The Kevin Sheehan Show - Conversation With Wizards GM Tommy Sheppard

Episode Date: July 24, 2019

Kevin opened with why the Redskins should have waited to cut Mason Foster loose. He also discussed the Adrian Peterson debt situation. Then it was 45 minutes with Wizards GM Tommy Sheppard. Mark Zuckerman/MASN closed the show with Nats' talk. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right, I'm here. Aaron's here. This show is presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them that we told you to call. DC, busy today, I think. There may be something going on down on the hill. Many of you are probably watching the Mueller testimony. I watched the first 45. minutes before this podcast began to record this morning. And I am just going to mention this one thing, that the lack of communication ability from all involved during that first 30 to 45 minutes or so, Democrats, Republicans, and most notably, Robert Mueller himself was cringeworthy. Cringeworthy. I know that that's what's going on on Twitter right now is a lot of it has to do with Mueller. I was floored at the inability of all of these people to communicate clearly and plainly.

And by the way, I recognize that communication ability and intelligence are exclusive of one another. But God, it helps when smart people can communicate well. It just helps. It was a painful first 30 to 45 minutes. That's all I've watched of it today because we started to record this podcast. And it's a busy podcast today. Wizards General Manager Tommy Shepard will be on the show today. And Mark Zuckerman, who covers the Washington Nationals, will be on the show as well.

They crushed Colorado last night. 11-1. Trey Turner hit for the cycle last night. Second time in his career, he's hit for the cycle against Colorado. And by the way, according to Elias Sports Bureau, just the third player in Major League Baseball history to hit for the cycle multiple times against one team. The great Fred Clark of the Pirates did it twice against the Reds in 1901 and 1903.

And last year, Christian Yellich did it twice against Cincinnati. So the Reds have had it done to them twice, and now the Rockies once by Trey Turner. How good has Trey Turner been this month? He's hitting 319 with a 551 slugging percentage. you could make the case that right now he's their best position player on the team, Aaron. I know you feel like that is an argument and a debate worth having, and we will ask Mark about that a little bit later on. By the way, last night's cycle, courtesy of a lead-off home run to open up the game in the bottom of the first,

the Nats first at bat. His single came as an infield single in the bottom of the second. He tripled in the fifth and then doubled as part of a huge, eight-run seventh for the Nats. What a night for him. Trey Turner really playing very well. By the way, the win last night for the Nats cut the Braves lead in the National League East to five and a half games

because Atlanta lost to the Royals. The Nats and Rockies will play two today. It's a split day-night double-header, and that's because the first game of this series was rained out. And the Rockies really stink right now. They've lost 14 of 17. if you go back before the All-Star break. And the Nationals have an opportunity here

to take at least two, if not three more, from the Rockies, which would be huge before the Dodgers come into town. And then, by the way, the schedule with the Dodgers this weekend and the Braves following that, and if you look at their schedule the rest of the way, yeah, they've got some games with the Marlins and the Mets,

and they've got two more with the Orioles. But the other American League teams, they play, Minnesota and Cleveland. Do you know they end their season with a three-game home set against the Indians? Yeah. And both of those teams could be fighting for playoff positioning or a playoff appearance at that point. They still have teams like San Francisco who are red hot, the Cubs, the Brewers, the Cardinals, the schedule, not easy for the Nats. I think they've got six total with the Marlins the rest of the way. And I think also just six, with the Mets the rest of the way as well. But anyway, we will get more into the Nationals

with Mark Zuckerman later on in this program. All right, a quick tweet for me to read to you that will lead into a deeper conversation about Mason Foster. Yesterday, the news broke about Mason Foster when we were recording the show. We mentioned it. We talked about it a little bit, but I got this tweet from No Stadium for Snyder,

is his Twitter handle. and he responded to us tweeting out that we were going to talk about Mason Foster. Trash moved by a classless organization, that was the tweet. And by the way, that wasn't the only one I got that sort of echoed that sentiment. Some of you upset the team waited until training camp to cut Mason Foster loose. I don't see it that way. I don't see this as a classless move. by a classless franchise, a trash move by a classless franchise. I don't see it that way at all.

Is the timing strange? Did it catch me and many of you by surprise? Yes. I thought it was a good possibility back in the spring. Remember when we were talking about guys like Stacey McGee and Zach Brown and Vernon Davis and Mason Foster as the potential cuts in the offseason. Well, the Mason Foster cut didn't happen. And then when Ruben Foster got hurt, I think I was convinced that he would be on this roster when the regular season began. I have liked Mason Foster as a player. I know that there are flaws in his game. He doesn't run well, but he's been a high IQ tackling machine for them. A guy that, you know, again, doesn't have great speed. Not that you wouldn't want him to have great speed. I understand that, but he anticipated very well, saw things very well, read things very well.

He played hurt. He was also, by the way, a guy that played for multiple coaches, Joe Barry, and then Greg Minnusky, and let's face it, the Redskins have not had great defensive staffs here recently, or at least great defensive coordinators. They, Joe Barry was not very good, and they tried to replace Greg Minusky. But, you know, he was also, Mason Foster, was sort of a high-maintenance guy that used social media to his detriment while he was here. He complained about the organization, complained about the fan base, remember. But I liked Mason Foster. I don't know that John Bostic and Sean Dion Hamilton are going to be obviously much better.

They will be cheaper. Foster saves $4 million on the cap. So netting it out, I was surprised, and I did like Mason. Jason Foster is a 3-4 inside backer. I don't love him, but I thought he was adequate. He was one of the leaders for this defense the last few years. However, this is the NFL, and contracts for the most part aren't guaranteed. And teams can do what the Redskins did to Mason Foster yesterday. They do it all the time. Mike Daniels, the longtime defensive tackle for the Green Bay Packers and a damn good one just got released on the eve of training camp. It happens all the time.

Foster's agent, his name's Blake Baratz. I don't know if that's how you pronounce his last name, Barats or Barrett's, responded on Twitter late yesterday about his client getting released right before training camp. His tweet read, quote, If you ever want to doubt that there is zero good faith in the NFL business look no further than the Redskins cutting Mason Foster today.

The day he was heading to report for camp, nine-year veteran, captain of the defense, played 99% of the snaps last season and cannot even get a straight answer as to why. Keep in mind the team has been off for five weeks and he was the starting middle linebacker the entire offseason. I operate in good faith as a human being and as a business, I expect more from the NFL and certain organizations in particular, we can be better. That from Mason Foster's agent. Of course, as we know, agents, do not like the Redskins anymore.

Bruce Allen in particular, remember he was voted the least trustworthy front office executive in the NFL, in a poll of NFL agents done, I think by USA Today, a year or so ago. So that last line when Mason Foster's agent says, you know, quote, certain organizations in particular, close quote, was clearly a shot at a franchise that he doesn't like. By the way, aside from this specific,

situation with Mason Foster, where, by the way, I'm going to back the team in a moment. Overall, it's not good that agents, and by extension, their players, don't trust Bruce Allen. That's not a good thing for the organization, and it's another reason why Snyder should have moved on from Allen by now. By the way, also, just as an aside, Foster's agent, this guy that tweeted about the Redskins is also Jonathan Allen's agent. Just keep that. mind here over the next year or two. But Mason Foster's agent can tweet all he wants about how unfair this was. I see it differently, and I have one gripe with the team in this particular situation, but it's not the gripe that Foster's agent has. I think that it's ridiculous that they did it now.

I would have preferred that they waited until they were absolutely sure that they'll be okay without him. You know, they may have actually in some ways been doing him a favor to give him a chance to catch on with a team for an entire training camp. I actually wish they hadn't done that. I don't know how they could be absolutely sure right now at that position on their roster, that they are better off without Mason Foster with John Bostic, Sean Dion Hamilton, and Cole Holcomb, the fifth rounder that they selected in the draft. Not to mention the possibility of injury. You know, the Redskins don't owe Mason Foster anything. They owe their franchise and their best opportunity to win.

That's what they owe something to. They should be doing what's best for them. This goes back to that conversation, remember, about Albert Hainsworth, and Donovan McNabb in particular. A lot of you with Donovan McNabb urged the Redskins to, quote, do the right thing and let him go. Don't trade him. Let him pick where he wants to go. It's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous notion. They had paid McNabb. He was a player on their roster under contract. They got a sixth round

pick for him. Do you remember what that sixth round pick became? Alfred Morris. So I don't want to hear about Mason Foster and his agent feeling like the Redskins did him wrong. I don't see it that way at all. He can gripe all he wants. He can tweet all he wants. This is the NFL. It happens all the time. Do you know how Mason Foster got to the Redskins? He got to the Redskins in 2015 after the Bears released him right before the season started after signing him to a one-year deal several months prior to that. They released him right before the season started just after he had signed a one-year deal with the Bears. Come on. This happens all the time. Players get cut before camp, during camp, right before the season starts, especially when the team gains cap savings, and the timing

doesn't have to work for the player. By the way, I was looking this up earlier. When he got cut by the Bears in 2015 and essentially was on the scrap heap, and the Redskins picked them off the scrap heap, do you know who he got beat out by in Chicago? John Bostic. In Chicago. Yeah. The skins picked Foster up in 2015, gave him a chance. He performed well enough not to get one contract extension from the Redskins, but two contract extensions from the Redskins.

He signed a two-year, two-and-a-half million-dollar deal in 2016, and in 2018, he got another two-year deal for $3.4 million, with, I think, a million and a half of it guaranteed. Not bad at all. for a guy that could have been done in 2015. The Redskins took him off the scrap heap, gave him an opportunity, and he got two new contracts with this team.

