What’s Next for Kawhi Leonard? Plus, Free Agency Check-in and Mets Corner!

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To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. 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 Weminyama's new contract and the whole second apron, Supermax conundrum, best and worst moves of the off season, good under the radar moves, bad over the radar moves, most inexplicable moves, Tyler Hero versus Bam, a runaway bison. Kurt Goldsberry is here to talk about all of that on a loaded edition of the Zach Lowe Show that's coming up right after this. A lot going on in the NBA, a lot of news. A 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 into all that coming up now on the Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. Kurt 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 two weeks ago. The trade has been put on hold and the timeline remains this summer for Wachtell, 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 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 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 been hearing that this is going to be quote weeks, not months. 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 blamed 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, no, 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 a whole thing, man. What did you think of it? - I thought it was a bunch of, it was like sort of overall, there was a nothing burger. I thought we might get news today and we certainly 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, blasted Zach Lowe. Post when he said, don't forget about cats. When you named off the list of the lawyer, the lawyers in the law firm. - Gotta remember cats. Gotta, you know what, Kirk? Don't forget about Grady Dick, okay? He's a part of this too. Grady Dick doesn't know what country he's going to reside in. Poor Grady Dick. - Oh, dude. But I thought 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 Wachtell firm produces is not gonna be like a one page summary. There's gonna be a voluminous, was Mannix's word. And again, great job by Mannix. And aren't we gonna have to digest that as a league before we react? 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 serious. It's six weeks away, is something, Zach? Sooner than you and I want to admit. 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 gonna have the resolution this summer. - Hey, it's only two of the 30 teams in the league that have no idea who's gonna be on their goddamn team and how many draft picks they have to trade. 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 gonna do. I've even heard people say 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 gonna get them? We don't know. Now, Kirk, I am not a lawyer. I am not Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, or Katz. - Don't forget Katz. - I am just me. And so there are a number of ways this could unfold that could actually accelerate, not accelerate, but not make this an endless morass for the teams, just the trade part. 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 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 as 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 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 a week, in a year where this has not been a great year for the NBA, the Terry Rozier 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 have 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 quiet 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 message to Bill 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 natural. professional basketball no i don't know what else can we say about this 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 kawaii thing dropped we came on and we didn't know what we're talking about and i said at that time one of the top ranked executives i talked to the integrity of the league is at stake um you talk about rogier you talk about this gary trent thing you talk about this quite 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 uh but we have this jalen brown trade you have the blazers owner um you have well-known players in the league you have the blazers owner um you have well-known players in the league you have the blazers owner um you have well-known players in the league you have 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 i'm 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 to your point did gary i i want to leave the that i'm not that interested of it it it smells beyond fishy everybody knows that it's it's like it's i almost admire how apparently transparent it is um and i like we'll see if any any of the other 29 deems 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 um because the shoe could be on the other foot someday and i'll say this i can see the bucks and gary trend junior's agent saying now wait a second this guy has averaged double figures and 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 um just a few seasons ago uh and and yeah you know on less proven less experienced players like kobe white and i would assume who just got more than this like you can really stretch and and like finesse your way in to something that sounds like a defense of it but four years 64 when kevin herder got 327 when kelly uber got 218 when tim hardaway got 16 when marcus smart got 212 when landry shamit got 424 when quentin grimes got 460 when champagne he got three for 45 it just it just makes no no sense at all when you yourself got the minimum the year before but yeah that's that's the kind of widening context that makes it fishy right that's what makes the odor start to appear into your nostrils is all that context the league to the early austerity point seems to be really um stingy with years on contracts too we're not seeing many four-year deals at glow this summer uh there are exceptions to that rule don't get me wrong but i saw other people's plan this is one of the only big four-year deals that are going to happen this summer so i'm not seeing many 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 it is it is fishy um and again when it's an insult to fish fishy is i like the smell of fish i like i like walking by the ocean like i don't think that's a bad smell well i think when people think about fishy smells like it's summer in new york it's gonna be like 