him that when they were allowed to amnesty anyone on their roster, they amnestied him before his extension started.

[Joe House]

Amnesty was really a great time.

[Bill Simmons]

I love that. I think they should bring it back. I honestly like you should be able to use an amnesty once every 10 years.

[Joe House]

There should have to be a ceremony too. Like everyone's got to go to a podium and it's like the opposite of being, it's like the opposite of being knighted. It's like something like that sounds great.

[Bill Simmons]

Regrettable contracts. Paolo Jaren Jackson, Miles Turner Dorian Finney Smith, Chris Paul. Any other nominees?

[Joe House]

Oh, I've got nominees. You want nominees? Yeah, just, just a couple of nominees. I was a little surprised. And I wouldn't pick him, nor would I even nominate him. I was a little surprised. De' Aaron Fox's name did not come up. And I think the reason is if you're gonna win 60 games, you just get a pass. And he's been largely good.

[Bill Simmons]

That's how I felt.

[Joe House]

I would actually, just to pick a winner for my winner for this, I would go off the nomination list like, like ordering off the menu. I'll take, I'll take. For my main course, I'll take Jakob Pertle contract extension. Like it's like almost $30 million a year. He wasn't even extension. He wasn't even like becoming a free agent for two years. He had a bad back, he has back issues. He's just fine as a starting NBA center. And the Raptors are like, you know what? We don't even want you to wait, let alone two years, not even six months. Here's ninety million dollars or one hundred and whatever million dollars. And he's had a largely forgettable injury riddled season. It never, it was the most inexplicable contract of the summer. So I'm Going off off the menu and ordering a big fat helping of Jakob Poulton.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not perfect. Even heroes have warts. Purdl should have been on there. That's my mistake. I think it's a great choice. It made no sense when they did it. Also like when we did the worst contracts draft with Woz and House. I was going hard on centers just cause I feel like we've learned that there's this giant inefficiency with how much you should pay a center. And if you're 20 million and up, unless this guy is Wemby or Jokic, maybe not a great idea. And Toronto just ignored all the evidence and went all in on more Jakobl. He got dominated by Namias Kata today.

[Joe House]

It would be one thing if he were approaching free agency and you thought, well we're a good team. We don't really have a replacement for him. That's the bird rights trap, as Hollinger calls it, that you fall into with your own guys. This was like why?

[Bill Simmons]

What? What? Like really good one. 2027 Ewing Theory Award for the Star most likely to be Ewing Theory next season Giannis Zion, Kawhi Ja KD Any other nominees?

[Joe House]

So to be clear, what we're picking here is this person goes to a new team and his old team thrives.

[Bill Simmons]

Basically KD and the Suns this year.

[Joe House]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the Suns are like a stealth Ewing theory team right now. Not that they're going to win the title him, but my pick is not Giannis. As much as I wanted to pick that one. I think Zion was my favorite one for this.

[Joe House]

It's a good pick. They clearly, if they keep your guy Trey Murphy instead of trading them or getting him to a new place as you so want and they keep the other infrastructure around what they have now and just excise 9 or turn him into a piece that fits better or whatever. That's a. That's a pretty solid case. I went with. I went with John Moran. It's a little hard because the Grizzlies don't really have a roadmap to being like what's. Who's. Who's the best player on the team if not John Moran? Are we going this all. Am I going so far all in on Ty Jerome, But I just like the way, I mean, who knows what of their young guys other than Coward and some of their other core guys will be on the team next year. I've enjoyed watching the remnants of the Grizzlies play. They play hard. They've sort of bought into a style of play. They play defense, they're super handsy, they play fast. And I could see a world where like the Morant cloud is removed and they just like become a really fun 34 win team next year.

[Bill Simmons]

It's become a tough place. It's definitely like a trap game every at Memphis game. Now where these teams go, they all hate staying at the hotel which finally became a thing in the last week. They don't really like going there. You're playing a team that's tanking and they just kind of sneak up on you. All right, so we'll split that vote quick aside for this was not on the list that I sent you.

[Joe House]

And I forgot about Edie, by the way. If I forgot, even forgot about Zach. Edie.

[Bill Simmons]

Edie, come back. Mike Smelts, who I think was in the mailbag the last one we did. He wanted to know why the MVP wasn't on the made up awards. Not most valuable player, most valuable Poku given to the bad player in a Tanki team who's given too many minutes as a stealth way to make the team lose. And brought back the 2021 season when they unleashed Poku and he shot 37% and was one of the great tanking weapons anyone's had. First of all, my apologies. That should absolutely. Next year we will have the most valuable poku. We'll will be on the menu. He suggested Bez Mbang on the Utah Jazz, who all of a sudden was playing all these big minutes for the Jazz as a possibility. I guess my issue with this award is I don't know if we'll ever be able to recreate Poku again. The combo of how bad he was, but then also this weird hope and love that the Thunder fans had for him. Like there might be something there. Maybe Preston did it again and there was nothing there. I don't know if we see that again.

[Joe House]

So Bez is among a pile of guys who are suddenly playing 40 to 48 minutes. I mean literally entire games. And so I think to win this award, the essence of this award is you can't just sort of exist out there as a three and D kind of guy for 48 minutes. You have to have the ball and do a lot of super damaging things with it. So I'd have to think hard about who that really is.

