Eastern Conference Tiers With Michael Pina, and John Jastremski Joins Mets Corner

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Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show, NBA season, offseason is winding down.

We've been talking a lot about the West lately because so much of the news, Dame and Chris Paul, and Devin Booker and on LeBron, what's going on with the Lakers, has been focused on the West.

Even Jonas Valenciunis, the mini-drama there.

West, West, West.

What are the tiers of the West?

Kevin Durant plays for the Rockets.

Today we're shifting to the junior varsity.

The East.

Yeah, the East still matters.

The East is going to supply, I think by my math, 50% of the participants in the NBA Finals next year.

So we're talking East.

We're going to, with Michael Pina, go tears of the East.

Who are the real contenders?

Who are the tankers who's in the middle where do we disagree the most That's gonna be fun and then it's time for Mets Corner baby four game win streak back in first place in the NL East John Gostremsky makes his debut on Mets Corner.

He's gonna teach me stuff about baseball.

He might yell about Aaron Boone.

I'm a little bit worried about his state of mind about the Yankees.

We're gonna talk about baseball trade deadline.

I'm gonna ask a ton of stupid questions.

We're gonna talk about uniforms and all sorts of dumb stuff and my daughter's love for Francisco Lindor.

That's coming up on the the latest edition of Mets Corner sweeping the nation.

All coming up on the Zach Lowe Show.

Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show.

It's Thursday, July 24th, a month before my birthday, by the way, if anyone wants to get some gifts ready.

And we've talked a lot about the Western Conference.

So much news in the Western Conference.

Kevin Durant, the Sons, Bradley Beale, Chris Paul, Damian Lillard, on and on.

It's time to talk about about the East.

We're going to do that with my friend Michael Pina.

How are you, sir?

I'm doing tremendous, Zach.

How are you?

I'm good.

It's time to talk about the JV.

You ready?

I texted you yesterday.

This was a more morose topic than I anticipated, but I'm super excited.

Oh,

you can't be so morose about the least at a conference.

Look, the biggest competitive advantage in the NBA, being in the Eastern Conference, it was true 30 years ago.

It was true 20 years ago.

It was true 10 years ago.

It is still true today.

So I would do this column every year before the season, tiers.

I've been doing it for 15 years.

I would do it for the whole league, put the whole league into categories.

It was like my version of power rankings.

I kind of like it better than power rankings because it forced me to categorize more broadly where teams are in their sort of spectrum of development and within the league.

And we're going to do that today

for the Eastern Conference.

Sorry, Wes, you'll have to wait for another day.

So I only gave you one rule.

I have, let me see how many tiers I have.

I don't even know.

I have one,

two,

three,

four, five tiers.

One tier has only one team in it.

We will get to that team.

I don't know how many you have, but I only gave you one rule.

One tier must be called teams who can plausibly win the Eastern Conference, teams who can make the NBA Finals.

I did not give you this sub-rule, but a rule that I gave for myself beneath that rule was it has to be at least three teams.

It can't just be Cleveland and New York.

You have to go out on a limb and pick a third team that could plausibly win the East.

My first tier has four teams because it's July and I'm going crazy.

Okay, here are the teams.

Are you ready?

How many does yours have?

My first tier has three teams, so I make the cut.

Okay, you followed my rule by accident.

I assume two of them are New York and Cleveland.

Correct.

Okay.

I have the Orlando Magic as a team that could plausibly win the Eastern Conference.

You're nodding.

You have that team.

Yes, I have the Orlando Magic as my third team.

I went crazy.

I went crazy.

And to nobody's surprise, I have a fourth team.

And to nobody's surprise, it is KACOOA!

The Atlanta Hawks are in my could plausibly win the East Territory.

Now, let me go step back.

In a normal season, neither Orlando nor

Atlanta would be in this tier.

In a normal Eastern Conference season, Orlando is too young, too unproven, has not had a top 20 offense in the NBA since 2012, which is absolutely insane to go that many years with a bottom 10 offense in the NBA.

I have called them the Joe DiMaggio of crappy NBA offenses.

And Atlanta is like, it's Atlanta.

Like, I can have that much faith in the freaking Hawks.

I know Quinn Snyder's glasses are cool, and Trey Young hits floaters, and they did some cool stuff in the offseason.

There's still a team of like mismatch.

They got a rookie starting.

They got some veterans who is their backup five if Christops Rorzingis gets hurt and all of of that.

But this is not a normal year, Michael Pina.

This is not a normal year.

The Celtics are gone.

The Pacers are gone.

The Bucs are iffy and the Sixers are the Sixers.

And so there's this just void of a proven

championship level team.

There have been years in the Eastern Conference where there have only been two teams that you could put in this category.

But for most of those years, one of those teams in the last 15, 20 years has had LeBron James on it and been kind of a super team, like a proven lockdown championship contender.

That's not the case.

The Knicks just made the conference finals for the first time in 25 years.

They had bench issues that they kind of addressed.

We'll get to that.

And they fired their coach.

Do we trust the New York Knicks?

Maybe, probably.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, all good.

Congratulations.

Another fantastic regular season of lots of wins.

Another disappointing postseason flame out

You know, two years ago,

now three seasons ago, I guess, it was the Knicks bum rushing them out of the playoffs.

This season, it was the Pacers on the backs of an incredible comeback in game two.

Boom, 4-1.

In between, you forgive the ones of the Celtics because they were underdogs and they were overmatched.

But look, like, you can't sit here and tell me, well, no-brainer, Cleveland Cavaliers, NBA finals team.

How about you make the conference finals first?

So, those are my four.

Where do you want to start?

Well, I'll start by saying that the Atlanta Hawks, including them in that that first tier, going back and forth on whether or not I should, or you know, not to spoil or step on anything, but put them in my next tier, was the most time I spent on anything in this entire exercise.

I applaud you for venturing out on that limb with the Hawks.

I had a few too many questions when I really was kind of burrowing into their roster and just who I could rely upon throughout

a long playoff run.

But I do love everything that they did during the offseason.

I love the three-point shooting that they added.

That was a clear priority for their new front office.

So let's talk about the Hawks.

I mean, it's a really

fun team.

Here's the case for putting the Hawks in this tier.

Something wild is going to happen.

It always does.

The Pacers just happened.

Very few people expected the Pacers, even as they were surging up the East, to come within one game of a championship.

I don't think the Hawks have that level of connectivity and toughness in them to do that, but

it's just too pat to be like, well, it's the Knicks and the Cads, and that's it.

We can just pencil in the conference finals.

That just, they may well get there, but it's seldom that clean.

Something wild is going to happen.

Orlando making the conference finals does not strike me as super wild.

The Hawks would be wild.

You know, they did make the conference finals in 2021, but a lot of people poo-poo that.

Here's the case against the Hawks.

Is Trey Young a winning player at the highest level?

Debatable.

Trey Young is also up for an extension.

Are the Hawks just going to play that one out?

I kind of think if you ask me what the most likely outcome is with that right now, I think the Hawks just kind of play that out and let it get to unrestricted free agency.

How's he going to react to that?

They're starting five barely played together last year.

Trey Young, assuming it's Trey Young, Daniels, Reese Shea, Jalen Johnson, who I think is an all-star in waiting, waiting, and Onyaka Kongwa, who made a leap at the end of last season.

And it's a weird mishmash of like, is there enough shooting in there with Daniels, Reese, Shea, Johnson at the 2-3-4?

For a real contender or true contender, probably a little short unless one of those three guys makes a leap.

Is a Kongwu ready to really anchor a finals level defense?

He's a little undersized.

I know he made a leap, blah, blah, blah.

Reese is a second-year player.

Like, it's just, that's a lot of responsibility on a second-year guy.

The bench, where's my Hawks depth chart over here?

The bench, I mean, you know, they upgraded with Kennard.

It's interesting that they traded DeAndre Hunter primarily to give themselves the financial flexibility to upgrade the back seven of the rotation.

And they also then traded everybody they traded for last season.

Terrence Mann, gone.

Niang, gone.

Lavert, gone, not re-signed, not traded, but just not re-signed.

And in their place is Kennard, Nikhil Alexander Walker, poor Zingas.

And after that,

it's a little nerve-wracking because am I counting on Mogay?

Am I counting on Kobe Bufkin at all?

Or is Kennard, Alexander Walker a signal that I'm not?

Am I counting on Aisen Newell?

Yes, I can stagger Trey Young and Jalen Johnson as they were doing at the beginning of last season when they were both healthy so that Jalen Johnson can kind of be point forward when Trey's on the bench.

They feel one guy.

away from actually earning their place in this tier to me, particularly one front court.

They like They love Mogay.

They started, their front office people have been telling me for a year and a half, keep an eye on this guy.

We kind of like him.

They started him a lot last year.

And it's like, if he just can't shoot at all, I don't quite know what we're doing here.

So they still feel one guy away to me, but they have the ammo to get that guy in trades if they choose to do so.

And so in the end, I was like, you know what?

They also have the biannual exception and they're under the tax.

And they have a trade exception.

So they have other things they can still do.

So in the end, I was like, let's get crazy.

But you couldn't get that crazy, I guess.

For me, the pro plausible argument just centered so much around Jalen Johnson, who I love a lot.

Averaged 19, 10, and 5, basically, before he had the shoulder injury that ended his season.

He was a borderline all-star at the time and someone who was starting to look like potentially the best player or most important player on the team.

And I love the way he plays.

I love how selfless he is.

I like how it's this combination of feel and athleticism that can't really be taught.

And he fits in so many different lineup constructions.

So I just, I love everything about him, but I'm a little weary, you know, looking at a little bit of the numbers and how Atlanta played offensively

when Trey was not on the court with Jalen Johnson.

You talked about them staggering, which they did a bunch last year, but the offense was still bad in those minutes.

And I have questions about, you know, Christops Borzingis, you penciled in Oneko Kongwu as the starting center, and I think that that's probably how they begin the season.

But Christap Sporzingis is

better, I guess, when healthy than Oneko Kongwu, I would say.

And so I'm just interested in kind of how he fits in,

how available is he going to be this season and throughout a playoff run.

And I was thinking, like, not to get too granular, but I guess that's why we're here.

In a playoff run where Trey Young has to be on the court and, you know, teams are running pick and roll with, you know, getting Trey Young and Christoph Swerzingis engaged.

Christophe Sworzingis is a very good rim protector,

but just having him in a drop with Trey Young trailing a ball handler,

it's a lot different for KP than the world he's coming from with Drew Holiday and Derrick White and Jalen Brown in that role.

And I just, it's just, it makes me a little

queasy just kind of thinking about those scenarios in a playoff setting.

And I just think they're too dependent on Trey Young.

And I like Trey Young, but I think defensively,

I'm just, he makes, it's worrisome.

It's still worrisome.

So he's one of the worst defenders in basketball.

So if he can kind of bring it on that end

and maximize his physical limitations, then I'd feel a little bit more comfortable.

I just want to see it a little bit more.

But I love every move they made in the offseason, and I like how their team looks.

And it wouldn't truly shock me if they made the finals, but I just

can't put them in that tier with Orlando, New York, and Cleveland right now.

There's also the issue of who's the backup center if Porzingis gets hurt.

when Porzingis gets hurt.

I get your, you know, the concerns on the defense are, I mean, a lot of this is me betting on Trey Young responding to being in a contract year potentially for the whole year the right way, which we started to see signs of last year.

I thought he tried harder on defense

than he had ever before.

I realize that is,

you know, not the highest bar to clear, so to speak.

And I've recited this stat many times.

It's interesting to me, maybe not to the world, but to me, that he set more ball screens last season than in his entire prior career combined.

That shows, you know, just baby steps of he's never going to be Steph Curry.

