June 15, 2026 • 41 mins
Big Ben talks about Victor Wembanyama storming off the court after the Knicks defeated the Spurs in Game 5 to win the NBA Championship, talks that Bo Bichette will opt out of the remainder of his contract with the Mets, Maller to the Third Degree, Insta-Advice Line, and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
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Speaker 1 (00:32):
So our lead this hour, I'm gonna start with the
end of the NBA postseason, which happened over the weekend.
We'll go to San Antonio. They did it again. They
did not talking about the Knicks. Now, there's plenty of
people licking the toes of Jalen Brunson and making sure
that the bottom of the feet of Karl Anthony Towns
(00:54):
are nice and clean. So the Knicks got the ring
over the weekend. The better story, though, is in the
losing lit locker room. The heavily favorite San Antonio Spurs
sucked at a time you could not suck. If you
didn't see the game on Saturday, you might have missed it.
But Victor wem Banyama yet again not doing much with
(01:14):
the game on the line. There he missed the final
shot of the NBA Finals, and then he untucked his
jersey and he marched off the court and said, that's it,
that's all. I'm done and went straight towards the locker room.
No congratulatory handshake from Victor Weimbanyama had all there as
(01:37):
the Knicks get the title in Wimby getting out of
there as quick as possible. Some were wondering was he
gonna sit there and soak it all the insaying that
should have been mine, that should have been my championship.
He did not do that. He did not remain. He
skid daddled, ran off to the locker room and then
to the podium where he was a bit of a douche,
(02:01):
and then into the offseason. So that is a good
jumping off point. Let us discuss the question where are
you at on Wemby failing to congratulate the Knicks after
the NBA Finals had come to an end on Saturday.
The Spurs star apparently too good for that, as he
ran back and said, you know what, I'm done, I'm
(02:23):
out of here. I'm going to go to the locker
room because I don't want to see any of this,
and I want to congratulate you and beating my head
in in the fourth quarter of every game. So I've
got inventor, zip code and New York Times best seller,
and we will combine all of these things together, and
we're gonna become a fire breathing dragon, is what we're
(02:45):
going to become. So a this is one of those cases.
Give me, you're tired, you're poor, your young superstar who
cannot stay for a handshake or a dap, none of
that stuff. Cannot do it, cannot do it. And let's
be reheard. When I saw the end of the finals
over the weekend, the ending from the Wemby side of things,
(03:05):
with everything that had been invested into this guy and
how little he did when the game mattered most rotten,
I wrote down the word rotten. The whole thing was
rotten for Victor wemb Yama. And I don't want to
hear all the excuse, oh young, oh young, He's gonna
be back every year. We don't know that for every
(03:26):
one of these guys that keeps returning, there's a bunch
that don't return. And I can give you plenty of
examples historically in all different sports. So this assumption, you
know what happens when you assume that Wemby's going to
be a staple in the NBA Finals. I was not
impressed with what I saw. I was not impressed. Considering
all the build up and all the drama O rama,
(03:47):
what I saw from Wemby was simply not good enough.
And walking off the court that was not the walk
of shame. It was the walk of don't make eye
contact with the team that actually kicked my ass and
embarrassed me. Don't do that. And he didna leave before
he vanished. Wemby seven foot four. It's hard to vanish
(04:07):
when you're seven foot four by like a magician Abra cadabra,
hocus pocus, or he's just allergic to accountability, either one
of those things. But he was gone. And we've seen
this script before. But typically if you go to the
annals of the NBA, the people that pull that off,
that walk off the court with a sour puss like
Wemby did after losing the NBA Finals, they belonged to
(04:31):
harden villains of basketball. The greatest example would be the
Bad Boys, Bad Boys, the Bad Boy Pistons back in
the day, led by Isaiah Thomas, who famously stormed off
the court. And that was back in the early nineties.
We're talking about almost forty years ago, when they were
all upset because the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan had
(04:52):
beaten them and they didn't want to watch the Bulls celebrate,
so they left early and all that. Now, when we
didn't leave early, he stayed until the end of the game.
Then he high tailed it and said, I got to
get out of here. The difference is the other players
that I and I can recall that have done that
were battle tested. They were heavyweights, and Wemby looks just
like a lightweight, like the whole thing, and he hasn't
(05:15):
earned the right to be that. What's the word I'm
looking for that that have the temper tantrum that he had.
We'll call it like that for Victor Wimbanyama and the
basketball world spent all year, but certainly in the playoffs
here just telling us how he was built for the moment.
He was different, and I believed it. I bought into
(05:36):
the hype. Oh yeah. Everything I'd say is like, this
is the this is the stage. Here we go. It's
a launching pad to the Moon to the Moon, to
the Moon, to the Moon, to the Moon to the Moon. Instead,
as we mentioned in a previous episode, Wenby got his
pilot's license. He's now qualified to fly the vomit comet.
And they did that time and again, time and again.
(05:56):
And he is an inventor. Though I will say this
for Wenby, he's an invent He literally has invented the
French goodbye two point zero. You've heard of French leave,
Well that's Wemby right there. He exited the finals without
without informing the NBA or saying goodbye. So so I'm
out of here, see you later. And the Spurs, they
love to preach about the culture, the San Antonio Spurs
(06:18):
culture put in there by Greg Popovich back in the day,
and they're good to go and all that and okay,
well their franchise savior, the Spurs culture. His culture is pouting,
capital p pouting. That's what he did. And the historical
context on this, when Isaiah Thomas walked off the court,
(06:41):
and that was many many years ago, as we said,
it took him a long time to live that down
in terms of his reputation. Some say he never did
live that down. Isaiah Thomas, who's still to this day
bitter and broken with Michael Jordan, although that's over the
Olympic team. Old guys holding a grudge, which is never bad.
It's always fun when old guys hold the grudge. But
(07:02):
at twenty two years old, for Wimby, and he's he
can't accept the sucking that took place out there, and
he's supposed to be the next face of the NBA
and here we go and the whole thing and he
can't even stay on the floor. You gotta take your medicine,
and he didn't want to take his medicine, which tells
you a lot about how he's wired. And it's not
(07:25):
a good sign. I would be very concerned if I
was the San Antonio Spurs about this guy, very concerned.
The way he handled himself. The whole thing was not good,
not good at all. All right, Now, overall, Victor won
by Yama. If you look at the numbers, he averaged
twenty six points, eleven rebounds and three and a half
block shots in the finals said whoa wowsers, Wowie Kauzawi,
(07:52):
you know that whole thing. Twenty six points, eleven rebounds
and three and a half blocks. And the Spurs led
by double digits in every single game, every single game
of the series, and they blew leads obviously in four
of the five games, and when Banyama made some critical
mistakes in three of the four losses, and I wrote
(08:13):
down three or four could have even been all four,
but certainly three of the four. Now I will point
out that the box score humpers as we call them,
the snot bonditos, they love their box scores. Well you
can yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah,
but yeah, but rabbit. Yeah, but Wemby average twenty six
(08:34):
points and eleven rebounds and three and plucks. You can't
be critical of Webby. He had the stats, you know,
it's ridiculous. You can't rip him. Okay, what a bet?
There is nuance to this. There is nuance to this.
And with the game on the line, where was he? Where?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
I don't know?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Did you see I didn't see Wemby? Did you see Wemby?
Where'd he go? He did the wobble, the wobble, wobble, wobble.
What the heck? All right? Now? Question how much damage?
How much damage did the Spurs franchise player Victor Wambanyama
due to his brand with the walking off the court.
(09:14):
We've already talked about that now, the way he played
in key moments of the NBA Finals and all that.
So I go back to the point. The NBA marketing
arm did a tremendous job of building up the myth
of this guy, and Wemby responded to all of that
(09:35):
hype and he went out there on seemingly live television
with a global audience, and he made an episode of MythBusters,
and he just busted the myth right there on the
biggest stage with everyone watching who cares about basketball, the
NBA Finals. He went out there and laid an egg
(09:57):
so large, How large was it? It was so large
that it needed its own zip code, That's how big
an egg it was. When the game mattered, he got cooked,
He was buttered and served up. All of that happened
right there there you go on the TV delivering a
performance down the stretch that was so soft? How soft
(10:19):
was it? Thanks for asking? It was so soft that
you needed to store it in some tupperware and put
that aside from everything else in the fridge. To put
that tupperware right there, and with every game lost within
more than reach. They had double digit leads early in
most of those games, some even in the fourth quarter,
(10:40):
and Wemby down the stretch with opportunities to win the
game and could step on up for the Spurs. He
was petrified, terrified and zombified by the Knicks or the
Mormon or all of that. Whatever. Pick your poison, Pick
your poison, Mike. He just caught in his bank of
(11:02):
fog and he couldn't see his way out, and he
just was stuck there. And it just sucked and wandering
around like a rumba stuck in a corner and it
can't get away from the corner. It's like, dude, you
got to back up a little bit. What are you doing?