Because he performed, and by the way, he didn't always perform. You know, he was fine. He wasn't great. He was fine for this particular team and the need they had over the last couple of seasons. Remember, of course, he had some social media situations. He criticized the team when he got injured in early 2017 and then ripped the team and the fan base on

Twitter at the end of last season saying F this team and fan base. Remember that? Now, didn't he blame that on his cousin for getting a hold of his Twitter account? He did say that. Look, the skins could have released him in June if they didn't think he was going to be on this team. They also could have cut him in late August or early September, you know, and held on to him in the event that Bostic or Sean Dionne Hamilton or Cole Holcomb or whomever it is, they think will replace Mason Foster when they knew that those players were good enough and were healthy enough. They could have done that too. You know, that would have been my preference. Because in two weeks, if Sean Dionne Hamilton's injured and Cole Holcomb's in there and it looks like he's not ready to play, you're going to wish you had

Mason Foster. That's my perception of it. That's my impression of it. That's my opinion of it. That inside linebacker position lacks in depth. It may lack in legitimate starting talent. I would have waited. I would have waited. But anyway, that's that. Actually, Chris, Chris Baker tweeted out on this. Did you see the Chris Baker? Did you see the swaggy tweet? Chris Baker tweeted out after Mason Foster got cut yesterday. I don't know why we have contracts in the NFL. Imagine planning your life thinking you're going to make $4 million. You do everything right, show up for work in shape, ready to go, and they tell you you're fired and you're not getting a penny. And then in capital letters cutthroat. Imagine that thinking you're going to make four million dollars and you don't.

He's not wrong. Imagine much of the rest of the world that works jobs where let's just say they get paid 40,000 a year and could be fired today with maybe two weeks of severance. No, I don't feel sorry for Mason Foster. I don't. And by the way, that's disconnected from the real world to say that. Look, the Redskins are punching, total punching bag. They're a punching bag for players, for agents, for media, teams, the whole thing. They don't deserve it here, in my view. They don't deserve it. Again, I was surprised.

I didn't think it would happen, but it did. By the way, I think one of the things that the Redskins concluded here, and if you recall, at the end of OTAs, Jay Gruden specifically pointed out Sean Dionne Hamilton, and I mentioned it on the podcast. There were two players he singled out as having the most impressive, you know, OTA mini-camp, you know, most impressive May and June. May and June.

And those two players were Sean Dion Hamilton and Samajai Pryne. He went on and on about both of those players. Also remember this. Jake Rudin was the one that really liked Cole Holcomb and pushed for the skins to draft him. So Gruden may feel comfortable, and maybe Greg Minoski feels comfortable, maybe all the football people feel comfortable, and maybe this is a move because they're about to give this money to Brandon Sheriff or to Trent Williams or to somebody else. Maybe that's why they made the move now. Who knows? I'm not up in arms over, you know, the Redskins doing Redskins things by cutting him the day before training camp.

This happens all the time in the league. It's the nature of the job. They get paid a lot of money. Most of these contracts, like the significant majority, like 97% of these are not guaranteed. And many of these players in positions call it 22 through 53. Don't get huge signing bonuses, but relative to the rest of the world, the signing bonuses are pretty healthy. But you know what, Mason Foster, go get another job. Catch on with somebody else and get paid somewhere else.

That's what happened to you in Chicago after you got cut in Chicago, and wouldn't surprise me if a team looking for a veteran, smart, high IQ leader at inside linebacker or at middle linebacker, wouldn't be surprised if he gets signed at some point here during training camp. By the way, here's the other Redskins story from yesterday. How about the Adrian Peterson story? This is crazy. The athletic reported that Adrian Peterson

is essentially in debt $6.6 million. He failed to repay a $5.2 million loan. He owes, after interest in legal fees, $6.6 million to DeAngelo vehicle sales, which claimed in a lawsuit filed in New York that Peterson had defaulted on his loan. according to this report Peterson had borrowed money from the lending company to pay off other creditors he also must pay a combined

$3 million to two other creditors the quote from Peterson's attorney Chase Carlson quote the truth behind Adrian Peterson's current financial situation is more than is being reported at this time because of ongoing legal matters I am unable to go into detail

but I will say this It's yet another situation of an athlete trusting the wrong people and being taken advantage of those he trusted. Adrian and his family look forward to sharing further details when appropriate, closed quote. The athletics story said that he had defaulted on other loans, which led him to secure the $5.2 million loan from DeAngelo vehicle sales. and that happened in 2016. He was playing for the Vikings at the time. That helped him repay other loans, but he still has 600,000 due to another lender,

and $2.4 million due to Democracy Capital Corps, which is another lender, that according to the athletic and a Maryland judge. This is sad. This is really sad. Adrian Peterson, after this contract, this latest one that the Redskins gave him, will have made over $100 million in his career. He's made just north of $99 million gross, all right? Gross earnings before this contract.

And after getting paid for this particular contract, it will go over $100 million. We have seen this story so many times in so many different. sports over the years and it's mind-boggling to all of us who, A, haven't made anywhere near that kind of money. It's foreign to think of the kind of money that these athletes make. But then to understand, at least from the outside looking in, about how much money it is and how much money you truly need to live and then wondering how the hell they could lose it all. I mean 100,000 after taxes, let's say it's 55 million net. How do you lose $55 million?

How? It's unbelievable if you put that into the most conservative of financial vehicles. It would earn plenty of money on an annual basis for all of us to live on. without ever touching the principle more likely than not. It's amazing that that happens. It's sad too. And so hopefully, look, as a fan of the team, I want Adrian Peterson to have a kick-ass year,

the kind of year he had last year. You know, the deal that he signed very quickly, remember in the off-season for $5 million, includes incentives of about a million and a half. I would love him to earn $6.5 million from the Redskins over the next two years. Because if he earns $6 million, it means he really performed well. I'd love it to be a win-win for him and the team. But these stories and how it happens are so sad.

And I don't know. I think one of the more interesting questions is how hasn't somebody that handles athletes' money, that someone who is in wealth management, who has athletes as clients, who's done a great job for athletes, how hasn't that person or the few people that do it very well, how haven't they cornered the market on this? Why are there still so many people out there that don't know how to do it, can't handle their clients' money, and allow these athletes who have no exposure more times than not, no experience, no exposure to managing money. They rely on these people.

They trust these people, in part because they don't have experience. They don't have exposure. They're not able to separate the fraudulent from the people that are really trustworthy. But why aren't their agents able to get the right financial people to manage their money? Most of the agents don't manage the money. They have, they put them in touch with wealth management people, people money managers, people who manage their money for them. I don't know why there isn't a league initiative to make sure that there is, that all of these people are vetted, and the bad ones don't get anywhere near Adrian Peterson's money.

And by the way, I do recognize, as I'm sitting here speaking about this, I do recognize that sometimes you have very good money managers that have, very bad clients that have clients that don't care and don't take the advice of their money managers. I understand that that is the case as well in many of these situations. And I know that these guys get approached with business plans and investment opportunities by everybody that they've ever known and the people that they know, that they get approached by people that they've known in their lives and the people that those people know. Hey man, I, I'm. I got a great investment opportunity. A friend of a friend of a friend is starting this business.

It's a water filtration system. You got to get in. All we need is a check for a half million bucks. How many times does that happen to these guys? And the business plan isn't completely vetted, not enough due diligence done on it. Or maybe their money manager, their wealth management guy says, don't do this.

And they say, I have to. I have to. This is family or these are friends. I know that that's a big part of it as well. It's sad all of it. To lose, to essentially have earned $55 million in salary, doesn't even mention the endorsements. Let's just say that he's earned close to $100 million net in his career. And to not have any of it left is really sad. All right, quick word about my good friends at Wind Donation.

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But right now, no down payment, no payment of any kind, and no interest for 24 months. Buy now, start saving now, and literally, pay nothing for two years. They've never done that two year offer before. Trust the window company that I trust. Harley, Aaron, Eric, everybody at Window Nation is great. They'll send out the best rep to give you an estimate. It's a free estimate so you have no risk. And then their install team is first rate. Go towindonation.com or call 86690 Nation to get one free window for every window you buy. Plus, no down payment, no payments of any kind, and no interest for 24 months. Call soon. This sale ends July 31st. We're going to bring Tommy Shepard

on here shortly, but there was a story from earlier this morning. Jalen Ramsey, the very good and very talented corner for the Jacksonville Jaguars, reported to camp this morning in a brinkst truck, a fake brink's truck, right? He wants to get paid. And so he showed up to the first day of camp with some sense of humor. I actually think it's kind of funny. I don't know if Tom Coughlin feels that it's funny. But he showed up in an armored bank truck, essentially saying, I want a new deal.

I want to get paid. Ramsey's joked on social media that he's going to ask for so much money that they're going to have to put me on layaway. That was a recent joke. from him on either Twitter or Instagram. Coughlin just doesn't have much of a sense of humor in these matters. And Ramsey's been a high-maintenance headache, as talented as he is. And he is a talented corner.

In fact, Jacksonville is a team this year. They're one of the two teams in the AFC that I like to make a run from no playoffs to playoffs to playoffs. Denver is the other one. I really like Denver this year. I think they've got a legitimate chance. with Flacco at quarterback and with the tight ends that they've added and the offensive coordinator. We'll see what Vic Fangio is as a head coach because he's never been one,

even though he's probably been mentioned for more head coaching availabilities over the last five, six years than anybody that hasn't gotten a job. But he finally did get a job. But I like Jacksonville's team with Nick Foles this year. They've got a really good chance with that defense. That defense has been awesome over the last couple of years. I like their team. I think they're, who did we have on recently that said the same thing about Jacksonville? Who did we have on last week right before we took a couple of days off?

Football guest, why am I blanking on who we had? Just look it up, see who we had. God, I can remember anything that happened 30 years ago, 20 years ago. And now I can't remember what happened yesterday or last week. But whoever, whomever it was that we had on the show, said they sort of like Jacksonville as a, it's the guy that tweeted something out about the Redskins salary reductions. It was Field.

Field Yates. Thank you. He likes Jacksonville too. Anyway, I knew we'd eventually get to it. But that defense with Callais Campbell and Gokwe, who I loved coming out of Maryland, with Miles Jack, with, I'm just trying to think of their players, Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouillet at corners. This is a...