No one's ever going to be Steph Curry moving and flitting around here and there, but just be a little more active and a little more varied style.

That helps unlock Jalen Johnson, who can do a lot of stuff in inverted pick and rolls with Trey.

I just keep evolving inch by inch by inch that way.

And there's something here, but you're right.

I mean, mean, there are tons of questions.

I didn't mention Vit Crete, by the way, who could be another solution to sort of when Trey is on the bench has been solid for them.

I get it.

I do think they're a guy away, particularly in the front court.

Like the front court rotation of it's funny you mentioned Jalen Johnson.

He's like the guy that I'm least worried about on the team.

I think he's going to be awesome.

I'm a little worried about their collective shooting.

Sure, he's part of that.

I think he's going to be awesome.

And when I say front court, I mean fours and fives.

Johnson Okongu, Moge, Porzingis.

They just need one more guy there.

Asa New will see what he brings as a rookie.

But look, it also could go completely south where they get off to a bad start, Trey's unhappy, and they go the other way and tried to trade him.

So I get why you can't put him in this tier.

It's July.

I got wild.

Let's talk about the Knicks and the Cavs because I don't want to shortchange them.

Who do you have more faith in right now to make a three to win three playoff series and get to the finals?

If you had to pick one, who do you have more faith in?

I think I have more faith in.

I like the Cavaliers more.

And

I just, that's the team that I have the fewest questions about.

And that was kind of how I was gauging

this whole process.

Like, how many questions do I have about the team?

And for Cleveland, I mean, there is one that is very big and it's existential.

It's just how will they respond to, you know, a psychologically damaging playoff exit against the Indiana Pacers in round two.

That's a pretty big deal.

They basically are bringing back the same team with Lonzo Ball in for Ty Jerome.

And I like that

swap.

I think that Lonzo Ball, if he's able to stay healthy

and can be a little bit more mobile than he showed last season, that he's a perfect fit pretty much anywhere, but particularly on this Cleveland Cavaliers team that's just so selfless and three-point shooting heavy and all that sort of stuff.

But I think my number one, my number two question is just,

is this the year that Evan Mobley becomes the best player on the team?

And what would that even look like?

Are they going to be able to give him the ball in the fourth quarter with five minutes to go and say, get us a bucket of a close game?

Like, that's...

That is kind of the next step of his evolution, I think.

And I'm

interested to see

how he kind of takes a step forward offensively for this team, team because I think just him becoming the best player is the Cleveland Cavaliers taking the next step that they need to.

They're going to have the most wins in the East if they're healthy.

They should and will be the number one seed.

Darius Garland was injured and a shell of himself in the Indiana series and in the playoffs as a whole.

Didn't even play

for part of the Miami series, which was not even a real series.

I mean, that was a freaking walkover.

More on the heat later.

They are, by any

reasonable analysis, the correct answer to my question of who you should have the most faith in.

I think you actually nailed it as

Donovan Mitchell, it's hard.

He's awesome.

Like he was a, did he make first team all NBA this year?

I think he did.

If he didn't, it was close, whatever.

It's hard to see him ascending another level,

especially in the playoffs where he just balls out every single time.

I mean, every playoffs, he's just, even if he misses some shots, he's always ready for the moment.

He always steps up.

He always steps into the spotlight.

Garland, let's assume better health.

To me, Mobley, as you said, is the wild card because if you talk to people within the team, they think he has is like 50% of where he could get to offensively as a passer, as a shooter, as a scorer.

And I don't know if you want to frame it as, you know, like when he becomes the best player on the team.

It was closer last year than I think people thought.

Like I had him flirting with that first team all NBA spot for a while before I put him second second team.

And you know, with the infrastructure is just there, they know how to play Kenny Atkinson's system, they have a lot of shooting, Lonzo will help.

Um,

I'm you're not concerned at all that uh cryptocurrency mogul Tristan Thompson is not currently on the team?

Uh, that that's not concerning to you?

That didn't make my notes.

I wrote 21 pages of notes for this uh, this pod, and that Tristan Thompson's name is not uh, did not appear, unfortunately.

Um,

and yet, weirdly, Michael,

my answer to my own question is the Knicks.

And

I can't even explain why

I don't really care that they advanced another round in Cleveland.

It's not because of that.

It's not even because they upgraded the bench with Clarkson and Yabusele.

And particularly Yabusele, I think, could be a valuable piece for them.

It's not even because there's like nothing to worry about with the team.

Like, is Mitchell Robinson going to stay healthy?

He was...

essential in the playoffs.

He wasn't just like this luxury item come in and spot cat 10 minutes.

He was was like, we can't win without this dude destroying people on the offensive glass and protecting the rim at full throttle, like the speed, the arms, everything.

They fired their coach

and then they called everyone in the league, just anyone who would answer the phone.

Is your coach available?

No?

Okay.

Is your coach available?

No, it was embarrassing.

It was embarrassing.

Sorry.

Like, Billy Donovan, let's keep cycling down.

Billy Donovan of the play-in bulls.

Are you available?

No.

Okay.

They can spin it any way they want.

My theory, by the way, is that they really thought the Jason Kidd thing was going to be in play, and all of the other stuff was window dressing to that, and then it wasn't in play, and then they got Mike Brown.

Mike Brown's a good coach, like Mike Brown.

I ask you this.

Is he demonstrably superior as a tactician to Tom Thibodeau, who, by the way,

you know,

I don't want to relitigate the Tips thing.

He's Tom Thibodeau.

He's always going to be Tom Thibodeau for better or worse.

He's been always pigeonholed as a defensive coach, even as his offenses for a lot of his career have been just as good as his defenses.

And it's because his offenses, even when they're good, are like completely unsexy offenses.

They're like low pass, low turnover, high offensive rebound.

I call it the Thibodeau battering ram.

And it doesn't look great.

It can look like the ball is stalling out, and it's just Jalen Brunson and four dudes watching Jalen Brunson.

that is

some of that is probably flawed, and predictable, and uncreative, and minimizing of the other four players on the team and their talent.

Some of that is somewhat by design because it's a low-risk offense, and that's how Tibbs wants to play.

But man, they walked down the Celtics playing that way.

They're up 3-1, legit up 3-1 on the Celtics before Tatum gets hurt.

You can chalk the first two games up to the Celtics choking and shooting just a freaking hail of insane bad judgment threes, and And it was part of that.

But there's something to how the Knicks played under Tibbs of just walk them down, walk them down.

We got a closer.

We're a tenacious defensive team.

We don't make a lot of mistakes.

There's something to that.

And I think if you keep some of that DNA and infuse it with a little bit of freshness, a deeper bench that will actually get used.

and a little bit more offensive creativity.

I understand, like, is Kat a five?

Is he a four?

How do we rejigger the rotation to protect protect him on defense?

Is he going to take it to?

I understand all that.

There's something in the DNA of this team that I like and I think translates to the playoffs.

I don't know, man.

I don't know.

Maybe MSG just seduced me.

I don't know.

You know, I wrote a column when they fired Tibbs, and I didn't really agree with the move.

I didn't think that he was the problem or the reason that they lost in the Eastern Conference finals.

By the way,

I've I've remiss for not saying this in previous podcasts.

A guy caricatured as refusing to adjust, and yet he didn't play the bench until everyone shouted at him to play the bench and Delon Wright and Landry Shamut.

By the way, they only have 12 players on the team right now.

12 guys.

They literally, by law, the NBA have to sign more players.

I would keep my eye on Shamut.

I would keep my eye on Brogdon, who both could be helpful.

He did completely scrap their base defense in a way that flummoxed the overwhelming favorite Boston Celtics by switching everything.

So please continue on the Tibbs defense because I'm here for it.

Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things I was just going to say.

One of the primary criticisms is that he was very, he's a stubborn, steadfast

basketball genius.

But in that series, where it was one of the biggest upsets, you'll see in the NBA playoffs, nobody picked the New York Knicks to win.

that series outside of New York City, and they're switching everything, and it's pretty successful.

I mean, they had the Celtics shot 25 for 100 in the first two games

from behind the three-point line.

And by the way, they deserved to shoot 25 for 100.

I don't care how open they were, just on the shot judgment alone.

They deserved it.

They deserved it.

Okay, but

congratulations on winning the shot, the shot quality championship, Boston.

Hang the banner.

Banner 19, shot quality championship 2025.

So

you're being a little rude, but so they

so.

I

liked what Tibbs did there, and

I liked how he started to play more players.

That was a good decision, I think.

Think about what you just said.

The sentence you just said.

He started to play more players.

And I don't mean this as an insult to you, but like that's a sentence my daughter could say about the NBA.

Like, it looks like they're playing more players, Daddy.

I'm like, yep, those are new players that they're playing.

So when I, you know, it's like

there was clear discontent on the team with the amount of minutes that some player, I mean, Mikael Bridges is someone who publicly stated that he was not happy with his role or just the amount of time he was spending on the court, and it's a lot of wear and tear.

And

the other thing was that the Tibbs did was he changed the starting lineup.

And when everyone was kind of calling for him to do so by starting, Mitchell Robinson, who you,

you know, I'll second everything you said.

He was so good in that series against Boston and throughout the entire postseason.

And he's someone who is probably still in Joe Missoula's nightmares, keeping him awake at night because that was a primary part of Boston's game plan was to make sure that Mitchell Robinson was just limiting his minutes, intentionally fouling him, getting him out of the game as much as they possibly could.

So

I liked Tibbs, Tibbs's postseason, and

didn't think

there was anything wrong with him.

That said, I do like Mike Brown as well.

And Mike Brown should have probably never been fired by the Sacramento Kings, and that organization is in just total disarray.

He was one of the reasons that they kind of

were able to look competent for the first time

in this era.

And

I think that there's some things that he can do that Tibbs did not.

And number one for me is I'm interested to see, like, Jalen Brunson,

will he have the ball as much as he did last season?

Will Mikhail Bridges and OG and an Obi have more opportunity to make stuff happen?

And, you know, Jalen Brunson led the NBA last year in on-ball percentage by a decent amount.

He just, that's how they play.

You talked about it.

They're boring.

They are predictable in what they do.

And I think that Mike Brown is someone going from, you know, when he spent time with the Golden State Warriors to Sacramento, he can diversify the offense a a little bit, and you can play through Carl Anthony Towns from the high post a little bit more.

So I think I'm interested to see that

aspect.

I like their continuity.

You also mentioned the three empty roster spots.

One guy I would keep an eye on because I would like to get a little bit more depth in the front court is Trey Lyles, who I believe is unsigned.

I'm not even, I'm not positive about that, but I believe he is, and he played for Mike Brown in Sacramento.

Thomas Bryan is also unsigned.

That's a big who hit a couple threes against the Knicks in the conference finals that ended their season.

So

I like New York and that's why they're in this tier for me.

And it's going to be interesting to see just how Mike Brown kind of implements his style and makes his imprint now.

I like the Trey Lyles mention because it,

you know, retread coaches get a bad name.

Retread.

Like, that's a negative connotation.

They can work when they land in the right job, and the job becomes the sum of all jobs that they've had before, the sum of all their experiences.

Everything they've learned gets poured into the right set of players.

And if the Knicks make the finals, this will be the case for Mike Brown.

This will be the sum of all jobs.

Everything that he took from the Warriors culture, everything he took from coaching LeBron, everything he learned from the disaster with the Lakers, everything he learned kind of modernizing the Kings' offense with Fox and Sabonis two-man game, all sort of coalesces in

New York.

And you mentioned Trey Lyles, like

Trey Lyles at the five was a big adjustment in that series against the Warriors.

That was kind of a funky move by Mike Brown, and it worked.

I will always remember when he was the interim coach for a bit in Golden State, when Steve Kerr was unable to coach because of his back stuff.