[Bill Simmons]

This year I don't think the guy exists. And in some cases it's people like Sensiba played 43 minutes today, but he's actually good.

[Joe House]

He's fine.

[Bill Simmons]

26. So it really. I don't. Maybe Most valuable Poku can't be an award. Or maybe it's. Maybe it's a. You know when you see it, it's like when the Oscars, when they bring out the guy and they give somebody like it's Harrison Ford. It's a special Irving Thalberg award for special achievement. Maybe that's how it has to go. By the way, if we see it again, we know.

[Joe House]

Not a hot take. Shrinking is a favorite in the low household. I just, I say it every episode to my wife. Harrison Ford, American Treasure. It's not, it's not a hot take but I like to be reminded of it. He's so good in the show and he's just, he's an American treasure.

[Bill Simmons]

These all time now you're sucking up to Mallory. League pass. Broadcast team of the year. I'm not even going to give nominees. This is your, your category. You care about this the most. Who was your favorite league past broadcast team this year?

[Joe House]

So I. All encompassing the broadcast crew, the play of the team, how those two things mesh together. And it's gotta be Charlotte. It's gotta be Charlotte with Eric Collins and Dell Curry and watching that team run up and down the floor and shoot threes and dunk Alley.

[Bill Simmons]

Oops.

[Joe House]

It's like, look, we all know who the sort of pet broadcast teams are. We all love the New York broadcast, the Brooklyn broadcast, lots and lots. I love the Toronto broadcast. But the whole experience of Eric Collins just losing his mind 10 times a game for a team that like, like you watch the Wizards broadcast and they'll lose their mind over like Bub Carrington making a mid range jump shot like a Bob. Look at Bob Carrington showing out for the Wizards.

[Bill Simmons]

Timeout.

[Joe House]

Wizards are down by 21. Eric Collins is like going crazy for legitimate basketball reasons. And the whole thing, the uniforms are great, the court's great, the honeycombs, the Hornet, everything.

[Bill Simmons]

Charlotte, I had them as well. It's I think the only two Brock. Well, there's three. Cause Eddie Johnson does the Phoenix. There are three teams where I make sure. Where I switch the Brock. You can switch the broadcast feed, they'll give you one. And if it's Charlotte, if it's Phoenix or the other one for me is Denver. I will switch over to their broadcast teams to hear their people do the games.

[Joe House]

So I never, I never voted in the top 100 that ESPN 100 that they used to do when we would rank the players. But this is how you would, this is how they would be Ranked, you would just get like snap decision on two players and you would just do that a bunch of times. And they would then spit out your rankings of the players that way. That would be a fun column. Someday if we really just wanted to piss a lot of people off or delight a lot of people is just like that. But for league press broadcasters, just like, okay, it's. It's Philly Detroit. Who are you listening to? Staff dud. And just like, me too. Just to see. And just see how it ends up.

[Bill Simmons]

You. You said more than enough about Eric Collins. I want to chime in. I think he's spectacular. He is like everything you would ever want from your local play by play guy. Because he's like, Drew Carter's like this with the Celtics too. They're overqualified to be doing the local games. Like, they're really national guys. The difference with Collins is he's been in Charlotte for a while, really cares, but cares not in a way where it's like you're a little embarrassed for them. Like they're cheering for the team too much. Like, he really cares. And like somebody will make a shot against them. It'll be like two minutes left, they're down one and then some fuck up and somebody will hit a three against them. And he'll, he'll just say some crazy sentence like, oh, isn't that a chainsaw in the tibia? Like just. He just has like this endless thing of crazy comments.

[Joe House]

The Hornets are hanging on like a cat on a screen door.

[Bill Simmons]

He's. He's a 10 out of 10. I love Eric Collins. I'm so happy that. So good. And Del's great. I watched the whole Dell Curry day. I thought it was so genuine with those guys and shout out to them.

[Joe House]

Note for announcers. A lot of what you're saying is he's enthusiastic without being like a gratuitous homer. And part of that is, unlike some other homers, never hostile to the other team or the opposing players for no reason. Never going out of your way to criticize, sometimes unjustly, somebody on the other team.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm blanking on her name on the Nuggets broadcast. Katie.

[Joe House]

Katie Wingy. Katie Wingie.

[Bill Simmons]

So she's done a couple games. I thought she was fantastic. Like, as the color person, I really thought, like, she had high level, smart, like breaking down what was going on. And I thought she was really good. It seems like they bounced the partners around a little bit, but I thought she was really good.

[Joe House]

She played at a fairly high level in College, I think. And it seems to me that they're making her the heir apparent for whenever Scott Hastings, who played against Larry Bird in college whenever he retires.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I did the rare. I never add Twitter follows anymore, but she was really good. I was like, I'm following her on Twitter. The Lou Brown Award for out of nowhere surprise team where we have Phoenix, Charlotte, Boston and post Trey Atlanta Loaded category. I think it's probably Phoenix, though, who had them as the seventh seed. It would have been absurd. Every other one sort of makes sense, right? Phoenix doesn't. Still doesn't make sense. I still don't understand it.

