← The Zach Lowe Show
The Zach Lowe Show
What’s Next for Kawhi Leonard? Plus, Free Agency Check-in and Mets Corner!
01:45:09
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- [00:00]
Zach Lowe
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. The best passers see every angle of the floor to make the perfect assist. And State Farm is no different. They know the game inside and out and look at every angle to help set you up with a plan that fits your life and budget. Get the coverage that's right for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck and the person who drives it, well,
- [00:28]
Kurt Goldsberry
that's a Chevy person.
- [00:30]
Zach Lowe
You probably know one, your buddy, your sister, ones who always show up. They're the first to rise, the last to leave. They always have that little extra something and maybe you've got it too. Chevrolet together, let's drive. Visit chevy.com trucks to explore the lineup. Coming up on a late night edition of the Zach Lowe show, we waited for Adam Silver to say something, anything about the Kawhi Leonard trade that wasn't, was, might be still. And he didn't say all that much at the Board of Governors. But we talk about Kawhi in limbo, Raptors in limbo, Clippers in limbo, league kind of in limbo with this strange, unprecedented situation. When is this investigation going to end? When is this trade going to go through? If it is going to go through, how did we get here? Then we talk about LeBron, Victor Wembanyama's new contract and the whole second apron supermax conundrum. Best and worst moves of the offseason. Good under the radar moves, bad over the radar moves, most inexplicable moves, Tyler Herro versus Bam. A runaway bison. Kurt Goldsberry is here to talk about all of that on a loaded edition of the Zach Low show that's coming up right after this lot going on in the NBA. Lot of intel coming from Vegas and a lot of substance, I thought, coming from Adam Silver's Board of Governors press conference tonight. So we'll get all into all that coming up now on the Zach Low Show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. Kirk Goldsberry is here. It's very late at night. We delayed this episode to see what Adam Silver would say at the Board of Governors from Las Vegas, where I just got back from, I should have stayed a day longer. What he would say about the Kawhi Leonard trade that was and then wasn't and then still might be. And what he essentially said, Mr. Goldsberry, was the timeline for the resolution of all this quote remains this summer. It's July 14th. The Raptors traded for Kawhi Leonard 2. 2 weeks ago. The trade has been put on hold and the timeline remains this summer for Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen, Katz, and Billable Hours LLC to wrap up this mammoth investigation of Kawhi Leonard's cap circumvention and to see if perhaps there are some consequences for Kawhi Leonard that would fall onto the Toronto Raptors if they should acquire him. Like, if his contract is voided, what the hell would that do? Do you unwind the whole trade? What if he's suspended? I don't think that's really the issue here. And like, Kirk, I. I kind of, like, was a little shocked at how calm everybody was and how calmly Adam basically just said, oh, yeah, these two teams, like, you're just going to be in limbo for a while. Because if there's an adverse finding against the. Against the Clippers that implicates Kawhi Leonard's contract somehow, that would jeopardize this trade. That's not just, like, the end of it, that finding. Adam Silver has to present that to an arbitrator who then has to hear more arguments about it, including from the Players association, and then has to rule on it. That's, like, a long time. Now. I've been told that the parties involved have. Have been hearing that this is going to be, quote, weeks, not months. Yeah, but like, even that is the Clippers and the Raptors are, like, stuck here unless they decide to walk away from the trade. And by the way, Adam, like, not so subtly, sort of blame this on the teams involved and mostly the Raptors saying that everybody knew what the issues were going to be. I don't want to get into who said what when he said he didn't want to do a TikTok quote about it, but that all the issues were well known. None of this should have been a surprise. I think the teams themselves obviously slightly disagree for whatever reason, because they made a trade. This is. This is a whole thing, man. What did you think of it? I thought it was a bunch.
- [04:40]
Kurt Goldsberry
It was like, sort of overall. There was a nothing burger. I thought we might get news today, and we certainly hell as hell we didn't get any news. I'm not sure if he's talking about meteorological summer or astronomical summer. Zach Lowe. I laughed out loud. Blast Zach Low post when he said, don't forget about cats when you named off the list of the lawyers in the law firm.
- [05:02]
Zach Lowe
Gotta remember cats. Gotta. Don't. You know what, Kurt? Don't forget about Grady Dick, okay? He's A part of this, too. Grady Dick doesn't know what, what country he's going to reside in. Poor Grady Dick.
- [05:13]
Kurt Goldsberry
Oh, dude. But I thought the, the peak moment of this exchange happened when our friend Chris Mannix pressed Adam Silver with a second question on the scandal and he sort of called him out. He's like, hey man, this has been about a year. Any report that this Wachtel firm produces is not going to be like a one page summary. There's going to be a voluminous was Mannix's word. And again, great job by Mannix. And aren't we going to have to digest that as a league before we react? And, and then he was essentially saying, you're not finishing this up this summer. There's no way you're doing it this summer considering training camp is six weeks away or something. Zach, like, sooner than you. And I want to admit, like, so, so I was reading between the lines a little bit saying I don't know if that summer thing is even reasonable at this point. And then the follow up, and we were texting about this earlier. The Athletics reporting today that comes out that there's a little drip, that there's more, that they're looking into potentially another endorsement deal that could be sort of sketchy in one way or another. But long story short, I sort of landed where Mannix was questioning. I'm not sure that Adam Silver and Toronto and la, the Clippers are going to have the resolution this summer.
- [06:35]
Zach Lowe
Hey, it's only two of the 30 teams in the league that have no idea who's going to be on their goddamn team and how many draft picks they have. Imagine being the Clippers. Hey, Peyton Watson's just sitting there as a restricted free agent. You have cap room. The Nuggets are in a luxury tax crunch now. We don't know what the Nuggets are going to do. I've even heard people say that the Nuggets may resign Peyton Watson and take their tax issues into the season and hope to dump money if they actually are mandated to do so into the season. We don't know. But the Clippers would certainly like to maybe, if they wanted to make an offer for Peyton Watson. Do they have the Raptors draft picks? They don't have the Raptors draft picks. Are they ever going to get them? We don't know. Now, Kirk, I am not a lawyer. I am not Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen or Katz.
- [07:18]
Kurt Goldsberry
Don't forget Katz.
- [07:20]
Zach Lowe
I am just me. And so there are a number of ways this could unfold that could actually accelerate. Not accelerate, but like not make this an endless morass for the teams. Just the trade part and there. But I'm still hearing optimism from people involved that this trade will go through and Kawhi Leonard will be a member of the Toronto Raptors. At some point, presumably not that far from now, there could be a finding where the, the, where the law firm slash Adam Silver ends up recommending punishment or potential punishment only for the Clippers. That Kawhi in the initial report is just sort of left out of. It is like, well, it's not his fault. He got money for nothing. And then the trade goes through and the parties hash out everything else. There's also like there's a world where they just there it never goes before an arbitrator because the, the league and the Clippers sort of hash it out if there is a penalty. I'm not saying there is for the Clippers who continue to deny that they did anything wrong. They hash it out. They like plea bargain it basically before it even gets to an arbitrator. So there are a number of ways this goes faster than maybe it would appear today. But still, like, I just think this is a colossal embarrassment for the NBA. And in, in a week, in a year where this has not been a great year for the NBA, the Terry Rose year thing, which by the way, hovers over all of this, I think a lot of what's happening is the league kind of covering its own ass here because it failed to do so in the Terry Rozier trade where the Heat were not made aware of any unintended consequences that might befall them. And then you had owner fighting owner in a very public way between the Hornets and the Heat and a second round pick I believe, being returned to the Heat, they don't want that to happen here. But we've had that, we've had this Kawhi thing and nobody asked about Gary Trent Jr. Who signed one year minimum deal, one year minimum deal, had the worst year of his career and just signed a four year, $64 million contract to return to the Milwaukee Bucks. That, by the way, and I have the text messages to build to prove it. He can share them if he wants. Everybody in the league has been whispering for two months minimum about like, hey, I think there's a kind of a crazy contract coming down the pike for Gary Trent Jr. After those two one year contracts, establishes early bird rights with the Bucks and boom, it happened yesterday. Nobody talked about that. I don't know what's going to happen with that in fact, the real penalty for the Bucks is having to pay the goddamn contract. So nobody should complain, so they have to pay it. Not a great couple of months for the National Basketball Association. I don't. Dude, what else can we say about this?
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Kurt Goldsberry
Here's what we can say. I had. I had this sort of cutting room floor note that I would say, like, the two words I keep thinking about with the summer of the NBA. And it's not basketball, it's integrity and austerity. And I remember when I was on with you right after Pablo's first episode on the Kawhi thing dropped, we came on. We didn't know what we were talking about. And I said at that time, one of the top ranked executives I talked to said, the integrity of the league is at stake. You talk about rosier. You talk about this Gary Trent thing. You talk about this. These aren't the things that Adam Silver wants to be talking about, but he is. And then this austerity concept, which he was asked about twice. You know, when you think about austerity measures, you think about, like, the Greek government trying to figure out how to. How to balance their economy. But we have this Jalen Brown trade. You have the Blazers owner, you have Wemby taking less money, Jalen Brunson taking less money. That's what I mean by austerity. Like, there's people, like, dodging money in weird ways. But to your point, it's not been a good summer when we're talking about integrity and austerity instead of basketball and like, oh, my God, LeBron's going to Miami or, oh, my God, like, Kevin Durant's going to Golden State this summer. We're talking about integrity and austerity, and that's not great.
- [11:18]
Zach Lowe
To your point, the G. I want to leave The Gary Trent Jr thing aside real just because I'm not that. I'm not that interested of smells beyond fishy. Everybody knows that. It's. It's like, it's. I almost admire how apparently transparent it is. And I like. We'll see if anybody, any of the other 29 teams who I can tell you, having just arrived after five days in Las Vegas, are all talking about this and bellyaching about it 100 have the balls to actually file a complaint for the league to investigate whether this is some form of cap circumvention, because I bet they don't. Because the shoe could be on the other foot someday. And I'll say this. I can see the Bucks and Gary Trent junior's agent saying, now wait a second. This guy is averaged double figures in points five straight seasons before this one. He's a 39% career three point shooter. He averaged 18 points a game a few, a few, just a few seasons ago. And yeah, unless proven less experienced players like Kobe White and I would assume you just got more than this. Like you can really stretch in and like finesse your way in to something that sounds like a defense of it. But four years 64 when Kevin Herder got three. 27 when Kelly Oubre got 218, when Tim Hardaway got one. 6, when Marcus Mark got 212, when Landry Shammik got 424, when Quentin Grimes got 460, when Champagne got three for 45. It just, it just makes no, no sense at all when you yourself got
- [12:55]
Kurt Goldsberry
the minimum year before. But yeah, that's the, that's the kind of widening context that makes it fishy.
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Sean Fennessey
Right?
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Kurt Goldsberry
That's what makes the odor start to appear into your nostrils. Is, is all that context. The league to the early austerity point seems to be really stingy with years on contracts too. We're not seeing many four year deals act low this summer. There are exceptions to that rule. Don't get me wr, but I saw other people's point. This is one of the only big four year deals anybody got. And again, for a player who signed two consecutive one year deals and arguably underperformed at that minimum level last season, to see 464 is mind boggling.
