Under-The-Radar Moves of the Offseason with Fred Katz, TV Recommendations with Joanna Robinson, Lakers Check-In, Plus Mets Corner Continues with Sean Fennessey

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Coming up on a fun all-over-the-place Zach Losho, we start NBA.

Yeah, the NBA is still going on.

Jonathan Kaminga still hasn't signed anywhere as of this recording.

All the restricted free agents are still out there.

There's drama.

Lucas Skinney.

We have Fred Katz from the Athletic coming out.

We're going to pick our most underrated favorite move of the summer under the radar.

It's got to be under the radar.

That means it can't be the Lakers, can't be the Nuggets guys, because they got so much attention for their brilliant signings because the team is so good.

Under the radar, favorite move and move you look back on and you're like, wait, that happened?

WTF was that move.

I don't really love that.

Well, we're going to pick one of each.

Then, Joanna Robinson, the Joanna Robinson, is coming on to recommend TV shows for me and my wife, who have a very narrow sliver, little Venn diagram, space of overlapping taste.

Joanna is coming to the rescue.

I'm going to unleash some hot takes about modern television.

It's going to be wild.

And Mets Corner, trade deadline, Juan Soto injury.

A lot to talk about on Mets Corner.

Seven gabe winning streak, followed by now as I'm recording this, we're struggling against the Padres a little bit.

Lots going on.

Loaded Zach Lowe Show before I head out on vacation.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show.

It's late July.

I'm about to go on vacation, but not before we dispense with some last-minute NBA news and some evaluations of the summer that may have gone under the radar.

Fred Katz from The Athletic, how are you?

I'm great, Zach.

I'm ready to talk about some under-the-radar stuff.

This is what I live for.

I live for the stuff that nobody is talking about that I can then sift through and try to find.

So, this is what I like to do after every summer.

I go back.

We've hit all the big transactions, all the medium-sized transactions, all the glamour teams, all the contenders.

I like to go back through the whole list and remind myself, ooh, what little move did I really like?

And what, not even just necessarily little, just little in terms of the attention it received.

So, anything from the Lakers, disqualified.

Knicks, disqualified.

Contenders like Nuggets, Jonas Valentunis, Bruce Brown, disqualified.

You got a lot of love for that.

Norm Powell got a lot of love for that one, Miami.

What under the radar move?

Oh, man, you know what?

I remember liking that.

And then another move, it's like you look back and you're like, oh, that happened.

Why the hell did that happen?

WTF was that move about?

I hate that.

And I said, we're going to pick one of each.

Are you ready?

I am ready.

I got one of each.

All right.

We're going to start positive because, you know, summer.

As my friend Kim would say, it's summer.

And we're in a good mood.

Here are my nominees.

and I don't care if your pick comes outside the list of my nominees.

These are just my nominees for happy under the radar.

Ooh, I like that move of the summer.

Herb Jones, three years, $68 million extension with the New Orleans Pelicans.

Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren extensions with the Thunder not being the full supermax and in Chet's case, not having any escalators at all.

Ryan Rollins, three years, $12 million with the Bucs.

Now we're getting deep.

The Wizards acquiring Cam Whitmore for two second-round picks.

Here's one that's nominated in both both categories.

Isaiah Jackson, three years, 21 million, fully guaranteed Indiana Pacers.

Yabuselli, two years, 11.5 million, Knicks.

Trendon Watford on a one-plus one minimum for the Sixers.

Teamed up with Jabari Walker on a two-way.

Luke Cornette, four years, 41 million to the Spurs.

Almost too high profile for this category, but it gets in because that 441 is actually closer to two years, 24 million because year three is only 2 million plus guaranteed year four team option.

Day Ron Sharp, two years, $12 million to the Brooklyn Nets.

Cole Anthony and Jericho Sims on minimums to the Milwaukee Bucks.

And another one that's nominated like the Isaiah Jackson one in both categories because why not?

Jabari Smith Jr., five-year, $121 million extension with the Houston Rockets.

Fred Katz, was your happy under the radar move on my nominee list or did you go off the grid right away?

It was kind of on the list, but not really.

So

my move is a move that

I guess is kind of a few moves, but it was really just one transaction in one.

And it involves the Cam Whitmore trade.

So whiz, baby.

Mine is.

Zach, I have spent so much time in my life talking about Washington Wizards trade exceptions, and I'm going to add to that time right now.

I don't want to say that that's wasted time, Fred, because you're a guest on my podcast.

So congratulations on the time you've spent dissecting the Washington Wizards in general.

Yes,

this is what I do.

I think about the Wizards more than any sane human being should think about the Wizards.

So it wasn't the Cam Whitmore trade, I like that for them.

That's basically take a flyer for two second round picks on a dude who might have a lot of potential and can really score and see what you can get.

To me, that was part of a string of just like

really interesting moves in terms of how they structured it from a cap perspective.

So that really started when they traded Jordan Poole, Sadiq Pay, and the 40th pick in the 2025 draft to New Orleans for CJ McCollum, Kelly O'Linick, and like a top 50 protected second-round pick.

And let me stop you there.

That trade from the New Orleans perspective should be on the what the fuck just happened here.

Why did you do this?

Except I've already done that segment of what the fuck just happened here.

Why did you do this?

Why were you so eager to trade for Jordan Poole?

On the the flip side, an obviously good trade for the Wizards.

Yeah, I thought about doing that.

I feel like people piling on New Orleans is just like, is so over the radar now.

I feel like I'm a population.

That's why the Herb Jones extension signed my under-the-radar deals.

Congratulations on that one, Pelicans.

Herb Jones consistently signing team-friendly deals.

His previous one was like $14 million a year for a guy who can defend like that.

It's a great number for them.

But so really what I loved about that from Washington was forget about the players involved.

Basically, what this deal is telling you is that Washington was able to get off of $40 million of what they considered unwanted salary in 2026-27 because Olinik is expiring, Jordan Poole

is under contract for two more years.

Sadiq Bay is under contract for two more years, and C.J.

McCollum is expiring.

And so the Wizards are giving up $40 million of 26-27 money.

And they're basically doing it for the price of the 40th pick in this year's draft, which ended up being Micah Peavy.

That is unbelievable value in order to get that amount of money.

In order to dump $40 million of money, it should cost way more than the 40th pick in the draft.

And possibly the Wizards are going to be able to get back like a 50-something pick in 27 to be able to make that up even a little bit more.

So now the Wizards are going to get like close to $100 million in cap room next year, not including their first round picks and whatever they have there.

And I love the way that they use this deal to spawn off other deals and create these really cool trade exceptions, which gives them even more flexibility on top of all the cap room they might have next summer for the first time in 10 years.

They're going to have cap room.

The Ramon Sessions cap hold is still on their book Zack.

So the Ramon Sessions cap hold next summer will finally come off of the Wizards books.

I can't wait.

The Jan Mohimi cap hold is finally going to come off of the Wizards.

I remember when Ramon Sessions was going to turn the Lakers around.

It's going to be a huge deal.

So what the Wizards end up doing is that's basically its own trade.

They come back and they agree to the Cam Whitmore trade separately.

They do two seconds for Cam Whitmore.

Now, they could have done that deal on its own because they had a $9.9 million trade exception from the Jonas Valentunis trade when they traded him to Sacramento.

And they could have slid Whitmore into the Jonas Valentunas trade exception, but they didn't.

What they did in order to preserve the Jonas Valentunas trade exception was they looped the Whitmore deal into the Jordan Poole deal, making it a three-way deal.

They ended up giving up the exact same amount of stuff, getting back the exact same amount of stuff, and they got to keep the Jonas Valentunis trade exception.

Then they take Kelly O'Linnick in what was technically a separate deal, but was part of the plan, and they trade Kelly O'Linnick to San Antonio.

They bring back Blake Wesley and Malachi Branham.

Two former first-round picks.

I don't think the Wizards really cared that they were two former first-round picks.

They released Blake Wesley, and I don't know what kind of opportunity Branham's going to get, at least right off the bat.

However, what they do here is they had a $5.2 million trade exception from Johnny Davis.

The salary matching for that worked with a Linux for those two guys.

Oh my God.

Let me see.

But so when they made the Johnny Davis.

As you're saying this, I'm going to go remind myself who Johnny Davis was drafted over because what an all-time disaster draft pick.

Zach, can I just say something?

I was listening to your podcast, I don't remember, a couple pods ago, and

it must have been you and Simmons were joking about has anybody ever shrugged upon drafting somebody?

The wizards, I immediately thought the wizards shrugged when they drafted him.

Oh, in the draft room?

Like it wasn't, oh,

this is my rant that I did on Bill's podcast about how I wasted 11 fucking minutes of my life watching the Phoenix Suns inside the draft room.

Let us take you inside the draft room where all our polos are matching and we're super excited about everybody we pick.

And I said, I want to see the one draft room that's like, oh, God, our guy just got, we got to take this guy.

By the way, two picks after Johnny Davis is J-Dub.

Just FYI amongst a bunch of decent players.

Anyway, Wizards.

That's real tough.

So the Wizards traded Johnny Davis to Memphis earlier last season, and they created a $5.2 million trade exception.

So what they did here was instead of just matching salaries in the Olinik trade, they structured it differently, and they used these trade exceptions to create a larger one.

So they slide Blake Wesley into the biannual exception, which can be used as a trade exception now.

And they slide Branham into the Johnny Davis trade exception, which allows them to create a $13.4 million trade exception from losing Kelly O'Linek.

And that's what they wanted out of that deal.

They wanted a $13.4 million trade exception.

So now, as opposed to the Wizards having to use the, as opposed to the Wizards having to use the Valentunis trade exception in order to take in Whitmore and being left with just the MLE, now the Wizards have nearly $100 million in cap room next summer.

They have a $13.4 million trade exception, which is very usable.

They have a $9.9 million trade exception, which is very usable.

They have the $14.1 million mid-level exception, which they could use as a trade exception or a free agency exception if they choose.

And they haven't used any of that.

And they're going to be able to, like I'm telling you, the Wizards this year, they're going to try to insert themselves as a third team to deals.

And more deals need three teams than any other type, than in any other era of the NBA because of the current rules.

You got like first apron teams trading with first apron teams and one team needs to dump money.

And the wizards are going to try to be that team all the time.

And they're going to say, yeah, give us a second round pick and we'll take the money.

Give us a first and we'll take the money.

They've got these two big expiring contracts with McCollum and with Chris Middleton to where they'd be able to take in long-term money if they want to use their cap space early this summer.

They have a lot of opportunities to be able to.

be flexible in this rebuild and take on more assets now.

And meanwhile, they're about 30 some odd million dollars below the luxury tax.

So they probably won't use all three of those trade exceptions that they have that are nice and sizable.

But if the situation came up to where they had to, they could figure out a way to use pretty much all of them and stay away from the luxury tax.

So I just thought they did a really good job being able to kind of maneuver this from a cap perspective and set themselves up with the ability to take in kind of these more tinier assets in the future that I bet you will happen.

Was there anything in any of that about the players that play basketball for the basketball team?

Or are we just going to like, this is all going to be great when the NBA crowns the Wizards the 2025, 2026 Sam Hinkey Memorial Cap Management NBA champions?

Like, congratulations.

You have a lot of cap space.

You have a lot of trade exceptions.

Can we talk about the team for a minute?

Like, I'm glad you brought them up because they and the Nets are the two teams that I just haven't talked about at all because there's nothing interesting in terms of what they are trying to be next season.

We all know what they're trying to do next season.

They have, as I have said many times, a very interesting collection of young players.

I like what Washington has done in the Michael Winger era.

I liked Alex Starr's rookie year.

Is he going to be a guy guy?

I don't know.

I like Bub Carrington, fine.

I like Keyshawn George, fine as a role player.

I don't know if this shot ever going to come along.

Trey Johnson's exciting.

Is he going to be a guy guy?

We'll see.

AJ Johnson, a lot of untapped potential there.

Will Riley, we'll see.

There's just like below.

I love Kulabali, despite the fact that after an incredible first month last season, he kind of backslid.

I like, there's a lot to like.

Everybody knows there's a lot to like.

Everybody knows that there is not necessarily the tent pole guy yet.

I'm not going to close the book on one or two of these guys.

Maybe, maybe, long shot developing into that.

The more interesting question to me, though, is what you just said about is where all that cap flexibility takes us.

Because I think

there's a scenario where the Wizards get to next offseason and they decide

we are going to do do our little junior varsity Eastern Conference version of what the Rockets did two seasons ago where we want to hit the gas a little bit on our development and splurge on veteran free agents who can help us win some more games, be competitive, teach our young guys.

I'm not comparing them to those Rockets who were clearly ready for a big leap and clearly had like AA plus young talent already in the door and Ahmed Thompson and Shen Gun and on and on and on.

The Wizards aren't there.

Or do they get to the end of of next year and discover, you know what, we're so far away that not only did we just tank last season, we're just going to be a salary dumping ground again for draft picks and draft picks and draft picks and move the thing forward.