The one thing that stood out that Mike Brown did, and I believe it was against the Blazers in the 2019 conference finals.

I could be wrong about that, was no, I don't know, it couldn't have been because KD was hurt.

It was sometime in his run.

There was a series he coached where he was just like, you know what, we're going to do?

How about we just run the Curry Durant pick and roll every single time down the floor?

Like, I know, like, this is not how Steve coaches, but I'm the coach now.

We're just going to do that over and over.

And guess what?

It was completely unstoppable.

And I think about that in relation to the Brunson Cat pick and roll, which they did not run enough against the Pistons.

Like, I just, you know, I'm optimistic.

Let's do like a word on Orlando.

We both, no-brainer, put Orlando in this tier.

Again, in a normal year, they would not be here.

They have not proven enough.

They have not proven enough offensively.

They traded for Desmond Bain.

Great move.

Fits like a glove.

Still have some questions about the bench, but I like the Tyus Jones edition.

I think there's enough there

in terms of staggering the three best players on the team, Bain, Wagner, Bancaro, that particularly in a playoff setting when you're not going to play 10 guys, I think there's going to be enough there on the bench between Black and Tyus Jones, and we'll see if DeSilva hits and we'll see how much Isaac can give.

I like their backup centers when healthy.

There's enough there.

Regular season, the offense could still get rickety.

There's a big learning curve for everybody involved.

But I just think, bottom line, they're talented.

They're surging.

They're young.

They're on the rise.

And they have a defensive identity that is really hard to play against.

And I know it was a 4-1 series.

I was impressed by how hard they played Boston in the first round, despite a bunch of injuries, despite Franz Wagner with the hitch in his jumper.

And by the way, if the hitch is still there, they're not going to be in this tier.

They need Franz Wagner to actually hit the apex of his game.

But again, it would be premature in a normal year.

Something crazy is going to happen.

This team is set up to be the something crazy team.

Yeah,

I love Desmond Bain.

I love just the fit there.

I think that that was totally worth the swing with what they gave up to get him.

Just one of the best three-point shooters in the league.

Really capable ball handler.

I like the Tyus Jones signing a lot.

This is a team everyone talks about the three-point shooting.

They've also finished near the bottom of the league in assisted turnover ratio for the past three years, and you're bringing in one of the steadiest hands in basketball, just a reliable, low-mistake floor general who can really shore up an area of need.

And I think, like, primarily, this is Paolo Banquero's time to be one of the three best players in the conference.

Like, that is totally on the table.

And

obviously, efficiency is the number one hang-up.

I think that what we could see is, you know, I think the comp that I've been thinking about is Cade Cunningham, where, you know, people are down on him.

He doesn't really have an ideal supporting cast.

There's not a lot of spacing, et cetera.

Paolo isn't the exact same type of player as Cade.

He won't run 40 pick and rolls or whatever in a game.

But he's going to be in more lineups with space, and he's going to

be able to set screens for Desmond Bain and roll into the pocket and make plays.

Just a lot of different things that he's going to be able to do.

I think his efficiency will tick up.

And I think that there's a definite scenario where he is on a lot of MVP ballots at the end of the season.

That was the only note I had for Orlando.

It's in big bold font on my notes over here.

It's defend Bancaro.

There's a lot of handling about the Bancaro max contract, which has the escalators to 30% that Chet Holmger didn't get and all that.

It's also got a player option, which is like suboptimal.

I don't love the player option when you get everything, but it is what it is.

And I have probably been to a fault defensive of mid-to

non-glamorous market teams, just maxing out young players willy-nilly.

Like I probably, the Raptors probably could have negotiated a little harder with Scotty Barnes, Orlando with Franz Wagner.

You know, we've seen that in Houston, and I've talked about that a lot with them negotiating a little harder than these other teams.

And Bill was on that last summer about about Franz and Scotty.

And I defended those teams probably too much.

There's probably room for negotiations.

And I heard a lot of like, well, Paolo's inefficient, shoots a lot of mid-range jumpers.

Like, he's not a number one guy.

How are you paying?

I'm like, a number one guy.

Is he ever going to be a number one guy?

And I'm like, look, man, I don't know what you all are seeing.

This dude is fucking awesome.

And I am more than okay paying him a max.

I don't know if he's going to be, you know, a first-team all-NBA player at any point.

I would actually probably lean toward there's a season in there where he cracks it, but I know I watch this dude in the playoffs against the elite defenses with nothing around him.

No shooting, no help, almost nothing reliable, plus or minus a Franz Wagner game.

And a lot of the Franz Wagner games are like eight of 22.

They're not like awesome games where he's being guarded really closely.

And he just shows up and shows up and shows up and makes a fair share of really hard mid-range jump shots.

Does he take too many of those?

Sure.

He's also shown me he's a good passer.

He's a good playmaker on the move as a screener.

And I think the more talent around him, the more he'll tap into those parts of his game.

There'll be three or four mid-range shots that are transitioned into better shots for him at the rim, threes, passes, all of that.

You don't, give me all the Bancaro stock.

Like that dude is ready for everything.

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Next tier, are you ready?

I sure am.

My next tier is called, I don't, I just made up a name, best of the rest for the top six.

so i've got four teams in in my in my tier one and so the next the next most important thing is who avoids the play-in i have three teams in this tier detroit who i think walks in is the fifth best team of the east on paper to me anyway milwaukee and miami who i am unreasonably high on and so that means in the next tier down i've got boston toronto indiana a bunch of other teams we'll get to the sixers the sixers are the team in their own tier It's just called the Sixers, and it includes the Sixers.

But I have Detroit, Miami, Milwaukee.

Let me start with Miami,

because Miami is the team that I'm just wildly out of place on compared to Vegas, compared to expectations.

Their over-under right now is 38.5.

Their odds to win the East are like down there with Toronto and all of that.

And I understand sort of, you know, why they had a disappointing season.

Tara Rogier turned into an absolute zero for them.

They don't have, I mean, if we ranked the Eastern Conference, do they have a top 10 player in the conference, let alone the league?

I don't know if Tyler Hero or Bam Atabayo are in that conversation.

And so I get there was just sort of something

desultry about them last year.

Just dull and like, eh, is this just all there is?

Like they just.

They can't score at an efficient level.

There's just no pathway to do it.

And I look at their team and I'm like, I get all that.

Let's just say our starting lineup is Davion Mitchell, Tyler Hero, Andrew Wiggins with a year there under his belt or half a year in an offseason.

You could go Jovich, Bam, Highsmith, Bam, where, Bam, if you want to do the double center thing, which was successful for them last year.

Let's just pencil in Jovich for whatever reason.

Could be where.

Could be anybody.

Then I got Norman Powell for free, which adds a completely new dimension to my offense.

I've got one of Highsmith and Jovich or whoever coming off the bench with where I've still got Jake.

And like, you can write off Jakez after a disappointing second year.

I wouldn't do that.

Like, people do not develop linearly.

There's sometimes ups and downs.

I'm penciling in and up.

You know why?

Why not?

I like Palo Larson.

I like Yakachunis.

What I see there is

depth.

I don't see a huge amount of upside.

Like, I don't think there's like, oh my God, the Heat won 51 games this year.

I don't see that.

I see depth.

I see IQ.

I see an elite coach.

And I see a world in which that team, depth is very powerful in the regular season.

Coaching is very powerful in the regular season.

We'll see how the Tyler Hero extension talks go.

If they go anywhere, that could get dicey.

I don't know really how that's going to go.

He's got two years left on his deal at $31 and $33 million, I think.

Oh, boy.

That could hit the chemistry at some point if it doesn't go well.

Fontecchio, I didn't even mention Fontechio, who I think is like a good eighth, seventh, ninth guy in the NBA.

I see depth there, and I see a formula where this team, which has an over-under of 38.5, is 45 and 37 and gets the sixth seed.

Like, I just think they're better than Boston, who we're going to get to.

I think they're better than Indiana, that has to, not

qualitatively better, but I'm putting them in a tier above Boston, who I know you're down on, and I think you're ahead of the curve on that.

Indiana, who has to replace two starters, including the guy who defines their entire identity of how they played.

And then, you know, Toronto, whatever, whatever, and Philly,

we'll get to there.

I just think Miami is going to be better than those teams.

And Detroit, I feel like does it need an explanation why Detroit is in this tier?

Milwaukee, we can debate.

But what do you think about my placement there?

Who do we disagree on?

Who should be in this tier that isn't, who's in this tier that shouldn't be in this tier?

Sure.

I mean, let's start with Miami.

I'm totally in agreement with you about the Miami Heat.

I rank all.

Oh, man, I thought you were going to be like, I'm totally out on the heat.

They stink.

They can't score.

They're going to be the 25th best offense in the NBA, which they might be.

I don't know.

No, I, you know, I ranked all these teams one through 15 and then put them into tiers.

And I actually had the Miami Heat number six.

And for me, I'm betting on...

I won't use the C word.

I'm betting on infrastructure and much less choppy waters in a post-Jimmy Butler year.

The C word scared me a little bit, sorry.

I assume you mean culture.

That is the thing.

I keep culture.

Yeah, I did not think about that before I said it out loud.

There's There's just fewer distractions.

There is no drama.

This season is all about basketball for an organization that is about basketball.

I think that Eric Spolstra is never won coach of the year famously.

This is the type of season where that could totally be in the cards for him.

I am betting on Bam Medabayo to bounce back from his worst offensive season, not worst offensive season, but just like least efficient, most disappointing offensive season.

It wasn't great.

It wasn't great.

It was not good enough.

The migration in his shot chart, you know, he started to take threes.

He dipped significantly in shots at the rim.

A career low, 27% of his shots were at the rim.

Three years ago, that was 50%.

I think that the water will rise a little bit to the level there with him.

And he was still really good defensively, and the team was still really good defensively when he was on the court.

Rebound well, get back in transition.

That's Miami Heat basketball.

I just, I love Norm Powell, and it wouldn't shock me either if he was in the starting lineup.

I don't know if that's something.

Yeah, could be, absolutely could be.

He's just, he's so awesome, and he had such a good year.

He just fits culturally with that.

I used the C-word there.

He just fits as a hard worker who's no nonsense

with what they're all about.

And he's one of the best shooters alive.

And he proved that last season, and he could have been an all-star

and was just this like so he was so critical for the Los Angeles Clippers last year when they did not have Kawhi Leonard to start the season.

And he was, you know, they had a lot of offensive question marks.

And him showing up pretty much every night and really scoring at all three levels in a way that he hasn't before.

Not, not the, not a playmaker.

He's not like, I think offensively, he's comparable in certain ways to Tyler Hero, and there's a little bit of overlap there.

He's not the playmaker at all that Tyler Hero is.

That's not really his game.

But he's

willing to sacrifice.

His game can scale up a level.

And I just thought that that was like the type of move that

just like saved their offseason and allowed them to tread water a little bit.

So I think that they're, I agree with you.

They're not, the ceiling is not, you know, we're going to make a run to the finals like we did in 2023.

That's not what this is.

But it is, we are going to get back to, we are a competent basketball team.

We will not lose by 50 points in a playoff game.

And yeah, I just like what they're about and I like their depth, as you mentioned, too.

Three quick notes.

Maybe four.

I understand Davion Mitchell

turned into a meteor shower in the play-end, and he's not going to shoot that way all the time.

I still like the idea of starting the season with him in the starting five for his defense and his ability to play off the ball while Hero handles the ball.

But if Norm ends up starting, that's fine with me.

Number two,

the basketball guys would award the Heat minimum one more regular season win if they ditched the stupid court that says hardest, meanest, hardest working, whatever stupid stuff is written on the court.

That's worth a win.

I'm telling you right now, it's worth a win.

I know Pat Riley may like the court.

