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

anything about the coi 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 coi in limbo, raptors in limbo, clippers in limbo, league kind of in limbo with this strange unprecedented situation. What is this investigation going to end?

“What 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 Wembin, Yama's new contract and the whole second

apron super max conundrum, uh, best and worst moves of the offseason. Good under the radar moves, bad over the radar moves, most inexplicable moves, Tyler Hero versus Bam, a runaway, bison, Kirk Goldsbury's here to talk about all of that on a loaded edition of the Zach Low Show that's coming up right after this lot going on in the NBA, 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 all into all that coming up now on the Zach Low Show. Welcome to the Zach Low Show, Kirk Goldsbury's 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 stated they longer. What he would say about the Kauai letter trade that was and then wasn't and then still might be and what he essentially said, Mr. Goldsbury was the timeline for the resolution of all this, quote, remains this summer. It's July 14th, the Raptors trade in for Kauai Leonard two weeks ago, the trade has been put on hold and the timeline remains

this summer for Wachtell, Lippton, Rosen, Katzen, Billable hours LLC to wrap up this mammoth investigation of Kauai Leonard's cap circumvention and to see if perhaps there are some consequences for Kauai 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 want why the whole trade? What if he suspended? I don't think that's really this you 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 against the clippers that implicates Kauai 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 that had been hearing that this is going to be quote weeks, not months. Yeah. Well, like even that is the clippers and the Raptors are like stuck here, it let's say decide to walk away from the trade. And by the way, Adam's like not so subtly sort of playing this on the teams involved. And mostly the Raptors saying that everybody knew what the issues were going to be. I don't want to get into who said what when he said he didn't

want to do a TikTok quote about it, but that all the issues were well known, none of this

“should have been a surprise. I think the teams themselves obviously slightly disagree for whatever”

reason because they made a trade. This is a this is a whole thing, man. What did you think of it? I thought it was a bunch. It was like sort of overall there was nothing further. I thought we might get news today and we certainly held as hell. We didn't get any news. I'm not sure if he's telling him I'm meteorological summer or astronomical summer's echo. I left out loud blast that quote post when he said, don't forget about cats when you named off the list of the

lawyer, the lawyers and the law firm. We got to remember cats, got to remember don't you know what Kurt? Don't forget about Grady Dick. Okay. He's a part of his too. Grady Dick doesn't know what country he's gonna reside in. Poor Grady Dick. I thought the peak moment of this exchange happened

when our friend Chris Manix pressed at himself over with a second question on the scandal. And

he's sort of called him out. He's like, hey man, this has been about a year. Any report that this walk-tell firm produces is not gonna be like a one-page summary. There's gonna be a voluminous was Manix as a word and again great job by Manix. 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.

something's act like 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 sketchy in one way or another. But long story short, I sort of landed where Manix 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

going to be on their goddamn team and how many draft picks they had. I imagine being the Clippers, hey, Peyton Watson just sitting there is a restricted free agent. You have Caproom, 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 managed to do so into the season. We don't know, but if the

Clippers would certainly like to maybe if they wanted to make an offer for Peyton Watson, do they have the Raptor's draft picks? They don't. That's a Raptor's draft picks are they ever gonna get them? We don't know. Now Kirk, I am not a lawyer. I am not walk-tell, lifting, rosin, or cats. Don't think cats. I am just me. And so there are a number of ways this could unfold that could actually accelerate, not accelerate, but like not make this an endless morass

for the teams, just the trade part. And but I'm still hearing optimism from people involved, that this trade will go through and coiliner 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 coi in the initial report is just sort of left out of it, it's 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 it never goes before an arbitrator because the league and the Clippers sort

of hash it out. If there is a penalty and not saying there is for the Clippers who continue to deny that they did anything wrong, they hash it out. If 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 year where this has not been a great year for the NBA, the Terry Rose Year thing,

“which by the way, huffers 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 Rose Year trade where the heat were not made aware of any unintended consequences that might be fall 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 billion dollar contract to return to the Milwaukee bucks that by the way. And I have the text messages to build the prove it. He can share that 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 God at the end contract. So nobody should complain so they have to pay it. Not a great couple of months

“for the National Basketball Association. Oh, I don't know. But what else can we say about this?”

Here's what we can say. 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 Kauai thing dropped. We came on and we didn't know where to talk about. And I said at that time, one of the top ranked executives I talked just said the integrity of the league is at stake. You talk about Rosier. You talk about this very Trent thing. You talk about this

Kauai. 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 balance their economy. But we have this jail and brown trade. You have the blazers owner. You have Wemby taking

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 is going to Miami. Oh my god, Kevin Durant is going to go to the state. This summer, we're talking about integrity and austerity. And that's not great to your point. I want to leave the Gary Trent Junior thing aside. Because I'm not interested of it. It smells beyond fishy. Everybody knows that. It's like it's, I almost admire how a parently

transparent it is. And I, like, we'll see if any of the other 2019s who I can tell you having just arrived after five days in Las Vegas are all talking about this and belly easing about it on Japan. Have the balls to actually file a complaint for the league to investigate whether this is some form of cap circumvention. Because I bet they don't. Because the shoe could be on the other foot someday. And I'll say this. I can see the box and Gary Trent Junior's agent saying

now wait a second. This guy is average double figures and points five straight seasons before this

when he's a 39% career three point shooter. He average 18 points a game a few, a few, just a few seasons ago. And, and yeah, you know, unless proven, less experienced players like Kobe, Wayne, and I have just who knew just got more than this. Like you can really stretch and like finesse your way into something that sounds like a defensive it. But four years 64 when Kevin heard her got 327, when Kelly Ubrae got to 18, when Tim Hardaway got 16, when Marcus Mark got

two 12, with Landry Shamic got four 24, when Quentin Grimes got four 60, when Champenny got three for 45, it just, it just makes no sense at all. When you yourself got the minimum near 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. It's all that context. The league to the early austerity point seems to be really stingy with years on contracts too. We're not seeing many four-year deals, that glow this summer. There are exceptions that rule don't get me wrong, but I saw other people's plan. This is one of the only big four-year deals anybody got. And again, for a player who's signed two consecutive one-year deals, an arguably under-performance at that minimum

level last season to see four 64 is mind-boggling. It is, it is fishy. And again, we didn't solve the fish. Fishy is, I like the smell of fish. I like walking up by the ocean and like, I don't think that's a bad smell. Well, I think with people think about fishy smells like it's summer and New York. It's gonna be a holiday degrees. It's in the dumpster. You happen to walk

“by a clam restaurant and like, oh no, you know, and I think that's what people think about when”

they say it smells fishy. But anyway, yeah, the Gary tried to yell, I mean, I started, I was one of those people who heard it last year too. 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 box out for that. Everybody's doing this or more than one team is doing this. But the league has a problem when everybody starts to do stuff like this. And it deals like with the rojir thing and then the coi stuff.