I think both of those scenarios are in play.

I frankly think the Wizards would like scenario A to be in play because I don't think they want to be bad for like this long, but

there's a fork in the road and I don't know which way it's going to go.

Yeah, if I had to bet, I would bet that it's going to be the second one and not the first.

I would bet they're going to be a salary dumping ground either at the deadline and or over the summer.

And honestly, the number one reason why, they still owe a top eight protected first-round pick to the Knicks, and they are going to do everything in their power in order to keep that pick this year.

They are going to lose.

Well, this is not about this year.

My fork in the road is about

keeping that pick, and it's about the 26, 27 season and beyond.

No question.

However, when you're in the process of just like trying to lose to make sure you can keep that pick, because it's not just about keeping that pick either.

They have a swap with Phoenix, but they only get the swap with Phoenix if they have a top eight pick.

So if they finish ninth or on, that pick moves on and they don't get the swap.

So in order to get the swap with Phoenix, which for all we know could end up being a really high pick, that's within the realm of possibilities, then they're going to want to lose.

And if they're losing that much, if they're losing as much as you kind of have to lose in order to...

They're going to be so far away.

They're going to be so far.

Like if you win 19 games again or 21 games again and it's coming off a season that you won in the teens, it's really hard to justify doing what the Rockets did.

And

I just don't necessarily know if that's the direction they're going to go in.

I think they have very measured leadership at this point.

Ted Leontsis, their owner, has put a lot of faith in that leadership so far.

He's also the guy who famously stated six, seven years ago that they would never, ever tank.

And somebody's also the guy who wrote the blog post about how Jordan Crawford, Andre Blatch, and I think John Wall were were the new big three in Washington Sports, and then got so embarrassed by the blog post that he deleted it.

Oh, yeah.

That's like an OG blogger move.

Like, I'm just going to take this down.

Is anyone going to notice if this just disappears?

That was like 2010.

That was like 2010.

That was like infancy of NBA blogging.

Honestly, it's an underrated owner online

self-owned.

Like,

it's not Comic Sans,

but it's like closer to Comic Sans than it gets credit for.

And the fact that it was deleted makes it even funnier.

It's a great piece of Ted Leonce's lore.

Look, I appreciate that Noner at least was

putting out his thoughts on the team regardless of what he's doing.

You know, he's sitting there.

He's got to draft up like Bub Carrington, Bilal Koulabali, and Alex Sarr are the next.

You know what?

You know what?

Let's just bag that.

Let's just keep that one in drafts.

I do think he's a little more realistic about what they've got with this team.

I think he's more measured than he used to be.

Like

I've talked to people over there.

I think he handles himself as kind of the governor of the team differently than he did even five years ago when he was pushing, you got to get the eighth seed, you got to make the playoffs.

That could change.

It could change back to what it was before.

He could say, I can't stand this much losing for this long.

You got to just at least be somewhat competitive.

I have heard no signs of that actually changing.

From everything I hear, like the organization as a whole is pretty bought bought in on this.

So my guess is they will try to take on bad salary again next year.

And then once they're kind of free from having to owe a pick, because that pick extinguishes

or either extinguishes and turns into two second rounders or it conveys this year and then it's done.

Once they get past that, I think then we're going to start to see them pick up and try to become more competitive.

I think this year is the last one where it's going to be the wizards like this.

And then we'll see.

Like, you're right.

I didn't mention any players easily the easiest thing to do well is make a good trade when you're not trying to get better the hardest type of trade to make is make a good trade when you are trying to get better it is a lot easier to make a trade when whether it makes you better or not is totally off the table so you're totally right on that front however I don't know, it's a little jarring given the Wizards' recent history to see them valuing stuff on the margins in these tiny little things.

They've always been good at trade exceptions, but to be able to see them kind of maneuver this.

They should make that the team slogan.

Washington and Wizards basketball.

We've always been good at trade exceptions.

Put that on a t-shirt.

They'll sell like hotcakes at the store.

It'll outsell Coulaba Lee jerseys.

Zach, the Davis-Bertans acquisition was

brilliant.

All right.

That was brilliant.

Trade exception, Master.

I'm hitting the Zach Galifenakis between two ferns button on Wizards Cap Minutia.

Here's my one piece of advice to the Wizards.

And it's more important than the trade exceptions.

Make the cherry blossom uniform part of your regular rotation and make it maybe your main uniform.

End of thing.

My pick for the Zach Lowe under the radar move that I don't think got talked about enough.

I'm going to go with a big one, actually, at least in terms of dollars.

I'm going to go with the Jabari Smith Jr.

extension.

Five years, $121 million.

Super early for a first-round pick entering his fourth season to get extended.

It kind of came like, wait, why now?

These usually happen in October.

What's going on?

It was like the first big move of the offseason or post-Desmond Bain trade.

And then it got swamped by free agency and Kevin Durant and other things.

And I just, I love it for both parties.

I like it for Jabari Smith Jr.

because he's had a,

you know, this is a guy that was rumored to be the number one pick in a draft that had Paolo Bancaro and Shudd Holmgren until the very last second when he was not the number one pick and Paolo was and he was the third pick.

This is a guy who has played the three, the four, the five for a team that doesn't seem to know exactly what to do with him positionally.

This is a guy who spent, frankly, a lot of last season just kind of spacing the floor and looking for, you know, open threes and defending his ass off.

His usage rate has dropped.

In each of his first three seasons in the league, incredibly unusual for a guy who, again, was rumored to be the number one pick in the draft right up until the last minute.

He averages, you know, I gave Michael Porter Jr.

a lot of crap.

Not a lot of crap.

I just pointed out that he averaged something like four drives per 100 possessions,

according to the tracking data, compared with Cam Johnson, who's 12, 13, and how much just that extra juice will help Denver.

Jabar Smith Jr.

averaged even fewer drives than that.

His handle is famously the subject of sort of snickering among the NBA Cognicenti, and he is tentative in traffic.

He does get picked now and then.

He doesn't look confident when the help comes as a passer or as a driver or as a finisher.

And yet, Fred Katz, I like Jabari Smith Jr.

I think he's a winning player.

He just turned 22 years old, like two months ago.

And I've seen enough glimpses of decisive attacks on closeouts, decisive face up and blow.

He likes to go left, face up and blow by someone left, triple threat, one dribble, finish.

There's a lot.

There's so much room.

to grow to even become an average ball handler, right?

Like he's got to get to a point.

Teams are unafraid to put any kind of defender on him.

We'll hide little guards on you.

We don't think you're going to post them up or do any damage on the glass.

We'll hide big centers on you if they're not already hiding on Ahmed Thompson because we don't think you can blow by those guys.

He's got to be able to punish that kind of stuff more as he gets deeper into the playoffs if he's going to be a big rotation player for the Rockets.

But I'm not.

Looking at his handle at age 21 and being like, well, that's just all there is.

He's going to be a glorified 3nd guy.

He's going to be a good 3nd guy.

He can defend every position.

I think he cares about the right stuff.

I think this deal is good for him because it locks in $121 million.

You could play hardball and be like, oh, he should have waited.

That's too low.

What if he blows up?

It's a shit ton of money.

And for the Rockets, it sounds like a lot and it is a lot.

First of all, it declines in 27, 28 when Ahmed Thompson's big deal is going to kick in and Kevin Durant, if he signs an extension, will be on the books.

That's important.

And at the end, it's going to be like 12% of the salary cap, 13% of the salary cap.

I'm betting on Jabari Smith Jr.

to outperform that.

I like this deal for both teams.

It evinces a certain happiness, contentment.

I like it.

That is my winner.

I love that deal too.

I love the way the Rockets have structured a lot of these extensions that they've done.

Like they actually negotiate on their rookie extensions.

You see some teams who just kind of give all that they can give and that's about it to appease the player.

And the Rockets actually negotiate.

And one of the nuances of the Jabari Smith deal that I saw that I liked was no player option on year five.

Straight up.

Just straight up five years.

A lot of times, these deals, you'll see player option on year five.

Didn't have that.

20 million is kind of just what you get for a normal starter.

And I also think that Jabari Smith is really important for what the Rockets' team identity is, which is this is a team that has just decided we are going all in on size.

Like something that I considered for my wtf move which i'm i'm not gonna have because it's not like i hate it is is is the clint capella one where i was like where it's one of my nominees where where where is this where where does this fit into everything you've got stephen adams and you've got shangoon and you've got jabari smith and you've got kevin durant like they're going to put out these lineups tari ison they're going to put out these lineups that are just going to be all engulfing and they have just been all in on size they loved those lineups with Adams and Shangoon last year, those double big lineups, and they used them a ton in the playoffs to a lot of success in a lot of really high pressure, high leverage situations.

They're all in on size defensively.

They're all in on size from forcing turnovers.

They're all in on size from taking away the paint.

He fits their defensive style incredibly well.

He's 22 years old.

Like a lot of the things that we're talking about, I think if he barely improves, I think this deal is probably fair.

If he improves improves a lot, then all of a sudden you're looking at a really team-friendly deal.

And you're right, from his perspective, like $121 million isn't the same in the NBA's ecosystem, but it's still $121 million in the real world.

So jump on that while you can.

It shows a mutual commitment to me.

We like you, you like me.

Let's get a deal done.

And I think what you just said is important about his development.

Like, I don't think he's ever going to be like a great ball handler or scorer in traffic or whatever, but I think he could be competent.

And,

you know,

he's swung between like, is he going to play some small ball five to, oh, he can't ever play small ball five because we have all these centers.

We're going to play two of them at once and it works.

He's going to have to play the three and like run off pin downs and do guard stuff.

And I think that positional flux combined with playing on a team that just hit the gas dramatically right when he got into the league, basically, in terms of we're trying to win now as much as we can has really made for a murky developmental path for him in terms of like, what can I do?

How much freedom do I have?

I'm betting on Jabari Smith Jr.

living up to that contract.

Okay, my nominees for WTF

under the radar, WTF.

Wait, what happened to Move of the Summer?

This is my nominees.

You're not beholden to them.

Trey Mann, three years, $24 million from the Hornets.

Okay.

Quint Capella, three years, $21 million from the Rockets.

The Blazers acquiring Drew Holiday, who is set to make $32 million, $35 million, and $37 million on a player option over the next three seasons in exchange for Anthony Simons.

The Utah Drafts trading Colin Sexton in a second-round pick to Charlotte for Yusuf Nurkic.

Dennis Schroeder, three years, $45 million.

Year three, only $4.3 million guaranteed.

That saved the Kings from

being in my winner's circle on this.

Isaiah Jackson nominated again here, three years, $21 million on a descending deal with the Pacers.

And Jabari Smith Jr.

And Jakob Pertle signing what amounts to a four-year, $104 million extension, picking up his player option for $26, $27, and then $27 million, $29 million, $27 million.

Fred Katz, was your winner on my list or did you go off the board?

It was, but I need to ask you a question first.

How did Isaiah Jackson make both of your lists?

Because

I've read,

wow, like it reminded me almost of the Peyton Pritchard deal where I actually had people in the league being like, hey, what'd you think of that Peyton Pritchard deal?

It feels like a lot for a guy who's played for Boston.

I'm like, I don't know, it's $8 million.

Like, if he's bad, who cares?

It doesn't matter.

And I've seen people write in the media and heard people say at Vegas, like, hey, did that one surprise you that they picked up his qualifying offer and then signed him to a fully guaranteed three-year, $20 million deal coming off an Achilles tear?

And like, are we sure that he's good?

And so I've heard that, and that would be the WTF version.

I actually think the deal is totally fine.

And that's why it was nominated in the other category.

Three years, 21 million is like, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work they see potential in him on both ends of the floor he clearly has something as a rim runner rim protector athlete kind of guy not rim protection is just okay he's a little undersized and like it's a descending deal for half the mid-level exception like the baby mid-level like i don't i i think it's a totally fine thing you could be like well they could have gotten this guy for the minimum and like why are they doing this i'm like okay it's their guy they paid him some money i don't care so i would have i have it more positive than negative but that's my answer okay that's a good answer Yeah, last year of his deal, he's making like under 4% of the cap last year of his deal.

Okay, my pick was on your list.

And it's not even because I hate it.

It is because I have never been so,

I can't remember the last time I was so mutually confused across the board on a deal.

And it's Colin Sexton and a second round pick for Yusuf Nurkic.

I just honestly don't get it from either side.

The Charlotte side, I get it.

Off-guard scoring is just not valued in the league right now.

We've seen it in a million different transactions this summer.

I assume Charlotte must have really valued the second rounder.

Charlotte loves piling up second rounders.

They got like up to 15 second rounders over the next seven years, and they just want to be able to take on that second rounder.

But honestly, the best way that I can describe this is

you can usually, when you see a trade, take a guess on who called whom, like who is trading for whom in this scenario.

And you can take the guess and figure it out.

