We're gonna wrap up our week here one day early this week, but a fun episode to get to here one that I really enjoy.

These are our last traditional awards that shall we say that we've come up with and just a way for us to wrap our heads around what's happened in the last month of the season beyond just the traditional NBA awards.

So we can kind of just skip around here a little bit. Do you want to get right to it here Danny? Where do you want to start?

I think we should start with biggest surprise team and player and remember now we're a couple days into the month that I did these at the end of the month and for me the two teams that I'm most seriously considered were Sacramento and then my actual pick Memphis and at that point in time Memphis was 12th in net rating and fourth in defense.

I think their numbers are slightly off that now but not too far. And the reason why they're the biggest surprise for me is that they've been significantly better defensively than I expected offensively.

Maybe they're even a little bit worse but the combination of their length Mark Assault looking like Mark Assault again and we had that was an open question I mean considering how flat he looked a lot of last year.

And so for me they were they're the biggest surprise team because you know the clippers have exceeded expectations but they've also been healthy and their guys have played well whereas Memphis just looks doesn't look like the team I expected them to look like.

Yeah to me this was an interesting question right because you have the teams that are surprised and Sacramento certainly is up there.

I think the chance of them actually like being 500 at this point in time if you taught to me before the season is okay you don't know anything else you just sacrabon is 500 Memphis is like 12 and 9 or whatever it was at the end of the month Denver.

Yeah you know they're up there they they have the number three defense in the NBA and that's pretty that's pretty damn high too.

You know and overall they we thought they'd be very good but maybe that offense would be a bigger catalyst there and then that Milwaukee you know is the best team to lead and lean league and that ring.

I would have to actually say that of all those things just talking about the results here not how they're getting there which is a maybe another part of this component or another component to this question I should say.

Sacramento being over 500 at this point in the year would be the most surprising thing of anything because I was just so convinced that they were going to be the worst even the NBA this season.

Yeah and that is a pretty big jump and yes they have exceeded their point to French will buy a little bit in terms of wins but not so much that it would be even close to 500 they wouldn't even be sniffing that and also that Yeager would figure out the front court rotation as well as he has granted that might be causing some conflicts with certain members of their front office.

We'll get to that later. Don't worry playing be elitza and giving him serious minutes badly being depending on the circumstances more of a five than a four which is exactly the right role for him has worked out really well I be dear and Fox has been awesome and that goes on to a couple of different factors surprising player just him being him making the jump from rookie to stop more and doing so with with a flourish and I think they've been deeper than I anticipated as well a lot of that is in the front court but they were able I think the reason why Sacramento is also a good choice.

I went with Memphis just because I think I was more wrong on them is because Sacramento did a lot of this without Bognom with Donovich and I thought he was going to be really important to what they were doing but buddy healed really stepped up I thought he did a nice job and they were able to cobble it together at the swingman spots without

Bognom vision and they've been competitive with him as well of course and since he came back.

Yeah and I mean I'm already if you were higher on the Kings and me you weren't much to me Memphis actually wasn't really that high on my list because digging deeper into things.

One we'd seen them be healthy before I think you know a lot and play well before you know part of the reason that we were lower on them I think they're over under was 33 wins we picked the over and even as a right now they're only projected for 42 wins

maybe in a little bit higher before they lost a couple of these games I can't remember whether that New York loss was was last month or not but really the biggest thing that had been driving their surge they were just as bad as we thought they'd be an offense right they've been in the mid 20s and offense basically all year but they had this awesome defense and that was

due to an unsustainable turnover percentage so when I talk about surprising number one you could say okay just the wins and losses is surprising but are they really that much better fundamentally

than I thought and I felt that Memphis just you know is doing it a little bit with smoking mirrors when you throw in the health like they're not you could have come up with this scenario in which they would have played this well

...