[Joe House]

There's just, you get a lot of mileage out of playing hard. Chemistry, good top end talent and booker, good complimentary pieces, great coaching. I mean, they're only going to finish with like whatever. Only they're going to finish with 45 wins. So it's not like they've blown the doors off people. Certainly they've blown the doors off expectations. I still went with the Hawks if, like, I issued a formal apology for my Hawks optimism on my podcast around Christmas. I sat down and I reckoned with what I had done and what I had convinced people was going to happen with the Hawks. I actually thought about filming it in the vein of Will Smith's taking questions about why he slapped Chris Rock. I was going to sit down and wear the baseball hat that he had and we just ran out of time. And I was going to be read fake questions like, Zach, why did you think Trae Young would fit with this team? And I'd be like, well, that's an interesting. Anyway. And then they were like seven in a row. 11 in a row. 15 out of 16. Like, what's happening? It was an ultimate what's happening for me.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, I think you've convinced me. I'll switch mine over. Cause we had all given up on the Hawks and left them for dead. And it just seemed like they'll make some giant weird trade this summer and that'll be it. What's weird is, does all of this happen if they don't trade Porzingis? Cause Kaminga's already on the outside looking in for them. I wonder if like they had kept Porzingis, if that would have been a fun wild card for them. Couple more awards. The ML car trying to trade for a retired Michael Jordan award for goofiest but possibly real upcoming off season subplot. This is a thing that happened. He did call the Bulls and try to trade for a retired Michael Jordan and they hung up on him and then he leaked to people that he tried to trade for Michael Jordan. So technically it was true.

[Joe House]

I'm actually surprised there are not more awards named for ML car, but that's a different story.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Nominees. This is for this guessing this summer. The warriors trying to get Kawhi. We found out before the trade deadline they actually did try to get Kawhi when they traded James Harden. The warriors came in and tried to make a bid. Didn't get them. LeBron becoming the warriors player. Coach Paolo for Giannis. The Celtics trade Jaylen Brown or OKC says fuck it and trades J Dub. What is. All those are ridiculous but what's the one that make. Oh, give me if you have any other nominees.

[Joe House]

No, all of these broke my brain. Although Paolo for Yanis is not to me goofy at all on a number of levels. It's something I pitched in the fall before I forgot that Paolo was poison pilled. Celtics trading Jalen felt more plausible last off season than now. But crazy things happened. His contract is what it is.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't see now that they've reset the tax. I don't see any scenario where it happens and I don't. Chisholm is like he goes to every game. He loves the team. Everybody loves the J. I don't. I don't see a scenario is it.

[Joe House]

I mean I went with the warriors trying to get Kawhi which doesn't feel goofy since it happened, but I do. I mean, God only knows what could happen this summer. What's going to happen with Kawhi was going to happen with his contract, etc. But I went with that one because LeBron's not going to become player coach. Right. They could go to the warriors, but that one is not going to be on the table.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. Would they bend the rule if. If they. If The warriors and LeBron went to Adam and were like, can you bend this rule on the player Coach, you're

[Joe House]

going to certainly be good for business. Does LeBron want to be a coach?

[Bill Simmons]

No. No. I just. It's stupid. I'm going to say my answer is OKC trading J Dub.

[Joe House]

I left that one sitting there for you. I'd rather you take it.

[Bill Simmons]

I just find it hard to believe they're going to be paying three max guys and Kayson Wallace and they're going to have more stuff coming and I just think Presti will proactively do stuff and I don't think they're going to do this. Just for the record, don't aggregate me be like Simmons thinks. Okay, we're talking goofiest but possibly real. This one had like a shred of. Well, what happens if OKC loses in the conference finals? Do they just run it back? Do they get creative? They have all these picks. Do they try to upgrade? Upgrade Jalen Williams, who was already a top 25 guy.

[Joe House]

You're talking about last year.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I'm talking about this year. Like if they lost.

[Joe House]

Yeah, I was going to say what complicates all this is if they win

[Bill Simmons]

the championship, the zaza peculia word. Patchoulia patulia. The zaza pachulia word for the one NBA rule that absolutely needs to be changed. 65 games tanking half court shots don't count as field goal attempts. A passion point of yours. And league pass showing people dancing during every timeout. Anything else you would add here?

[Joe House]

You should get to pick your opponent as the number one seed and there needs to be a time limit on reviews.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's really good. I'm going with that one.

[Joe House]

That's my pick too. I went off that one.

[Bill Simmons]

45 second reviews. 45 seconds.

[Joe House]

That's it. Done.

[Bill Simmons]

Every time you say you went off the menu, Joe has his stomach growl.

[Joe House]

Anything?

[Bill Simmons]

Some food. Just so you know. That's right. It should be 45 seconds for the record.

[Joe House]

First of all, first of all, I do have to admit defeat on the half court shots rule. It worked. Players take half court shots. I, I, I mean I still think it's. I, I like the idea of having having the field goal percentage cowards have to be publicly cowardly by not shooting. I enjoyed that, but I enjoy the

[Bill Simmons]

he me as well. So 45 seconds. I don't even think the refs go over to the monitor. I think they decide it in Secaucus and they just tell the ref and it's announced. I don't even need the refs like, but oh, I'm going to put my headphone. I need them out.