Donick-Gon Gawkway, if he comes off his holdout. Well, In Gokwee, to me, has been one of the best, you know, edge pass rushers in the league here for a while, for a few years anyway. But they have a chance to be a very good team again. And, you know, with Nick Foles in a running game, if Leonard Farnett's healthy, that's huge for them. If he's healthy, you know, they could have the same kind of year that they had two years ago. In a division, by the way, that's good, but doesn't have necessarily.

a great team, even though a lot of people really like Indianapolis this year. Houston as well could be a good team. Tennessee, look, last year, the AFC South had two playoff teams, right, in Houston and Indy. Indy won a playoff game. Remember, head-to-head with Houston, and then went to Kansas City in the divisional round and lost. But I believe Tennessee, when they beat the Redskins, it ensured that they would finish above 500. I think Tennessee went nine and seven. So that division had three teams at better than 500, and Jacksonville, the division winner from the year before, you know, wasn't anywhere close with the issues they had, you know, particularly at quarterback. That could be a very interesting team to watch, I think,

Jacksonville this year. Denver is the other one. I've been mentioning them for a few months. I think this could be the perfect setup for Flacco. They've got a running game in Philip Lindsay. They've got tight ends. They drafted one early. They've got a couple of others on that team already that They're talented, and they've got a defense too. They have a playoff defense with a wrecker in Von Miller on the outside. And Bradley Chub, by the way, let's not forget the fact that they still have Bradley Chubb, that they've got Bradley Chubb going into what will be, what, his second year, right? This is going to be Chubb's second year in Denver, I think.

Yes, yes. That's a tough division, too, with the Chiefs and the Chargers in particular. But I've got to, I've got that may be one of the futures I play this year. may play Denver over on their over under total, which I think I saw was seven or seven and a half on them. Quick word before we get to Tommy Shepard, the Wizards GM, on launch workplaces. They've got office facilities brand new all over the area. Right now, their latest is in Bethesda. If you live in D.C., Upper Northwest D.C. or Chevy Chase or Bethesda, and you're looking for a new place to move into, consider launch workplaces in Bethesda. They've got flexible,

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I just drove by their facility out in Rockville the other day, which is on Seven Locks Road. They've got facilities all around town. So if you're looking for a new office space, just go to launchworkplaces.com or call 24086714. All right, let's bring in Wizards General Manager, Tommy. Shepard. I'm excited about this, and I'm excited for the opportunity and have mentioned that on the podcast for Tommy, because Tommy is somebody that everybody in town that knows him well, likes him. Everybody in league circles speaks highly of him and knows that he deserves this opportunity,

and if it hadn't been here, that it would have come somewhere else somewhere down the line. So I appreciate you making time, Tommy, for me today. First of all, how does it feel to be a general manager in the NBA? I'm just incredibly humbled. I'm so grateful for this opportunity. I really haven't felt any different on Monday than I had the previous since April. It's a job that you do every single day, and it's consuming, and it's a big job, and I think that was an acknowledgement that Ted Leonis made when we put all this stuff together,

that, hey, you know what, the days of having one person, and he calls the meeting and dictates the deed and how everything is going to go that day, that week. Those days are done. We need a big team of teams. We need a panel of experts and people to be great at what they do and be able to work in real time without a whole lot of oversight. And this is a result of a tremendous vision by Ted, one that I shared with him. So to be the GM of the Washington Wizards,

I have such a great comfort feel right now because I know we're kind of the way that I look at it. We've surrounded ourselves with a lot more resources. and a lot more intelligent people that can help us make great decisions as you go forward. And I'm really excited about the people that we had here already. We have some wonderful people here. So you add to the mix. It's a melting pot of ideas, the diversities, of experiences. As the GM, I just feel like I'm part of a team, and that's how you should feel.

Nobody should feel they're above everything else and that they're the one dictator or any of that. I wouldn't want to work for someone like that, and I sure don't want to be that person. We want to be as inclusive as possible. It all starts just being on, you know, the biggest thing we had to get done is making sure we were with Kevin Sheen getting on this podcast. Now I think there's everything else that loops us up. Yeah, I'm sure that was a priority. You know, what's funny is that, you know, for the last, you know, 16, 17 years, you've been a part of this organization. But, you know, most fans know and have known Ted and Ernie, you know, other than the coaches and the players.

And so I think it would be helpful for the Wizard's fans that are listening to this for you just to give us a minute or two on you and and and and where you're from and and and your family and and the 16 to 17 years here but you know even before that sure you know but my background has always been in sports i've always been involved i'd i loved the NBA wanted to play in the NBA since i was six years old julia serving was always my favorite player and that's who i wanted to be and planned to be like until uh the life took over and I realized I was going to top out at about 5-10. But, you know, I was a collegiate athlete.

I actually played football, but I played basketball my whole life. Football just allowed me a chance to go to college and have school paid for eventually and had a chance to stay close to home. But I've always been involved in basketball and had an opportunity right out of college to work at UNLV in the athletic department and sports information specifically. And got a chance to work with Jerry Tarcanian. And after that, Roli Massimino, so I was there for three years. also in media relations, but really helping with player recruiting and specifically with basketball.

And New Mexico State was great in basketball. Mexico UNLV was great in basketball. So already you're experiencing coaches that won national championships. I got to be around people that were experienced with winning. And then I got an opportunity to go to the Denver Nuggets. I was hired by Bernie Bicker staff who was very near and dear to most Bullets, Wizards fans, being part of that championship team. And Bernie, to this day, is a surrogate father to me.

and then that began a run of 26 years in the NBA. And all the different experiences that I've had parallel, I worked with USA Basketball and the USC for three Olympic games, four world championships, Pan American games, been around the globe because of basketball. And I have a partner, a business partner, and a guy that's like a brother to me, is Sharunis Marshalonis, who's in the Hall of Fame,

a tremendous international player, international basketball, mind and I've done a lot of stuff with him. But I'm really fascinated by other sports. It's been an awful lot of time. We're around European football clubs, South American football clubs, spent a lot of time with swimming, track and field, different sports at the highest level,

the Olympic level, and learned from great movement experts, coaches from track and field. Clyde Hart taught me a little bit about how to evaluate runners in 96 and stay with me to this day and getting a chance to be around coaches that are the very best at their sport. how they teach and how they identify talent, I take from all those people.

So the combination of all those things, I think when you have a diversity of experiences and a diversity of views, you can bring that to the table and you really feel a little bit more secure. Global knowledge is better than local knowledge. I really believe that. So all those things, I know that sounds like I'm a real boring person, but that's what I've done for the last 26 years. Along the way I got married and had seven kids, and they're the life of my life.

You've got seven. What are the ages? Absolutely. What's the age drink? They go from 24 down to 7. Oh. And that's married a saint, but I do have a life outside of basketball. They are absolutely the focus of my life away from this game.

But this is a very consuming business, a very time-consuming business. And to have that balance is very important. Oh, my God, I think about 24 to 7. My oldest is 24. And my youngest, however, is 19. And to have a seven-year-old, it must be a hell of a lot of fun because I do miss those days when they were that age. But you said something. You were with Denver in 94.

Were you a part of the organization when they were the eight-seed beating Seattle as a one-seed? You know what? I came the year after. Oh, you came the year after. And so we were the team that we got the fortune of playing the San Antonio Spurs in the first round when David was handed the MVP a trophy. He was named the MVP that year, and you knew why they destroyed us in the first round. But the second round, Houston, took them out. I thought that was one of San Antonio's best teams.

We thought for sure they were at least get to the conference finals. But I was there the year after the year, which they didn't write songs about and definitely don't celebrate. But, you know, when I was around that team, I saw firsthand what it takes to put a team together is great deal of creativity and imagination. Because that team was built through the draft. It was built through free agency. It was built through castaway players and coaches on the fly. you know, Dan Estle started the season, Bernie finished the season. There couldn't have been a better baptism for me.

In terms of life in the NBA, there's about 98% of the things that happen are out of your control. When you get out of bed in the morning and how hard you work and how fast you drive to the office, you can control those things. After that, you know, when I was in Denver, the team was sold three or four times and it went through several GMs and several head coaches and all kinds of players. And what you realize is that the perpetual, consistent thing in our business has changed. And to adapt to change is probably as important as anything possible that you can bring to this business. Yeah, I mean, you know, so you got there a year after.

And Bernie took over, you said for Isel that year, that was the team that had Matumbo, that had Reggie Williams on it as well, two Georgetown players. Rodney Rogers, Mahmoud Abdul-Rabh, who winning into the LSU Hall of Fame now. Yeah. I'm very proud of him. And what's crazy, Kevin, it's so dang humbling when I had crested over 1,500 texts from people. And so many of our former players, so many of our current players, players that I knew from other teams, getting all the texts from players that just reminded me that, man, this is such a wonderful business.

You know, those guys didn't have to do that. It took effort to find my number. They reached out. I heard from people that I hadn't talked to in probably 10 years that played for us in different places. It's just, it's amazing. this family, the NBA family is very small, very small town that we live in and everybody. We want to celebrate the good days and all be there for each other in the tough days. And that was a neat day for me because I heard from so many of our former players.

