Hour 3: MLB labor negotiations, Law Murray the Athletic, World Wide Webber

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0:33Rich Eisen:This summer, serve up the cookout classics Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs and Heinz Mustard Grill up a dog, add classic yellow mustard or loaded Chicago style We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Mayer and Heinz This is the Rich Eisen Show Hey, everybody Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck You can find us everywhere Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show.

1:18Rich Eisen:Oh my God, you guys are my favorites. This is the Rich Eisen Show. The one and only. Rich Eisen. I know what I'm talking about. That's the headline. The Rich Eisen Show. with guest host Brian Weber. I mean, honestly, he's brilliant. Brian Weber. I've got a long resume. Google me, it saves time. From the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Brian Weber.

1:48We're our way into the final hour of the week. Appreciate you spending time with us here on ESPN Radio. However you're enjoying the program, ESPN Radio app, Sirius XM Channel 80. Tune in. We have so many different ways for you to enjoy this audio-only experience. No simulcast today, which is, in some ways, hopefully a benefit for you because you get a little bit more relaxed. Although I am still wearing makeup. I'm in Los Angeles, after all. You never know when you might get discovered. coming up in less than 20 minutes. We'll return to the NBA. I am trying not to go all NBA all the time. Some of that is self-preservation because I'm back with you next Friday, a week from today, and then I have a handful of dates the following week.

2:41And not too long ago, and I'm not trying to talk my way out of the industry more than I already have on and off the air, but I'll save that for my podcast. Voices of the Game with B-Web. You get that on the ESPN radio app. I am a bit older than my enthusiastic delivery would suggest. So as a veteran of the holidays at the end of the year and the holiday July 4th cycle in the middle of the year, not too long ago, NBA free agency was wild. DeAndre Jordan, remember, trying to hide at his house and then the Clippers showing up, knocking on his door. Again, this is a reference that's a decade ago. But because of the new collective bargaining agreement, free agency is essentially dead by design.

3:30I'm going to link that to what happened in baseball today. But coming up, when we get back to the NBA, we will get analysis of the deals that matter when we're joined by Law Murray, NBA staff writer for the athletic good friend of any program that I fill in on. And I'm going to pose this question to Law. I understand what the Timberwolves are trying to do by picking up LaMelo Ball. How's that going to work on the floor? We'll find out from somebody who knows the game better than I do. But not too long ago, if we were in this position with the official start of NBA free agency looming, I'd be running through at least a half dozen big names and going through the what if game what if and now it's crickets and I try to be ahead of the curve but I remember a couple years ago when I was getting ready for a free agency show and I'm looking at my list and we're talking about play Thompson to Dallas.

4:38Last year, if you endured this act, it was Paul George going to Philadelphia for their quote-unquote big three, and it's time to retire that notion because not only has Wemby and his young teammates in San Antonio reinforced what we saw from Oklahoma City with J-Dub and SGA, I'm just throwing out handles here. If you don't have a team, case in point, the Knicks, and yes, Jalen Brunson went superhuman. And I was wrong about him, not Becky Hammond wrong, but wrong about him when I was with you in late April. And I thought the Knicks would survive in advance, beat Atlanta. I was on the air the day after they blew a 14-point lead at home to the Hawks.

5:27shades of blowing a 14-point lead at home to the Pacers the year before. I figured the Knicks would lose to the Celtics in the second round. Of course, none of that happened because the Celtics didn't get out of the first round. But the Knicks are another perfect example. You need depth and a superstar. And the issue, for example, now with the Heat, yes, Giannis finally gives the Heat the transcendent player they've been looking for, and that's their franchise history. You go Alonzo Mourning to Dwayne Wade to LeBron, and they made that surprising run to the finals as an eight seed with Jimmy Butler.