You know, the the Rockets called the Phoenix Suns to talk about Kevin Durant, obviously.

That was the Rockets trading for Kevin Durant.

This one was strange to me because the second round pick was going to Charlotte when Yusuf Nurkic was just dumped in also a very strange salary dump last year where the Suns kind of messed up the order of operations doing the pick trade where they converted their 2031 unprotected first into three protected seconds and they kind of messed up the order of occur operations and possibly cost themselves some assets in the process and then dumped nurkitz using one of those seconds so they were dumping him and now all of a sudden he's expiring sexton's expiring but they do that deal on the hornet side it's like the hornets have so many people who either need to dribble or just will dribble.

Like they've got LaMello and they've got Brandon Miller and they've got Trey Mann and they signed Spencer Dinwiddie and they've got Miles Bridges.

They have all these other dudes who are going to need shots.

They need shots for Con Knipple.

They have no centers.

Now that Nurkic is gone, they have Mason Plumley and they have Musa Diabate, who honestly I'm kind of obsessed with watching because he is the most fun.

It's not the best rebounder in the league, but he's the most fun rebounder in the league because he's completely and utterly unhinged.

He just like absolutely crawls after the basketball and doesn't stop moving.

And his feet are insane.

He doesn't care to ever box anybody out and yet gets every rebound.

I think the Hornets were like 11 percentage points better on the offensive boards when he was on the court last year, which is like ridiculous.

It's like absolutely outrageous.

But like, I don't need Musa Diabate as my like 30 minute center and I don't need Mason Plumlee as my 30 minute center.

And again, I get it.

The Hornets aren't trying to win, but like I don't understand what that does for you other than getting you, I think it's a 2030 second round pick.

But here's what's also weird about it, Zach.

It's like a 2030 second-round pick, but the Hornets have nine second-rounders from 2030 to 2032.

Why was it not another year?

Like, you'd think they'd want to spread it out more.

I was just like a little, meanwhile, Utah just kind of casually threw in a second rounder, and Utah has a lot of firsts, but Utah doesn't have a lot of seconds.

Utah, meanwhile, has Walker Kessler, they have Kyle Filipowski.

Like,

Utah is trying to get the guys who can make him good out of there right now.

I get that part.

It's very, very

strange.

You know, the Collins deal got Collins out of there and it got them a pretty sizable trade exception, which is good for them.

I just, I don't,

I don't, I don't really understand it.

for either one.

Like if Yusuf Nurkic was going to get traded, I did not think that was going to be it.

And if Colin Sexon was going to get traded, I did not think that was going to be it.

Especially when like is Nurkic, if there's a world where Nurkic is playing behind Filipowski and Walker Kessler, if that ends up being the case at any point this season, like, is that good for the Jazz?

Like, is that good for Yusuf Nurkic?

And if it's not good for Yusuf Nurkic, is that good for the Jazz?

Like, it wasn't great when Nurkic wasn't playing in Phoenix last year either.

Like, I don't,

I don't, I don't, I don't get it.

I don't understand.

Well, this is why when the trade happened, so many people were convinced that at least from Utah's perspective, well, something else must be coming because this doesn't make sense.

Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't really love it for either team.

The more you talked about Charlotte, the more I'm like, maybe they're just trying to retrade Sexton down the line after they raise his value.

He's on an expiring deal,

as is Nerck.

And I think for Utah, it was just like, we need to not just clear out the good guys.

We need to clear out like the ball handlers.

We need to give our guards and wings all the reps they need, which is why I have not one eye, but both eyes semi-permanently looking in the direction of Lowry Marketen, who immediately became the most interesting trade candidate in the league when Utah announced to to the world, yeah, we're selling everybody off.

And look, they extended him.

He's making a lot of money.

He's got to rehab his value a little bit.

Didn't play enough last year.

He missed a whole bunch of games, as did everyone with the Jazz.

But I just, I'm looking, I'm staring over there like constantly.

Keep an eye on Ryan Kalkbrenner in the Hornets center rotation, by the way.

They like him a lot.

Yeah,

it was a strange, strange trade.

My nominee is going to raise some eyebrows.

My winner is going to raise some eyebrows.

I don't really understand why the Raptors were in a hurry to pay Yako Pertle $100 million.

He's a good player.

He's good at lots of stuff.

I don't know what he's great at.

He's no longer a great rim protector.

He's just good.

He's good.

He's almost 30, and so this extension now takes him through the 2029-2030 NBA season.

Your team is okay.

Like, I think they're okay.

Like, I don't know, like, what is Jako Pertle?

What is the, is, is there a $20 million a year difference between Jako Pertle and DeAndre Ayton?

To me, they kind of remind me of each other, at least when Ayton is trying, of guys who are like pretty good at lots of stuff,

not good, not great at anything.

And in Purdle's case, like a total non-threat to shoot the basketball from outside 10 feet.

Now, in Jakob Pertle's defense, he is an absolutely elite, elite, elite short-range floater shooter.

I'm talking 50% plus accuracy every year.

He's an elite screensetter.

He's a decent passer.

He finds cutters.

He can catch the ball on the roll on four on threes.

And I thought last year got more aggressive, like one dribble, power up to the rim, got nice touch with both hands.

He knows where the shooters are if he's got to pass it out.

I think one reason, Fred, that he may have gotten a little more aggressive going to the rim in those situations is he shot 67% at the foul line last year, which for Jakob Pertle is like basically Steve Nash levels of accuracy at the line for a guy who's been in the 40s in some seasons before and very obviously afraid to get fouled.

Even last year, two and a half free throws per game for a starting center playing huge minutes is not enough.

And it's not even close to a lot.

It's like almost eight in levels of free throw phobia.

And

like, but he's, he's good.

I'm also not sure in this mix of players, given the adequate to not good shooting around Purdle, how often those pick and roll skills are really going to get to sing.

He's not a guy you want to give the ball to in the post very often.

And I think that's actually, if you ask the Raptors, why did we do this?

I think it's because he's good.

Like, he's a good player.

I think it's because the plus-minus data would show you that their entire team has collapsed without him, particularly on defense the last three seasons.

He's their player.

They drafted him.

They traded traded him then they re-traded him retraded for him and i think if you're trying to do this middle ground thing middle build thing where you you know tank the one year and then you build it build it build it build it build it and you're trying to be competitive you're trying to be good they just have no other center option on their team that's even close to reliable mamu's their backup center and then from there it's Small Ball, Mobo, Murray Boyles, who I like that they drafted.

And I think they just view him as if we're going to be competent, he has to be on the team or a center at his level has to be on the team.

I just didn't really get the rush.

I mean, he was already on the books for the next two seasons, and now you're paying him in the high 20s, almost 30 in 29, 30.

I just,

again, he's a good player.

I just, I didn't get it.

And I felt like it went under the radar because it's the Raptors, because it's a relatively anonymous player, and a lot of other stuff was happening.

And I went back, I was like, man, that's a,

I don't get that one.

Do you get that one?

No, I don't.

And on top of that, so like that kicks in 27, 28.

Right?

They picked up his player option for 26-27, 19.5 million.

And then it's essentially a three-year $85 million extension on top of that.

Right.

So that kicks in 27-28.

So that means 27-28 season, the Raptors are going to have Scotty Barnes, Brandon Ingram, Emmanuel Quickley, and Jakob Pertle.

Just those four are going to be making almost $147 million.

That's a lot of money to commit to a team that has not even proven to be a play-in team.

Right now, by the way, the Raptors are sneakily in the tax.

I think they'll find a way to get out of it, I think.

But the Raptors are sneakily in the tax right now.

Like, this is a team that is committing dollars and committing years.

And like, the market is not.

Saying that you need to commit years to anybody right now.

I think only four actual free agents, I mean, extensions have been different, but four free agents have signed four four-plus-year deals so far this summer.

That's it.

At least four years guaranteed.

Like, Luke Cornette doesn't count because he's not guaranteed for a bunch of them.

But, like, if we're talking at least four years guaranteed, only four free agents have signed.

I think last year the number was 13.

Like, you're not getting years anymore in this cap environment.

And the Raptors are locked up with high money and with years.

They gave the extension to Brandon Ingram, too, where I could just be like, look at the way that this summer has gone.

If the Raptors hadn't extended Brandon Ingram and they wanted to kind of play hardball with him, like I

don't know if Brandon Ingram would be making $38 million this year, $40 million the next year.

Like, I don't know if that would end up being the case.

But they signed him to an extension shortly after trading for him.

And obviously, that was like part of the move.

But the Raptors have committed dollars and years to a core that hasn't won anything yet.

And

I'm just very skeptical when you have a group in general who,

when they are at their best, the team is not necessarily at their best.

And you look at like RJ Barrett had,

honestly, under the radar improved last year, way better passer than he ever was.

He was way better in transition, and they let him run the offense more with like quickly missing a lot of time and whatever else.

But R.J.

Barrett at his best when he has the ball in his hands.

Emmanuel quickly at his best when he has the ball in his hands.

Scotty Barnes is a guy who they've been trying to kind of improve as a facilitator.

And a lot of these guys, Brandon Ingram, at his best when the ball is in his hands.

However, when these guys have the balls in their hands and other guys don't, they're not going to complement each other and they're going to put somewhat of a ceiling on your attack.

And I'm just very curious to see how they all bring the best out of each other, how they mesh, if there's a lot of just kind of standing around.

They've tried to run motion offense and that kind of stuff before and tried to get out and transition.

And sometimes it's looked really good and really creative, and it very well may.

It also may not look like any of these guys are at the best versions of themselves in the process.

And if the Raptors end up like 9th, 10th, 11th in the East, and they have this much money committed to this roster, like you're kind of

locked in.

And I'm with you.

Like, with Purdle, it's just the timing.

It's like you had two years,

you can wait a year, and that extension is probably going to be there.

The chances of Jakob Pertle taking some kind of leap and adding a three-pointer and becoming a $35 million a year center is incredibly small.

Chances are that deal is going to be there the next summer and he's still going to want the security of an extension.

It's a great deal.

It's a great deal for him and a great deal by his agent, whoever that is.

Like, I've already done my deep dive on the Raptors and will all the pieces fit and where does this team, I've done it actually a couple of times.

People can listen to that.

On just Purdle alone, I can hear the fans saying, wait a second, you just compare this dude to DeAndre Ayton, like the guy that got bought out, and every team that has him can't wait to get rid of him, seemingly.

I just meant skill-wise, I don't think there's a $20 million difference between the two players.

And I get that

Purdle is a completely self-aware and selfless player.

And then I can hear the front office saying, you just hit it, Zach.

Selfless.

We have a bunch of guys who want the ball and want to score we need a guy to set screens for them get them open hit them when they cut and hold the entire defensive ecosystem together and he's the only option we really had to do that and so we paid up all this money i just i didn't get i i get all that i just don't like the deal that's all fred katz uh what do we got coming up from you

we got some vacation coming up from me i just did a four-part series over at the athletic on uh looking at each of the four remaining restricted free agent guys so you can go check that out pulled a bunch of of people around the league, got a pulse on how they value all those guys and kind of delved into that.

And otherwise, there is nothing going on in the NBA, so we got nothing.

All right.

Well, I'll see you on the other side.

Thank you, Fred Katz.

Thank you.

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All right, now we're in for a treat.

It's the offseason.

Nothing's going on.

I'm about to go on vacation.

You know what I need?

I need a TV show to watch, but not just any TV show.

I need a TV show that fits in the extremely narrow Venn diagram where my tastes and my wife's tastes overlap.

We're talking no violence, like no, zero tolerance for violence.

When people recommend me a show and said, oh, your wife could do it, there's only like a little, like, couple of arms get chopped off.

I'm like, you don't understand what you're dealing with.

No unpleasant suspense, which means severance, for instance, is out.

There's very little violence in it.

I love severance.

I'm addicted to it.

But there's just a general tone of foreboding and corporate malice involved.

And so I enlisted you, Joanna Robinson, because you're an expert at this, A

podcaster.

I cannot tell you enough how much I enjoyed getting to know your voice and your techniques and your just general pleasant demeanor listening to the Severance recap podcast.

And that introduced me to your general line of work.

I just, I'm so excited that you're joining us and you're going to help me out.

Oh my God, what a thrill.

I love a puzzle.

I love an impossible challenge.

And

when you said, recommend something for my wife and I to watch, happy, easy, thrilled.

And then you, and then you started narrowing the parameters.

I was like, all right, this is getting tougher.

But that's almost more fun.

Like a really, really narrow assignment is quite fun.

So I have some thoughts and some plans for you.

No violence, minimal unpleasantness, minimal unpleasant suspense.

And generally, like as the world has gotten darker, her tolerance for just like profound negativity, even if it's like, you know, is a little limited i gave you a couple of examples of shows that have just smashed the middle of that venn diagram in the past madmen a plus for us halt and catch fire i'm an evangelist for halt and catch fire overall but a plus for us on the comedy side 30 rock shrinking those are four of the all-time low family hits so with that said yeah i have a tv vacancy nothing has scratched our itch lately and hey we've tried a bunch of stuff that hasn't taken i'm i'm hoping you can help us out okay um let me ask you quickly about Mad Men, which was like sort of my guiding star in a certain degree.