98 degrees it's in the dumpster or 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 um anyway yeah the gary trent deal i mean i started i i was one of those people who heard it last year too uh what what's going on oh they're gonna 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 um but the league has a problem when everybody starts to do stuff like this and it feels like with the rogier thing uh and then the kawaii stuff these press conferences that we saw tonight are are not great uh and you start to look at the league administration like can we do something a little bit smarter here uh it's starting to feel like college basketball in the 90s you know with these paying guys under the table bernard two years 13 million does have a player option just another one uh back to kawaii for a minute you just cannot sort of it's hard to exaggerate what a big deal this is for um 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 kawaii leonard or kawaii 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 tenders to win the eastern conference now i personally can't quite get there mostly because i just have no evidence that kawaii leonard can stay healthy for three playoff rounds this is what you need to make the finals out of the eastern conference but there 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 um but 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 kawaii 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 uh announced kawaii 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 talk 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 kawaii 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 kawaii 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 and he's been a part of the league for 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've 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's specifically in writing put in these kinds of conditions that kind of freak the raptors out about oh we are on the hook for everything if kawai'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 i'm is there anything else you want to say or can we just move on from this well here's i 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 uh no disrespect to my friends in las vegas i needed a year off but you know here's my yeah go ahead i missed you number one i i love las vegas i just i unironically love it i i i love b it's a different planet and now i'm only there five days a year for the most part so i don't like get i'm only there five days a year for the most part so i don't like get like vegasitis where i just like lose all uh 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 you under i'm gonna put the overrunner on six and a half minutes that's masterwork i mean you and i had a historic dinner at a restaurant that i'll let you tell your audience the name of um but we the pink taco it doesn't exist anymore no i don't know why but um here was my question why not zach low 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 and if you try to move kawaii leonard this piece of paper is going to slide into that that ensemble of pages on the fax machine why why couldn't they have gotten ahead of this instead of being so reactive and now have this opportunity to awkward situation that's affecting people like grady dick and brandon ingram um 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? I don't think that question has been answered clearly enough. And I believe Ben Goliver 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 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 our official non-public channels with teams. And more of, well, duh, has anyone been reading the news? Which is not a good enough answer to me. But maybe he meant it the other sort of more formal way. I don't know. Let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. 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They're not a true contender. The Sixers with Jalen Brown are not yet a true contender. The Rockets having gotten a 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. Uh, and the Nuggets are sort of TBD, uh, that's obviously there is one other gigantic free agent still sitting. But as of, as of now, do you agree with that general precept? Yeah. And I think that was sort of the subtext in Adam's press conference a little bit too. Today's back is that 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, the shifting. Um, and I think one of the big impacts of the new CBA, uh, is that free agency is, is less explosive than ever. Um, 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 I, 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, we all know these guys, he was finishing a cup of coffee as, as somebody else was asking classic Hollinger always has a cup of coffee, but 8:00 PM Vegas time guys, I mean, he's prepping for a nine hour Texas hold'em session at the Bellagio. I mean, what, what's happening, but, um, I applaud the column and I, I think there is something going on and, and there were no Woj bombs for various reasons. This time around, but I, I do think that, 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, and explosive for a long time. It's, it's a draft league now and it's a trade league. Um, so I think that's really interesting and, and I, I 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, that one of the biggest movements in the 20th twenties is that free agency is, is less powerful of a team building tool. Speaker 3 : I'll go real quick. I agree on Toronto because of Kauai's health issues, assuming they get Kauai. I, I think I agree on Philly cause I think, um, that fit maxi Brown and beat, I think is going to be an edge comb. 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, uh, Boston. I think Boston is going to win a shit ton of regular season games. And that's probably an exaggeration. I think there are 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. Um, I, I think, 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 like that was cool. What happened with the Knicks? You know, they caught lightning in a box. They won a bottle. They won 50, went 15 and one in our last 16 playoff games, they blew the shit out of everybody. You know, we'll see if they, we'll 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 Hawk series through some ups and downs in a regular season, I think they 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% on below 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 DOR will get better and maybe earn a role and they brought back everybody else. 