Transcript of LaMelo Ball to the Timberwolves! Reactions and Grades. Plus, Mets Corner! New

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Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show.

We're back.

We're already back after analyzing a whole big pile of NBA news just yesterday. Here we are again. LaMelo Ball traded from Charlotte to Minnesota along with Josh Green for Nas Reid and a whole bunch of draft assets going back to the Charlotte Hornets. Minnesota uses the last bullets in its NBA trade chamber Lamelo Ball, to pair him with Anthony Edwards after losing Julius Randle and now Naz Reid, two of their three core big men, a complete sea change of identity, a gamble on one of the most polarizing players in the NBA. Is it a smart gamble? Is it a dumb gamble? What are the Wolves doing? Does this give them any kind of shot to compete in the Western Conference? Is it the wrong player to go all in on? We talk all about that with John Krasinski, Elmo Dikil, And then we also discussed the Charlotte event. Wow, what an astonishing response to the most exciting Hornets season in a long, long time. Talk about ruthlessly taking the long view. Was this a little too ruthless or what, what is Charlotte up to in getting off of LaMelo Ball? Is it just health related?

Is there something more? We talk about that and then Mo sticks around to talk about Warriors future, LeBron future, Pistons sniffing around some interesting stuff, everything that's going on in the NBA and then It's time. It's been a while. We're, we're back on Mets Corner and it's, it's, it's not going great. Sean Fennessey's here. That's coming up. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. I told you we'd be back if there were news and boom, there is news that is both surprising and not that surprising. The Minnesota Timberwolves have acquired LaMelo Ball, every 10-and-under's favorite player and top jersey seller from the Charlotte Hornets. The feel-good story of the second half, a legitimate semi-dominant second half of the season, and out goes their offensive engine on the pair with Anthony Edwards in his draft class back in the day in Minnesota. In exchange, Timberwolves fan favorite, Naz Reid, whose very name is just code for being a fan and for being awesome. People just say the name Naz Reid as they walk around Minneapolis. And an unprotected 2033 first rounder, 3 first round pick swaps in 2028, 2029, 2030, and 3 second round picks. Josh Green also goes to Minnesota, which is not a trivial bit of salary.

A blockbuster. And just a fascinating deal, a fascinating vote of no confidence by the Hornets in LaMelo Ball after his healthiest season in a long time, after their most successful season in ages, a season that ended for the third time in LaMelo Ball's career in a play-in blowout, which I think is not irrelevant here. And then on the flip side, a fascinating bet by the Minnesota Timberwolves, who salary dumped Julius Randle in order to do something like this. I think they have another move coming in free agency likely to address the void at power forward. A complete sea change for the Timberwolves. 2 of their 3 main rotation big men, Randle and Reed, are gone. And in their place is a guard-heavy, faster, smaller, more dynamic, potentially offensive team with Gobert still on the back line. John Krasinski from The Athletic is here. Mo Tequila from Everywhere is here. Guys, this is a fun one. How's everybody doing?

Doing great, Zach. Super fun. Yeah, it's like, I went to bed last night thinking it could happen, woke up this morning and it did happen. And credit the Wolves, man. They are never shy about making polarizing big deals and trying to go for it. And here they go again.

You ain't kidding, John. Like, they have now— Tim Connelly has now traded for literally 2 of like the 5 most polarizing players in the NBA, Rudy Gobert and now LaMelo Ball. Obviously the price for LaMelo lower than what they paid for Rudy Gobert. But I want to start, first of all, Mo, how are you?

I'm doing well.

And to kind of echo John's sentiments, I woke up this morning, you know, started doing my routine, making the coffee for my wife, all that stuff. And then, you know, it was like, oh, wait a minute, I should check and make sure nothing's happened lately since I woke up. And I'm on the West Coast, so it's a little bit, you know, later than everybody else. And I'm like, oh, The trade did go through and then that kind of started. I was like, just turned to my wife going like, I probably will be on the microphone a lot today. Yeah.

LaMelo, 3 years at about $43 million a pop left on his contract. Nasri's had 3, 3 plus 1 at about $23, $24 a pop. And in addition to this, I should mention right away the Hornets re-signed Kobe White or agreed to terms with Kobe White, 3 years, $74 million. He will likely replace LaMelo Ball as the starting point guard of the Hornets, although he is not really a point guard. Super interesting. I'll get to the Charlotte end of it in a bit. John, is this going to work in Minnesota? Because the, the bullets are out of the chamber. The only bullets left in, in the 7 years where teams can trade picks and swaps and all of that are now trading out of your asset class of, of very good players. That's the only way you can sort of flip the table and recoup draft assets. So this is a, hey, if Anthony Edwards is even wondering a little bit about this new ownership regime, about whether there's gonna be some penny pinching, about Wait, we just traded Julius Randle who flamed out in the playoffs again. How are we gonna compete? What's happening right now?

This is the answer to that question. I've heard Lamelo is very excited about this despite some shell shock that Charlotte dumped him after what a wonderful feel-good story. And he and Ant have known each other for a long time. What's your initial take on this?

Yeah, I think that I, I will say I've talked to so many people within the organization to today about what, how this came about and what they thought. And I put it out on social media, but the overwhelming reaction has been elation. And when you think about all of the questions that are around LaMelo's game, around maybe his maturity and all of those things, you would think there would be a little bit more kind of, yeah, well, we'll see. But they have been trying to get LaMelo Ball for a couple of years now. They've checked in several times with the Charlotte Hornets. To see if he— if they would be willing to part with him because they think that his passing, his playmaking, his shot creation, his handling is exactly what they need next to Anthony Edwards. And they believe, Zach, that bringing LaMelo Ball into an organization that has been in the second round 3 straight years, that has won at a pretty high level, that has veteran guys who, who know what it takes to be competitive in this league, They think that will be good for LaMelo Ball, that he will get into this culture and they will help cover up whatever weaknesses he has.

But they needed a point guard to take some of the pressure off of Anthony Edwards. They needed someone so that the Spurs and Thunder could not just mercilessly double Ant as soon as he walked across half court. And they see LaMelo Ball as that type of a player. And I mean, people are just doing backflips over there right now about being able to get him.

Mo, I'm going to put you on the spot. Give, give the Minnesota Timberwolves a letter grade for this trade. And I'm only doing this to set something up, but I just, give me your just quick letter grade. Minnesota Timberwolves acquire LaMelo Ball for Nas Reid and all these draft assets and they get Josh Green too.

Yeah, I'm probably going to go with a C+. And I think part of it is the price they paid. It's, it's, I'm not as worried as everybody else about pick swaps, but I still think it's a high price in terms of the 2033 unprotected future, 28 to 30 pick swaps and things like that.

And that might not matter at all, but I think, I think, I think two of those pick swaps, 29 and 30, John, you've probably read the 17 paragraphs on Real GM more closely than I have today, have already been previously swapped. So this is now swaps of swaps. And I gotta tell you, there comes a point where even I am like, just fucking wake me up when these swaps convey. But in this, in this new lottery regime, if it, if it persists into these years, uh, those swaps could be valuable. But continue, Mo. Uh, you are giving them 78%, C+. Do better. See me after class.

Well, it's, it's more the cost of what I worry about is what could you have done down the road better? In the future. You know, what, what are you— you get what, what guy is going to come up available and we're going to be like, damn, wish we waited and made— we could have made this offer and beat that. You know, I think the challenge also for me where I'm really most concerned for the Wolves is the defensive end. Like, LaMelo has never really showed that much interest into it.

It comes and goes.

He has the sides where you think he should be at least an average defender, but a lot of times it seems like he's uninterested in that regard. So I worry in that area. And then they're incredibly thin. Like you said, Zach, they gotta look, and we think another move is going to come at some point with a power forward, you know. But it's, it's now Rudy Gobert, it's Beringer coming into the second year where it's not like he played a ton of minutes last year where we could feel confident. And I think he's going to be good, but I still think he's raw and needs a lot of work. I'm just kind of worried of, you know, if this was your last bullet Did you really have to fire it right now at this moment? And was this the right guy to target? So that's kind of where I'm concerned. Offensively, everything works for me. Ant off the ball, LaMelo working, you know, all that stuff. I do worry a little bit about still shot selection stuff. Hopefully they can— Finch can beat that out of him a little bit, but we'll see what happens.

So, so to be clear, the Wolves, I think, John, are right at the first apron. As of, as of now. They're not capped at the first apron. They haven't done anything to prohibit themselves from going over. I expect that they will go over the first apron to address this hole at power forward. And like, I don't really even know. I think they have to figure out what their starting lineup is. That one, one iteration is Lamelo and McDaniels power forward X and Gobert. And another is let's just put McDaniels at the 4, start all the guards together and Gobert at the 5. I think Terence Shannon Jr. is a critical backup now who can play the 3 and the 4 for them. And Baron Jay, Baron Jay is, you know, they love him and he's gonna get a chance to play now. Josh Green could help them and just the ball, Io, Ant trio being able to have at least one and probably two of those guys on the floor at all times sort of mitigates the pain of Mike Conley maybe not being here next year. Bones Hyland, we'll see, was a big part of their team.

Is, is he gonna be around next year? That's a lot of ball handling. To go around. I asked Mo for the letter grade because he gave it a C+. I, to, to point out how polarizing this trade is, John, I'm sure you've seen the Wolves are getting D's.

Yeah, our guy, D+.

I only, I only read a couple because I wanted to get a sense. And I, I think this is a really interesting trade for both teams. I think it could go really badly for either team. I think the most likely scenario in my opinion is it goes pretty well for both teams, and I'm including the Wolves in that. I get what Mo is talking about, about the opportunity cost. I talked about it with the Heat and Giannis. When you put your chips in for this particular player, you got no more chips for the next particular player. And I went through the Heat like, okay, who in the next 3 years, what kind of stars are gonna become available that you could have thrown this gigantic trade package in that you threw for Giannis? Well, the Timberwolves already did not have that kind of access to a gigantic trade package. This was about the best they could do. One pick. Outright and some swaps and a second and a good player. So I don't even think they would've been competitive in that class of players that I talked about with Miami. Donovan Mitchell, I just made up names like guys in tier 1 NBA guys unless they were gonna throw in a McDaniels or, or somebody that they did not want to throw in.

So I don't think the opportunity cost is, is that, that severe. It does lock them in really to this team unless they flip one of these main guys and go a different direction. I would give it probably a B, B+. And I, as many people know, am one of the top 10% LaMelo fans in the national media. I think he's been wildly underrated this entire time. Very carnivalesque. Some shot selection issues and late game brain farts that made you wonder like, does this guy like know what the score is and that these NBA games count in the standings and that there's like a prize at the end for for the team that wins. But I thought he cleaned up a lot of that last year when he got a real team around him. He started to try more on defense and I just broadly think that the fit with Ant is gonna be really, really good. And the fit with Io and Ant and him together, their ability for Ant to run inverted pick and rolls and hunt small defenders and all that stuff is gonna be really good. And to the point about LaMelo's carnivalesque elements, his carelessness, his laissez-faire, to use a French term on a team that just loves French players.