When the lawnmower, like the riding lawnmower, happens and that blood spray happens, your wife could handle that.

That's okay.

Your wife could handle that degree of,

or it's just one scene and she can look away and she can handle the arterial spray of that.

That was a tough one because that was sort of unexpected.

Although, as soon as the lawnmower enters the office environment, you know something bad is going to happen.

But it was like sudden and very red.

And then over yeah yeah and then over and also like there's just a general knowledge that plus or minus maybe like an office suicide of some kind there's just generally not it's not gonna be that kind of show right so like she i can get by that and move on okay so my number one given your love of mad men and uh

halt and catch fire you like competent adults working is sort of seems to be a a theme there 30 rock is in the mix too um I want to recommend The Hour.

That's my number one recommendation for you.

Have you heard anything about The Hour?

Zero.

I don't even know what it is.

I'm just, I'm scarred because there was a movie called The Hours, which

changed my entire movie-watching diet because it was so relentlessly depressing that I was like, I cannot watch a movie like this ever again.

So we're going uphill from there.

Okay, only uphill from here.

This aired two seasons, 2011 to 2012.

You can currently find it on Amazon

and Apple to purchase.

So you have to trust me that this is worth a purchase.

But it's a BBC show and it's set in the 1950s.

And it is about the launch of a fictional news organization in the UK.

So it's very mad men coded in terms of like this is an office of whip smart people

wanting to figure out how to tell the news in an entertaining way, very broadcast news in that way.

How do we tell the news that is both entertaining to people, but also journalistically integral?

And it's got a great cast.

Ben Wisha, who's like one of my all-time favorites, is here.

Dominic West is here.

It's just, it's a really, really good cast.

Really flew under the radar.

But if people are looking for a madman halt and catch fire sort of replacement, I think the hour is a perfect underrated gem.

So that's my number one.

Dominic West is wire, correct?

Yeah, that's right.

McNulty's right, McNulty.

McNulty.

Yeah, McNulty's here.

Where are we on the serious humor?

Is it a nice meshing of both?

Is it more on the serious side?

Where do we land?

I think it's a nice blend, especially that first season.

I think it's a nice blend because we are serious and earnest and trying to do the news, but we're very British and we're very classy and sarcastic.

And so that's all in the mix as well.

And Dominic West plays this very like a CAD, a caddish news anchor.

It's a very, very good role for him.

So.

Look, anybody, I am a walking TV stereotype in that The Wire is my all-time favorite show.

So, like, just anything with anybody from The Wire in it, I'm very pro.

My wife watched half of an episode of The Wire with me and was like, No, I can't.

No, no.

No, she's out.

She's like, I understand this is probably tremendous, and everyone is saying it's tremendous.

I just can't do it.

And I think for people who love following, like, Peggy's story on Mad Men or, you know, The Women of Halton Catch Fire, Ramala Garry is basically the main character and the producer of this program, and she's very, very good.

So

I think it's a smash hit, and I don't know why it wasn't a bigger hit in America.

Maybe a little too British for some people, but it's really, really good.

You know what I like a lot of what you just said, though?

Two seasons.

I'm not going in with like, I got 10 seasons to get through.

It's a huge time commitment.

So you have watched Halton Catch Fire, it sounds like.

I don't know if I've ever listened to you talk about it.

No, I've never recorded about it, but yeah, it's an incredible show.

Are you a fan?

Oh, yeah.

It's an incredible show.

I don't know why it wasn't a bigger hit.

Um, I know that for like the first season starts and then the second season just explodes into something else entirely, and it just becomes this incredibly compelling show.

So, yeah, once a year on my podcast, I just start evangelizing for people to watch Halt and Catch Fire, and it's the rare show.

It's four seasons, not big lift, right?

It's the rare show that gets better and better and better and better the entire time.

And it's funny, I just wanted to say because you said, if you like the plot of the women of Halt and Catch Fire, it was such a cool evolution of the show, which clearly started as like madmen for tech.

Right.

The Lee Pace show sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lee Pace, handsome, mysterious, might be hiding a secret, but he's a slick, handsome salesman, blah, blah, blah.

And then it becomes this show about loving your work and putting everything in your soul into your work at the expense of other parts in your lives.

And particularly, women in tech and venture capital become the kind of heart and soul of the show.

It's, I just, I can't, it makes me so angry that nobody watched this show.

Okay, so the hour number one, let's go to number two.

Number two, on the two seasons only front, I will say, actually, there's a third season, but you don't have to watch it because it's one of those much later sort of vestigial seasons.

Party Down.

Do you know anything about Party Down?

I've heard of Party Down, but I don't know.

Okay.

I've heard that it's good, but I don't know anything about it.

You love

Severance so much.

You listened to other people podcasting about it, which hopefully means you love Adam Scott.

Oh, Adam Scott is in this?

Yes, it's Adam Scott's, like his first big show.

Adam Scott, Lizzie Kaplan, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch, Megan Malali, Jennifer Coolidge, Ryan Hamilton.

I'm sorry,

how do I not know about this?

This is not an A-plus cast.

Incredible show.

Ran for two seasons, 2009, 2010, and it's about a group of cater waiters.

You know, and Adam Scott is a former child actor, now turned cater waiter.

And it's just, it's, it's, you were talking to me a little bit about you're you were lamenting the lack of real comedies these days and we could talk about that a little bit more if you want to but party down is is a true comedy and um and a really really good one a really really fun one it's not too wacky and once again it's people doing their jobs mostly well, sometimes well.

And Adam Scott is incredible in this, like really much more in his severance mode than in his parks and recreation mode.

But this is this is a great Adam Scott vehicle.

I enjoyed hearing all the stories about how

there was Ben Stiller faced pushback about casting Adam Scott in severance and how he fought for him.

And it was such a, he's so fantastic in it, and he fits the role so perfectly.

Party down,

everything you just said is going to be hard to beat in the next three slots.

I actually give me a top five.

This is, and I, I don't want to get too far on a comedy tangent because we can do this another time, hopefully, if you will indulge me.

But this is my completely like, you are an expert at this.

I am just like a dumb guy who watches some shows every now and then.

So my, it's like, this is the teeth.

It's like baseball.

I'm just giving my uneducated hot takes.

My, my most passionate uneducated hot take, and I say uneducated because I'm probably missing the shows that would scratch this itch for me, is I'm trying all these shows that are allegedly comedies.

And I'm not even talking about the bear, which is like so far away from a comedy.

It's not even trying to be a comedy and it's somehow classified as one for the Emmys.

It's absolutely insane.

I'm talking about shows that are pitched as comedies and I get to the end of every one of them or every episode.

I'm like, I don't think I laughed out loud one time.

Can you just be funny?

I understand you're trying to be teaching me about life lessons and

you know all of these kind of ethical moral quandaries and this I just can you just tell some jokes that make me belly laugh I'm like where is the next 30 rock where I'm just laughing the entire time at the point that I have to rewind because I missed a joke that's what I want party down is gonna get me there I think so.

I think of all the things that I have to offer you today, Party Down is the closest that's going to get you there because you're right.

It's hard to find a comedy that everyone hasn't already watched that really is truly funny.

And I think Party Down is,

it qualifies.

And I have been thinking about that.

I do want to talk to you more in depth about what happened to the TV comedy.

Just go, just give me the cliff notes now.

I would say that there's a couple things at play.

One is in general, we're moving away from the world of comedy because comedy is a communal experience and we're becoming more and more isolated watchers.

And so like you and your wife watch together and if you belly laugh together, that's a lovely thing.

A lot of people are watching this stuff, you know, by themselves and comedy is not really what they're chasing in that moment, I think.

And also, I would say the emergence, I've been thinking about this a lot, the emergence of social media, TikTok, Instagram reels, all that sort of stuff.

You've got this sort of rapid fire reactionary comedy that exists online in these little bits and pieces that people are glomming on to in a way that's even hurting something like SNL.

Like Saturday Night Live has a hard time feeling like relevant and fresh because you have to wait all the way until Saturday to get your commentary on what's going on.

So forget something like Seinfeld, which had months to sort of come up with interesting reactions to what's going on in our culture.

Somebody's already made 20, 100, 1,000 TikToks about it.

You've already heard the jokes about this sort of thing.

So I think what is the deal with kind of comedy

can't work anymore in our social media world.

I'll tell you one that has been recommended for me

is the Detroiters or Detroiters.

Whatever it's like.

I like I Think You Should Leave.

I've just seen the YouTube sketches.

I've never really sat down and watched a show.

But

the absurdist nature of it is very appealing to me.

My wife doesn't really like that kind of comedy.

Is Detroiters too far in that direction for us?

Have you seen it?

Is it maybe strange like that?

Okay.

I think it would.

Maybe do solo.

Too close to that.

But I think you should leave is a really good example of like you can watch the clips, but there is something different about the entire experience of watching a whole episode of I Think You Should Leave just because of the mix and you just get pulled in further and further into absurdity.

So that's that's a really good thing.

I'm just going to give one example because it's fresh on my mind.

I don't like all these people work so hard on these shows and they're all they're all good and I don't like to speak negatively of one, but just this is the one that's fresh on my mind.

Is stick supposed to be funny?

Oh, no, can't be.

It's not funny.

Because it's not funny.

Okay, because it's not.

Mark Maron's on it.

Owen Wilson's on it.

Like, I just,

it was like supposed to be Ted Lasso for golf.

Ted Lasso, at least season one, was like riotously funny.

I just,

I haven't laughed one time.

The Apple offerings are real hit and miss these days.

And I think, especially how they qualify things, drama versus comedy is really, because I wouldn't even call shrinking a classic comedy at all either.

You know what I mean?

That has a lot of emotionality and baggage to it.

It does, but it has supporting characters who are there almost entirely.

Like every line that comes out of Ted McGinley's mouth is just A-plus comedy.

Like every single, Jessica Williams, 90% of what she's saying is just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, machine gun comedy.

Okay, give me a third one.

All right, your third one, I'm going to go with Better Things.

This is six seasons, but they're short seasons.

Literally never heard of it.

FX on Hulu or Disney Plus.

You can also watch it.

Pamela Adlin, who I love, raising three kids, one of whom is recent Oscar winner Mikey Madison.

And so it's about

a single mom, three kids in Los Angeles and sort of her

really,

I don't know, you mentioned that dry comedy is not really your wife's thing, but it's a nice blend of sarcasm and actual genuine emotional connection.

And I think that idea of it's not a family sitcom at all

by any means, but it has the bones of a family sitcom and then this really sort of dry perspective on top of it that I think makes it a really good combination.

So

she's really funny, Pamela Adlin.

Really, really good.

Better things.

Okay.

I see created by Louis C.K.

on the Wiki.

He's off after season one because that it launched before everyone knew things about Louis C.K., and then he sort of departed the show after season one.

So

follow-up question that I really should ask you

that just popped into my head right now.

There's one comedy, long running, I believe still running, that seems to be universally beloved by a fervent, fervent fan base that I've never even dabbled in because my assumption was it was going to be too

almost nasty.

And I don't mean that in a bad way, but like nasty for my wife.

Yeah, sure.

It's always sunny in Philadelphia.

Should we give it a shot?

I can't handle it's always sunny in Philadelphia.

Really?

I don't like it.

I mean,

I've seen clips that are really fun.

There are bits that are really funny, and I love all of those

guys and

everyone.

I love Philadelphia.

I love the city of Philadelphia.

Everyone involved in that show, I really, really like.

I can't handle people being that mean to each other.

And that makes me sound so soft, but there's a lot of meanness I can handle if at the end of the day, there's sort of like a baseline camaraderie that goes with it.

There's just something about It's Always Sunny that I can't hang with.

So

they're like legit mean to each other.

It sounds like ribbing among friends kind of mean to each other.

I wouldn't say.

I wouldn't say.

Another recommendation that I have

is fits nicely into that mean to each other, yet there is a core love going on there, which is something called You're the Worst, which is also part of that.

Yeah.

That one is, I would pair the recommendation of You're the Worst with a show called Crashing, which is Phoebe Weller Bridges' show that she did before Fleabag.

And both of them are about sort of messy 20-somethings, early 30-somethings.

And I don't know.

I enjoy watching those shows, even though I'm not remotely in my messy 20s or 30s anymore, because I get the sense of I don't have to deal with that anymore.

So it's fun to watch from a distance the messiness that was, you know, your early adult fumblings.

But both you're the worst in Crashing.

Crashing's only one season, six episodes.

It has Phoebe Weller Bridge and Johnny Bailey, who everyone loves right now.

One of his first shows that he ever did.

Should I know who that is?

He's in the new Jurassic World movie.

He was in Wicked.

He's on Bridgerton.