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 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 four, 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 cabs made the conference finals this year was ugly. It wasn't convincing. It was your, your 0.5 of James Harden being on the cabs. And by the way, I do think Harden is still coming back to the cabs, 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 redundancies in Cleveland. And I think that team actually can get pretty scary. If they have hardened, 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. I don't know if I go that far, but I think I would split the needle with buyer's thread, the needle by saying, I think they're a contender. I know I wouldn't pick them to win the East. I think New York deserves all the respects in the world to your, 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 Kerr 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 that's the storybook ending for this guy. It's 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, and I, you know, I think Donovan Mitchell has, has a lot less, left to give the hardened thing i we've seen it for so long i i don't care less i care more about mobley and alan who were hurt for so much of this year it's hard to see where they are as a tandem in that front court um but yeah i think that team would be pretty dangerous in the east though i would take the knicks zach low to beat them 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 people within the teams they're like we don't know like there's all these theories going around like well he wants to wait to this fanatics fest or whatever in new york where he's gonna 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 um but i think i think minnesota is like the best cleanest basketball fit philadelphia certainly has a need for him and dave mcmendaman my old colleague at espn wrote a story today that you that struck a chord with you about the sixers three-man recruitment of lebron recently why did that but you you're you responded like whoa that's that seems like a real thing well i mean the the new executive there comes from cleveland with lebron and you have bob meyer uh who bob meyers who's obviously carries a lot of weight um in this circuit of building great teams uh and then you had a lot of 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 vj edge comb speaking very highly of him uh and jaylen brown um and lebron's saying very nice things about jaylen brown's mvp case this season and i thought dave did a great job of laying it out it was it just fell 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 lmb was healthy which is up there with uh who was the other one we're talking about paul george or uh hawaii hawaii leonard yeah there's a list of these guys that's a fucking good team dude um it's a very good team the guards are still getting better uh 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 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 uh that has a hole there um 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 and still have the faintest of faint hopes uh just him and yogich 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 um and 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 i think moving east is the right move just getting out of embanyama and the thunder but thank you by the way how did his last eight years in the eastern conference end zach low can you remind the listeners well they made all the finals uh yeah toronto became nicknamed lebronto because of how often he humiliated the raptors in the playoffs um and yeah um yeah that's what i was saying the last 16 years of his career or whatever eight east one east eight times goes to the west i guess it's seven years maybe uh since he moved to la got to the finals once um i'm i have western bias uh 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 uh remains a little bit deeper so my advice to him would be to go to the east if he really wants to to do what reports are saying to compete for a championship speaking of the west victor waman yama and our other major news item in the last few days signed a five-year extension at 25 percent of next season's salary cap and locked in at 25 percent 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 waman yama 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 dylan fox's contract how long are we gonna have that it's a huge deal uh 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 ben yama uh 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 foiled 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 dollars is quite enough money for him or whatever it ends up being per year um 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 so i think it's a huge deal and i think it's a huge deal and i think it's a huge deal and i think it's a huge deal and i think it's a huge deal and i think it's a huge deal and to me this is one of those ones and 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 and cleveland maybe um if if they make the 30 max and they get paid for it they're going to have to pay for it they're going to have to pay for it they're the 30 max they get paid 30 but their cap victor women yama 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 at 25 which is effectively what's going to happen i don't know that's just me this is me apparently it's gonna be an exception they have these exceptions right uh the language is already there so this could be a hometown exception or a long-term seniority tenure exception something like this um but it was a great story you know a delegation including miss johnson and brian wright and peter holt and rc buford flew to paris it sounds like they're flying on air force one to to meet at a summit or something a delegation of spurs i was told it was commercial aircraft uh 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 um but a remarkable moment i thought that demonstrated key alignment between um 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 nba history 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 had celtics have to trade jaylen brown like that's a