It's worth one win to get rid of it forever and we never have to see it again.

Number three,

I'm not going all in on this, but I mentioned it on last week's podcast.

And Bill kind of had not listened to that podcast and brought it up preemptively yesterday with me.

I don't think this is going to happen.

Okay, let's be clear about that.

I'm not reporting anything.

I am just saying that there is a theoretical LeBron Dreams trade to Miami that kind of makes sense for both teams.

You can go back and listen to my podcast last week.

I think it was with Dan Woikey where I talked about that.

I think there's, there's just, you can build a deal that actually makes sense.

And I only mentioned that again because the Heat were never in that first wave of teams that came to the forefront when LeBron's, when Rich Paul released that statement about that was very not even cryptic, that evinced a little unhappiness with the Lakers, I think.

Can I ask you a quick question about that, Zach?

If LeBron James, I would love to hear who goes to the Lakers in this hypothetical, but if LeBron James is on the Miami Heat, are they in the first tier?

I think you got to take a look at it.

If I'm sitting here saying the Hawks are in the first tier, then yeah, LeBron plus Hero plus Bam plus anything left on the bench, I think you got to consider it in the first tier.

But again, this is all fanciful.

They just were, it was like Cleveland, Dallas, Golden State, New York, this and that.

I'm like, oh, Miami actually kind of makes sense.

Yeah.

Okay,

enough heat.

Hashtag heat culture.

Detroit, any notes on Detroit being here?

They are, they were number my fifth team.

Okay.

We can put them aside.

I did a Detroit deep dive last week.

Loved the Pistons off.

Didn't love, like the Pistons offseason much more than Bill.

We debated it yesterday.

The Pistons are going to be fun.

Milwaukee is my third team here.

So that's seven.

I'm up to seven now.

So one of these teams is going to be in the play, and they can't all fit in the top six.

Look,

Milwaukee.

I actually kind of like their roster a little bit more than I thought I would when I actually just went down and looked at it.

Kuzma can't be worse.

It's just, it's not even possible for him to be worse.

I think you can carve out like enough

enough guard play between Trent, A.J.

Green, Hollins, Porter Jr.

We'll see if they get anything from Jackson Jr.

again, whatever.

The Giannis Miles Turner fit works.

We've seen a version of it already with Brooke Lopez.

I think if you have to, you can play Giannis, Portis, and Turner together.

They haven't loved to play that way under Doc with the super big threesome, but you might have to.

I thought Sims was a decent backup five for them when he was healthy.

He's back.

Hollins is all right.

You know,

Torian Prince is still around, right?

Cole Anthony, I thought getting him for free, I'm not sure I like penciling him into a starting job, but I think he'll help their bench and is the kind of just juice on offense that they need.

Juice is a good word because the juice is not going to be worth the squeeze of waving and stretching Damian Lillard and just putting, just digging the hole even deeper to the point that you thought you had thought you'd hit the Earth's crust and then you like chipped away at the crust and dug even deeper.

But I do think

as long as Giannis gets you 70 games, this is a 45

to 48 to 49 on the high-end win team.

And that's good enough to be in this tier.

It might be good enough for the fourth seed in the East.

If Giannis misses any significant amount of time, they're obviously toast.

But he's that good.

And I think there's just, obviously, they need more perimeter ball handling, they need more perimeter playmaking, all that.

We all know that.

But I think this team's like kind of just solid.

Where would you have them?

You're pessimistic.

Okay, can we backtrack a little bit?

So I'm going to give you my second and my third tier.

Yeah, just give me the tiers.

Yeah.

Okay.

So my second tier, I called it the People's Champion.

That was just the Atlanta Hawks.

And that's just, I don't really know exactly why I named it that, but it just felt right.

Third tier.

By the way, I'm really bracing for like the Hawks going 30 and 52.

Like Trey Young demanding a trade, the whole season going sideways.

I'm like, I'm ready for it.

I'm just emotionally, I'm ready for it.

So my third tier is called the middle class with a puncher's chance.

And this was the Pistons, the Heat, the Sixers, and

the Toronto Raptors.

My fourth tier is play and bound.

And here is where I have the Milwaukee Bucks and the Chicago Bulls.

So let me just be clear.

You have

the Raptors ahead of the Bucs?

I do.

I do.

Who else?

Sixers.

Heat Pistons.

Okay, so

Heat Pistons I can get with.

They're all equivalent to Milwaukee.

The Raptors, look, I get why you're high on the Raptors.

Okay, I get it.

And I have in my play-in tier, I have Toronto and in parentheses, should I move them up as a note to myself?

I get it.

Starting five, a lot of talent in the starting five.

Not a lot of fit, but a lot of talent.

Two seasons ago, the quartet, the much ballyhooed quartet of Quickly, RJ Barrett, Scotty Barnes, and Jakob Pertle, they were plus 65 in 234 minutes two seasons ago, in the 23-24 season.

They were minus 29 in 140 minutes last year.

The difference is two seasons ago, they were surrounded by a legit two guard in Gary Trent Jr., and last season it was just sort of a morass of whoever was out there.

And I get that you can pick any two.

I don't know how you would stagger.

I don't even know what the ideal staggering methodology is of Quickly, Barrett, Ingram, Barnes.

And Ingram's a clear talent upgrade.

Whatever you think of his contract extension in his game, he's an infusion of something talent-wise into the Raptors.

I don't know who should play with who of those four guys, but like you can keep two of them on the floor, which minimizes the fact that your bench is just sort of

just a group of complete wild cards, including Colin Murray Boyles

and a bunch of shooting guards who may make it, may not make it.

I'm still optimistic about Grady Dick.

I don't know what to make of Jacoby Walker.

I don't know what to make of Ochayak Baji.

I get the optimism.

I just, I think there are just so many questions about fit, style, coaching, bench that Giannis alone to me puts Milwaukee above Toronto.

But make your respective cases for the Raptors and against the Bucs.

Yeah, I think that, first of all, for an exercise like this, the perception of the Toronto Raptors, so much has been talked about with how much this team costs and them having the ninth highest payroll in the league and spending more money than the Nuggets or the Thunder on their basketball team.

So, this isn't about that.

I don't care.

Like, this is not about

that.

We're disentangling that.

It's also about a little bit the fact that they won

30 wins last season,

and they had

30 wins last season, and they have not won a playoff series since the bubble.

So it's just a lot of bad things happening with the Toronto Raptors of late.

I'm higher, I think, generally on Scotty Barnes with more talent around him than a lot of people.

I'm higher, I think, than just about everyone who watches NBA basketball on Brandon Ingram than pretty much everyone.

And I understand why people are down on him and have been down basically since the Team USA World Cup FIBA situation where they finished fourth and he was just a total no-show.

And it was a good thing.

Which is what made all the fake trades to Golden State so funny.

It's like, hey, they,

Steve Kerr lived this one and it didn't go great.

I think he is just a very good basketball player all around.

And I would not like

necessarily paid him under $20 million over the next three years.

i also think that under 25 of the cap which is will be in the last two years of that deal and the last year is a player option um is like perfectly serviceable and fine i think he's a like top-notch shot creator he's someone who has shown in the past an ability and an awareness and a willingness to hit threes hit spot up threes he can finish at the basket really i love that you're talking yourself into ingram is going to go back to shooting eight threes a game now i love it well i can't wait for the first game where it's like, oh, pump fake, one dribble in, jab step.

I can't wait.

I could absolutely be like naive talking about this.

And I understand also all the questions that people have about three-point shooting.

And they were not a good three-point shooting team last season.

I also like the steps and the strides that RJ Barrett made as a playmaker last year and the ways that they utilized him.

And I think that you can still do that this season.

And I think he will shoot the ball better.

He's a better shooter than he showed last year.

Quickly is

really important here and missed

49 games last year, and like 10 of them were for rest, which led the league.

Are you sure RJ Bear is going to shoot it better than he did last year?

35% on threes, 52% on twos.

Career, 34.5% on threes, 48% on twos.

I am confident that he will get some of the best looks of his career next year with Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes on the court.

I feel like those are willing, really smart passers.

And I think that spotting up or coming off motion,

I think he can be a pretty good outside shooter.

And as someone,

at least he's someone,

to me, it's like, yeah, the three-point percentage will be what it is.

But do you have gravity?

And I think that people will not want to leave RJ Barrett alone, wide open.

So we'll see.

Again, I could be totally wrong about the Toronto Raptors.

I get that there's a lot of questions on the bench.

I am higher on Agbaji and Grady Dick, I think.

And Grady Dick, in particular, is like someone who can do stuff with the ball beyond being a spot-up shooter.

I'm excited to see how that kind of plays out.

But

I just like Brandon Ingram, and I think that this team has more real NBA players on it than the Milwaukee Bucks.

But we can now transition to the Bucks if you want.

But I'm

you know,

here's my thing with the Raptors: okay, Their over-under is 37.5 on FanDuel.

I'm looking at it now.

You know, I was thinking about this team because I read your column this week on the ringer, and I was like, he's going to be higher on the Raptors than me, I know.

And I don't mind, like, I think 37.5 sounds right to me.

Like, I don't think this is, like, some poop team that's going to be bad.

I just...

Look at their roster and I look at their statistical profile and I ask this question.

I framed it to myself like this.

What are they going to be good at?

Like, what's are they going to be an elite defensive team are they going to be an elite offensive team and i could see them getting to the end of the season with like the 16th best offense i i'd actually say like the 19th best offense and the 14th best defense and to me that equates to like i just i have a hard time seeing a strongly above 500 team out of this group.

Like 41 and 41 is reasonable to me.

I might take the over on 37 and a half, but I can't put him in like a 45, 48 win tier, which to me,

you've got to get to to be in my next tier.

Now, you're going to tell me why you can't put Milwaukee there, so the floor is yours.

Man, the Milwaukee Bucks.

I guess I'll start with some nice things.

They have Giannis at De Decumpo.

No, don't go right to the mean things.

Just

said all the nice things.

Unless you have a nice thing that I didn't say, go right to the mean stuff.

No, I think like they led the NBA in three-point percentage last year, and they brought a lot of those shooters back.

Gary Trent Jr., Tori M Prince, they have A.J.

Green surrounding Giannis with three-point shooting.

Smart.

That's what you should be doing.

That's great.

I think that this is just like a total shit show when Giannis is on the bench.

Like, where is anything happening offensively?

Bobby Portis on the low block, baby.

Let's go.

Cole Anthony, Bobby Portis.

He can't carve up benches for like six minutes.

You know, I like the Cole Anthony signing.

That's fine.

But like, they lost Damian Lillard.

And Damian Lillard averaged, like, he was averaged 26 per game.

He's launching nine threes.

He's Damian Lillard.

He made an all-star.

He was an all-star last year.

Like I don't think they've come close to replacing that production.

And when Giannis was on the bench and Dame was on the floor last year, their offense was just like about league average.

So I think that there's going to be like a cliff that they fall off of.

I would feel way more comfortable about this team if they brought in a steadier hand like

Chris Paul or Marcus Smart.

or like that I just

the first time Marcus Smart and steady have been used in the same sentence in like eight years completely fair but you know what like Kevin Porter Jr.

I know that he shot the crap out of the ball in Milwaukee last season I think he's just one of the worst decision makers in basketball

when he was in Los Angeles before they traded for him.

He was just an absolute mess.

And this is just not someone who I fundamentally would love to shepherd offense through

a season of Giannis's prime.

And, you know, the Kyle Kuzma can't be worse argument doesn't really do it for me.

I'm sorry.

Like, I just, I don't think he's a winning, he's been a winning player for some time now.

So I just, I don't, like, I don't think that there's a lot of like

NBA, like, not NBA talent.

They're talented pieces.

I just, I'm looking around at the rest of the conference and like, I think you need depth.