6:06But Giannis plus Bam doesn't get you much because they don't have any outside shooting yet. And I just dismissed that big three in Philadelphia. It didn't work because, unfortunately, Joel Embiid is made of glass, even though he came back to play a pivotal role in that Game 7 victory over the Celtics in the first round. hasn't worked not once but twice with Durant, the quote-unquote big three, in Brooklyn and then in Phoenix. In fact, the Suns played better once he left and went to Houston. So the NBA landscape continues to evolve, and we'll get into that, as I mentioned, coming up in just a few minutes.

6:44The news of the day, in addition to all of the soccer we have been covering, I'll try to squeeze in a few more World Cup thoughts, Although the good news from an American point of view, and I'm not getting jingoistic on a big word Friday, but we all root, most of us hopefully root for our country, is that there's more to discuss. Not only is the national team moving on to knockout play, they've done it by virtue of scoring eight goals in their three matches. Yes, last night was meaningless, a glorified friendly against Turkey, because we had already locked up winning the group. But even in that losing effort, a couple more goals.

7:32The offensive productivity has been stellar. The way this team is attacking is different than we've seen in the past. Much more aggressive mindset. And they got the best player in American history. He's going to end his career that way. and Christian Pulisic back from his calf injury. And not only did he show no signs of being challenged, getting up and down the field, he played well. He looked like he had come back even stronger with all that rest. So, so many positives for the United States to have deep in their memory banks. And now they've got to show up against Bosnia, a team they're favored to defeat when they play on Wednesday in Santa Clara.

8:14Plenty of time, though, for that to be fully dissected, and it will be if you keep it where it is here on ESPN Radio. I'm Brian Weber, Aim for Rich. This is the Rich Eisen Show. You can chime in on the X platform, B.W. Weber, Weber with two Bs. We open the program with what I was not expecting to discuss today. I get knowing my worst tendencies. You got to be at least a degree of self-awareness at your disposal. Although if you can fake sincerity, I was told you got a long future ahead of you in sports talk radio. When I talk baseball, I wind up jumping in the hot tub time machine, although it's now justified because it's going to be 1994 all over ago again, except this time the difference is going to be the World Series will not be canceled.

9:08we are heading towards labor armageddon i don't mean to be more over the top than normal but given all of the flexing between the owners and the players and we're only in june where do you think this is all going lockout is coming now the only small positive might be lockout right after the world series gives both sides a longer runway to try to hammer out a compromise but i think it spills into spring training and maybe we're looking at lost games in the regular season but all of this is about like most things in life money because the owners have two problems those who have the means like steve cohen who owns the mets cannot help themselves from lighting their money on fire because they have too much money also you could defend it From a fan's point of view, they want to invest as much as they can in their roster.

10:11But as the Mets continue to prove, and this is all contingent on what happened earlier today with the very expected firing of Carlos Mendoza, he's out with the Mets mired in another long losing streak, make it six in a row, having been swept a four-game set by Chicago, and they lost in embarrassing fashion, not only dropping those games, but doing it with errors and base running blunders, just the Mets going old school Mets. Still, only the Dodgers have a bigger payroll in all of baseball. So you can't say the Mets have a spending problem. It's an allocation of resources issue. They have spent on the wrong players, again, as they have done consistently.

11:00But that's one issue the owners are dealing with. The top of the sport, the big boys financially always are willing to do whatever it takes to try to throw money at a problem, not figuring out that all that does is buy you depth, but doesn't guarantee anything in baseball. Yes, you can have more options in your bullpen, but baseball's flipping a coin 162 times. It's the most random sport of them all. that's balanced by the have-nots, quote-unquote. Although, let's remember, anyone who owns a Major League Baseball team has the means to have acquired it. Either they bought the team or they inherited it.

11:41No need for a bake sale. No need for a GoFundMe. We're talking about billionaires, but right now there's a massive incentive not to spend because they're getting welfare from the league subsidized by revenue sharing and the luxury tax. So the owners who are not the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Mets, the Cubs, the Phillies, the Blue Jays, and the Cubs, I'm being generous because the Ricketts family haven't spent enough, especially when you consider they're a market free. But the usual suspects are being ganged up upon by the rest of the league saying, we need to install a salary cap because we can't control ourselves.