potential lifelong celtics fan lifelong jaylen brown fan that just had a really negative experience that we can trace back if you listen to brad stevens comments to these rules um 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 um and i think the current cba if you listen to brad stevens is threatening the ability for 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 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 i actually kind of admired how how honest he was about no like i actually like what's going on like did they like yeah 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 like 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 get that side of it but i much these these feel like easier fixes to me um great for the spurs obviously duh i mean like they're going to be terrifying for a long time uh next topic Do you have any takes on the BAM out of bio Tyler Hero conference? Now, let me tell you, I thought I had just missed it because another 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 in 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. So I was like, oh, my God, did I leave too early? Did I miss this? 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 Hero in the chin area. And it's unclear if he was. 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 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 sub tweeting. And I had not seen this social media text, whatever. And I had not seen that. And then I had I had I had seen the Tyler Hero tweet about who the worst mid-range shooters in the league were last year. Do you have any takes? Are you going to take a side? Are you going to come out? Team Bam, Team Hero, Team Pacifism? Like, what are we doing? I read an article on Grantland one time about Bam Adebayo. It was really well done. And I've been a huge Bam fan since that moment. It was on ESPN.com. Oh, shit. Also trying to go through life not getting hit by Bam Adebayo. So I'm going to be careful what I say. But yeah, I don't know. But I thought it gave us an even better exchange. The pen is mightier than the sword between Udonis Haslam. That was good. Your sometimes co-worker and Draymond Green, the center of the Golden State Warriors. And I thought Udonis, 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 laugh about and talk about in the NBA. But that was certainly something that got me laughing. Udonis Haslam, very high on the list of people that I would not mess with. I generally think fighting is stupid and punching people is stupid. I understand that sports are very emotional. Yeah. Tyler Hero 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, has made me feel older than watching the Jalen Brown Twitch stream, where he has like 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, like, 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? Yeah. There are people in your life, presumably, that you can talk to you actual humans that you can meet in person. You know who they are. You know their names. 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 have a falling out. It's pretty, it's pretty. So I mean, 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 Folster O'Reilly, Udonis, Bam out of bio. I believe in the 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's just sad to see guys who are obviously close and have accomplished a lot together come to a fight like that. Now I feel ashamed, Kirk, for, for me. Making my own, you know, 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. 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. I, 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 Crockford's 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 talk about, made me talk about. The, the peril of being punched by Bam Adebayo. 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? It 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, it's pretty goddamn high. There was, but the Mike Tyson one, there was no amount of money, a hundred million. I like, what am I going to do with a hundred million dollars? If I'm dead, nothing. 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, I thought that was the Bam Adebayo, Tyler Harrow. I wish I had one. I wish you. Because I want to do 30 minutes on the bison. 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 Adebayo 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. I'm watching it again right now. Sorry. The guy had a beard too. Like it, like the video is sort of boring for like five seconds. 10 seconds, but the guy has beard gets you through that. Um, and then the bison's like rolling around like a dog with allergies and scratching its back. 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? Kurt one day, the chimpanzee snapped because it's a wild animal. And so this bite, and that has informed my beliefs to say is wild animals or 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, and he, I haven't frozen. Anyway, he really believes he can elude the bison by running in a circle around the tree as if the bison isn't going to eat it. And so the grandpa is like, I can 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 fast. Don't mess with wild animals. Where were we? Uh, bam hero. We're done with that. Uh, oh my God, the bison. I shouldn't, I mean, the guy is seriously visual. It's just unbelievable. I'm sorry. Oh my God. All right. Uh, 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 inexpensive. Most inexplicable moves of the off season. Would you like me to go first? Do you want to pick, do you want to pick an inexplicable move? Taking a photo of a bison when you can't jog most inexplicable move. This is the divisions where most under, under the radar move you liked, 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? Let's celebrate. I have a two-parter if that's, if that's allowed. And it's, it's, I alluded to it earlier. It's it's, 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, 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 is, 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 McNamara views, but even if they are done, like this is a great thing, but I like having the depth of those new pieces and Wade and Anthony Simons. I like that too. I, 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. Bushman Jang with the box. 