I think you need like some

ability to diversify what you do on a nightly basis.

And they just like don't have it.

It's all fair.

Like, and again, I'm sliding them in at like 6-7.

And I realize that, I mean, first of all, Bilwaukee,

their fans are probably like, that's optimistic.

I'm like, it might, you know, 6-7 is like whatever.

And obviously, there's a massive downside.

Like, if Giannis gets injured for any stretch of time, or if they start.

Oh, it's over.

Yeah.

Or if they start 10 and 18 and Giannis decides, you know, this isn't working.

Like, like that's obviously it's over for the team at that point, too.

So there are downsides here.

Okay, can I go to my next tier?

So I have

New York, Cleveland, Orlando, Atlanta, and then Miami.

Detroit, Milwaukee.

I have the Sixers in their own tier because we all, I don't think we need to belabor this.

Like, they're just impossible to project.

They still haven't re-signed Grimes.

I think they will, and they're something.

My only rule with the Sixers was

I cannot put them in my plausibly make the finals category because to me, it is now implausible that I could ever see this team with Joelle Embiid and Paul George, who mysteriously at some point had surgery again, like actually coming together and winning three playoff series, even in the Leastern Conference, feels just implausible to me at this point.

So I just just put them in their own category.

Could they get fourth in the regular season?

Sure.

Could they win a round?

Absolutely.

Could they go to, could they be 11th?

Absolutely.

So they're just in their own.

Where did you have them?

Seventh, right above.

In like the, what's the name of this tier that I got here?

The middle class with a puncher's chance.

And I, I, I,

like, yeah, it's like, can Joelle and Beat stay healthy?

Uh, can all Jerry beat?

No, I'll tell you, he can't.

Like, yeah, I, like, so I don't, don't,

I mean, that doesn't mean he's not going to be healthy at some point in the playoffs, but the idea that they can win three playoff series to me has crossed the Rubicon from, hey, maybe if everything goes right to implausible.

My second from the bot, can we just do the bottom tier and just get it over with?

My bottom tier has three teams.

Does your bottom tier have three teams?

Yes, yes.

Okay, Washington, Brooklyn, Charlotte.

Yes.

Charlotte's the most interesting of those.

We can do those teams another day.

I don't think that there's really, you know, any

Charlotte would have

some,

like, could they get to 37 wins kind of upside if I had, if they had any center that I would like to give NBA minutes to, with apologies to Musa Diabate, who hustles and gets lots of rebounds and is good in a bit roll, and any roadmap that I could see anywhere to not being one of the eight worst defenses in the NBA.

I just see no pathway for them to be a competent defense at all.

And I think they are still looking at the long lens.

Washington and Brooklyn, we know what they're doing.

Washington has a nice collection of players.

Brooklyn has a collection of players.

Done.

That brings me to my play-in

group, which again is below Miami, Milwaukee, Detroit.

I guess in theory, below the Sixers, because I have the Sixers in some mysterious floating purgatory tier.

This last group is Indiana, Boston, Toronto, and Chicago.

Toronto, we have addressed.

Chicago, I don't don't even think we need to address.

Like, they're just here.

Congratulations.

You have made the same tier.

There is an upside where they punch up and win 45 games.

There's a downside where they fall apart with all their nondescript wing players and win 36 games or 34 games.

I just don't see any other place to put them other than in this tier.

Boston and Indiana to me are the interesting pivot points in talking to people.

I am more pessimistic about both than most people that I talk to.

I think, let me look at the Celtics over under, is 43.5.

So Vegas is starting to catch up with what I see in the Celtics roster.

Indiana is

38.5.

So Vegas is really caught up with Indiana.

I'm down on both of those teams.

Let's start with the Celtics.

I just don't think people other than you, because you kind of wrote this, have actually looked at the Celtics roster and seen like who's on the team.

So they lost from their rotation, Jason Tatum to injury, Drew Holiday, Christophs Porzingis, presumably Al Horford, and Luke Cornett.

And in return for all that, basically got Anferny Simons and a bunch of minimum level free agents that no one's ever heard of.

Is Anferny Simons gonna be on the team when the season starts?

I don't know.

It seems like maybe, but so let's just pencil in this starting five.

Derek White, awesome.

Everybody loves Derek White.

There should be a blog called Everybody Loves Derrick White.

Are there still blogs even?

I don't think are blogs even a thing.

Anthony Simons, just because.

Jalen Brown, awesome.

Great player.

All NBA level player.

All-star.

Is he ready for this without Jason Tatum full-time?

I think he probably is.

I don't know how the efficiency and the playmaking is going to look, but it's something.

Like, it might be ugly in games, you know.

And then I just penciled in like George Niang and Xavier Tillman because I don't know what else to do.

And off the bench, I've still got Peyton Pritchard.

And it's like Sam Hauser's here, Gonzalez, Shireman, Keda, Garza, Minot.

Like, it's just a like Missoula will find a way to make the most out of these guys.

But the depth chart, after literally like white, brown, Pritchard, and whatever you think of Simons crumbles to sand so fast.

And being that top heavy and that dependent on guys with minimal to no NBA track records is a recipe for a wildly below expectations regular season.

I don't really see a case for Celtics optimism.

I just don't see it.

And so that's why they're in this tier.

I have them in a tier with the Indiana Pacers that I called a gap year from hell.

I think that the Boston Celtics are just,

I mean,

Fundamentally, they should be motivated to lose games and develop players.

That's what they should be trying to do.

They should not be trying to win and throw miles on Derek White's body, on Jalen Brown's body.

I look at the roster.

The front court is completely non-existent.

I have no idea what their front court is.

It's really hard to believe when you look at it, and it's just like, whoa.

They signed nobody.

No,

it's a actions over words.

Are you like seriously trying to win games with

who is their starting center?

Katem?

I don't know.

I don't even know.

I only know two guys that are starting for sure.

Like, if you told me they decided to bring Simons off the bench or Simons isn't even on the team, I'd be like, okay, sure, whatever.

Put the Pritchard Simons back, like white, brown, and then who the hell knows?

I just don't think, I think people have internalized who they lost and why they lost them apron-wise,

and that Tatum's hurt.

I just don't think like people have actually looked at the roster, and it's, it's like,

it's, it's very, very shallow

it's very shallow and also

could get worse.

I mean like they are $20 million

about over the tax and they have every reason to get under the tax and will I would I would bet that they will and so

like who like who does that mean leaving the team?

It's like Simons probably you have we'll see about Hauser and Yang and

it's just It's just going to get worse before it gets better, for sure.

But like adding the

Niang, JD Davidson, like he's nice.

He'll be getting minutes.

He'll be getting minutes.

He's going to play.

He's interesting.

Jordan Walsh is interesting.

Like these guys might be playing like 25 minutes a game.

I'm not saying they're going to be like a 25 win team.

I'm saying like top six is I can't get there.

43 and a half, I would take the the under probably on that.

Like I just don't see a big like white and Brown are awesome.

And I think that's the case is that both of those guys at full health for 80 games are two,

and this is going to sound like a little crazy for Derrick White, two like borderline third team all-NBA players.

Like that's how good Derek White is.

He'll never make an all-NBA team because he doesn't score enough, but that's how good he is impact-wise.

And Jalen Brown has made all NBA before.

Can I just say, though, about those two, like you're removing Jason Tatum from the equation.

It's a whole different world now.

Like, their playmaking responsibilities, their scoring responsibilities completely change.

You're also removing a lot of shooting at the four and the five.

I mean, Niang can shoot, but like the five-out thing is, unless Garza is playing 25 minutes a game at center, is going to be very hard to replicate.

And if Garza's playing 25 minutes a game at center, I'm not sure how you're getting stops.

Exactly.

I think that you can still lead the league in three-point rate, and they've signed guys who will shoot threes.

That's cool, but all of them are bad defenders.

Going from Drew Holiday to Anthony Simons is a massive shock to the system for your defense.

And so I think that let alone like removing Jason Tatum, who is so good at so many different things.

He's a superstar who scores and makes plays for others,

but he also just does so many little things.

He's an excellent rebounder.

He's one of the best rebounders on the team.

He can guard all five positions.

He will set ball screens.

He's the initiator of their offense.

He's the skeleton key.

So just like removing him from all the different lineups that he was able to fit in will just dramatically just damage them.

And to speak nothing of Horford, Cornet, Porzingis, Holiday, these are really good basketball players, and they are no longer on the team.

So, yeah, I think that my top point is that they have every incentive to shed more salary.

They have every incentive to lose and try to get some

like magic luck in the lottery.

And that's kind of what this season should be all about for the Boston Celtics, I think.

Yeah, there is a world.

Now, clearly, as long as White and Brown and Pritchard, you know, with Missoula, they're going to try to compete, right?

And I think that that's the mandate from Brad Stevens.

Like, there's no interest in a tank year.

But, like,

there have been teams where they go in with the best of intentions and the season goes sideways on them, often due to injuries, and then they change course.

There's a universe in which that happens to the Celtics.

The Pacers, this is going to putting them here below Milwaukee, Miami, Detroit, and in this like, you're sorry, you're a play-in team tier, is going to feel disrespectful for a team that just made the finals

and just not only made the finals, but just lit the whole sports world on fire.

Like a legit, inspirational, magical run.

The reason we watch sports is for things like the Pacers clicking into something so much greater than the sum of their parts.

Two of the main parts are gone.

And

I just, and one, like, I don't even know what they are without Halliburton.

Like, they'll do, they'll press, they'll play hard on defense.

Nemhart and Siakam will scale up offensively.

Nemhart will become the primary initiators.

Siakum will become the number one option.

Their pick and roll will be interesting.

I just don't fundamentally know what the team looks like now without Halliburton.

And you project out their starting five.

We know three of them for sure.

Nemhart, Neesmith, Siakam.

Who's the other guard is almost more interesting to me than who's the replacement for Miles Turner?

Because we know it's either going to be Jay Huff or Isaiah Jackson.

We'll see what Wiseman can give them, if anything.

The other guard is like,

do you go McConnell to get another point guard on there?

I don't think so.

I like McConnell coming off the bench.

Do you go Shepard to just go sort of 3 and D shooting?

I'm not sure there's enough playmaking on the floor in that scenario.

I could see it.

Do you go Jarris Walker for a bigger version of the same player?

That feels like a big promotion.

Do you go Matherin by default because he's the best combination of scoring,

sometimes three-point shooting, size, whatever?

I have Matherin penciled in as the fifth starter there with let's just say Huff.

And then off the bench, I've got McConnell, Shepard, Walker, Toppin, whoever the backup center is.

And you can go Siakam, Toppin.

Like, they still have depth.

There's depth here of good,

okay to good NBA players, guys who were just playing in the finals and in McConnell's, in McConnell's place,

playing really well.

Walker's got something.

He fell out of the rotation due to injury.

He was on the fringes, then he got injured for the finals.

I just don't know what the roadmap here is to the kind of offense.

And even without Turner, was not a great defender anymore, but

who's holding down the center position on defense?

Like, I just don't.

38 and a half as an over-under actually feels kind of dead on to me.

I thought Vegas was going to be more optimistic about them.

It's just hard for me to see this team being like a no-brainer top six team.

And if you told me they scuffled to like 35 and 47, I wouldn't be shocked.

Yeah, I mean, the first sentence of my notes was this might be a little disrespectful, but I just think.

And Furfe, I forgot Furfe.

Furfe will get chances this year.

Dunk of the Summer League, I think.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

I think when you remove Halliburton from the equation, like,

you know, obviously maintaining the style of play that made them so special is just unrealistic.

And there's going to be a stylistic downshift that just takes so much of what made Indiana incredible off the table.

