Listen If
Listener Guide
Offseason / Has / Mercy / Welcome
- Listen if your franchise has draft capital, lottery pressure, or a board decision coming.
- Listen for trade-market winners, losers, leverage, and which GM has to react next.
- Listen if the league hierarchy or title window debate affects your franchise.
- Listen if you are tracking Offseason, Has, Mercy or their next move.
- Listen for the clearest disagreement, then use the chapters to jump to that segment.
The Association Podcast, Ep. 0: "The Offseason Has No Mercy
Audio coming soon
# The Association Podcast, Ep. 0: "The Offseason Has No Mercy"
---
JACKWelcome back to The Association Podcast. I am Jack Monroe. Sitting to my left, the man who has never once in his life accepted a loss gracefully —
MARCUSAnd I never will. Marcus Vale. Let's go.
JACKClaire Donovan is here, already emotional about the narrative implications of everything that happened last season —
CLAIREI mean, can you blame me? This was a season. This was an actual season.
JACKEvan Cole, who has spent the entire offseason rebuilding his draft board from scratch —
EVANFrom scratch is accurate. I threw the old one out. It no longer applied to reality.
JACKAnd Alex Mercer, who walked in today with a printed list of names and a look on his face that I genuinely found unsettling —
ALEXThere are people in this league who owe explanations. I have their names. We will get to them.
JACKThis is Episode Zero. Season 2025 is over. alecb5 is your league champion. We are in the offseason. The 2026 dynasty draft is on the horizon. And there is an enormous amount to unpack. Let's just start at the top. Alec won the championship. Let's say that one more time out loud.
CLAIREalecb5. Fourteen and seven in the regular season. Third seed. And your Season 2025 Da League champion.
MARCUSThird seed. Third. He came in as a third seed and left with a ring. Do you understand how unhinged that is?
EVANAnd the person he had to go through to do it was not some middling team with a soft record. He had to beat the single most dominant regular season performer in league history to get there.
ALEXNineteen and two. I want everybody to sit with that number for a second. brodiedean8 went nineteen and two in the regular season. Two losses. All season. And he did not win the championship.
JACKThat is where we have to start today, because that is the defining story of this entire league right now. Brodie's regular season was historic. And then Alec ended it.
CLAIREAnd what makes it so dramatically perfect — and I mean this as a storytelling thing, not just a basketball thing — is that Season One was Brodie's. He won it. He built something dominant. He came back into Season Two and looked even better. And then the moment when it mattered most, a team that nobody was talking about in the same breath just walked in and took it.
MARCUSIt was not close, was it? Tell me it was not close. Because if it was close I feel slightly better for Brodie and I do not want to feel better for Brodie right now.
JACKWe are not going to get into specific margin of victory numbers because we do not have that data in front of us, but the narrative record is clear. Alec won that series.
ALEXHere is my problem with the entire thing, and I want to put this on the table early. Brodie won the regular season championship. That is real. That goes in the record books. But in dynasty fantasy, the regular season championship is a consolation prize. It is a beautiful consolation prize, but it is a consolation prize. You play to win the ring.
EVANAnd he did not win the ring in Season One either. Oh wait. He did. He won Season One.
MARCUSWhich makes Season Two even more brutal. You set the all-time regular season record, you are the defending champion, and you lose in the playoffs. That is not a footnote. That is a tombstone.
CLAIREI don't think it's a tombstone. I think it's a chapter break. That's an important distinction. Brodie is not done. The assets he has, the position he's built —
MARCUSClaire, he lost to a three seed. In the playoffs. After going nineteen and two. I am not ready to move to the redemption arc yet.
JACKLet's hold the Brodie arc for a few minutes because I want to spend some real time on it. First, I want to acknowledge goochshot, because Shep and Co. went eighteen and three. Eighteen. And three. And we have barely mentioned them in the opening segment because of how good Brodie was.
CLAIREThat is actually kind of heartbreaking. In any other season, goochshot is the best story of the year. Eighteen and three is a dynasty season for the ages. And it becomes a footnote.
EVANNot a footnote. Second place in the regular season in one of the most competitive two-horse races this league has ever seen. That is real.
ALEXDid goochshot make a deep playoff run?
JACKWe don't have specific playoff bracket results beyond the championship narrative. What we know is alecb5 won the whole thing and the championship came through Brodie in the biggest upset.
ALEXSo goochshot at eighteen and three also did not win a ring. Which means two teams went a combined thirty-seven and five in the regular season and neither of them is champion. That is the story of Season Two.
MARCUSThe regular season this year was basically a practice round for the two worst possible outcomes for the best two teams in the league.
JACKMarcus, that is a little reductive —
MARCUSIt is completely reductive and it is also completely accurate.
