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League Radio, Week 16: The King Is Dead, Long Live Alec
Audio coming soon
# League Radio, Week 16: The King Is Dead, Long Live Alec
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JACKWelcome back to League Radio, Season 2025, Week 16, the final week of the regular season and gentlemen I need everyone to take a breath because this has been the wildest season I have ever covered in Da League. I'm Jack Monroe, we've got Marcus Vale, Alex Mercer, Ben Harper, and Nico Hart, and we have so much ground to cover. Final standings are locked. The playoff picture is set. And the most dominant player in league history just watched a fourteen seed knock him out of the tournament. Let's go.
BENJust to set the table for anyone catching up. brodiedean8 finished the regular season fourteen and two. That is after going nineteen and two last season when he won the whole thing. Two seasons, thirty-three wins, three losses in the regular season. That is not a human being playing fantasy basketball. That is a weather event.
MARCUSAnd none of it matters. Zero. You want to talk about regular season dominance? Fine. Put it in a trophy case. Brodie has a regular season trophy and Alec has a championship ring and I know which one I want.
ALEXI want to be really precise here because I think we owe it to the numbers. Brodie went fourteen and two this year. goochshot went fourteen and two. alecb5 went eleven and five. In terms of raw record, Alec was the third best team in this league during the regular season. He won the championship. That is not an indictment of Alec, that is an indictment of the playoff format, and we should talk about it.
NICOThe chat has been going absolutely feral since the championship was decided. I've got brodiedean8 posting nothing. Complete silence. And Alec is just in there sending that crown emoji every three hours like clockwork. It's personal. It has always been personal.
JACKLet's start with the championship itself because I don't think we can move past it without giving it its full moment. Alec beats Brodie in the playoffs. The defending champion, the most dominant regular season performer in league history, knocked out by the three seed. Ben, how does that happen?
BENVariance. I mean that genuinely. In a single week fantasy matchup there is enough randomness that the better team on paper loses about thirty to forty percent of the time depending on the sport and the scoring system. Alec ran hot. Brodie ran cold. And when you build a bracket tournament on top of a fantasy season, you are accepting that the best team will not always win. That is the structure. It is not a bug, it is a feature, depending on who you ask.
MARCUSIt is absolutely a feature and I will die on this hill. If the best team always won we would have stopped watching after Week 4 when Brodie went eight and oh. The whole point is that any given week, anything can happen. Alec earned his spot. He made the playoffs. He won his games when it counted. You want to call that lucky? Fine. Luck is a skill in fantasy.
ALEXLuck is not a skill. That is the most convenient thing a champion can say. Luck is luck. What I will say is that Alec managed his roster well, made the right moves at the right time, and peaked at the right moment. That is genuine skill. But let's not rewrite it as some masterclass when his regular season record was eleven and five.
NICOOkay but the chat wants to know, and I think this is the real question everyone is dancing around, is Brodie the best manager in this league or not? Because he has the records. He has the stats. He just doesn't have the trophy anymore.
JACKThat is the question. Marcus, make the case for Brodie.
MARCUSThirty-three and three across two regular seasons. Season one champion. Nobody in this league has managed a roster with that consistency. He finds value, he makes trades that work, he is never caught with dead weight on his bench. The man is operating at a different level than everyone else in Da League. The fact that a seven-game hot streak from Alec erased that doesn't change what Brodie built over two hundred and something matchup weeks.
ALEXHere is my problem with that. We play to win the championship. That is the stated goal of the league. Brodie has one championship in two seasons. Alec has one championship in two seasons. By the only metric that actually matters they are tied. And Alec got his while Brodie was supposed to be unbeatable. That should terrify Brodie more than any trash talk.
BENI think the historical framing is important here too. Season one, Brodie wins it all. Season two, he posts the greatest regular season in league history and gets knocked out in the playoffs. If season three follows that pattern, that is a genuinely concerning trend line for him regardless of how good his regular season numbers are.
NICOThe chat is split about sixty forty in favor of Alec being the better manager right now just based on the vibe. And I think vibe matters in fantasy because confidence affects your decision making.
JACKAlright let's talk about the other side of the standings because we cannot do this show without addressing the absolute carnage at the bottom. Ctwhitaker1, three and eighteen. Ben, historically how bad is that?
BENIt is one of the worst records in league history, full stop. Three and eighteen means you won three games all season. You were competitive in roughly fourteen percent of your matchups. There are injury replacement players who see the court more than that. CJ's Squad was, statistically, not competitive.
MARCUSAnd you know what makes it worse? Four thousand and fifteen points. Look at that number. Ctwhitaker1 scored more total points than blakeeverroad, who finished ahead of them in the standings. They were not tanking. They were just losing close games constantly. That is somehow more painful than tanking.
ALEXThat is a scheduling problem more than a roster problem potentially, which is almost worse because it means bad luck compounded over an entire season. You can fix a bad roster. You cannot fix a schedule that constantly put you against peak performances.
NICOAnd blakeeverroad named their team Ayton on Brodie's Team which I just have to appreciate for the honesty. Like that team looked at their situation, understood they had given up assets to Brodie, and just decided to make the joke themselves before anyone else could.