[Joe House]

And the refs wearing the headsets has been this weird. They are wearing them now. They're not like on again, off again thing. Like, what's going on with that? Why did that, you know, just these games, the games are too long still. And a close game at the end. If there's three reviews, you're just going to, it's going to take too long.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, well, we'll go through a couple of quick ones here. The 2010 Baron Davis Award for best individual mail in of the season. Sorry, Baron. I went to those games. Unfortunately John Moran, Zion Anthony Davis, Zach Levine or Mark Cuban. I'm going. I'm going out of the box here and giving it to Mark Cuban. How is this guy still giving interviews and taking. First of all, nobody asked you to sell the team. You sold the team after you hired Nico Harrison. Right? The GM who then made the LUCA trade, who now you've been badmouthing. You hired him. You picked the ownership group to sell the team to. You lost your say in the whole process.

[Joe House]

You see, you had the famous line of like, nothing's changing except my wallet or whatever he said.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. You're a rich guy who. I don't. Didn't seem like you need the money. Or maybe you did of selling the team. You sold too early. You sold before the value of all the franchises went way up. You handled every piece of this wrong. Not to mention you said you were going to be involved and you weren't. And now it just feels like for the entire season, he's been trying to throw his scent off his culpability in the Luca trade, which never would have happened if he still owned the team. Like, I don't think he should give interviews about it anymore would be my take.

[Joe House]

And so that fits the mail in criteria for you because he mailed it

[Bill Simmons]

in by selling the team. It's your fault they traded Luka. You're Dr. Oppenheimer in this. Wow. Yeah. Is that a hot take? Don't sell the team. You don't want them to trade Luka Doncic. Keep the team yourself.

[Joe House]

Invoking the father of the nuclear bomb. Well, it's certainly.

[Bill Simmons]

This was the NBA trade. Nuclear bomb.

[Joe House]

I went much. I went with John Morant because he literally stopped trying during multiple games to the point that Blake Griffin and I think his first, like, welcome to broadcasting moment, called him out at halftime of a game, and then he's just disappeared. But I. But you. You make quite a case for Mark Cuban.

[Bill Simmons]

Just how about this? Point the finger this way.

[Joe House]

Yeah. There is a lot of blame being thrown around retrospectively.

[Bill Simmons]

It would be like if Howard Schultz, when they. When he sold the Sonics to the Oklahoma City Thunder businessman group who were dying to bring a team to the Thunder, and then they moved the team to Oklahoma City. It's like, oh, my God. What? I can't believe that happened. It's like, you couldn't. You sold it to a bunch of guys from okc. All right. The Shane Battier award for Sloan Conference stat nerd. Darling du jour is. It's Diabate, right? Did anyone have More fun with the what the fuck is going on here Stats for the advanced metrics than all diabatte lineups and all the weird shit with him. Or would you go with somebody else than the Moose?

[Joe House]

I'm happy. I'm happy to give it to Moussa. A couple other names that came up for me were Dean Wade. Cause the Cavs are just obsessed with well when Dean Wade's healthy, look out but Dyson Daniels, Clint capella, Derrick Jones Jr. But I'm happy to give it to the Moose.

[Bill Simmons]

Hugo. Hugo. Having the like +17 net rating for most of the season was pretty crazy too. The Vitali Potapenko award for worst deadline trade for the kids out there 1999 strike season 50 games Celtics are a bottom 10 team. Rick Patino who was just a serial killer when he was running the team and just leaving bodies left and right decided to trade an unprotected first round pick for Vitaly Patapico who was a backup center masquerading as a starter. And that pick turned out to be the ninth pick in the draft which would have been either Andre Miller or Sean Marion if they had it and they did not have it. Worst trade Kobe White for nothing. Porzingis for Kaminga and Healed or Simons for Vucevich or another nominee that I don't have.

[Joe House]

Jared McCain. Too soon to say. Too soon to say. And they got real draft equity for him.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I wouldn't put that as the number one but it could be a nominee.

[Joe House]

I mean I'm just going, I'm going, I'm zooming out and just going the entire Chicago Bulls organization for everything gets this award. I mean I don't follow hockey in football closely enough to say this. Is there a more I ask you then is there a more depressing franchise in American professional sports right now than the Chicago Bulls?

[Bill Simmons]

I think that yeah to flip that around most depressed fan base it's down to Chicago and Sacramento. I think in the finals even Sacramento

[Joe House]

is going to enter the lottery in pole position or fourth position.

[Bill Simmons]

At least they have that.

[Joe House]

The Bulls are ninth in the lottery standings hoping for a Derrick Rose redux with Matus Buzelis and a whole bunch of like but even giddies like last two months have been now I guess you just throw them all the way have been just like okay what was

[Bill Simmons]

the Kobe White trade and why did they then trade Vucevich to take on six more million dollars of Simons? What was that?

[Joe House]

I don't know. And it's tempting to say. Well they got Colin Sexton who's been pretty good on an expiring contract and he'll be on another team next year when he walks for nothing. And also, I mean wherever you want to classify.