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Sean Fennessey
It is.
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Kurt Goldsberry
It is fishy. And again, when you insult a fish,
- [13:41]
Zach Lowe
fishy is I like the smell of fish. I like, I like walking up by the ocean. I don't think that's a bad smell.
- [13:48]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, I think what people think about fishy smells like it's summer in New York. It's gonna, it'98 degrees. It's in the dumpster. You happen to walk by a clam restaurant, you're like, oh no. You know. And I think that's what people think about when they say it smells fishy. But anyway, yeah, the Gary Trent deal, I mean, I started. I, I was one of those people who heard it last year too. What. What's going on? Oh, I. They're going to do this on the back end. They're not the only team doing it. I'm not calling the bucks out for that. Everybody's doing this or more than one team is doing this. But the league has a problem when everybody starts to do stuff like this and it feels like with the Rozier Thing. And then the Kawhi stuff, these press conferences that we saw tonight are not great. And you start to look at the league administration like, can we do something a little bit smarter here? It's starting to feel like college basketball in the 90s, you know, with these paying guys under the table.
- [14:44]
Zach Lowe
Bernard, two years, 13 million. Does have a player option. Just another one. Back to Kawhi for a minute. You just cannot sort of. It's hard to exaggerate what a big deal this is for the Clippers, who have turned the page and have a weird but like, somewhat interesting team and some assets to play with going forward if this trade goes through. And if not, I guess like, they may have Kawhi Leonard or Kawhi Leonard may be a free agent in the event that his contract is voided, which I find highly unlikely, but who the hell knows? And the Raptors, who I think fancy themselves contenders to win the Eastern Conference. Now, I personally can't quite get there, mostly because I just have no evidence that Kawhi Leonard can stay healthy for three playoff rounds. This is what you need to make the Finals out of the Eastern Conference. But there's no question that when he's healthy, he's one of the top eight players in the NBA. He was the best player in the NBA for a stretch of last season. You throw him with Scotty Barnes and cmb. Good luck scoring on that team.
- [15:44]
Kurt Goldsberry
But.
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Zach Lowe
But it's, it's a huge deal. It has massive implications across the league. And I don't really understand how we got. From point A, which is at least one team, the Raptors felt comfortable trading for Kawhi Leonard and his own team, the Clippers felt like they had the green light to trade him to point B. The trade is announced. It's reported. Is reported. Announced Kawhi appears at Kyle Lowry's retirement shindig in Toronto. Everyone's happy. Point C trade placed on hold like nine days later. I don't understand the process. And Adam Silver said he didn't want to get into a tick tock about who said what and when. That everybody should have known the issues. Look, I can tell you a couple of things for sure. Number one, the league talked to teams, including the Toronto Raptors, about what trading for Kawhi Leonard would entail. Those conversations happened. I believe the league has records of those conversations. They happened. Whatever was said in those conversations was not enough to dissuade the Raptors and the Clippers from striking a trade. Number two, as I have said previously, I know of at least one team who had the assets and the motivation to trade for Kawhi Leonard, who without even talking to the league, decided we are sitting this one out until this investigation is resolved. Number three. Bobby Webster is a goddamn smart president of basketball operations, Cap guy, whatever he is for the Raptors, whatever his title is, who came from the league office. There is a zero percent chance that he did this without checking with the league and finding to his satisfaction, perhaps misinterpreting somewhat that he could make this trade and then what I think happened. And I, and I already kind of reported this the other day, but I'll reiterate it as they went to paper the trade, as you like, start emailing terms ahead of the trade. Call the league place. From what I've heard an addendum, a memorandum, whatever, whatever term you want to use for like an extra piece of paper, an extra page into the preliminary trade report that specifically in writing put in these kinds of conditions that kind of freaked the Raptors out about, oh, we are on the hook for everything if Kawhi's deal is voided, if he's suspended for X amount of games, whatever. And that's what blew it up. And there's a long lag time between the trade happening and whatever blew it up, blowing it up. And here we are. Is there anything else you want to say, or can we just move on from this?
- [18:18]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, here's. I wanted to ask you about what you. Because I'm sure in Vegas I didn't go this year, which was great, by the way. No disrespect to my friends in Las Vegas. I needed a year off.
- [18:27]
Zach Lowe
But, you know, here's my.
- [18:29]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, go ahead.
- [18:30]
Zach Lowe
I missed you, number one. I, I love Las Vegas. I just, I unironically love it. I, I, I love be it. It's a different planet now. I'm only there five days a year, for the most part. So I don't like, get like Vegas. Itis where I just, like, lose all concept of where I am and who I am and that I have a family and things like that. I love Las Vegas. That's it. I don't mind. Everyone's like, it's hot. You know how many minutes I was outside in Las Vegas for five days? I'm gonna put the over under. I'm gonna put the over under on six and a half minutes.
- [19:03]
Kurt Goldsberry
That's master work. I mean, you and I had a historic dinner at a restaurant that I'll let you tell your audience the name
- [19:10]
Zach Lowe
of, but we the pink Taco, it doesn't exist anymore.
- [19:14]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I don't know why, but here was my question. Why not Zach Lowe? Couldn't the league behind closed doors before this summer even happened, go to the clip first and be like, hey, this piece of paper is going to be attached. If you try to move Kawhi Leonard, this piece of paper is going to slide into that ensemble of pages on the fax machine. Why couldn't they have gotten ahead of this instead of been so reactive and now have this awkward situation that's affecting people like Grady Dick and Brandon Ingram and front offices in Toronto and the Clippers and fan bases, not to mention the fan bases. But why Zach? That would be my last question. Why didn't they get ahead of this? Dude, this seems like it was coming potentially and they might have wanted to say, what if they tried to trade him?
- [20:05]
Zach Lowe
That's I don't think that question has been answered clearly enough. And I believe Ben Golliver from ESPN is the one who asked the third question about this. Basically the what did they know and when? And Adam's response was basically, well, these issues were not a secret. Everybody should have known. Which which came off to me as if you were just an NBA fan, you could have put two and two together. It came off to me less as this was made explicitly known in ways X, Y and Z through back through our official non public channels with teams and more of. Well duh. Like has anyone been reading the news? Which is not a good enough answer to me, but maybe he meant it. Maybe he meant that the other sort of more formal way. I don't know. Let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about some things that are more this summer, FanDuel is the best place to bet on goals, including equalizers, volleys.
- [20:58]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yep, headers.
- [20:59]
Zach Lowe
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- [21:18]
Sean Fennessey
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- [21:21]
Zach Lowe
1-800- gambler or 1-800- my reset evening buyer's remorse buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana you what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no, no, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice. I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today. On Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven day return policy@carvana.com fun. All right. On Kauai, the last thing is the last little tangent I'll go on is I think John Hollinger wrote the best version of this column that I've seen, which is the fact that this has been quite a dramatic summer in the NBA and yet the actual balance of power has not been altered in the sense that there is no team that is now a contender that was not a contender before, which is a line of thought effort I've heard articulated a lot. And it would touch on. It would essentially say the Raptors with Kawhi are not a true contender. The Celtics post Jalen Brown with Paul George and Mitchell Robinson and draft picks the trade are not yet a true contender. The Sixers with Jaylen Brown are not yet a true contender. The Rockets haven't gotten whole, presumably with Fred Van Vliet not a true contender. The Lakers having revamped their whole team, not a true contender. The Wolves having swapped out their two, you know, power forwards and brought in Lamelo Ball and some other stuff, not a true contender. And the Nuggets are sort of tbd. That's obviously there is one other gigantic free agent still sitting out there. But as of as of now, do you agree with that general precept?
- [23:14]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, and I think that was sort of the subtext in Adam's press conference A little bit too today's back is people are like, oh, the second April and all this stuff. People are like hemming and hawing. It's not like if you watch this league and follow this league for the last 20 years, like the summer was explosive. There were quote WOJ bombs and we would get oh my God, the landscape of the league is shifting with this free agency tool doing the shifting. And I think one of the big impacts of the new CBA is that free agency is less explosive than ever. But I do think this year has been particularly interesting. There was a lot of movement, but not a lot of teams got a lot better because of that movement. I think that's fair to say. And by the way, Hollinger had an epic performance in the press conference today. I don't know if you saw it, but one of my Favorite things because we all know these guys. He was finishing a cup of coffee as somebody else was asking. Classic. Hollinger always has a cup of coffee.
- [24:16]
Zach Lowe
8 but 8pm Vegas time guy is, I mean he's the drag prepping for a nine hour Texas hold' Em session at the Bellagio. I mean what, what's happening?
- [24:30]
Kurt Goldsberry
But I applaud the column and I think there is something going on and there were no WOJ bombs for various reasons this time around. But I do think that free agency as a tool when you're talking about the three team building tools, the draft trade and free agency. Free agency was cool and explosive for a long time. It's a draft league now and it's a trade league. So I think that's really interesting and I'm more positive on a few of the teams and we might get to this later on some of those moves than he might be. But ultimately I think it's fair to say that one of the biggest movements in the 20s is that free agency is less powerful of a team building tool.
- [25:10]
Zach Lowe
I'll go real quick. I agree on Toronto because of Kawhi's health issues. Assuming they get Kawhi. I, I think I agree on Philly because I think that fit Maxi Brown Embiid, I think is going to be an edge column. I think is going to be fine. But I just don't have any faith that Joel Embiid will ever be healthy for four straight playoff series. Boston, I think Boston is going to win a shit ton of regular season games. I mean that's probably an exaggeration. I think they're a 50 to 55 win team again. I do think they've lost significant playoff, not insignificant playoff equity in the George Jalen Brown swap. Obviously they have picks now to trade. I think to the degree that it's possible to sleep on the team that just won the championship. I think there is this sense around the league that that was cool. What happened with the Knicks, they caught lightning in a bottle. They won. They went 151 in their last 16 playoff games. They blew the shit out of everybody. You know, we'll see if they will see if that was real, you know. Or was the 53 win team that had a mid season existential crisis, was that more real? I think what happened with the Knicks was like a real thing. I think they clicked into. I think they discovered through some adversity in the Hawks series, through some ups and downs in the regular season, I think they've discovered the correct way to play on both Sides of the ball, the correct flow, the correct hierarchy. I just think it clicked. And it didn't click for a week. It clicked for 16 games, which is 25% but like 20% of a regular season. I'm not saying they're going to win 65 games next year or 70 games or even 58 games. I just think, yes, they lost Mitchell Robinson and Andre Drummond is. Is a lesser version of. I think the Diora will get better and maybe earn a role. And they brought back everybody else. I think this is a goddamn good team that has a real chance to defend its title. And then obviously they just have to face one of the juggernauts, presumably coming out of the West. And that brings us to LeBron James. I don't want to spend too much time on this because he could sign now. He could sign as we're talking. That would actually be great if he could do that for business of that. Where? Where here I one area where I disagree with Bill and I wonder where you think I've heard him say Cleveland with LeBron is not a contender like Mitchell Harden. LeBron too much, too many challenges on defense. And then if you want to play, if you consider LeBron a 4, now that's the position he's generally played well. Evan Mobley and Jared Allen start at the four and the five. How do you settle that? I think I disagree with Bill. The Cavs made the conference finals. This year was ugly. It wasn't convincing. It was year, year 0.5 of James Harden being on the Cavs. And by the way, I do think Harden is still coming back to the Cavs despite the conspiracy theories out there. That is part of why this is taking so long. Some sort of machination of get LeBron and jettison harden somewhere else because we just don't need so many guys who need the ball. I think LeBron proved so much of a shape shifter last year with the Lakers and so effective in so many different roles, and he's so smart and still big and physical that I actually don't worry about any sort of redundancies in Cleveland. And I think that team actually can get pretty scary if they have Harden, if they have all those guys and they don't have to salary dump Max truce, which they don't want to do. I think that team could get scary enough to win the East.