And I think, like, if I was trying to be optimistic, I would say that their defense could spike a little bit and be

more competent and harder to penetrate for from an offensive perspective but losing miles turner it's like those two starters is just such a double whammy for them um at critical positions and in critical roles so i just

i have so much respect for so many of the players here i think it's one of the best coaching staffs in the league um but at the end of the day i

kind of i i i paired them with the boston celtics and called it like the gap year from hell because I also think that when push comes to shove, they will be competitive and they have a lot of

fiery personalities and guys who want to win on the team and they just made the finals.

But it is probably in the organization's best interest to not be super good this year and trading for their first round pick serendipitously

with the New Orleans Pelicans and getting that back allows them to be pretty bad.

And I think that that is okay for one season and then you get Halliburton back and everyone is in the mix.

And it's, you know, you try to kumbay what happened last season next year, but, or two years from now.

But yeah, it's like,

I don't know how good this team can be without Halliburton and Miles Turner.

The guy that I'm almost most interested to see is Matherin because

there was a time last season, particularly when Neesmith and Nemhart were out and the team just didn't have an identity, identity, where you'd hear rumblings of like, he just doesn't fit the way the Pacers play.

Like, he holds, he stops the ball, holds the ball, not a great passer.

I'm looking now, he averaged 1.9 assists in the regular season, 0.9 in the playoffs.

Defense up and down, better

on ball screens, but up and down.

And it was like, are they going to salary dump him?

Is that going to be the salary dump to get under the tax?

And then in the playoffs, look, the passing is still scattershot, to say the least, but there were games where he felt like essential to their team, just the burst, the scoring, the physicality.

And

I'm interested to see, can he direct his game more toward,

and I said several times, like, I actually have grown to like that he plays a little differently than the rest of the Pacers.

I think it's a kind of curveball that they need.

But I still, like, being a better passer and defender would be good for him and good for the entire team.

Is he going to veer that way, or is he going to be like, well, now they need me to score.

Now I'm averaging, now I'm going to try and average 20 a game.

I just, does he cement himself as a core Halliburton pacer, or

does he just sort of go for points and the team is still kind of undecided?

I think that's interesting.

But I think we have them in the right place.

We hit everybody.

I think we hit every team.

Apologies to the Bulls.

We didn't talk about you very much.

I already did a deep dive on you.

I think we hit everyone, right?

We did.

We did.

I hope I wasn't too harsh on the Milwaukee Bucks.

Their fans, they love me, and I wonder if their opinion will change after hearing this podcast.

Maybe it's all part of the game.

Michael Pino, what else we got going?

I'm going on vacation in exactly a week.

What am I going to see from you between now and then?

And I'll be reading.

I'll be reading abroad.

Yeah, you know,

hopefully, I will be

not doing too much, Zach.

We'll see.

Hopefully my editor is not listening, but I would love to just lay down and read a lot of books.

That's how I like to spend my free time with two young kids running around as well.

So hopefully that's what I get to do.

I've got some books lined up for the Euro trip.

Michael Pina,

this week was, you kind of reviewed the offseason, had some offseason takes.

I don't know if it was late last week, early this week.

Go read that at theringer.com.

Thank you for your time.

I will see you on the other side of vacation, my friend.

Thank you, Zach.

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All right, Mets Corner.

Let's have some fun.

Four-game winning streak back and first in the NL East.

John Jostramsky of New York, New York of SNY, you're going to answer my stupid baseball questions.

Are you ready for Mets Corner, baby?

Zach, first of all, I am honored to be on the show, number one.

Number two, I know I have a very tough act to follow because you've had Sean Fantasy on the last couple of weeks.

We know he is this die-hard, disgruntled, in-the-weeds Met fan.

I am not a Met fan.

However, it is a major topic on my podcast.

I talk about it on a regular basis.

I talk about it all the time when I am on SNY after these games.

So I think you got the right guy for the job.

I'm ready to go.

We're not going to talk about who you're a fan of.

No comment.

Well, I have issues with them.

We'll save Yankee Corner for another day, though.

I don't want to be on that.

Yankee Corner.

Forget Yankee Corner.

I don't want to be on that corner.

I will say one of my good friends here,

my daughter's best friend's dad, their whole family is Yankees fans, and they had

an older daughter who graduated middle school.

And I said, what do you, can I get you?

She's such a sweet case.

So I'll get you a present.

What do you want?

And I said, who's your favorite Yankee?

She's a huge Yankee fan.

She loves baseball.

She plays softball.

She shout out Mia.

She's a huge baseball fan.

And she wanted Cabrera.

What's his first name?

Oswaldo Cabrera.

That is a very interesting purchase that you had to.

So I bought her an Oswaldo Cabrera t-shirt, you know, the dark blue with whatever his number is on the back.

And I went to the house and I knocked on the door.

And she was on the top of the staircase.

And I threw it to her like it, like it was a bag of flaming poop.

I was like, I don't want this in my hand anymore.

I don't want to see it.

Get it out of my hand.

It was very difficult for me.

But she has worn it a lot, so I feel good.

See, I was the bigger man.

Well, I appreciate you doing that.

I just hope you flung the t-shirt the way I used to fling all sorts of newspapers when I delivered the Staten Island Advance for a longer, long, long period of time in my life.

I hope you had the proper form, Zach.

That's what I wanted.

And I didn't even take it out of the packaging.

I was like, I can't even look at it.

I want it out of my hands immediately.

Okay, the Mets have won four straight, just swept the Angels.

They are 59 and 44.

They were at one point 45 and 24 with the best record in in baseball and then went on a 3-13 skid

where everything went to shit and all the pitchers were injured.

They are 11-6 in their last 17 games.

So, like,

what is this team?

Is this a contender?

Is this a sub, like, to my dumb, uneducated ass, having watched them now more or less for the full season, not every game, not all of every game, but enough, they feel like a team that's good.

But, like, they just have never been, like, together enough for, like, a lot of their 45 and 24 when they built up their record was they just like destroyed the Rockies and the White Sox and all these crap teams.

They have never felt since then like a team where I'm like, yeah, I have a lot of faith this team can get like to the World Series, can win a bunch of playoff series.

They're good though.

Like what are they?

That's baseball in a nutshell in 2025 though, Zach.

So I understand that argument.

You want to tell me you have problems with the bottom of the med order that has come to life over the last few games?

Saving them.

They're saving their asses right now.

You can make that critique.

The pitching kind of outkicked the coverage over the first two months of the year and i think you were due for the inevitable market correction i think you saw that in june and into july but you just got codai senga back you just got sean mania back i like him i've never seen him before he's he's

he strikes out a lot of dudes we need a guy who strikes out a lot of dudes last year

He made a tweak in his delivery watching Chris Sale with Atlanta and started getting a lot more funky and a lot more three quarters.

And his second half, he was like a different pitcher.

He went from being a guy who was pitching like an ERA in the high threes to the low fours.

Then all of a sudden he's pitching like Whitey Ford and Guidry circa 1978.

I was like, how did the Mets do this with Shawn Maniah?

But what I'm getting at here is you're getting two major pieces back into the equation.

You're also going to have a GM who, in my opinion, is going to be very aggressive at this trade deadline, knowing he's he's got Steve Cohen's wallet, knowing they got a window to win.

I think they're going to approach the deadline much differently than they have the last few years.

And baseball's mediocre, dude.

So, like, yeah, to answer your question, you're a contender.

I don't care how many flaws you may have.

The Dodgers are not as invincible as everybody's making them out.

They're going through it right now, right?

Big time.

They're having a ton of injuries on their starting pitching staff.

Their bullpen is no great shakes.

And I know they won the World Series.

And I know their lineup's amazing.

And I know they killed the Mets last year.

But it's a five-game series.

This is, see, Zach, you're coming from, and I know NBA now has way more parity and way more upheaval, and the sport has changed over the last few years.

But baseball, every year come playoff time.

That's what you expect.

Just gotta be saying, exactly.

So you may have your issues with the Mets.

Get into the tournament, get into the dance, and you're in it to win it.

That's the way I see it.

Well, but you want to get in with as much leeway for some, like, I don't even know how the playoffs work anymore.

I don't want to be like the second wild cartoon.

Then you just be out immediately.

So we got to, first, step one is we got to win this division.

That would help, right?

Like, you should get a big reward for that.

That's a big one.

I'm going to throw a little wrinkle into that.

I understand that point.

And I think from like a conservative fan perspective, you'd say, wow, why would I want to play a best of three in the playoffs?

The Mets did that last year.

Worked out pretty well for them with Milwaukee.

And then they they took on the team that won the division, and they beat them in four games.

So I think when this new playoff format came out, my feeling was exactly the same as you.

Now I'm kind of of the mindset where it's like, yeah, it's high-stakes poker.

Yeah, it's a little Russian roulette playing that best of three.

But if you win it, all of a sudden the momentum you have is kind of helped teams, Texas, Arizona, the Phillies, the Mets.

Just saying.

Texas, Arizona, by the way, name of a bar I used to frequent in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Just some bad times at Texas Arizona.

I've been there as well.

I've gotten carried out in a body bag.

I understand.

I had some bad nights at Texas, Arizona.

So Mania is back.

Senga's back.

And yesterday against the Angels, some slumps got busted.

Alonzo hit a home run.

Lindor went two for four.

They just need, like, these, and Soto is still in a slump, but the top of the order seems, the Lindor thing got concerning to me.

Like, once his average dipped below 250, he was hitless in 31 straight at bats.

He broke his toe and just like like played through it.

I was starting to get a little concerned.

Should I be concerned?

But then I know some people with dementia are like, this happens every year.

He goes through, he goes through it.

But he was really going through it.

So usually Lindor goes through these horrific stretches in April.

That's always been his M.O., that he's a notorious slow starter, that it takes him till mid-May when the weather gets warmer to really get going.

And this year, he didn't have that terrible start to the year he actually got off to a very very nice start he had a bunch of big hits he had a bunch of big home runs i'm not concerned about him the player i think he is now in a comfort zone he's got a zen about him the my girl thing at city field i think it's oh it's the best it's the best so you know I want to make fun of the Mets for it, but I'm jealous.

Like, as somebody that's going to Yankee Stadium on Friday, I wish there was a serenade sing-along for somebody on my team.

It's the perfect song, too.

It's not like a cool song.

You're not trying to be cool.

It's just like a fun, feel-good, kind of corny song, but everyone loves it.

It's a throwback.

It's a classic.

How can anybody hate on the temptations?

But Lindor, the reason I'd be worried, not the player, the foot, the toe, whatever it is, is it to a point where it's just going to limit him from being the guy he was last year where

he was second in the MVP.

He carried the Mets to the postseason.

That game 161 he had down in Atlanta, that's one of the biggest hits in a regular season game I've ever seen from a New York Met.

I think that would be my cause for concern.

Alonzo, I have no cause for concern.

Alonzo's a beast.

Listen, the guy just wakes up, rolls out of bed, hits dingers, and now has Juan Soto hitting in front of him.

So it's kind of changed the sort of pitches he's getting on a regular basis.

He's pitching with runners on, he's getting a hit with runners on base.

I'd be a little bit more concerned.

Durability helped Lindor than I would be with Alonzo, who's A-ok.

Yeah, Alonzo is awesome.

Uh, he's now, I think, four home runs away from breaking Daryl Strawberry's record.

Daryl Strawberry was my favorite player when I was a kid.

Um, I was at Strawberry.

I good and strawberry were obviously the guys, but I just, there's something about Daryl Strawberry with the elbow up.

I just loved Daryl Strawberry, so it's going to be cool when he breaks it.

Uh, and Soto is just like, I was, I'm, I'm educated enough, even as just a sports fan, that I was never worried about Soto.

Like, the guys that good are just that good.

He's fine.