I think there's, it's gonna be very interesting to see LaMelo Ball as the clear-cut number 2 guy on, at best on a team after being the number 1 guy on a bad team for most of his career. I think there's like a material difference between how he will have to play with Anthony Edwards over him in the org chart.. And between Ant, who can dial it up on defense when he wants to, McDaniels, who's an all-defensive level player, and Gobert, who's an all-defensive level player who's used to putting out fires all around him, LaMelo is at least big. And I think they have the ability to kind of protect him a little bit more on defense than they're being given credit for. I think this is gonna work in terms of giving the Wolves a different look, a more interesting, diverse look on offense. I don't think they're gonna win a championship with it, but I, I also don't think any path is likely to make you championship favorites in a world where the Spurs and the Thunder exist. And that's an unfair grading curve. And at the very least, they're going to— you can't beat San Antonio and Oklahoma City by trying to play like them.

They are now going to go at these teams with a completely different free-flowing, fast guard-heavy dynamic. That is at least gonna make them different and tap into a different set of strengths. So I, I like, I get the risk and I'm gonna talk about why Charlotte moved on from LaMelo Ball and why he's even available to begin with and all the negatives that come with it. I like this as a, as I like this as a gamble for Minnesota. I would, I think the Ds and stuff are just wildly too low on LaMelo and I think this will work to a reasonable degree. Do you agree, John, or am I crazy?

Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely see the optimism in it. My, I would say like my only reservation, and I'm interested to hear both of you talk about this, is why another organization gives up on an ultra-popular player when he's 24 years old.

I'm going to have to go to pick up my daughter at swim practice and there's going to be crying 11-year-old boys.

Yes.

I've spent the last month answering their questions about the Knicks, which is fun. And now they're going to be like, what do I do with this jersey that I have? I don't know what they're going to be inconsolable. Exactly.

I mean, he is ultra popular. He had a very, very good season last year. I mean, the—

All NBA votes. He got all NBA votes deservedly.

The advanced metrics are off the charts. Plus 11 when he is on the floor offensively, plus 9, plus 10 when from a net rating. Like he really did have a great, great season. And so then you just like, why are, why are the Hornets windy? What's going on in Charlotte? Like why are they, why are they doing this? And so that's my one reservation. But I will say this, in watching this Timberwolves team, when, when they got dismissed by the Spurs in the second round, something needed to change in a material way if they were going to continue to show Anthony Edwards that they are committed to winning, that they are trying to make up ground on the Spurs and the Thunder. And the thing that stuck in Anthony Edwards' craw the most coming out of that series was, these guys— and he didn't use guys, used much more derogatory terms— were doubling me immediately. What am I supposed to do against that? And the Spurs did not have to worry about Julius Randle hurting them from 3, did not have to worry about kind of many of the things of Rudy Gobert at all.

Well, and even DiVincenzo's injury was a big part of that, right? Like huge.

Huge part. But like, and then guess what? They— Ant sees KAT win a championship. Like, that— those are like important things in the— in, in building to get to why the Wolves did this. And so if you're looking for ways to lighten Anthony Edwards' load the most, LaMelo Ball is right at the top of the list, the guys who can do that in terms of getting Ant off the ball more. Ant is one of the best catch-and-shoot shooters in the league. And he didn't get enough of those opportunities last year. LaMelo is going to get those to him all of the time. And so, and there's just going to be with LaMelo, there's going to be an electricity here, man. Like, you know, we talked a lot about this team being kind of moody, a little downtrodden and sullen a lot last year. LaMelo is going to come in and going to be throwing the ball all over the place. It might go into the third row, who knows? But, he's going to bring some juice. And I do think that that is going to be welcomed on this team.

Look, he's going to take some crazy shots. The one-legged threes that drive everyone bananas that went in more than I think people want to give him credit for because when they miss, particularly early in the shot clock, it just looks like heresy, basically like basketball heresy. And I get it. I've always said, you can't find the size, the passing, and the shooting in one package very often. And it's why I was always gonna bet on LaMelo. I was always gonna stick with him as a, as an NBA prospect and an all-star level player. And I thought last year he really did make real efforts to A, try to wriggle his way into the paint more and get to the line more, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. B, modulate his late game decision-making a little bit. Remember, this is a guy who James Borrego would bench in clutch time a lot because of just how unreliable his like time score awareness was. And defensively, he's always been a gambler. That's never gonna change. I thought he just sort of played with a little more alertness and physicality getting around screens and stuff last season than he ever did before.

And I, I think this is gonna work offensively. Pace, space, matchup versatility, all that stuff. Obviously they've got some holes to fill out. And to your question, the why, why would Charlotte do this? I think there's a couple of, I think there's, there's some, there's a lot of reasons and really one reason. The lot of reasons are his health issues in the past and selling high after his first healthy season in a long time. All the decision-making stuff and defensive limitations that I just talked about and, and what that means for if he's the best or co-best player on your team. How far are you really getting? I think they've now insulated themselves looking forward from— if you just project optimistically, max for Brandon Miller, max for Khan Kinnipal, 3 maxes or 3 max-level contracts, it's just really hard to then build a team around that. And they've given themselves more optionality, obviously more draft assets. Team has a ton of valuable draft picks starting with Dallas's top 2 protected pick next year. All of that is well and good. If you ask me, why did they do this? I think it really comes down to a physical toughness question that they have about LaMelo Ball, that you watch these playoff series, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, San Antonio, New York, and you just envision like, this is a dude, front runner is too strong of a term, fast and loose.

Like when the game's fun, that's when he's at his best. What are you gonna do in Game 5 of a playoff series when Steph Castle has been in your jersey for 5 straight games? When you're switching between Jalen Williams and Kayson Wallace and Alex Caruso bumping you physically, just manhandling you up and down the court? Are you actually game for that? Because if you're gonna be a serious team, that's what you gotta be game for. And I think this trade says yes, there's these ancillary salary pick benefits and faith in Brandon Miller and Concanipple and all that. The Hornets know the numbers. They know their offense wasn't good when Lamelo was on the bench. They know all of that stuff and they decided, they decided anyway that we just don't think we can win the biggest games with this guy on our team. I think that's really what it boils down to. And just to wrap a bow on that before I shoot it to Mo, I think these play-in disasters are fa— have factored into it. Now there was like a 4-year gap between the last play-in disaster and the current one. And, but if you look at Lamelo's and the Hornets numbers, 2021, 2022, 2026.

I mean, they just got railroaded every time they were in the play-in. Some of that was his fault, some of it was not. He did have 30 in the first play-in game, that thriller over Miami this year that they won. And I don't think he was really the problem when they lost by a million points to Orlando. He had 23 points in that game. They were only -9 when he was on the floor. Con— Coniple crapped the bed in all those games too. But I think in totality, they were just like, we haven't really seen this guy in a serious NBA game and we can't picture him in those serious NBA games where it's just so physical. Like the refs in the playoffs have let these teams be so physical. Is he gonna be able to withstand that? Mo, what do you think of all that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big reason for it when they kind of looked at it. You, you touched on it when, and this is what everybody's doing right after the Finals, after the playoffs, we're all looking at going like, well, what did we learn? You know, Bill does it a lot when he looks at the draft when he was talking about it, right? Like, can I see these guys playing in playoff games? Can I see— can they hold up? And I think, you know, Charlotte just kind of said— they've just sort of said, we don't think he could do it. We don't think he could hold up in the playoffs. That's why they're so willing to get off him. And then obviously all the other details, contracts and all that stuff to come and how it kind of changes the team. They've found the right opportunity to sort of jump ahead. This is a sell-high moment for them. Right? They finally get a season where he's healthy almost the entire way. I think he played 72 games through the course of the season. It's their opportunity right there. They can't go into next season and hope it, you know, for them, hope it works out again, because if he gets hurt or whatnot and he's out for a long time, the team's gonna tank.

And then on top of that, his value is going to tank. So for them, it was a sell-high opportunity to kind of answer the question, John, as to why they would— why a team would give up so on their guy so quickly after the year that they had. And I think, you know, for me, it's really important to see for Minnesota how— and Zach, you touched on it— how he handles being the number 2 guy. Because this is a new scenario for him now, for the most part, especially after the last few years when Charlotte's been really bad. He's been able to just kind of do whatever he wants. Now, will he be a little bit more disciplined? Can he come in and be a little bit more straight-lined into these things? You know, can he do even a little bit more defensively than what he's shown?

Yes, he should be able to. I mean, he's already an elite defensive rebounder, and so he has the size to do that. Before I go back to Minnesota, I will say the other thing is they sold high, the Hornets did. They better be competitive next year because if they take a huge step back and the FanDuel odds, our producer Mike sent me the FanDuel odds, they did not take a big step back in FanDuel in terms of their conference finals odds and all that. And I think that's appropriate. Like, I think they should be decent again next year. Khan gets better, Miller gets better and healthier. Colby White, who I think that 3-year, $74 million deal is fine. Naz Reid, we haven't talked about yet, is a huge addition who could, I think, walks in as their starting power forward after having the starting power forward job in Minnesota for like 24 hours after the Julius Randle trade. I don't know what that means for Miles Bridges. It could be a bench role, it could be a trade. I think Naz Reid will play some backup 5. Their depth is still really solid. The Hornets have a lot of decent players coming off the bench, including the two guys that they just drafted.

So I think they should be solid, but if they're not, this is gonna be a tough pill for the fans to swallow. And look, I'm just saying, I'm just gonna point this out. Lamelo on the floor, +9 per 100 possessions. Lamelo off the floor, +1.5 per 100 possessions. And that doesn't change much if you isolate from January on, in 350-ish minutes with Khan and Miller on the floor and LaMelo off the floor, -11.5 per 100 possessions. And look like Kobe White and Miller and Kinnipal only played 45 minutes together the whole season. So we have not seen a lot of all those guys together and I think the Hornets are right to have faith that Kobe White can be a bit of a stabilizer and that all that, you know, everything will lift up to a decent level. But it's, there is a risk in just that sense of are they underestimating LaMelo's impact on their offense? I personally think that they are, but that they can survive it and at least hover around where they were last year. But I don't know that they're going to be, you know, I thought they could have won 50-something games next year.