12:26We need to bridge the gap between the top and the bottom. Now, in fairness, even though you probably can pick up the fact I'm pro player, because I'm pro talent in our business, I'm pro worker in general, the folks who actually generate the revenue should participate, not to get all das kapital on you. the owners at least have i think the upper hand from a pr standpoint because they're willing in addition to demanding a salary cap to put in the salary floor meaning the marlins would have to spend up to 180 million bucks or what it is but even if that somehow gets jammed in there i can't see it being agreed upon but maybe it goes arbitration do you trust the marlins to spend that money correctly because just like the Mets forcing Mendoza out and he deserved a go because the team has been a disaster and it was all foreshadowed when most of his coaching staff got canned early in the season and they're trying to follow what the Phillies did when they fired Rob Thompson brought in Don Mattingly as the interim manager and things have rebounded very nicely with the Phillies in second place in the division back in playoff contention why is that worked the Phillies have a better roster and I'll just go through the stars you know about Sanchez on the mound in this year of the pitcher in the National League with the Miz and how does he have that kind of consistent velocity and still no elbow issues I'm not rooting for it I'm hoping against it the guy is an absolute freak and skeins in Pittsburgh Paul skeins hopefully will remain a member of that franchise because baseball needs stars in small markets as well and otani here in southern california but the mets issue clearly is not a challenge financially they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis and remember just two years ago they got hot after a slow start made it all the way to national league championship series but that was a better roster this roster as assembled by gm david sterns who better be looking over his shoulder because he'll be the next to go had flaws that were glaring especially in the rotation coming into this year and because baseball is a random walk through 162 games back to that probability of flipping a coin injuries haven't helped no one soto early on and francisco lindor came back yesterday.

15:02So as much as things change, the more they stay the same. And the Mets can put all of the resources they want into trying to fill in all the holes on this roster, but it does not assure them anything. So that's why I'm out on the salary cap, because it's not just the pockets. You have to have the right person making the decisions. And the Mets don't have the bandwidth, the intellectual power of the Dodgers front office, led by Andrew Friedman, who won in Tampa with no money. And now he's got an embarrassment of riches here in Southern California. I'm Brian Weber in for rich. You can hit me up on the X platform.

15:48I'll check that out here and after the program. B.W. Weber. Weber with two B's in 35 minutes. It is a fan favorite. At least I'm someone who enjoys it. So we got one fan. We're going to log on to the World Wide Webber, find out things I might have overlooked straight ahead. With all that's happened this week across the NBA, has anything changed among the teams with a legitimate chance to win the title? We'll find out when we check in with Law Murray, staff writer of The Athletic. My name is Brian Weber. I'm in for Rich on The Rich Eisen Show.

16:51Rich Eisen:The next generation of talent. Now, Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Rich Eisen here, and summer's here too. And that means it's travel season. My favorite summer trip last year was to Sao Paulo, Brazil. With so many fans traveling for the Los Angeles against Kansas City game, they got to see how lively the city is. I love the culture and the amazing food that I'm still craving. Those memories remind everyone that it's that time of year to plan a little getaway. And that's why summer has a way of turning weekends into big events. One minute, it's a normal week, and then all of a sudden, a huge concert, sporting event, or festival brings people in from all over.

17:30Rich Eisen:And when that happens, visitors start looking for places to stay all across your city. So if you're already planning a summer trip of your own, you could list your space on Airbnb and earn a little extra cash while you're away. It doesn't have to be some big year-round commitment. It's about making the most of a busy weekend when your place would just be empty otherwise. I can tell you, people love finding a place that helps them feel connected to the city that they're visiting. If your city's about to have a big summer moment, this is a great time to maximize your space. Your home might be worth more than you think.