These pros conferences that we saw tonight are not great. And you start to look at the league administration. Like, can we do something a little bit smarter here? It started to feel like college

basketball in the 90s, you know, with these paying guys under the table. In our two years, 13 million

does I have a player up and just another one. A back to Hawaii for a minute. You just cannot sort of it's hard to exaggerate what a big deal this is for the clippers who have turned the page and have a weird but like somewhat interesting team. And so mass that's to play with going forward if this trade goes through. And if not, I guess like they may have coi Leonard or coi Leonard may be a free agent in the event that is contract is voided, which I find highly unlikely. But who

they'll know is. And the raptors who I think fancy themselves contenders to win the Eastern conference. Now, I personally can't quite get there mostly because I just have no evidence that coi Leonard

“can stay healthy for three playoff rounds. This is what you need to make the finals out of”

Eastern conference. But there's no question that when he's healthy is one of the top A 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. But 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

the green light to trade him to point B. The trade is announced. It's reported is reported.

Announce coi appears at Kyle Laurae's Retirement Shindig in Toronto. Everyone's happy. Point C trade placed on a 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 coi 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 in the motivation to trade for coi Leonard who without even talking to the league decided we are sitting this one out until this investigation is resolved. Number three, Bobby Webster is a goddamn smart president of basketball operations cap guy. Whatever he is for the raptors,

whatever his title is, who came from the league office. There is a zero percent chance that he did this without checking with the league and finding to his satisfaction, perhaps misinterpreting somewhat, that he could make this trade. And then what I think happened and I and I already kind of reported this 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 plays from what I've heard, an addendum, a memorandum,

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 freaked the raptors out about, oh, we are on the hook for everything. If Coise deal is voided, if he's suspended

“for X amount of games, whatever, and that's what blew it up. And there's a long lag time between”

the trade happening and whatever blew it up, blowing it up. And here we are. Is there anything else you want to say or can we just move on from this? Well, here's the, I want to ask you about it, because I'm sure in Vegas, I didn't go this year, which was great, by the way. No disrespect to my friends in Las Vegas, I needed a year off, but you know, here's my, yeah, go ahead. I missed you. Number one, I love Las Vegas. I just, I own ironically love it. I love it. 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 like Vegas ideas where I just like lose all a 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 going to put you on your, I'm going to put the owner on six and a half minutes. That's master work.

I mean, you and I had a historic dinner at a restaurant that I'll let you tell your audience the name of, but we, the pink taco, it doesn't exist anymore. No, I don't know why, but here was my question. Why not, Zaclo? Couldn't the league behind closed doors before this

summer even happened? Go to the clip first and be like, hey, this piece of paper is going to be

attached. If you try to move quite Leonard, this piece of paper is going to slide into that dead ensemble of pages on the fax machine. Why, why couldn't they have gotten ahead of this instead of been so reactive and now have this awkward situation that's affecting people like Brady Dick and Brandon Ingraham and for an offices in Toronto and the clip, person fan basis, not to mention the fan basis, but why is that? That would be my last question. Why didn't they

get ahead of this? Do it. It seems like it was coming potentially and they might want to say, what if they tried to try it on? And that's, I don't think that question has been answered clearly

“enough. And I believe Ben Galover for me, as fiend 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 back through artificial non-public channels with teams and more of, well, duh, like has anyone been reading the news, which is not a good enough answer to me, but maybe he meant it, maybe he meant the the other sort of more formal way. I don't know.

Let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about some things that are more.

a John Hollinger wrote the best version of this column that I've seen, which is the fact that this has been quite a dramatic summer in the NBA. And yet the actual balance of power has not been altered in the sense that there is no team that is now a contender that was not a contender before which is a line of thought I've heard articulated a lot and it would touch on, it would essentially say the Raptors with Kawai are not a true contender. The Celtics post jail and brown with

Paul George Mitchell Robinson and draft fix the trader not yet a true contender. The sixers with jail and brown are not yet a true contender. The rockets having gotten whole presumably a Fred Vambley 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 the mellow ball and some other stuff, not a true contender. And then nuggets are sort of TBD. That's obviously

there is one other gigantic free agent still sitting out there. But as of as of now, do you agree

“with that general precept? Yeah. And I think that was sort of the subtext and I'm press conference”

a little bit too today's act. Because people are like, "God, the second apron, all this stuff,

people are like having an lawn. It's not like if you watched the sleigh and followed the sleigh till last 20 years, like the summer was explosive. There were quote, "woaj bombs." And we would get, "Oh my God, the landscape of the league is shifting with this free agency tool doing the shifting." And I think one of the big impacts of the new CBA is that free agency is less explosive than ever. But I do think this year has been particularly interesting. There was a lot of movement,

but not a lot of teams got a lot better because of that movement. I think that's fair to say. And by the way, Holland had an epic performance in the press conference today. I don't know if you saw it. But one of my favorite things, which we all know of these guys, he was finishing a cup of coffee,

is somebody else was asking, "Clas the College are always as a cup of coffee."

8 p.m. biggest time, guys. I mean, he's actually grabbing the drags.

“Prepping for a nine hour Texas Hold 'em session, it did the blazio? I mean, what's happening?”

But I applaud the column. And I think there is something going on. And there weren't no woeish bombs for various reasons this time around. But I do think that free agency has a tool. When you're talking about the three team building tools, the draft trade and free agency, free agency was cool and explosive for a long time. It's a draft league now, and it's a trade league. So I think that's really interesting. And I'm more positive on a few of the teams.

And I get to this later on some of those moves than he might be. But ultimately, I think it's fair to say

that one of the biggest movements in the 20s, 20s, is that free agency is less powerful

of a team building tool. I'll go real quick. I agree on Toronto because of Coise Health issues assuming they get Coise. I think I agree on Philly, because I think that fit Maxi Brown and Beat.

“I think it's going to be an edge comb. I think it's going to be fine, but I just don't have any”

faith that you'll on Beat will ever be healthy for forced trade playoffs here. Boston, I think Boston is going to want to shift on irregular season games. That's probably an exaggeration. I think there are 50 to 55 win team again. I do think they've lost significant playoff. This is not insignificant playoff equity in the George jail and Brown swap. Obviously, they have picks now to trade. I think to the degree that it's possible to sleep on the team to just

want the championship. I think there's this sense around the league that like, that was cool. What happened with the next? They caught lightning in a bottle. They won 15 and won in our last 16 playoff games. They blew the shit out of everybody. We'll see if that was real. Or was the 53 win team that had a midseason existential crisis? Was that more real? I think what happened with the next was like a real thing. I think they clicked into, I think they discovered through some adversity

in the Hawks series through some ups and downs in 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% all 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 Mr. Robinson and Andre Drummond is a lesser version of,

I think this is a goddamn good team that has a real chance to defend its title. And then obviously,

they just have to face one of the juggernaut that's 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, I would actually be great if he could have been a business of that. Where, where, here, I, one area where I disagree with Bill and I wonder where you think. I've heard him say Cleveland with LeBron is not a contender, like Mitchell Hardin 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 Mobile and Jared Allen start at the four and the five, how do you settle that? I think I disagree with Bill.