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 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, people are after they apparently stood still while several teams upgraded around them. Now that's 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 Herter 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 jail and during thing exactly. Right. Which is they never sweated for one second that he was allegedly taking meetings with the Kings and the Lakers for an offer sheet or a sign and trade. They're going to resign jail and they're impending some crazy sign and trade that emerges at a price that makes sense for everybody involved. That makes jail and during a lot of money. They have a lot of faith in Paul Reed as a backup five and a free 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, $1 million deal that have you looked at the steel Kirk? No years two and three are completely non-guaranteed. So if it doesn't work that, and those years are critical as a star Thompson's deal kicks in and jail and Dern's 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 Reeves. And I think they had a real shot at Kobe white as like the secondary creator that they really needed. 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, even the culture, the defense, the baseline, the youth of improving. I think Detroit's going to still win a lot of games next year. 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's act 61 wins. They ended up with something like that. A lot of wins. 60 wins on the dot. 60 wins. So 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 Dennis 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 decade. I agree also on the Jalen Duren 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, since 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 there 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. And by the way, on the flip side, I've said before, I like Tobias Harris for the Spurs. I thought that was a smart signing for them. They dressed, a lot of their needs. All right. Give me your inexplicable one. Well, I, I, this will go, this will go way back and it's sort of high profile, but it's Trey young. And number one, number one on my list with a bullet. Well, it is. 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's is explicable. If you talk to people around the league about why it happened and when it might've 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 to do it four years and that kind of money. And in the second apron era to hamstring yourself with, with that kind of a deal and, 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 Moran, 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, is a fair comp looking forward. I don't know if we, if we would justify giving those guys that much money. He's on my list. He's actually the first name I wrote down other than Gary Joe house. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Joe house will be fine. Joe house retweeted the, the celebratory tweet from Trey young. That was, that was very nice. Look after this, we got a 30 minute Mets corner with me and Sean fantasy, where we, we talk about how we're never giving up. So like, I get it, Joe house. I, I, I think this is going to be an interesting team next year. One of the, one of the things that we're 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 whiz are my, in my better than expected category. And I think the Trey 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 Debanza, who we just drafted in a young, big and Alex SAR and below Kula, Bali and Trey Johnson and will Riley and 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 Trey young runs a pick and roll. And one extreme of that is they're all just chilling, standing around while Trey young dribbles endlessly and takes a bunch of 35 footers that don't go in. Another extreme is Trey 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 play in probably, but, but, but decent who is going to be your team, by the way, if we did this, your, your relegation zone, happy Sacramento, happy. Oh no. What? No happy. No, definitely not. Now 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 is 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 sack. Yeah. They're on, they're on the list of nine or 10 that I have. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to watch them mostly because of a recency bias and watching Caleb Wilson. It's 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 liked 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, to look completely different. Tiago splitter, who I enjoyed his coaching performance in Portland. And in a related story of a 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. And we both have sack as an O team. Definitely. Darius Acuff has to be just amazing to make me feel good about the team because you know, they're starting five is going to be like a cuff Levine, Keegan Murray. I penciled in Deandre Hunter and then Sabonis and then off the bench of Malik Monk, Nick Clifford, a chew a mobile just got signed a Reno 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 own my guy Cardwell. I love, I love Dylan Carbo as a, 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, but maybe don't care. 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. Speaker 2 : They have a, they have a swap. That's actually bad for them. This S San Antonio swap rights on their 31 pick. And they have a Wolf's 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, we'll save the rest of this discussion for later. My other inexplicable moves candidates, by the way, I did write down that many chart. Trey young, the jail and Brown trade Lakers going all in on Walker Kessler. I've discussed that at length, Gary Trey jr. The Pelicans just existing. Oh, just to just existing. I don't know if they realized 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 trade for Phoenix bears a little bit more scrutiny. That's a good one. 1 : 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 and 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. It was great for them. He's just one of those, like, I get that they need a four. He adds a little bit of balance, 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, ah, 25 and four, pretty good player. And it just doesn't add up to enough because of his limitations on defense is limitations of the three point shooter. 