[Bill Simmons]

Why did they keep dang in the three way trade? They did. Why did they reroute him somewhere else? I mean he need a 22 year old young energetic forward.

[Joe House]

And their two big second draft swings were Rob Dillingham and Jaden Ivy. And one of those has gone completely sideways and it's just. I just.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. It sounds like you're. We should just move right next to the.

[Joe House]

Let's do it.

[Bill Simmons]

The David Kahn award for worst GM performance. Nico Harrison not eligible. I had him in there but then the more I looked at it. Not eligible. Kings gm. I don't even know who is it? It's Scott Perry. Scott Perry. It's really Vivek and whoever his kids are the gm like does somebody can announce themselves at a dinner? It's like I'm the GM of the Kings. But they're not actually the gm right. They're not really making these moves.

[Joe House]

That'd be great if I went. If I started going to parties and just introducing myself as the GM of the Kings. I just want you guys to know I been quiet about it, but I'm running the Kings.

[Bill Simmons]

Kings GM Joe Dumars on New Orleans. John Horse on the Bucks are our winner. Arturis on the Bulls. So I don't think we'll have this job a week from now would be my guess.

[Joe House]

I just don't.

[Bill Simmons]

It was really abysmal for five years here.

[Joe House]

And it's a. Yeah, it's in totality multiple year award. In this case.

[Bill Simmons]

Start your day with Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal. The instant Oatmeal. Ready to help you tackle whatever your day brings. Like wrangling your toddler into their car seat. That was fun. Coaching your 6th graders soccer team.

[Joe House]

Go girls.

[Bill Simmons]

And carrying all the groceries in one trip. Try Quaker Protein Instant Oatmeal Granola and bars. Great taste and a good source of protein. Quaker bring out the good. The Le Bradford Smith vs. MJ Award for saddest NBA feud where we have LeBron vs. Memphis. Chris Paul vs. Clippers. Stephen A. Vs. The PE Gens are Mark Cuban vs. Nico. And the Dumonts I think is my winner again for all the reasons I

[Joe House]

said earlier, that's my winner as well. Out of this group of nominees because no one is rooting for anybody in the feud. Everyone is rooting against all parties involved. In the feud. And everyone is rooting for Luka Doncic to have success for another franchise. Everyone in Dallas is now somehow a Lakers fan after all of this. And so that was my saddest feud, too.

[Bill Simmons]

We're running late on time, so we're going to cut the team Moran award for most polarizing family member. We'll just give it to Rick Brunson right now.

[Joe House]

Consulted on that. That was a committee of one.

[Bill Simmons]

The 1988 Reggie Lewis. I don't know, I just like this guy. Award for a young guy who's not playing much yet, but you've already bought significant stock. Really important category here. Our nominees. Ron Harper Jr. Carter Bryant, Hugo, Will Riley.

[Joe House]

He's like Madonna. He just has one name, Hugo, and

[Bill Simmons]

I can't even say it right half the time. Will Riley, a Joe House. Absolute favorite. Favorite.

[Joe House]

He's on my old rookie team now.

[Bill Simmons]

He should be Kaishan George. Malachi Smith. Did I say that right? Malachi. Malachi Smith. Diwara, the Knicks. And my personal pick, Niederhauser. I'm not even going to try to say his first name on the Clippers. I love Niederhauser. I was bummed out when he got hurt and I think they would easily be the eighth seed if he hadn't gotten hurt. But the other ones, the stock's a little higher. Niederhauser, I still feel like is like. Like dirt. Dirt cheap. If I was getting a little pricier, I'd be looking at Hugo, Carter Bryant are two that I would invest in, but I think those are already a little jacked up. Did you have any other nominees before you give us your winner?

[Joe House]

Carter Bryant is definitely. They're not. They're not taking on more buyers at this point. People are very high on him.

[Bill Simmons]

They've shut the IPO and. And that's it.

[Joe House]

I went again off menu. Sorry. Joe House. I went. Rasheer Fleming in Phoenix.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I like him. He should have been not. Why wasn't he nominated?

[Joe House]

I can't answer questions.

[Bill Simmons]

I got to talk to myself. Yeah, that was the guy. All the Celtic. Well, the smart Celtic fans were hoping the tea leaves were showing that the Celtics might take him. Then the Suns jump them.

[Joe House]

They traded up for that pick, I think.

[Bill Simmons]

Or traded up. Something happened. We got Hugo. Carol Dawson award for most unabashed tank job. Carol Dawson, the guy who invented tanking with the rocket in the Samson Olajuon things. So we got Utah, Washington, Brooklyn, Indiana, Sacramento, Memphis. I'm happy giving it to all six. I don't really want to separate anybody.

[Joe House]

It's really. It's a really hard one. It's a hard field.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we're not picking a winner for that.

[Joe House]

I would pick a winner.

[Bill Simmons]

Go ahead.

[Joe House]

I would congratulate the Washington Wizards and I would pick them because they traded for not one but two good and presumably playable NBA players, pretended that they might actually play them. Actually played Trey Young for a hot second, kept pretending that they might play Anthony Davis and then just issued one medical update after another about everyone's ramping up or ramping down or ramping in various directions and basically played neither of them and then stopped playing other people too. So I mean like The Jaren Jackson

[Bill Simmons]

Jr. Had certainly took a $95 million for two guys to not play them.