The calves made the conference final as I share was ugly. It wasn't convincing. It was your

point five of James Hardin being on the calves. And by the way, I do think Hardin is still coming back to the calves 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 Hardin somewhere else because we just don't need so many guys who need the ball. I think LeBron proved so much of a shapeshifter last year with the Lakers and so affected in so many different roles. And he's

so smart and still big and physical that I actually don't worry about any sort of redundancies

“and Cleveland. And I think that team actually can get pretty scary if they have Hardin, if they”

have all those guys and they don't have to salary, don't max truth, 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'd go that far, but I think I would split the needle with buyer to thread the needle by saying I think they're a contender. I wouldn't pick them to win the East. I think New York deserves all the respects in the world to your earlier point. Mike Brown really figuring out some stuff halfway through the year

through the playoffs. That's only gonna continue a lot like Steve Kirk winning that first title

and setting up years two and three in Golden State. It's always felt like Cleveland to me.

I have no inside information. I just felt like LeBron, that's the storybook ending for this guy. It goes well with his career, the kid from Akron. But from a basketball sense, it also seems like it bits 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. I think Donna Mitchell has a lot left to give the hardening. We've seen it for”

so long. I don't care less. I hear more about moldy and Allen who are hurt for so much of this year. It's hard to see where they are as a tandem in that front court. But yeah, I think that team would be pretty dangerous in the East though. I would take the nicks, Zack 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 know if we're out of it. Nobody knows anything by the way.

You talked to the people within the teams. They're like, we don't know. Like, there's all these theories going around. Well, he wants to wait to this fanatics festival, whatever in New York, where he's going to be on some sort of panel or podcast. Oh, he wants to wait till after the world cup is over because he wants the whole spotlight. Nobody knows anything. But I think I think Minnesota is like the best cleanest basketball fit Philadelphia certainly has a need for him.

And they've made a minimum in my old colleague at ESPN wrote a story today that struck a chord with you about the six or three man recruitment of LeBron recently. Why did that set? You responded like, whoa, that that seems like a real thing. Well, I mean, the new executive there comes from Cleveland with LeBron and you have Bob Meyer who Bob Meyer is who's obviously carries a lot of way in this circuit of a building grade teams. And then you had the stuff in there and I thought Dave

did a great job about line how Maxi has worked out with LeBron for years and considers him a big brother. And then there's other stuff like V.J. Edge Colm speaking very highly of him and Jalen Brown and LeBron saying very nice things about Jalen Brown's MPP case this season. And then I thought Dave did a great job of laying it out. And I was like, rather than just, it was, it was just fell. And like Dave's obviously glued 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 silly guy. So he might be biased. My big takeaway, Zach Low, was that he did a great job of laying out alignment between the front office and I think the staff and the roster that the Bron could fit there. And by the way, if Jalen B was healthy, which is up there with, it was the other one

That's a fucking good team, dude. It's a very good team. The guards are still getting better.

And by the way, I know we're going to get to this later, but some of the stuff around the edges that their new executives did were some of my favorite signings of the free agency period. So that's they could be a really deep team that could win on back to back with some of these guys resting. I will say as much as I like to fit in Minnesota where he just steps into a power forward role that has been that has a hole there. And as much as I love the theoretical fit in Denver,

which doesn't appear to be on the list, although the nuggets have tried and still have the faintest of faint hopes. He just whom in yoga together would just, I think they would just do things just for sport. How beautiful can we make this locality fun passes going through on one possession, just for fun. And gold at state has the symmetry with Curry. I think if you're, if all you care about is winning, if all you care about is winning a championship, but I'm not saying

he does, I think the moving east is the right move. Just getting out of the way of Wembaniama in the Thunder. But thank you. By the way, how did his last eight years in the Eastern Conference Ends Act? Well, you remind the listeners? Well, they made all the finals. Toronto became Nick

“named Lebronto because of how he humiliated the Raptors and the playoffs. And yeah, that's what I was”

saying the last 16 years of career, whatever, eight, one the East eight times goes to the West, so because it's seven years maybe since he moved LA, got to the finals once. I have Western bias of 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 next for the Celtics, but just the depth of the West remains a little bit deeper. So my advice to him would be good to go to the east. If you really

want to do what it reports are saying to compete for a championship. Speaking of the West, Victor Wemminyama and our other major news item at the last few days signed a five year max extension at 25% of next season salary cap and locked in at 25%. For fitting the opportunity to either make an all NBA team win defensive player deer, win MVP or go three for three if you're Victor Wemminyama, 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 deal in Harper's contract and all my God, we still have deer and Fox's contract, how long are we going to have that? It's a huge deal. And Adam Silver to your point earlier, made it very clear what 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, Benjamma, 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 for. Yes, 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, come and end when be, I guess,

like he clearly wants to win $50 million is quite enough money for him or whatever it ends up being

per year. You know, what's another 10 million? Well, it's a lot and someone has to get the money. It should be the players, not the owners. And to me, this is one of those ones and this is a tweak I've been talking about for almost a decade. It's one that Adam Silver was talking about today. This seems so easy to me, just 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 some of like Donovan Mitchell and Cleveland, maybe. If they make the 30% max and they get paid the 30% max, they get paid 30%. But their cap picture, why many of them 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 the 25% which is effectively what's going to happen. I don't know, as that's

“just me. This is me. Apparently it's to be an exception. They have these exceptions, right?”

The language is already there, so this could be a hometown exception or a long-term seniority, ten-year exception, something like this. But it was a great story, a delegation, including Miss Johnson and Brian Wright and Peter Holden, our CPU for flew to Paris. It sounds like the flying on Air Force 1 to meet at a summit or something. A delegation of

Parisian apartment building and I think it was Victor's grandfather's apartment and it was very hot and may may not have had air conditioning. But a remarkable moment, I thought that demonstrated key alignment between ownership through the executives, through the coach and obviously their

“franchise player. To the atom thing, I think this was the most interesting thing in the press conference”

when pressed on the second A from what he say over and over again. The spurs in the next

played it in the finals, a small market versus a large market and he kept sort of boasting about the parody of the league and I celebrate that and I do think it is cool that we've had eight champions and eight years for the first time in NBA history. But one thing he didn't say is like, what do you say that little kid who was crying on the video and they had Celtics have to trade Jalen Brown. Like that's a potential lifelong Celtics fan, lifelong Jalen Brown fan that's just

had a really negative experience that we can trace back if you listen to Brad Stevens comments to these rules. So I think there is a ways that 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 as a spur for life

“for Kobe, he was a Laker for life, Steph and Cody, that's magic. That's what we all want.”

And I think the current CBA, if you listen to Brad Stevens, is threatening the ability for for teams to really create those relationships between the star athletes and the fan bases. He didn't mention anything about that. He said small market team was able to play a bit more on a 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 honesty was about not like actually like what's going on.