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18:51Rich Eisen:The Rich Isis Show Podcast Ryan Weber with you In for Rich and the Guys Home stretch on a Friday Still with a lot more to get to Coming up in 25 minutes, we will log on to the World Wide Webber, find out things I might have overlooked, and be sure to take us wherever you go throughout the weekend and all the holiday activity coming up with July 4th on the horizon. ESPN Radio listening, hopefully right now, on the ESPN Radio app, Sirius XM Channel 80, my former employer at TuneIn, or of course, our great affiliates nationwide. Let's get back to the basketball conversation. Always a pleasure to talk hoops with Law Murray.

19:41Check out his outstanding work for The Athletic. He is an NBA staff writer. Law, Brian Weber with you. How are you?

19:48Rich Eisen:I'm doing well, Brian. Thanks for having me this morning. It is my pleasure. I need you to clarify things because not only are you more plugged in than I, you're smarter than I am when it comes to basketball IQ. I understand from an overall perspective why the T-Wolves would want LaMelo Ball. How do you think it's going to work on the floor, and where does this leave Charlotte now? Well, I was looking at that trade, and it was interesting. Before the draft, I said, you know, Minnesota's got to do something about the point guard situation. Dante DiVincenzo was your nominal starter. He has a torn Achilles.

20:29Rich Eisen:Mike Conley has been on the roster for a few years. Obviously, he's getting up there in age. And then when they traded Julius Randle and didn't get a player back, it left a big hole. It's like Anthony Edwards is already complaining about, you know, double teams and not being able to get his game off. Like someone's got to relieve that pressure. And I, I like the lamello ball fit there. I actually think it's going to be a good fit personality wise, as well as basketball wise. Minnesota PR is going to have to really dig in there. But I really am intrigued at watching those two guys play. I mean, Anthony Edwards has been the touch leader of that team three years in a row.

21:15Rich Eisen:And he's done great with it. I mean, he's, to me, the best shooting guard in the NBA. LaMelo Ball is going to be very critical to basically let Anthony Edwards be the best version of himself. And looking at how Charlotte's offense, especially after January, really took off and didn't just win games, but they absolutely blew teams out when they were clicking. They were really clicking. I really think basketball-wise it works. Okay, so then why would Charlotte give up the face of the franchise law? Yeah. I'll put it like this. I hate it for Charlotte in terms of how well they played, but in the end of the day, what were they, Brian?

21:57Rich Eisen:They were still a playing team that didn't get to the playoffs for the 10th year in a row. You've never, ever seen an Eastern Conference team spend a decade out of the playoffs. You've never seen it until now. And Lomelo has obvious red flags. health availability as far as when he is healthy, you have to manage his minutes. We saw LaMelo come off the bench for a few games, and it wasn't for any other reason except to manage his minutes. Like, he's not even 25 yet, and he was under 30 minutes per game this year, and that kind of tells me that, you know, LaMelo Ball obviously is impactful, but you are that concerned about making sure that he's sustainable.

22:40Rich Eisen:He was really good as far as playing games this year, but they had to mix it up and do something. You saw Kobe White got there, and now you see Kobe White is going to be under contract with Charlotte for the short term. I feel like Charlotte has a lot to figure out. The East is, you need to give credit to the East. The East is a real serious conference with some depth, and I just feel like this was the hornet's time to say, hey, it's not like we're a playoff team. let's sell high and and figure out who we're committed to uh going forward well said and echo what you just laid out clearly they think that kobe white is the plug and play replacement for lamello i think it's going to be a tough sell to the fan base but it's a move for long-term success and you're right if you're stuck in the middle especially in the east you got no shot of at least contending for a championship.

23:35I'm Brian Weber in for Rich. This is the Rich Eisen Show here on ESPN Radio, talking NBA with Law Murray of The Athletic. Since we're talking about the Eastern Conference, what do you make of all of the trade conversation surrounding Jalen Brown? And if he moves, do you expect him to stay in the East?