CLAIRECan I just say something about what Alec's win means in the context of the league's history? Because this is only Year Two. We have two champions now. One of them won back to back and looked unstoppable, and then a completely different team won. The competitive landscape of this league in its first two years is actually really healthy.
EVANFrom an asset standpoint, that's exactly right. The fact that a fourteen and seven team can win the championship is the most important advertisement the dynasty format has. It says: keep building, keep competing, you are never out of it.
ALEXUnless you are Ctwhitaker1. In which case you went three and eighteen and you are very much out of it.
JACKWe will get to the bottom of the standings. Oh, we will absolutely get to the bottom of the standings. But first let's go deeper on Brodie specifically, because I think this is the most important offseason question in the entire league. Who is brodiedean8 entering Year Three?
CLAIRESo here is the thing that nobody wants to admit out loud because Brodie is legitimately good at this. The talent on his roster is real. Whatever he did to go nineteen and two was not luck. That was construction. That was management. That was knowing which players to hold and which to move.
EVANAnd that roster does not evaporate because he lost in the playoffs. The players that got him to nineteen and two are still his players going into the offseason.
MARCUSUnless he panics. Which is my concern. Do we think Brodie is a panic trader in the offseason?
ALEXEvery manager who loses in the playoffs after going nineteen and two is a potential panic trader. The question is whether he is disciplined enough to look at his roster, identify the specific reason he lost to Alec, and address only that.
JACKWhat do we think the specific reason he lost to Alec was? Injury? Matchup? Hot scoring week?
CLAIREWe don't have that granular data. But in dynasty terms, the explanations are usually one of three things. Either Alec had a positional matchup advantage that week, or Alec's roster just happened to explode at the right time, or Brodie had a key player underperform in that specific window.
EVANPlayoffs are a different animal. You can be the best roster in the league over twenty-one weeks and then have your stars go cold in a two-week window and lose to someone who is peaking. It is cruel and it is random and it is also why we watch.
MARCUSI need Brodie to be angry. Like legitimately, productively angry going into the offseason. Because if he is just sad, that's bad for everybody. Sad Brodie sells low on assets. Sad Brodie makes emotional trades. Angry Brodie goes and gets whatever piece he did not have and comes back meaner.
ALEXThere is a real question about whether Brodie overvalues his own assets coming off a nineteen and two season. When you have been that good, you tend to believe your players are worth more than the market says they are. That is a trap.
JACKAnd the market is reset. The 2026 draft is coming. Everybody gets a fresh look at what assets are actually worth going into Year Three. Brodie has to price his holdings correctly.
CLAIREThe thing that gives me pause about writing any kind of redemption narrative for Brodie yet is the dynasty truth which is: the team that beats you in the playoffs usually understands something about your roster that you don't. Alec found the crack. He exploited it. Brodie either fixes that crack or he faces it again.
EVANAnd now Alec goes into Year Three as the defending champion with a fourteen and seven roster that proved it could peak when it matters. His dynasty value just went through the roof. Every trade he makes this offseason, he makes from a position of power.
MARCUSChampions get to be arrogant in the offseason and I fully endorse that. Alec should be insufferable right now.
JACKLet's talk about what Alec's championship means for his dynasty trajectory. Because fourteen and seven is a great record. It is not a historically dominant regular season. It means there is almost certainly room to grow on his roster.
EVANThat is the most interesting thing about Alec's situation going into Year Three. He won the championship, which is everything. But his regular season record suggests his roster is not yet in the same tier as Brodie and goochshot in terms of week-to-week reliability. Which means he needs to decide: does he push his chips in and try to repeat, or does he use the championship credibility to make big moves and build something that can dominate both the regular season and the playoffs?
ALEXThe correct answer is both. You always try to repeat and you always try to improve simultaneously. Anything less than that is losing mentality.
CLAIREThe defending champion in dynasty is a fascinating position because everyone in the league wants to beat you. Every trade offer Alec gets this offseason is from someone who saw him win the whole thing and wants to break up what he built. He has to be disciplined about what he gives up.
MARCUSHe also has to be a little paranoid. Because the people coming for him are smart. Brodie is coming for him. Goochshot is coming for him. The whole league is recalibrating around the fact that Alec won.
JACKLet's pivot now to 44Colt. Wet Like I'm Book. Thirteen and eight. Made the playoffs. Went out. What is the read on that squad going into Year Three?
EVANThirteen and eight is a legitimate playoff team. It is not a championship contender on paper but it is competitive. The question for Colt is whether the playoff exit was a talent ceiling problem or a depth problem.
MARCUSAnd also, incredible team name. I want to just say that. Wet Like I'm Book is one of the best fantasy team names in the history of this format and I will not hear otherwise.