And so we keep hearing about the unicorn, the unicorn,
the unicorn, and there's no one like him, and he's
built different. Well, I've seen plenty of guys in my
(11:24):
time that sucked in big games. I don't know about you.
He looked like every other guy that sucks in big moments.
What's different about Wemby. He played well for a stretch
of the game, maybe seventy five percent of the game,
and then just free falling. There was a Kamakazi mission
there at the end. So the unicorn, this, the unicorn that,
(11:48):
all of that, and this was like a horse headed
to the glue factory watching the way he played down
the stretch of these games. Victor womban Yama, the Parisian Prodigy,
good nickname Parisian Prodigy, he turned into the Parisian puddle
in evaporating in winning time, it was winning time, and
uh well not quite. Didn't quite work out there when
(12:11):
it was winning time, it turned out to be losing
time and slightly problematic. Yeah, so it was crunch time,
chemo final five minutes of the fourth quarter, and he
was not He was not taking a punch. He was
not making a punch. He was out to brunch, is
(12:34):
what he was doing, all right. He wasn't throwing punches.
He was out the brunch, sipping a mimosa, having a
fine time there and needed to throw a punch and
either didn't know how to do that or chose to
not do that. So it was it was a mess.
So I sum this all up. The brand is absolutely damaged.
(12:56):
It's bruised, it's swollen, it's on crutches right now. It
needs some medication. To make the brand back better. My god,
you cannot be the face of that sport, the face
of the NBA, right, and then when the moment is there,
(13:16):
it slaps you in the face. It's a problem. Oh
you're nitpicking, Mallard. I don't think I am. I don't
think I am all right. That stank. Those kooties are
gonna last for a while, and there's no guarantee this
guy's back every year, and not just him. You look
around the Spurs roster and certainly he's the centerpiece that
(13:38):
we're going to focus on Wenby. But that brings us
to the last part of this diatribe, the coaching part
of the puzzle, and that is a major issue. Now. Ultimately,
I don't think coaching matters too much in the NBA.
It can hurt you. I don't know that it helps
you that much. And in this case, that was a
net zero for the San Antonio Spurs. So the question,
(13:59):
does coach Mitch Johnson deserved to keep his job on
the sidelines for the Spurs after that epic blown lead
Paloosa in the NBA Finals. So if I own the team,
hell no, he would be out. See you later, Mitch Johnson,
who seems like a nice enough guy. He would not
(14:21):
have made it to the post finals news conference. I
would have said, listen, don't even bother. All right, you
don't work for us anymore, get out of here. And
the Spurs, they didn't just lose in the final, and
obviously Wenby was the biggest culprit in this. They didn't
just lose in the finals. Slow. The Spurs gift wrapped absolutely,
gift wrapped it with a nice bow on top, and
then hand delivered these games, many of them to the Knicks.
(14:44):
I wasn't overly impressed with I thinking the Knicks did
other than not give up. It was just, hey, keep
playing hard. The Spurs have a glitch. The doo hickey
doesn't work. And no matter what this cat Mitch Johnson did,
it doesn't seem like he did much of anything. For
several games, people were saying, hey, don't play the Aaron Fox.
The guy's a bomb, and he kept put him out
(15:05):
there a big moments. And this is the hubris of
these guys in the San Antonio Spurs organization, like we
know better than you. Well, apparently you don't. This is
one where the public got it right and you're a
bunch of dingleberries, you're a bunch of Mama lukes that
you should have sat down to Aaron Fox for literally anyone.
You could have had a fan raffle and brought somebody
in a Spurs season ticket older although they all sold
(15:28):
their tickets so they didn't go to the game. It
looked like Game six over the weekend, my god, or
Game five, I guess it was over the weekend, not
game even make it the game six, forget about that.
So anyway, listen, that's the thing now, much like Wemby,
a lot of you dumb bums are convinced, well, the
youth thing that that is why he's going to keep
(15:48):
his job. And youth to me is not a shield
at thirty nine, and that's young in the coaching game.
You're thirty nine years old. And at this point, based
on the way he did not adjust in the NBA Finals,
Mitch Johnson, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs, is
he's already a New York Times best selling author. He
(16:11):
wrote Complete Idiots Guide on how not to coach well
in the NBA Finals and be so stubborn, so pigheaded,
you don't make any key adjustments. They got to be
the dumbest team in the world, and that starts from
the coach on the way down. They didn't just collapse
down the stretch these spurs. They invented new ways to
(16:32):
suck at a time you cannot suck blowing a combined
I did the math on this. If you just go
by the biggest lead in each game, they lost four right,
lose four out of five in the finals San Antonio.
They blew seventy one points worth of leads in futzing
away those four games and losing the NBA Finals. That
(16:55):
is a that is a lifestyle, is what that is.
Nine point blown lead. That is the thing that Pop
will remember other than the outcome of this. That is
the Mona Lisa of meltdowns to blow that big a lead.
And from Wemby's hair brain plays to de Aaron Fox,
who they would not get rid of. He had the
(17:17):
historic boner, Fox's boner when he had three options right
three out. You can either call time out and reset.
They could just just dribble and get fouled and then
go to line or try to run to the basket
and see if you can get a basket. And of
course that completely backfight. But from Wemby's disaster to Taron
(17:37):
Fox or the coach, the whole thing. It was sloppy mcslop.
That's a new item. It's an add on itam at
McDonald's sloppy mcslop. It's a McDonald's sloppy Joe, is what
that is. So as we always say, you're either coaching
it or you're allowing it to happen. Mitch Johnson. So
these Spurs were not outplayed. That's the thing about. It's
like they were not outplayed, they were out coached and
(17:59):
they they they had a malfunction the what you McCall
it did not work at the end. There disaster class,
absolute disaster class for the San Antonio Spurs. So typically
in the past someone gets sacrificed. It does not seem
like we're going to get that in San Antonio. There's
a lot of fanboys in the crowd there. They don't
(18:19):
really hold the team accountable in San Antonio. So I
would imagine that there will not be any accountability if
I own the team, though again I would get rid
of miss Johnson.
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Speaker 1 (19:38):
All right, so let's get into it. We're gonna talk
some baseball right now. By request alf the Alien Opine
are demanding some hot baseball talk. And when a Brigadier general,
a senior member of the Malord militia request that kind
of content, then we must provide that kind of content.
It is we have no choice but to provide that content. Now,
that's a good story here. So the the baseball season
(20:00):
going on, we're in this weird period before the All
Star Break where there's another month ago or so and
then not the Dog Days, the Dog Days or after
the All Star break, after the trade deadline. However, there's
chatter about the comings and goings as we head into
that part of the schedule. And our lead this hour
is from the Metropolitans. That is a baseball team, not
(20:24):
a good one that plays in the Tri state area
there in New York talking baseball. So we have a
status update, status update on the big offseason pickup of
the New York Metropolitans. If you did not hear and
perhaps not Bob Bishett. Bobachett, who's been playing third base
(20:44):
and occasionally shortstop for the Mets this year, is widely
expected to hit the eject button on his contract and
opt out of the final two years of his contract
after the uh, you know, after the season. Obviously, I
can't do it now. He's in the middle of the contract.
Bashett signed a three year contract for one hundred and
(21:07):
twenty six million. I'm told that's a lot of money.
In fact, the AAV the average annual value to the
mood to the moot to the moon to moon, and
this after leaving Toronto to go play for the Mets.
It has not gone well so far. He's played a
little better recently. Over all, though, the product has not
been up to standard for Bobashett. That is a good
(21:28):
jumping off point. Let us discuss the question why why
would a guy like Bobashet, who has eighty four million,
two years and eighty four million left on his contract,
why would he opt out considering he's not playing particularly well.
So I've got pantsed Roman, candle, an eye doctor, and
(21:50):
we will combine all of these things together, and we're
gonna give you the ABC's and the one two threes,
and we always start with number. Jump the gun. Number one,
number one, number one, number one, number one. What fun?
It's number one? Okay, enough, So I'll tell you why.
