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The Association Podcast, Ep. 12: "11 and 1 and Nothing to Prove (Except Everything)
Audio coming soon
# The Association Podcast, Ep. 12: "11 and 1 and Nothing to Prove (Except Everything)"
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JACKWelcome back to The Association Podcast, the flagship weekly show of Da League. I'm Jack Monroe, joined as always by Marcus Vale, Claire Donovan, Evan Cole, and Alex Mercer. We are at Week 12, people. Halfway through the season, the standings are starting to crystallize, the separations are real, and the story at the top of this league is getting genuinely uncomfortable to ignore. Brodie Dean is 11 and 1. HeHateMe is sitting at 4334 points on the season. We have to talk about it. We have to sit in it. That is where we are starting today.
MARCUSJack, before you say another word, I need to ask the room a question. Not a rhetorical question. A real one. Is there a single person in this league, right now, today, who can look another human being in the eye and say they are going to beat Brodie Dean? Because I cannot find that person. I have looked. I have searched. I do not see them.
CLAIREI think what makes this so interesting is that we already know how this story ends. We have seen it. Last season, Brodie ran the table. He was the best team in the league. He won the regular season. And then alecb5 took the trophy. So we are sitting here watching what might be the most dominant midseason performance in Da League history, and there is this little voice in the back of everyone's head that says, yeah, but we have seen this before.
EVANAnd that voice is right to be nervous. Eleven and one through twelve weeks with 4334 points is not a fluke. That is construction. That is roster depth. That is week-over-week consistency that you cannot fake over twelve games. But Claire is absolutely correct that the ghost of last season is hovering over every single one of Brodie's wins.
ALEXI want to stay on that number for a second because I think we are underselling it. 4334 points. The next closest team in this league is alecb5 at 4143. And Alec is 8 and 4. So Brodie has scored nearly two hundred more points than the third-best team in the league and he has three more wins. That is not a competitive league right now. That is one man and then everyone else.
JACKSo let's frame the central question of the episode right here at the top. Is HeHateMe beatable? And is what we are watching from alecb5 a legitimate threat or a mirage? We will get into both. But first, Marcus, I want to give you the floor on the 11-1 record itself. What is your honest read?
MARCUSMy honest read is that Brodie Dean is the best fantasy basketball manager this league has ever seen and it is not particularly close and it is also somehow the most frustrating thing to watch because he makes it look effortless. Eleven and one. One loss. One. The man has dropped one game in twelve weeks. You want to tell me that is matchup luck? Fine. Some of it is matchup luck. All records have some matchup luck baked in. But 4334 points is not luck. You cannot manufacture 4334 points. That is just being good.
CLAIREWhat I keep coming back to is the name. HeHateMe. It is a reference, it is a vibe, it is a whole attitude. And I think it captures something real about how this league relates to Brodie. There is this mix of admiration and resentment that follows a dominant manager. People are rooting for him to lose not because they dislike him necessarily but because dominance becomes its own kind of villain in a story. The league needs a foil. It needs tension. And right now Brodie is so far ahead that the tension is almost theoretical.
EVANThe thing that worries me about projecting Brodie's dominance forward is that 11 and 1 through the midseason means he has already done the hardest part of being dominant, which is sustaining it. Teams fade. Rosters hit walls. Players get hurt. The second half of the season is where you find out if a team is genuinely great or if they caught the schedule right in the first twelve weeks. And I will say this, if Brodie finishes 19 and 2 or better, that is the regular season record to match. That is the benchmark he set last year and it is the benchmark we should be measuring him against.
ALEXLast year he went 19 and 2 and still did not win a championship. So at some point we have to ask the real question, and the real question is not whether Brodie is the best regular season manager in league history, because the answer to that is obviously yes. The real question is what the regular season actually means in this league. Because alecb5 went 14 and 7 last year. He was the third seed. And he has a ring. And Brodie does not.
JACKThat is the tension. That is exactly the tension. And we are going to keep pulling on that thread because I think it defines everything about the second half of this season. Let me pivot to the number two team. Goochshot, Shep and Co., sitting at 10 and 2, 4050 points. This is a legitimate contender. Last year goochshot went 18 and 3. This is a manager who knows how to win games. How do we feel about Shep and Co. as the number two right now?
MARCUSGoochshot is the most overlooked story in this league and it drives me insane. Ten and two. Four thousand and fifty points. Last year this team went 18 and 3. Eighteen and three! And we are sitting here talking about Brodie and Alec and everyone is sleeping on a manager who has been elite across two full seasons of this league. If Brodie stumbles in the second half, the team best positioned to take that top seed is goochshot and it is not even a conversation.
CLAIREWhat is interesting about Shep and Co. is that last year was almost the same story. They were right there with Brodie all season, running neck and neck, and then the playoffs came and the title went somewhere else. So you have three teams right now who all have legitimate claims on being the best team in this league and all three of them have different versions of the same story. Brodie has the regular season record but not the ring. Alec has the ring but not the regular season record. And goochshot has been quietly elite for two years and has neither.