[Joe House]

And like, are they going to extend them? What's going to happen now? It's just, it's a bizarre one. So in a field it's like really 1994 best picture. But I give it to the Wizards.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, you got to look at Brooklyn too. Just playing all of these young guys they have together who don't even make sense on a basketball court together. Just throwing them out there, making sure Porter Jr doesn't play too much, all the stuff they're doing. But it's loaded. It's loaded if we have to pick one. Your Washington case was good. This is. It's a slightly mean spirited award and I don't really care. The Dwight Howard.

[Joe House]

It's mean.

[Bill Simmons]

Sorry. Sorry, dude. I can't help it. I just don't really like watching to play basketball that much. Award. Palo James Harden, Jalen Green, Westbrook. Zach Levine, Rudy Gobert, Trae Young. I'm not saying it's a bad brand of basketball. I'm just saying for me personally, just for me, it's not really resonating. That hasn't really resonated with me as a fan. I don't know if you have any other nominees. This is.

[Joe House]

Again, we're not happy about saying these things.

[Bill Simmons]

No, we're just trying to be honest.

[Joe House]

Karl Anthony Towns.

[Bill Simmons]

Sure. Let's add them. Okay. Is that your winner?

[Joe House]

I flirted with a couple others, but my winner of this group would probably be Zach Levine.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, I have him as well. Opted into his last year of his deal at 49 million. I don't know if you saw that. Well, here's one of the marquee awards. The Ron Artest Award. Best bet to inadvertently start the next Artest melee. Three of the people on this almost did start the next Artest Melee a couple months ago. So Isaiah Stewart, the Moose, Ron Holland, Gogo Patsy, Jose Alvarado, Donovan Klingon, who I don't think gets nearly enough credit for how feisty he is. I think he's going to be involved in a really big fight at some point. Jokic got to include him. Jalen Williams, not J Dub, J Will, Lou Dort and the Champagne brothers. Both of them. They're on separate teams. They're both in, they're both ready to go. You can see it. Who wins this for you? This is basically the who is the guy you don't want to fuck with the most in the league award.

[Joe House]

I mean, I don't know if it's that, but I know it's the award for the guy who most wants to fuck with you award. And true. I mean this is becoming a pretty easy decision. It's Isaiah Stewart, who.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it is.

[Joe House]

When he begins running across the entire court with fire in his eyes, it's. It's over. Like it's. You're too late, you're too late. It's now a melee. And this is the second time he's traversed the entirety of an NBA court. I love that. To get himself a piece of something.

[Bill Simmons]

The Novaks Kyrie Irving Award. Best job of maintaining good stats by not playing regularly. We're just giving this to Joel Embiid. Well, listen, it's. If you're playing once a week or every once in a while, your stats are going to be really good. So congratulations. Joel agreed.

[Joe House]

I had him too.

[Bill Simmons]

The white chocolate was a problem award. He was a problem 20, 26 guy whose season was so much better in 47 second Twitter highlights nominees Ace Bailey, Kaishan George Baron J. How do you say his name?

[Joe House]

How did he get on this list?

[Bill Simmons]

Because if you cut 47 seconds of alley oops and blocks from him, you would think he's like, that's fair. The next Wemby, Robert Williams, Time Lord Dang and Nolan Traore. Who's my pick? I have him. I think there could be. I think you could cut a really nice three minute super mix of Traore highlights and you would be convinced he's like a future all NBA guy.

[Joe House]

So Ace Bailey and Usman Jang would have the most like basketbally versions. Like they'd have turnaround jumpers and post up moves. For me, I get. Can I go off menu again, please?

[Bill Simmons]

Joe House got hungry again.

[Joe House]

I went Danny Wolf. Because if you super cut like crazy Danny Wolf. No look passes and then some threes and some like overhead. No, look, you'll be like, wow, this guy's like Magic Johnson out here. Point. Like just running, running things. So I went with Danny Wolf.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow, you did the Triple Crown there. You made Joe House hungry. You delighted Peter Schrager. Cause this is his favorite net. And you delighted Tommy Alter as well. Triple Crown, three for three. Thank you. All right, three awards left. These are the big ones. The Travolta and Pulp Fiction award for comeback of the year. Jay Jayson Tatum, obviously Lamella ball, Michael Porter Jr. Brandon Ingram and whoever else you want to nominate.

[Joe House]

I would nominate Sadiq Bey, Nikola Topovic. Nikola Topic.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joe House]

The entire Atlanta Hawks franchise for the mid season comeback. But I would win the award again, sappy and serious. I would give the award to Jayson Tatum.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, this is, this is one of those where it's like the ESPYs where he's in the front row with his family and you know he's getting nominated. It's like, oh, Tatum's winning that one. We don't need to talk about that. So this is one I really wanted to give out. The 2026 LVP for least valuable player. The least valuable player isn't the worst player, but it's least valuable. It's somebody that is working against your team at all times. I don't think there's a winner for this this year. I think some years you have it, some years you don't. When you have 10 teams not trying, I just feel like the LVP becomes a lot harder in a way. It could almost be given to the team, to the guy that his team's trying to tank, but he's been too, too good at messing up the tank. Would almost be the LVP in this situation. You're messing up our draft pick. That makes you the least valuable. So I don't know if you feel like we should give this out. I'm fine with it. We could skip it.