Thanks for asking. I'll tell you why. Because the contract
(22:12):
was built for him to activate Bobachhet, to activate the
escape patch, the portal. It was designed that way. The
Mets gave him the Golden parachute up front and not
on the back end. Forty two million, one year, forty million.
The salaries actually too me and the signing bonus forty million.
(22:33):
Everything else is theater. It's kabuki theater. New York was
supposed to elevate Bobaschett. That was the argument, the Big Apple,
you go there, you make it there, you can make
it anywhere, that old song. So Bashett gets to the Mets,
and the New York market was supposed to elevate this
guy's play. Instead, he has gotten pants playing in New York.
(22:56):
He's been exposed. I don't know what happened in Toronto.
I liked the player in Toronto. I thought Bobachett was
a good player. He played well against the Dodgers in
the World Series last year. But as a Met, yikes,
he's really never been a met. Bobashett, He's just another
baseball mercenary, that's what he is. Bouncing around and all that.
And he took the signing bonus gold and he kept
(23:16):
the map app open it's like, Okay, I'm here, I'm
already planning my escape. And so this makes it a
little more interesting for the Mets. If you are going
to start unloading players and you're relatively confident that Bobachet's
not going to be back, then why wouldn't you repackage
and send him out into the wild blue yonder and
(23:37):
just get a little something in return. The Mets, see,
here's the thing. There's teams around baseball Baschets. I think
he's twenty eight right around there, and he knows that
there's always a sucker out there, and they will forgive him.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
The nerds will overlook this year. They'll say, well, look
at the exit velocity. You can shove it up your
tuck us and it's really impressive and all that stuff.
So the market, despite not playing particularly well this year,
they'll overla. So, well, it's just a New York thing.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Get him out of there. He'll be fine, and he'll
get even more guaranteed money. And there are enough teams
out there that still be like, Okay, this one bad year,
we're gonna sign this guy. He'll be great for us.
The Mets, of course, are stuck with the reality that
he's hitting in the two thirty range bobershet, and he's
got eight home runs and a glove that appears to
be made out of wet cardboard playing defense for the Mets.
(24:31):
It's not going well, and supposedly Philadelphia still wants him,
so he could. He was gonna sign with the Phillies,
and then the last minute the Mets, if you believe
the gossip, the Mets came in there and stole them
because they gave this fordoculous offer. But that alone, if
he does opt out, he's got to get half to
get more than eighty four million. And the only fly
(24:51):
in the ointment here is the labor issue, which is
more than a labor issue, because the baseball's expected to
go into this arctic winter where there's no negotiation, and
even though they've been talking now, there's gonna be no
agreement for a while. They're gonna miss games into twenty
twenty seven, so and who knows what it's going to
(25:12):
look like the landscape they're gonna put. They're trying to
put a cap on how much guys can make, which
is ridiculous to me. Every team has a budget, and
that's the way it should be. Nonetheless, we'll keep an
eye on this and then, if not the Phillies, if
you're looking at teams that would bid on Boba shitt,
how about a reunion the Toronto Temptation if you will,
and played so well for the Blue Jays, and a
(25:34):
homecoming there like a Hallmark card, Hallmark movie, just like that.
All right? Now, speaking of we talked about the Phillies
possibly being interested in Boba Schet, we go to Philly
where over the weekend the Phillies had a visit by
Snap Crackle Pop And if you didn't see this, the
Phillies have now decided to go to market. Apparently they're
going to the flea market here desperately trying to get
(25:56):
some outfield help. And this after right for and one
time playoff hero a Dallas Garcia, the Texas Ranger legend
from back in the day, suffered a season ending torn
up right lat muscle, so he's out and he going.
So now we're told the Phillies have their radar locked
(26:18):
in on Joe Adele of the Angels and Suzuki of
the Cups, Seyya Suzuki of the Cups, So we'll see
what happens with that now, they try to upgrade in
right field. By the way, a Dollas Garcia was not
playing very well at all for the fight in Phills
when he had been out there before the injury. All right,
so the question you make the call, you can only
(26:41):
get one, all right, You're gonna go get Joe Adele,
the current Angel outfielder, or you're gonna go make your
move and get Seya Suzuki of the Chicago Cups. Assuming
all is equal, who would be a better fit for
the Phillies and a conceivable playoff push. The Phillies, after
(27:03):
getting off to a terrible start, brought in Donnie Baseball
Don Mattingly. He was only on the staff, they promoted him,
and the Phillies are in position to have a shot
to make the postseason. All right, So the arrow on
this one is pointing straight towards trader Dave as in
Dave Dombrowski visiting trader Joe as in Joe Adele, And
(27:24):
that should be that should be the move. There, Look,
Joe Adele, who's the Lord? Giveth the Lord take it away?
The outfielder, giveth the outfielder take it away. He had
that three robbery game where he took three home runs
away and then had a doink ball bounce off his
head over the wall for a home run. It's been
a very eventful season for Joe Adele in Anaheim, that
(27:46):
would be the guy and playing baseball with the Angels,
it's like being in the Federal Witness Protection Program and
in Anaheim and you're surrounded by so many turns that
is like you're living in a porta potty. When you
play for the Angels, there's that many turns around there.
And you want to go to a real hungry baseball
(28:08):
environment where Philadelphia seemingly would be on that big board
of hungry baseball environments, and you put him in Philly
and suddenly the blossoming will take off. Let him breathe
little bit competitive baseball, a team that's got good players
up and down the ruster, not just like one good
guy here and then seven slugs and all that. And
(28:31):
in Citizens Bank Park, which has been a noted hitters ballpark,
it would be like giving a Roman candle to a toddler.
Something loud is gonna happen there and ready or not,
and he would balance out the lineup. Of course, both
these guys would, so they have a left handed heavy
lineup and Dave don Browski. This has kind of moved
(28:53):
don Browski would make he'd trade some of those minor
league guys because he knows most of them won't make it,
and bring in I would go with Dell, but Suzuki
is also an option there, so we'll keep an eye
on it. And the Phillies they need another impact guy
because they've run cold, mostly inconsistent offensively, so we'll keep
(29:16):
an eye on that. All right, final point to the
Silver State we go where there is currently no baseball team,
although there was this last week and was reading that
opposing players do you see this story over the weekend?
So opposing players are already telling members of the Athletics
to pass the word on. They're all in on Viva
Las Vegas. They're all about it. Now. The president of
(29:39):
the A's told Bob Nightingale, he said, quote, you give
this quote. He said, let's just say we won't have
trouble recruiting. Close quote. Now, the Athletics owner John Fisher,
the scumbag that took the A's out of Oakland, that weasel,
John Fisher expects five hundred million dollars in revenue the
(30:00):
first year in Vegas. Let me repeat that for those
of you a little slow in the back of the room.
Five hundred million dollars in revenue for a franchise that
has been a laughing stock for years, the Athletics, which
proves sometimes good things happen to bad people. And so
John Fisher, bragging about that, says they'll be in the
(30:20):
top six in Major League Baseball revenue and they're very
excited about that. And then he said, well, you know,
I'm going to spend more money. Of course, the A's
are making money now, they just don't want to spend it.
And the little weasel, so he says they're going to
retain their young players and they're gonna make some moves
in free agency. And the speculation had been that the
A's to make that big splash, are going to go
(30:42):
out and try to get Trek Skouble from the Tigers.
All right, So the question why would anyone, and I
seriously mean this, why would anyone buy the hype from
the Athletics about people desperately trying to play in Vegas
when the Raiders already proved that Vegas does not magically
(31:03):
attract star players. So why is it going to be
any different in baseball? And the answer is it's not
going to be any different. And you should not believe
the line of blogoney that is coming out of the athletics,
Like if you think players are going to be lining
up to go play in Vegas, you might want to
go see the eye doctor, cause that's not a line
(31:26):
of people. That's a line of tumbleweeds, is what that is.
And everybody loves Vegas for forty eight hours or seventy
two hours, and that's the perfect amount of time when
you're traveling with a baseball team and you come into
Vegas for a weekend series Friday, Saturday, Sunday, in and out.
That's what life's all about. And I don't know that
(31:47):
anyone's going to be uprooting their entire life to go
play for John Fisher unless he massively overpays, which defeats
the purpose of the argument where they're like, well you'll see,
let me tell you something, we'll not have no problem recruiting. Well, yeah,
if you pay top dollar, you can get some free agency.
Come to Vegas. Are we really doing this again? That's
(32:09):
that's the part that blows me away with the Raiders.
I know they've been in Vegas for a few years now,
but this is the exact same I'm not making this up.