1 : It goes up and down. I think they'll lean into his passing a little bit more. I think he's actually in a 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. 1 : Yeah. And the whole Michigan state thing. And I was a professor at Michigan state. 2 : I was in 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, I agree giving up Royce O'Neal, Grayson Allen and draft capital for this player in, in the 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. 1 : 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. 2 : 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? 1 : I have a big, messy Jalen Brown thing. I'm going to have a big thing coming out at some point, but we'll see. I mean, we'll see. We'll have, we'll have to talk about it when it comes out. 2 : I I'm excited. Yeah. And we need to redo this. We need to do properly this discussion about the relegation zone teams. There's a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun teams down there. 1 : Well, I, I think one thing I'd like to nominate our listeners to, 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. 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 a, I don't know, we'll see. We'll see. But it's a good, it's a good thing. Listeners, the gauntlet has been thrown. I will talk to you soon. Thanks. This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Introducing new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava for those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred mile an hour tropical tasting power. Ignite your taste, start your engine, shift your flavor to high gear with new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can and get after it. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. Be a two percenter. Learn more at wellsfargo.com forward slash active cash. Terms apply. Thank you, Zach. It's time for Mets Corner. Sean Fennessey 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 wouldn't. He's 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? I'm so excited. Yeah, it's great. What are we? 17 games under 500. Everything's going great. What are we? We are 17 games under 500. We are 40 and 57. There are three teams in Major League Baseball with a worse 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. Well, but they play in Anaheim, 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 in 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 city 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 three, two, and now we are headed into the all-star game with Juan Soto is our sole representative wasting. We are wasting just an epic Soto season. And it's just going to go into smithereens strong house. I'm glad you're where your Nick's at. At least your next championship, but I needed to represent some version of winning because we're losing. So profound. 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, low Mets. 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 some, how do you want to do this? Um, I've already, as you know, started pivoting to this year's 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 the no trade clause and at 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 it was Joel Sherman and John Hayman that's among my low lights of the season. I'm going to get to my, my other low lights in 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 wave 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. You didn't say, no, I want to be a met forever. He didn't say, he didn't say anything else, but he said no comment. So maybe if you want to redirect the conversation to, A.J. Ewing and Carson Benj. 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 OK, sure. I think multiple 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 five and 10 player. He he also has a no trade clause. So he fully reserves the right to control his destiny. And, you know, there was a time I don't know if this is still true, where he and his family were very close to the Coens 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 is the highest paid player on the team. We 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 Benj 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 Soto's. He gave them the psychopaths nickname, you can see them celebrating after the few and far between wins that we experienced as fans with his 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. 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 Francisco Lindor is still very, very, very good. It's the place 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. Mental errors to 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. And he seemed more emotionally checked out to 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 comments. 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 offseason that the time to trade him was last offseason. That that was if 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. There, 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, honestly. I think that's very fair. You know, from I mean, again, 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. Bo Bichette 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 one of the many low moments of the season, I think it was all in the 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 Alonzo's name during the game. And Pete Alonzo did not make the all-star team this year in the American League, but he has 21 home runs and an 820 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's running in the outfield. It's like, great. Is he training to be an Olympic sprinter? 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 and a 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 forward spin is what is the starting rotation of the New York Mets next year? It can't just be McLean, McLean and hope it rains or McLean 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. I mean, the challenge there is speaks to that Stern's philosophy question. He has not wanted to give a pitcher longer than a three-year contract. And so, you know, we've got Sean 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. Very encouraging. It was never should have been set 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 he's doesn't have the dominant stuff that I think you see from Scott or McLean, 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 that David Stern's way, the sort of like athletic developmental group of players who are coming up through his system with his coaching mentality, coaching mentalities that are filtered through the farm system. And then maybe you're building something for the future. And look, when we were, when we were whinging about the loss of Pete Alonzo and Edwin Diaz in the winter, we did talk about the idea that Stern's 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. It's a thousand OPS basically 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 quite kind of doing enough. And we're blowing those games too. We're 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 at Ewing and bench. 