- [28:46]
Kurt Goldsberry
I don't know if I'd go that far, but I think I would split the needle with the needle by saying I think they're a contender. I wouldn't Pick them to win the East. I think New York deserves all the respect in the world. To your earlier point, Mike Brown really figuring out some stuff halfway through the year, through the playoffs, that's only going to continue A lot like Steve Kirk winning that first title and setting up years two and three in Golden State. It's always felt like Cleveland to me. I have no inside information. It just felt like LeBron. That's the storybook ending for this guy. It goes well with his career, the kid from Akron. But from a basketball sense, it also seems like it fits. To your point, I would push back on Bill. I would say that Cleveland team with LeBron James this year would have been a hell of a lot more dangerous in that next series than they were without him. And I think Donovan Mitchell has a lot left to give. The hardened thing, we've seen it for so long. I don't care less. I care more about Mobley and Allen who were hurt for so much of this year. It's hard to see where they are as a tandem in that front court. But yeah, I think that team would be pretty dangerous in the east, though. I would take the Knicks, Zach Lowe to beat them.
- [30:04]
Zach Lowe
I think Minnesota is my favorite basketball fit for LeBron among the teams that have been mentioned as in it. And all these teams are like, I don't. We don't know if we're out of it. Nobody knows anything. By the way you talk to the people within the teams, they're like, we don't know. Like there's all these theories going around. Well, he wants to wait to this fanatics fest or whatever in New York where he's going to be on some sort of panel or podcast. Oh, he wants to wait till after the World cup is over because he wants the whole spotlight. Nobody knows anything, but I think, I think Minnesota is like the best, cleanest basketball fit. Philadelphia certainly has a need for him. And Dave McMenamin, my old colleague at ESPN wrote a story today that, that struck a chord with you about the Sixers three man recruitment of LeBron recently. Why did that. You responded like, whoa, that. That seems like a real thing.
- [30:53]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, I mean the, the new executive there comes from Cleveland with LeBron. And you have Bob Meyer, who, Bob Myers, who's. Who's obviously carries a lot of weight in this circuit of building great teams. And then you had the stuff in there and I thought Dave did a great job of outlining how Maxi has worked out with LeBron for years and considers him a big brother. And then there's other stuff like BJ Edgecomb speaking very highly of him and Jalen Brown and LeBron's saying very nice things about Jalen Brown's MVP case this season. And I thought Dave did a great job of laying it out. In a way was like. It was. It just felt and like Dave's obviously clued into LeBron's camp and not that he knows something, but he might have an inkling that it could be more real. He's also. But I think he's a Philly guy, so he might be biased. My big takeaway, Zach Lowe, was that he did a great job of laying out alignment between the front office and I think the staff and the roster that LeBron could fit there. And by the way, if Joe Ellen B. Was healthy, which is up there with. Who was the other one we were talking about?
- [32:01]
Zach Lowe
Paul George or Hawaii.
- [32:03]
Kurt Goldsberry
Hawaii. Leonard. Yeah, there's a list of these guys. That's a fucking good team, dude.
- [32:09]
Zach Lowe
It's a very good team.
- [32:11]
Kurt Goldsberry
The guards are still getting better and by the way, I know we're going to get to this later, but some of the stuff around the edges that their new executives did were some of my favorite signings of the free agency period. So that's. That could be a really deep team that could win on back to backs with some of these guys resting.
- [32:27]
Zach Lowe
I will say, as much as I like the fit in in Minnesota, where he just steps into a power forward role that has been. That has a hole there. And as much as I love the theoretical fit in Denver, which doesn't appear to be on the list, although the Nuggets have tried to and still have the faintest of faint hopes, just him and Jogic together, which is. I think they would just do things just for sport. Like how many. How, how beautiful can we make this look? How many fun passes can we throw on one possession just for fun? And Golden State has the, you know, the symmetry with Curry. I think this. If you're. If all you care about is winning. If all he cares about is winning a championship and I'm not saying he does. I think moving east is the right move. Just getting out of the way of Wembanyama and the Thunder.
- [33:09]
Kurt Goldsberry
But thank you. By the way, how did his last eight in the Eastern Conference end? Zach Low. Can you remind the listeners?
- [33:16]
Zach Lowe
Well, they made all the finals.
- [33:19]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah.
- [33:19]
Zach Lowe
Toronto became nicknamed LeBron because of how often he humiliated the Raptors in the playoffs. And yeah, yeah, that's what I would
- [33:29]
Kurt Goldsberry
say in the last 16 years of his career or whatever. Eight in the east, won the east eight times. Goes to the West. I guess it's seven years maybe since he moved to LA, got to the finals once. I'm, I have Western bias. I'm a Western Conference guy. But yeah, the west is a hard road to get out of. Man, I still like that. No disrespect to the Knicks or the Celtics, but just the depth of the west remains a little bit deeper. So my advice to him would be good to go to the east if he really wants to, to do what reports are saying, compete for a championship.
- [34:02]
Zach Lowe
Speaking of the West, Victor Wamanyama and our other major news item of the last few days, signed a five year max extension at 25% of next season's salary cap and locked in at 25% forfeiting the opportunity to either make an All NBA team, win Defensive Player of the Year, win MVP or go three for three. If you're Victor Wembanyama, just one of three will do and make 30% or up to 30% of the salary cap. That's like 10 million bucks a year on his contract, which is a huge deal. When you're looking down the road at Steph Castle's contract and Dylan Harper's contract and oh my God, we still have dear and Fox's contract. How long are we going to have that? It's a huge deal. And Adam Silver to your point earlier made it very clear when asked multiple times about players having feeling perhaps some pressure to take less money because of the second apron acting as a hard cap. We've seen it with Brunson. Now Len Benyama seemed to his basic response to all of it was I think I kind of like this. This seems to be working exactly as intended. And he framed it as I like it because of the competitive balance it foisted upon the league. You can't afford to keep all your players. That's kind of the point. I'm sure his owners also don't mind it because they're literally paying a player less money and so maybe they can do that to other players too. To me, I look commend Wemby, I guess, like he clearly wants to win. $50 million is quite enough money for him or whatever it ends up being per year. You know, what's another 10 million? Well, it's a lot and someone has to get the money. It should be the players, not the owners. And to me this is one of those ones. And this is a tweak I've been talking about for almost a decade. It's one that Adam Silver was talking about today. This seems so easy to me. Just, just among many little rules you can do to incentivize continuity, to make it more possible for teams to keep max players that they've drafted or acquired their draft rights to or have had for X amount of seasons. Like someone like Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland.
- [36:03]
Sean Fennessey
Maybe
- [36:05]
Zach Lowe
if, if they make the 30% max and they get paid the 30% max, they get paid 30%. But their cap, Victor Weminyama should get 30%. He might be the best player in the league right now. He gets the 30% in his pocket. But for cap apron tax purposes, it just counts for the 25% that he's actually taking. This seems like a very easy needle to thread. He gets the full 30% and it only counts to 25% which is effectively what's going to happen. I don't know. That's just me. This is me. Apparently. It's apparently an exception. It's not as easy.
- [36:37]
Kurt Goldsberry
They have these exceptions, right, that the language is already there. So this could be a hometown exception or a long term seniority, 10 year exception, something like this. But it was a great story. You know, a delegation including Ms. Johnson and Brian Wright and Peter Holt and R.C. buford flew to Paris.
- [36:56]
Zach Lowe
It sounds like they're flying on Air Force One to, to, to meet at a summit or something. A delegation of Spurs.
- [37:03]
Kurt Goldsberry
I was told it was commercial aircraft and I was told it was in the third floor of a Parisian apartment building. And I think it was Victor's grandfather's apartment. And it was very hot and may may not have had air conditioning. But a remarkable moment. I thought that demonstrated key alignment between ownership through the executives, through the coach and obviously their franchise player to the Adam thing. I think this was the most interesting thing in the press conference when, when pressed on the second apron, what do you say? Over and over again the spurs and the Knicks played in the finals. A small market versus a large market. And he kept sort of boasting about the parody of the league. And, and I, I celebrate that. And I, I do think it is cool that we've had eight champions in eight years for the first time in. But one thing he didn't say is like what do you say to that little kid who was crying on the video when they Celtics have to trade Jalen Brown? Like that's a potential lifelong Celtics fan. Lifelong Jalen Brown fan that just had a really negative experience that we can trace back if you listen to Brad Stevens comments to these rules. So I think There is a way, Zach, with an exception like that, to reward teams for drafting well and create these bonds between athletes and cities and fan bases that are at the heart of pro sports. This is a crazy business. And when you get a David Robinson who's a spur for life, or Kobe who's a Laker for life, Stephen Curry, that's magic. That's what we all want. And I think the current cba, if you listen to Brad Stevens, is threatening the ability for teams to really create those relationships between those star athletes and the fan bases. He didn't mention anything about that. He said a small market team was able to play a big market team, which is cool, but isn't there a better way where we can sort of get both best of both worlds?
- [39:00]
Zach Lowe
I actually kind of admired how honest he was about no, I actually like what's going on. They like the player movement, they like the parody, and they don't appear to care about any of the issues that we're talking about. And there is an argument that, well, this is all cute what you're saying, Zach and Kirk, and you're so naive, but people should have to make tough decisions. That's what GMs are paid for. That's what agents are paid for. And like, I, I, I get that side of it, but I much these, these feel like easier fixes to me. Great for the spurs, obviously. Duh. I mean, like, they're going to be terrifying for a long time. Next topic. Do you have any takes on the Bam out of Bio Ty Tyler hero confrontation? Now, let me tell you, I thought I had just missed it because
- [39:47]
Sean Fennessey
another
- [39:47]
Zach Lowe
team staying at another hotel that I will not name on that same morning hosted a pickup run for veteran players, kind of whoever wanted to participate. And it invited a bunch of front office and coaches to watch. I was loitering in the hallway talking to people before meetings I had at that hotel. And I sat down at a meeting right after leaving there and got this text from the tweet alert from Sean saying that there had been an altercation at a practice. I was like, oh my God, did I leave too early? Did I miss it? It was at a different hotel. And I do find it kind of funny how the depth of the reporting coming out on this that Bam Adebayo struck Tyler Herro in the chin area and it's unclear if he was knocked. He does not appear to have been knocked over. Then he was held back. According to sources, there's doubtlessly surveillance video of this because it's a freaking casino. I would love to see that. And then I had seen the Tyler Hero tweet about who the worst mid range shooters in the league were last year. That like graphic that included both Giannis and Bam which was like a plus, passive aggressive subtweeting. And I had not seen this social media, text, whatever exchange between Tyler Herro and some fan of Bams. Actually have you seen this where Tyler Hero was like well basically like I'm the one they all have to game plan for 60 million. Seems like a lot for a guy who's a great defender on some nights and taking some shots at bamboo. I had not seen that. And you know, hey look, words are said, punches are thrown. I would be a little surprised if the NBA really did anything here. No one seems all that upset about it. Tyler Hero is out at summer league saying not a big deal, I'm moving on. But do you have any takes? Are you going to take a side? Are you going to come out Team bam, Team Hero, Team always team Bam. Team Pacifism. Like what are we doing?