We did monologues about this. This is the exact same
players are lining up to come to Vegas boiler plate
that we heard when Mark Davis moved the Raiders to
Vegas and it never materialized. The Raiders, they didn't have
(32:32):
a parade, a conga line of great NFL players that
wanted to play for the Raiders. It didn't happen. Is
the a's president forgetting that the Raiders said the same
thing and ended up with a bunch of mediocre players
and a few overpaid mid tier talents. Because I remember
(32:52):
that Vegas, it's not nothing. There are certainly guys that
want to play in Vegas, just like Miami. There's guys
that love Miami and the Marlins. The Marlins claimed, I
remember when they built that stadium years ago, that oh,
we just need a stadium. We can compete with the
Mets and the Phillies and the Braves and all these teams.
(33:13):
We just need a stadium. So they built the stadium
on the taxpayer dime in Miami and South Florida. There
they built the stadium, and they said, well, we're gonna
spend it's now been I believe fourteen seasons since that
ballpark opened, and stay it with me now, kids, bupkus.
In terms of big time players, keeping players, bringing players in,
(33:36):
it just hasn't happened. And yeah, the city is a
draw like in Miami or Vegas. The city is a
draw in Vegas. If you want to burn the midnight
oil and go out to Perump where all kinds of
things are legal out there, not in Vegas but in Paromp,
go out there and knock yourself out. More power to you,
More power to you. But ultimately it's gonna come down
(33:58):
always to money. And if it's team was winning and
be able to different the team's not not. They're mediocre.
They're not really trying to win until they get to
Vegas in a couple of years, and who knows, maybe
even next year. There's a chance they're ahead of construction.
There's not a lot of rain in Vegas, so the
timeline is supposed to their ahead. There's a chance the
A's move even next summer. In the in the middle
(34:19):
of the summer, I was told that there's gonna be
two different plans one where the A's played the whole
year in Sacramento. Now, I don't know how this is
gonna work out logistically, because if you sell season tickets,
you're gonna have to issue a lot of refunds. So logistically,
it seems like they're gonna have to stay in Sacramento
next year and not move in the middle of the season.
But there have been teams that have done that, not
to the degree of changing entire cities in the middle
(34:40):
of the season. We'll keep an eye on that. And
I love the fact that John Fisher, that wheeze alone's like,
oh yeah, we're gonna be in the top six in payroll,
and he's acting like they're gonna be the Dodgers, the Athletics.
You can have all this new money, they're gonna spend
all this money, and of course they're just gonna be
clipping coupons. Again. They'll sign like one free agent and
the rest of the time they'll be clipping coupons at
(35:00):
three in the morning, trying to get a deal on
soap and not. Of course they don't want the soap,
the name brand soap, because you get cheaper prices on
the other types of soap, so New City. You got
the same owner, the same chastity belt on the wallet,
if you will, and so good luck and they're counting
(35:22):
on mostly tourists to fill out the stadium. Good luck
on that. It's worked for the Raiders. A little different
in baseball, though, if you go to Vegas for a weekend,
you want to spend all of your time at the
stadium and then gamble around that? Or how's that? Going
to football makes sense? You go out there, it's one day.
You can go on a Friday and then hang out,
(35:42):
gamble all day Saturday, get completely hammered, and then go
to the game on Sunday and then fly back and
there you go. It's perfect baseball not so much.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. It's maller.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
To the third degree? This is one big Ben gets great?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
All right? Cool? We loop? What do we got here? Cool? Ben?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
UFL coner Micropoli made an offhand remark to reporters on Friday,
and he mentioned that the NFL is talking about two
more expansion teams.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Are you buying that? Or do you think it's a Yes,
it's inevitable. They're gonna keep adding teams, right, there's no
finite number. They've got thirty two now. It's all about
more product. They need more inventory, So you got to
keep adding a couple of teams every thirty twenty five,
thirty years or something. You add more teams. The problem
is you break up the TV money. There's so much
TV money. I do buy it. I don't think it's
(36:36):
gonna happen anytime soon, but these things often they're talked
about years and years in advance, so I do believe
they'll add two teams next ben.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
The World Cup coming to NFL stadiums has reignited the
let's play on grass all the time debate. Yes, do
you think the players will ever actually strike for this?
Speaker 1 (36:53):
No? No, absolutely not. They don't play long enough in
the NFL. And the whole grass versus turf thing, the
newest editions of the turf, there are studies that indicate
there's really not much difference between the turf and the grass.
Despite that, oh, you must be making that up. That's propaganda. No,
there's actually studies that have been unpaid, not paid for
(37:14):
by the NFL that indicate that. I don't think we're
going to see that in our lifetime because these stadiums
have too many events, it's too expensive. The World Cups
once in a generation.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Next, in the wake of the Knicks winning the championship,
Rick Brunton thanked Mark Cuban for.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Letting Brunson go that's funny. I didn't see that. Yeah, Ben,
Do you think that was the beginning of the end
for the Mavericks? Would they make a mistake there? Well,
no giving away Luco is the end of the Dallas Mavericks.
But yeah, it didn't help. I was skeptical. Brunson played
well for Dallas, but I was skeptic. He's been amazing
for the next on it and it can't really blame
the Mavericks. How do we know you? Pass check?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Hey you sports figure, guy or girl?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Who here were you talking to?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Son?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Here? Some instant advice? Hold that thought. No one's paid
attention to me for ten whole seconds, and if you
don't like it and away we go. It's the insta
advice line, unscreened radio. Who needs the wisdom, the advice,
the knowledge of the Malard militia. So many options. There's
some good ones sent in USA. Ferg Dog sent he
(38:37):
sent one. I know him, Alf recommended John Henry, the
Red Sox owner. But we're gonna keep it simple.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Here.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Play the hits, well man, play the hits. Advice to Wemby,
the Parisian prodigy who became the Parisian puddle in the
big moments of the NBA Finals, Or your advice to
Wemby on how to play better down the stretch and
not suck at a time you cannot suck. On the
air when you hear my voice at eight seven, seven, nine, nine, six,
six three sixty nine, line one, Hello, you're on their
(39:05):
advice to Wemby, line one, Maybe he should stick the
painting those statues. That's a good idea. Painting is the
way to go there, supermarket Steve. Line two, you're on
the airline too, advice to Wemby, Line two. Hello, Yeah,
morning that hey, Spike lea four a midsto. Yeah, yeah,
so I don't know something like that. Not a very
(39:27):
very not a very tall man. I was in an
elevator with Spike Lee one time years ago, and he
thought I was going to kill him because I was
much taller than he is. Let's go to line line three.
You're on the airline three, instant advice line for Wemby,
the Parisian prodigy who became the Parisian Puddle in the NBA. Dog.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
I'm a fan of Joe Dog.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Thanks Ben, Okay, I'll let him know. I'll pass that on.
Hello caller, you're on the air. We're giving advice to Wemby.
Call her line four. Hello, line four? Is it true?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Eva?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Las Vegas is the greatest sports informational information? All right?
You were stumbled over your worth line too. You're on
the airline too. I hear a lot of mommya noise
line to advice to Wenby, the Parisian prodigy who played
like the Parisian puddle.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
And my wife has the world double tea cup.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
All right, congratulations sir, very proud of that. All right?
Eight seven seven ninety nine on Fox is the number?
Call it on the air, caller advice please to Wemby. Caller.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I know there's a minimum hYP for roller coasters?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Is there a maximum height. Yes, I think there might be.
Definitely there has to be. Line uh. Line five, Hello,
Line five, you're on the advice to Wenby, the Parisian Prodigy.
You became the Parisian puddle in the NBA Finals. We
like my life on Mackenzie. Sir Andrew from Bakersfield harassing us. Hello.
Line one, you're on the airline one.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I'm gonna say he was mad because you got all
those deep and no toothbrush.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Oh yeah, you need the tooth You need the toothbrush. Yeah,
very important. Line three, I line too rather, you're on
the airline too.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Hello, you got to go to the per school and
went how to play basketball again?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Good idea? All right, good idea. All right, we'll do
one more, only one more good. I'll take credit or not?
Kooble woop. Last call mine five. Line five you're on
the airline five advice to Wemby. Line five Meames Joan
was born? Was that what Jerome? And Jerome called back again? Jerome,
come on,
Thanks for listening to the best of the Ben Mahler
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
from two to six Eastern eleven pm to three am
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and to find your local
station for the Benmatlers Show at Foxsports Radio dot com.