He's sort of a...

Not for you.

None of this is for you.

Well, no, they're just, I just, they haven't, I know what all of those things are.

You're not a big Bridgerton guy?

You're not a huge, huge Bridgerton's the one where they're always going to balls and there's a lot of sex.

And there was like the guy that became a sensation for a minute, French guy, I think, right?

Yeah.

Reggie Jean-Page.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But Crashing and You're the Worst are both, I think, and You're the Worst, especially because it has just a lot of really fun recurring bets that remind me of older sitcoms where it's just sort of like you, you have the brunch episode that we'll come back to season and season.

And so I really, really

love

how

mean it gets away with while being soft-hearted at its center.

So you don't feel like you're watching something that's too sappy, but you're watching something that doesn't make you feel uncomfortable with how cruel people are with each other.

And I think it rides that line perfectly.

I need a little edge.

I need a little edge to my humor.

Yeah.

Have you tried anything recently that you're like, this is way too soft?

I don't, I can't handle how sweet this is.

I don't think so, because it would just be like disqualifying.

What's an example?

Because I just would disqualify it on its face.

I hear people say that about Shit's Creek.

A lot of people thought it was a little too sweet for them.

I don't know if you gave that show a try.

I liked Schitt's Creek.

We liked Shit's Creek.

We watched it very late and were warned that it starts slowly and you're not going to think it's funny.

I thought it was funny right from the beginning.

I can see what people are.

Lessons are learned.

Wealth is not everything.

People change and love each other and make very mature decisions.

I get that.

I guess I just thought Catherine O'Hara was just so wildly outrageous.

And I'm forgetting her name.

Who plays the sister?

Oh, Alexis.

Yes.

She's fantastic.

Annie something, I feel like, is her name.

Murphy.

Annie Murphy.

That's right.

She is.

You come across these people on shows like this that make you appreciate how many talented folks are like in the underbelly of entertainment that will never ever make it in any not make it but will just never come on your consciousness in any big way because I had never seen her before in anything she was just popped off the screen as so funny so talented and just the single word David she said in 5,000 different ways and it was hilarious every single time and now she's famous and it's like how many people like that are there that just never get the right break, never get the right role?

They're just everywhere.

Every show you watch is like, who's that guy?

That guy is amazing.

Why is he not famous?

And when you hear her tell the story of her audition, and then she ends it with, and then he changed my life, and then, you know, Dan changed my life.

Like, that's true.

And if he had picked another person, we still might not have heard of Annie Murphy.

She's Canadian.

We might, she might never have broken through over here.

So, yeah.

I get what people

think it's too sweet.

It verges on like moralizing a little bit toward the end, but I never mind it.

Again, the quippy one-liners.

I just, that's what I like.

Okay.

Well, I really think you're the worst, especially is something that you might really enjoy in that case.

So those are my recommendations.

I think I smuggled in, yeah, that's five.

I have some honorable mentions if you want to hear any.

So I have your list that you texted me.

And I just want to say, I appreciate that you put Better Call Saul.

It's so optimistic of what my wife could handle.

I love Breaking Bad.

I did solo

before we had a family, before we had a kid.

And now I just

can't do a long thing solo anymore.

I just don't have time.

So Better Call Sol, I'm never going to watch it.

I'm sorry.

The first couple seasons of that show really aren't violent at all, but then I can't promise that of the last couple seasons.

So I felt that was fair for you to say no.

Thank you.

You recommended Catastrophe, which we watched years and years ago and really liked.

You recommended a show called Colin from Accounts, where where I was once on, like, it must have been an overnight flight somewhere, and just so desperate for any entertainment.

And we were within like the 90 minutes till landing window when you're not going to start.

We was like, what the hell is this thing, Colin from Accounts?

It was cute.

I saw like two episodes of it.

I was like not out on it.

Maybe I should go try to get back in.

I think that that show is a real underrated hit for me, but and I don't think it's too sweet, but I think your wife might enjoy it.

Absolutely.

Any other honorable mentions that you really want to highlight that are just, you just have a sweet spot for them?

I think Slings and Arrows is one that I want to stump for just while we're on the Let's Honor Canada Canada beat and say Slings and Arrows is set at a Shakespeare company in Canada.

It's only three seasons and it's about a troop of actors.

The head of programming dies at the beginning of season one, not violently, and haunts the theater.

And so it's just this like really fun, funny,

theater-based,

warm but sharp, really smart comedy that nobody ever talks about that I think is really, really good.

A young Sarah Pauley, a young Rachel McAdams before she hit in America.

Oh, wow.

This is like a funny thing.

This is like 20 years old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like early, early aughts.

And so it's a lot of really fun, emergent Canadian talent inside of it.

So I really love that show.

you also have pushing daisies on here why have I heard of pushing daisies was it a critical darling at some point your guy Lee Pace um that's that's sort of why I put it on there but then you said your wife doesn't like sci-fi fantasy but the idea

the idea of pushing daisies is it's a very sweet poppy show um murder mysteries christian channowith is here and a freeel is here and lee pace has this ability to The first time he touches someone, it brings them back to life.

And then the next time he touches them, they die.

and he has this ability to if someone has died recently he can bring them back to life ask them questions and try to solve uh the murder uh and inside of that there's a there's a love story it's very odd it's from brian fuller who did hannibal a much darker show dead like me a darker show um but pushing daisies is sort of uh macabre but really fun and lee pace is just 10 out of 10 great in it so i mean he was already famous for halt and catch before halt and catch fire had already started to become famous famous.

I had never seen him before Halton Catch Fire.

And now I'm just a fan for Life.

I'm also a fan of yours for Life Joanna Robinson.

There are so many Peloton rides that you and Rob Mahoney got me through, dissecting.

I mean, I hope people appreciate the work that you guys do.

Like, people, like, I'm just sitting here riffing on shows that I watch an episode of, and I never,

then weeks go by, I'll start finishing another season of it.

You're like, you're watching these episodes multiple times, taking note.

Like, this is, it doesn't sound like work to people because it's their entertainment, but that's similar to basketball for how you watch basketball.

Yeah.

It's work and like to notice the d do you guys notice details in every episode and then you're recalling specific bits of dialogue from five episodes ago that this thing is a callback to I'm like, I can't even watch the show now without you.

It's essential.

So this is like a real thrill for me.

I can't wait to listen to you more.

Oh my God.

Thank you so much.

This is a thrill for me.

I'm so excited that you're in my network, that you're my coworker.

It's a thrill to me.

Thanks, Zach.

All right.

Go back to your actual job instead of recommending tv shows to to to a blank slate thank you joanna robinson i'll see you soon see you soon bye

this episode is brought to you by warner brothers pictures one battle after another is coming to theater september 26th don't miss legendary writer director and producer my guy paul thomas anderson teaming up with leo di caprio for the first time ever pretty exciting they almost they almost teamed together in boogie nights actually alongside award-winning actors like Sean Penn, Tiana Taylor, and Benicio Del Toro in this hilarious action-packed adventure following Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary, on a mission to find his missing daughter and overcome the consequences of his past.

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Rated R, under 17, not admitted without parent.

This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K26, a favorite of my sons and me.

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All right, let's do a little newsy interlude here because sometimes the news cycle just feeds you something just that's irresistible.

And it happens to be right when I'm about to go on vacation.

And it happens to be about Luka Donjic, who is eligible to sign an extension with the Lakers in three days, when I will be on vacation somewhere actually close to Luca's homeland in Slovenia.

I think Lakers fans should probably be optimistic that something will get done with Luca in the summer, maybe right away.

Who knows?

But the predictable news item in question was:

we all saw the men's health story with Luca, where he looked like a completely different person in shape, cut, jawline, all that.

We already talked about it on this podcast.

And I was just waiting, waiting for the follow-up.

And I knew exactly how it was going to be worded.

And the athletic and a story about Luca and a story about the story in men's health really delivered.

Here's the line I want to read from that story.

It's a good story.

This, the body, the publicity, the determined look in his eyes, the sweat reflecting the spotlights.

It's all a part of a bigger plan.

That plan, according to some around Doncich, was going to be fulfilled no matter what happened in his pro career.

And that's what I was waiting for.

The idea from Lucas Camp that this was coming no matter what.

And it's just this perfect twist of the knife to the Mavs.

Like you could have, you could have kept him and had the same experience happen to him, the same getting in shape thing.

Had nothing to do with the trade.

It was coming anyway.

It makes the Mavs look bad.

It makes Luca look good.

There's probably some truth to it because, you know, as I've said before, earlier this week, that leg injury was really, that could have been the wake-up call on its own, separate from the trade.

That was really the first season of Luca's career that was derailed due to an injury that was probably in part related to his conditioning.

And so maybe the wake-up call happens if he stays in Dallas.

That said, I'm sure the trade and the

subsequent sort of leaking bad stuff about Luca and his conditioning and his habits, I'm sure that didn't exactly hurt his motivational levels to get in shape.

And I think in terms of like the

reaction to that men's health story, I think I was guilty of it and a lot of us were, of missing like the most important part of the story in between the sort of chortling about Luca finally getting in great, great shape.

I mean, he's always been in good shape.

You can't be an NBA player at that level and not be in very good shape.

And chortling about the Mavericks and who should be angry or should the Mavs be mad?

Should Mavs fans be mad?

Should Lakers fans be happy?

All this.

We missed the most important part.

If this lasts, and we've seen periods of Luca getting in shape and then getting back into less good shape, I don't think we've ever seen him look like this.

If this lasts, the big story is the Lakers have a top three NBA player in the kind of condition he's never been in in his career.

Like, that's the story.

And then that made me think of LeBron James.

And it made me think, shouldn't this like really excite LeBron James playing with that version of Luka Doncic, a guy who was far and away the best player on a team that made the conference finals two years ago in the better conference, which just gets better and better every year.

And they made the finals a season and a half ago, whatever it was, like very recently, the 2024 finals.

Shouldn't that excite LeBron?

And that made me think of the statement that has really defined the NBA offseason.

The statement that Rich Paul put out when LeBron opted in to 52.6 million, opted in when he could have been a free agent and signed anywhere he wanted for any amount of money that was available.

And that statement, I wanted to reread it because it's been so parsed and it's been a while now.

LeBron wants to compete for a championship, Paul said.

He knows the Lakers are building for the future.

I want to stop there.

We'll keep going.

He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all.

He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all.

We're very appreciative of the partnership that we've had for eight years with Genie Buss and Rob Palinka and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career.

We understand the difficulty in winning now while preparing for the future.

We do not want to evaluate what's best for LeBron at this stage.

We do, sorry, want to evaluate what's best for LeBron at this stage in his life and his career.

He wants to make every every season he has left count.

And the Lakers understand that, blah, blah, blah.

It sounds like he's talking about like a team that is going tanking around him when they have this player, Luca Doncic, who looks like this.

And by the way, I like

I had it, I was having a debate over dinner with some NBA people in Summer League about even now after watching the Thunder win the championship, even now after watching Luca get injured, and this is before the men's health story and all that, would you take Luca over SGA?

And like a year ago, I would have taken Luca.

Now, I don't think that's like an open and shut case, despite everything that SGA just did.

That's how good Luca is.

That's how important his size is.

And I read that statement.

I'm like, LeBron's talking about the Lakers, like they're the Hornets in him, like they're the Wizards in him.

And they have Luca.

And it just, something.

Something is strange.

So then you go through the exercise of like, well, it reminded me, by the way, of this book I'm reading by Your own Weitzman, Hollywood Ending.

You can pre-order it now.

It reminded me in the section I read last night about

in the offseason or during the season of 2022, I think, when LeBron name-checked the Rams GM who had said, fuck them picks, and talked up the Cavs' front office and all of this sort of like vague sending signals of unhappiness with the administration.

And it made me think then, and it makes me think now, what else did you want him to do?

Like, if you're unhappy, and I'm not going to posit that LeBron is unhappy.

I don't know if he's unhappy anymore.

That statement certainly evinces a level of unhappiness.

But like, what did you want the Lakers to do this summer?

They have one first-round pick to trade, thanks in part to the Russell-Westbrook deal, which they're still digging and digging and digging and digging out of.

And a deal that, by the way, this book makes clear and the reporting at the time made clear, LeBron was a fan of and seems to have been, according to this book and reporting at the time, involved in sort of like, he was in the know about that deal and the alternate buddy heel deal.

So you have one first-round pick, a bunch of swaps.

What are you getting for that?

What's the name out there that you want?

If you want the Lakers to go all in win now mode alongside Luca and you,

what's the big name you want?

By the way, the Lakers, I think, have a good offseason.

DeAndre Ayton, Marcus Smart, Jake LaRavia, some other stuff.

I think they've rounded out their team pretty well.

If you put Austin Reeves

and one first-round pick and some swaps on the table, find me the name you're going to get.

I mean, there was not a lot of big name guys that changed teams this year.

You could get something.

Could you try to get Jaron Jackson Jr.?