23:53Rich Eisen:And I'll tell you that Jalen had a great season and then it ends the way that it did. Blowing 3-1 lead, getting on Twitch and complaining about how things were. I feel like there's a sense for me that the Celtics would definitely want to move on from Jalen Brown, but only to get better. You know, like Jalen Brown getting traded for a package or including a package that includes John to the Nkumbu is one thing. I remember back in 2022, before the Celtics made the finals, people were talking about trying to get Jalen Brown out of Boston, separating him from Jason Tatum. And And let's just put it this way.

24:34I think the entire NBA would rejoice if Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum were broken up.

24:39Rich Eisen:When those two dudes are healthy and playing a respectable amount of games together, they are at the top of the East year over year. Jason obviously didn't play until spring. And these dudes were still in number two seed, which I think might have messed up Brad Steven's plan. She was thinking maybe this could be a gap year. They were too good. They were too good. So I don't think that the Celtics should be running to get off of Jalen Brown. If there's a package that makes sense for them, I think they would consider it. And in terms of the Eastern Conference part of it, again, they were in Giannis talks.

25:13Rich Eisen:And Giannis not only was in the Eastern Conference with Milwaukee, but he's staying in the Eastern Conference now in Miami. So I don't think Boston is really tricking about the conference part of it. I just feel like if it makes sense for them to move, I don't think they're, you know, tell them moving him. But if he moves, I don't think you can really discriminate between the conference. And I really feel like Boston would be trying to do something to make their team better. Law Murray of The Athletic is our guest here on The Rich Eisen Show. So if, in fact, and let's just play the hypothetical game, Brown is on the move.

25:49We've heard Cleveland. We've heard Houston. We've heard Atlanta. which of those destinations do you find most intriguing?

25:58Rich Eisen:I'm going to be honest with you. Here's the thing with Cleveland. Cleveland has the biggest hole, but what are you giving up to, you know, to get Jalen Brown? Like Donovan Mitchell, look, I gave Donovan Mitchell a first team, so, I mean, I just feel like Donovan Mitchell is the kind of player that I kind of want. And then there's Evan Mobley. And honestly, you'd have to attach someone else with Evan. So Cleveland's interesting, but honestly, I just feel like Chandler Brown should just stay in Boston. We saw that team not just winning championship, but had people freaking out that the Boston Celtics were going to ruin basketball because of how their team was put together and how they were able to play off of those two dudes.

26:49Rich Eisen:So I know people want to talk about trades. I'm always going to be like, look, find a way to patch things up and get your season going. And unfortunately, Brian, we're not going to get that. We're going to get four months of cycle analysis. Well, that's not unfortunate. Hang on, look, we're in the content business, and I fill in during the summer, so this is a gift to me. Unfortunate you're right from the cohesion standpoint of the Celtics, but it's good for our industry. Of course. I mean, look, I literally made a shirt that said context over content. So that's what we got right now. Like, we don't have games.

27:27Rich Eisen:We got the summer league schedule out this morning. Like, that's about it. Like, that's the manna that you get from heaven as you walk through the desert. That is the NBA offseason. Whoa. Law, you're getting deep on it. I know the game that we're in. I appreciate Law Murray, always a wordsmith, and that is his job after all. He's a staff writer for The Athletic. So this show is based in Southern California. I live in L.A. and I tracked you on draft night with all the Clippers moves. Let's shift to the Lakers. Credit Austin Reeves. Now, I have some issues with his game. He doesn't play much defense.

28:02He's come up small in the postseason. But just from a human interest standpoint, what a transformation to go from undrafted to a max contract. How do you see the Lakers now, Law, approaching LeBron as an unrestricted free agent when we're talking about dollars and cents?

28:19Rich Eisen:Well, first of all, congrats to Austin Reeves. Someone who, it's funny when everyone brings up his undrafted status because he could have been drafted if he wanted to, but no, he directed himself to the Lakers and it's worked out from five years later with his bag. And I think it's huge because Luka loves him and that's a huge thing. So you have that part of things taken care of. I think, honestly, they've looked at LeBron, and I think they wanted to get that leverage with LeBron. And that's kind of how I'm looking at this. Like, LeBron is not going to be under the same salary spot that he's been under.