You can find it there or stream us live every
night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
So our lead this hour, I'm gonna start with the
end of the NBA postseason, which happened over the weekend.
We'll go to San Antonio. They did it again. They
did not talking about the Knicks. Now, there's plenty of
people licking the toes of Jalen Brunson and making sure
that the bottom of the feet of Karl Anthony Towns
(00:54):
are nice and clean. So the Knicks got the ring
over the weekend. The better story, though, is in the
losing lit locker room. The heavily favorite San Antonio Spurs
sucked at a time you could not suck. If you
didn't see the game on Saturday, you might have missed it.
But Victor wem Banyama yet again not doing much with
(01:14):
the game on the line. There he missed the final
shot of the NBA Finals, and then he untucked his
jersey and he marched off the court and said, that's it,
that's all. I'm done and went straight towards the locker room.
No congratulatory handshake from Victor Weimbanyama had all there as
(01:37):
the Knicks get the title in Wimby getting out of
there as quick as possible. Some were wondering was he
gonna sit there and soak it all the insaying that
should have been mine, that should have been my championship.
He did not do that. He did not remain. He
skid daddled, ran off to the locker room and then
to the podium where he was a bit of a douche,
(02:01):
and then into the offseason. So that is a good
jumping off point. Let us discuss the question where are
you at on Wemby failing to congratulate the Knicks after
the NBA Finals had come to an end on Saturday.
The Spurs star apparently too good for that, as he
ran back and said, you know what, I'm done, I'm
(02:23):
out of here. I'm going to go to the locker
room because I don't want to see any of this,
and I want to congratulate you and beating my head
in in the fourth quarter of every game. So I've
got inventor, zip code and New York Times best seller,
and we will combine all of these things together, and
we're gonna become a fire breathing dragon, is what we're
(02:45):
going to become. So a this is one of those cases.
Give me, you're tired, you're poor, your young superstar who
cannot stay for a handshake or a dap, none of
that stuff. Cannot do it, cannot do it. And let's
be reheard. When I saw the end of the finals
over the weekend, the ending from the Wemby side of things,
(03:05):
with everything that had been invested into this guy and
how little he did when the game mattered most rotten,
I wrote down the word rotten. The whole thing was
rotten for Victor wemb Yama. And I don't want to
hear all the excuse, oh young, oh young, He's gonna
be back every year. We don't know that for every
(03:26):
one of these guys that keeps returning, there's a bunch
that don't return. And I can give you plenty of
examples historically in all different sports. So this assumption, you
know what happens when you assume that Wemby's going to
be a staple in the NBA Finals. I was not
impressed with what I saw. I was not impressed. Considering
all the build up and all the drama O rama,
(03:47):
what I saw from Wemby was simply not good enough.
And walking off the court that was not the walk
of shame. It was the walk of don't make eye
contact with the team that actually kicked my ass and
embarrassed me. Don't do that. And he didna leave before
he vanished. Wemby seven foot four. It's hard to vanish
(04:07):
when you're seven foot four by like a magician Abra cadabra,
hocus pocus, or he's just allergic to accountability, either one
of those things. But he was gone. And we've seen
this script before. But typically if you go to the
annals of the NBA, the people that pull that off,
that walk off the court with a sour puss like
Wemby did after losing the NBA Finals, they belonged to
(04:31):
harden villains of basketball. The greatest example would be the
Bad Boys, Bad Boys, the Bad Boy Pistons back in
the day, led by Isaiah Thomas, who famously stormed off
the court. And that was back in the early nineties.
We're talking about almost forty years ago, when they were
all upset because the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan had
(04:52):
beaten them and they didn't want to watch the Bulls celebrate,
so they left early and all that. Now, when we
didn't leave early, he stayed until the end of the game.
Then he high tailed it and said, I got to
get out of here. The difference is the other players
that I and I can recall that have done that
were battle tested. They were heavyweights, and Wemby looks just
like a lightweight, like the whole thing, and he hasn't
(05:15):
earned the right to be that. What's the word I'm
looking for that that have the temper tantrum that he had.
We'll call it like that for Victor Wimbanyama and the
basketball world spent all year, but certainly in the playoffs
here just telling us how he was built for the moment.
He was different, and I believed it. I bought into
(05:36):
the hype. Oh yeah. Everything I'd say is like, this
is the this is the stage. Here we go. It's
a launching pad to the Moon to the Moon, to
the Moon, to the Moon, to the Moon to the Moon. Instead,
as we mentioned in a previous episode, Wenby got his
pilot's license. He's now qualified to fly the vomit comet.
And they did that time and again, time and again.
(05:56):
And he is an inventor. Though I will say this
for Wenby, he's an invent He literally has invented the
French goodbye two point zero. You've heard of French leave,
Well that's Wemby right there. He exited the finals without
without informing the NBA or saying goodbye. So so I'm
out of here, see you later. And the Spurs, they
love to preach about the culture, the San Antonio Spurs
(06:18):
culture put in there by Greg Popovich back in the day,
and they're good to go and all that and okay,
well their franchise savior, the Spurs culture. His culture is pouting,
capital p pouting. That's what he did. And the historical
context on this, when Isaiah Thomas walked off the court,
(06:41):
and that was many many years ago, as we said,
it took him a long time to live that down
in terms of his reputation. Some say he never did
live that down. Isaiah Thomas, who's still to this day
bitter and broken with Michael Jordan, although that's over the
Olympic team. Old guys holding a grudge, which is never bad.
It's always fun when old guys hold the grudge. But
(07:02):
at twenty two years old, for Wimby, and he's he
can't accept the sucking that took place out there, and
he's supposed to be the next face of the NBA
and here we go and the whole thing and he
can't even stay on the floor. You gotta take your medicine,
and he didn't want to take his medicine, which tells
you a lot about how he's wired. And it's not
(07:25):
a good sign. I would be very concerned if I
was the San Antonio Spurs about this guy, very concerned.
The way he handled himself. The whole thing was not good,
not good at all. All right, Now, overall, Victor won
by Yama. If you look at the numbers, he averaged
twenty six points, eleven rebounds and three and a half
block shots in the finals said whoa wowsers, Wowie Kauzawi,
(07:52):
you know that whole thing. Twenty six points, eleven rebounds
and three and a half blocks. And the Spurs led
by double digits in every single game, every single game
of the series, and they blew leads obviously in four
of the five games, and when Banyama made some critical
mistakes in three of the four losses, and I wrote
(08:13):
down three or four could have even been all four,
but certainly three of the four. Now I will point
out that the box score humpers as we call them,
the snot bonditos, they love their box scores. Well you
can yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah,
but yeah, but rabbit. Yeah, but Wemby average twenty six
(08:34):
points and eleven rebounds and three and plucks. You can't
be critical of Webby. He had the stats, you know,
it's ridiculous. You can't rip him. Okay, what a bet?
There is nuance to this. There is nuance to this.
And with the game on the line, where was he? Where?
Speaker 3 (08:52):
I don't know?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Did you see I didn't see Wemby? Did you see Wemby?
Where'd he go? He did the wobble, the wobble, wobble, wobble.
What the heck? All right? Now? Question how much damage?
How much damage did the Spurs franchise player Victor Wambanyama
due to his brand with the walking off the court.
(09:14):
We've already talked about that now, the way he played
in key moments of the NBA Finals and all that.
So I go back to the point. The NBA marketing
arm did a tremendous job of building up the myth
of this guy, and Wemby responded to all of that
(09:35):
hype and he went out there on seemingly live television
with a global audience, and he made an episode of MythBusters,
and he just busted the myth right there on the
biggest stage with everyone watching who cares about basketball, the
NBA Finals. He went out there and laid an egg
(09:57):
so large, How large was it? It was so large
that it needed its own zip code, That's how big
an egg it was. When the game mattered, he got cooked,
He was buttered and served up. All of that happened
right there there you go on the TV delivering a
performance down the stretch that was so soft? How soft
(10:19):
was it? Thanks for asking? It was so soft that
you needed to store it in some tupperware and put
that aside from everything else in the fridge. To put
that tupperware right there, and with every game lost within
more than reach. They had double digit leads early in
most of those games, some even in the fourth quarter,
(10:40):
and Wemby down the stretch with opportunities to win the
game and could step on up for the Spurs. He
was petrified, terrified and zombified by the Knicks or the
Mormon or all of that. Whatever. Pick your poison, Pick
your poison, Mike. He just caught in his bank of
(11:02):
fog and he couldn't see his way out, and he
just was stuck there. And it just sucked and wandering
around like a rumba stuck in a corner and it
can't get away from the corner. It's like, dude, you
got to back up a little bit. What are you doing?