Maybe.

I I don't know.

I mean, Austin Reeves is about to be an unrestricted free agent who's going to get a big raise, and it's one first-round pick because you owe one to Utah for dumping Russ, and you owe one to Dallas for Luca.

So, like, I don't know what the move is that he wants.

So, is that what LeBron might be unhappy about?

Maybe.

Is he unhappy that they traded Anthony Davis, his buddy, and his fellow clutch client,

champion co-star?

I don't really think so.

I mean, there was an ESPN story a couple weeks ago about LeBron in this situation in which the reporting was that they understood that when Luca falls into your lap, you got to take them.

And if the price is AD, the price is AD.

I don't even think Clutch was mad about AD going to Dallas.

AD and Nico Harrison have been close for a long time.

I think that was sort of on their long-term radar anyway, from what I had heard.

So I don't think that's what it was.

Is it the immediate attempt to get a rim-running center in Mark Williams right after the Luca trade to appease Luca?

Did that make it seem like, well, man, we've been agitating.

AD doesn't want to play center, you know, and they get this new guy in and immediately they're building the team in his image.

And then the deal gets rescinded.

Now they have Aiton, et cetera.

I mean, okay, but like,

in what world was this not going to be about Luka Doncic when the 26-year-old first-team all-NBA player falls into your lap?

Of course, everything now becomes about Luka Doncic.

That's just the reality of it.

And why does it have to be about one or the other?

Why can't, and I'm not saying anyone thinks this, I'm just thinking thinking out loud.

I'm not saying LeBron is still mad about any of this, if he ever was, but I'm just like, you hear this over and over again.

Well, it's about Luca now and is LeBron, LeBron's never been, LeBron has never been

on a team where he was not the centerpiece of the team for now and for later.

And now he's not.

Now Luca is.

Well, why does it have to be one or the other?

Why can't it be both?

This is exactly the kind of player LeBron should want.

at the end of his career.

A guy who can share ball handling duties with him now.

Does Luca have to offload a little bit more of that stuff than he has in the past, even with Kyrie?

Maybe, but it's not like we haven't seen Luca with another ball-dominant player having great success.

LeBron should, at age 40, 41, want to give up even more of the ball handling duty than he already has to Austin Reeves.

He should want to be an opportunistic cutter, an opportunistic hit-ahead transition player.

Give me a post-up against mismatches.

I don't have to dominate the ball all the time.

I can save what little energy I have left for some defensive possessions and some rebounding.

He should absolutely want that.

It's It's a great fit for him.

And it could be about both.

And by the way, in the wake of the men's health article, they now have tied with Minnesota and the Clippers.

Actually, no, just tie with Minnesota ahead of the Clippers, the fourth best odds to win the West.

That doesn't sound great, but it's still real, like the West is really good.

And that's my point about what was the move.

What was the move that could have gotten them to the Oklahoma City, Houston, Denver stratosphere?

The way the Rockets and the Nuggets nailed the offseason, that's just a tough group to crack.

And it's a tough group to crack when you're digging out from one bad trade that sent your franchise teetering in all different directions.

That's the rush trade.

And two super duper max contracts.

It's just hard.

You don't like, they're so lucky, not lucky, they're so smart and lucky to have gotten Austin Reeves, a third great player at a cheap price, both when they got him and now.

You know, like.

They're a really good team at the Western Conference.

They had a good offseason.

They're fourth favorites.

I mean, like, this should be a great situation.

Is he not psyched that the Lakers don't appear to have had extension talks with him?

Well, his agent, Rich Paul, has publicly denied that and said, we haven't even asked for an extension, according to Dave McMenamin at ESPN.

Maybe it's just nothing.

Maybe it's just sort of

a realization that this sort of Lakers-LeBron AD championship contender thing had and now has run its course and

maybe LeBron doesn't think he can win big.

in LA anymore that like realistically contend.

But again, what was the move and where are you going to go?

Dallas was the hot name right away when that statement came out, hotter than Cleveland.

Okay, like if you get to Dallas and in a year, Kyrie is fully healthy and AD's there, Cooper flags there.

Like, that's exciting.

That's exciting.

It's undeniably exciting.

It's still in the West, and you still have those behemoths to go through.

And maybe in a year, when Kyrie is fully healthy again, and I'm not saying Kyrie is going to be out for this whole season, I don't know.

I'm just saying fully healthy.

Maybe something bad happens in Houston.

Maybe Denver loses a couple more bench players.

Maybe the West opens up a little bit before the Wembanyama storm erupts, really.

But, like, you know, it's still the West.

Cleveland, no, you're telling me Cleveland, that's interesting.

You move east into that conference, into the JV.

That's interesting.

But, like, how are you getting there?

There's still been no trade buzz.

There's certainly been no buyout buzz.

The Lakers just got sold at a $10 billion valuation to Mark Walter.

You think his first move wants to be going to buy out LeBron?

This guy who sells a gazillion tickets and helps our ticket prices go up and all that.

I don't see that happening.

So, LeBron, Luca,

just, you know, let's make it work.

Like, this is a really fun, exciting team.

Is it as good as Oklahoma City?

No.

Denver, no.

Houston, probably not.

So what?

Maybe stay healthy.

Maybe LeBron can take it a little easier in the regular season, get to the playoffs, maybe have a puncher's chance to do some damage.

That's fun.

There's honor in that.

Speaking of honor in that, that's been my catchphrase for the Warriors.

in the twilight of Steph Curry's career.

Real quickly,

ESPN, Sean Strania, and Anthony Slater reported yesterday, as I'm taping this, it's Thursday, that the Kaminga negotiations remain at a stalemate.

That the Warriors are offering what is essentially a one-plus-one with a team option at about $22.5 million a year.

And Kaminga is not interested in ceding that level of control, signing what could just be a one-year deal that the Warriors would sort of kind of view as a trade piece more than anything else.

Could be a while.

It's messy.

It's messy.

Is it?

It's, I think, toxic is actually not

too much of an exaggeration for how bad it is between Kaminga and the Warriors at this point.

And

I've said already that despite the record with Butler and Curry being so good, I just don't see a realistic roadmap for them to make the finals again

barring some crazy unforeseen transaction down the line in the Steph era.

The West is just too good and they're too dependent on aging players.

And then, you know, the two timelines thing more or less didn't materialize.

And that's why I've said before,

the Kaminga transaction, whatever form it takes, whether it's a sign and trade now,

a sign and delayed, like a delayed sign and trade, or something like that, is one of the two or three most important pending transactions in the NBA.

Because if there's any hope of the Warriors salvaging not only the end of the Curry era, but salvaging the crumbs of what was supposed to be the two timelines plan, it lies in either Kaminga popping, and that just doesn't seem likely to happen with the Warriors.

That bridge is on fire, if not burned out completely.

Kaminga turning into trade assets that really boost the present and or future of the team.

The Kings are involved.

The Suns are involved.

The Warriors don't like those assets.

The Warriors shouldn't really love those assets.

They're not changing the Warriors' lives, whatever they are.

And the sad part is it might already be too far gone.

Like, Kaminga just hasn't had a steady enough role with the Warriors.

His trade value just isn't maybe as high as it needs to be for the Warriors Warriors to get what they need to get for him.

And I still think the qualifying offer is a nightmare option for both teams.

It might be more of a nightmare option for the Warriors even than it is for Kaminga because they just cannot afford to have him for a year at $7 million or whatever it is and just have him walk.

So restricted free agency stinks.

It stinks for Josh Geddy.

It stinks for Cam Thomas.

And it stinks for Jonathan Kaminga and it stinks for another restricted free agent whose name I'm blanking out on.

But Sailor V, I'm going on vacation.

and with that, we're gonna turn to Mets Corner, I think, with Sean Fennessy.

Let's go,

Mets Corner!

Let's go, Sean Fennessey.

We made a couple of trades for some relief pitchers.

I don't know who we gave up, I got no idea what's going on.

I know we need some freaking relief pitchers because our starters can't pitch more than five innings unless David Peterson is pitching.

Sean Fennessy, thanks for joining us on Mets Corner.

How are you feeling about the team?

Happy to be here.

What a perilous time to be recording.

It's 9:03 a.m.

Pacific.

We've got a few more hours left in the trade deadline.

Will anything happen while we are talking to make great podcasting?

I don't know.

You've had this so many times before in the NBA.

Yeah, it happens.

And the difference now is I don't really care if it happens or not.

I'm not stressed about it.

I won't know anything about what's going on.

The Mets have already made two big trades.

I don't know how many big moves they have left in them.

But I need you to tell me about...

Tyler Rogers, who I just, we just played the Giants.

So I saw him come in.

And my daughter, I was very happy to show my daughter a true sidewinder and how strange it looks.

And then they come off the top rope for this guy, Ryan Helsey, who apparently is a closer, who throws 99.

We're just loading up on bullpen, guys, which is great because, you know, we just optioned Brazzoban, which kind of surprised me, down to triple-A, and our bullpen's been leaking oil.

Well, yeah, this is the number one need that they've had.

The Stearns regime with the Mets has been fairly leak-proof.

And this is the first year where for roughly a month, we've been hearing from reporters, this team desperately needs to add bullpen arms.

They desperately need to add arms.

Here are some arms they might get.

Turns out Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley were never mentioned, really, as potential names.

So I guess in that way, Stearns' regime is still somewhat leak-proof, but two huge additions.

You know, we're doing this thing on my movie podcast, The Big Picture, called 25 for 25, where we're counting down our favorite 25 movies of the century.

And we just did an episode about Moneyball.

And you'll remember in Moneyball, one of the key contributors to that Oakland A's team that is featured in the movie, Chad Bradford.

Oh, I thought you were going to say Ring Cohen when he does the slow balling of the fist.

Well, Trey Deadline obviously is a critical part of that whole movie, and guys getting dealt is fascinating.

But he picks up Ring Cohen, but he signs Chad Bradford in the offseason, who's a sidewinder.

And Tyler Rogers is kind of the spiritual successor, and he's nasty.

He doesn't get a lot of swing and misses, but he pretty consistently gets outs.

I think he's got a 1.80 RA this season and has been really effective.

He is 34 years old and a free agent to be.

So, who'd they give up?

You know anything about the dudes they gave up?

Tidwell, I know, because he's been on the big leagues, but everyone is concerned about this Gilbert guy who apparently was a hotshot prospect.

It's not quite panned out.

He's already 25.

But that's the one that people, the Mets freaks, were like, oh man, we got fleeced.

We gave up too much.

We overpaid.

Tell me if we really did get fleeced.

Well, he's a name we know because we got him into when we traded Justin Verlander in 2023 when the season fell apart.

And we thought we were going to be contenders that year, and we were a little over our skis.

And so the regime decided to disassemble that team.

They traded Mac Scherzer.

They traded Justin Verlander.

And for the first time, Trader Scherzer was on the Mets?

For years, for like three years.

Yeah, he was one of the first big, true free agents.

I do remember this.

A gazillion dollars a year.

Yes.

He got a huge contract, and he was kind of out of gas coming off of a season where he had pitched for the Dodgers.

Anyhow, they traded both of those guys.

When they traded Verlander, they paid down his salary or a bulk of his salary to go back to the Houston Astros, but they got two high-end outfield prospects, one of which was Drew Gilbert.

This is three years ago.

He was 22.

He seemed like he was going to be a really good corner outfielder.

He's really struggled in AA and AAA since he came to the Mets.

However, in the last roughly six weeks, he's been abusing the ball and looks more like a...

significant player.

Scouts say he's basically a fourth outfielder.

So he's just a name we know very well.

I trust the scouts then.

I'm going to go with the scouts.

I'm going to say that they're right and that's good.

I hope so.

Obviously, we also gave up Tidwell, who was a second-round pitching prospect some years ago and has been just fine.

He, I think, charts out to be a long-term long reliever.

And Jose Buto, who's a reliever who I like, who was on the roster and was pitching with some consistency, but is a flawed reliever.

And it didn't ever seem like David Stearns believed in him.

He came up as a starter too, and they transitioned him to a reliever.

So I don't think there was a lot of faith in those guys.

And so on paper, it looks like a lot.

If Tyler Rogers is as good as he has been for the last 50 games with the Giants, huge pickup.

Bhutto, again,

people need to remember, I'm not watching this with the eyes that I watch the NBA with.

I just, it felt like every time I saw him come in a game, it was one of those, all right, we're down 7-1.

Can you eat some innings for us?

And not like we're up 2-1 in the 7th.

We trust you to get these three critical outs.

I think that's pretty much right.

I think he is a 2-3 inning guy who's coming in games where you're trying to manage a situation in which you're losing.

And that's really all they imagined him as.

He was never going to be a critical part.

Actually, last season in the playoffs, it was clear that Carlos Mendoza didn't really trust him and he didn't pitch very often in the playoffs at all.

And so I think that tells you also what you need to know about how they thought about him.

I mean, I don't know anything about these prospects.

Everything you're saying makes me happy.