I don't see that now.. And I don't see that kind of upside now. And that's okay given the long-term stuff that they've probably opened up. And if they're right about LaMelo, it's, it's very okay. I think they're gonna suffer a little bit more offensively than they think they are. And John, I wanted to ask you, I said we haven't talked about Naz Reid. Just what does this mean to Minnesota for this guy to be off the team? Has anyone talked to him, his agents? I mean, he is, I remember having Ryan Saunders on my podcast from Las Vegas. Just after he was here, second round pick or a two way. He was a two way undrafted two way guy.

Yeah.

And he said to me before we started recording, just keep an eye on this guy Nas Reid we just got. I really like this guy. And then you just see the towels that just say, not, I have one. It just says Nas Reid. That's all it is. It's like an inside joke among NBA diehards. What is, what is going to be missed both on the court and just culturally with him out of Minnesota?

Yeah, I mean, briefly on the court, and it's not to diminish it, but like, he is incredibly versatile. He has improved his game from the time he came in to where he is now, greater than any player that I've seen in the Timberwolves uniform. I mean, he has turned himself into a really good 3-point shooter, a guy who can handle it in the open floor, really tricky around the basket. Uh, he is a handful for anyone to deal with offensively, and defensively he puts in good effort, and with the right matchups he can be really good. So they're gonna miss him, uh, uh, with that. He was a sneaky big reason they dominated the Nuggets so much is because they didn't have anybody for Nas Reid. And, um, and, and so, uh, he was a big help in that rivalry. But I, I just want to focus more on Nas the person and Nas the —cultural icon. And I am not hyperbole here, Zach. Like, he was an absolute hero here. And I think he was a symbol for what Timberwolves fans always wanted and never had before, which was like, for years and years and years when the Timberwolves really struggled, they always saw other teams find diamonds in the rough and develop them and turn them into something.

And like, The Wolves just never, ever did that. And then here was this guy who came into Minnesota, who stayed in Minnesota every summer, worked on his game, turned into a really, really good player and devoted himself to it. Took a backseat to KAT and to Julius Randle, was coming off the bench selfless. And you have the Nasrid beach towels. But during their 2024 run to the Western Conference Finals, A local tattooist gave Nasri tattoos to people for like $25 as a promotion. I am not joking. There are thousands of people in Minnesota with Nasri tattoos on them. That's just what he means to them. He kind of— his rise signified the rise of this organization and sort of the blossoming of basketball in Minnesota again after a very long cold winter. And so there's broken hearts all over the market right now because they had to give up Nas Reid for LaMelo. He was as popular as Anthony Edwards was here locally. That's just what he meant to this fan base and what he symbolizes kind of for everything basketball related in Minnesota.

And I think again, he leaves a void behind at the position that I think they will try to fill if they start that small lineup I mentioned earlier. LaMelo, Io, Ant, Jaden, Gobert, you know, I think you'll see Ant guard power forwards some. Yes. In, in that alignment because Jaden is so good on the ball defending guards. You know, I also think not, so Naz Reid walks into a starting spot. I think he can play with Kaulk Brenner when Kaulk Brenner's at the 5. I think he'll play the 5 with Miles Bridges and Grant Williams, who's ever, if Miles Bridges is even still around. I think he's gonna be a super important part of a, a pretty deep Hornets team. Another thing on LaMelo, he's never played with a lob threat like Gobert for extended minutes. I think that's going to help him as a driver and dish guy too. I just—

Gobert hasn't had a lob guy to throw him a ball like that in Minnesota in 4 years.

You never knew where an Ant or Randle lob for Gobert was going to end up. Let's take a quick break. And so basically, like, I like, I think again, These are— there is no perfect move available when you have already traded as much as Minnesota has traded. There's no, oh yeah, this puts them right there with San Antonio and Oklahoma City. I like this as a bet. If you're— if your benchmark is championship, all your bets are probably going to fail and this one probably will too. But I think it's an interesting upside bet that changes their style of play, makes them unique and fast and interesting and gives them something some hope for sustainability on offense. I would give it a B, B+. I think the Ds are underestimating it. Let's take a quick break and I want to hit Mo on the Hornets part of this. Okay, the Hornets, last year's Cinderella story. They trade their offensive engine and homegrown Rookie of the Year, all that. Starting lineup: Kobe White, Brandon Miller, Con Kinnipal, Naz Reid, Musa, Antlers, Diabate off the bench. They got like a lot of guys. We'll see if, again, we'll see if Miles Bridges is still here, but he and Grant Williams at the 4.

Kauk Brenner is a solid second-year guy now, a backup 5. Naz Reid will help in that regard as well. Sion James, McNeely, the 2 rookies they drafted, Steinbach and Anderson, I think will walk right in. They just have like a decent amount, like Trey Mann I didn't even mention because he didn't play much last year. I'm probably even forgetting. Let me bring up their depth chart to make sure. No, that's pretty much everybody. Josh Green is now in Minnesota. He played a little bit for them. I think their depth is pretty good. I'm just interested to see, I mean, where they still have some cap flexibility to spend, you know, mid-level. They have a huge trade exception. They could use the full mid-level. Just an absolutely ruthless move. By the Jeff Peterson. Rick Schnall is the owner, Gabe Plotkin. This is a team that was like, Mark Williams, like, we're trading you once and twice if need be before we have to pay you. And this is as cold-hearted as it gets. I mean, LaMelo legitimately, not only was he really good last year and got All-NBA votes, he liked being in Charlotte. He wanted to be in Charlotte.

He spent the offseasons in Charlotte. He was a fan favorite. And they are coming off the first season of relevancy in what feels like ages. And they pull the rug out like this for all the reasons I said, like, well, what do you think of that roster that I just read off? Is it, it feels like taking a step back for the sake of taking two steps forward down the line, but how much of a step back do you think it actually is?

Well, first, has anybody checked on Eric Collins? Like the, the, the, the, the, the fun he had with the play-by-play at the LaMelo Ball era. I just, I just need somebody to check on him and make sure he's okay.

But, and the Charlotte PD traffic squad, just they can probably distribute some resources.

Well, I think the Minnesota one better get ready.

I don't know. Like, look, man, snow and ice is a different kind of wild card. Like, you might want to just get a, get an expert driver as part of this whole thing. I mean, it's a different ballgame.

If I could derail us for a second, being an LA guy living in San Antonio, for a little bit. There was a day where James Borrego was the head video guy. He sent me a text message, hey man, be careful, there's black ice around the, the practice facility. And I just responded going like, what time are you picking me up? I've never had to deal with this. Like, what time are you picking me up? I'm not, I'm not driving to this. But to back to the roster though, like, that is a deep squad, right? Like, I think it's going to be really interesting to see like multiple kind of like interchangeable parts, right? Like you go from You can go Nas Reed, you can bring Miles Bridges in, you could, you know, again, assuming Bridges is there, but then it's Grant Williams. You have a different sort of vibe in the, in the front court. You have Moussa Diabate, then you have Kalkbrenner coming in again, a little bit of a different vibe in terms of the, the, the way they play, but you have a lot of different things there. I think a lot of stuff for them is going to depend though on how is Khan Kanipel going to handle the second season, you know, and the way it ended those last two games.

Has, was, was almost kind of traumatizing for everybody.

If part of your concern is the Hornets over LaMelo Ball's playoff sustainability is his performance in your highest leverage games, you have to at least acknowledge that Kahan Kinnipal also did not perform very well in your highest leverage games and ended one of them on the bench. Yeah.

And I think so that's something that you have to kind of pay attention to. You have to see early on, we gotta see sort of like him shake that off and get going and, and, and being Kahan, can he do a little bit more? With the ball in his hands, off the dribble, off the bounce, you know, and, and be more just coming off screens and attacking. And then the same thing with Brandon Miller, where like, I loved actually the pairing of the three guards when it was Ball, Miller, and, and Kinnipiel, because they all kind of did different things. Ball was the, the conductor, but you know, Miller was able to attack and get downhill coming off screens and curling around. You had Kinnipiel coming off screens for shots, and there's so many different things you can do. Now you got to figure out how are we going to get to all of that? And as I like Kobe White, the deal— he's not LaMelo in the way that he can create for others. And that's going to be a thing where you have to wonder. That's my biggest question for them is where is the play creation going to come from on a consistent and regular basis?

I know you have Kobe White there. You got to hope that the other guys can handle it. But it's not like I'm nervous handing that over to Concanipple, to Brandon Miller. Like, I just haven't seen enough from them being able to do it. Even McNeely, who I liked, you know, but again, not really much of a, uh, a run. But we're gonna have to see how he kind of goes. This was a lot of pressure on your development staff to make sure these guys are ready. Like, that has to be your whole offseason. Khan, we got to work on you dribbling and making the passes and making— and smart player and everything, but can you make the right reads? Can you— how quickly can you process everything with what you're going to see now and how aggressive teams are going to be on you now. It's, it's going to be interesting to see how they kind of play. I like the way they're set up because, as you said, they got a lot of depth. I think they're going to still be able to play fast, push the ball up the court, get going, play in transition, fly up and down there.

I think they can be even a little bit more aggressive defensively, but I think the, the question still remains at the end of the day: play creation. Where are we getting that? And that's going to be the one thing for me that's the hole that I need to see kind of get filled before the season begins. And they're not stupid.

They know that. They know that the risk of this deal is a step back next season after winning 44 games and having like the best net rating in the league after January 1st or whatever it was. For all the reasons that you're saying, this is a bet on both Brandon Miller and Conklin Nipple becoming all-stars. I think that's a pretty good bet. I don't know that they're going to be like 8-time all-stars, but they're going to be all-stars. I think Miller frankly was wildly underrated as the, as one of the, if not the key reason that that run came together. It coincided exactly when he got healthy and was consistently on the court as a two-way player. And I think it's a bet that if they do, if there is a star that they think is a better number one guy than LaMelo that becomes available, they now have Dallas's pick, Miami's 27th pick, lottery protected or unprotected in 28, all the pick swaps we just talked about, an unprotected Minnesota pick. I think there's a Kings pick swap in there somewhere even. Like those are pretty valuable. That they can get in on that.

And like, we'll, we'll see. Other side thing before I talk Minnesota again, I don't know what the Grizzlies are going to do with Ja Morant. Like, I'm, I'm looking around and like, I don't know what the team is for Ja Morant now that Minnesota and Miami have made these moves for big salary players and lost a lot of their trade. Just, just not that Ja Morant is going to require a bounty of assets there. He might have to attach assets to Grizzlies. To get off of him, but just like mechanically, both of those teams have used a lot of their bullets.

And they weren't coming for Ja, just so you know exactly. The Wolves were not coming for him. They considered it a little bit, but it was not going to happen.

