<\/p>\n
Bill Simmons has confessed to the world his last-minute changes on a number of his end-of-season award voting.<\/p>\n
Every year, he is always very methodical with his voting and brings fans along for the ride.<\/p>\n
Over the past two weeks, that meant multiple long podcast episodes alongside working through each category before locking anything in.<\/p>\n
But once the voting deadline passed, he admitted he didn\u2019t exactly stick the landing. Between viral clips of his own takes, eligibility rulings and how the Play-In played out, Simmons ended up switching three of his picks \u2013 including MVP.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a confession for you,\u201d Simmons told Lowe on Sunday night\u2019s episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Tuesday, I did my award picks, and I did MVP. And I did this long thing about how I couldn\u2019t believe I wasn\u2019t voting for Joker (Nikola Jokic), and SGA (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), and I was trying to be fair and rational about it. And SGA, they won four more games, and they were the 1-seed, and he was the best player in the league, and four straight 31-point seasons. But then I was like, \u2018I just can\u2019t believe I\u2019m not voting for Joker.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ran it, we cut it as a video. And I watched it on social media, and what I saw was a person who was confused and didn\u2019t have a lot of conviction in his choice. And I was a little embarrassed by it. I was like, I\u2019m doing gymnastics not to pick Jokic, who is the best player in the league and is the most-valuable-to-his-team player in the league. And instead, I\u2019m doing these mental gymnastics because SGA\u2019s on the best team and he\u2019s f*cking awesome. And look, either guy could have been the MVP. Wemby (Victor Wembanyama) could have been the MVP.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI voted for Joker. I changed my pick,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cI did a La La Land\u2013Moonlight. I changed my pick. I was like, \u2018What am I doing? How can I not vote for Joker?\u2019 And I feel not awesome about it, because I thought SGA had an awesome year, too. But I think Joker is the best guy in the league, and I think he means the most to his team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later on, Simmons said he also flipped his Sixth Man of the Year vote, moving Keldon Johnson ahead of his original pick after watching Jaime Jaquez Jr. struggle in Miami\u2019s Play-In loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had Jaquez over Keldon Johnson, but then Miami lost on Wednesday,\u201d Simmons explained. \u201cAnd I was just like, I\u2019m going to have the Sixth Man of the Year from the team that couldn\u2019t even get to the last round of the Play-In game? And I switched it. So that\u2019s the league\u2019s fault. They shouldn\u2019t have had us vote before the Play-In games.\u201d<\/p>\n