Like they like the player movement, they like the parody and they don't appear to care about any of the issues that we're talking about. And there is an argument that, well, this is all cute. Well, you're saying Zach and Kirk and you're so naive. But people should have to make tough decisions. That's what GMs are paid for. That's what agents are paid for. And like I get that side of it, but I much, these these feel like easier fixes to me. Great for the spur. Obviously, I mean,

like they're going to be terrifying for a long time. Next topic, do you have any takes onto the band out of bio, Tyler, Hero, confrontation now? Let me tell you, I thought I had just missed it because another team, saying it in 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 and invited a bunch of front-offs and coaches to watch. I was loitering in the hallway talking

to people before meetings. I had that at that hotel. And I sat down at a meeting right after leaving there and got this text from the tweet alert from Shoms saying that there had been an altercation at a practice order. Oh my god, I leave too early. Did I miss this? It was at a different hotel. And I do find it kind of funny how the the depth of the reporting coming out on this that Bamm out of bio-struck Tyler Hero in the chin area. And it's unclear if he was knocked. He

does not appear to have been knocked over. Then he was held back. According to sources, there's doubtlessly surveillance video of this because it's a freaking casino. I would love to see that. And then I had seen the Tyler Hero tweet about who the worst mid-range shooters in the league were last year that graphic that included both Janus and Bamm, which was like a plus passive aggressive sub-tweeting. And I had not seen this social media text whatever exchange between

Tyler Hero and some fan, Bamm's actually. Have you seen this where Tyler Hero was like, well,

basically I'm the one they all have to game plan for you 60 million seems like a lot for a guy who's

a great defender on some nights and taking some shots at Bamm. I had not seen that. And you know, hey, look, words are said. Punches are thrown. I would be a little surprise if the NBA really did anything here. No one seems all that upset about it. Tyler Hero is out at some

“league saying not a big deal on moving on, but do you have any takes, are you going to take a side?”

Are you going to come out team Bamm team hero? Team always team. The past team pacifism. Like, what are we doing? I've read an article on Grant on one time. I've been out of bio. It was really well done. And I've been a huge Bamm fan since that moment. Also trying to go through life not getting hit by Bamm out of bio. 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 my dear and the sword between

Golden State Warriors. And I thought you don't. I didn't know he had that kind of, you know, typing in him, but he just went after a trainman. But that was, you know, in July, there's not a lot to laugh about talking about the NBA, but that was certainly something that got me laughing. Udon is has a very high on the list of people that I would not mess with. I generally think fighting is fighting is stupid and punching people is stupid. I understand that

sports are very emotional. Yeah. Tyler Hero tweeted wrote texts at some fairly provocative things. Bamm apparently can front of them about it. Tyler Hero said something bad 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 jail and 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 in 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 curve? I don't understand. Why are you becoming friends with these random guys? There are people in your life presumably that you can talk to. You actual humans that you can meet in person and you know who they are. You know their names. And all seriousness though, it is sad when two teammates who went to the finals together

“had played together for one of the great coaches and organizations in this league.”

I have a falling out. It's pretty, it's pretty. So I mean my, my original reaction was like, damn, I didn't, I didn't anticipate that because I do believe in each culture to an extent. I do believe in this false true, Riley, you don't as BAM out of bio sort of universe of, you know, we're all bigger than this thing is bigger than us as individuals. So I really did believe that.

And maybe maybe it was always because bullshit, maybe it's bullshit now that the Tyler

Harrow is in Milwaukee. Maybe there was some animosity about that happening in the first place. My mind went there, but yeah, ultimately just sad to see guys who are obviously close and the accomplish a lot together come to a fight like that. Now I feel ashamed, Kirk, for, for 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.

Resource 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 and July, you go to a resource world and

it's just it looks like in a new tournament, but then you look over and it's like, oh, there's Tyler Harrow and there's, you know, whoever it is. I, over a dinner in Vegas with some compatriots, I said that I want to get to the point of my life where I've been inside every casino on the strip that I've stepped foot in every casino on the strip. And resource world is three and one, there's a Hilton, there's a crock furs and there's a conrad and so I counted, I checked

that I stepped in there for other meetings and I counted it as three. It also, you talk about, make made me talk about the, the peril of being punched by a band on a bio. It reminded me of the, like, the one of the stupid, what ifs we played when we were teenagers. It's like, you know, our version of like, what if a bear fought a lion or something like that. It's like, would you

for a million dollars let Mike Tyson punch you into favor 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 Bamm 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. 100 million, I like, what am I going to do with 100 million dollars if I'm dead? Nothing. Well, 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 a yellow stone.

“That's what I, I thought that was the Bamm out of bio title of hero. I wish I, what, I wish you”

a credit for this because I want to do 30 minutes on the bison. Oh, let's do it. We can clip this for a TikTok as Adam would say. But yeah, there's no doubt if one of them is Bamm out of bio, one of them is Tyler Harrow. I think it's pretty clear who is who. You, you've watched this video

like, the video sort of boring for like five seconds, 10 seconds, but the guy has beard, gets you through that. 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 art to be treated with a caution, be fitting wild animals. Look, what am I first, my first

job in journalism was at the Stanford Advocate in Stanford, Connecticut. I was the nightcobs 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 is informed, my beliefs to say,

wild animals are wild animals. So if 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 allude the bison. And he's”

one. And I have it frozen. Anyway, he really believes he can allude the bison. By running in a circle around the tree, as if the bison is going to either figure out, I can just go through the goddamn thicket here, or I can have faster than you. But the grandpa's out of ideas immediately. All I could do is play, ring around the rosy with this pine tree. And the fison figures that out of that. Don't mess with wild animals. Where were we?

Bam, hero, we're done with that. Oh my god. The bison. I shouldn't, I mean, the guy is seriously. Mitchell, I'm sorry. Oh my god. All right. I asked you to pick and I picked as well. Most underrated move of slash moves of the offseason, not including the guy running around the tree.

And the most inexplicable moves of the offseason. Would you like me to go first? Do you want to pick

you on a pick? It's a clickable move taking a photo of a bison when you can't jog. Most inexplicable move, this or the divisions where most under the radar could move you like, like one that got, you know, we didn't pay enough due because of all the big stuff happening. And most inexplicable move, non-gairy trend junior division, where would you like to start? Let's celebrate. I have a two-parter, if that's allowed. And it's, I alluded to it earlier. It's, it's the

“Anthony Simon's, Dean Wade pairing in Philadelphia. I think these are two quality NBA players,”

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 Simon's has the capability being one of the best bench scores for a good team in the league. I just love it. I think that the new front office in Philadelphia is coming in and they might not be done yet to alluded to that McNanamon views, but even if they are done, like this is a great thing, but I like having the

depth of those new pieces in Wade and Anthony Simon's act. I like that too. That was on my list. I have a very long list of candidates raging from as small as Kobe Sanders contract with the Clippers, Robert Williams contract with the Blazers, is a great contract. Wushman Jeng 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 am not, I am not writing in a Detroit Pistons backslide down the standings as aggressively as most people are after. They apparently stood still while several teams upgraded around them. Now that's a little bit pending with Brown. But just like they stole Isaiah Joe for nothing, capitalizing on the funders need to cut money. That gives them between Isaiah Joe, Kevin Herder and Duncan Robinson who is still on the

team. 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 played the jail and Durin thing exactly right,

kings and the lakers for an off for sheet or a side-in trade. They're going to re-sign jail and Durin pending some crazy sign-in trade that emerges at a price that makes sense for everybody. Everybody involved that makes jail and Durin a lot of money. They have a lot of faith in Paul Reed as a backup 5 in a free minutes frame by salary dumping Isaiah Stewart. And I'm just flagging the John Collins move. Tobias Harris out John Collins in on a $3 or 51 million deal that

have you looked at the steel curve? No. Yours two and three are completely non-guaranteed. So if it

doesn't work and those years are critical as a sartops and steel kicks in and Jill Durin's