JACKThat is accountability in team naming form. I respect it deeply.
BENFor context blakeeverroad finished four and seventeen. Three and thirteen after Week 16. The team name was accurate from the jump.
MARCUSBigSuge also underperformed massively. Bullet Risacher, five and eleven, over four thousand three hundred points scored. That team had the firepower to compete and just could not convert it into wins. That is a management issue. You have the players, you are not making the right calls.
ALEXBigSuge has more points than Natebarrett5 who made the playoffs. Let that sink in. Bullet Risacher scored more fantasy points than Coopa Troopas and watched Nate take a playoff spot. The scheduling in this league has created some genuinely strange outcomes.
NICOThe chat is very fired up about this actually. A lot of people feel like the playoff format needs to be examined. Points leader as a tiebreaker or a points-based wildcard is getting thrown around a lot.
JACKThat is a commissioner conversation and I know those are happening. Let's move to goochshot because I feel like Shep and Co. is the forgotten story of this season. Fourteen and two, over five thousand four hundred points, finished second. How do you feel about being the second best team in a league where the third seed wins the championship?
MARCUSYou feel robbed. I do not care how anyone frames it. goochshot and brodiedean8 were operating in a different atmosphere than everyone else. They built elite rosters, they dominated week in and week out, and a playoff bracket said see you later. That is brutal.
ALEXAnd goochshot has zero championships to show for it. At least Brodie won season one. Shep put together arguably the second most dominant season in league history this year and has nothing but a second place regular season finish. If I am goochshot I am thinking really hard about what changes I need to make before season three.
BENThe gap between second and third in the standings is notable. goochshot at fourteen and two, alecb5 at eleven and five. That is a three game difference in a twenty two game regular season. These were not close teams in the standings. But in the bracket they had to play the same number of games.
NICOShep has been quiet on the group chat too. Like genuinely quieter than usual. I think fourteen and two and no ring just hits different when you watch the three seed celebrate.
JACKLet's do the draft lottery conversation because four teams are sitting in it. michaelhebb, BigSuge, blakeeverroad, Ctwhitaker1. Who is getting the most value out of the lottery and who needs to completely rebuild?
BENCtwhitaker1 needs the most help and will presumably get the most lottery priority based on record. Three and eighteen is a full rebuild situation. The draft is the fastest path back to relevance in a league like this.
MARCUSmichaelhebb at seven and fourteen is interesting because The 3rd Options had moments this season. They were not completely non-competitive. A good draft pick and one strong trade and that team is back in the conversation.
ALEXI want to know what BigSuge does because Bullet Risacher scored four thousand three hundred and sixty three points with a five and eleven record. If that team gets a quality draft pick on top of that existing firepower, they could jump dramatically. They do not need a full rebuild, they need to convert production into wins, and sometimes a new piece in the right spot does that.
NICOThe chat wants blakeeverroad to get a good pick just as a redemption arc. Like collectively people feel bad about the Ayton situation. There is genuine sympathy. Which is wild because fantasy is not usually a sympathy sport.
JACKFantasy is never a sympathy sport but here we are. Alright let's talk about what season three looks like because I think that is where everyone's head is right now. Brodie comes back as defending regular season champion. Alec comes back as defending league champion. goochshot comes back hungry. What does this league look like in 2026?
MARCUSIt looks like a war. Brodie has a target on his back he did not have in season two because now everyone knows he can be beaten in the playoffs. The mystique is gone. Teams are going to build specifically to match up against him. His trade leverage just dropped.
ALEXAlec has to deal with the champion tax. Everyone is going to be watching his moves more closely. It is harder to find trade value when people know you just won. The league adjusts around champions fast.
BENgoochshot is the sleeper pick for season three and I will say it on record. Fourteen and two, hungry, nothing to lose, probably making aggressive moves in the offseason. Shep and Co. scares me more than anyone else going into next year.
NICOThe chat is overwhelmingly picking Alec to repeat but that feels like recency bias to me. The chat loves a champion. Give it two weeks and they will be back to picking Brodie.
JACKI am going with goochshot. Mark it down. Shep is going to come into season three with something to prove and that is the most dangerous energy in fantasy sports. Alright final thoughts. One sentence on the season. Marcus.
MARCUSThe greatest regular season performer in league history lost to the three seed in the playoffs and somehow that is exactly what makes this league worth watching.
ALEXBrodie built a dynasty and Alec broke it in one bracket run, and neither of them should feel comfortable going into season three.
BENSeason two of Da League produced historically dominant teams, a historically bad team, and the biggest upset the league has ever seen, and it all came down to one week.
NICOThe chat watched all season for this payoff and I genuinely think half of them are more excited about season three right now than they are satisfied with season two, which means this league is doing everything right.
JACKAnd mine is this. Ayton on Brodie's Team is the most honest team name in Da League history, Alec is the champion, and somewhere right now brodiedean8 is already building his season three roster. League Radio, Week 16, that is a wrap. See you in the offseason.