- [41:41]
Kurt Goldsberry
I read an article on Grantland one time about Bam Adebay. It was really well done and I've been a huge Bam fan since that moment.
- [41:48]
Zach Lowe
It was on espn.com oh.
- [41:52]
Kurt Goldsberry
Also trying to go through life not getting hit by Bam out of bio. So I'm going to be careful what I say. But yeah, I, I don't know but I thought it gave us an even better exchange. The pen is mightier in the sword between Udonis Haslam.
- [42:07]
Zach Lowe
That was good.
- [42:08]
Kurt Goldsberry
Your sometimes co worker and Draymond Green, the center of the Golden State Warriors. And I thought you done it. I didn't know he had that kind of, you know, typing in him, but he just went after Draymond. But that was, you know, in July. There's not a lot to to laugh about and talk about in the NBA but that was was certainly something that got me laughing.
- [42:34]
Zach Lowe
Udonis has them very high on the list of people that I would not mess with. I generally think fighting is fighting is stupid and punching people is stupid. I understand that sports are very emotional. Tyler Herro tweeted, wrote, texted some fairly provocative things. Bam apparently confronted him about it. Tyler Hero said something Bam didn't like an altercation occurred. I think we all just move on. Nobody appears to have been injured. But it does make me think a couple of things. Number one, this world I'm just. Nothing has made me feel older than watching the Jaylen Brown twitch stream where he has the dudes from Twitter that are now his friends at his house on the stream, and this thing is like this. And the Durant texts. These guys are just becoming friends with, like, random dudes on social media apps that they don't even know. And texting. Sensitive stuff. It's like, what Is there really a male loneliness crisis? Kirk, I don't understand, like, why are you becoming friends with these random guys? There are people in your life, presumably, that you can talk to, actual humans that you can meet in person, and you know who they are. You know their names.
- [43:54]
Kurt Goldsberry
In all seriousness, though, it is sad when two teammates who went to the finals together and played together for one of the great coaches and organizations in this league, I have a falling out. It's pretty. It's pretty. So, I mean, my. My initial reaction was like, damn. I didn't. I didn't anticipate that, because I do believe in Heat culture to an extent. I do believe in this bolster O'Reilly, you done this. Bam. Out of bio sort of universe of, you know, we're all bigger than this thing is, bigger than us as individuals. I really did believe that. And maybe. Maybe it was always bullshit. Maybe it's bullshit now that Tyler Harrow is in Milwaukee. Maybe there was some animosity about that happening in the first place. My mind went there. But, yeah, ultimately, it was just sad to see guys who are obviously close and have accomplished a lot together come to a fight like that.
- [44:47]
Zach Lowe
Now I feel ashamed, Kirk, for making my own lighthearted conclusions about the situation, because that was deep, and it's true. And they did share a lot together. And now I feel bad about myself.
- [45:03]
Kurt Goldsberry
Resorts World, by the way, is. Have you seen one of these basketball courts in. It's such a setting. It's such a weird basketball setting for a league that has, like, these immaculate arenas and these incredible practice facilities. You go in July, you go to Resorts World, and it's just. It looks like an AAU tournament, but then you look over and it's like, oh, there's Tyler Harrow and there's, you know, whoever it is.
- [45:25]
Zach Lowe
But I. Over a dinner in Vegas with some compatriots, I said that I want to get to the point in my life where I've been inside every casino on the Strip that I've stepped foot in. Every casino on the Strip and Resorts World is three in one. There's a Hilton, there's a Crockfords, and there's a Conrad. And so I counted. I checked it. I stepped in there for other meetings, and I counted it as three. It also. You made Me talked about the, the peril of being punched by Bam out of bio. It reminded me of the, like, the one of the stupid what ifs we played when we were teenagers. It's like, you know, our version of like, what if a bear fought a lion or something like that was like, would you, for a million dollars, let Mike Tyson punch you in the face as hard as he could? My answer was, there's no price. I'm not doing it. There is no price at which I would do it because I, I could die. And I'm not sure what the price point for Bam is because he's not a professional boxer who really knows how to punch like that, but it's pretty goddamn high. There was, but the Mike Tyson one, there was no amount of money. 100 million. Like, what am I going to do with $100 million if I'm dead? Nothing.
- [46:36]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, you're right. There was no video. But in my head, I'm sure you saw this video this week of this bison, I think in Yellowstone. That's what I thought. That was the Bam out of bio. Tyler Harrow.
- [46:50]
Zach Lowe
I wish I had one. I wish you would prep me for this because I want to do 30 minutes on the bison.
- [46:56]
Kurt Goldsberry
Let's do it. We can clip this for a tick tock, as Adam would say. But yeah, there's no doubt if this. If one of them is Bam out of bio and one of them is Tyler Harrow, I think it's pretty clear who is who. You. You've watched this video, right? Zach Lowe.
- [47:11]
Zach Lowe
I'm watching it again right now. Sorry.
- [47:17]
Kurt Goldsberry
The guy had a beard, too. Like, it, like the video is sort of boring for like 5 seconds, 10 seconds, but the guy's beard gets you through that. And then the bison's like rolling around like a dog with allergies and scratching its back.
- [47:31]
Zach Lowe
One of my, One of my main beliefs in life is that wild animals are wild animals and are to be treated with a caution befitting wild animals. Look, one of my first. My first job in journalism was at the Stanford Advocate in Stanford, Connecticut. I was the Night Cops reporter. And I came on just a few months after. You can google it if you like. I will not describe it here. Just a few months after a big national story happened in Stanford, Connecticut, where a woman who had kept a chimpanzee as a pet. Well, guess what happened, Kirk? One day the chimpanzee snapped because it's a wild animal. And so this bite and that has informed my belief to say is wild animals are wild animals. So people Are taking pictures of this bison. This thing probably weighs a freaking ton. It can run fast. And my favorite thing about it is I'm watching it now. The grandpa. I think the grandpa actually believes I can elude the bison and he's hustling and he really. I have it frozen. I have a. Anyway, he really believes he can elude the bison by running in a circle around this pine tree. As if the bison isn't going to either figure out I can just go through the goddamn thicket here or I can. I'm faster than you. But the grandpa's like out of ideas immediately. All I could do is play ring around the rosie with this pine tree and the bison figures it out fat. Don't mess with wild animals. Where were we? Bam, hero. We're done with that. Oh my God. The bison. I. I shouldn't. I mean the guy is seriously. Visual. It's just unbelievable. I'm sorry. Oh my God. All right. I asked you to pick and I picked as well. Most underrated move of slash moves of the offseason not including the guy running around the tree. And the most. The most inexplicable moves of the off season. Would you like me to go first? Do you want to pick? Do you want to pick?
- [49:47]
Kurt Goldsberry
Inexplicable move. Taking a photo of a bison when
- [49:50]
Zach Lowe
you most can't jog. Most inexplicable move this to the divisions were most under. Under the radar.
- [49:56]
Sean Fennessey
Good move.
- [49:56]
Zach Lowe
You like. Like one that got, you know, we didn't pay it enough due because of all the big stuff happening. And most inexplicable move non Gary Trent junior Division. Where would you like to start?
- [50:09]
Kurt Goldsberry
Let's celebrate. I have a two parter if that's. If that's allowed. And it's. I alluded to it earlier. It's.
- [50:16]
Zach Lowe
It's.
- [50:17]
Kurt Goldsberry
It's the Anthony Simons Dean Wade pairing in Philadelphia. I think these are two quality NBA players slated to be either fringe starters or off the bench players for a team that is going to be really deep and capable on offense. I think Wade fits a big need in the absence of Paul George. And I think Simons has the capability of being one of the best bench scorers for a good team in the league. I just love it. I think that the new front office in Philadelphia has come in and they might not be done yet to allude to that McManaman piece, but even if they are done like this is a great thing but I like having the depth of those new pieces in Wade and Anthony Simon.
- [50:59]
Zach Lowe
Zach, I like that too. That was on my list. I have a very long list of candidates ranging from as small as Kobe Sanders contract with the Clippers Robert Williams contract with the Blazers is a great contract. Wishman Jiang with the Bucks. I have a whole long list. I will spare you the whole long list. We'll come back to some of these over the next a couple of weeks before I head to Europe. I want to give this is more like they've been kind of pilloried for their lack of action I think I'm. I'm. I am not I am not writing in a Detroit Pistons backslide down the standings as aggressively as most people are after they apparently stood still while several teams upgraded around them. Now that a little bit pending LeBron but just like they stole Isaiah Joe for nothing capitalizing on the Thunders need to cut money and so that gives them between Isaiah Joe, Kevin Herder and Duncan Robinson who is still on the team. You know they have a lot of they have a lot of sort of bites at the shooter apple different kinds of shooters and different ways to use them. I think they've played the Jalen Duran thing exactly right which is they never sweated for one second that he was allegedly taking meetings with the Kings of the Lakers for an offer sheet or a sign and trade. They're going to resign Jalen Duran pending some crazy sign and trade that emerges at a price that makes sense for everybody involved. That makes Jill and during a lot of money they have a lot of faith in Paul Reed as a backup five and have freed minutes for him by salary dumping Isaiah Stewart and I'm just flagging the John Collins move Tobias Harris out John Collins in on a three year $51 million deal that have you looked at the steel Kirk? No years 2 and 3 are completely non guaranteed so if it doesn't work that and those years are critical as a Sar Thompson's deal kicks in and Jill endurance deal will also kick in I I've always had a sweet spot for John Collins. I believe in the jump shot. I believe he can be coached and motivated into being an average to slightly above average defender and rebounder. Maybe not rebounder but okay rebounder and I think he'll play some small ball five for them and kind of unlock a look that they haven't had something the Clippers didn't do much with him and I just have a lot of faith more like they they came I think they had a real shot at Austin Reaves and I think they had a real shot at Kobe White as like the secondary creator that they really need and didn't quite get. I think they still need that for the playoffs. By the way, the playoffs don't start next month. They start after the trade deadline when this team is still going to have all the optionality it needs. But I just sort of believe in the culture, the defense, the baseline, the youth improving. I think Detroit's going to still win a lot of games next year.
- [53:47]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I think they slide back, but they have room to slide back and still be a really good team. I don't think they're going to. What was it last year, Zach? 61 wins. They ended up with something like that.
- [53:57]
Zach Lowe
A lot of wins. 60 wins on the dot.