[Joe House]

You could go the other way. And it could be a team that was at various points, including at the beginning of the season trying to win and investigated a crap ton of resources to get you onto their team and enjoyed arguably the worst season of your entire career.

[Bill Simmons]

Paul George. That's a.

[Joe House]

That's not who I was thinking of, but is perfectly fits that.

[Bill Simmons]

Who were you thinking of?

[Joe House]

I was seeing and you didn't prep me for this one. This was not on my list of nominees.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes, I went off the menu for House.

[Joe House]

I was thinking of Miles Turner, who just. Can you remember one thing that Miles Turner did this year, like one.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Joe House]

And he's. He shot 38. He's shooting 38% on threes. He just. He's missed a lot of games now. They're tanking now, obviously, but just given the wave and stretch sign for 25 million a year, perfect fit with Giannis, blah, blah, blah. It just feels like I just never even noticed him on the court the entire season.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, this is why you're one of the greats. I went from thinking we shouldn't have this award to thinking you laid out the perfect. And Paul George would have been another one. Right? But Paul George actually got them under the tax by getting suspended. So in a weird way, he was viable. Miles Turner, when you throw in the stretch and what they thought it might do for their seat, basically like this Hail Mary to save their next two years. And it just didn't. And they probably, as we've talked about, overpaid him a little because centers, unless I have an all NBA center, I don't want to pay 25 million a year for a center. I think that's a good pick. Not entirely his fault. He did choose to leave Indiana off the top.

[Joe House]

My head's just off the top. So I'm sure we could think of other, you know, candidates.

[Bill Simmons]

Final award. The 2026 League Pass MVP. This is as coveted as the real MVP. I don't know. A lot of people don't talk about that.

[Joe House]

Everyone's been drinking now for a few hours. They're getting punchy. They're ready to go to the after parties. But now they got to pay attention. They got to sit and pay attention.

[Bill Simmons]

This is so much different than the real mvp. This is. You're going back to the legacy of, like, Michael. We didn't even have League Pass in 1987, but, oh, my God, Michael Jordan. This is Kobe in 2006. Is he gonna score 80 tonight?

[Joe House]

It should really be named for Blake Griffin. I think Blake Griffin made league pass. Just a thought.

[Bill Simmons]

Interesting. He already has an award named after him. I know he has the unexpected delayed award. So the difference between this and just being the best player in the league is this is just. You're flicking around and you just keep gravitating toward a team, a player, and it's just somebody you know is gonna deliver the goods. It's like your best postmates order 7:30. I need to. And you just go. It's your go to. It's like, I'm hungry. Where am I going? The nominees are Wemby, Joker, SGA I only have three people here because to me it's either Wemby or Joker. I don't. Are there any other nominees for you? I would have the Hornets as a team, but teams can't win this. It has to be a person.

[Joe House]

I mean, certainly the last month and a half Luka has gotten into this conversation.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I know, but it's the whole season and if I'm going to vote for him for the season, I also have to deal with like Luka from that one month when he just seemed completely miserable and was just mad at every ref for two and a half straight hours. I did not. I did not seek that out on league pass.

[Joe House]

I thought. No, I know. I have no other nominees. I mean, if you're just talking purely.

[Bill Simmons]

Who do I have basically this is Wendy versus Joker. Yeah, this is Wemby versus Joker.

[Joe House]

You want to go first or me?

[Bill Simmons]

No, you go.

[Joe House]

I never. I thought Joker would win this award 10 times in a row, 15 times in a row. I never thought anybody would be more. Must watch appointment television for me and Victor Wembanyama in his third year wins this award for me. You know, I watch every team as equally as I can. You end up watching the best teams more because when they play each other it's must watch. And then by the end of the season, none of these seems the tankers are not trying to win and you know, so I can't watch every spurs game because it would be derelict of duty to the other 29 teams in the league. I feel bad when I miss a Spurs game. I feel bad when I have to read about it. I feel bad when I have to watch the highlights of it. I feel like I've missed something magical and if he does something magical, then I'll go back and watch that game. It'll be an extra game. But they. The paying of FOMO that I get has exceeded the Jokic fomo. So it's Victor Wembanyama.

[Bill Simmons]

That was my answer as well. If you're going totality of the season, Joker wins for me because I love Denver. Joe. It's just the most reliable order you can make on Postmates or Uber Eats or wherever you're getting your food. What Wemby was doing the last six weeks, I was going out of my way to watch the spurs, which has not happened. I don't think it as much as I and you and I are probably two of the biggest Jokic fans on the planet just for just watching him play basketball. He's so steady and you know, he's there. It's like, you're not going to go, oh my God, I have to watch Yogic. Like when Wemby played the warriors last week and it was clear he was in his. I'm going to make my MVP case. I was like, I'm just not missing that game. I don't. There's no scenario where I wasn't watching. There was no scenario where I was watching the yesterday game against the Nuggets. And he's just hit that point. It's a pretty rare point to get to. We've had it a few times since we've known each other, but I don't think like this where it's like every game you might see five things you've never seen on a basketball court before.