Yeah, and you mentioned actually before we started to record this that one of your first texts was to Randy Whitman, who I loved as a coach of this team. Yep, Witt reached out and he wanted to make sure that I knew that he knew that I got the job that I knew and I heard from him because we were very close and we stay very close. I'm very close with all the people I've ever worked with. I try to maintain those relationships because this is a relationship business. And I think he did such a great job for us. And the teams that were going into the playoffs getting the second round,

that was a matter of fact for him. He did a great job for us. Unfortunately, that team kind of disintegrated and we moved and we pivoted, and that's why it's in the NBA. But the fact that I was just tickled to hear from, from him and he was the one that really put me on blast. He said, if you don't talk to Kevin Gene and tell him, I said, hello, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. Yeah, right. Well, my orders have been fulfilled. I do like Randy a lot and thought he could really coach and thought

he got a bad rap sometimes from the media. So over the last couple of days, Tommy, we've heard and read about the new monumental sports organizational changes. Give it to us in plain English when it comes to you. You talked and you mentioned, you know, panel of experts and sort of a consensus thing, but ultimately, as the general manager, will you have the final say over the roster? Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's never been in question. And Ted made that clear at the press conference. He made it clear to all of us in the room. But I think people that know me, they kind of have to smile at that. I'm never looking to be at the very top of anything. I'm looking to be part of things because I think with the more people.

that you involve, the more opinions you get, the more informed you become. You have to be the ultimate decision maker because you have to be responsible for those decisions. And I've learned it a long time ago, you know, a very wise person told me, be careful who you take advice from. Don't take advice from people that don't have skin in the game, that don't have to live with the consequences. And so you choose people that you seek counsel from very carefully because, you know, these decisions are, it's not about picking a restaurant

and the consequences of a bad restaurant. This is, if you pick the right player and you give the right contract to the right player, because the consequences of bad decisions are very, very, very dire. You know, when you make the bad decision, it leaves a mark for several years, and it can change the trajectory of your franchise, literally. And I've lived that on both sides of it, everywhere I've been, there's been some great things and there's been some tough things. But I think the more people that we've brought here,

the firepower that we invoked, when you get social, Brown and you bring in John Thompson the third and you promote Sassia Jones and you bring in someone like Daniel Medina. Those are experts in their field. And you add that to a great collection of people that were already working here. Wouldn't you feel better the more information you can get from those kinds of experiences than just ate my own gut? People when they say I'd make this decision, it's a gut decision. What if it was just indigestion? What if it was something you ate?

You've got to be careful when you say stuff like that. I think the more information you can inhale to make an informed decision, the better off you'll be. So I'm listening to you, and it's clear that you are in an organization, you're a team player, you're a do whatever it takes, and you get along with everybody. Specific, though, to your basketball evaluating, what do you consider to be your strength? I mean, specific to you, what is your strength in evaluating basketball players? I think going so deep into it, I really go really deep into the person, the cognitive testing, the data values, the value-driven things that come in, they all kind of have to come in and be congruent, right? And I think that was something we established from day one when Ted gave me this opportunity.

As I said, we're going to evaluate a lot differently. We're going to bring in a lot more data. We're going to do a better job in our pre-screening medically. we're going to do a fantastic job in gathering the intel. We're going to make sure that everything that we do has a, that it's in a place that we can all look at it and see the information and make informed decisions collectively. And I think that's really what my strength is,

is building, bringing people together and making better decisions. When we look at players, it's the same thing. I'm going to find out every single thing about you. I'm going to dig down and make sure you're fit for us. Are you a great fit? And, you know, just like we were talking about with coaches, sometimes it's a great player, but just the wrong fit. And sometimes a very talented player isn't the solution as much as a great role player, right? We saw that in the finals, what Toronto was able to do.

I think those are the things that I believe I can bring to the table, but it's a collection of everybody around you that's going to make the ultimate push and make you better. You know, again, as I'm sitting here listening to you, it sounds like a deal. different path in terms of player evaluation. Is that fair to say from the way that it was done with Ernie? Yeah, you know, I don't spend a lot of time looking backwards. I just know that this is how I think it should look and how it should feel and I think it's gotten great results. Moving forward, I really, I'm excited about the path because it's not set in the stone. You can certainly tweak things left and right. You're always, life is about adjusting knobs and dials sometimes, but I think this way I see it be in the future of the NBA and I really believe in professional sports,

you're not going to be successful no matter what if you have a lack of involvement or a lack of support from ownership. And we see that time and time again where you can have the very best coaches and players and somehow if this franchise you can't get out of its own way, well usually it's because of ownership and we do not have that problem here. Ted is his group that he's assembled, his partners, but him specifically, their support is unwavering. It's been fantastic. And Monday really represented,

sorry it sounds cheesy to say, but it's a monumental commitment to what we're trying to do is be player first. And so when you can solve a medical performance putting that position in place and the team services putting that position in place and making sure you have the world-class facility and all the technology pieces that come with that, putting that in place, all those things are only going to amplify our goal, which is to win a championship.

And everybody says that. You're right, Kevin. You've heard everybody that you've ever interviewed said, our goals want to challenge. But you can't get there without a roadmap, and you can't get there without a plan that's going to say specifically that's measure everything we're doing and see what the result is and where we can add and where we can take away. And that's how you really get there, is really having goals, checks and balances. And this whole thing put together is really to try to achieve those goals. One follow-up to my question about you having final say over the roster. Does it also include the head coach? Will you have final say on the head coach?

You know, I got to compare everything to a marriage, right? I don't know if you've ever made a decision. You brought something home without checking with your wife. Scott and I don't know not saying who the husband and wife is in this thing. I think that the relationship between the GM and a head coach has to be symbiotic. It has to be hand and glove. and I think Scotty has been an unbelievable partner in this entire process. You know, certainly the last three years, we've known each other for plus 20, 23, 24 years,

but the last three years we've worked together, we had a great relationship. And then in April, it took it to another level because we both kind of looked at each other and said, look, we're going to, either this thing's going to come together or it's going to fall apart. It's up to us, and everyone's going to take their cues from us. And I think we really went about our business of being handled. and glove. So yes, any decision when I bring in or a player to say, hey, I believe this guy

and nobody else has to say, that's pretty stupid. I would never do that. So we're going to involve players that coaches love to coach. And I think when you see some of the, it's just an appetizer for what's ahead, but I think like a player like Rui, Admiral, they came from winning programs and they came

from great coaches. They are already informed about how to play basketball. They have a working knowledge of terminology. There's a great deal of a resume shown that they been coachable. That makes for coaches job so much easier than it is to bring in somebody with zero. Whenever potential gets used more

than two, three years in a row, I think that's Latin for you haven't done anything yet. You have to become in the NBA within a year two. The rest of the league has to know who you are. What kind of player are you? It's hard to come into being your fourth, fifth year, and nobody knows what you are. That's usually how you see those names that come and go and you say,

I remember that kid. Top five pick, top ten pick, you're not in the league anymore. No one could ever figure out what his identity was. We have to do a great job of identifying players that we believe in, that we can develop, and the coach will play. Yeah. You mentioned the two players you drafted this year. I mean, Rick Barnes and Mark Few are very good college coaches.

Is that important when evaluating a college player, the coach that had them for, you know, a year, two, three, sometimes four years, rarely four years. Absolutely. Absolutely. knowing where they came from, everything in life is about knowing the genesis of where they should come from. The first question we're going to always ask each other, where are you from? So the minute I know where you're from and who coached you, I know what kind of player

you are. I know intuitively there are certain places that coach better than others. Like that's how it is in this business. And knowing where maybe their shortcomings are, having that ability to communicate with coaches, well, I happen to be very close with Mark Fee. And Rick Barnes, I have humongous respect for. Admiral Schofield played for Dickie Simpkins, who works for us. We had a lot of organic information on these players and stuff that just continues to grow.

We didn't just watch a TV one night and go, you know what, let's draft that guy tomorrow. You know, there was six years of following some of these players in some cases. In Dickie's case, you know, he'd known Admiral since he was 14. I've been watching Ruby since he was 16 before he ever came to Gonzaga. So you have to have a pretty good roadmap. You have to have a pretty good gathering of intelligence on players, bring everybody together, and then hold it up to light. Does everybody agree?

And if you don't, why not? What are we missing? Those are the most important meetings of the year. And if you have a system where you walk in and nobody has to say and nobody gets to weigh in on something, the boat's always going to be one zero, right? You're going to get your way and then you're going to get fired. I believe in the democratic process when you bring in everybody, hey, let's all talk about this.

And you have reservations, now is the time to talk. Not Friday after the Thursday night draft. I wish we would have done this or I wouldn't have done that. That's unacceptable to me. If you had your opportunity, let's talk it out. You know, you mentioned you go deep into the players that you're evaluating. How important, Tommy, is it that you see a burning, badass competitive edge? like just a hyper-competitive, you know, individual.

How important is that to you in your evaluation? Well, I think it's huge, and it can't just be from one night or when they're coming on their free agent visit or on their draft visit, you know, because they're going to fake it. A lot of times people can fool you, the 24-hour rule, 48-hour rule is always in effect. Anybody's a perfect person for 48 hours. So we have to go back deep into your background. We go into their EYBL days and their grassroots basketball days

and talk to people. Did they love to play? Most important thing, did they love to practice? Would they practice? Did they show up every day? How reliable are you? How reliable is your character?

And that's where I think everything starts to separate a little bit because some players are pretty good most days. We don't want that. We want a player that brings it every day. I want to know the consistency of your character is Monday through Sunday. Not on, you know,

sometimes Frank Ross, one of my right-hand people here, he likes to ask players in interviews and say, here's a calendar, circle the games that you think you're going to play well in. You know? It's an opening thing. Better be every one of them. Exactly.

Well, you want to know. And the players that get it, they laugh. And they say, I bring it every night. Some players reach for the pen. You go, gosh, man, that's where the next end now, you know, because it's not a trick question. It's really shining a light on that player's attentiveness to what is this all about. In the NBA basketball, it is a business.

This is your job. So you come on. a job interview and you don't know who the head coach is and you're not real sure about the team name or something like that. You know, you can't take those guys serious if they don't know the business of the business they're in. Some players just eliminate themselves through the interview. Right.