Lindor, it's so funny.

My daughter just has gravitated toward Lindor.

She loves him.

She's 10.

Loves Lindor.

We went to one game.

He turned like four double plays.

He's got his hair's poofy.

He's got the song.

She just loves everything about him.

To the point, it's so funny to watch games with her because, you know, we'll be watching the game and he'll Lindor strikes out again and he's old for his last 26, whatever.

And I'll be sitting there like, man, this guy's really got a hit.

And she'll turn to me.

She's like, Daddy, don't be mean to him.

He's trying.

He's trying.

Like, don't be mean to him.

He's doing his boy.

And so last night we're watching and he gets that RBI single to put him up 2-1.

And she's like, he busted his slump.

He ran in, mommy, Lindor got out of his slump.

I'm like, I love this little girl so much.

She just loves Lindor and she loves Torrens.

And you know why she loves Torrens of all the players to love?

Because her favorite teacher ever, her last name is Torres.

And so she's like, he's one letter away from Torres.

I love Torrens.

And so Alvarez comes up.

And you're going to have to tell me if this Alvarez stuff, if I should be getting my hopes up that maybe this is a guy.

and she's, and she's like, well, who's this Alvarez guy?

Where's Torrance?

And I'm like, well, this guy's like a highly talented prospect.

He went to the minors, he'd a million home runs, but he swings at everything, and they don't kind of trust him.

She's like, well, I guess, I mean, I want him to be good, but I miss Torrens.

This is how a 10-year-old consumes baseball.

So is Alvarez, like, is this guy a guy?

What do I need to know?

All right, first things first, this is exciting for me as somebody who has a two-month-old daughter.

I really hope that I'm going to be able to go through this with her, and she's going to be as crazy as your daughter is for watching all the sports and getting into it.

This just sounds fantastic.

As far as Alvarez,

the guy was the number one prospect in baseball a couple of years ago.

And his first year he came up, hit a ton of home runs, mets were out of it, was one of the bright spots of the 2023 season.

Okay.

Last year, really put an effort in honing in and improving his defense.

Did a great job of that.

His offense suffered.

He did not have a great offensive year.

He got hurt.

That said, if you go back to the playoff games, and your daughter would have liked this because I was calling for Luis Terence to actually play in some of those playoff games, the pitchers were so adamant, Zach, that they wanted to throw to Alvarez, that they felt comfortable with him, that there was a rapport, there was a rhythm.

So even though Alvarez was having a crummy offensive postseason, Carlos Mendoza is like, I'm not making any changes with my catcher because my pitchers are comfortable.

Interesting.

We're cool with that.

We're going to rock with that.

Fast forward to this year.

Listen, Alvarez was rotten before he got sent down.

He was terrible offensively.

His defense had regressed.

He was making mental mistakes.

And the Mets humbled the kid.

I mean, you're the top prospect in all baseball a couple of years ago, and you're getting sent back down to AAA.

You can handle that in one of two ways.

You can sulk, you can pout, you can be a pain in the butt, or you can go down to Syracuse, work your ass off.

Do the very best that you can, and get your butt back to the big leagues and make an impact.

Well, hit like 11 home runs in 13 games, whatever it was in Syracuse.

It was stupid.

I get it.

It's triple-A pitching, but the guy was hitting dinger after dinger.

He comes back,

hits basically a go-ahead hit on Monday, hits a homer on Tuesday, makes a couple of nice defensive plays.

Zach, if he can be a plus catcher for the Mets, forget about top prospect in baseball.

If he can be offensively a top half catcher, it completely changes the feel of the lineup because you're not nearly as top heavy.

I think that's one of the big themes with the Mets.

You know, they have the big four.

Cohen called them the fab four.

I love you, Steve.

It's an awful nickname.

They're the Beatles.

No, no, no, no, no.

Met fans, please, please, do not refer to your four as the fab four.

It's insulting to me.

Nimmo is the fourth one.

That's what I mean.

And I love Ryan.

I like Stall.

I like Nimmo.

Nimmo is like.

Nimmo's good player.

So again, I've checked out for a long time.

I'm aware that he's been on the Mets his whole career, vaguely aware.

He's just like rock solid.

He's not spectacular.

He probably never made an all-star all-star team, right?

But he's just like, I feel comfortable with a Brandon Nemo at all times.

He's a pain in the ass to play against, too, because he sees Azillion pitches.

He gets on base a ton.

He's moved off his center field.

That was something that a lot of people were concerned about.

It's like, oh, does his offense profile as well at one of the corner spots?

And now he's hitting a lot more home runs and hitting.

He's got 19 homers.

He's had a terrific, terrific season.

But you need to find answers in your lineup after that 4-5 spot.

And if Alvarez can do that, all of a sudden maybe you get an average center fielder at the trade deadline and you figure out, okay, is it Beatty?

Is it Mauricio?

Is it Vientos at third base?

Then Zach, you're a contender, baby.

So speaking of contender, again, I know nothing about anything.

Okay, just let me preface that.

Mets 59 and 44.

Phillies 58 and 44.

Brewers just won 1,000 games in a row, 61 and 41.

Cubs, 60 and 42, have this dude Crow Armstrong that is apparently lighting the world on.

And you gifted him for Javi Baez.

It was a good thing you were out on the Mets at that particular point in your life.

That was our guy.

The Mets had Pete Crow Armstrong

traded him for Javi Baez in the summer of 2021.

Who's Javi Baez?

Well, he was on the Cubs, won a World Series with the Cubs, then...

Played for the Mets for two months, hit a bunch of home runs, but was an absolute ass.

He did the whole thumbs down to the crowd.

He was the Julius Randle?

Did the Julius Randle before Julius Randle?

It was worse than Julius Randle.

100 times worse than Julius Randle.

Huge story for the Mets.

Major blowback.

Well, he went to Detroit, signed a huge contract.

He was terrible his first two years with Detroit.

This year, though, Zach, Javi Baez and Pete Crowe Armstrong for the respective leagues both started in the all-star game.

How about that?

And was Pete Crowe Armstrong, like, had he played for the big Mets at all?

But he was touted as like, people knew this dude was going to be.

He was a big prospect, and a lot of people thought he'd be a wizard defensively.

I think the surprise has been his offensive game.

I don't think people around the Mets or just people in baseball for that matter thought he'd turn into an offensive player that's like

starting an all-star game.

And was that team 2021?

You say, was that team good enough to justify that kind of like, let's go for it right now?

Absolutely not.

Did Stearns make that trade?

No, he did not.

This is great.

This is great content for you.

This is what I'm here for.

I'm here to enlighten.

I'm here to inform.

You took a hiatus for a few years.

Okay, so my point was, Cubs have this great record.

Dodgers are the Dodgers 60 and 43.

Padre is always hanging around 55 and 47.

Then I look at the AL.

60 and 42 Blue Jays, 60 and 43 Tigers, 60 and 42 Astros.

And it's kind of a big drop to your guys at 56 and 46.

Is the NL better than the AL?

Is the AL deeper than the NL?

Is there any demonstrable difference between the two leagues?

I look at the records.

I'm a little jealous of the American League teams that are like fourth, fifth, sixth in the American League.

You should be.

I thought going into the year wasn't even close.

That's why people ask me, Zach, out of two New York teams, who would be more likely to get to the World Series?

And it didn't necessarily mean that roster-wise, I liked the Yankee roster more than the Met roster.

But I looked at the NL, and at the beginning of the year, I'm like, okay, the Dodgers are going to be a problem.

The Phillies are going to be a problem.

I thought the Braves are going to be good.

Clearly, they're not.

They stink.

So you can cross them off.

But Padres, Cubs improved.

The team that's stunning me is the Brewers.

I can't believe the Brewers are doing this.

They're a really smart organization.

They know how to develop pitching, but their run-through differential kind of proves, hey, they got something going.

The American League, Detroit, is falling out hard times, but I like their team.

I like their manager.

They got the best pitcher in baseball and school.

The Astros, I can't believe they keep doing it.

They lose guy after guy.

They lose Bregman.

They lose Tucker.

They lose Garrett Cole.

They lose George Springer.

They don't miss anything, dude.

They don't cheat anymore, right?

Just one time they cheated.

I don't even like the cheating excuse.

I just have a friend who's an Astros fan, so I just like to do it.

You got to give a shit for that.

That's fair.

I would do the same thing.

It bothers me from a Yankees standpoint because to me, it's a loser mentality.

Like, the Yankees lost to the Astros because the Astros were better.

Not because they had buzzers.

Not because the Yankees, you know, were cheated out of anything.

I think the Yankees scored in the 2017 ALCS.

I think they scored like two runs in four games down in Houston.

That's why you didn't go to the World Series.

You lost in four games in 2022.

I'm sorry.

I don't want to hear about cheating.

But to answer your question, DNL is a much deeper league.

But I do wonder, specifically with the Dodgers, who were supposed to be, hey, this unstoppable, unbeatable, wagon of a team that you could just shoe in, pencil in 110 wins, World Series.

On and on we go.

They're vulnerable.

They are absolutely vulnerable.

That's the way I'd look at it if I'm a Met fan.

The Mets can beat the Dodgers in a playoff series.

They're one game behind them right now.

Now, the Mets' run differential is kind of ho-hum for a team with their record.

That worries me a little bit.

The bullpen, there's been a lot of, I read Jeff Passenger's trade column today on ESPN about.

Look at you getting informed.

I'm proud of you for that.

Apparently, I looked up Eugenio Suarez.

Am I saying his name right?

I looked up his stats.

He's a third baseman.

He has like a thousand home runs.

Like, that guy is, he leads the NL in home runs, I think.

Yeah, he'd look nice in the Bronx.

They need help at that point.

They know they're talking about him, too.

Is this bridge to Diaz, this dire, like, is this the number one need for the Mets?

In my opinion, yes.

Now, you can make the argument that they're going to get themselves a big reliever in the next two months without making a trade.

Because Coy Holmes, the former Yankee, is starting for the first time this year.

Opening day starter.

I was like, who the hell is this guy?

He's starting an opening day.

I look at all his career stats.

I was like,

all-star causer for the Yankees.

Really good job.

Lost the job last year.

Yankee fans couldn't stand him, myself included.

Worked his way back into the circle of trust.

Didn't end up getting that role back, but he did play a big part of their bullpen in the postseason.

I never in a million years thought he'd be able to start games.

Like, I didn't look at his pitch repertoire and say, oh, this is a guy like Lugo who had five or six pitches and is going to be able to do this.

I was skeptical.

The Mets shut me up.

He's pitched really well, but he's never started games before in the big leagues.

He's now reached an innings point that, to me, is not sustainable, taking a ball every fifth day.

So I think he'll be a part of your bullpen sooner rather than later.

If you can go and compliment Clay Holmes going to the bullpen with one or two other arms.

And I trust David Stearns to do that.

He's the sort of GM that's very resourceful and has a keen eye with pitching.

They'll probably, Zach, get one or two relievers that you haven't really heard much about.

I'll be right there with you.

Be like, hmm, don't know much about this guy.

Got to do a little research on this guy.

And then you'll see him in August and September, and you'll be like, Yeah, he's shoving.

David Searns knew exactly what he was doing.

So I'd look at the Mets and I'd say, pitching help, reliever, starter, either one, because if you get a starter, then you have more flexibility with guys that you can move to the bullpen.

But if there ain't anybody on offense, they need a center fielder.

Tyrone Taylor's offense is just not good enough.

And McNeil's played there.

So what happens if McNeil can play?

McNeil can play everywhere, though.

They move him all around.

I like McNeil.

I understand he was polarizing, and he's kind of had a bounce back year after some disappointing years, but he's played there.

Center field, okay.

Centerfield.