The few prospect names I do know are the star pitcher prospects.

And like, those are the ones I just...

An ace starting pitcher, whatever percent chance any of those guys have of turning into that is the thing I hold dearest to.

Ryan Helsley,

what do we give up for him?

He sounds, I looked up his stats.

Obviously, he's also a free agent, but he looks like, I mean, he's been a closer.

So this is the formula is, can we lock down the last three innings of the game, obviously?

And this guy feels like

people are, his whiff rate with his slider, I'm learning, is like 46%.

That's apparently very high.

That's exciting.

He throws absolute gas.

You should absolutely go look at his numbers against the Philadelphia Phillies lineup in their career because they

should have led this that it's just an arms race between the Phillies and the Mets.

That's a literal arms race.

Yeah, after they picked up Durin from the Twins, obviously I think that incentivized Sterns to get even more aggressive and make this deal yesterday.

And they gave up three prospects, but Helsley just has nasty stuff.

He's having, I would say, a fine year, not an elite year in terms of his track record, but he had 50 saves last year.

He is a literal top seven, top eight closer in the game.

So slotting him into the eighth inning, it's pretty darn exciting behind Edwin Diaz.

You put Rodgers there, you put Reed Garrett there, and then you're, is this the best bullpen in baseball?

It's certainly close, and they may not even be done.

So that's really exciting.

We didn't even mention Gregory Soto, who they picked up last week from the Baltimore Orioles.

Yeah, immediately blew a game.

Thanks, Gregory Soto.

That wasn't ideal.

I think that was more of a brain fart where he made an error in that inning, but nevertheless,

he is still at least a usable arm to pitch in the fifth and sixth inning for this team.

So they're pretty loaded right now.

And the guys that gave up to pick up Helsley, you know, Jesus Baez

is like a fringe top 10 prospect for them.

And he's only 20 and he might end up being a really good ball player, but he hasn't really hit in the minors at all.

And then Nate Dome was a third round pick last year and a guy named Frank Ellisalt, who I'm not going to pretend I've ever heard of.

He's not really a ranked prospect in their system.

So it weirdly seems like a lighter load for Helley than it does for Rodgers.

But like Rodgers, he's a free agent at the end of the year.

Edwin Diaz has an opt-out.

Ryan Stanik is a free agent at the end of the year.

Like a lot of these guys are all,

this is an all-in moment is what I'm saying.

For the first time, it's seemingly in forever.

And we'll be able to know in six hours when the deadline is up.

But this feels like they're going all in.

And there's a big reason for that.

And I got to tell you about this because you'll understand this with some NBA context.

One, we talked about the ages of the core of the team and that these guys need to win now.

Two,

there's probably going to be a lockout in 2027.

And Steve Cohen, I think, is probably thinking that there could be, if not a salary cap, some more dramatic measures that are instituted that disallow him from spending as much money as he wants.

And they know that they got to make this happen in the next two years.

So why not try now?

Just when I get back into baseball, we're looking at a work stoppage.

I mean, I saw the story that Jeff Passon put out about Bryce Harper cursing out Manfred in the locker room, which I thought was kind of cool.

It was great.

It was hilarious.

I mean, it takes some balls to go up to the commissioner and curse at his face to get the fuck out of our clubhouse.

If you want to talk about a salary cap,

all in.

I mean, again, we've got six more hours.

We're taping this now only because I'm literally leaving during the trade deadline.

So, whatever happens, happens.

I can tell you, I was driving around today doing a couple of last-minute errands, and I had talk radio on.

There was a lot of Alcantra talk about the hosts on ESPN Radio really want the Mets to go get a top-line starter, and he's the best guy available, et cetera, et cetera.

Almost no talk about

another bat.

And I don't know.

I mean, they talked about like this platoon in center field and how Taylor doesn't hit at all, and Vientos and Mauricio.

But it has been interesting, I guess, minus the last couple of games against the Padres, that Mauricio and Vientos have kind of been surging right up until the trade deadline.

And you always don't know what to do with these things where, like, a guy who might be one of the young guys you trade has a two-week hot streak exactly the right time that would make you like think again about doing it.

So, like, I understand there's like the Mauricio, Vientos at third, Taylor, McNeil at center.

How does Marte fit in as a DH?

Um, how, like, is it starting pitcher?

Is it bat?

Like, what do you, what would you do?

Like, what do they need the most?

I mean, I think they need both.

And if you're already starting to trade fringe top 10 prospects, as long as you're protecting those top five guys, which are the three pitching prospects you mentioned, and Carson Benj and Jet Williams, if you can keep dealing around those five prospects, I think they need a center fielder who can hit.

And I would, you know, I don't think there is anybody beyond Luis Robert Jr.

and yeah, tell me about him because I looked up his stats and I'm like, this guy had one random good offensive year.

Is he good?

Why is everyone talking about him?

He obviously has the tools.

He hit 38 home runs two seasons ago.

Everyone thought he was going to be a legit MVP candidate and he just completely came back to earth.

He's been in a bad situation.

The White Sox are one of the worst franchises in baseball.

There's a suggestion that he's not motivated, which is not something you want to hear.

The Mets being so tied to him for the last three weeks makes me think there's no chance they're going to trade trade for him because they're not usually so revealing about their intentions.

But I strongly feel they need a bat, and it doesn't seem like they're going to try to go get one aggressively, but even during that seven-game winning streak, Zach, they hit 205 with runners and scoring position.

I just can't watch it anymore.

They're 28th out of 30 teams with runners and scoring position.

Bases loaded, no out, so I'm like conditioned myself to here comes a double play or a strikeout and then a double play.

Some of it is luck and chance, and baseball is very strange with these kinds of things, but there's, I think, only one other team in the bottom 10 in that statistic that has a winning record.

So it is some kind of indicator of a long-term success, and they just can't fucking hit in those situations.

So I think they actually need basically like a full-time DH circumstance where they signed Winker, they have Marte who can't really play in the field, and they're trying to figure out this balance between Fientos, Mauricio, and Beatty.

And it's just kind of an odd fit with all of these guys.

I would love to see a guy who can basically get 400 at bats in a season in that slot, and they don't really have it right now, now unfortunately as far as starting pitcher goes yeah sandy alcantra would be great he's coming off major surgery he's been really bad this season his last two starts have been darn good he looks like the old sandy alcantra he's a cy young winner he would be sick and he's also under team control for another two years i'm looking at this robert robert jr guy's uh stats again all-star finished 12th in mvp voting

um he didn't play a lot like his first three

was that because he was young or injured i mean he's only got two years where he's hit 100 games and he'll hit it again this year.

That's why I'm looking at his home runs, like 11, 13, 12, 38, 14, 11, but part of that is just games played.

Yeah, I mean, I think he was just a slightly slower developing prospect.

I'm not totally familiar with his injury history, so I can't pretend to know everything about why he didn't play as much, but he's become more of an everyday player in the last three or four years.

And that 38-home run season now looks like an anomaly, but at the time, I mean, that was a five-win season that he had as a center fielder.

Five-win center fielders who hit over 30 home runs are pretty rare in baseball right now.

So if they could revive that, he's incredibly valuable.

But he also has a $20 million player option next year, which would make him an incredibly expensive player on a team.

And if he doesn't live up to the expectations, that kind of hamstrings you going into the offseason.

So there's a lot of, to me, I would love for them to not be running Tyrone Taylor out there for 60% of the games.

As much as I enjoy watching him and think he's actually quite a clutch player, his OPS is like 578.

I mean, it's pretty abysmal.

He's not an everyday player.

So I hope they do something.

If they don't, I think we're going to be kind of grinding our way through 60 games, watching them strike out three times in a row with a runner on third base and none out.

And that pains me.

So I'm glad that you just said $20 million player option because, look, I guess I'm just going to have to learn a whole other color coding system on Spotrack other than the NBA.

The NBA one, obviously, I know like every color, what every little thing means.

Baseball, there's like oranges and yellows and pre-ARBs and ARB one and ARB three, and I don't know what any of this shit means, but I see red $20 million, 2026, 2027 next to Luis Robert Jr.

You're telling me that's a player option, and that's a level that we would expect him to opt into based on his level of play?

The red is a club option.

So it would be the Mets' decision to pick that option up.

Now, they obviously could let him walk, but if you're going to trade, I mean, I don't think they're going to trade Mark Vientos at this point, but if they traded Luis and Jalacunha straight up for Luis Robert Jr., and it was kind of like a challenge trade where you see whether your free agent to be is potentially less valuable than a guy who's under club control for the next five years, like Acuna is.

That's kind of an interesting challenge to those two teams, and they're in completely different situations.

The White Sox are trying to build long-term, the Mets are trying to win now.

But if Luis Robert Jr.

comes here and hits 175 for 50 games and sucks in the playoffs, I don't know if you're going to want to pick up that $20 million option.

Is Luis Angel Acuna, is he like just Ray Ordoñas but second base?

Like, can he hit at all?

Well, he's got this incredible

pedigree because his brother, Ronald, is one of the five best players in the sport.

And so I think we've kind of deluded ourselves into thinking he's something more than a utility infielder, but he's ultimately a speedster utility infielder, I think.

I don't think he's going to hit much in the majors, but he's a useful player to have on a contending team because,

you know, you now know about the quote-unquote Manfred man, the ghost runner on second base in extra innings.

You love to pinch run with a guy like Acuna in an extra inning game.

You love to have a guy like that on the base pads, just sitting on the bench, ready to go.

Plus, he can play three positions in the infield.

So, I don't know.

I think he could be valuable as a 25th man on the roster, but he's not somebody I'm emotionally connected to.

He's not really ultimately a big part of their long-term plans.

Juan Soto got injured a couple games ago, fell the ball off his shin.

You made me aware of this via text.

I was not watching the game.

That's fine.

It doesn't matter.

It was painful.

No, it was painful when I got that text from you.

It looked painful for him.

I mean, he was with the trainer for five minutes, and then he finishes that bat and came out of the game.

It sounds like it's not serious day-to-day, not on the injured list, whatever.

I bring it up only because

all the stuff about the pitching and the relievers, I mean,

none of this, this is all moot if the best guys don't hit.

And I'm really starting to worry about Lindor because he had that hellish 0 for 31, and then he had two good games and everyone was like throwing a party that the slump was over and he's 0 for since then a lot of like ton does he always strike out this much tons of strikeouts struck out with the bases loaded the other day and he had the toe thing that he missed like a broke his what is it a pinky toe i think broke a toe and like missed one game like and soto is even soto's slumps are so amplified by like walks and whatever that they're not painful alonso is slumping i don't really worry about that but like if those three guys don't produce at elite levels like none of this other noise is going to matter and the lindor stuff this is like

i'm going to just ballpark

14 out of the last 16 games have been just like totally invisible offensive games i'm getting worried and i don't know enough to really how worried i should be my mariners fan friend uh in college was like don't worry about lindor he's too good like it this won't last i'm like all right i mean it's like if he strikes out with the bases loaded again i guess i'll just shrug it off we've seen this essentially every single year from him it's just unusual for it to be happening in July.

He usually has a long stretch where he doesn't hit every season.

I'm a little concerned that the toe is bothering him more than we know, and he's the kind of guy who would never actually say that and just say, I need to be better.

I need to be better.

If it is actually bothering him, you know, he made an error yesterday that was very uncommon for him.

He's just been a little bit leakier than you'd like.

And as he goes, they go.

When he hits, they win.

That's just a fact.

Since he's joined the team, I think when he's had two hits or more, their winning percentage is crazy.

And there was a reason why they bumped him up to hit leadoff last season.

There's a reason why he stays in that one or two hole pretty much all the time.

He is

the straw that stirs the drink, you know, the same way Reggie Jackson was.

He's the guy who gets them going.

Pete has always been streaky, too.

I am a little bit more concerned about Pete maybe than other people are because

they

need him to clear the bases.

It's the whole design of the offense is that while Soto is a masher, he's basically an on-base percentage guy.

And so if he's not driving in runs, this whole conceit of the team where like five through nine in the lineup is a little dodgy, they can't win games if Pete isn't getting two RPIs a game, roughly.

And he was on pace for some crazy Hack Wilson numbers in the first quarter of the season.

Those two guys I've read are hitting 200 since June 13th, which is the lowest batting averages for everyday players in the sport, Lindor and Alonzo.

That's fucking scary, man.

That's really bad.

These are two of the 25 best players in the game, and they've been awful for six weeks.

Really scary.

Now, I realize this is a snapshot at a Nadir for Lindor, but 311 on base percentage would be career low.

741 OPS would be second lowest of his career.

It's just like

not to sound NBA definitive about it, but like that's just not good enough from what I understand about his role on the team.

And five through nine, I mean, that's what's been interesting.

If you want to be a glass half-full guy, the bottom of the lineup carried them to like a bunch of those wins in their seven-game wing streak.

Alvarez looks like he might be a guy.