Some players interview, they reduce themselves out of your group of players you're examining because there's not a demonstrated hunger for the game to your point. And that's what we really tried to get to. I think the guys that I don't want to discount, the addition to Justin Robinson, the addition of Garrison Matthews, those two guys had a burning desire and a demonstrated resume that says they have a passion to play basketball at a high level. Hopefully they'll all work out. But this is a volume versus precision year where let's get as many players in here that we

think are going to be, and hopefully they'll end up being there, you know. One of the players that you acquired here in the offseason, I loved him last year coming out of Michigan, Mo Wagner has that, he's got a motor. He's got a competitive motor, right? Yeah, I said, Mo was short for motor. You know, he's one of those guys that we really were very serious about drafting a year ago. And then we saw the multiplications that Troy Brown could play, and we went with Troy ultimately, and that was the right pick for us. But being able to acquire Mo, we actually looked at trading for him during the season. And then here we are in the off season. He became available. That was a no-brainer for us. And we see the unleashed.

of the potential. Stretch four, stretch five, gets to the rim as a demonstrated passion for basketball. Funny as heck, I think he brings a levity to the locker room a little bit that their only usefulness can bring, but he is a hard-working guy, very intelligent player, and that's what we really wanted to get more and more of are people that really are intuitive, cognitive. They scale very high and score well on their ability to retain information. And that's what, you know, Rudy was fantastic in that way, Admiral as well. having Mo, that was a great pickup for us. And another guy that was very well coached at the college level

by John. Absolutely. The guy played in the finals. So I was thinking about this. I've thought about this a lot when it comes to the NBA. The NBA is different than other major sports. You know, the NFL, you know, has surprise teams every year. Teams that can actually contend, even though going into the season you never thought they could. In the Stanley Cup, we've seen eight seeds win. In the NBA, Tommy, it's pretty easy to look at the rosters in October and say, you know what, the champion's going to come from this list of two, three, you know, four teams. And the other, you know, 26 or 27 can't and won't more likely than not contend. How do you deal with that in a sport like that where if you don't have an elite player or two, you can't contend for a title?

Well, it's all about managing expectations. You can't say if you have a bunch of rookies and unproven players on day one, hey, we want to win the title this year, right? So there's almost a pecking order in the NBA, but even the NBA tends to be wrong. If you bleed everything this time last year, they'd already delivered the OBB, right? They already took the O'Brien trophy to Golden State and handed it to them before they ever played a game because they signed to Marcus Cousins and look at all the things that they did. You still have to go play the games. but I do think there is an elite group of teams every year that they have a demonstrated roster

that is capable of winning a championship and then there's another tier and another tier and everybody's trying to just move up but to get to where you want to be you have to be where your feet are first and say our goal this season is let's make sure that we within the game within the game we want to make sure our young players play we want to make sure that we you know set a goal we want to have more 50-50 balls than the other team we want to have a better defensive shooting percentage. There's goals that you can set that even if the score isn't in your favor, you see yourself getting better. And the more that you do that, the more that you chart those things, I think the more that wins appear, wins don't just show up overnight. But you have to craft

it in a way that, especially with young teams, to keep their confidence going, you've got to show that, hey, there's development here, and to hold people accountable. And I think that's something that Scotty Brooks does better than anybody. And this kind of rejuvenated him, to be honest with you. This took him back to his early Oakey City days when he had three guys that nobody knew where they weren't MVP candidates yet. You know, he had young James Hardin. He had a young KD., at young Russ.

And that team, I remember specifically, I told these guys I've been lifelong friends and they would come through D.C. And we'd talk about how he's putting his team together and the practice habits and everything that they were doing. And he just said, I know these guys are going to take off. And two years later, he got them to the finals. You know, and I said,

I hope you got to the final. paid very well to do that because sometimes you can reach your goal too quick. And then, you know, they were talking about championships forever there, and then the next year, James left. So if you get too bogged down and looking into the future, you might miss the here and now. And I think Scotty would say they really wish they would have appreciated that team a little bit more than keep thinking forward. But the journey is always more enjoyable than the ultimate destination when you get there. And I think golden state is a fantastic gold standard. for us, I look at what San Antonio is able to do.

Those are unbelievable goals. But let's set our goals. You Ted used the Clippers as an example, and I don't disagree there. I look at Denver. I look at teams that we can emulate. And we take from them, Kevin, but we've got to be the wizards. We have to go our own path and take, you know, you take ideas from different places, but what can we do here better than anybody else?

And that's what we have to amplify. You've been so generous with your time. I've got a couple more, and then I promise I'll let you run. but I wanted to... Hey, bring it on. Okay. There's a line outside the door of people trying to get in here to talk to me. All right, well, good.

So we'll keep them at bay for another couple of minutes. Sooner later, they've got to go. Yeah, so I did read that you're planning on giving, you know, Bradley the three-year extension with the availability that comes, I think, Friday. Just explain why you think this is the right thing for the organization. Well, this is strictly a business training. where the 26th is the calendar dates. It's the first day that Bradley is eligible for an extension, right?

He has two years left on his deal, so the most we can give him is a three-year extension. Is out of complete respect to Bradley and what he's accomplished with our organization, if you knew on a day, on your birthday, there's an expectation you're going to receive a birthday card and acknowledgement, correct? This is similar to that. This is on that day, the very first time he could receive an extension. an offer from us, I want him to know we did that out of respect to him. On that first moment, it's just respect. Okay.

That's all it is. Do I expect to get an answer that day this week, that's month? No, not at all. It's showing him the respect that we have for him, that this is, that first moment that it's allowed to offer this to him, that he gets that offer. I think if we didn't offer it on that day or we didn't have a conversation, that would be really weird, and that would be outside of our relationship. Bradley and I have always been transparent with each other.

His agent is someone that we've worked closer with over the years. We've already had a process in place and ongoing dialogue. Bradley was one of our biggest fans at Summer League. He was tremendous throughout the draft process. He was involved in free agency. This is all part of what I would call normal business operating procedure. So I hate that it has to play out publicly. I'm sure when people talk about, you know, Kevin and your contract

and all the things that go on in your business life, and you like to keep things personal, right? I understand that. I'm the same way. Bradley's the same way, but we have to announce to the world because the media would put us on notice. Hey, we know you can offer this to Brad on this day. Did you do it?

Well, of course we're going to do that. Of course the answer is yes. Do you think he'll accept it? Do you think he'll accept it? You know what? That's up to him. I think we've got to show him. You know, he is from Missouri, the Show Me State.

We have to show him that, hey, this team now, we're ready to pivot. We moved from the year that we lost to Toronto in the playoffs to now we have three players left. So the rebuild has happened, the heavy lifting, the moving of all the parts is there. That's already happened. But now you have to lay the foundation and build upon that. We have to show it to Bradley that it's worth investing in from his point of view. Do you want to be here?

And I think we'll have that answer based on his actions and how he's been. but there's nothing that he's shown us throughout his entire career that would say otherwise. He's been so invested and so involved and so in love with D.C. And I think D.C. loves him back. He's the kind of player, any team. And then that's why he's so coveted around the league, I'm sure they see what we see. He's a fantastic player who could possibly be in the Hall of Fame. And if he's in the Hall of Fame, he's still a better person.

That's the kind of guy anybody would want. How coveted? If you have that guy, why would you want to get rid of? Why would you want to move him along? Those kind of players are very hard to find. I believe Ted calls him unicorns in some regard. Those are hard to find. How coveted was he?

How high was the interest in him from other teams this offseason? There's an old saying no one calls from Vegas just to say hello, right? I heard from a lot of people. They weren't just going to see how I was doing. Not from Vegas. Yeah, no, but, you know, I'm saying obviously people, there's calls all the time, and we make it clear. And I'm not making it clear so we can just lie.

We're being very transparent. Our interest is to have Bradley here as a cornerstone door franchise. And he's under contract for two more years, obviously. This is an attempt right now to give him options and security long term. There's all kinds of different ways we can do extensions. And it doesn't have to happen now. It doesn't happen to happen in a week, like I said earlier. But it doesn't have to be three years.

It can be shorter. There's all kinds of variations off of it. And I don't really want to focus on business stuff. And I really don't want to broadcast it out other than just so people are aware of Wizards fans that care about the Wizards that we care about Bradley Beal and we care about the future of the Wizards and we're always going to be active in that pursuit. He's a very good player. He's a very good score. I mean, I talked about it the other day. I think next year he's going to have in terms of average. I think he could be in the 27 to 28 range

if he's healthy. But you watch him every night. I'm a huge fan of the team. I watch every single game. What do you think he needs to improve on to take it to another level? Sometimes I think it's just the first thing I would recommend him is don't be so hard on yourself. You know, he's the biggest perfection as going, and he really does expect every shot to go in, and he does expect to get through two double teams, and he does expect, you know, defensively to take the hardest player on the other team. And sometimes it just doesn't go that way. So being able to manage his minutes a little bit better, keep him fresher,

that's something we can help him with. But what Bradley needs to continue to work on, I believe, being able to create for others, because that's going to open up the floor for him. When people think you throw it to him and it's just going up, I think he's already proved that. He's a fantastic playmaker, and his assist and increasing his assist has been demonstrated, and I would probably recommend it to take it up even another level

and be a little bit more with the ball, knowing that when you move the ball, the ball moves back to you. I think Bradley's already seen that. But being able to – the biggest piece, I think, is to ascend in the leadership area of knowing that, hey, he and John, they're key stakeholders in this team, and this year John is coming back from injury. So really, it's Bradley, and he had a taste of it last year.

He made the All-Star game, second year that he made the All-Star game in a row. But last year, he didn't have as much help. We're all better players and better front office executives when John Wall's playing when Bradley Biel's playing. And you take one of those off all of a sudden, you know, I got dumber overnight. It was amazing. My IQ went down when John wasn't playing because we started losing games. and people go, those dummies over there.

We get it 100%. But what Bradley was able to accomplish, I think, was really amazing. And it was a travesty. He didn't make the all-MBA team. You know, I celebrate the guys that did make it, but he and Clay Thompson getting left off. That's a tough thing, and I know it's tough for him. But I know he's going to digest that, come back,

and he's brought something new every year from the summer, and that's what the great ones do. So here are the two things. I'll be very forward and just give you. you, my opinion, I've told Scott this before when he's been on the podcast and on the radio show. First of all, he should be an 85% plus free throw shooter. And he has, in my view, and you tell me what you think, I think his free throw stroke is different than his jump shot. It's a little bit flatter, and I think that's one of the reasons he hasn't shot in the mid-80s. But the stroke is

so pure as a jump shooter, I think he should be an 85 plus percent free throw shooter. Now, I believe heavily that his mother has been speaking to you, and I think she got you to say that because she tells Bradley that all the time. Oh, she does? Yeah, it's his shooting coach in life. She taught him how to shoot. But I don't really fuss with Bradley on that. That's coach's job.