And so we keep hearing about the unicorn, the unicorn,
the unicorn, and there's no one like him, and he's
built different. Well, I've seen plenty of guys in my
(11:24):
time that sucked in big games. I don't know about you.
He looked like every other guy that sucks in big moments.
What's different about Wemby. He played well for a stretch
of the game, maybe seventy five percent of the game,
and then just free falling. There was a Kamakazi mission
there at the end. So the unicorn, this, the unicorn that,
(11:48):
all of that, and this was like a horse headed
to the glue factory watching the way he played down
the stretch of these games. Victor womban Yama, the Parisian Prodigy,
good nickname Parisian Prodigy, he turned into the Parisian puddle
in evaporating in winning time, it was winning time, and
uh well not quite. Didn't quite work out there when
(12:11):
it was winning time, it turned out to be losing
time and slightly problematic. Yeah, so it was crunch time,
chemo final five minutes of the fourth quarter, and he
was not He was not taking a punch. He was
not making a punch. He was out to brunch, is
(12:34):
what he was doing, all right. He wasn't throwing punches.
He was out the brunch, sipping a mimosa, having a
fine time there and needed to throw a punch and
either didn't know how to do that or chose to
not do that. So it was it was a mess.
So I sum this all up. The brand is absolutely damaged.
(12:56):
It's bruised, it's swollen, it's on crutches right now. It
needs some medication. To make the brand back better. My god,
you cannot be the face of that sport, the face
of the NBA, right, and then when the moment is there,
(13:16):
it slaps you in the face. It's a problem. Oh
you're nitpicking, Mallard. I don't think I am. I don't
think I am all right. That stank. Those kooties are
gonna last for a while, and there's no guarantee this
guy's back every year, and not just him. You look
around the Spurs roster and certainly he's the centerpiece that
(13:38):
we're going to focus on Wenby. But that brings us
to the last part of this diatribe, the coaching part
of the puzzle, and that is a major issue. Now. Ultimately,
I don't think coaching matters too much in the NBA.
It can hurt you. I don't know that it helps
you that much. And in this case, that was a
net zero for the San Antonio Spurs. So the question,
(13:59):
does coach Mitch Johnson deserved to keep his job on
the sidelines for the Spurs after that epic blown lead
Paloosa in the NBA Finals. So if I own the team,
hell no, he would be out. See you later, Mitch Johnson,
who seems like a nice enough guy. He would not
(14:21):
have made it to the post finals news conference. I
would have said, listen, don't even bother. All right, you
don't work for us anymore, get out of here. And
the Spurs, they didn't just lose in the final, and
obviously Wenby was the biggest culprit in this. They didn't
just lose in the finals. Slow. The Spurs gift wrapped absolutely,
gift wrapped it with a nice bow on top, and
then hand delivered these games, many of them to the Knicks.
(14:44):
I wasn't overly impressed with I thinking the Knicks did
other than not give up. It was just, hey, keep
playing hard. The Spurs have a glitch. The doo hickey
doesn't work. And no matter what this cat Mitch Johnson did,
it doesn't seem like he did much of anything. For
several games, people were saying, hey, don't play the Aaron Fox.
The guy's a bomb, and he kept put him out
(15:05):
there a big moments. And this is the hubris of
these guys in the San Antonio Spurs organization, like we
know better than you. Well, apparently you don't. This is
one where the public got it right and you're a
bunch of dingleberries, you're a bunch of Mama lukes that
you should have sat down to Aaron Fox for literally anyone.
You could have had a fan raffle and brought somebody
in a Spurs season ticket older although they all sold
(15:28):
their tickets so they didn't go to the game. It
looked like Game six over the weekend, my god, or
Game five, I guess it was over the weekend, not
game even make it the game six, forget about that.
So anyway, listen, that's the thing now, much like Wemby,
a lot of you dumb bums are convinced, well, the
youth thing that that is why he's going to keep
(15:48):
his job. And youth to me is not a shield
at thirty nine, and that's young in the coaching game.
You're thirty nine years old. And at this point, based
on the way he did not adjust in the NBA Finals,
Mitch Johnson, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs, is
he's already a New York Times best selling author. He
(16:11):
wrote Complete Idiots Guide on how not to coach well
in the NBA Finals and be so stubborn, so pigheaded,
you don't make any key adjustments. They got to be
the dumbest team in the world, and that starts from
the coach on the way down. They didn't just collapse
down the stretch these spurs. They invented new ways to
(16:32):
suck at a time you cannot suck blowing a combined
I did the math on this. If you just go
by the biggest lead in each game, they lost four right,
lose four out of five in the finals San Antonio.
They blew seventy one points worth of leads in futzing
away those four games and losing the NBA Finals. That
(16:55):
is a that is a lifestyle, is what that is.
Nine point blown lead. That is the thing that Pop
will remember other than the outcome of this. That is
the Mona Lisa of meltdowns to blow that big a lead.
And from Wemby's hair brain plays to de Aaron Fox,
who they would not get rid of. He had the
(17:17):
historic boner, Fox's boner when he had three options right
three out. You can either call time out and reset.
They could just just dribble and get fouled and then
go to line or try to run to the basket
and see if you can get a basket. And of
course that completely backfight. But from Wemby's disaster to Taron
(17:37):
Fox or the coach, the whole thing. It was sloppy mcslop.
That's a new item. It's an add on itam at
McDonald's sloppy mcslop. It's a McDonald's sloppy Joe, is what
that is. So as we always say, you're either coaching
it or you're allowing it to happen. Mitch Johnson. So
these Spurs were not outplayed. That's the thing about. It's
like they were not outplayed, they were out coached and
(17:59):
they they they had a malfunction the what you McCall
it did not work at the end. There disaster class,
absolute disaster class for the San Antonio Spurs. So typically
in the past someone gets sacrificed. It does not seem
like we're going to get that in San Antonio. There's
a lot of fanboys in the crowd there. They don't
(18:19):
really hold the team accountable in San Antonio. So I
would imagine that there will not be any accountability if
I own the team, though again I would get rid
of miss Johnson.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Set gots here. I have a podcast empire. It continues
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I'm also doing a live radio show from three to
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Speaker 1 (18:50):
Wanted to kick me out of the house.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
It's called Stegatzi Company Live, which is available in podcast
form right when the show finishes. Every single day of
the biggest names in sports, a lot of phone.
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Calls, I love you guys.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
You show it's one of my favorites.
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A lot of interact shit, guys not taking themselves too seriously.
Those are just some of the things that you can
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Please subscribe, rate and review Steve Gotson Company and God
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Speaker 1 (19:38):
All right, so let's get into it. We're gonna talk
some baseball right now. By request alf the Alien Opine
are demanding some hot baseball talk. And when a Brigadier general,
a senior member of the Malord militia request that kind
of content, then we must provide that kind of content.
It is we have no choice but to provide that content. Now,
that's a good story here. So the the baseball season
(20:00):
going on, we're in this weird period before the All
Star Break where there's another month ago or so and
then not the Dog Days, the Dog Days or after
the All Star break, after the trade deadline. However, there's
chatter about the comings and goings as we head into
that part of the schedule. And our lead this hour
is from the Metropolitans. That is a baseball team, not
(20:24):
a good one that plays in the Tri state area
there in New York talking baseball. So we have a
status update, status update on the big offseason pickup of
the New York Metropolitans. If you did not hear and
perhaps not Bob Bishett. Bobachett, who's been playing third base
(20:44):
and occasionally shortstop for the Mets this year, is widely
expected to hit the eject button on his contract and
opt out of the final two years of his contract
after the uh, you know, after the season. Obviously, I
can't do it now. He's in the middle of the contract.
Bashett signed a three year contract for one hundred and
(21:07):
twenty six million. I'm told that's a lot of money.
In fact, the AAV the average annual value to the
mood to the moot to the moon to moon, and
this after leaving Toronto to go play for the Mets.
It has not gone well so far. He's played a
little better recently. Over all, though, the product has not
been up to standard for Bobashett. That is a good
(21:28):
jumping off point. Let us discuss the question why why
would a guy like Bobashet, who has eighty four million,
two years and eighty four million left on his contract,
why would he opt out considering he's not playing particularly well.
So I've got pantsed Roman, candle, an eye doctor, and
(21:50):
we will combine all of these things together, and we're
gonna give you the ABC's and the one two threes,
and we always start with number. Jump the gun. Number one,
number one, number one, number one, number one. What fun?