- [53:59]
Kurt Goldsberry
60 wins. So I, I hey, 53, 54. That's a good year. I think they're going to miss Isaiah Stewart, Tobias Harris. But I agree overall that the team is still going to be good and could be great in years to come. I think Danis Jenkins deserves a chance to continue to grow into a bigger role. I still think the team lacks a second scorer, a second sort of playmaker next to Cade. I agree also on the Jalen Duran thing. I think it's just a sad. It's an awkward situation with the restricted free agency as a device, but I think they played it right. And John Collins, we'll see. I think I'd like to wait and see on that one. I think he provides a lot more offensive punch than somebody like beef stew, obviously, but we'll see what he can do for, for, for this team. I have them slated three or four in the east, if I had to say right now, and considering they were one last year, you might say that's a decline. But I agree with you. I don't think there was a move available to them that I would have liked to see them do that they didn't do.
- [55:06]
Zach Lowe
And by the way, on the flip side, I've said before I like to buy a series for the Spurs. I thought that was a smart signing for them, addressed a lot of their needs. All right, give me your inexplicable one.
- [55:13]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, I this will go. This will go way back and it's sort of high profile, but it's Trey
- [55:17]
Zach Lowe
Young and number one. Number one on my list with a bullet.
- [55:21]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, it is.
- [55:22]
Zach Lowe
No pun intended.
- [55:23]
Kurt Goldsberry
That's a word, right? Explicable. Zach, It's. Yeah, it is a word. Yeah, it is explicable in the same way that Gary Trent is explicable. If you talk to people around the league about why it happened and when it might have been agreed to and why it's four years and why it's $250 million. But just from a performance value standpoint, it is inexplicable that I don't think there was a competing team that was going to offer this dude four years and that kind of money and in the second apron era to hamstring yourself with with that kind of a deal and your, your ability to build a team around it for a one way guard. I've seen a lot of smart analysis this summer sort of linking John Morant, Lamelo Ball and Trey Young as, as sort of these like flawed guards that got moved around and Trey being, you know, paid so much more than those guys. I think is, is a fair comp looking forward. I don't know if we would justify giving those guys that much money.
- [56:23]
Zach Lowe
He's on my list. He's actually the first name I wrote down other than Gary.
- [56:26]
Sean Fennessey
Joe.
- [56:27]
Kurt Goldsberry
Sorry. Joe House.
- [56:28]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, yeah, well, Joe House will be fine.
- [56:31]
Kurt Goldsberry
Joe House retweeted the, the celebratory tweet from Trey Young. That was, that was very nice.
- [56:36]
Zach Lowe
Look after this we got a 30 minute mets corner with me and Sean Fantasy where we talk about how we're never giving up. So like I get it. Joe House. I think this is going to be an interesting team next year. One of the, one of the things we were going to do and we don't have time to do it now was pick one of the sort of relegation zone ish teams that we think is better than expected or worse than expected. And the Wiz are my in my better than expected category. And I think the Trae Young thing is going to be very interesting because the whole theory of him in Washington was well, we have all these young wings from Keyshawn George to Debancer who we just drafted and a young big and Alex Sar and Bilal Koulibaly and Trey Johnson and Will Riley, et cetera, who are overtaxed as primary creators. So we're going to get them one. And so instead of attacking from nothing, they're going to attack scrambled defenses after Trae Young runs a pick and roll. And one extreme of that is they're all just chilling standing around while Trae Young dribbles endlessly and takes a bunch of 35 footers that don't go in. Another extreme is Trae Young just runs around off the ball and those guys do more of the heavy lifting. They probably should. I actually think the Wizards are going to try to meet in the middle where it is Trey Young's offense, but he's getting off of it fast and those guys get chances to create off of closeouts and all that. I think they could be pretty. I think they could be fun to watch and like sniffing toward decent. Not playing probably, but. But. But decent. Who was going to be your team, by the way, if we did this? Your. Your relegation zone.
- [58:04]
Kurt Goldsberry
Happy Sacramento.
- [58:06]
Zach Lowe
Happy?
- [58:08]
Kurt Goldsberry
Oh, no.
- [58:08]
Zach Lowe
What?
- [58:09]
Kurt Goldsberry
No. Happy? No, definitely not. I like Washington. I don't want to copy you, but I like Washington. I can't wait to watch them. I know that sounds hypocritical with what I just said. I just don't like the number in the years for Trey. But yeah, if they're. If they're healthy, that's a really compelling team to watch. You have young players and old players. Is Chicago eligible for one of these bad team candidates? Relegation team? Zach?
- [58:33]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, they're on. They're on the list of nine or ten that I have.
- [58:36]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I can't wait to watch them. Mostly because of a recency bias. Watching Caleb Wilson at summer league and he looks awesome and he was always sort of this guy who could be the best player in this draft. But beyond that, I sort of actually like the Norman Powell acquisition. Whether they want to keep them or move them, it's a nice flexible deal. And then Dalen Swain from the great University of Texas, they also picked him up in the middle of the first round. I think Chicago is going to look completely different. Thiago Splitter, who I enjoyed his coaching performance in Portland and in a related story about austerity earlier, is no longer the coach of Portland, but is the coach of Chicago. So I have a complete new vibe in Chicago and that will be a good league pass team for me. And one, I think they'll stay out of that relegation zone.
- [59:25]
Zach Lowe
And we both have Sack as an OH team, definitely. Darius Acuff has to be just amazing to make me feel good about the team because you know their starting five is going to be like Acuff, Levine, Keegan Murray. I penciled in DeAndre Hunter and then Sabonis and then off the bench of Malik Monk, Nick Clifford Achua Mobo just got signed. Renault, who I really like and you know, some other guys that I should probably list that I'm forgetting off the top of my head. I just don't see a lot of hope. They drafted Caravan. I think he'll. Oh, and my guy Cardwell, I love, I love Dylan Cardwell as a third big Second big. He's fun. I just, they're, they're the classic. Like they don't want to be in the relegation zone because they control their first round pick. That's one of the stories with these teams. Some control their first round pick and really don't want to be in the relegation zone and some like Brooklyn do not control their first round pick and maybe don't care part of this. And yet, I mean I like Nick Clifford too. I just don't see any way for them to compete particularly defensively as is. And it's not like they're stacked with extra first round picks. They're really not. They have a, they have a swap that's actually bad for them. This San Antonio swap rights on their 31 pick and they have a Wolves pick down the line coming in. Other than that, they're pretty much net neutral with picks and they're going to be bad again right at the time when being really bad is as unprofitable as it's been in a long time. That's. We'll save the rest of this discussion for later. My other inexplicable moves candidates by the way, I didn't write down that many. Trae Young, the Jalen Brown trade, Lakers going all in on Walker Kessler. I've discussed that at length. Gary Trent Jr. The Pelicans just existing. Oh, just. Just existing. I don't know if they realize that the off season has begun other than signing DeAndre Jordan to a two year deal and everyone assumed it was a one year deal. And I think. I think the Miles Bridges trademark for Phoenix bears a little bit more not just because of the off the court stuff which we all know is very bad. But I. He's just one of those players that they gave up a very valuable unprotected 2031 pick and a couple of good role players. There's probably an extension for him coming as there is for Dylan Brooks who is great for them. He's just one of those like I get that they need a four. He adds a little bit of bounce, a little bit of force, a little bit of verb that they don't have. He's just one of those guys who like you look at his stats and say 25 and 4, pretty good player and it just doesn't add up to enough because of his limitations on defense. His limitations of the three point shooter goes up and down. I think they'll lean into his passing a little bit more. I think he's actually kind of an underrated passer but he's, I'm just not sure he's enough of a winning player to justify that level of commitment. So jury's out on that one for me.
- [62:34]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah. And the whole Michigan State thing, and I was a professor at Michigan State a long time ago, but it just seems like a little too weird too. It doesn't, it doesn't seem like it fits. And I agree. Giving up Royce o', Neill, Grayson Allen and draft capital for this player in a time where, you know, in the Western Conference competing with these other teams, it doesn't scare anybody out there. And like your point on New Orleans, like, who are you going to be favored against now? Like, that's one way I like to look at it. If you're playing Sacramento, sure. But if you're playing San Antonio, Denver, the Lakers, Clippers, the Blazers, like, where do you slot yourself now that you have Miles Bridges on your team? I just don't get it.
- [63:16]
Zach Lowe
Well, in a, in a New Orleans related last point here, kind of an important subplot of the season, this is the last guaranteed year on Zion Williams's contract. Just going to throw that out there. Kurt Goldsberry, you're the man. What are we going to be seeing from you on the ringer.com coming up?
- [63:34]
Kurt Goldsberry
I have a big, messy Jalen Brown thing coming out at some point, but we'll see. I mean, we'll see. We'll. We'll have to talk about it when it comes out.
- [63:44]
Zach Lowe
I'm excited. Yeah, we need to redo this. We need to do properly this discussion about the relegation zone team. There's a lot of fun, there's a lot of fun teams down there.
- [63:52]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, I think one thing I'd like to nominate our listeners to come up with is can we come up with a better branding for the relegation zone? You know, maybe not. It's a, it's a good one. But it's like, it's so fascinating, Zach, because the whole behavior of mediocre teams is going to change dramatically this season. And, and I think it's going to be good. And we're hard on the league sometimes with, with all the stuff we talked about. But this is, this I think is going to be good. But I'm fascinated to watch like the mediocre teams aren't just going to be racing to the bottom and in fact it's going to be sort of a scarlet letter to be down there at the bottom of your conference standing. So I think it's a great thing. But can we come up with a funnier name or a wittier name or I don't know. We'll see.
- [64:36]
Zach Lowe
But it's a good thing, listeners. The gauntlet has been throwing. Kurt Goldsberry, you're the man. I will talk to you soon.
- [64:42]
Kurt Goldsberry
This episode is brought to you by Netflix. The World cup is finally here and the coolest thing right now. FIFA World Cup Launch Edition on Netflix. A fast and fluid game where your phone is the controller and your TV is the stadium. Play as any of the 48 teams in 16 real world stadiums and it's included in your membership.
- [65:00]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [65:01]
Kurt Goldsberry
Go to the Games tab on your TV and play FIFA World Cup Launch edition now only on Netflix. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boar's Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means planning your whole day around it. Presenting the Friar's turkey breast only from Boar's Head. A backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905. Thank you, Zach.
- [65:39]
Zach Lowe
It's time for Mets corner Sean Fennessy is here. Sean, the last time we did the Mets corner of despair, a day later, Carlos Mendoza was fired and Mr. Met, I don't know if you've seen the video. As Steve Gelbs was delivering the News somberly on SNY about poor Carlos Mendoza taking the fall, Mr. Met was dancing behind him, doing his hijinks, making faces, not really realizing. I don't think Mr. Met was not kept in the decision making loop, honestly. Maybe Mr. Met should be in the decision making loop. Maybe he would have thrown himself in front of some of these moves. So that's what happened the last time. And since then, I'm happy to report the season has really turned around and I'm excited to come out of the All Star break for a playoff chase. How are you, Sean?
- [66:24]
Sean Fennessey
I'm so excited. Yeah, it's great. What are we, 17 games under.500. Everything is going great.
- [66:31]
Zach Lowe
What are we? We are 17 games under.500. We are 40 and 57. There are three teams in major League Baseball with a worst record winning percentage wise than the Mets, the Kansas City Royals, the Los Angeles Angels, who. They're no longer of Anaheim, right? They're just the Los Angeles Angels, but
- [66:47]
Sean Fennessey
they play in Anaheim.