The best way to get your free throw percentage up is to never go to the line. So I'd rather see him get to the line and create more opportunities. And I think he's been more of an attack player. when you see the free throw total go up, the free throw's attempted go up, I think it'll be a natural to see the ball go through the net more often than everything for him. But I'm really big on being able to create points anywhere you can out on the floor and get into the free throw line saying crucial. So to have him get six or eight attempts, I'd love to see that increase

as opposed to the free throw percentage, which will naturally increase anyway. Does she think – Do you hear what I'm saying? Does she think the same thing that I said that the free-throw stroke is too flat? It's like Ms. Besta's on the phone with me. Okay. She's his biggest critic. He's his own biggest critic.

I stay out of that. I know this. She is a fantastic teacher to him and has been in his life. I think what Bradley knows how to improve everywhere across the board for his game, I know he's working on his free throws. I'm not worried about that. But I'm going to tell him when I hang up, Kevin Shee and suggest. You know what, Tommy, I know this will sound absolutely ridiculous,

but if you ask any of my friends, they'll tell you I can't guard anybody, but I can shoot it. You know who the best free-throw shooter in this building is? Hands down, by far. Max player, free-throw shooter percent? Who? Alanda Deladone. We would put her in the coach's pension. It's like watching AI up there, you know, like one of the robots.

She doesn't miss a free throw. And that's something we can learn from And that's what's so beautiful about the community we have in our complex I can sit and watch the mystics, the go-go, the wizards all practice in a day And we can all come to each other's practices and watch And we joke about it a little bit But I'm not absolutely

We have Krista Tolover teaching our players How to ball handle drills and different things Why not bring Elena over when someone's struggling for the Free Tour League. Game knows game And our players don't care at all Male, Female, Mystics, Wizard hey, if you help me get better, I'm going to listen to you. That's really the value of this setup we have.

Being able to tap into, you're not known Mike Tebowl for 20-plus years. And his background is really NBA. And so why wouldn't we want to tap into him? Hey, coach, let me ask you something. I asked him about Bob Kloppenberg's SOS defense the other day. They used to run it in Seattle. Some of the things we want to put in with Scottie, we're hiring a new defensive coach.

So what is our philosophy going to be? We have all these resources walking around our building. And now we have with the go-go, you know, they skew of younger ages are going to be playing for their go-go, right? We have younger players there. Well, now we have John Thompson III in the building. He's going to help us in so many different ways from a recruiting aspect and what we can do better for free agency and delivering on the visits.

But now you've got young players. Hey, we're used to deal with pros. We're used to deal with grow-ups. Grown-ups, he's got a lot of college kids. He can help us in that transition. By the way, I hope his mother also tells him, to tighten up the handle a little bit. I think sometimes that ball gets...

I'm taking notes. Let me write this down, because I'm going to text. Everybody's laughing, listening to this, but a couple of people... No, no, I'm not. You know the game. That's been proven. You know the game. You've seen the same things we're seeing. In all seriousness, it gets a little exposed too much in traffic, and I think that's why sometimes he's, you know, high in the turnover area. God, what was I going to ask you?

Oh, just a real quick update on John, because I... I did read that essentially you guys have discounted the possibility that he's going to play in 2019, 2020. Is that fair? No, I don't think that's fair, but I think we have to expect for, you prepare for the worst, you hope for the best, right? And I think for us, there's no calendar that exists. There's no clock that you can use that's going to tell you the exact time John's going to come back.

And when you come back now, especially with our commitment medically, that we've, just made, when you come back, it's because you are 100% proven medically by all testing, all platform, all agreement. John Wallow, he'll tell you he's 100% when he's 50%. He wants to play so bad and he's such a tough guy. And I've watched him play in the playoffs with a broken hand. I've watched when he had bone chips or bone spurs. I watched when he had things in his knees that were bothering him and how hard it was for

him just to prepare to play for a game. And I know how tough he is. So in this case here, we signed a supermax contract with John, right? That's for four years. It's not just for this season. So the wisdom would tell you how do you protect your – that kind of a contract. How do you protect that kind of player from himself is, hey, you can come back when you're ready. And everything that goes into that, if it's six months, if it's a year, if it's a year and a half,

we're going to do whatever it takes when he's 100%. And I think that's what we learned. You know, the Achilles is not something that's real common in the NBA. It's happened. But, you know, now a sudden we had two all-stars, right? KD. happened and John happened. And then DeMarcus happened. So all of a sudden there's a little bit of a rash of these things.

But primarily, that's a football injury. It's a soccer injury. You don't have it as common in the NBA. So we have to learn from what other sports do. There's more data and information on how other people rehab from other sports than just basketball. But John's doing everything we asked him to do. He's been 100% compliant. He's doing great.

Looks great. Came out to Vegas. And if you were just judging it on ball handling drills and where he's at, shooting the ball, he looks like he can play tomorrow. But the healing process cannot be sped up. There's no shortcuts. You can't microwave it. You can't do anything other than time.

And time takes time. Has anybody ever told you you sound like Matthew McConaughey? No. No. You actually, you do. I'm sitting here and listening. to you and I was like, God, he sounds familiar and it just hit me like five minutes ago. I'm like, you always start playing the bongo, weird music or something.

You sound like Matthew McConaughey. One more, and this has been so great, and I appreciate the time so much, and I'm so rooting for you in the organization, because it truly is, and I've said this before, I've said it to Randy, to Scott, years ago to Ted. I've always felt like D.C. is a basketball town first. I agree. you know more people participate coach play you know watch basketball than than any other sport in this town and i think if we you know if the wizards were ever in contention in late may and in june it would

totally take this city over in in a way that no one unless you're from here really recognizes but um what did you i've felt that i've lived that i've seen that and i agree with you 100% And I think the discerning fan is not a blind loyal fan. The discerning fan wants you to show them progress and do those things. And we've had some great years. We had some tough years. And I think we're right back where we want to be, where we have control of the future. We have our picks in place.

We have the ability to do things and moving forward. To build something is going to take time for sure. Nobody wants to hear that. So let's make the right moves to give ourselves on good, solid footing now, that we can build moving forward and be ready for those. those big moments. There'll be a big moment or two in the next couple of years where we go, hey, this is a transformative transaction. Either we sign, draft, trade for somebody, and it can change this trajectory. But I think people get so frustrated when you don't manage expectations.

When you tell them this is the final piece and it wasn't, or you say these three things have to happen for us to win and none of them happen. Like, I get that, but I'm not going to stay in the past. You know, you learn from the past, don't live there. So let's see what we can learn from the past that we would never repeat. Let's see what we can do to grow this team. And I think there's a great blend going on where we've grown some players organically. We've added some players.

We traded for some players. And then there's out of the blue moon, we claim Thomas Bryant, and now he's a foundation piece for us too. Opportunities present themselves in strange places. Yeah. The waiver wire was kind to us last year. Yeah.

You know, look, there was that stretch. I mean, how much fun was it, you know, that first year against the Bulls and the way you know, Neney played and Trevor played and John and Bradley in their first experience in the series against Indiana and the sweep of Toronto and

the series against the Hawks that, you know, if not for John's, you know, injury, maybe that's an Eastern Conference finals year. John's Game 6 in Atlanta a few years ago when he went for 17 straight and 42 and was one of the best

right there in front of me goes. Yeah, I mean that's one of the best. Those guys were scarred for life. Yeah, one of the best individual performances ever by this franchise. And you were within a whisker in Game 7 against Boston, and that was so much fun. So I wish you the best of luck, because I would love to be sitting here in future years in mid to late May with big meaningful games, because it is fun in the NBA playoffs if your team's a part of it. So thanks so much for the time.

I really appreciate it, Tommy, and I wish you the best of the one. Absolutely, it was an honor. Welcome back, and it's great to talk with you, and please, I would insist that you hold us accountable. It's fair, but hold us accountable. The decisions we make, they have big impact. We understand that, and we want to make them with our fans in mind. Let's put a team together that fans are going to love. I think fans, there's only one champion, but they can still love the team if they see the continuity

and the pursuit of excellence and the hardworking, high-performance type of people we want to have here. I think this is going to be a responsibility to us. It's incumbent on us to put a good product out on the floor that people will fall in love with. So I know what we've got to do, and I think we're all up for the task. Best of luck. Thanks so much, Tommy. Thank you, sir.

That was awesome. Everybody that knows Tommy Shepherd and has known Tommy Shepherd. Scott Jackson, as an example, has known Tommy for a while. Scott always at 980, the guy that covered the Wizards more than anybody else from a day-to-day reporting standpoint. Everybody's always been so fond of him, and you can see why. He's a great dude, and hopefully it works out. The bottom line, and I've said this a million times,

somehow, some way you've got to get your hands on a great player and then have a couple of other really good ones too. And if you can get that, then you can make a run. It's different than the other sports. but I appreciate the time that he gave us and am certainly rooting for him because I love that basketball team and I want him to be good. Quick word about stamps.com. You need stamps.com, especially if you're a small business like ours, like the Kevin Sheehan Show podcast. We use stamps.com. It's a popular time-saving tool for small businesses. It eliminates trips to the post office and saves you money with discounts you can't even get at the post office. Stamps.com brings all of the amazing services of the U.S. Post Office right to your computer,

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Once your mail is ready, just drop it in the mailbox or hand it to your mail carrier. It's that simple. You get savings, though, using Stamps.com. 5 cents off every first class stamp and up to 40% off priority mail. It's a no-brainer. It saves you time and money. It's no wonder that over 700,000 small businesses are already using stamps.com. Now, right now, my listeners get a special offer that includes a four-week trial,

plus free postage, free postage, and a digital scale without any long-term commitment. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and use my code. Type in Kevin, D.C. That's Stamps.com, enter K-E-V-I-N-D-C. All right, let's bring in Mark Zuckerman, who, of course, covers the Nationals for Mass and Sports. You can follow Mark on Twitter at Mark Zuckerman. I'm going to start with just a very big picture. question based on where these teams in the National League stand now.