And by the way, I think the Raptors were legitimately interested in LaMelo Ball. I don't think that was a smokescreen. I think there was real substantive discussion. I don't know how far it got, but obviously they didn't get him. I'm not sure that they're going to be a— I don't know. To be sure, to be clear, I don't know. My assumption is for most teams it's going to be a stay away. So I don't know what this means. I don't really know what this means for him. But John, one, before we let you go, the one thing I wanted to take your temperature on, you know, I mentioned yesterday that when I was at the Draft Combine in Chicago last month, maybe the hottest topic just sort of burbling around was, hey, have you heard that Ant is like kind of unhappy in Minnesota and like they just got eliminated and this and that. And I checked in on it and I was told you can stand down on that. That's not like that real of a thing. But it was going around and then Tim McMahon kind of resurfaced it earlier this week and then this Randle slash Reed slash Lamelo stuff happens.

What had you heard about all of that and the level of concern internally?

Yeah, I mean, internally and I talked, I mean, I know people in Ants camp fairly well and I don't think it was ever a real concern for them right now. Yes, Anthony Edwards was disappointed and frustrated with how the season ended, that they took a step back. I mean, he was injured, Dante was injured, Iyo was injured. There was plenty of reasons for it, but it was certainly not anything like, hey, you know, I'm starting to think about my future here. It wasn't that. He likes being in Minnesota. He likes being in a place that he can go around and not be swarmed and, and really bothered. He likes living here. He loves his teammates. Um, he has a great relationship with the coaching staff and front office. So like, they weren't immediately concerned, but there's certainly a recognition that when you have a star of Anthony Edwards' caliber, your organization is always on the clock. There is no taking for granted. There is no waiting. It is— you have to constantly be doing things to build around him so that you give him all of the belief that this, that where he is at can be competitive over the long haul.

And Tim Conley's been super aggressive in doing that. But there was a sense from the entire organization after that Spurs series that some things had to change and that they had to get more kind of, I guess, suited or situated for Anthony Edwards than what they were. And I think a trade like this acknowledges that, is that there's a recognition that we've got to make things easier on Ant. We've got to make— bring things that will help unlock even another level for him and show him that we're going to continue winning at a high level like we have and try to do even more. So it was certainly a motivation. Watching KAT win the title was certainly a motivation. But it was not like Ant was holding their feet to the fire.

And look, that triple big lineup was off and on, not always, but there were weeks, months where it was just a little unwieldy where like this combination would be a little clunky and this combination would work. And then I had always said on my podcast, I, I, I like when they would put Jaden at the 4 and it was just not a look they could functionally get to when you're paying these 3 big guys like $100 million combined per year, whatever it is. And I'm excited to see them play like a faster, sleeker, more dynamic style, and we'll see what happens. But before we let you go, is there any Minnesota angle that we haven't covered? Is there an offseason? Is there like a free agent that from their team that you think is likely, unlikely to be back? Is there something we haven't hit that you think we should hit in the new look Wolves?

Well, just in terms of like the context of this deal and what they gave up, I think that they view that they had to part with Nas Reed, who they love, and a first-round unprotected pick in 2033. The swaps— two of the swaps are pretty protected, and so they're not really that concerned about those. Um, but it's all in the context of they were also in on Jaylen Brown. Like, they were having real conversations with the Celtics about Jaylen Brown, but it was really made clear to them, understandably so, that it was going to take a lot more than this package that they gave up for Jaylen Brown. It was going to take Rudy, Nas, a young player like TSJ or Tieren Shannon Jr. or, or Yoan Béranger and all of the pick stuff that they sent. And that was going to be a lot and maybe a bridge too far for a player that probably doesn't fit quite as well as LaMelo Ball did. And so they, they were beating the bushes for a lot of other options in addition to this LaMelo Ball one. But this is the one that they preferred. They will look for a power forward.

They will look for more shooting to kind of fill everything out here. So they are not done yet. But yeah, they was— they were heavy in on Jaylen Brown and really having real conversations about that. And until the LaMelo thing really became crystal clear that this was going to be able to happen.

Jaylen Brown, a name we're going to be hearing a lot. Mo, go ahead.

Just real quick, I do appreciate Minnesota taking a swing and taking the risk and not, you know, like we've seen so many teams over the years kind of stand pat and say, hey, just a couple of things didn't work out. It would have been easy to use the Dante DiVincenzo injury and Io being hurt, Ant being injured. We were right there against San Antonio. Like, I do appreciate that. Like Conley did take a look and saying this has to change. And I think just being willing to take the cut And that's just whatever, wherever you land on the trade risk or this is crazy or whatnot. They took a chance and it's just saying because we knew the way they were set up going to work here. Like, I think we just got that understanding. I think willing to take the risk right here is something that I at least appreciate in the sense from Minnesota saying like, hey, we're going to take a big swing and let's see if it works.

And on that mode, like they're paying the luxury tax again. It was looking like a possibility and you were hearing whispers that they were not going to pay the tax this season. They dumped Julius Randle, and it was like, wow, are you really not going to pay the tax when Anthony Edwards is about to enter his prime? Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez got on board and just said, yeah, we are going to— we like LaMelo, we think he can be a difference maker. And so we're going to do everything we can financially to make this happen. And that's a big move that was not a given, I think, when this offseason started.

Yeah, they're swinging. They're swinging like Tom Brunanski and Ken Herbeck in 1987 on my freaking RBI Baseball Nintendo, regular Nintendo NES. They were my They just had power up and down, talking about up and down the lineup. If I will, even though the swing stuff is like, I do think it's important for Morant and also for LaMelo, like his contract is not a $65 million, 5-year albatross. It's 3 years. It's not that long. Like this year's a given. He's going to be on the Wolves after that. It's 2 years, $41, $43, $46, like 25% of the cap. It's not like a crazy unmovable. I'm in jail now. The next one, if you maxed them out, would be, but they're not there yet. Like, I don't think it's that, uh, it's not like crippling like that. Uh, Jon Krasinski, where else can we find you? At The Athletic, you have The Jon Krasinski Show, which is your podcast, all things Minnesota. What else do you want to promote here?

Yeah, The Athletic, we'll have a big story coming early next week. Keep an eye out for it. Uh, did a little bit of traveling for it and really excited to, to see. It'll be at The Athletic.

Uh, did you get interviewed by Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz for the aspiration? Is that why you traveled? I wish that was it.

I wish That was it. But he avoided the interview that way. That was how he did. He got out of town when they said they want to interview him.

I did do a big interview that I've been chasing for a long time, so I'm looking forward to that. Oh great. Yeah, the John Krasinski Show on Talk North weekly. We recorded something today and that'll be out later this afternoon as well. All things LaMelo Ball as well.

All right, John Krasinski, thank you, sir. We'll say goodbye to you and Mo and I are going to continue now with some of the flotsam and jetsam that have gone on around these two big trades. But John, you're the man. We'll see you soon, bud. Thanks, guys. Okay, Mo, let's talk about a couple other transactions that have happened in this, in this last couple of days. Um, let's start with Golden State just for shits and giggles. Um, Al Horford is coming back on a 2-year, $14 million contract. Al Horford, last seen burying the Clippers, uh, under a hail of 3-pointers in the play-in tournament. That's not so interesting on its own. What's interesting to me is the Warriors now after selecting, uh, Jaxel Landeborg in the first round of the draft, are up to like about $190 million in payroll with, with Draymond Green's player option as just like a placeholder for his salary. Um, and they have not brought back Gary Payton II and more notably Kristaps Porzingis. That figure puts them more or less $19, $20 million underneath the first apron., and only like 10 to 12 to 13 under the tax. They're gonna go over the tax.

Right. The apron is interesting because if you use the full mid-level exception, the big one, you cannot go over the first apron. And so you're just getting into a math problem of Porzingis full mid-level, Draymond's player option. Is Draymond willing to opt out and take less to facilitate some combination of things? And then, oh yeah, LeBron James is still floating in the ether as an option potentially for the Warriors among other teams. And I think the market for him is pretty wide from what I've heard. I think there were some negotiations before the draft with Porzingis's people. From what I've heard, obviously they didn't result in a deal. I just sort of, I think the Warriors are, they're the Warriors. It's Steph Curry. It's always going to be interesting. I just, you know, this season Jimmy Butler is going to miss a lot of it. Moses Moody's going to miss a lot of it, if not all of it. I do think the Porzingis question is interesting. And if they bring him back, what the cost is, and then the Draymond player option thing. Maybe they get LeBron. That would be fun. I don't know mechanically how all these things are gonna happen, but it just feels like, you know, the Warriors are gonna do what we thought they would do, which is just sort of try to make the best of the end of Steph's career and not really be a contender, but maybe be kind of fun.

I don't know.

Any Warriors thoughts? Yeah, it's kind of interesting. Like I thought this would've been, the summer to try to maybe get a little bit younger. I mean, obviously the, the Axel helps with them in, in that regard, uh, with their draft pick. But I think, you know, look, Porzingis— not them come— not being able to come to a deal with Porzingis, I think, not yet, not yet, not yet. But if they don't, that— I mean, I think just having Horford in the, in the fold at least kind of gives them a little bit of just backup. At least we have that. It is— I mean, as great as Horford was in that Clipper game, it's, you know, he only played like, what, 35 games this season? Like, it's been a, a tough year for him in terms of just staying on the court. And, you know, and going into his 20th season, like, it's kind of surprising there. But the committing the next 2 years financially, I thought, was kind of interesting. It's not a big dollar amount or anything, but sort of where they're at and the fact that they're probably going to go over the apron and have to figure out everything, all of that sort of matters and plays into it.

And then just sort of adjusting minutes of where you're going to go. And they have so many moving parts that it's kind of just— I don't really know where they're going to be at yet. Like, it's hard to have that opinion for me where it's like, might be in on LeBron, might not get LeBron. We don't know the Draymond Green situation. It almost feels a little bit like they're in the— we're in the movies and everybody's kind of killed the joke, but it's like one last job and let's get the, you know, let's, let's get this guy. It's the Ocean's Eleven and let's grab this guy and that guy and this guy.

If you were a bank robber, who, like, a part of a crew, what do you think your job would be? Like, you could be the heavy, you could be the safecracker, you could be like the explosive guy, you could be the negotiator, you could be the getaway driver. There's probably other roles, like, you know, logistical planning, like I memorize the blueprint of the, the, the bank. Like, what's your skill set in a bank crew?

Well, I think the, the, um, There's an obvious answer out there that I don't want to give out, but I think I would be the getaway driver.

What do you— what do you— there's an obvious— are you a bank robber? I'd be the explosives guy. Wow, that went right there. That—

well, I mean, that was sitting there, but I like to think of myself more as a getaway driver.

