Bill Simmons had Ryen Russillo on for his weekly NBA appearance, and they discussed the Sacramento Kings’ sleeper potential and argued about the MVP before delving into All-NBA awards. It’s making increasingly less sense to vote on players by position in an increasingly positionless league. However, it messes with the continuity of the award, which the league designed to pit players of the same position against each other.
The argument will affect Anthony Edwards, though. Edwards is probably a guard, but Chris Finch can also use him as a forward because of his size. His versatility is part of what makes him great, and it may allow him to sneak onto an All-NBA team this year.
“Anthony Edwards is on my list as like a what if [the Minnesota Timberwolves] put together a little bit of a run here,” Russillo offered.
“Could you weasel him into the forward spot, potentially?” asked Simmons. “I was thinking about that spot, too. Like the same way with Jaylen [Brown]. Because they have had some lineups where there’s like two guards plus him.”
“What was it last year?” asked Russillo. “Because everybody got mad because they were trying to figure out how to put [Nikola] Jokic and [Joel] Embiid on it.”
“Well, that was stupid,” countered Simmons. “It was just like, ‘Oh no, just put’ –”
“Well, didn’t you almost do it?” Russillo asked, cutting Simmons off.
“I did until I found out what the rule was,” Simmons admitted, “which was it’s only the votes for the center position. So if you have a four and vote it, it doesn’t count. It doesn’t seem fair to Jokic.”
Later in the podcast, Russillo asked Simmons if they should just have an “NBA Top 15” that they award players. Simmons liked the idea but felt it should be a different award. He wants to honor the history of the league, where writers debated over Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain or Chris Webber, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett. Without positions, that wouldn’t happen.
It will take a while to figure out how best to honor players in a positionless league, but it’s a good sign that Simmons and Russillo are mentioning Edwards’ name. He deserves All-NBA consideration, and it’s good that the national media is paying attention to the Wolves again. They should kick things into gear late in the season to get him that accolade.