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 Piazza, et cetera, 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 McCray has a good year this year. Like here's like 40 year old Ricky Henderson and maybe Daryl Hamilton. It just was like Benny Ogbayani. Would it be hot for a month? And then go, it was always like piecing together a productive outfield. The 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 exciting. I like what 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. 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 Ligaris. Like we haven't had a center fielder who is, is elite defensively in many, many years. And of course, like patrolling center fielder for the first time, we haven't had a center fielder for the first time in a long time. And so, yeah, I think the fact that we have a center fielder for the first time in a long time is extremely important. One, because city 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, 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, 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 The other thing that has happened is you mentioned those three new acquisitions who have hardly played. And when they 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. He's fine. He's doing like the Mets, you know, 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 Alvi's got real pop from a spot where nobody has pop. And Torrens is like, it's like freaking like Dennis Rodman is your catcher. Nobody runs on him. He's, he's an elite. He's just airtight defensively. 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 Torrens hit in the ninth inning. So yeah, it's, 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. I, 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, 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, um, Boba Shett has come to life that they've seemed like a real offense and that has dovetailed neatly with the regression of the pitching staff. Yeah. Everything, everything seems to even Steven with the Mets. Like we just can't have everything going well and we can't 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. Cause 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 Alonzo. I guess it's just not possible. And so we have this revolving door of like people who can't play the position who switched to the position at the last minute. And it turns out you need to learn how to play it. And 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 I'm 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 I 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 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. I totally agree. He's got a good shot at a 2020 rookie season. I mean, that's nothing to sniff your nose out. I mean, that's a, that's a really big, big thing and to develop a player like that, that is a call that Stern's made early in the season. That was right on. He basically called his shot in February and said, I think Ben just 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 option, and now with like a 40% strikeout rate in triple a, 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 triple a, 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, 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. Yeah. I'm looking at Clifford stats. Cause 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 slugging is still pretty, I don't know. We'll say strikeouts don't bother as much as they bother some other people, but that's, that's a lot of strikeouts. I'm I've now, I've 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 of Ryan Clifford's 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, let's turn it over. I mostly agree. The Weaver thing is so tricky, right? Because you know, 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. Um, 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. 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 Ray Lee and all the other guys, like trade them all, get whatever you can for them. He's the one that I have. I have some hesitation with question for you. Would you consider trading Devin Williams right now? Oh my God. Yes. Why, why, why would the answer be no? Well, you'd 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 pro rated. You know, you probably got the $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. 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. 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. Um, 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, it's 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 mentors and Brooks rallies 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're going to 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. We're a sub 1% playoff odds. We have cracked the 1% threshold. It's truly insane. It's truly insane. Just how expensive this team is, how much fanfare there was what the, 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 up, 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, is like, what would you say defines this group of players, this team, this season right now? Nothing. I mean, the closest thing is the outfield that we talked about earlier and that's, and that's it. And like some of the outfield adjacent, like good hitters on the team, but there, there isn't one. I, you know, does that dead money, by the way, if we do that with Devin Williams or what? Speaker 2 : 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. Speaker 0 : That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. Speaker 2 : Um, we don't, we need Speaker 0 : Expert either. Speaker 2 : 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, oops, oops. Okay. We don't want that. We need to be like, oh, that was a mistake. And now the rules are different. And like Andrea Blatch, you're gone. And Josh Smith, you're gone. We might need one of those for the, for the good to recalibrate the. I think the number one draft pick there is probably Kodai Senga, if you're going to do that. I haven't even mentioned his name. I mean, it's been a disaster. A disaster. 