“deal will also kick in. 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. And I just have a lot of faith more. 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 need and didn't quite get. I think they still need that for the playoffs. By the way, the playoffs don't start next month. They start after the trade deadline when this team is still going to have all the optionality it needs. But I just sort of believe in the culture, the defense, the baseline, the youth 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 the last year's act. 61 wins stand up with something

“like that. A lot of wins. 63 wins on that. 61. So I, hey, 53, 54, that's a good year. I think they're”

going to miss as they as steward to bias 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 score or a second sort of playmaker next to kid. I agree also on the jail and dirt 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

will see. I think I'd like to wait to see on that one. I think he provides a lot more offensive punch than to somebody like beef stew obviously. But we'll see what he can do for for for for the team. I have them slated three or four in the east if I had to say right now. And considering there are 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 to bias Harris with this first. I thought those are smart signing for them. It just a lot of their needs. All right, give me your inexplicable one. Well, I this will go this will go way back and it's sort of high profile, but it's straight up. And number one, one on my loose with a penalty. Well, it is so fun and simple. That's a word, right. Explicable attack. Yeah, it is a word. Yeah, it is explicable in the same way that Gary Trent is explicable.

If you talk to people around the league about why it happened and when it might have been agreed

to and why it's four years and why it's $250 million. But just from a performance value standpoint,

it is inexplicable that I don't think there was a competing team that was going to offer the student four years and that kind of money. And then the second apron era to hamstring yourself with that kind of a deal and 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, lamello ball and try young as sort of these flawed guards that got moved around and

“trapping, you know, paid so much more than those guys. I think is is a fair comp looking”

forward. I don't know if we would just apply giving those guys that much money. He's on my list. He's actually the first name I wrote down other than Gary Jo House. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jo House will be fine. I want to show you House retweeted the the celebratory tweet from Treyon. That was very nice. Look, after this, we got a 30-minute meds corner with me in Sean Fantasy where we

talk about how we're never giving up. So like I get it, Jo House. I think this is going to be an

interesting team next year. One of the things we were going to do and we don't have time to do it now was pick one of the sort of relegation zoneish teams that we think is better than expected or worse than expected. And the whiz or my in my better than expected category. And I think the Treyon thing is going to be very interesting because the whole theory of him in Washington was what we have all these young wings from Kishan George to the bandsaw who we just drafted and he

on big and Alexsar and Balal Koolabali and Trey Johnson and Will Riley etc. We're overtaxed this

they're going to attack scrambled defenses after Treyon runs a pick and roll. And one extreme of that is they're all just chill and standing around while Treyon dribbles endlessly and thanks a bunch of 35 footers that don't go in. Another extreme is Treyon just runs around off the ball and those guys do more of the heavy lifting that they probably should. I actually think the whiz or is going to try to meet in the middle where it is Treyon's offense but he's getting off of it fast

“and those guys get chances to create off of clothesouts and all that. I think they could be fun”

to watch and sniffing toward decent not play in probably but but decent. Who is going to be your team by the way? If we did this your your relegations don't happen to us. Sacramento? Happy? Oh no, what no? Happy? No, definitely. 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 so I just said I just only the number in the years for Treyon. But yeah, if they're

healthy, that's a really compelling team to watch. You have young players and old players. It's Chicago eligible for one of these bad team candidates, a relegation team sack. Yeah, they're on the list of nine or ten that I have. Yeah, I can't wait to watch mostly because of a reacency bias watching Caleb Wilson. It's summer league and he looks awesome

and he was always sort of the sky who could be the best player in this draft. But beyond that,

I sort of actually like the normal pal acquisition, whether they want to keep them or move them. It's a nice flexible deal. And then Dale and 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”

just to look completely different. Tiago Splitter, who I enjoy just coaching performance in Portland and in a related story about austerity earlier is no longer the coach of Portland. But is the coach of Chicago? So I have a complete new vibe in Chicago and that will be a good lead past team for me. And one I think will stay out of that relegation. And we both have

sack as an O team, definitely. Darius A.Cov 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.Cov Levine, Kegan Murray, I penciled in DeAndrey Hunter, and then Siboness, and then off the bench at Malik Monk, Nick Clifford, a chewable mobo, just got signed, Reno, who I really like. And you know, some other guys that I should probably listen, I'm forgetting off the top of my head. I just don't see a lot of

“hope. They drafted Caravan. I think you'll, oh my guy, Cardwell, I love, I love the”

Dylan Carval. It's 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 that these teams sum control their first round pick, and really don't

want to be in the relegation zone. It's some, like Brooklyn do not control their first round pick, you know, the care part of this. And yet, I mean, I like Nick Clifford too. I just don't see any way for them to compete, particularly defensively as is. And it's not like they're stacked with extra first round picks. They're really not, they have a, they have a swap that's actually bad for them. This, so 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 as, 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. Trey Young, Jalen Brown trade, Lakers going all in a Walker Castle, I've discussed that at length, Gary Trey Jr., the pelicans

just existing, just existing. I don't know if they realize that the offseason has begun. Other than signing the Andre Jordan to a two year deal, and everyone assumed it was a one year deal. And I think, I think the miles bridge is trade for Phoenix bears a little bit more soon. That's a good one. Not just because of the off the court stuff, which we all know is very bad. But he's just one of those players, and they gave up a very valuable, unprotected 2031 pick

in a couple of good role players. There's probably an extension for him coming as there is for Dylan Brooks who is great for them. He's just one of those, like, I get that they need a four. He adds a little bit of bounce, a little bit of force, a little bit of verb that they don't have. He's just one of those guys who, like, you look at his stats and said, "Ah, 25 and 4, pretty good player." And it just doesn't add up to enough because of his limitations on defense,

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.”

Yeah, and the whole Michigan State thing, and I was a professor at Michigan State a long time ago, but it just seems like a little too weird, too. It doesn't seem like it fits, and I agree, giving up Royce O'Neill grace and Allen and draft capital for this player in the time where in the Western Conference, competing with these other teams, it doesn't scare anybody out there. And like your point on New Orleans, like, who are you going to be favored against now? Like,

that's one way I like to look at it. If you're playing Sacramento, sure, but if you're playing San Antonio, Denver, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Blazers, like, where do you slide yourself? Now,

the Amales Bridge is on your team. I just don't get it. Well, in a New Orleans related last point here,

kind of an important cell plot of the season. So the last guaranteed year on Zion Williams's contract, just going for that out there. Kirk Gold's very, you're the man, what are we going to be seeing from you on the ringer.com coming up? I have a big messy, Jaylin Brown thing coming out at some point. But we'll see. I mean, we'll see. Well, I have to talk about it when it comes out. I'm excited. Yeah. We need to redo this. We need to do properly this discussion about the

“relegation. So I'm using a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun teams down there. Well, I think”

one of the things I'd like to nominate our listeners to come up with is, can we come up with a better branding for the relegations? You know, maybe not. It's a good one, but it's like it's so fast and exact because the whole behavior of mediocre teams is going to change dramatically this season. And I think it's going to be good. And we're hard on the league sometimes 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. 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 fun year name or a witty year name? I don't know. We'll see. But it's a good thing. Listeners, the gauntlet has been throughout Kirk Goldsbury, or the man, I will talk to you soon. Thank you, Zach.