I think I'm not a good enough driver to be a getaway driver. I'm a very good, like, normal driver, Like, I, I, I'm like Costanza. Okay, you don't know what's going— you don't even see what's going on here. But like, as a normal driver, fine. But as a getaway driver, no. I'm in LA.

I could be a good getaway driver. I can— I navigate the streets every day.

You know what I watched on YouTube? We're— I don't even care if it's fucking June. I don't care. I watched two— for some reason— oh, because Sean Fennessey's new newsletter projections about movies, he mentioned, uh, I'm blanking on his name, the director. I don't know how to pronounce it correctly anyway. The director of Drive, among other strange and interesting movies. And I was like, you know what I want to go do? I want to go watch the first 15 minutes of Drive on YouTube because it's like one of the best opening scenes of all time. Speaking of LA getaway drivers and features Ralph Lawler calling a Clippers game, which is one of the things that makes it— I would be the safecracker. I think with people staring at me and a clock ticking and I've got to get this done before the alarm goes off. I can execute that. I have steady hands. I have calm hands. I'm good with numbers. I'm good. I can memorize things. I think that's my job. But if you choke at that job, I mean, the whole thing falls apart. It's over.

It's over. It's the most important job.

It's over. What the hell were we talking about? Oh, one last shot for the words. Basically what I'm saying is, as of now, if they pay Porzingis what his market is, which is something, then they're not going to have access to the first the big mid-level because they'll go over the first apron and you can't do that. And so you just have a math problem. As for LeBron, I legit don't know what's going to happen with LeBron. Like legitimately don't know. You have all of the, like all of the known options are financially interesting or tricky. The Warriors we just went through, the Cavs are way over the luxury tax and have tons of offensive creators already and a power forward in Evan Mobley who plays his position to some degree. The Lakers are the Lakers, right? They just signed Austin Reeves to a max deal. I talked about that yesterday. They have to figure out how to use what— I mean, they don't really have cap space if they have LeBron's bird rights. And so how do you do that juggling act? Someone, I don't know, I don't think this has necessarily been decided yet, but someone who would know told me yesterday the Clippers are telling, are behaving, I guess, as if they are going to have cap space.

In the offseason. They can't open much. They can open like $20 million, but they have to like cut some options and renounce some guys. And I, that got me thinking like LeBron Clippers, but I still, I've always said I don't think LeBron ever wants to play for the Clippers even though it's in Los Angeles. I just don't, I still don't see that as an option. So I don't, I don't know. The simplest answer is he goes back to LA. I don't know what that means for their cap space and his bird rights and how the order of events kind of works. But I don't know, man, that I will say they had something with Luca, Reeves, and LeBron as the third banana. That was a real thing.

I don't know where he could go and really kind of find that again in that sense. I mean, listen, there's places he can go, they'll automatically be, it's LeBron, we're going to say contender and whatnot. But like the situation he had set up in LA where him being kind of the third banana when they sort of fell into that, And, you know, it was kind of perfect for him. Let him rest, you know, work off ball. He can, and then when he needs to turn it up, he can turn it up. And we see, we've seen him be able to do it, but he doesn't have to do it all game. He's got Luka and Reeves to do all that. And then he can kind of go off of that. You know, I think they run into trouble when he has to be the first or second guy, you know, when they had injuries and things like that, then it becomes a bit challenging because I think he just tires out.. And, and, and at this point where he's at in his career, I kind of just feel like the best place for him is really LA.

Obviously they have to make, figure out the money and how to make everything work in that regards. And, and the Lakers still have also a lot of things they gotta do. They gotta add more shooting. They gotta find a, a bona fide rim runner. I know that most likely Ayton's gonna pick up his options. Smart's most likely gonna pick up his option. They gotta decide on Nick Smith with the team option, what they're gonna do. And I think they have to figure out where they're at, but, I don't feel like there's a place I look at with LeBron going like, oh, he goes to Golden State. I don't feel like they're, it's, it's, they're gonna be fun. It's gonna be great to watch. It's gonna be exciting. We're all gonna tune in. I don't feel like they're at the level where I could say, okay, they're gonna make a run at a title or anything like that. Like, I just think it's, it's a little bit hard for me to see it. And I just think the Lakers kind of just present the best situation for him.

Look, I, I think there are other teams outside this, this sort of select group that also would kick the tires or have kicked the tires and there's sign and trade possibilities and all that. We'll see. We'll see. The other, the only other thing of note that we haven't gotten to as of now is I just thought this snuck under the radar that the Pistons salary dumped Isaiah Stewart to Memphis. I really like what Memphis is doing. In terms of just Coward, Eaddy, Kambuza. It's a really nice place to start. And then the other guys they drafted and the picks they have, it's a nice starting spot. I love Kambuza. I think he's going to be awesome right away. He might be. I mean, he'll be the— I think he'll be the best player on their team next year, even though Zach Eaddy was Godzilla for 11 games that he played last year. I just think it's interesting because Detroit, you know, when I went through a couple weeks ago, my just most interesting offseason teams, and it was teams that weren't involved in Giannis and that for the most part were not in the top 5 or 10 of the draft.

Just teams that are interesting in different ways. I had Detroit on my list because, and I just said, I think they're just gonna do something. I think they got to the playoffs. What they lacked was laid bare for them. The fact that the East is gettable for them. Now that the Knicks obviously torched everybody, but whatever, they've played the Knicks pretty well in the playoffs and the regular season. I just think they're going to be aggressive. That's just a gut— it's, it's, that's just my gut feel. And so they dump this Isaiah Stewart salary and they can now open up a decent amount of cap room depending on what they do with Duncan Robinson's partially guaranteed deal and Paul Reed's partially guaranteed deal. And Tobias Harris, who they have bird rights on, and so they'd have to renounce him to open up space. They have a lot of optionality now. There's been these Kawhi rumors. That they're gonna go big game hunting. I heard they at least checked on Kawhi last year, but then I was told that that was maybe not true. So I don't really know how true that was. This is the due diligence you have to do.

But obviously he'd be a plug and play fit. He's eligible for an extension. The aspiration thing is happening. I don't even know how movable, portable he is in any possible way. I'm just sitting there. I don't know if it's Michael Porter Jr. I don't know if it's Trey Murphy III. I don't know if it's Jaylen Brown. I doubt that it is financially. I just think they're going to do something and I'm excited to see what it is.

Yeah, it's interesting. So like when they made this move with Beef Stew, it was more, okay, we're going to now be in the running to try to go get somebody. I think, you know, they were before Reeves agreed to the deal with the Lakers. I think they were the biggest threat to take him away from the Lakers. I think, you know, we're hearing a lot of the Norm Powell might be.

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's— I forgot to mention him. He'd be perfect there.

Yeah, like that's, that's a guy I think that they're kind of targeting. And, you know, Miami obviously wants to keep him, but I don't think they're going to be able to do it financially.

That's a double win if you're the Pistons. You fill a need and you hurt one of your East rivals.

Yeah, it's, it's kind of perfect. It's, uh, was reading Jake Fisher and Mark Stein this morning and they had some stuff on Kawhi and it sounds like Kawhi was not willing to sign an extension if he gets traded to Detroit. I don't know.

All of this can change. If I'm Detroit, depending on what the price is, I might be cool with that. Now, if the price is just overwhelming in terms of picks and stuff, then I'm not cool with it. But that's right.

You know, call the, call the bluff and see what happens. But I think, you know, there's a level of like they have to make a move. You know, it was, I was a bit frustrated at the trade deadline looking at the team going, you got to make a big move. And Herter being their move wasn't Obviously it, and I think we all kind of knew that in the moment, but I think, you know, this can't be an offseason kind of like the Wolves where I was talking about, they took a swing. They have to make a run at somebody. They have, maybe they not get it. Maybe it's the wrong guy. Maybe things don't work, but they got to make a run at somebody. And I think they understand that. That's why they made the Beef Stew trade. Right. And now it's figuring out, you know, it's opening up space for them to go after somebody, whether it's Powell, whether it's in trade discussions or something. I think that's really what I'm, looking for. They are the most— one of the most interesting teams in free agency because we just saw what they did. And they need somebody to pair with Cade Cunningham to go to work here and, and try to continue the run that they went on.

They can't just be a 1-year wonder at this point.

Uh, what is, uh, Egypt's prognosis in the World Cup right now? What's their next game? What do they need to do? How are you feeling about life? I'm feeling pretty good.

So, you know, I'm Libyan. Egypt's the closest country to—

I know, I know you're rooting for Egypt.

I'm dying hard for each, especially Moussala, obviously being a Mo. So was going, it was going nuts after they beat New Zealand. And I enjoyed all the videos afterwards. Right now, the way it looks is we're gonna move on. We're gonna play Cape Verde in the knockout round. And if we win in that one and Team USA, which the way it looks now is gonna play Bosnia, it, we could be facing an Egypt Team USA one. And that might be a problem for me. In terms of torn household and who do I root for. And my wife already told me, if that's a scenario, you have to root for the USA.

But you know, it might be, you know, you know who you might be facing is Bosnia-Herzegovina. Don't sleep on those guys. No, don't. I won't at all.

I saw them. The game, the game my wife and I went to was Switzerland-Bosnia. Now Switzerland put it on them, but Bosnia had a pretty good showing. But more importantly, I'm impressed with the, the crowd. From Bosnia because they outnumbered everybody in the, the Swiss, the Swiss crowd. They're going nuts. You go—

I, I know, I'm married to one. They're everywhere. The, the post-war diaspora, where, where they have settled, they have settled en masse. And they are— Toronto was like Croatia for the game that I went to, uh, and they have a great, great time at these games. I had a very good time. I just, I can't take the tension. And it's agonizing. It's just agonizing.

And, well, when Egypt went down 1-0 to New Zealand, I was like dying.

I was watching that game and we were all cheering for Egypt because they were so clearly the better team and outplaying New Zealand. But yeah, Croatia has a game left against Ghana. That's in 2 days in Philadelphia. Everything is on the board for them. They could win the group. It's very unlikely England would have to lose to Panama. I don't see that happening.

Well, England got given the biggest gift by getting away with a massive penalty. Like, that should have been a penalty. That was insane.

I didn't see it. That was against Ghana in the tie, the 0-0 tie. And Croatia could come second. Croatia could come third and move on. Croatia could come third and not move on. The only thing they can't come is fourth. And I just want just, just I just want 'em to move on. They do not have the kind of team that they had in the last two World Cups when they came second and third. That run is not in them. I'm aware of that. Not expecting it. Just get me to the knockout rounds and you just, just get me to penalty kicks in a knockout round game. 'Cause they've had a preposterous record in penalty, in PK games in the last two World Cups. You know, just, just get lucky. Who knows? I don't expect them to go far, but just that, that's all I want. By the way, my pet peeve, talking about England and all the— I, I, this is, this is for all international sports tournaments. I get why they have to do it. I, I'm going to lead with that. I get why it happens. I understand. I hate that the host nations, including the US, are given tier 1 status when they divide these groups.