It's number one? Okay, enough, So I'll tell you why.
Thanks for asking. I'll tell you why. Because the contract
(22:12):
was built for him to activate Bobachhet, to activate the
escape patch, the portal. It was designed that way. The
Mets gave him the Golden parachute up front and not
on the back end. Forty two million, one year, forty million.
The salaries actually too me and the signing bonus forty million.
(22:33):
Everything else is theater. It's kabuki theater. New York was
supposed to elevate Bobaschett. That was the argument, the Big Apple,
you go there, you make it there, you can make
it anywhere, that old song. So Bashett gets to the Mets,
and the New York market was supposed to elevate this
guy's play. Instead, he has gotten pants playing in New York.
(22:56):
He's been exposed. I don't know what happened in Toronto.
I liked the player in Toronto. I thought Bobachett was
a good player. He played well against the Dodgers in
the World Series last year. But as a Met, yikes,
he's really never been a met. Bobashett, He's just another
baseball mercenary, that's what he is. Bouncing around and all that.
And he took the signing bonus gold and he kept
(23:16):
the map app open it's like, Okay, I'm here, I'm
already planning my escape. And so this makes it a
little more interesting for the Mets. If you are going
to start unloading players and you're relatively confident that Bobachet's
not going to be back, then why wouldn't you repackage
and send him out into the wild blue yonder and
(23:37):
just get a little something in return. The Mets, see,
here's the thing. There's teams around baseball Baschets. I think
he's twenty eight right around there, and he knows that
there's always a sucker out there, and they will forgive him.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
The nerds will overlook this year. They'll say, well, look
at the exit velocity. You can shove it up your
tuck us and it's really impressive and all that stuff.
So the market, despite not playing particularly well this year,
they'll overla. So, well, it's just a New York thing.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Get him out of there. He'll be fine, and he'll
get even more guaranteed money. And there are enough teams
out there that still be like, Okay, this one bad year,
we're gonna sign this guy. He'll be great for us.
The Mets, of course, are stuck with the reality that
he's hitting in the two thirty range bobershet, and he's
got eight home runs and a glove that appears to
be made out of wet cardboard playing defense for the Mets.
(24:31):
It's not going well, and supposedly Philadelphia still wants him,
so he could. He was gonna sign with the Phillies,
and then the last minute the Mets, if you believe
the gossip, the Mets came in there and stole them
because they gave this fordoculous offer. But that alone, if
he does opt out, he's got to get half to
get more than eighty four million. And the only fly
(24:51):
in the ointment here is the labor issue, which is
more than a labor issue, because the baseball's expected to
go into this arctic winter where there's no negotiation, and
even though they've been talking now, there's gonna be no
agreement for a while. They're gonna miss games into twenty
twenty seven, so and who knows what it's going to
(25:12):
look like the landscape they're gonna put. They're trying to
put a cap on how much guys can make, which
is ridiculous to me. Every team has a budget, and
that's the way it should be. Nonetheless, we'll keep an
eye on this and then, if not the Phillies, if
you're looking at teams that would bid on Boba shitt,
how about a reunion the Toronto Temptation if you will,
and played so well for the Blue Jays, and a
(25:34):
homecoming there like a Hallmark card, Hallmark movie, just like that.
All right? Now, speaking of we talked about the Phillies
possibly being interested in Boba Schet, we go to Philly
where over the weekend the Phillies had a visit by
Snap Crackle Pop And if you didn't see this, the
Phillies have now decided to go to market. Apparently they're
going to the flea market here desperately trying to get
(25:56):
some outfield help. And this after right for and one
time playoff hero a Dallas Garcia, the Texas Ranger legend
from back in the day, suffered a season ending torn
up right lat muscle, so he's out and he going.
So now we're told the Phillies have their radar locked
(26:18):
in on Joe Adele of the Angels and Suzuki of
the Cups, Seyya Suzuki of the Cups, So we'll see
what happens with that now, they try to upgrade in
right field. By the way, a Dollas Garcia was not
playing very well at all for the fight in Phills
when he had been out there before the injury. All right,
so the question you make the call, you can only
(26:41):
get one, all right, You're gonna go get Joe Adele,
the current Angel outfielder, or you're gonna go make your
move and get Seya Suzuki of the Chicago Cups. Assuming
all is equal, who would be a better fit for
the Phillies and a conceivable playoff push. The Phillies, after
(27:03):
getting off to a terrible start, brought in Donnie Baseball
Don Mattingly. He was only on the staff, they promoted him,
and the Phillies are in position to have a shot
to make the postseason. All right, So the arrow on
this one is pointing straight towards trader Dave as in
Dave Dombrowski visiting trader Joe as in Joe Adele, And
(27:24):
that should be that should be the move. There, Look,
Joe Adele, who's the Lord? Giveth the Lord take it away?
The outfielder, giveth the outfielder take it away. He had
that three robbery game where he took three home runs
away and then had a doink ball bounce off his
head over the wall for a home run. It's been
a very eventful season for Joe Adele in Anaheim, that
(27:46):
would be the guy and playing baseball with the Angels,
it's like being in the Federal Witness Protection Program and
in Anaheim and you're surrounded by so many turns that
is like you're living in a porta potty. When you
play for the Angels, there's that many turns around there.
And you want to go to a real hungry baseball
(28:08):
environment where Philadelphia seemingly would be on that big board
of hungry baseball environments, and you put him in Philly
and suddenly the blossoming will take off. Let him breathe
little bit competitive baseball, a team that's got good players
up and down the ruster, not just like one good
guy here and then seven slugs and all that. And
(28:31):
in Citizens Bank Park, which has been a noted hitters ballpark,
it would be like giving a Roman candle to a toddler.
Something loud is gonna happen there and ready or not,
and he would balance out the lineup. Of course, both
these guys would, so they have a left handed heavy
lineup and Dave don Browski. This has kind of moved
(28:53):
don Browski would make he'd trade some of those minor
league guys because he knows most of them won't make it,
and bring in I would go with Dell, but Suzuki
is also an option there, so we'll keep an eye
on it. And the Phillies they need another impact guy
because they've run cold, mostly inconsistent offensively, so we'll keep
(29:16):
an eye on that. All right, final point to the
Silver State we go where there is currently no baseball team,
although there was this last week and was reading that
opposing players do you see this story over the weekend?
So opposing players are already telling members of the Athletics
to pass the word on. They're all in on Viva
Las Vegas. They're all about it. Now. The president of
(29:39):
the A's told Bob Nightingale, he said, quote, you give
this quote. He said, let's just say we won't have
trouble recruiting. Close quote. Now, the Athletics owner John Fisher,
the scumbag that took the A's out of Oakland, that weasel,
John Fisher expects five hundred million dollars in revenue the
(30:00):
first year in Vegas. Let me repeat that for those
of you a little slow in the back of the room.
Five hundred million dollars in revenue for a franchise that
has been a laughing stock for years, the Athletics, which
proves sometimes good things happen to bad people. And so
John Fisher, bragging about that, says they'll be in the
(30:20):
top six in Major League Baseball revenue and they're very
excited about that. And then he said, well, you know,
I'm going to spend more money. Of course, the A's
are making money now, they just don't want to spend it.
And the little weasel, so he says they're going to
retain their young players and they're gonna make some moves
in free agency. And the speculation had been that the
A's to make that big splash, are going to go
(30:42):
out and try to get Trek Skouble from the Tigers.
All right, So the question why would anyone, and I
seriously mean this, why would anyone buy the hype from
the Athletics about people desperately trying to play in Vegas
when the Raiders already proved that Vegas does not magically
(31:03):
attract star players. So why is it going to be
any different in baseball? And the answer is it's not
going to be any different. And you should not believe
the line of blogoney that is coming out of the athletics,
Like if you think players are going to be lining
up to go play in Vegas, you might want to
go see the eye doctor, cause that's not a line
(31:26):
of people. That's a line of tumbleweeds, is what that is.
And everybody loves Vegas for forty eight hours or seventy
two hours, and that's the perfect amount of time when
you're traveling with a baseball team and you come into
Vegas for a weekend series Friday, Saturday, Sunday, in and out.
That's what life's all about. And I don't know that
(31:47):
anyone's going to be uprooting their entire life to go
play for John Fisher unless he massively overpays, which defeats
the purpose of the argument where they're like, well you'll see,
let me tell you something, we'll not have no problem recruiting. Well, yeah,
if you pay top dollar, you can get some free agency.