It's time for Matt's corner. Sean Fennissie is here. Sean, the last time we did the Metz 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 Gelves was delivering the news, somberly on SNY about poor Carlos Mendoza, taking the fall. Mr. Met was dancing behind him, doing his high jinx, making faces, not really realizing I don't think with Mr. Met was not kept in the decision-making loop. Honestly,

maybe Mr. Met should be in the decision-making loop. Maybe he would have thrown himself

“in front of some of these moves. So that's what happened the last time. And since then,”

I'm happy to report the season has really turned around. And I decided 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 is 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 worst record winning percentage wise in the Metz. The Kansas City Royals, the Los Angeles Angels, who there are no

longer of Anaheim, right? They're just the Los Angeles Angels. Well, but they play in Anaheim, but yeah. I understand, and the color a lot of Rockies. Since starting last season, this is a stat that I will track forever and ever, 45 and 24, best record at Baseball 69 games in the last season. The Metz are 78 and 112 for a winning percentage of 41%. So over 190 games, the season and a fifth or whatever that is, this is not just a bad team. This is not just a

run to the middle, 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 and door home run, RBI double. He's coming out of it. He's had a nice productive

stance and skamp back from injury. Boots or games cinching double playball, Devon Williams does the rest, Metz lose three two. And now we are headed into the All Star Game with Juan Soto as our soul representative wasting. We are wasting just an epic photo season. And it's just going to go into smithery and stronghouse. I'm glad you're where you're next at at least your next championship at. I needed to represent some version of winning because we're losing so

profoundly inconsistently in the world of the meds. Do we really want to feed the masses

this coming. But do you think the masses want us, they want our meds tears, they want us to say to them. I'm like, oh, low meds 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, how do you want to do this?”

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 won Soto making $1 billion and Francisco Lendor with

the no trade clause and at five years left on this contract or whatever veteran stars, you don't have those players if you're trying to rebuild Steve Cohen went on a podcast. I think was Joel Sherman and John Heyman. That's among my lowlights of the season. I'm going to get to my other lowlights of the season and basically said I expect both of them to get back next year. They don't hate each other anymore if they did everything's great, everything's fine, they're fine.

But you know, it was notable to me that Francisco Lendor 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 or hard. I just thought it was notable that he said no comment. You didn't say no. I want to be a

“met forever. You didn't say anything else. But he said no comment. So it may be if you want to”

redirect the conversation to AJ Ewing and Carson Benjamin. Is there a world where these two timelines come together in some functional way next season? Because let's tell you another lowlight of that Steve Cohen podcast, not exactly a ray of sunshine when it came to evaluating the Met's 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 Sterns during the

length of his contract, which okay, sure. I think multiple things that seem to be competing are true

at the same time. I think let's talk about Francisco Lendor first. I don't think he'll be traded.

He is in the driver seat. He is a five and ten player. 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 Cohen's 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 one. So it was team. One photo is the highest

paid player on the team. He heard the reports of those two players not getting along. And then the thing that happened is that these two very exciting young outfielders, AJU and Carson Benge emerged this season. And they are dramatically the bright spot on 2026 for the match. And we can talk about them if you'd like, but that trio of players solidifying what looks to be the future of the match outfield for the next five years, if not longer, has been very exciting. And it has made

the team feel more like photos. He gave them the psychopaths nickname. You can see them celebrating after the few and far between wins that we experience as fans with this team. And so all this sudden, Francisco Lendor sort of seems like a man without a country. It doesn't really feel like his team right now, even though I think he's the definitional player this decade for the New York Mets. So, but I don't think he's going to be traded. And I do think we need to get out of this

hellscape of 2026 to see that clearly. For one primary reason, it's not just that while he's aging Francisco Lendor is still very, very, very good, it's the place shortstop. And there are just not a lot of short stops that are even close to Francisco Lendor 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. Never meant the errors, too. Like,

just like forgetting how many outs there are in a game against St. Louis back in the day, the back back a couple months ago. Just weird, like, dude, you're the, you're like the veteran Bellweather of the team. Like, this is this, you are a baseball player. This is this kind of stuff that you do in your sleep. And he's even more emotionally checked out, too, Zach. Like, he just, he doesn't seem like the same person. He's not the Mr. Smile that he was three, four years ago.

He's not that effervescent, fall player. What is causing that who knows? Maybe there's something going on in his personal life. Maybe there's something else going on. Maybe it was the Steve Cohen comment that as long as he is the owner, there will never be a captain on the team. All of those things could be affecting him. I'm not really sure. But I'm not sure that now is the right time to trade. And 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's true is that it's very clear now, very clear because we have

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 Met's fandom and it's tearing me

“up inside, honestly. I think that's very fair. You know, 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 so I'm have failed catastrophically. Boba Schet has at least come to life since June 1st and has been like, roundlead the player that I hope to be and we'll see what his future. He's got these player options. We'll see what he does. But you know, one of the many low moments of the season,

I think it was all the same game when they made six infield errors in one game. All four infielders made at least one error in the game. And the fans began chanting Petalanzo's name during the game. And Petalanzo did not make the all-star team this year in the American League video. It's 21 home runs in an 820 OPS. And honestly, you and I have almost equal the combined production of Marcus Simeon, Palaco, and Luis Robert Jr. Again, it's just every update I get is like,

“"Oh, Palaco's running in the outfield." It's like, great. Is he training to be an Olympic”

sprinter like is or is he going to play baseball at some point? And he's back to playing baseball, mostly at DH, Marc Viento's. Thank God it's 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 Perlta. 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 match next year. But it can't just be LeClan McClain and hope it rains or McClain and Christian Scott and hope it rains. It's got to be more guys who've 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 picture longer than a three-year contract. And so, you know,

we've got Sean Maniah in the middle of a three-year contract and aside from him, they're going to be no player, no pictures on long-term contracts, heading into next season. I like what I've seen from Zach Thornton. It's only been three starts.

Yeah, very encouraging. He's never should have been sent down obviously. You know, that, but,

you know, he's now pitched really well against division rivals against, you know, a very hot red

“socks team. He's looked like, like a pro. He doesn't have the dominant stuff that I think you see”

from Scott or McClain, but seems to be pretty refined as a picture already. And so, if you just look at those three guys and then you look at Benjamin 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 were coming up through his system with his coaching mentalities that are filtered through the farm system and then maybe you're

building something for the future. And look, when we were, when we were winging about the loss of Peter Lanzo and Edvin DS 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, which is good

as he's ever going to be. It's a thousand OPS basically right now. Every at bat is like a work of art.