Canada's group is like Put us in that group. We're rolling.

Like, yeah, it's a different—

how is that a group? They were gifted. I said it in the Olympics too. Only 12 countries make the Olympics in basketball. It's incredibly hard to make. And the host country automatically gets in. I get why. But when freaking London hosted the Olympics and it was like, oh, Great Britain's in and like Serbia's not, or whatever, it's like, what are we doing? Look how it just— it's not fair. And I would be, I would be more happy about it if Croatia ended up in Canada's group instead of in England's group. But alas, it is what it is. Host nations, although it has, I have to say the Mexico atmosphere has been awesome. I wish I was in Mexico for all of this.

Everything I've seen. I just wish I would. That's where I've had the most FOMO. That and watching the celebrations with Egypt when they got their first win in the World Cup.

All right, Mo Tequila, the second most relevant sports Mo. I may be forgetting a Mo. There's a few others, I'm sure. This week. Thank you for your time. You can always find him on Twitch, on Offsides, on the Double Dribble Podcast with Jared Dubin, and Bleacher Report too sometimes, right? And here. And here. Mo Tequila, thank you, sir. Thank you for having me.

Mehr Feuer, mehr Intrigen. Die Drachen kehren zurück. Die absolute Macht ist dir zum Greifen nah.

Dein Reich wird unbezwingbar sein, Rhaenyra.

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All right, it's been a while. The NBA playoffs took precedence. Sean Fennessey's New York Knicks won the 2026 NBA title, which is good for you, Sean, because the New York Mets are not going to win anything this year. And it's time to reconvene for Mets Corner. Before I start, how are you? It's been a while. How are you doing? I'm wonderful.

I, I, I've rarely gotten such amazing feedback than the, the one I got after appearing on your show after the Knicks one. And I just want to say at the outset of this conversation, the Mets cannot hurt me. There is a force field an impenetrability protecting me because of this Knicks title. And even, I just spoke to our friend Brian Koppelman yesterday and we were like, we're 13 days in. I still feel great. Like nothing is changing. So that, I just need to foreground our conversation with that and say, I'm doing very, very well. Now I am going to make some space for what I think is the appropriate reaction to what is going on here. How are you doing, Zach?

I'm good. Um, there's a difference between pain and embarrassment. And if you'll recall, the last time we had an Angry Mets Corner, I said the only thing I want is to not be embarrassed living amongst Yankee fans for the most part. And so here's how this week has gone. I was supposed to throw out the first pitch at Citi Field on the 22nd, which was Monday. Of course it got rained out because why would anything work out with the Mets? So we're trying to reschedule., and a lot of my friends were going to go, including Yankee fans' friends, and they were going to buy tickets last minute. And one of them had not bought tickets, until the day of, and he just gently poked me and said, hey, you know, I don't mean to be mean, but it's the Mets. There's going to be good seats available. This is what I'm talking about. I don't need it. I don't need that in my life. And that was 3 days ago. And last night, Sean, June 24th, 2026 is going to be a day that I remember forever. And will go down in Mets history as an all-time low point.

I get done with a big podcast on all the stuff happened in the NBA. I have dinner, I have the house to myself for a few nights. So you know what? Oh, that's right. They're playing the second game of doubleheader. Let me flip it on. Oh, they're ahead 3-1. You know what? I can send some texts about LaMelo Ball, make some calls. They're winning. Alvy has another home run. You know, I look, this season's not going great, but I'll be on in the background and I sit down. Simeon makes an error. Little do I know it will be one of 6 infield errors the newly revamped run-prevention-oriented Mets make in a game, the most in a major league game, I think, 7 years, 6. We, we, I, I, I can't. And then the exact moment that the season ended. The exact Ralph Wiggum heartbreaking moment that the season ended. Pete Crow-Armstrong, former Mets prospect, bunts a line drive single over Beau Bichette charging from third base. Beau Bichette leaps with all his might, reaching up in the air like you would normally see somebody do, an infielder do on the edge of the outfield grass, except he's in the middle of the infield grass.

Just an absolute comical visual. The ball rolls all the way to the outfield. The Cubs now lead 4-3. That was the end of the season. There were 4 more errors after that. There were Pete Alonso chants in the crowd after that. And the night ended with the Mets trading last year's All-Star starting pitcher David Peterson to the Cubs for a prospect because he joins a list of pitchers who have flatlined. Mainstays, supposed mainstays. David Peterson gone. Kodai Senga, I would like to just poochie him out of my life, send him back to, to wherever he's from. He's now in the bullpen. Manaea, 3 and whatever innings last night. Fine. Montes, remember Frankie Montes? He beat, like, and Freddy Peralta just gave up 10 runs the last time we saw him. The Mets are now 72 And 101 in their last 173 baseball games. This team is bad. It's embarrassing. And I don't sense the appropriate amount of embarrassment from the powers that be. And I will now stop talking.

Well, you've just done it all the work. I mean, that was it. You just, you, you summed up, I think, all of the appropriate detail and frustration for what's gone on. Let's like, let's try to put some of our context since we've been doing this together. When things were coming apart last season and the dramatic downfall was happening, I started talking to you about how we know David Stern wants his own team. He wants a team in his vision. And so in the offseason, he deconstructed parts of the team. There was one Mets Corner we did where it was a very emotional day when Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz signed with, uh, different ballclubs. And even if you felt like those were the right moves, that was painful as a fan because we had a lot of strong emotional ties to those two players. I could see the case for it from a baseball perspective, why it was not appropriate to bring either of those guys back, but I still felt bad about it. I think you felt bad about it too. We love Pete, especially the moves that they made in the offseason. I bright-sided them.

I looked at them and I said, man, if this team stays healthy, this is going to be a really interesting lineup. I did not spend enough time thinking about how the biggest problem that we had in 2025 was the pitching staff. And the only thing that was materially changed about the pitching staff, the starting staff, was we added Freddy Peralta in a move that I liked. And like a lot of other moves, the addition of Jorge Polanco, the trade for Luis Robert Jr. The development of Carson Benj and the insistence that he would be a part of the ballclub. All of those choices, the late offseason signing, panic signing seemingly, of Beau Bichette after missing out on Kyle Tucker. I found a way to brightside all of those scenarios. I wanted to believe. I predicted 92 wins this season on a podcast. That's something that happened. I'm not paid professionally to make these decisions. But the people who are paid professionally to make them did a very, very bad job. A very bad job. And we are now watching the fruits of their labor, which is not only is this a very bad team, as you identified, it's neither a fun team nor a likable team.

It's a bunch of guys who are either prospects that we have no, that we want to have a strong relationship to but have not panned out. Mega stars who came here from other places. Or guns for hire, most of whom are at the, on the back half of their careers. I don't really like watching the team. I'm still watching. I watched game 1 yesterday. You watched game 2 and you texted me after that, that bunt single flew over Boba Fett's head.

I said, I texted you and I said, please tell me you saw that. And I wonder what, I didn't elaborate. And I wonder what your brain thought had happened. It, it could be anything.

It, it, I, it could I don't know what you thought, but if you told me Pete Crow transformed into an eagle and soared over Citi Field like a majestic creature, I might have believed you. That's how bad things are going now.

And I haven't watched baseball all that much for the last 10 years. As we know this, the last 2, yes, that bunt happened. And I'm like, boy, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that, but that's just me. And then Ron Darling a minute later said, I don't think I've ever seen that happen before. And I'm like, okay, this is where we are with the Mets. I don't think I've ever seen that happen before. And it's an unfortunate thing happening to us.

I turned the game on after you made that note to me. And boy, that was an interesting experience listening to Ron Darling and Gary Cohen talk about the team for the last 3 innings of that game, because that was as direct and negative a communication by a broadcast team about what was happening to a team as, as I've heard in a long time. They more or less seem to be speaking to David Sterns about the team's decision to retain Carlos Mendoza and the fact that the team is just undisciplined. Checked out and, and, and bad. And they were frank, man. And you don't hear that from broadcast teams a lot because broadcast teams have a lot of interaction with the team and the people who work with the team. And you need to have a little bit of connectivity, but the phrase rock bottom and, and despair were uttered during the broadcast yesterday. And, you know, there've been a lot of bad times in Mets history, right? Um, worst team money can buy. The early '90s teams were extremely unlikable. Yesterday or 2 days ago, I cited to you the '07, '08, '09 period, you know, the collapse in '07 and then the failure to make the playoffs in '08 and then the misery of '09 and '10, these kind of like forgettable, washed away eras that we thought in '06 were going to be the beginning of something special and really were not.

But boy, this just, even though it's not the worst record that a Mets team has ever had, it seems like the least valuable that the team has been to the fan base. We don't, we, we're, we, we really don't like this. We're really mad. And I think our anger is justified. And if I did not have the Knicks title, I wonder if I'd be able to not be red-faced and shouting at you during this conversation. And yet, like I say, there is a force field around me and I cannot be penetrated.

I would like to see anger actually. And it's one of the things that I've found annoying about David Stern's regular homestand media appearances is that he's, yeah, of course we want to play better. You know, we're trying, trying to play better. Think there's a good team in here that'll recover and, and make a season out of it. And it's like, dude, I, can you, can you just own some embarrassment and anger? Because it's, it rings so hollow now because you, this is not, this is not a mid-market team with modest expectations. This is the second highest payroll in baseball and you are 34-46 with a run differential that finally screams like, oh no, there is no hope. It's now -46. A week ago they were 34-41 and like -8 and sniffing around the edges of the wildcard race. This has put us back into our proper place. And like I said, 72-101. 30 games under .500 basically in a little bit more than a season since they had the best record in baseball last year. That's like, you just flat out suck. The team sucks. And I don't want to hear any more platitudes about how we're playing better and like this and run prevention and that.

I want actual like anger and embarrass— I'm not calling for anyone to be fired or anything like that. I just like, let's be upfront about what has happened here, which is that this is a complete disaster. Of a team. And the thing that I want to talk about with you is I mentioned all the pitchers that have like sort of regressed or fallen out. Like Peralta's a free agent. We don't know what's going to happen with him. They might trade him. Who knows? I mentioned all these other guys like McClain's been fine, all things considered. Fine. Not great. A little too inconsistent, but like fine. Like I'm, I'm okay with what McClain has done.