Yeah, Taylor, just

you can't hit 215 with one home run or whatever he's got and be an outfielder, right?

I mean, I don't care if you're a center fielder.

You got to hit a little bit.

I'll write that with you.

And I know his defense is really good.

I know he hit in the playoffs last year.

You can't have a five-something OPS and be an everyday player on a championship team.

Speaking of hitting the playoffs last year, again, the playoffs is when I got laid off, checked back in.

Okay.

I thought, like, I'm coming in the season, like, this Vientos guy, wow, what a playoffs.

Like, what the hell is going on?

Is this guy good?

Like,

he's starting to make good contact now.

He's had some hard hit outs.

He's had a couple of big hits.

Is this a thing?

Can we rely on him?

Or is this like that?

Was a little bit of a fluke?

So I was the biggest card-carrying member of the Swaggy V fan club?

Oh, that's what we're calling him?

Swaggy V is his nickname.

Okay.

That's what they call him in the clubhouse.

I can't say I came up with it.

That's what I've heard.

He was so awesome last year, Zach.

Talk about getting humbled like Alvarez.

He thought he was going to be on the opening day roster last year.

He's not.

They sent him down to Triple-A.

He's pissed off about it.

They call him up in May.

He gets a bunch of big hits.

He takes the job away from Beatty and is the third baseman.

He had one of the most productive offensive seasons on the team.

And you can make the argument that in the playoffs, he was their best hitter.

Like, that's how good Viantos was in 24.

I thought it was the beginning of him being a household name in Queens.

I'm looking at him.

He's only 25.

He's a young guy.

Young guy.

I didn't know if he could cut it defensively at third base.

That was a concern I had going into the offseason.

But from like an offensive standpoint, I was like, this guy's going to rake.

How is he not going to rake?

I have been stunned how poorly he has hit the ball, and I am stunned how pathetic his numbers have been.

I need to see more than a couple hard-hit balls.

I need more of a sustained sample.

The problem he's going to run into, Zach, all of a sudden there's competition now for his job because Starling Marte is back.

Starling Marte has hit in the DH spot.

He's going to get it bats because he can hit a fastball.

He can roll out of bed and hit a fastball.

And then you have the other young guys at third base where Beatty's played well at home.

Mauricio's raw and he's coming off injury.

I don't trust him anymore.

I had like a weak love affair with Mauricio.

Every time he comes up, I'm like, he's going to be behind 0-2, but I'm just going to blink.

It's going to be 0-2.

You're out of Mauricio.

I'm not out.

I'm just like, I got excited, and now I'm like, it's, I don't know, I don't know.

I get too excited too fast.

I get it.

Give him wiggle room, though.

This is a guy coming off major, major surgery who I thought was not going to be a player for them at all this year.

So, listen, Vientos would be a great guy to get going because we saw what he did last year.

I think he has the highest upside and ceiling out of any of those guys offensively.

You can put at third base.

If you can get him being a part of this thing in a big way, much like Alvarez, changes the feel of your lineup.

All right, I got an important question for you.

Oh, boy.

Well, Mauricio.

Okay, let me go back to Mauricio.

Again, I know nothing.

He strikes me as undisciplined as a hitter.

Fantasy tells me he can't hit lefties at all.

So that's already just like, that's over.

I just, he just, again, it's like 0-2, every single, just swinging a bad pitch.

Is he undisciplined?

Is this like, what does he need to do?

He is, but he's also a young, raw, inexperienced player.

So I think you have to take that for what it is.

Now, is that something you can develop over time?

That's on Ronnie Mauricio.

The problem, he's the perfect guy, Zach, that if the team's stunk, you'd play him every day.

You'd say, get your seasoning in the big leagues and make those adjustments being a big leaguer.

Where the Mets are at as a team, they can't do that.

Did Soto walk in as like a 20-year-old with this kind of batting eye?

I know he's leads the league in walks since he came into the majors, but like, did he come in as just this disciplined?

Yes.

Think about this for a second.

The guy couldn't even legally drink, and he's in the World Series against two Hall of Fame pitchers, Justin Verlander and Garrett Cole for the Astros in 2019.

They couldn't get him out.

Couldn't get him out.

19 years old, 20 years old, playing in the World Series, and he had this unreal batting eye and this swagger and this confidence.

That's why I was so stunned the first two months that he put as poorly as he did.

Because I watched him every single game with the Yankees last year.

Zach, from game one to game 162, Won Soto was the dude.

He just like embraced the spotlight, the moment, being a Yankee, coming up in big spots, the whole deal.

Wasn't the case for the first two months with the Mets, but listen, his June, one of the best months in the history of the franchise.

He's gotten a couple of big hits recently, which to me has been kind of a bugaboo for him.

Where, hey, you're Juan Soto, you're going to get those big hits.

You're going to have those big moments.

And they're starting to come.

And listen,

you just know it.

It's like certain you see certain guys where there's the adjustment, like LeBron, not to compare him to LeBron, but you know, LeBron in Miami, where there was the adjustment period, but you knew, hey, he's LeBron, he's going to be fine.

Same sort of deal with Soto.

I just love every at-bat is like

he'll take a close pitch and the umpire will call it a strike.

And sometimes the umpire, according to the pitch box thing, is right and sometimes he's wrong.

And Soto just has this dialogue where he'll look at him like, you sure?

Was I wrong?

Was I wrong to take that?

And it seems like a friendly, and then he'll sometimes just like the dialogue will be over and he'll make this hits like, hmm, okay.

Like, I don't, I kind of don't believe you, but I'm moving on to the next.

I just love the theatrics.

He just sees it as this nice dialogue, and he's like, because I'm, like, I'm on Soto.

Like, are you sure you got that one right?

There are certain guys who have that mastery of the strike zone.

Wade Boggs had it for years, where it was just like, you knew, and he knew.

It's the same sort of deal.

And the Theatrics make it in a whole other experience with Soto.

And, you know, he didn't have the shuffle early in the year, the nodding when he sees a pitch and he kind of acknowledges, all right, this is what you're looking to do.

Like, the Abat, if you want to watch a fun Soto Abat, I don't know if you watched it last year, if you're already all in on NBA coverage, the Abat he had in game five of the LCS against

Cleveland, the Guardians, get them to the World Series.

I know.

I'm the worst with that.

It's tough.

It's 40 years of baseball history.

We all make mistakes.

John Sterling would do it repeatedly during the playoffs, but that's why John Sterling is John Sterling.

Boy, you just said two words that just sent

a shiver up my spine.

Yankees win.

Yankees win.

You're banned.

That's it.

You're never coming back.

If you do a Waldman, if you do a do a Susie Waldman impersonation, it's really all over.

Just their voices.

If I even, if I were at dinner,

Susie Waldman, what is she doing now?

She still does the Yankees.

If I were at dinner in a restaurant and from four tables behind me, I heard that voice, I would get up and fucking leave.

I can't even overhear it.

I can't.

No, she's great at her job.

I'm sure.

It's just, it's, I can't, and Sterling, forget it.

I can't, I can't even.

okay anyway so

I feel like I'm uh Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars the hate is flowing through you Zach

I used to drive around I used to drive around in my car unnecessarily like on the way back from a late shift or something listening to Bob Murphy on the radio call him Metski's like Garfonzo he had to smoke like 10 cigarettes while he's doing a broadcast it was just great

I don't know what the hell we were talking about when you said John Sterling about Sotos at bat I think oh game five LCS Watch that at bat.

And it just sums up Soto in a nutshell.

Like, that's what makes him the hitter that he is.

And don't be surprised if he has a moment like that in a big game against the Phillies, in a big game in the playoffs, where it's like, yep, that's why you gave him $780 million.

Last question.

It's a very important one for me.

I have a blue Piazza batting practice jersey.

I have a home pinstripe, traditional home pinstripe Todd Hundley jersey.

Whoa, okay.

Friggin' at bat.

And I want a new one.

Like, and I'm, and I'm, like, just curious, there's more jerseys into rotation now.

What's your favorite Mets jersey?

Not number, not player.

Like, is there a jersey?

Is the pinstripe one the one I should get?

Because I got to tell you, I like the gray Rode jerseys a lot and how the blue and the orange New York.

I like that they say New York, and I like that it really pops off the gray.

Is that a good, like, what's a good jersey?

What should I do?

I think you nailed it.

The road gray Met jersey is my favorite jersey.

It's a beautiful jersey.

It's very Mets,

New York.

I don't like the pinstrap Yankee jersey either.

And maybe this is because I'm a messy eater and I go to a ball game.

I'm spilling beer on my jersey.

There might be a hot dog stain of mustard.

I've had that happen to me in the past where I'm a little particular with the white.

And like the gray Yankee jerseys might go to.

That's the one I wear.

Beautiful jersey.

Paul O'Neal, the Don Mattingly, I love it.

I hated Paul O'Neill so much.

Oh, you and Simmons.

I mean, it is stunning that Simmons allowed me to work here, by the way, with all the love that I have for the teams that I grew up with.

And then, you know,

O'Neal and

I'll tell you this.

Don't even get me started on throwing the bat at Piazza.

But first of all, I will concede the Yankees' jerseys are beautiful.

I like the pinstripe ones for both teams.

I think the color scheme works at the same time.

You know what jersey bothers me for the Mets?

NYC?

Yes.

Can't stand them.

Everyone hates that jersey.

It's kind of growing on me.

You know what?

With the purple, I guess it's all right because I identified it last year with Grimace.

I called them the Grimace jerseys, and they were like, good luck for the Mets.

The black bring me back to my childhood because I remember when the Mets introduced those, it was the late 90s.

It was very like Bobby Valentine, Mike Hampton, you know, like those teams.

So I like that that's kind of back in the fold, but I'm kind of of the mindset, Zach, with sports jerseys.

Less is more.

I don't like Tenzillion jerseys.

A lot of the modern ones stink.

Like, I'm a Miami Dolphins fan.

Their new uniforms make me so ill because their classic throwback dolphin is so baller.

It's so amazing.

And that should be the uniform all the time.

The Mets, to me, it should be the two classic uniforms and then the alternate black.

That's it.

You don't like blue?

No, I don't need blue.

No.

I like the blue.

It's too many, though.

It's too many.

So I'm going to go gray then, and

then I have to decide

what player.

By the way, you mentioned all the Yankees you grew up with.

I'm still.

My college roommate was a Padres fan from San Diego.

That was a strike.

That was a strike to Tino Martinez in gave him a World Series.

And the next pitch went to the upper deck.

I want to replay that whole World Series with that.

Was that umpire dead?

What happened?

It was right over the middle of the plate.

I could be wrong on this, so the listeners can fact-check me on this.

I am pretty sure the same umpire who blew Jeffrey Mayer in 1996 when the kid reached over the wall and they called it a home run with General.

No, Tony Tarasco.

Tony Tarrasco.

I believe Richie Garcia, who was the umpire of Donald Reichville on, was the home point umpire in game one of the World Series.

Is he in prison?

No comment.

All right, John Trustremski, thank you for your time and indulging me on Mets Corner.

I'll have you back.

We'll let you talk about the Yankees at some point.

Thank you, sir.

Not necessary.

Thanks for having me, Zach.

Anytime, dude.

All right, that's it for today's Zach Lowe show.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you you to Michael Pina for tearing the east with me.

We had some disagreements, so we soldier through.

We made it through the Junior Varsity Conference.

Thanks to JJ for debuting on Mets Corner and letting me rant about baseball a little bit.

I'm getting a little too excited about the Mets.

I'm a little worried about myself.

We're back barring news on our regular schedule next week, Monday, Thursday, and then it's vacation time, Europe time for me.

Thank you for listening to the Zach Lowe Show.

Thank you for watching.

Thank you to Jesse and Jonathan on production.

As always, we will see you next week.

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