The guy sitting clutch home runs now, which was like the one thing that he wasn't kind of doing enough and we're blowing those games to we're doing our best to blow them. 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 play, 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 Metz fan, when the Metz 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's series team and the teams that bracketed that,

deer this year. Like, here's like 40 year old Ricky Henderson, and maybe Darrell Hamilton,

it just was like Benny Ogboyani would be hot for a month and then go, it was always like

piecing together a productive outfield the idea that you could just set in stone. These three guys are the outfielders is very, very, and two of them are elite defensive outfielders to cover for the one who isn't like that's very ex. 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. The minute we had Andrew's second base, AJ Ewing was slaughtered right over

to second base. And I was like, no, we have our first centerfielder for the first time since Juan Legaris, like we haven't had a centerfielder who is elite defensively in many, many years. And of course, like patrolling centerfield 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 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's basically

hit at every single level. And it seems 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 line up for a long time is really exciting. After that, I mean, the thing that the other thing that has happened is, you mentioned those three new acquisitions who have hardly played and when they played, they've been miserable. But the quote unquote baby mets, that generation of players, Brett baby, Marc Santos, Francisco Alvarez,

you know, Alvarez has been up and down this year, not that. He's been not bad. He's fine. He's doing like the, the meds, you know, will Sam and dude does a really nice job covering the meds for the athletic had a piece about how both of their catchers will be in high demand at the trade deadline. If the meds really want to sell, I love the catching situation right now. Alvarez is like, I just, he's bad. He's appealing enough that I want to ride with it a little bit.

Now, he said the same thing about the end to us who turned into a disaster. But Alvarez got real pop from a spot where nobody has pop. And Torens 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 hit or two. And he was just pinched for the other day in a big spot in the ninth inning.

“And I was like, what are you doing? You have to literally start hitting the ninth inning. So yeah,”

it's, that situation is mostly good. But, you know, Viento's and Bady didn't develop. They didn't turn into the players that we wanted them to be. And if you see a world where Marc Viento's completed first base and Brett Bady 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 Marc Viento's will be in baseball

three years from now. He has regressed 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 lean into 15 balls a year and hit home runs. But otherwise, I mean, he's a sub 300 on base player. Like, he's just not a competent hitter. And he, in the field, he's an absolute butcher. So it's really tough. And it's basically made the team every day look one third competent. And very rarely, it's only in the last two weeks or

so since Lendor has gotten healthy and since Boba Shett has come to life. But they've seemed like a real offense. And that has dealt tail neatly with the regression of the pitching staff. Yeah, everything, everything seems to even Steven with the meds. 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 a team.

“Because you know what it turns out you need to have on your team. A first baseman, it would be an”

ice out of a first baseman. Be really nice to have the first baseman on a 2100 runs this year. But we couldn't pay Pete Alonso. I guess it's just not possible. And so we have this revolving door of like people who can't play the position, who switched to the position at the last minute. And it turns out you need to learn how to play it. Then they get injured. And their injury prone, like Pelonco. So it's not shocking that they get injured. So their mobility is further

compromise. Their ability to pivot to that position is further compromise. That's like Jared Young, come on down. You're like the everyday first baseman, but I'm Benge. You know, I remember the he had a home run. I think in the first game of the season when they beat Paul Scheme's way back when F was optimistic and happy. And then he went into a deep, deep, deep slump. And there were a lot of jokes like this is Carson Benge. This is the guy we've heard all about, even the meds.

And I have him climb out of that in this season and just become a steady product of player feels like a huge win. To have that not be like, oh, we're sending a 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, to, to, if you're knows that. I mean, that's a, that's a really big thing. And to develop a player like that. That is a call that

turns made early in the season that was right on. He basically called his shot in February and said, I think Benge is probably going to be our starting right fielder. And so that is more or less

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% strike out rate”

in Triple A, he just doesn't seem like a major league baseball player will see if he gets over that. If Jonah Tong was not sitting on a six point O ERA in Triple A and doesn't look like he's going to be a part of the rotation anytime soon. And if Jacob Rhymer hadn't gotten hurt and hadn't struggled this year because he was a really hot prospect coming out of last off season. Those three guys, that could have been your first baseman, your third baseman, and your number three starter,

and all of a sudden maybe none of them are a part of the club long term. We don't really know and Clifford, it's worth noting, was a part of that class of players who came in after the 2023 season when belly up when Steve Cohen blew the whistle and said we have to trade Maxures or 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's stats because I've been intrigued by him and I haven't looked in a bit. A hundred and twenty nine strikeouts in 86 games

is really something else, but the the slugging is is still pretty, I don't know. Well, I strikeouts no bother as much as they bother some other people, but that's that's a lot of strikeouts. I'm now pivoted to where you were a month ago when we did this like I was like, I don't know, Luke Leaver's pretty good. Like the semester 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 a facsimile of Luke Leaver if we need to in the office. And I'm just like let's turn it over. I mostly agree that 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'd lost his closures for all while he was there. He lost it to Devon Williams and then he regained it

back and they lost it again. And he's a fickle player. He has been unbelievable this season. I mean, he is legitimately one of the that had been one of the very best pictures in the sport,

“arguably the best reliever on the sport. I think it's what is a 20 consecutive appearances”

without allowing a run. So you want to trade at the top of his value, but he's under contract

for $11 million next year. We're going to need him. I don't know. It's why it's why it's

why I've been torn about it because I am already looking ahead the next season and have been for two months now. And I just, you know, I'm fine either way with him. Like railing 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 Devon Williams right now? Oh, my God. Yes. Why, why would the answer be no? Well, you probably have to pay down as

you submitted a salary. You've earned you paid $6 million signing bonus. He's a three year 51 million dollar deal. So now it's effectively a three year 45 million dollar deal pro-rated. You know, you've 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 what we are at this point. We have to subsidize the other team to that”

because this is where my NBA, my NBA brain still needs to adapt to majorly. 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 a part expensive franchise players. I think they will have to do that for a handful of people. It'll be really interesting to see if they try to do that for

somebody, I mean, just a shed 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 really said the world. Those are very simple. Those are just like those are valuable arms. They're going to garnish one mid level prospect. You're you're hoping against hope that you're you can get a top 100 prospect for them, but you probably can't maybe for really 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 playoff. And we're still so happy. Listen, I'm able to get in. We're a one percent playoff. We have cracked the one percent threshold. It's truly insane. It's truly insane. Just how expensive this team is. How much fan

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 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. We're 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 it. And like some of the outfield adjacent, like good hitters on the team. But there isn't one. You know, does that dead money, by the way, if we do that with Devon Williams

“or whatever? Is that live on our cap year to year? Does it like spread out like it is in the NBA?”

Is it just like we're paying the team? That's it. We're not hampered in terms of our ability to make transactions. That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. We don't know any of expert either. We need a new in the new CBA whenever that comes. We might we the Met's, not we majorly baseball. We this particular team with this particular payroll. Remember how the NBA has every time there's like a lockout in the new CBA, they have the

Amnesty clothes where you just get to be like, oops, okay, we don't want that was a mistake. And now the rules are different and like Andrea Blatt, you're gone and Josh Smith, you're gone. We might need one of those for the for the good old metropolitan to recalibrate. I think the number one draft pick there is probably what I think if you're going to do that. Like you mentioned his name. I mean, it's been a disaster. A disaster. He comes out of the bullpen. And for an ending,

one ending. 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 ending. 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 at the bullpen, but like ideally he's not just a one-in-ing guy. He's a three-in-ing guy or something in between. He can't he can't even sustain three endings. And he's then his face gets sad and he's out of the game. Well, like let's try to mentally reset on quote I sang

ago because Devon Williams makes $17 million annually. Luke Weaver makes $11 million annually.