Yesterday was disappointing. I think he's still promising, but yesterday was the kind of thing where it actually feels like this is a team that is not well managed because he was put in a position to gack a 3-0 lead by giving up 2 consecutive 3-run home runs.

Fine. He's been just a— you could give him like a B-, C+ if you want, based on expectations. Yeah, he is a rookie. How is this team cobbling a starting rotation next season? Like, that's the question that I'm now focused on because I mentioned all the veterans who are all trending the wrong way slash not in the starting rotation slash not even on the team anymore. Who are the reinforcements that are coming in? Tong is struggling in AAA, struggling to add another pitch to his repertoire. And then I'm looking down at the next group of like the Mets' top 20 prospects. Jack Wenninger is 24, and I look at his minor league stats, they're like, fine, they're okay, they're not great. He struggled this year. Yeah. And then down the line, it's like relief pitchers, guys who are 26 years old, guys like Will Watson. I don't know who Will Watson is, but he has shit stats in AA. Like, so let's just say this season is gone. Right? And then there's maybe a labor dispute and whatever. I think the two big questions that we need to figure out is how do you handle a lost season if you're the Mets?

Because everyone's like, well, are they going to sell or are they going to buy? The worst thing they could do is buy in a way that tries to save this season for some short-term gain. But I don't know how you even sell when you are building around Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto for next season. And if you are building around them for next season, it's like you're starting a pitching staff almost from scratch. Like they have absolutely no reliable starting pitching and almost nothing coming out of the minors. Like, I don't know what, like what is the best case scenario for next year's team at this point?

It's a really good question. I don't have a strong answer for you. I think that they have tried to simultaneously go down all three tracks, which is that they have acquired megastars and had a $350 million payroll. They have tried to build from within and play young prospects. Like Carson Benj and now AJ Ewing. And they have also tried to find that middle ground of sort of like your discoveries or your underrated hidden gems approach that David Stern did fairly well while in Milwaukee. And all three of them have kind of come up snake eyes with the exception of the acquisition of Juan Soto, who is injured right now, but it seems like maybe is not serious and is having a wonderful season. He's— this is his second consecutive season.

I would love to see Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor play a baseball game together. It would be nice. It's like the only thing that I'm looking forward to now is like, can we have both of them in the lineup?

That's the other thing I just want to say is, I don't think this team is a 90-win team right now, but if Clay Holmes and Francisco Lindor did not get injured—

I forgot about Clay Holmes. I should have mentioned him.

And that Clay Holmes— great story. Great story. And he was pitching like an ace. He was pitching like a Cy Young contender before he got hurt. And he got hurt on a fluky line drive comebacker. And broke a bone. And like, that shit happens in baseball. And each time an injury happened, when Robert got hurt, when Polanco got hurt, when Lindor got hurt, when Holmes got hurt, all it did was reveal the stunning lack of depth in the construction of the team. Because you're also thinking about other guys who have been injured this year. Remember Mike Tauchman, who was potentially going to be a right fielder with this team and who got injured right before the season started? We're consistently running out. Eric Wagaman, Zach Short, We're consistently starting backup catchers because we don't have enough depth in our DH position.

So we have to start out with this. There's been so much MJ Meléndez in my lifetime. MJ Meléndez. I can't believe how much of this guy is in my life.

I mean, look, Mark Vientos is gonna, is on track for like 400 at-bats. He's not a Major League Baseball player. He's just not.

I thought you were gonna say he is on track for 400 errors.

That as well. I mean, we're having a heartbreaking thing. I loved Brett Brady and I didn't want to give up on Brett Brady. He's been terrible this year. Terrible, Zach. And so what this feeling that we have as fans right now, and this leads to what happens in '27 and '28, is like, like, I kind of want them to cut bait with all of the tracks that are not Benj, Ewing, Soto, Lindor. Like, I, I kind of don't have any patience for any of those guys. And the starting rotation is this $100 million agglomeration of Manaea, Senga, um, Montas, Peralta, a bunch of guys who are just not very effective. We've cast off one of them in David Peterson. And the fact that we got a top 15 prospect from the Cubs is kind of fascinating in that trade. But nevertheless, if you want to brightside it again, you can say, okay, well, we have Nolan McClain, Christian Scott, Christian Scott coming off the injured list. They just called up Zach Thornton. He wasn't great in his first appearance as a major leaguer, but maybe he'll show us something over the next few months. Maybe you say, ah, Jonathan Santucci looks good in AA.

Maybe Jack Weninger turns it around in the second half of the trip of the AAA season. And then, okay, well, there's like 5 guys under the age of 27 who could make up for rotation. And don't forget, a lot of money coming off the books in the next 2 seasons. So if you want to go out and sign Tarek Skubal or somebody like that and give him $500 million or $800 million, Steve Cohen is your owner and you could do it. The problem is David Stern is like 1 for 32 in transactions. Like his, his hit rate has just been terrible. And some of it is miscalculation and a misunderstanding of either the market or the fan base or player health or any number of things. Some of it is bad luck. Right? Some guys just get injured and it's bad luck. It's bad luck that this is the year that after playing 150 games for 10 straight years, Francisco Lindor gets hurt and misses 30 games in the middle of a downward spiral. But Stearns is in the sights of fans because he's made a lot of bad choices, and a lot of the bad choices he made hurt fans' feelings.

When you didn't bring back Pete Alonso, whose name was being chanted yesterday during the game, people were upset. They were real upset.. And he was very strident about that. He showed a lack of contrition in those press conferences. You know, whether that— whether or not it would actually matter if David Stern got up in front of us all and said, this one's on me. I made a lot of mistakes, but I'm committed to making this team a World Series champion, and I'm totally reevaluating how I did my job in the last 3 years, and I'm going to change some things. Like, that's what people want to hear. They want to hear, I fucked up, and I know I hurt— I know I ruined the summer for you guys. And here's how I'm going to change and I'm going to fix it. And I promise I'm going to try to get better. He's not going to do that. And even if he did do it, what would it really accomplish? It would give us a mild gratification for 5 minutes before we started complaining again. So I have some empathy. As far as rebuilding the team, you just got to hope that all of these things that we keep hearing about how he's rebuilding the farm system are real.

And what we're seeing from Ewing and Bench, which is good, like, yes, they are. That is the bright side so far for real this season. Those, they look like major leaguers.

And, and defensively, as I mean, Soto called them the psychopaths and all that, just super fun to watch defensively flying around.

And so if there's more of that to come, then we can be optimistic. But yeah, man, this is, this is low.

This is the depths right now. Christian Scott, I, I'm glad you brought him up, has been workmanlike and effective and just a stopgap that has been more than a stopgap. The guy I want to shout out is Brazoban, like that guy, I honestly might just give him MVP of the team. He just comes in and does his job, pitches a ton of innings. He's been super reliable. I love that dude and I'm happy to have him. But yeah, I mean, look, I just don't, I don't know enough about baseball to know how you just fill out a rotation that's like almost a blank slate other than McClain and maybe Holmes next year. Holmes was awesome. You're right about that. How often does it happen that like Like literally a year ago, one year ago, David Peterson was an All-Star. That's a thing that happened. He made the All-Star team and Kodai Senga before Pete Alonso threw a wild ball to first while he was covering, was pitching like an ace, like an actual number one, number one B starter.

He hit a sub-1.5 ERA in the first half of the last year.

I, is this more common than I just know because I'm an amateur baseball fan that people go in a year from that to completely unplayable to the point that you just can't be on the team anymore? Like it just feels like such a stunning drop-off from an actual All-Star to you're going to the Cubs and you're throwing after openers and Senga. Now I don't know what his role's going to be. He's going to the bullpen and that's going to be it.

I don't think he'll start another game for the Mets ever again. He does have a very unusual contract where if he does suffer a dramatic elbow injury, he automatically has a 2028 option that gets picked up for $15 million. So he's on the books for next year. Sweet. It's great. That's, that's a tricky situation. The case for both of those guys in what you're, in terms of what you're describing is with Peterson, his underlying peripherals are not as bad as the 6.09 ERA. It doesn't mean he would have been good this year, but it's a little bit of an exaggerated number. Secondarily, he's a ground ball lefty. You know what sucks? The Mets infield defense. And it's not good. You know, they've been playing a second baseman out of position at third. They've been playing a backup shortstop. They've been playing an aging second baseman at second base who shouldn't be out there every day.

This is what we talked about in the offseason. You talked all about run prevention and then you built a team where everybody was playing a new position. And by the way, everyone's injury prone and Polanco and Robert, they might as well, I don't know where they are.

They could be in I don't think you'll ever see Robert again.

I have no idea where they are.

I don't think, I don't think you'll ever see Robert again. Polanco maybe will come back in the second half of the season, but I saw video of him running in the outfield.

I'm like, great. Awesome. Like, is he training? Is he training for the steeplechase? Like what? What? Like why am I seeing video of this?

You know, so for Peterson, I feel like in addition to maybe regressing a bit and over, you know, I think he overperformed against his peripherals last year and now he's underperforming. This happens. There's a lot of variance in baseball when it comes to that sort of thing. With Senga, I think it's perfectly fine to say he's clearly psychologically fragile.

I've done, I'm done. I'm done. I'm out. Ben Simmons him. Let him go become a professional fisherman or a dart player or whatever.

Like, probably can't be a dart player. I think that's an apt comparison, Zach. I think he is kind of Ben Simmons-esque in that his skills are extraordinary, but he does not have the mental capacity to push through challenging circumstances. And Don't forget his first season was fucking awesome. He was really, really good. I might have— was that right before you came in or right when you came in? Yeah. Yeah. And it's been sad to watch him unravel because I felt like, I almost felt like they were like abusing him, letting him go out there and pitch 2 days ago. Like he's clearly, he's just not, his head is not on straight and the team is just desperate for starting pitching, but they're going to just bury him in the bullpen and I don't think he'll be on the team 12 months from now.. But yeah, how do you rebuild? I don't know, man. They gotta get lucky. They gotta hope something. And you just want one of those weird baseball things to happen to them in the good way where a guy who wasn't supposed to be good suddenly becomes good. I remember this happened with Daniel Murphy some years ago.

Daniel Murphy was great on the broadcast, by the way, when they throw him out there as a backup.

He is really, really good. But he was never a hotly touted prospect and he transformed into a vital piece in that 2014, '15, '16 team. And so you just gotta hope they, they, you know, they, they discover a few of those guys. But this is a low period. This is a really, really low period for the franchise. And it's bizarre that they have a $380 million payroll.

I always liked Peterson. That one hurt me a little bit yesterday. I liked him for stupid reasons. Like he was the starter at the game I went to with my dad and my daughter and my wife last year when I was really starting to get back into like, I'm going in person. Like he pitched 8 innings that game, like, which seems like a, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex just walked across the stadium. That's how rare it is.