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 ideally, he's not just a one-inning guy. He's a three-inning guy or something in between. And he can't even sustain three innings. And then his face gets sad, and he's out of the game. 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 before we wrap up. 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 Alonzo last year. I just, I hope that that's how they will pivot because you can't really get off of his contract otherwise. 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's, it is worth just outlining. I, 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 Alonzo chance and trading David Peterson. I believe that was all the same night. I mentioned Mr. Met 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. She goes, good. I never liked him anyway. I'm like, Oh my God, what happened to you? What have I done? We had the viral Yankees, a 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 of the Mets face 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 binge. 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 16, nine 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 six 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 law Mets. This is like, if you made a parody of how a bad Mets season would go, it would include a lot of this. Now you are fully back sack. This is what it is. This is the fandom. This is the truth of this experience. And what has been happening in 24 and first half of 25, that was the illusion. This is the reality. And why is it happening? I don't really know. Like why was Boba? Yet one of the worst hitters in baseball for two months. If you look, 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 Bench was entering the, the, the sport and adjusting that Francisco Lindor had his first significant injury as a player in, in 10 years that. Followed by another significant injury. That's right. That Jorge Polanco wasn't playing the 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 next title. And you know, we're paying right now. This is we're in debt. We're on the, we're Nick's 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 Nick sports fandom. I'm glad that you mentioned the Knicks. Cause 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 Nick's fans and Nick's fan friends every day, talking about it, asking me about it. What was it like to wait? Remind me, were 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, 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. But like I preceded though, by 14 straight years of playoff appearances. So they were like, 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. And, and that's why 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 end of the word where 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, 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. Cause there's such a division between the fan bases, but there's a community that's built through suffering through coming close to a specific kind of suffering, like coming close, having the resources and never quite getting over the hump. And it's, 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 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 like we waited for this. And it doesn't even have to be like, we're 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 where we're not far from it. Two years ago, at 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 I'm glad you brought the Knicks up because I kept saying they have the same color, this is an everything. That's what I was thinking the whole finals. 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 vividly the, 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, you know, a really exciting young rotation dude i remember driving i've told this story before i had 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 seventies 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. 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, um, an Aaron throw to first, uh, jury's familiar 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. And we think, and think about how much different life feels if within a decade about they have one, right? Like this feels completely different. And I think a lot of that low met stuff that has really, really come to the surface in the last decade. You can just throw that out the window. Cause you could say the 15 team one, I'm not trying to take it away from the Royals. They deserve to win. Without question. Um, but that was a really, really hard world series to watch, but you came out of it thinking, okay, well, we've gotten that Harvey. We've got Noah Cinder guard. We've got, we're going to have this young, uh, Zach Wheeler pitcher, you know, we're going to have Steven Max. We're going to have so quite good Zach Wheeler. It turns out that 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 a basis. 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 and 112 in our last 190 games. But the hope never dies. The games are still out of my house. My daughter's still into it. And we're still doing Mets Corner. Sean Fennessey, 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 where I have to have an offline conversation about that. I was disappointed. Why not online? When are you coming on the big picture? That's the big question. We timed it so perfectly. It was like 105 degree day here, 100 degree day, whatever, humid. A bunch of dads were 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 Story 5. So I'm happy to come on anytime. I'll just be the idiot on that podcast. But no, I'm going to 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. 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 Fennessy. 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 be LeBron will sign, maybe not. Time will tell. Thanks, everybody. 327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. 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