Could I sing a makes $15 million annually? If could I sang a was just the $15 million set-up man for this team who is at the 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 that 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 the Chicago,

Sean Maniah, since repaired himself in some ways and we can talk about him. He's been sold up up. He's been very solid. And now, could I sing a who, you know, new manager and green is sort of like wants to get three or four endings out of him. And I understand why because the team is short a starter. And we've lost the code. I sang a role in the rotation. But just let him do that thing that you just described, 99, 99 goes for 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 plate for his base with Peter Lanzo 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 and ending. And like it seems like he's the kind of pitcher when one thing goes wrong, the whole thing goes wrong and collapses instantly. It is worth just outlining. You said, low meds 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-air game and the Peter Lanzo chance and trading David Peterson. I believe that was all the same night. I mentioned Mr. Met, Tonting Steve Gelbs, the Steve Gelbs was delivering who some Carlos Mendoza's firing. By the way, my daughter's reaction to that stone cold.

She goes, good. I never liked him anyway. Wow, like God. What happened to you? What have I

done? We had the viral Yankees, a Met's fan kid crying that he didn't want to root for the worse 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 Met's face in a game, which was not a home run, which so do a misplayed and then you ing misplayed. And it's like, only this team could do this. We had the game a couple of weeks ago, and it's

the royals where we were gifted the little league home run for Carson Benge. And then so it's a three on homework. And it's nine four Met's 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 9 and win 16 12.

throw at the first pitch and the game was rained out. And it wasn't even called until like

“16 15. And I had to tell my family and friends. I don't know. The future comes, 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 shun. 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 low meds. This is like if you

made a parody of how a bad med season would go, it would include a lot of this. Now you are fully back, Zach. This is what it is. This is the fandom. This is the truth of this experience and what has been happening in 24 and in the first half of 25. That was the illusion. This is the reality. And why is that happening? I don't really know. Like why was Bogoshit one of the worst hitters in baseball for two months. If you look, if you look at his underlying

analytics, which makes some meds fans insane because they feel like David Sterns is only making decisions by the 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 months stretch of his career happening at the exact same time that Carson Benge was entering the sport and adjusting that Francisco Lendor had his first significant injury as a player 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 that decision making. And this is why I'm such a burnt out cynic. However, I do feel that this season was the sacrificial land to the gods to get this. I do think that there was something in the stew and my sports fan, where someone had to pay the paper to get that next title. And you know, we're paying right now. This is we're in debt. We're in a lot of debt right now. And if you're a meds fan, you're feeling like, and you know, the Yankees also have been

in a June swoon. 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-nix sports fandom. I'm glad that you mentioned the nix because that's where I wanted to actually conclude. As that was happening, and it's been a month now. And I'm still approached by nix fans and nix

“fan friends every day talking about it, asking me about it. What was it like to wait?”

We're by me. We're at the end and I'll be game over. 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 nix. And the nix, much like the mats, have alternated between being, I think to degree to which the nix were a punchline was like, perhaps the same for the mats 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 that when the nix, the nix did have like a 15-year period, it was like, oh my god, like most of these years are pretty terrible. But like I proceeded though by 14 straight years of playoff appearances. So they were like, they were in a leap franchise and just in terms of not only, 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 laps, but even in that period,”

like it's not like that's 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 work where two years were moved from being in the NLCS. It's not like this is a bottom-feeding team over and over and over again with one year spikes. And then it's another bottom-feeding team. It reminds me of the Red Sox in that sense.

And that's what I just kept thinking about when I saw the city catch metaphorical fire with the nicks is yes, the Mets can't unite the city like the Nicks can't nor can the Yankees, because there's such a division between the fan bases. But there's a community that's built through suffering, through coming close, through a specific kind of suffering, like coming close,

having the resources and never quite getting over the hump. And it's not 1918 like the Red Sox.

It's not the Cubs in almost a century or whatever it was. It's 1986. It's 40 years. It's long, but not that long, but it's getting long. And I kept thinking watching all of those scenes and seeing all those people come together that that's all I want. I just want that one time.

have to be like we win it. Just let me go watch a world series game on a giant screen somewhere in New York City with a lot of people, my age, younger, older, and feel that community in an apex.

“You for a 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. And at some point, if you're this rich and 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 next up. Because they have to seem colors and everything. I have what I was thinking in the whole finals. Yeah, it does feel like it's getting worse and not that. But you're right that when this happens,

it will be special. There is a monkey's paw quality to this, though, a careful what you wish for, where in 2015 the team did go to the world series. And they're run to the world series in 15. I was living in Los Angeles. I remember vividly. The series against the Dodgers, where I went to two of those games. And against the Chicago Cubs, as high as I've ever felt as a Metz fan personally, that was a really exciting young rotation.

Dude, I remember driving, I've told the story before. I had to drive somewhere like a long road trip. And I was listening to the WFAN. And I remember this is when I wrote that S.A. for Grandland about how sad I was that I was out. I remember Mike Francis was saying on the show, this is the best young rotation. Maybe I've ever seen in my entire life watching baseball better than the 70s orials. 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 it's more painful than we even remember. If you think about”

the fact that they were, I think they were winning every single game in that series after the

seventh inning, that we were an Aaron Throat, a first, a Jerry's family, a meltdown away

from taking a series lead. That we were playing a very scrappy and very skilled Kansas City Rose 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 and that stuff that has really, really come to the surface in the

last decade. You can just throw that out the window, because you could say the 15 team won't. I'm not trying to take it away from the royals. They deserve to win without question. But that was a really, really hard world series to watch. But you came out of it thinking, okay, well, we've got Matt Harvey, we've got Noah Cindergart. We've got, we're going to have this young Zach Wheeler pitcher, you know, we're going to have Stephen Matt's. 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 Beltron and struggles a little bit and has some injuries. And just as he's finally rounding into shape, he goes to our archenemesis to Philadelphia Phillies and becomes basically

“the best pitcher in baseball for the last decade. I think it's fair to say that he has been consistently”

the best pitcher in the sport. And he's 36 years old and it's 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 everything's then, I mean, this team I lose 97 games this year's Zach, that's inconceivable that they could lose this many games. And this is where we are.

Again, 78 and 112 in our last 100 and 90 games. But the hope never dies. The games are still on

in my house. My daughters still into it. And we're still doing a medscorner. Sean Fenniss, you know, I'm 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. I broke my no-movie's streak. I went and saw disclosure day in the theater where I have an

offline conversation about that. Why not online? When are you coming on the big picture? That's the big question. Any time, we timed it so perfectly. It was like 105 degree day here, 100 degree day, whatever, humid, a bunch of dads. 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.

Well, I'm happy to come on anytime. I'll just be the idiot on that podcast, but then I'm going to

follow up with you about that sounds good. Thank you, Zach. I know, medscorner 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 Low Show. Thank you to Kurt Goldsbury. Thank you to my partner at medsphere and I'm Sean Fennissie. Thanks to all of you for listening to and/or watching the Zach Low Show. Thanks, of course,

will happen. Maybe LeBron will sign. Maybe not. Time will tell. Thanks, everybody.

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