Where would you rank the Nats right now with respect to their postseason chances against everybody else in the National League? Where do they stand right now? Oh, boy. Let's ignore the past playoff history because I'm sure that's going to be on everyone's minds and say, well, hey, until they've actually won a series, how can you have them beating anyone? But to me, the Dodgers are the clear class of the National League, maybe of all baseball.

But after that, I think it's pretty wide open. The Braves have the second best record, but having now seen the Nats and Braves play each other a bunch here in the last month, I think they are completely evenly matched. That's my biggest takeaway from these head-to-head games with them is that they're very similar teams. That may actually hurt the Nats because it's going to be tough to catch them if they really are similar. But I don't think the Braves are a clearly better team than the Nationals at all. I think the teams in the Central, the Cubs have their ups and downs, the Brewers, the Cardinals, kind of the same thing.

So I would say right now it's Dodgers won, and then I put Nats and Braves side by side as the second best team of the National League. Yeah, that's why I asked the question, because I wondered whether or not somebody who covers the team on a daily basis and watches the rest of baseball and the rest of the National League on a daily basis thinks that there's a chance that the Nats right now, are the second best team in the National League. And, you know, look, when you get into the postseason, who knows, and they could still improve themselves here over the next week as well,

and we'll get to that in a moment. But this is, you know, a run here over the last month and a half that has put them front and center in terms of the teams that potentially will challenge the Dodgers for the National League pennant. Yeah, look, what they have done, they are one of the best teams in baseball, if not the best over the last, really, it's up to two months now, since May 24th, I think, is when it began. You do that for two months, it's not a fluke. Now, also, you have to look back and say what they did for the first 50 games in the season.

Was that a fluke? Maybe not so much either there, because that's a pretty big sample size. Do I think they can maintain that – I think it's like a 700 winning percentage they've had? That's a bit much to ask, especially if the schedule gets tougher here in the second half of the season. But if they play 600 ball the rest of the way, and I think that's perfectly reasonable, a reasonable goal for them to have, they play 600 ball, they get to 91 wins at the end of the season. That gets the end at worst into a wild card game. Now, you get yourself in a one-game winner-take-off situation, who knows what happens.

That doesn't guarantee anything. And then the prize, if you do win that, is going to be five games with the Dodgers, and you won't have Scher more than once in that series. So, I mean, that's a major challenge looking way down the road. But just the fact that they're even in this position that we're talking about that is really testament to how well they have played now over a good two-month stretch. Right now on July 24th, people like you in the media who cover baseball, cover teams, players, front offices, is it fair to say that the Nats look very good right now for not resigning Bryce Harper?

Yeah, I think a lot of people would say that. Now, I suppose you could look at it and say, boy, imagine if they had Soto, Robles, and Harper in the outfield, and Rendon and Turner in the infield, that could really be a stacked lineup, and maybe he would have helped them win some games early on. But we've seen – he's been much better the last month or so for the Phillies, but we've seen Bryce kind of have a season that we've seen them have before, which is very streaky. A lot of strikeouts, low batting average. That's not to say he's having a bad year because he is contributing to them. And he's helped keep that team afloat when things looked like they were starting to go really south for them a couple weeks ago. But I think a lot of people all along felt like it was a smart play. Not that Harper couldn't help them, but for the amount of money and the commitment they would have to have given him,

that they, that would not have been good for them. long run, that when you have a Soto and Robles locked up for a long time, when you have the other needs they have, if they re-signed Harper, who knows if they can go get Corbett, who's been fantastic for them. Maybe they can't make some of the other, you know, lesser moves they made to help fill out the lineup and the rotation and the bench. So I think for a lot of people, they feel like it was the smart move for them all along, even if Bryce had a good year, but certainly not to commit that kind of long-term, you know, 13 years. Think about that. He's just in year one. I mean, how much can change in 13 years. We'll see there's a long way to go, but at the moment, I don't

think anyone with the Nationals really has any regrets about it. You just mentioned Patrick Corbyn. After Scher, who's the best starting pitcher? Who is the second best starting pitcher on the staff? I'm still going to put Strasbourg right now. That's not a knock on Corbyn because he's been fantastic. But I think Strausberg's probably been a little more consistent. When Corvins had a bad night, it's been particularly bad, and he's done a nice job of turning it around in the last three, four weeks or so. But someone was actually yesterday having this discussion and debate with me, you know, we were just assuming, oh, hey, if they're in the wild card game, it's Max, and this other person said, you know,

what about Strausberg? Couldn't you make a case for him? And I thought about it, and I kind of laughed, and, you know, look, you're not, there's no way you're not giving the ball to Max Scherzer in a one-game do-or-die playoff. But there is a case for Strasbourg, and the case would be that he probably more than anyone else on the staff, you know what you're going to get. Max probably has the higher ceiling as far as a one game could put it all together and be absolutely lights out. But he could also have a little worse of a start. As opposed to Strasbourg, I think you know what you're going to get, and that's really good. and that's testament to him of how consistent he's been and how healthy he's been. That's the biggest thing for him.

If he can get a long way to go still, if he gets through this season making 30-plus starts for, I think, only the second time in his career, that's really significant and testament to how hard he's worked to make sure that he avoided injury. Yeah, I think, well, first of all, post-all-star break, he's been magnificent here in his last three or four starts. I think even the start going into the all-star break was a really good one. but he is on pace right now to pitch 30 plus games, which I think would only be for the second time in his career.

Maybe he had 31 time, but I think 2014 was when he had 34 starts. He's also on pace to push the strikeout total that he had back in 2014. And a lot of other things. He's quietly putting together one of the best seasons of his career. And by the way, one of the more reliable seasons of his career, knock on wood. Yeah, and the reliable. I think that's the key part.

You're right, knock on wood, because there's still a long ways to go. But he has learned over the years how to maintain his body. It's been a process, and it's been kind of trial and error at times. When he thought he had things figured out with his arm and it didn't work out, you'd have to spend those couple weeks on the DL every year. He has figured some things out. He's not throwing the ball as hard as he used to, but he's using all of his pitches really well. He can still dial it up into the mid

upper 90s as he needs to, but he's really more 93-94 with his fastball, but his curveball is outstanding, his change-ups outstanding. He's hitting great. He was four-for-four at one point over the last two starts. He's really put together, and you know what else?

The other thing that I noticed from this year, a lot of people notice this, he just seems much more relaxed and loose, he's smiling. He was dancing in the dugout in Atlanta after hitting a home run. There's something different there that there's just a comfort level right now with him that maybe we haven't seen in the past from him. All right, we'll get to what could happen here over the next week here in a moment.

But a couple of things real quickly. Number one, where is Scher right now? When will he pitch? Will he pitch at the end of this weekend against the Dodgers or not? No, he's going to go Thursday, barring some kind of setback in the next 24 hours. He's good to go for Thursday. They thought about pushing him back and holding him for Friday against the Dodgers, given that that's maybe a little more significant opponent.

But here's the thing. We've been looking ahead already ourselves to what might happen postseason-season-wise. Davy admitted yesterday they sat down and they extrapolated out the rest of the season and when his starts would be. And they found that pitching him on Thursday this week against the Rock would be better because it lines him up to face the Braves and the Phillies every time that they face them the rest of the way. And, in theory, a wild card game that lines him up for that.

And I was actually surprised. Wow. That's a lot of planning. Yeah. Now, maybe not surprised that they actually did that, that they looked it up. But I am surprised they admitted it because that's not certainly their MO. But they're looking ahead to this. Yeah, absolutely.

They recognize, and I mean, look, Macbitts the wildcard game no matter what. I don't think, you know, unless he had to start the last game of the season because it was due or die or something like that. But the fact that they are thinking ahead make him and line them up so that he does face the Braves every time. I think that is significant and shows you where their mindset is right now. Any news on an Anthony Rendon extension? No, unfortunately, it's kind of same old, same old. I thought when Ted Lerner and Scott Borris met at National Spark right toward the All-Star break, I started, my ears kind of perked up and I was thinking, oh, we could have something close here.

Obviously, it hasn't happened yet. We'll see. I still deep down feel like it makes just too much sense for both sides that they're going to want to get this thing done. That said, they have to meet terms. They have to agree on whatever those terms are. I don't think Anthony is the type who's going to want to go through free agency. After seeing what Bryce went through last year, that's just not something I think interests him. But I also know that he wants to be paid fairly.

And what he's doing this year is confirming, well, we've all known around here for a long time, and now maybe more people around baseball are recognizing is that he is one of the very best all-around players and most consistent players in baseball, and he should be paid accordingly. And so he and his agent feel like what the Nats are offering right now is not as good as he might get this winter. They're going to drag it out. It's unfortunate because this felt like something that maybe there was a good chance to get done early in the year and wouldn't become a distraction. And not that it's been a distraction to the team or to Anthony,

but it would have been nice to get that finished before now. So if he is the best player, position player on the team, is Trey Turner the second best position player on the team? Yeah, although Juan Toto is maybe the best hitter, just pure hitter on the team. But, you know, I had this discussion with someone else the other day as well about Trey. There's an argument to be made that Trey is the MVP of the team. And that's not a knock on Rendon,

because obviously Rendon does everything so well. But if we're just talking pure value, look at what the Nationals were. without Trey Turner earlier in the season when he was out. They struggled so much both at the top of the lineup, and especially at shortstop when they're putting Defoe and Key Boom out there. Not that they have a valid replacement for Rendon, but to me it was really, really noticeable when Trey came back,

what a difference he made. It almost exactly coincides with the turnaround of the season. He is fantastic for them in everything that he does, He probably doesn't get enough credit for being the shortstop because I think he's actually a very good shortstop, maybe not as flashy as some of the other guys in the league, but he makes all the plays he needs to, and how dynamic of a hitter he is.