Come to Vegas. Are we really doing this again? That's
(32:09):
that's the part that blows me away with the Raiders.
I know they've been in Vegas for a few years now,
but this is the exact same I'm not making this up.
We did monologues about this. This is the exact same
players are lining up to come to Vegas boiler plate
that we heard when Mark Davis moved the Raiders to
Vegas and it never materialized. The Raiders, they didn't have
(32:32):
a parade, a conga line of great NFL players that
wanted to play for the Raiders. It didn't happen. Is
the a's president forgetting that the Raiders said the same
thing and ended up with a bunch of mediocre players
and a few overpaid mid tier talents. Because I remember
(32:52):
that Vegas, it's not nothing. There are certainly guys that
want to play in Vegas, just like Miami. There's guys
that love Miami and the Marlins. The Marlins claimed, I
remember when they built that stadium years ago, that oh,
we just need a stadium. We can compete with the
Mets and the Phillies and the Braves and all these teams.
(33:13):
We just need a stadium. So they built the stadium
on the taxpayer dime in Miami and South Florida. There
they built the stadium, and they said, well, we're gonna
spend it's now been I believe fourteen seasons since that
ballpark opened, and stay it with me now, kids, bupkus.
In terms of big time players, keeping players, bringing players in,
(33:36):
it just hasn't happened. And yeah, the city is a
draw like in Miami or Vegas. The city is a
draw in Vegas. If you want to burn the midnight
oil and go out to Perump where all kinds of
things are legal out there, not in Vegas but in Paromp,
go out there and knock yourself out. More power to you,
More power to you. But ultimately it's gonna come down
(33:58):
always to money. And if it's team was winning and
be able to different the team's not not. They're mediocre.
They're not really trying to win until they get to
Vegas in a couple of years, and who knows, maybe
even next year. There's a chance they're ahead of construction.
There's not a lot of rain in Vegas, so the
timeline is supposed to their ahead. There's a chance the
A's move even next summer. In the in the middle
(34:19):
of the summer, I was told that there's gonna be
two different plans one where the A's played the whole
year in Sacramento. Now, I don't know how this is
gonna work out logistically, because if you sell season tickets,
you're gonna have to issue a lot of refunds. So logistically,
it seems like they're gonna have to stay in Sacramento
next year and not move in the middle of the season.
But there have been teams that have done that, not
to the degree of changing entire cities in the middle
(34:40):
of the season. We'll keep an eye on that. And
I love the fact that John Fisher, that wheeze alone's like,
oh yeah, we're gonna be in the top six in payroll,
and he's acting like they're gonna be the Dodgers, the Athletics.
You can have all this new money, they're gonna spend
all this money, and of course they're just gonna be
clipping coupons. Again. They'll sign like one free agent and
the rest of the time they'll be clipping coupons at
(35:00):
three in the morning, trying to get a deal on
soap and not. Of course they don't want the soap,
the name brand soap, because you get cheaper prices on
the other types of soap, so New City. You got
the same owner, the same chastity belt on the wallet,
if you will, and so good luck and they're counting
(35:22):
on mostly tourists to fill out the stadium. Good luck
on that. It's worked for the Raiders. A little different
in baseball, though, if you go to Vegas for a weekend,
you want to spend all of your time at the
stadium and then gamble around that? Or how's that? Going
to football makes sense? You go out there, it's one day.
You can go on a Friday and then hang out,
(35:42):
gamble all day Saturday, get completely hammered, and then go
to the game on Sunday and then fly back and
there you go. It's perfect baseball not so much.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. It's maller.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
To the third degree? This is one big Ben gets great?
Speaker 1 (36:03):
All right? Cool? We loop? What do we got here? Cool? Ben?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
UFL coner Micropoli made an offhand remark to reporters on Friday,
and he mentioned that the NFL is talking about two
more expansion teams.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Are you buying that? Or do you think it's a Yes,
it's inevitable. They're gonna keep adding teams, right, there's no
finite number. They've got thirty two now. It's all about
more product. They need more inventory, So you got to
keep adding a couple of teams every thirty twenty five,
thirty years or something. You add more teams. The problem
is you break up the TV money. There's so much
TV money. I do buy it. I don't think it's
(36:36):
gonna happen anytime soon, but these things often they're talked
about years and years in advance, so I do believe
they'll add two teams next ben.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
The World Cup coming to NFL stadiums has reignited the
let's play on grass all the time debate. Yes, do
you think the players will ever actually strike for this?
Speaker 1 (36:53):
No? No, absolutely not. They don't play long enough in
the NFL. And the whole grass versus turf thing, the
newest editions of the turf, there are studies that indicate
there's really not much difference between the turf and the grass.
Despite that, oh, you must be making that up. That's propaganda. No,
there's actually studies that have been unpaid, not paid for
(37:14):
by the NFL that indicate that. I don't think we're
going to see that in our lifetime because these stadiums
have too many events, it's too expensive. The World Cups
once in a generation.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Next, in the wake of the Knicks winning the championship,
Rick Brunton thanked Mark Cuban for.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Letting Brunson go that's funny. I didn't see that. Yeah, Ben,
Do you think that was the beginning of the end
for the Mavericks? Would they make a mistake there? Well,
no giving away Luco is the end of the Dallas Mavericks.
But yeah, it didn't help. I was skeptical. Brunson played
well for Dallas, but I was skeptic. He's been amazing
for the next on it and it can't really blame
the Mavericks. How do we know you? Pass check?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Hey you sports figure, guy or girl?
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Who here were you talking to?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Son?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Here? Some instant advice? Hold that thought. No one's paid
attention to me for ten whole seconds, and if you
don't like it and away we go. It's the insta
advice line, unscreened radio. Who needs the wisdom, the advice,
the knowledge of the Malard militia. So many options. There's
some good ones sent in USA. Ferg Dog sent he
(38:37):
sent one. I know him, Alf recommended John Henry, the
Red Sox owner. But we're gonna keep it simple.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Here.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Play the hits, well man, play the hits. Advice to Wemby,
the Parisian prodigy who became the Parisian puddle in the
big moments of the NBA Finals, Or your advice to
Wemby on how to play better down the stretch and
not suck at a time you cannot suck. On the
air when you hear my voice at eight seven, seven, nine, nine, six,
six three sixty nine, line one, Hello, you're on their
(39:05):
advice to Wemby, line one, Maybe he should stick the
painting those statues. That's a good idea. Painting is the
way to go there, supermarket Steve. Line two, you're on
the airline too, advice to Wemby, Line two. Hello, Yeah,
morning that hey, Spike lea four a midsto. Yeah, yeah,
so I don't know something like that. Not a very
(39:27):
very not a very tall man. I was in an
elevator with Spike Lee one time years ago, and he
thought I was going to kill him because I was
much taller than he is. Let's go to line line three.
You're on the airline three, instant advice line for Wemby,
the Parisian prodigy who became the Parisian Puddle in the NBA. Dog.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
I'm a fan of Joe Dog.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Thanks Ben, Okay, I'll let him know. I'll pass that on.
Hello caller, you're on the air. We're giving advice to Wemby.
Call her line four. Hello, line four? Is it true?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Eva?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Las Vegas is the greatest sports informational information? All right?
You were stumbled over your worth line too. You're on
the airline too. I hear a lot of mommya noise
line to advice to Wenby, the Parisian prodigy who played
like the Parisian puddle.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
And my wife has the world double tea cup.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
All right, congratulations sir, very proud of that. All right?
Eight seven seven ninety nine on Fox is the number?
Call it on the air, caller advice please to Wemby. Caller.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I know there's a minimum hYP for roller coasters?
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Is there a maximum height. Yes, I think there might be.
Definitely there has to be. Line uh. Line five, Hello,
Line five, you're on the advice to Wenby, the Parisian Prodigy.
You became the Parisian puddle in the NBA Finals. We
like my life on Mackenzie. Sir Andrew from Bakersfield harassing us. Hello.
Line one, you're on the airline one.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
I'm gonna say he was mad because you got all
those deep and no toothbrush.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Oh yeah, you need the tooth You need the toothbrush. Yeah,
very important. Line three, I line too rather, you're on
the airline too.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Hello, you got to go to the per school and
went how to play basketball again?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Good idea? All right, good idea. All right, we'll do
one more, only one more good. I'll take credit or not?
Kooble woop. Last call mine five. Line five you're on
the airline five advice to Wemby. Line five Meames Joan
was born? Was that what Jerome? And Jerome called back again? Jerome,
come on,
Host
Ben Maller
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