CLAIREThe team names in this league are genuinely something. We will come back to that because there is one we absolutely have to discuss at length.
ALEXColt at thirteen and eight is in the most uncomfortable position in dynasty. He is too good to comfortably tank for a top draft pick in the 2026 lottery, but he is not clearly good enough to compete with Brodie and goochshot at full strength. He is in the messy middle.
JACKThe messy middle is where dynasties go to die if you do not manage it correctly. You keep finishing in the five to eight range, you never get a franchise-altering draft pick, and you slowly watch the gap between you and the top teams grow.
EVANOr you blow it up. You identify your core of two or three guys you will not move under any circumstances, and then you start dealing everyone else for picks and young assets and you build properly.
MARCUSColt is not blowing it up. You do not go thirteen and eight and decide to rebuild. That is not a human response to a thirteen and eight season.
CLAIREI think the most interesting move for someone in Colt's position is actually to be aggressive in acquiring from the bottom. The teams that missed the playoffs are desperate. They are looking ahead to the draft. Colt can potentially buy cheap from teams that are surrendering this cycle and use those assets to push himself over the top.
JACKSpeaking of which. Let's go to the bottom of the standings. Because this is also a story. Natebarrett5. Coopa Troopas. Ten and eleven. Made the playoffs as a six seed.
ALEXBarely. He barely made it. Ten and eleven is a coin flip team. He won slightly more than he lost and it was enough to squeeze in. That is not a sustainable dynasty model.
EVANTo be fair, making the playoffs at ten and eleven means the middle of the league was genuinely bunched. It is not like he snuck in through a terrible field.
MARCUSHe made the playoffs and then what? He presumably lost because Alec won the whole thing from the three seed and we are not aware of Nate having a deep run.
JACKNate's offseason question is really about identity. Is he a rebuilding team that squeezed one more playoff appearance out of an aging core, or is he a team that was unlucky and is actually a forty-five percent win rate away from being a real contender?
CLAIREThe team name Coopa Troopas is extremely fun and I think that energy should translate into aggressive dynasty moves this offseason.
MARCUSDid Nate go ten and eleven and make the playoffs? Because if so, the four teams below him are in a genuinely different category of problem.
JACKThey are. michaelhebb. The 3rd Options. Seven and fourteen. Missed the playoffs.
ALEXSeven and fourteen is a roster that needs surgery. Not a trim. Surgery.
EVANBut seven and fourteen in a competitive dynasty league is also not necessarily a disaster if you have the right young assets and the right picks coming in the 2026 draft. It depends entirely on what's in the pipeline.
CLAIREThe team name The 3rd Options is interesting to me. There's a philosophy embedded in that name that I find either very self-aware or very ominous depending on how you look at it.
MARCUSIt means he is nobody's first choice and nobody's second choice and he has accepted this about himself. That is either zen or it is sad.
JACKBigSuge. Bullet Risacher. Six and fifteen.
MARCUSHold on. Bullet Risacher? Like Zaccharie Risacher?
EVANThat is the inference.
MARCUSSo BigSuge drafted Risacher, named his entire franchise after him, and then went six and fifteen. That is a complete commitment to a bit and also a complete disaster simultaneously.
CLAIREThere is something almost noble about it. You believe in a player so much you name your team after him. That is conviction. It did not work, but it is conviction.
ALEXSix and fifteen. You are in the draft lottery. You are hoping for a top pick. You need multiple things to go right in the 2026 draft just to become a fringe playoff team by Season Four. That is the math.
EVANRisacher has real upside though. If you're building around a young player like that, the record this year is almost a feature, not a bug. You want to be bad now while your cornerstone is developing.
JACKblakeeverroad. Four and seventeen. And we have to talk about the team name.
CLAIREOh we absolutely have to talk about the team name.
MARCUSAyton on Brodie's Team.
JACKAyton on Brodie's Team.
ALEXThis man named his team after assets he gave away to the first-place team in the league.
EVANNot just any assets. Deandre Ayton level assets. He is publicly flagellating himself with his own team name.
MARCUSThis is either the funniest thing in dynasty fantasy or the saddest thing in dynasty fantasy and I cannot decide which.
CLAIREIt is performance art. He gave up assets to Brodie, Brodie went nineteen and two with them presumably, and Blake named his team as a permanent record of that transaction. That is a man holding himself accountable in the most public and humiliating way possible.
ALEXFour and seventeen. He should be humiliated. Not just about the Ayton trade but about the entire season. Four wins. Seventeen losses. That is historically bad.
JACKIt is not the worst record in league history in this specific season, however. That belongs to —
MARCUSOh I know where this is going.
JACKCtwhitaker1. CJ's Squad. Three and eighteen.
EVANThree and eighteen.
CLAIREThree.
MARCUSAnd