The cycle is a fluke for the most part, but there are certain guys that are better built for it, and Trey Turner is at the top of that list, because how many guys in the league are capable of hitting both for power and speed and extra base is the way that he does, and so to have two cycles by age 26, is pretty impressive. Yeah, amazing.

What he did last night. And I think it's the first time it's been done against Colorado outside of Denver. Yeah. And outside of Coors Field. It happened nine times in 25 years at Coors Field by the opposition. Right. The first time it's ever happened away from that. That tells you something as well.

All right. So two months ago, part of the conversation included, is Max Scherzer possibly a guy that the Nats would want to move before the trade deadline? That was the conversation. of it. Yeah, how's that worked out? Anyway, and here they are now very much in contention for the postseason. What do you think happens here over the next week? What do they try to add? Where are they successful in adding? I think I can go out on a limb and say they're not going to trade Max Schurts. I think that one's safe. Not that I ever thought they would. Look,

it's bullpen, bullpen, bullpen. That's really where it is. They need, in my mind, a truly reliable setup man, a guy who's having a good year right now, not a guy who's had good years in the past necessarily. Fernando Rodney's done great. Way more than you'd ever expect from a 42-year-old, but I just don't think they can go into a stretch run and potentially a playoff counting on him to be that guy. I also think they need a more reliable lefty to match up with. Again, Tony Sips has his moments here, but consistently has not been able to do that. So if But to me, those are the two moves. Here's where it gets tricky for a variety of reasons.

Number one, they don't have that many top prospects, and they've already said they're not willing to trade them, as they've pretty much always done in the past. Number two, they have very little financial room to work with because they insist they're not going over the luxury tax for the third straight year. And they're only about, it's complicated, but one website that tracks these things has them only $6 million under the luxury tax right now. So that's not a whole lot of room to work with.

Number three, and I don't think this is getting talked about enough, there are so many teams now in the kind of fringes of the wild card rates, especially in the National League. There may not be that many sellers. The Giants, everybody assumed they were the sellers. They're on a role. They're a team that has three or four relievers. They're on fire, and this is Bruce Bochy's last season as manager,

and all of a sudden they may say, hey, we're going for it. So you're going to have way more teams that need, especially relievers than teams that are willing to sell them, and it's going to create a tough market. Mike Grizzo has been able to pull this off almost every summer. He's gone out and gotten a reliever. This might be his biggest challenge so far since he's been GM to try to pull this one off. I think he's going to get someone, but it's not going to be nearly as easy as people might think, oh, hey, just go fix the bullpench. Not that simple. Yeah, it's a really good point when you look at the National League standings. The Giants are on fire.

They now are back in, legitimately back into a wild card race. Arizona is still there. Colorado's sort of falling out of it, but you've got the Cubs, Cardinals, and Brewers all in the central. And really, you know, even if the Reds and the Pirates, you know, looked at the standings, you know, one good, you know, month, and they could be back into it. And then the Phillies and Nats, obviously, behind the Braves and the National League East. One name that they've been linked to and a lot of the rumors that have been, you know, out there is Shane Green, the Tiger's Closer. You know, and in the past, you know, there have been names that the Nats have been linked to prior to a trade deadline, and it never seems to come to fruition. What do you think the chances are that Shane Green is available and doable? And if not him, give me some other names that you think Mike Rizzo will be targeting. Well, yeah, I mean, Green is one of the big names that's out there. And again, we've got to remember, there are almost every contending team needs relief help.

And high on that list is the Braves. And that's also another thing to watch here is that it's not just a team. who do the Nats get or don't get, but who do the Braves get or don't get? So he's hiring a lot of teams list, and my sense is that tigers are going to ask for a lot. I was told that, you know, initially they asked for Carter Keyboom for him, but that's not happening. So if you're not willing to go up top prospects and you don't have a whole lot of money to spend, maybe in my mind a way to go is actually to look at the guys that are not fine beyond this year. Mike Rizzo traditionally likes to acquire players who he has control of for at least one more season.

He's not a rental player kind of guy. But the situation they're in, that might be the way that they have to actually go because you can maybe get one of those guys and only give up a lower-level single-A prospect. So I would look at some of the names that fit that description. The Giants actually had a few. I don't know if they're going to be able to pull that off again because of where they are. but look at teams like the tigers, the royals, possibly the reds, like you said, they could be in this thing, the Blue Jays, the Mariners.

But it's a seller's market, and so it's going to be really tricky for them to pull this thing off. My guess, in the end, is that whoever they get in the moment we may say, like, oh, that's not really a big name, I don't know who that is, but it's probably going to be someone who's having a good solid season for them and can help them in the seventh or eighth inning. The good thing here, they don't need a closer. They've got that. In the past, they've been forced to do that,

and those are the guys that cost a lot more. If they can pull off the deal for a rental seventh or eighth inning guy, it probably doesn't cost as much in terms of prospects. The player probably isn't making as much in terms of salary. I think those are the kind of moves I'd be looking at here in the next week. Is there any other position? Because we're talking primarily about bullpen help, which we know they need.

We know that's their weakness. They need somebody in the sixth, seventh, seventh, and eighth. Is there another position area that you think Rizzo might surprise with? Well, the two that you could look at would be a number five starter. And, you know, there's certainly an argument for that. And as we saw, once Max Scher went down, all of a sudden their depth gets really exposed. But I asked Rizzo about this just the other day in Atlanta, and he was pretty adamant that they are not in the market for that. they're satisfied with who their fifth starter guys are, Fetty and Ross and votes.

That's fine if the top four guys stay healthy. It's not an issue. But if any one of those guys goes down again, that's all of a sudden where they can be in trouble. So I don't think they go that route, but that is certainly one they could look at. The other one, there would be kind of a sneaky move would be another bench player and particularly like a utility infielder. They don't have a backup shortstop or third baseman really at the moment. not that anybody's going to supplant

Trey Turner or Anthony Rendon but if they felt like they could use a little more help on the bench and just provide themselves a little more insurance in case something happens with one of those guys, I could see a move for just like a veteran utility infielder. It's not going to be a big

name, nobody is going to stand out that's going to make a lot of headlines. But again, that's a move you can make that you don't have to give up a lot and that's someone who could have some real value down the stretch. One last thing, and I'll let you run. I made the case earlier that these games against the struggling Rockies are huge because the schedule, you know, if you just look at it the rest of the year, you know, other than the games against the Marlins,

the Mets and the two games they have against Baltimore, I mean, the other American League games are at Minnesota and against Cleveland to end the year. And, you know, you have St. Louis in there. You've got the Braves a bunch of times. You've got the Cubs on the road. You've got the Brewers. You know, you've got now all of a sudden the Giants on the road in early August looks tough, and we know what's coming in this weekend and next week with the Dodgers and the Braves.

This is a key day today and as is Thursday tomorrow because the Rockies stink right now, and the Nats need to take three or four of these in this series. Yeah, and that's where the double header I think actually hurts them. Right. It's hard to sweep a double header. It just is. They can be favored in both games and they can have good pitching matchups and everything, but it's hard to pull that off. And it's hard to sweep a four-game series as well.

Right. So this is where that rain out Monday night. I know a lot of people thought there was maybe some shenanigans going on, and the Nats wanted it because they got in late Sunday night and everyone was tired and they needed a day off. No, this actually hurt them because of the doubleheader, because it's going to force them to probably start Joe Ross against the Dodgers on Saturday because they needed now one more fill-in starter to make up for all this. They need to win three out of four, certainly. You've got Max going tomorrow, so that helps. Make a little pressure off. You have Corbin going to nights.

You probably feel good about that one. If they can get a decent start out of Eric Feddy in the opener and maybe sneak off a win here in the first game, that might set them up nicely for it. But it's tough to do. It's tough to pull those off, even against struggling teams. If they can take three out of four, that's fantastic, and then hope for the best this weekend against the big boys.

You know what, I know there's concern and angst among Nats fans looking at his ERA with Joe Ross. I actually thought he pitched pretty well the other night after the first inning. Yeah, I agree. He was not the reason for that loss at all. Now, can he maintain this? We'll see. But it's been such a weird season for him, and really his career is taking such an odd turn. He's the guy that I thought all along was going to be a good solid number three or number four starter.

Right. For them, he obviously had the Tommy John surgery, and that derailed his career somewhat. But the way they've used him this year, they tried him out of the bullpen and it was a disaster. They send him back down to AAA where he's only started and has done all right there, not too bad, and especially when you're out in the Pacific Coast League, the numbers get inflated. I would just like to see them commit to him as a starter, and let's just find out once and for all what he is, what he's got. I thought it was an encouraging start against the Braves against a very tough lineup. is going to be another tough assignment if he faces Dodgers this weekend.

But if he can just turn out to be something for them, that's a nice bonus. Thanks, Mark. As always, much appreciated. Good conversation and enjoy the long day today. At least the weather's not bad. Oh, if this was last week, yikes, that would have been a disaster. Yeah, it would have been a disaster. You know, these split double headers that come about, you know, because of a rainout,

that first game of the day typically, I mean, you can get your own sense. if you decide to go to the game today at 1 o'clock. But enjoy the day. Thanks as always. All right. Thanks a lot, Kevin. Thanks to Mark. Always good to catch up with Mark Zuckerman. Follow him on Twitter at Mark Zuckerman or read him, certainly at mass and sports.com. All right, I think we will be here tomorrow. More likely than not, yes.

If we are, Tommy will be with us. If that changes, I'll tweet it out in the morning. In the meantime, if you are listening on iTunes in particular, rate us and review us. If you haven't done that, that helps. Also subscribe. That helps us as well. It doesn't cost you a thing. And for those that haven't listened to the podcast that want to listen to this content and have a problem or find it difficult to listen to podcasts. And it's not difficult to listen to podcasts as we know, but just tell them that they can listen at the Kevin Sheehan Show.com. to Aaron, thanks to Mark Zuckerman, and thanks to Wizards GM Tommy Shepard for joining us on the show today. Have a great day.