The Give and Go: Bill Simmons' Entertaining as Hell Tournament Comes to Life

Credit: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

The Give and Go is a quick back and forth between Paul Mitchell and Chris St. Jean about a relevant subject in the NBA at that moment.

Chris:  For those who don’t know what Bill Simmons’ Entertaining as Hell Tournament is you can read a fairly detailed description here.   

The quick version: every team that isn’t going to make the playoffs, plus the current 8-seeds in each conference, are thrown into a post-season tournament. Winner gets the 8-seed in either the East or West.

Mitchell, if this tournament existed this season, who wins it? Who is the MVP? What’s the biggest upset? And what are the top-5 hypothetical moments that will come to define this tournament’s inaugural season?

The Give and Go: Best Finishing Move

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The Give and Go is a quick back and forth between Paul Mitchell and Chris St. Jean about a relevant subject in the NBA at that moment.

Paul: The MVP debate is down to a two-man race between Golden State’s Steph Curry and Houston’s James Harden with just a week left to play, but how much should voters factor in the quality of post-big shot celebratory gestures into their Most Valuable Player ballots? Is Harden’s “stir the pot” miming the league’s best finishing move this season? How does it stack up historically?

The Give and Go: The Death of the NBA

The Give and Go is a quick back and forth between Paul Mitchell and Chris St. Jean about a relevant subject in the NBA at that moment.

Chris:  I’m going to get a little philosophical and a little science fiction on you here Mitchell and it’s totally inspired by this amazing piece on SB Nation by Jon Bois capping off their NBA Y2K series. 

In the post, Bois ‘played God’ by slowly killing the game of basketball in basically the same way that the evil mastermind behind the Monstars would have done if Michael and Bugs hadn’t won Muggsy Bogues’s (obligatory Muggsy Bogues reference!) talent back.  He sapped the NBA of all of its’ talent and as the years went by the league crumbled in on itself.  

That got me thinking.  I’ve never given the thought to the NBA or the sport of basketball as we know it coming to an ‘end’.  The end is so final.  It’s incomprehensible.  But for a moment, let’s consider, how does the NBA or the sport of professional basketball come to an end, Mitchell?

2014-15 NBA Season Preview: MVP, All-NBA, and Playoff Predictions

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Here we are.  NBA Day.  It's been a long few months and yet with the NBA Finals finishing in June, then the Draft, off-season, NBA Summer League, and even a bonus FIBA World Cup tournament, we've barely been without basketball.  Today is the day though.  It's the instant all that speculation and all those predictions become almost immediately invalidated.  That's alright though.  Starting tonight, there will always be a fresh batch of basketball games to talk about.  New information to help inform us.  Our studies begin tonight.

2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Oklahoma City Thunder

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In retrospect, the 2013-14 season of the Oklahoma City Thunder came down to Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. The San Antonio Spurs quickly gained the 2-0 advantage after the first two games in Texas, but the return of Serge Ibaka allowed the Thunder defense to even up the series before heading back to San Antonio for the pivotal fifth game. Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich substituted shooter Matt Bonner into the starting lineup in place of center Tiago Splitter, and it was the overall depth of the Spurs and the 55-26 disparity in bench scoring that cost the Thunder the game. A five-point loss in overtime of Game 6 sealed their season, and general manager Sam Presti’s approach to building the 2014-15 team began with addressing the roster’s depth and bench issues in the offseason.