- [66:48]
Zach Lowe
But yeah, I understand. And the Colorado Rockies since starting last season. This is a stat that I will track forever and ever 45 and 24. Best record of baseball 69 games in the last season. The Mets are 78 and 112 for a winning percentage of 41%. So over 190 games a season and a fifth or whatever that is. This is not just a bad team. This is not just a run of the mill bad team. This is basically the worst team in baseball that's actually trying. There's probably like the Rockies probably have a lower winning percentage in those 190 games. That's where we are. And we ended the first half with a complete banger getting swept by the Red Sox, who barely got to Citi Field on time, ending with, I would call it the most disheartening game of the season. But we're going to go through all the candidates for that. Francisco Lindor home run, RBI double. He's coming out of it. He's had a nice productive stint since he came back from injury. Boots are game cinching double play ball. Devin Williams does the rest. Mets lose 32 and now we are headed into the All Star game with Juan Soto as our sole representative. Wasting we are wasting just an epic Soto season and it's just going to go into smithereens. Sean how's I'm glad you're wear your Knicks at at least your Knicks championship
- [68:06]
Sean Fennessey
at I needed to represent some version of winning because we're losing so profoundly and consistently in the world of the Mets. I I do we really want to feed the masses this misery? Like is that because you you you didn't you didn't see this coming and I didn't see this coming but do you think the masses want us they want our Mets tears. They want us to say to them like oh lol Metz and we are the disaster that you think we are and what an embarrassing franchise. Or is there another way to have this conversation? Should we go somewhere how do you want to do this?
- [68:38]
Zach Lowe
I've already, as you know started pivoting to this year is over. It's been over. How do we reconcile a disaster year, a seller potentially being a seller at the trade deadline with the imperative of win next season? Because you have Juan Soto making $1 billion and Francisco Lindor with a no trade clause and five years left on his contract or whatever veteran stars. You don't have those players if you're trying to rebuild. Steve Cohen went on a podcast I think was Joel Sherman and John Heyman. That's among my lowlights of the season. I'm going to get to my my other lowlights of the season and basically said, I expect both of them to get back next year. They don't hate each other anymore. If they did, everything's great, everything's fine, they're fine. But you know, it was notable to me that Francisco Lindor was asked after that Red Sox game, would you ever waive your no trade clause in the event that we arrived at a place like that? My daughter is in the next room. I'm praying she's not listening to any of this because it would break her heart. I just thought it was notable that he said no comment. He didn't say, no, I want to be a Met forever. He didn't say anything else, but he said no comment. So maybe if you want to redirect the conversation to AJ Ewing and Carson Benge and is there a world where these two timelines come together in some functional way next season? Because I'll tell you, another low light of that Steve Cohen podcast. Not exactly a ray of sunshine when it came to evaluating the Mets minor league system, which has regressed and not a lot of optimism for like, yeah, we'll get this turned around next year or two. The only optimism was I'm not firing David Stearns during the length of his contract, which okay, sure, I think multiple
- [70:13]
Sean Fennessey
things that seem to be competing are true at the same time, I think. Let's talk about Francisco Lindor first. I don't think he'll be traded. He is in the driver's seat. He is a 5 and 10 player. He also has a no trade clause, so he fully reserves the right to control his destiny. And there was a time, I don't know if this is still true, where he and his family were very close to the Cohens and that he was clearly our franchise player. Now there was much made, especially during his injury earlier this year, that this was a moment where the team was shifting to become Juan Soto's team. Juan Soto was the highest paid player on the team. We'd heard the reports of those two players not getting along. And then the thing that happened is that these two very exciting young outfielders, AJ Ewing and Carson Benge, emerged this season and they are dramatically the bright spot on 2026 for the Mets and we can talk about them if you'd like, but that trio of players solidifying what looks to be the future of the Mets outfield for the next five years, if not longer, has been very exciting and it has made the team feel more like Sotos. He gave them the psychopath's nickname. You can see them celebrating after the few and far between wins that we experience as fans for this team. And so all of a sudden, Francisco Lindor sort of seems like a man without a country. It doesn't really feel like his team right now, even though I think he's the definitional player this decade for the New York Mets, so. But I don't think he's going to be traded, and I do think we need to get out of this hellscape of 2026 to see that clearly for one primary reason. It's not just that while he's aging, Francisco Lindor is still very, very, very good. It's that he plays shortstop. And there are just not a lot of shortstops that are even close to Francisco Lindor in terms of skill, experience, and quality play. So trading him now just at the bottom of his value in a lost season feels like it would be an odd move. Why did he say no comment? I don't know. He's been weird all year, man. He's been making more errors than he's ever made.
- [72:11]
Zach Lowe
Mental errors, too. Like, just like forgetting how many outs there are in a game against St. Louis back in the day. Back. Back a couple months ago. Just weird. Like, dude, you're the. You're like the veteran bellwether of the team. Like, this is this. You are a baseball player. This is the kind of stuff that you do in your sleep.
- [72:27]
Sean Fennessey
And he seems more emotionally checked out, too, Zach. Like, he just. He doesn't seem like the same person. He's not the Mr. Smile that he was three, four years ago. He's not that effervescent ballplayer What. What is causing that? Who knows? Maybe there's something going on in his personal life. Maybe there's something else going on. Maybe it was the Steve Cohen comment that as long as he is the owner, there will never be a captain on the team. All of those things could be affecting him. I'm not really sure, but I'm not sure that now is the right time to trade him. We did talk in the off season that the time to trade him was last off season. That was in terms of capturing the highest amount of value when he was still considered clearly a top 20 and maybe even some people's eyes, a top 10 player in the sport. And now that seems to have fallen off a little bit. So I think you need to help him kind of rebuild some of that value if you do ever want to move on from him. But I wouldn't do that. I think the other thing that is True is that it's very clear now, very clear, because we have two plus almost three years of evidence that David Stearns is not equipped to spend Steve Cohen's money effectively by himself. We have a lot of evidence that whether he needs guardrails or someone to come in under him as GM or for him to reevaluate his philosophy and think about things a little bit differently, some of it is bad luck, some of it is poor strategy, some of it is trying to jump the market or overthink what a player could be in the aftermath of another player's departure. But the reason that they have that brutal record over that period of time is because problems that were evident were not resolved and problems that didn't exist were created. And we have to live with that over the last 12 months of Mets fandom. And it's tearing me up inside.
- [74:09]
Zach Lowe
Honestly, I think that's very fair. You know, from, I mean, again, I'm, I, I, as everyone knows, I lapsed for a long time. I can only talk about what I've witnessed the last couple years. But from like Ryan Helsley to everything going into this season, most of the moves have failed and some have failed catastrophically. Boba Shet has at least come to life since June 1st and has been like roundly the player that I hoped he would be. And we'll see what his future, he's got these player options. We'll see what he does. But you know, one of the many low moments of the season, I think it was all the same game when they made six infield errors in one game. All four infielders made at least one error in the game. And the fans began chanting Pete Alonso's name during the game. And Pete Alonso did not make the All Star team this year in the American League, but he has 21 home runs in an 8:20 OPS. And honestly, you and I have almost equaled the combined production of Marcus Simeon, Polanco and Luis Robert Jr. Who again, every update I get is like, oh, Polanco is running in the outfield. It's like, great. Is he training to be an Olympic sprinter like is, or is he going to play baseball at some point? And he's back to playing baseball mostly at dh. Mark Vientos, thank God, is going to be out of our lives for a while. But yeah, I mean, they're just, you know, you can point to Luke Weaver. That's been a smash hit home run out of the bullpen. Devin Williams has been mostly pretty bad. Freddie Peralta, I mean thank God they didn't get over their skis and extend him early when he was looking pretty good because he's not five frame Freddie anymore. He's like four in the third frame Freddie at this point. And I don't know, like we don't got a lot of options for the, I mean this is the, the forward spin is what is the starting rotation of the New York Mets next year. It can't just be McLean McClain and hope it rains or McClain and Christian Scott and hope it rains. It's got to be more guys have got to contribute and I don't know who they are.
- [76:04]
Sean Fennessey
I mean the challenge there is speaks to that Stearns philosophy question. He has not wanted to give a pitcher longer than a three year contract. And so you know, we've got Sean Mania in the middle of a three year contract and aside from him there are going to be no player, no pitchers on long term contracts heading into next season. I like what I've seen from Zach Thornton. It's only been three starts.
- [76:25]
Zach Lowe
Very encouraging. It was.
- [76:26]
Sean Fennessey
He never should have get that down, obviously you know that. But you know he's now pitched really well against division rivals, against you know, a very hot Red Sox team. He's looked like, like a pro and doesn't have the dominant stuff that I think you see from Scott or McClain, but seems to be pretty refined as a pitcher already. And so if you just look at those three guys and then you look at Benj and Ewing, you can say okay, well like maybe there is in this miasma of pain and confusion and poor decision making the David Stern's way, the sort of like athletic developmental group of players who are coming up through his system with his coaching mentalities that are filtered through the farm system. And then maybe you're building something for the future. And look, when we were whinging about the loss of Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz in the winter, we did talk about the idea that Stearns wanted to have his kind of team and that all of these players I think who are younger and more athletic and are cost controlled I think is really more in the mold of how he sees this team. The problem is what you said at the top, which is like we're in the age 28 season of Juan Soto. This is as good as he's ever going to be.
- [77:42]
Zach Lowe
It's a thousand ops basically right now every at bat is like a work of art. The guy's hitting clutch home runs now, which was like the one thing that he wasn't kind of doing enough. And we're blowing those games too. Were doing our best to blow them. It's, it's. But I will say, you know, the outfield thing, these guys look real to me. And Ewing and Ben, I like their approach at the plate. Ewing is pretty patient. Sometimes too patient. I love how they play the field. I love their versatility. And I just like, even in my prime as a Mets fan, when the Mets were like, I mean I was a fan from when I was a kid through the horrible years, through the good like Piaza, etc. Years, even in like the World Series team and the teams that bracketed that there was always like one outfield spot is like, oh man. Hopefully Brian McCrae has a good year this year. Like here's like 40 year old Rickey Henderson and maybe Daryl Hamilton. It just was like Benny Agbayani would be hot for a month and then go. Was always like piecing together a productive outfield. The idea that you could just set in stone these three guys are the outfielders is very, very. And two of them are elite defensive outfielders to cover for the one who isn't like, that's very. I like when my team gives me a part of the team that I don't have to think at all about. It's just in Sharpie, this is what it is. I like that.
- [78:55]
Sean Fennessey
I totally agree. It was very funny that the minute we had injuries, second base, AJ Ewing was slotted right over to second base and I was like, no, we have our first center fielder for the first time since Juan Lagaris. Like we haven't had a center fielder who is, is elite defensively in many, many years. And of course like patrolling center field is extremely important. One, because Citi Field is enormous and two, because Juan Soto is not very talented in the field as we've seen this season. And so yeah, I do feel really good about those three guys and I think that that's really exciting. They are the reason to watch. Ewing in particular has really impressed me and he hit. He hit. He's basically hit at every single level. And it seemed like it took him about two weeks before he got fully comfortable at this level. And the idea of him being at the top of the lineup for a long time is really exciting after that. I mean the thing that, the other thing that has happened is you mentioned those three new acquisitions who have hardly played and when they've played they've been miserable. But the, the quote unquote baby Mets, that generation of players, Brett Beatty, Mark Vientos, Francisco Alvarez. You know, Alvarez has been up and down this year. Not bad. He's been not bad.