Yeah.

And they won 5-2 over the Dodgers. He struck out Ohtani like 4 times. I should have known that there was some, maybe some luck going on, 'cause I think he induced like 5 double plays in that game. But that was his game.

That was, he was, he was, he was, he was that kind of pitcher purposely. He was the longest tenured Met too. He was with the team for a really long time.

And his Instagram account, this is how stupid I am about baseball. Like his Instagram account, if we, he's always pumping up his own teammates and like congratulating them on stuff. I like this guy. He seems like a sweet guy. And now this is just, I mean, there's 80 games left and there's no hope. Like there was hope at 34 and 41 and no one running away with the second and third wildcard spots in the NL. They, the thing that got them to 34 and 41 after the 12-game losing streak was at least they stopped having long losing streaks. They could never put together a long winning streak, but they would go like 2 out of 3, lose 2 out of 3, win 2 out of 3. Just a gradual, like, pick up a game against .500 every 10 days. And you knew, like, if they're actually going to get back into this, they're going to need to win like 7 out of 8 at some point. And they never showed anything like the ability to do that. And then the other shoe dropped, which is, oh, actually, you're still bad enough to have a 5-game losing streak, and now it's just over.

And I'm excited to rediscover what it feels like to watch a bad, hopeless baseball team for 3 months and just sort of find things to be like, this Alvarez home run streak is fun. I've, you know that I like Alvarez and want him to play more. I do too. And I'm happy to report that my daughter is still incredibly into it and doesn't seem to care that they're bad and still really loves them and roots for them and wants to watch them play. That makes it worthwhile for me.

And Lindor is back for her too. So she'll get to enjoy him being back. I think it's going to take him a few weeks to really get on the side of right in terms of how he plays. But the 5-game losing streak that you pointed out is important. There was a weird hinge in that there where there was a Thursday game where they won, they survived, they hung on 6-4 against the Phillies heading into what was thought to be a fairly important series in the NL East.

Somebody lined out, Schwarber, I think lined out super hard off Aaron Nola.

Hard to right field. Yeah. And that scared me, which wasn't really his fault, right? There had been an error in the inning or something, but he survived the inning. Nevertheless, they win 6-4. They're going into a long weekend, but there's no Friday game. Instead, what there is is a Saturday and Sunday national game. Saturday game, I think on Fox, Sunday game on ESPN. And both of those games were calamitous and the broadcast just went out of their way to just dunk on the Mets and, you know, rightfully so. But we've— I've endured 43 years of lol Mets and it's very painful and it keeps happening in these national scenarios. And those 2 losses began this streak of games where they gave up 10— they gave up 50 runs in 5 games. You know, like it was really a, an awful stretch there. And it does feel unrecoverable and it doesn't feel like there's any 2024 magic in this team. And yet I do still, I'm with you. I think I'm going to keep watching because I like watching Soto hit. I'm loving Benji Ewing. I want Alvy to have a bounce back year and to be a— I think he, it would be nice if he was just the permanent fixture at DH.

That weirdly his value is not as high if he's not catching every day, but he's not an elite defensive catcher, but he could be an elite power bat if he just focused on that. So there's stuff to look out for. I want McClain to turn it around and to have a really solid rookie season. Like I do. And to your final question about the fire sale. They have to do it and they have a ton of pieces that people are going to want. You might not realize it, but the Mets have one of the best bullpens in baseball.

Their bullpen's been great. Rayleigh, Bradzman, Williams has been okay, but like the setup guys have been great.

No, but Weaver has been unbelievable. Minter has come back healthy and extremely effective. They have a lot of arms that teams are going to want at the trade deadline. The question is, does it make sense to sell all those guys if you are trying to be competitive in 2027? Which— should you sell Luke Weaver, who has another year on his deal? When he looks like one of the 5 best relievers in the sport right now?

I wouldn't. Like, unless you're just giving up everything, unless you're just opening the door to the full-on rebuild, which involves painful decisions that we don't want to talk about, I need somebody around next year to get some fucking outs.

Yeah, I agree with you.

You know, I have a couple other important takes. The construction hat sucks and the construction vest sucks. I hate it. And it's a stupid home run thing. Last year was much more fun and the OMG sign was obviously way more fun. I don't know what we gotta do to get the mojo back, but part of it is we just got, we just gotta have a better, a better thing. Maybe you like it. I don't know.

What'd you think of the Spidey mask? Did you see the Spidey masks?

I saw that. I saw that with Alvy the other day. It's fine. I guess it's cool to just, what about this?

I have an idea. Just be good at baseball. Don't worry about what you're putting on when you get back into the dugout after you hit a home run. Did you see that they lost for the first time this year for a team with a +4 home run differential. The teams prior to yesterday that had a +4 home run differential in a game were 35-0. Again, they lost.

Again, they, there was a line drive bunt single over the third baseman's head that went in, actually trickled into the outfield.

I would believe anything at this point. It's so, so fucking painful watching Pete Crow-Armstrong. So painful because he is such a dude. He is just a baller. I can't believe we traded him for 3 months of Javi Baez.

So painful. It's not going great. Can I, did I tell you the story about my daughter going to the, the game with her, her school? No. So her school's chorus sang the national anthem like a month and a half ago. I think I may have told the story. I can't remember if I did or not. Apologies to listeners if I did. She's not in the chorus, but the school bought a bunch of cheap seats and she wanted to go sit with her friends after they sing. And it was horrible weather. I didn't go because the playoffs were going on. It was horrible weather, windy, cold. And all of her friends were like hanging out in whatever lounge they had access to up there. And she was like, I don't understand. I think I want to watch the game from the seats. Like, what? Where are you guys going? And then, then they all wanted to leave in like the 6th inning because it's getting late. There's some cranky young children. And she was like, we're not leaving. Game's not over. We're like, we're going to stay for the whole 9 innings, right, Mom? Like, my wife was there with her.

And finally she relented because everyone was just miserable. And I was like, I don't know what I've done, man. This seems like, this seems like I've maybe, this has gone too far. And she sometimes runs into my office like when I'm watching games and she'll just be like, Daddy, Soto hit a sac fly. This happened. And I'm like, you're so cute and the team is so bad, but I'm just so happy that you're into this.

It sounds like you need to introduce her to the New York Knicks. That's what we need.

You know, she got into it a little bit. Cause my wife got super into it and they would watch the games. And I don't know if it's cause I work in it, but, and she hears about it too much. She doesn't seem to find it as fun a diversion as baseball. Baseball. Yeah. She did like Brunson, but everybody likes Brunson. She was like, I like that Brunson. He's tough. I'm like, yeah, it's fine.

He's, but he's the newfangled Steph, where little kids see themselves in him, you know, him being the littlest guy on the court. There's something very powerful about that.

But at least, at least she's into it. And, um, hopefully we get my first pitch rescheduled so that she can come and we can stand on the field and do all that kind of stuff. And, uh, we'll go to— we have a couple other games that we're, we're, we're trying to do this ferry. Have you heard about this ferry? No. There's a ferry now from Stamford, Connecticut, right to the stadium basically, but it only runs on select select games and it's like, it's like $80 round trip and, but it's like a, you know, it's like a floating bar that gets you to right to Z. I want to try that out. So I'm finding, I'm finding silver linings, but 72-101, when I sat down and did the very basic math, I was like, oh man, that's like, I think it's like a really bad team.

I think the last 12 months are the worst team in the sport record-wise. I think they're worse than the Rockies in the last 12 months. The Rockies. Who is— that's one of the worst organizations in all of professional sports around the world.

I don't have anything to add except I'm actually, I'm happy that I'm in, I'm into it enough that I will still flip these games on at least for a few innings here or there to stay in touch with the team. I still enjoy it. I still like bizarrely, like when they were ahead 3-1 last night, I was like, maybe this will be the game where we start the 6-game winning streak. You know, naive enough, like I still feel the hope in the fandom. So it's still a lot of fun. And you gotta get through some lumps and it's like the base, the baseball gods are like, you sure? You sure you want to come back for this? Here's a bunt line drive squeezed in between 6 infield errors in one game. And yeah, you know what?

I'm coming back for more. I have one last question for you. I made a bold proclamation last week in the aftermath of the Knicks win that I, I now officially believe the Jets will win the Super Bowl before the Mets win the World Series. The Jets obviously are even more tragic in the last 15 years. I know you're not a football expert, but what do you think about that proclamation?

I don't know anything about football. I just know that the Jets are like a, have been a total laughingstock, right? And like Aaron Glenn's the coach and all I heard on sports talk radio was like, we, maybe he's a good coach, maybe he's not. I don't know. But the team was like dysfunctional. Didn't they have like no turnovers forced last year or something crazy like that? No interceptions.

I think it was 4, which was the fewest in league history. I don't, if, if that— No interceptions last year.

Who's their quarterback? Geno Smith. That something bad just happened with them, right?

Prodigal son. Yeah. There was a report about some very bad behavior potentially that has now been kind of debunked, but we're not sure.

I mean, the Jets are such a laughingstock that if you're telling me you believe in them more than you believe in the Mets, I, I'm very, very upset and very sad. But also football's weird. People, teams go from worst to first much more often.

The one comparison that I've made between them that I think that, I think they both made the mistake of not firing their manager when it was very clear that they're not the right person. That Aaron Glenn is the head coach, Carlos Mendoza is the manager. Seems like they don't got it. You know, you know when you're watching a team and you're like, this team don't got it. Doesn't seem like they're listening to anybody. They're not disciplined. And the Knicks, of course, made that change, a very dramatic change before last season. Moving on from Tibbs, bringing in Mike Brown. Controversial. A lot of fans didn't like it. A lot of pundits thought it was terrible. Turned out to be one of the best things that's ever happened to the franchise. So you got to take risks and you got to make changes sometimes. But you know what? Mets Corner never changes. You know, just two guys being normal.

We'll be back. Sean Fennecy, the big picture with Amanda Dobbins and the new newsletter on Substack, Projections, which I was just reading before you came on. It's outstanding. And makes me think in a lot of different ways. Everyone should subscribe to that. You're the man. Thanks for your time and talking about this baseball team that is part of our lives.

Thank you, Zach, and go Mets.

All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe Show. Barring news, we won't be back till next week. That's what I said yesterday, and then there was news. So whatever, who knows what'll happen, but probably next week. Thank you to Mo Tequila. Thank you to John Krasinski. Thank you to Sean Fennessey. No thank you to the New York Mets through 80 games this season. And thanks as always to Jonathan, Mike, and Billy on production, and to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe Show. We'll see you soon. 21 or over and present in select states. For Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 and over and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming, gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-GAMBLER. Reset, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.