[Joe House]

And it's both ends of the floor. Obviously not that he's good on both ends before we know that. It's that he's unprecedented on both ends of the floor. It's the spurs figuring out the lob stuff in more creative ways as it goes on, where they're just throwing it to him and he's getting it and

[Bill Simmons]

put him on the floor to get the ball. Like little stuff they're just getting better at.

[Joe House]

And even you mentioned, you know, for the whole season it's Jokic because from start to finish, this guy's going to lead the league in rebounds and assists. And he's one of the maybe the most efficient, high volume scorer in the league. And the magic of his passes and all that. Even Wemby, like learning to reach this level. The curiosity factor was just off the charts. Like I just wanted to see every part of even the mistakes and the things he was trying that didn't work. And I wanted to see. My curiosity was just off the charts.

[Bill Simmons]

He. It's the last rule of basketball. Like your eyes just gravitate to where he is on the tv. When you go to see him in person, you just find yourself just watching him to just. Even though the ball's over there, you're just seeing where he sets up. He did a thing yesterday, I think it was in the second quarter. Val Shunas tried to post about. Did you see that play?

[Joe House]

The one where you just took the ball at its apex?

[Bill Simmons]

That one he did a jump hook and Wemby didn't jump and just blocked it. And Val Shunas was like. And he just kind of whipped him to the ground. He got mad, but it was like, I've never seen anyone do that ever. Where it wasn't he didn't just block it. He almost like, blocked it with his elbow.

[Joe House]

He blocked it. He blocked a floater in that game. I don't remember who shot it, but he came from so far away that as he was going towards the. But it was on the right side of, like, the foul line as he was going toward it. I thought, he's just trying to scare the guy at the end of the shot clock. He's like, he just doesn't actually think he can block that shot. And then he blocked it. And I was just like, I don't even know. What am I supposed to do now?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, and as the legend grows with him, you could see the other players in the league. Like before, it was like people at the last second realizing they should. He's there. I've got to change my plan here. And there'd be like two seconds of discombobulation and then they would reset the play. Now they're recognizing it as it's happening, and they're just giving up on even thinking about potentially trying to make the play. They'll dribble in the paint. They'll see him, and it's like a fucking shark. Like, you're a swimmer in the ocean. Like, I think that's a shark fin. I'm gonna go this way. They just completely bail on it. They don't even really. And then the guys that challenge him are just nuts. Like, the guys that are like, I'm gonna take it right to him. I'm gonna bounce into his chest and double clutch and try to overpower him. And it's almost like a badge of honor that they try to do it. I've never seen anything like that.

[Joe House]

You know who likes to play against him and plays that way is Shen Goon. Sengun. You can tell is like, this guy. I can take this guy. I'm going to try like that. I like that about Shingun and watching

[Bill Simmons]

Joker try to solve him and doing like, I'm going to take him this way. I'm going to put my shoulder into him and then I'm going to bring my jump hook a little bit further back and then try to flip it a little higher. And that should be okay. He was solving him like an MIT scientist trying to figure out some sort of DNA model for something. Wemby was the. Was the clear winner this year. Jokic, I don't know what else they could do. He's leading the league in assists and rebounds. He's doing something that only Wilt Chamberlain has done. Where you add up his first place in two categories. He's fifth in points. So if you just do one plus one plus five, he's seven. And I think that's what it is, right? One plus one plus, he's seven. The only one that did that was Wilt in 1968. Second in assists, first in rebounds, fourth in points, seven. And I don't think anyone in the history of the league has done that for those three categories. Usually they're like, 1, 2, 12, 2, 3, 15. This is his season. That's why I think I have Joker second for MVP heading into this last week.

[Joe House]

Interesting, because you were definitely flirting with the Wemby MVP idea.

[Bill Simmons]

I was. I. I think yesterday I showed the limitations of the 29 minutes a game, and there's a durability with Jokic that I think should. That's what I'm staring at as I think of these three guys all against each other. Like, is it just easier to be 29 minutes a game and have that burden versus, like, what Jokic just went through, where it's like, I might have to play 45 minutes today?

[Joe House]

Well, and it adds. It adds up to significantly fewer minutes if you just want to look at it in the most raw and maybe basic ways. It's like, I don't have it in front of me. Three, four.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, so your podcast is Tuesday morning. Thanks to Sam. Thanks to Sam's Club for helping us out with this live stream. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well on the ringer side and everybody else over at the ringer made up of words. I feel like it was an A plus.

[Joe House]

I'm glad. I'm glad you feel that way.

[Bill Simmons]

I feel like your brain broke, like, three times.

[Joe House]

Oh, we went off menu a lot, which is.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we went off menu. Yeah, it was great. Uh, thanks to everybody at Netflix. Thanks to the ringer. And I will see you on the rewatchables tomorrow night for Eddie and the Cruisers and then back on this feed on Tuesday. Thanks, everybody. Must be 21 plus on President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 on President in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER-1-800, my reset. Call 888-79-7-777 or visit ccpg.orgchattinconenetic or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplianma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-Hopeny or text hopeny in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.