- [80:02]
Zach Lowe
He's fine. He's doing like the Mets, you know, Will. Will Salmon, who does a really nice job covering the Mets for the Athletic, had a piece about how both of their catchers will be in high demand at the trade deadline if the Mets really want to sell. I love the catching situation right now, Alvarez, like, I just. His bat is appealing enough that I'm, I want to ride with it a little bit now. I said the same thing about Vientos, who turned into a disaster. But Alfie's got real pop from a spot where nobody has popped and Torrens is like, it's like freaking like Dennis Rodman is your catcher. Nobody runs on him. He's an elite. He's just airtight defensively.
- [80:38]
Sean Fennessey
Surprisingly clutch hitter too. And he was just pinch hit for the other day in a big spot in the ninth inning and I was like, what are you doing? You have to let Lou Sterns hit in the ninth inning. So yeah, that situation is mostly good. But you know, Vientos and Beatty didn't develop. They didn't turn into the players that we wanted them to be. And if you see a world where Mark Vientos can play first base and Brett Beatty can play second base or third base, long term for the team and they're, they're three win players, it's just a totally different lineup and club. But neither of those guys look like everyday players. I don't think Mark Vientos will be in baseball three years from now. He has progressed so dramatically and opposing teams are so aware of how to pitch to him that he looks, you know, eventually he leans in like he'll lean into 15 balls a year and hit home runs, but otherwise, I mean, he's a sub.300 on base player. Like he's just not a competent hitter. And he in the field, he's an absolute butcher. So it's really tough and it's basically made the team every day look one third competent and very rarely. It's only in the last two weeks or so since Lindor has gotten healthy and since Boba Shet has come to life that they've seemed like a real offense and that has dovetailed neatly with the regression of the pitching staff.
- [81:49]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, everything, everything seems to even Steven with the Mets, like we just can't have everything going well and we can have everything going badly actually. So I guess it doesn't work out like Jared Young is all of a sudden like one of the most essential players on the team. Because you know what it turns out you need to have on your team? A first baseman. It would be nice to have a first baseman. Be really nice to have a first baseman with 21 home runs this year. But we couldn't pay Pete Alonso. I guess it's just not possible. And so we have this revolving door of like, people who can't play the position, who switch to the position at the last minute and it turns out you need to learn how to play it. Then they get injured and they're injury prone like Polanco. So it's not shocking that they get injured. So their mobility is further compromised, their ability to pivot to that position is further compromised. It's like, Jared Young, come on down. You're like the everyday first baseman. But on Benj, you know, I remember that he had a home run, I think, in the first game of the season when they beat Paul Skeens way back when F was optimistic and happy. And then he went into a deep, deep slump. And there were a lot of jokes like, this is Carson Benj. This is the guy we've heard all about, even the Mets and I. To have him climb out of that in this season and just become a steady, productive player feels like a huge win. To have that not be like, oh, we're sending him back down to Triple A or he's going through a black hole, that feels like a big, big win.
- [83:06]
Sean Fennessey
I totally agree. He's got a good shot at a 2020 rookie season. I mean, that's nothing to, to sniff your nose at. I mean, that's, that's a really big thing. And to develop a player like that, that is a call that Sterns made early in the season. That was right on. He, he basically called his shot in February and said, I think Benj is probably going to be our starting right fielder. And so that has more or less been great. You know, you pointed out that the farm system has taken a step back. And I wonder if we would also feel differently about this season if three things had happened. If Ryan Clifford had seemed like a potential long term first base. And now with like a 40% strikeout rate in AAA, he just doesn't seem like a major league baseball player. We'll see if he gets over that. If Jonah Tong was not sitting on a 6.0 ERA in AAA and doesn't look like he's going to be a part of the rotation anytime soon, and if Jacob Reimer hadn't gotten hurt and hadn't struggled this year because he was a really hot prospect coming out of last off season. Those three guys that could have been your first baseman, your third baseman and your number three starter, and all of a sudden maybe none of them are a part of the club long term, we don't really know. And Clifford, it's worth noting, was a part of that class of players who came in after the 2023 season, went belly up when Steve Cohen blew the whistle and said, we have to trade Max Scherzer, we have to trade Justin Verlander, we have to take this team apart and kind of rebuild. And the plan for 2024 was to go in and not really compete. And obviously they went on the incredible run that they did. So now we really have to start thinking, like, can they really restock in a meaningful way based on what they have on this team, which is a bad team, but does have a lot of valuable pieces. And so this is another thing where we're going to be able to judge Stearns pretty plainly on how well he does over the next three weeks.
- [84:50]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, I'm looking at Clifford's stats because I've been intrigued by him and I haven't looked in a bit. 129 strikeouts in 86 games is really something else. But the, the slugging is, is still pretty. I don't know. We'll see. I. Strikeouts don't bother as much as they bother some other people, but that's, that's a lot of strikeouts.
- [85:09]
Kurt Goldsberry
I'm.
- [85:09]
Zach Lowe
I've now pivoted to where you were a month ago when we did this. Like, I was like, I don't know. Luke Weaver's pretty good. Like, if the Mets are trying to win it, I'm just like, let's just trade everybody that has value. If we can get peak, peak value for these guys. Give me a couple Ryan Cliffords in the. In return, like a couple of prospects that have a shot. We can find a facsimile of Luke Weaver if we need to. In the off season. I'm just like, let's turn it over.
- [85:32]
Sean Fennessey
I mostly agree the Weaver thing is so tricky, right? Because when he was on the Yankees, he would be dominant for stretches and he would really go through challenging periods. He lost his closers role while he was there. He lost it to Devin Williams and then he regained it back and then he lost it again. And he's a fickle player. He has been unbelievable this season. I mean, he is legitimately one of the. Had been one of the very best pitchers in the sport. Arguably the best reliever in the sport. I think it's, what is it, 20 consecutive appearances without allowing a run. So you want to trade at the top of his value. But he's under contract for $11 million next year. We're going to need him. I don't know.
- [86:12]
Zach Lowe
It's why I've been torn about it because I am already looking ahead to next season and have been for two months now. And I just, you know, I'm fine either way with him. Like Rayleigh and all the other guys. Like trade them all, get whatever you can for them. He's the one that I have some hesitation with.
- [86:28]
Sean Fennessey
Question for you. Would you consider trading Devin Williams right now?
- [86:31]
Zach Lowe
Oh my God, yes. Why would the answer be no?
- [86:34]
Sean Fennessey
Well, you probably have to pay down a decent amount of his salary. You've already paid $6 million signing bonus. He's on a three year, $51 million deal. So now it's effectively a three or $45 million deal. Prorated, you know, you've probably got $36 million left on the deal, $35 million left on the deal. If you're willing to pay half that, you can get a prospect back. You would make that trade.
- [86:57]
Zach Lowe
That's, that's where we are at this point. We have to subsidize the other team to that degree. This is where my NBA, my NBA brain still needs to adapt to major league like that. You can't do that like that in the NBA. So that's the degree of subsidizing we would have to do.
- [87:09]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, and that's something they did in 23 and obviously the team has done many times in the past and they've had to take apart expensive franchise players. I think they will have to do that for a handful of people. It'll be really interesting to see if they try to do that for somebody. I mean, is Bichette on the table? I'm not really sure. I'm curious because you know, he obviously has a trade kick, not a trade kicker, but like a sort of a bonus kicker. If he opts in, he gets an additional $5 million next season and that's potentially a three, three year deal. But he may want to have some control over where he plays. There's a lot of different permutations that can happen. You know, the AJ Minters and Brooks Raleys of the world. Those are very simple. Those are just like, those are valuable arms. They're going to garner one mid level prospect. You're, you're hoping against hope that you can get a top 100 prospect for them, but you probably can't. Maybe for Rayleigh because he's so effective, but the bigger brand name players because there are so many teams right now in the sport that are still competing for a playoff spot because it's so easy to get into the playoffs and we're still so hapless and unable to get in.
- [88:16]
Zach Lowe
We're a sub 1% playoff odds. We have cracked the 1% threshold.
- [88:20]
Sean Fennessey
It's truly insane. It's truly insane just how expensive this team is, how much fanfare there was. What the markets told us was going to happen with this team, what you and I thought was going to happen with this team and just how miserable they've been. But there's no reason for them not to rip it off. But. But you can't rip it up too much because what you don't want is to go through what you went through this year, which is you've got all these new faces, you've got a bunch of guys who are perhaps not comfortable playing in New York to start the season, who are not comfortable with the transition. And also a team with no identity. I mean, this team, really. That's part of the problem is what would you say defines this group of players, this team this season right now?
- [88:57]
Zach Lowe
Nothing. I mean, the closest thing is the outfield that we talked about earlier and that's it. And some of the outfield adjacent. Good hitters on the team, but there isn't one. I'd say, you know, does that dead money, by the way, if we do that with Devin Williams or whatever, does that live on our cap year to year? Does it like spread out like it is in the NBA or is it just like we're paying the team? That's it. We're not hampered in terms of our ability to make transactions.
- [89:18]
Sean Fennessey
That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. I'm not a cap expert either.
- [89:23]
Zach Lowe
We need a new. In the new cba, whenever that comes. We might. We the Mets, not we Major League Baseball. We this particular team with this particular payroll. Remember how the NBA had. Has. Every time there's like a lockout in a new cba, they have the amnesty clause where you just get to be like, oh, oops, oops. Okay, we. We don't want. That was a mistake. And now the rules are different. And like Andre Blatch, you're gone. And Josh Smith, you're gone. We might need one of those for the. For the good old metropolitans to recalibrate
- [89:48]
Sean Fennessey
the I think the number one draft pick there is probably Kodai Senga, if you're going to do that. I didn't even mentioned his name. I mean, it's been a disaster. A, a disaster.
- [89:56]
Zach Lowe
He comes out of the bullpen and for an inning, one inning, it's like 99 on the corner, 99 on the corner. Ghost fork, go to your room without dinner. And then three more. And then he comes out the next inning and it's walk, walk, sad face, sad face, home run. His era is still over 10. And I want to say maybe they found something with him in the bullpen. But like, ideally he's not just a one inning guy, he's a three inning guy or something in between. And he can't. But he can't even sustain three innings. And then his face gets sad and he's out of the game.