Mauricio has had a couple big home runs, like still can't hit lefties, I guess, but has hit a couple big home runs.

Vientos hit a grand slam in a game they should have won in blue and was robbed of another home run in that game by Tatis Jr.

I already hate Fernando Tatis Jr., by the way.

Probably everybody, is he like a beloved character, baseball player?

Well,

he's an insane athlete and has crazy swagger, but if he's not on your team, he's a little hard to root for.

Yeah, I just saw him steal that home run from Vientos.

That was an insane.

Insane.

But I was annoyed.

Is he Fernando?

Like, his dad is Fernando Tatis that I remember.

He is the same guy from Montreal Expo.

Is Fernando Tatis not the guy who hit two grand slams in one inning?

The same man.

Is he the only one ever to do that?

He's the only one.

As far as I know, he's the only one.

That is one of the coolest.

I was trying to explain that to my daughter during the Padres game the other night about how insane that is, how unlikely that is.

That's very cool.

Good memory by you on Tatis.

But the bottom of the lineup guys have done their job in the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, they've been better for sure.

Mauricio is the most intoxicating for me because he just hit home runs off relievers that never give up home runs in that Giants game and in that Padres game.

And so that's the sort of thing that you see and you're like, okay.

So the raw talent is so profound with him.

And he's still, because he lost a year to injury, is still basically so underdeveloped that.

The idea of him being that guy, that 30-home run, rangy defender at third base, We talked about it like a month ago.

That's been such a black hole for them over the years.

I'd love to see that shake out, but

he's not ready yet.

So it's this real pickle with the timing of this team.

Like all three of those guys, Viento's taking a step back, Beatty being inconsistent, and Mauricio still developing.

You know, I think they can have good two or three week stretches.

I'm not expecting Mauricio to hit 400 for the rest of the year.

I think that's pretty unlikely.

Speaking of home runs,

they do the photo snapshot after every home run, which is just delightful, and I'm glad that they still do that.

Why has a skateboard or surfboard been added to the photos in the last couple of weeks?

Is that a West Coast road trip thing?

Like, all of a sudden, there's like a colorful, I think it's a skateboard.

I don't know what, or like a snowboard or something.

I don't know what it is.

Well, they also added the flip-flop.

Did you see the flip-flop?

The chunky pleta?

Yeah, maybe, I don't know.

Maybe I'm confusing it, but something has been added to the photo spread.

You know, they're just getting creative.

They got that Steve Cohen budget for gags in the building, and

I don't know.

It's like a very kind of mystical, superstitious kind of team where routines and traditions, which of course is very common in baseball, were a huge part of their success last year.

And I'm sure you remember Grimace and all that OMG and everything that they did.

And they're trying to hold on to some of that stuff.

It seems like a real good vibes space, but I can't say I understand the surfboard thing too much other than just like cowabanga surfs up on the west coast.

I don't know.

I like all of it.

We've already talked about this, how if I were a baseball player, i would be like i remember watching you know i remember watching the there was there was i mean i had the vhs tape of like the 1986 mets retrospective thing and it was awesome and they would like do hot foots in the dugout and stuff which probably unsafe and shouldn't have been done but i would have been all about like pranks bullpen rituals trying to catch a home run in the bullpen i would i'll be all about it i love it yeah they had roger mcdowell on those teams and he was the all-time prankster and i don't know if they have one of those guys specifically i felt it was hard to to watch Jose Iglesias in this Padre series and how special he was for the Mets last year, and even in that series, just doing a couple of things that just were really crafty and pissed me off when he wasn't on our team.

So there is a little mojo missing, but they're still a fun team.

So 45 and 24 was the high watermark for the team.

Okay.

Since then, and maybe this is just the fandom and me returning,

it seems like it's alternated between winning streaks and cataclysm.

Like, can the team just lose like one game and then win the next one and lose one and win the next one?

It's like a seven-game win streak, everything's going great.

Go to the Padres, get swept, everything's terrible.

It just feels like every loss now is like the damn breaking.

And like, every time they lose one game, like, well, they're not going to win for another 10 days.

I'm going to have to wait a while.

Not 10 days because they play every day, but you know what I mean.

Like, do you feel this?

Am I just not used to the ups and downs of a baseball season after so much time away?

That might be it, but there's just something funky this year.

I've been saying it to my producer on the big picture is also a Mets fan, Jack Sanders, and we talk about Mets pretty much every day.

And something is just a little bit off on the team.

And it doesn't mean that they don't have incredible players, and it doesn't mean that they don't have great moments like a seven-game winning streak where they look like the hottest team in the sport.

But there are just a couple of things that have been off.

The fact that they can't get more than five innings out of any starter, not named Peterson, as you mentioned.

The fact that they don't hit with runners in scoring position.

The fact that there's not a lot of like native confidence when you're sitting and watching the team, despite the fact that they're clearly one of the best teams in the National League, we just don't feel confident.

And some of that is we're so scarred.

Like, I'm so scarred by the team.

I can't even really process happiness with them.

Last year was so disorienting for me because they were winning games that I often felt like other teams won against us.

And so that lack of confidence seeps in every time you hit a rough patch or something doesn't go your way.

But I still think there's something off.

There's something missing.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know if it's a player.

I don't know if it is the sense that Mendoza has like kind of taken a step back as a manager this year.

They've had a weird stretch with umpires in the last two weeks.

Soto was right, by the way, on both the calls that he protested.

And I'm glad the manager came in and got thrown out instead of Soto.

But yes, they've had a little testiness with the umps.

Yeah, and they've been, I would say, they've been umping them a little tough recently.

They've had, they've been, they've encountered some wider strike zones.

Soto, obviously, especially, is the master of the strike zone, and he takes great offense when someone calls a ball a strike against him.

But, you know, Brandon Nimmo had a couple of really tough at-bats in that San Diego series that were brutal.

It was like a three-pitch strikeout where they were all balls.

Yeah, so something is just, I don't know, cosmically, I'm just a little shaken right now, but maybe they add Sandy Alcantra and a bat, and I head into August feeling excited.

It's funny because I had JJ on last week

in your stead, and I said to him, like, again, I'm coming at this from a position of complete ignorance, but having watched this team off and on now for a decent chunk of time, I have never felt like, oh yeah, this has the vibe of a team that can win however many playoff series you need to win to make the World Series.

They're just not consistent enough.

And maybe it's just they just never get big hits.

It's just like every game is bases loaded, no out.

They don't score.

Something ineffable is just not like what the Brewers have going on right now, like that level of every loss.

I would take just like, give me a week where you go three and four.

Just, I would, I would take that.

Like, it's just every losing streak feels cataclysmic.

I agree.

The swings have been heavy.

I think with the exception of the Brewers' pretty crazy late June through July run, no other team in the sport really has distinguished themselves, though, as great.

The Dodgers have just not been as good as we expected.

They've had a lot of injuries and pitching injuries, especially.

The Phillies are really flawed.

You know, I think they're going to be a tough out, but they also have a pretty weak bottom of the lineup.

They obviously just reloaded in their bullpen.

Their closer situation was a disaster this year.

They've lost some really tough games in late innings.

The Diamondbacks are not as good as we thought they were going to be.

The Giants are not as good as we thought they were going to be.

The Padres are not even 10 games above 500, even though they just looked really tough against the Mets.

It's just kind of, you know, the the Cubs are good, but they're young in a couple of spots and their pitching is unproven in big spots.

So I think one of the reasons why Stearns has been so aggressive thus far is because it just feels like it's wide open.

It feels like if you make the right moves and you catch a wave and you get into the tournament, you could win, you know, and we're feeling better than Yankee fans.

Yankee fans are pissed right now.

The sports talk radio is just like fire Volpe into the stratosphere.

It's just, everybody hates the way the Yankees are playing.

Can I ask you one last question before you go?

Please.

You said something that

perked my brain up a little bit.

You said maybe Mendoza has taken a step back.

And I'm so used to NBA fans questioning the coaches on the most like basic, like, oh, he didn't call a timeout there.

And like, coaching is so complex.

I don't quite know how to evaluate baseball managers.

Like, I don't really know

what separates a good one.

I know they set the lineup, they make the pitching decisions, all this stuff.

But what's the book on this guy?

What's he good at?

What makes a good baseball manager?

someone who ironically was raised under uh Brett Boone, or excuse me, Aaron Boone, the Yankees manager.

He was his basically his number two for a number of years that the Yankees was hired away from them, and is someone who's described as having an incredible feel for the game.

You know, somebody who like has been in baseball his entire life, really understands players, is friendly to players, not a hard ass, understands the mechanics and strategy of the game very well.

In his first season, he seemed to push every button correctly.

The number one thing that he has done this year that has been a bit of a struggle is his sense of timing with pitching changes has seemed very off.

And I think a lot of fans who don't understand the team as well as he would are like, why do you continue to pull pitchers after 86 pitches?

We saw this with Sean Minaya this week in the Padres, where it's like,

by the way, as good as you advertise, that guy's nasty.

Oh, he's awesome.

He's awesome.

And as long as he's healthy, he's going to be huge for them this year.

But there's just this thing, you know, we have Clay Holmes, who's basically a five-inning pitcher now, and he consistently is being taken out with 89, 90 pitches.

They're kind of trying to preserve his arm because he's never thrown

this many pitches in a season.

And so, Mendoza has been tasked with something tricky, which is he's got a staff that is not giving him length, but a bullpen that is deeply flawed.

And so, every day, if the bullpen makes a mistake, it looks like his mistake.

And so he's just going to get more scrutiny.

That's really what it boils down to.

Whether or not he's like actually worse or he's being outsmarted by other managers, it's all debatable.

Also, the other thing that happens in baseball is we don't know how much control the upper management office has in moment-to-moment decisions like this.

What's the book that he's getting before every game about decisions that they want to see?

Who is he being told is not available because of their expectations of what's going to happen with a guy's arm or how healthy they are or what have you?

That is still a bit mysterious in the way that baseball operates.

I still like Mendoza.

He seems like a very smart guy.

He's a very open manager

with the press, which I really appreciate.

To be successful in New York, you really need to know how to handle the day-to-day anxieties of sad Mets fans like us.

And I think he does a good job of that, and I really want them to win with him.

But I don't know.

Maybe he's taking a step back.

We just don't know.

It's ironic you mentioned the taking guys out early.

Peterson was the other big example of that recently.

The other day when Mantis was pitching, I don't trust Montis, by the way.

I don't trust him.

It's the fourth inning, pitch 82, every single start.

And he gave up like three smash line drives in a row and i was saying to my daughter like hey i take him out like he's lost his stuff and they kept him in he gave up more stuff i'm like i i can't i don't i'm not a fan yet mantas is the one move that david stearn has made that i do not understand that it was the first signing that they made in the offseason this year and they gave him two years guaranteed for 34 million dollars and he has been at best an average pitcher for the last four seasons and at worst unplayable and

stearns is so shrewd.

And he was trying to time the market to get ahead of what he thought was going to be an outsized pitching market.

And he didn't re-sign a guy named Jose Quintana, who was really good for them.

And Quintana eventually signed for, I think,

$5 million with the Brewers at the end of free agency.

And Quintana is having a significantly better season.

And we already knew what we had with him.

So every time I see Montas pitch, I feel that phantom limb of Kantana, who I loved watching, who's like a really crafty 37-year-old vet who doesn't throw hard, but gets guys out.

And Montas, I just think, is going to screw us in the next two months.

I'm just really nervous about him.

All right.

It's 12.30 Eastern.

We've got five and a half hours to go.

I'm going on vacation.

I will have, I got Jeff Passins and the Mets, Beat Writers, Twitter's refreshing.

And I'm taking my mic to Croatia.

I will watch some condensed games.

I'm going to be in touch.

If anything happens, Sean Fentesy, the Mets corner bat signal may go up from across the Atlantic.

but it's your time is very valuable.

I really appreciate you giving us some of it here on the joyful place that is Mets Corner.

Let's go, Mets.

Thanks, Zach.

Have an amazing trip.

And I actually hope that we just go on a 40-game winning streak and you don't have to call in from anywhere in Croix.

If we go on a 40-game winning streak, not only will we do Mets Corner, I will be...

Three sheets to the wind

by game number 15 and just shouting obscenities around Dubrovnik.

All right, bud.

Thank you.

See you, Zach.

All right.

That's it for the most eclectic show in the history of the Zach Lowe Show and any prior podcast that me, Zach Lowe, was involved in.

Thanks to Sean Fennessy.

Thanks to Joanna Robinson.

Thanks to Fred Katz.

Thanks to Jesse and Jonathan on production.

I'll be back at some point at the latest in a few weeks.

If something crazy happens while I'm abroad, I got my mic.

I'm ready to go.

I want to thank everybody for tuning in over the last three or four months that I've gotten back in the game.

Keep subscribing, keep liking, keep clicking, keep doing all the stuff that the young people say that you got to do for the Zach Low Show.

Thanks, everybody.

I will see you on the other side.

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