- [90:33]
Sean Fennessey
Well, let's try to mentally reset on Kodai Senga though, because Devin Williams makes $17 million annually. Luke Weaver makes $11 million annually. Kodai Senga makes $15 million annually. If Kodai Senga was just the $15 million setup man for this team who was asked to pitch in the seventh inning, I'm not sure what the problem is there. But the thing that they've been trying to do and that the team has been kind of obsessed with over these last 18 months is this idea of bulk relief. You know, having an opener and then having a pitcher come in, whether it be David Peterson since shipped off to Chicago, Sean Mania since repaired himself in some ways, and we can talk about him. He's been very solid. And now Kodai Senga, who, you know, new manager Andy Green is sort of like, wants to get three or four innings out of him. And I understand why, because the team is short a starter and we've lost the Kodai Senga role in the rotation. But just let him do that thing that you just described. 99, 99, Ghost Fork. And let him play that part in the bullpen at least as much as you can, because everything else has been disastrous. I mean, he has been one of the worst performing pitchers in the sport ever since he got hurt on that play at first base with Pete Alonso last year. I hope that that's how they will pivot because you can't really get off of his contract otherwise.
- [91:50]
Zach Lowe
I just don't trust him to sustain success for more than literally an inning. And like, it seems like he's the kind of pitcher when one thing goes wrong, the whole thing goes wrong and collapses instantly. It is worth just outlining you said Lowell Mets before and how we don't want to do that. But yet all of these. The following things have happened in this particular baseball season. I mentioned the Steve Cohen podcast, which is like, honestly, it was like taking some combination of sleeping pills and just like, like nausea medication. It was so hard to listen to. I mentioned the six error game and the Pete Alonso chance and trading David Peterson. I believe that was all the same night. I mentioned Mr. Matt taunting Steve Gelbs as Steve Gelbs was delivering news of Carlos Mendoza's firing. By the way, my daughter's reaction to that, Stone cold. She goes, good. I never liked him anyway. God, what happened to you? What have I done? We had the viral Yankees Mets fan kid crying that he didn't want to root for the worst team and wanted to root for the Yankees and was banned from doing so. But crying and that became a meme. We had the George Springer inside the park home run. The first batter the Mets faced in a game which was not a home run, which Soto misplayed and then Ewing misplayed. And it's like only this team could do this. We had the game a couple of weeks ago against the Royals where we were gifted the little league home run for Carson Benj. And then Soto hits a three on homer and it's nine four Mets. And then the Royals, as if they're a basketball team, go on a 12 oh run. A thing that doesn't exist in baseball to go up 169 and win 16 12. There's probably more that I'm forgetting. Oh, and then there was the day that I was supposed to throw out the first pitch and the game was rained out and it wasn't even called until like 6:15 and I had to tell my family and friends, I don't know, should you come? Should you not come? I don't know. And it was rained out. What else? And like all of these, forget my thing. I'm just being facetious. All those other blooper things, all of them feel like and maybe I've just missed too much time, Sean. Maybe it's just, it's too fresh for me. They all feel like any single one of them could be the low point of a season that is the low point of a decade. And they've all happened in this one 97 game stretch. I don't understand. Like this is beyond lol Mets. This is like if you made a parody of how a bad Mets season would go, it would include a lot of this.
- [94:22]
Sean Fennessey
Now you are fully back, Zach. This is what it is. This is the fandom. This is the truth of this experience. And what has been happening in 24 and in 1H25, that was the illusion. This is the reality. And why is it happening? I don't really know. Like why was Boba Shet one of the worst hitters in baseball for two months? If you look at his underlying analytics, which you know makes some Mets fans insane because they feel like David Stearns is only making decisions by through the prism of those analytics. But if you look at them, he was very unlucky. Very unlucky. So why was his most unlucky two month stretch of his career happening at the exact same time that Carson Benge was entering the sport and adjusting that Francisco Lindor had his first significant injury as a player in 10 years.
- [95:14]
Zach Lowe
That followed by another significant injury.
- [95:17]
Sean Fennessey
That's right, that Jorge Polanco wasn't playing Luis Robert. You know, a million things were going wrong that were stacked on top of bad decision making. And this is why I'm such a burnt out cynic. However, I do feel that this season was the sacrificial lamb to the gods to get this. I do think that there was something in the stew in my sports fandom where someone had to pay the piper to get that Knicks title. And you know, we're paying right now. This is. We're in debt, we're in. The Knicks fans are in a lot of debt right now. And if you're a Mets fan, you're feeling like. And you know the Yankees also have been in a June swoon. Like it's not all sweet all around. We'll see what the jets and Giants look like later this year. You know, this might be a continuing darkened period in non Knicks sports fandom.
- [96:07]
Zach Lowe
I'm glad that you mentioned the Knicks because that's where I wanted to actually conclude as that was happening. And it's been a month now and I'm still approached by Knicks fans and Knicks fan friends every day, talking about it, asking me about it. What was it like? Wait, remind me where you at the end and ob game. What was it like? It was one of the craziest, most magical things I've ever seen in sports. And I say that as a completely neutral party when it comes to the Knicks and the Knicks, much like the Mets have alternated between being. I think the degree to which the Knicks were a punchline was like perhaps the same for the Mets was like somewhat exaggerated because they had long periods of sustained pretty high level success that never led to A championship. They more were like the Red Sox to me. And now when the Knicks, the Knicks did have like a 15 year period where it was like, oh my God, like most of these years are pretty terrible.
- [97:01]
Sean Fennessey
But like that was preceded though by 14 straight years of playoff appearances. So they were, they were an elite franchise. And just in terms of, not elite, they were significantly above average in terms of competence as an organization for a long time.
- [97:16]
Zach Lowe
And, and that's why I, I think like again, I had a 10 year period where I lapsed, but even in that period, like, it's not like the Mets had some bad seasons, but a lot of their bad, a lot of their heartbreak is late season collapse. Like a good team collapses, a good team loses the World Series or the NLCS or, you know, then they made the nl. We're, we're two years removed from being in the nlcs. It's not like this is a bottom feeding team over and over and over again with one year spikes and then it's another bottom feeding team. It reminds me of the Red Sox in that sense. And that's what I just kept thinking about when I saw the city catch metaphorical fire with the Knicks is yes, the Mets can't unite the city like the Knicks can, nor can the Yankees, because there's such a division between the fan bases. But there's a community that's built through suffering, through coming close, through a specific kind of suffering. Like coming close, having the resources and never quite getting over the hump. And it's not 1918 like the red Sox, it's not the Cubs, and almost a century or whatever it was, it's 1986, it's 40 years. It's long, but not that long, but it's getting long. And I kept thinking, watching all of those scenes and seeing all those people come together, that that's all I want. I just want that one time. I want that community and that feeling of jubilation that we waited for this. And it doesn't even have to be like we win it. Just let me go watch a World Series game on a giant screen somewhere in New York City with a lot of people my age, younger, older, and feel that community in an apex euphoric kind of moment. That's what I thought about the entire Finals as I walked around the city. And maybe we will get there at some point. We were not far from it two years ago. some point, if you're this rich and this, this equipped, you will just almost accidentally spend your way into a good team and so it'll happen. But that I'm glad you brought the Knicks up because I kept thinking they have the same colors and everything. That's what I was thinking the whole Finals.
- [99:15]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it does feel like it's getting worse and not better. But you're right that when this happens, it will be special. It is. There is a monkey's paw quality to this though. A careful what you wish for. Where you know, in 2015, the team did go to the World Series and their run to the World Series in 15, I was living in Los Angeles. I remember it vividly. The series against the Dodgers where I went to two of those games and against the Chicago Cubs was as high as I've ever felt as a Mets fan personally. That was a really exciting young rotation, dude.
- [99:48]
Zach Lowe
I remember driving. I've told this story before. I had to drive somewhere, like a long road trip and I was listening to the wfan and I remember this is when I wrote that essay for Grandland about how sad I was that I was out. I remember Mike Francesa saying on the show, this is the best young rotation maybe I've ever seen in my entire life watching baseball better than the 70s Orioles. And I was like, oh, this is. And your point is going to be right. When you think it's set up for sustained success, it's not guaranteed.
- [100:20]
Sean Fennessey
Well, two things about that. One, that World Series I think is more painful than we even remember. If you think about the fact that they were. I think they were winning every single game in that series after the seventh inning that we were an errand throw to first a jury's familia meltdown away from taking a series lead. That we were playing a very scrappy and very skilled Kansas City Royals team, but not a more talented team. I mean, you know, maybe you want to say they were even, but that was a, that was a winnable World Series.
- [100:52]
Zach Lowe
And think about how much different life feels if within a decade about they have one right. Like this feels completely different.
- [101:01]
Sean Fennessey
And I think a lot of that lol met stuff that has really, really come to the surface in the last decade. You can just throw that out the window because you could say the 15 team won. I'm not trying to take it away from the Royals. They deserve to win, without question. But that was a really, really hard World Series to watch. But you came out of it thinking, okay, well, we've got Matt Harvey, we've got Noah Syndergaard, we're going to have this young Zach Wheeler pitcher. You know, we're going to Have Steven Matz.
- [101:25]
Zach Lowe
We're going to have still quite good. Zach Wheeler.
- [101:26]
Sean Fennessey
It turns out that is the other component of this is, you know, Zach Wheeler is acquired for Carlos Beltran and struggles a little bit and has some injuries. And just as he's finally rounding into shape, he goes to our arch nemesis, the Philadelphia Phillies, and becomes basically the best pitcher in baseball for the last decade. I think it's fair to say that he has been consistently the best pitcher in the Sport. And he's 36 years old and is still a horse. That's a tough one. That's a really hard pill to swallow. And so no matter how good things seem, just like they've seemed so good in 2024, going into 2025, when we signed Juan Soto, we were like, we just came out of the NLCS and we signed Juan Soto. And ever since then, I mean, this team might lose 97 games this year, Zach. That's inconceivable that they could lose this many games. And this is where we are again.78
- [102:15]
Zach Lowe
and112 in our last 190 games. But the hope never dies. The games are still on in my house. My daughter's still into it. And we're still doing Mets corner. Sean Fennesee, you know him from the Big Picture Projections newsletter, which I'm quite enjoying. I'm learning a lot about movies. We have a lot of the same takes about movies. Your hottest take recently was that Inception is overrated. I couldn't agree more. And we will have to talk about Disclosure Day. I broke my no movies streak. I went and saw Disclosure Day in the theater. We're gonna have to have an offline conversation about that.
- [102:47]
Sean Fennessey
Why not online? When are you coming on the Big Picture? That's the big question.
- [102:50]
Zach Lowe
Like I, we, we timed it so perfectly. It was like 105 degree day here. 100 degree day, whatever. Humid. We a bunch of dads. Like, we need to find something air conditioned for the girls to do. Toy Story 5 was playing. And at the same time in the same theater, Disclosure Day was playing. And so the dads went to Disclosure Day and the kids went to Toy Store 5. We'll have to. I'm, I'm, I'm happy to come on anytime. I'll just be the idiot on that podcast. But that's fine.
- [103:14]
Sean Fennessey
I'm follow up with you about that. That sounds good. Thank you, Zach. I know Mets corner is never going to die. So we're good.
- [103:18]
Zach Lowe
We're good. Thank you, Sean. All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe Show. Thank you to Kurt Goldsberry. Thank you to my partner in Mets fandom, Sean Fennesee. Thanks to all of you for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe Show. Thanks, of course, to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. We will see you again later this week. Maybe something will happen. Maybe LeBron will sign, maybe not. Time will tell. Thanks everybody. 21 or over and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President, D.C. kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800- GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.orgchatincenetic or is it mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland? Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 830-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.