EVANThat is a devastating way to describe goochshot's situation, Claire, and I think it is completely accurate. Two seasons of top-two regular season performance and no championship to show for it. And I want to be clear, that is not a knock on goochshot. That is a testament to how difficult it is to win this league when the talent is this concentrated at the top. But at some point the question becomes whether goochshot can translate regular season excellence into playoff success, and that is an open question.
ALEXThe gap between one and two is actually worth paying attention to. Brodie has 4334 points. Goochshot has 4050. That is a difference of 283 points over twelve weeks. That is almost 24 points per week on average. In fantasy basketball terms, that is meaningful. That is a real gap. Goochshot is a great team. But they are not Brodie-level right now. The question is whether that gap closes in the second half or widens.
JACKAlright. Let us talk about the team that everyone is watching right now, and that is alecb5. Alec's Squad is 8 and 4, sitting third in the standings with 4143 points. And context matters here. This is the defending league champion. This is the manager who pulled off the biggest upset in league history last season, knocking out Brodie Dean in the playoffs and then winning the whole thing. So when Alec starts to heat up at the midseason mark, people pay attention. Claire, what is the narrative around alecb5 right now?
CLAIREThe narrative is redemption. Or not even redemption because Alec does not need redemption, he is the champion. The narrative is whether a champion can repeat. And the specific version of that question in this league is whether Alec can do it without the benefit of surprise. Last year, when alecb5 beat Brodie, it was the upset of the season. Brodie was not prepared for it. The league was not prepared for it. Nobody saw it coming. Now everybody knows what Alec is capable of. The blueprint is out there. And the question is whether Alec can win when people are gunning for him.
MARCUSI will say this about 8 and 4 and 4143 points. Those are the numbers of a team that is not just surviving, they are thriving. Alec is third in wins and second in total points. Second. Behind only Brodie. So while the record is 8 and 4, the underlying production says this team belongs in the conversation with the top two. The losses are there, but the points are elite.
EVANAnd that point total matters because in a league context, points scored often correlates better with playoff performance than win-loss record does, especially in the middle of the season when matchup variance is still high. The fact that alecb5 is putting up over 4100 points through twelve weeks tells me that the roster is generating. It is not a team riding a soft schedule. It is a team scoring.
ALEXHere is my concern with Alec. Eight and four is not dominant. It is good. It is playoff-caliber. But for a defending champion who has the highest expectations in the league, 8 and 4 is a trajectory that requires a strong second half. If this team runs the table in the back half, finishes somewhere around 14 and 7 like last season, they are in. They are probably a three or four seed. But to beat Brodie, if it comes to that again, you cannot be limping into the playoffs. You have to be rolling.
JACKSo let us say what we all know. The three-team story at the top of this league is Brodie, goochshot, and Alec. And the second half of this season is going to determine everything. Who is the one seed, who is a threat, who is peaking at the right time. Before we move down the standings, Marcus, I want to give you a take. Is Brodie beatable?
MARCUSYes. And here is why. We know he is beatable because we watched him get beaten. Last season, in the playoffs, alecb5 walked into that matchup as the underdog and walked out as the upset of the year and eventually the champion. So anyone who says Brodie Dean is unbeatable is ignoring the evidence that already exists in this very league. He is the best. He is the most dominant. He is 11 and 1 and probably the best regular season manager we will ever see in Da League. And he is absolutely beatable. We know this.
CLAIREAnd I think that is what makes this season so compelling as a story. We are not asking whether Brodie can dominate the regular season because we know he can. We already saw it. We are asking whether the ending is going to be different this time. Is Brodie going to write a new chapter or is this league going to give us the same ending twice? That is the question hanging over every week from here on out.
EVANI want to add one thing here which is that Brodie being at 11 and 1 is not bad for the league. I know that sounds counterintuitive. But a dominant team at the top creates urgency for everyone below them. Goochshot knows they have to stay perfect. Alec knows they have to heat up. The middle of the standings knows that seed position matters because you do not want to be drawing Brodie in round one. Dominance at the top compresses the competition everywhere else.
ALEXThe one thing I will not let us gloss over is this. If Brodie wins the championship this year, the narrative around last season changes completely. Because right now the story is that alecb5 pulled off the greatest upset in league history. If Brodie responds by winning it all in Season 2, that upset becomes a footnote. It becomes the year Brodie let one slip away. The stakes for this championship are enormous for multiple people's legacies.
JACKPerfectly said. We are going to come back to that later in the show because I want to spend real time on the legacy conversation. But right now let us go to the middle of the standings because there is a real story happening there too. 44Colt, Wet Like I'm Book, sitting at 7 and 5 with 3593 points. Fourth place. Nighthawk2334 at 6 and 6 with 3308. Natebarrett5 at 6 and 6 with 3209. This middle tier is messy. Evan, talk to me about the 4, 5, and 6 seeds.
EVANThe middle of this standings is fascinating because it is genuinely undecided. We have three teams within striking distance of the playoff line and one of them, 44Colt at 7 and 5, is actually pulling away from the others. Wet Like I'm Book has 3593 points, which is over three hundred points more than Nighthawk at 3308. And Nighthawk and Nate are almost identical in record but about a hundred points apart in scoring. What this means is that the separation between fourth place and out of the playoffs is real but not comfortable for anyone in this tier.
ALEXLet us be clear about what is at stake in this middle tier. Last year in the context of this league, the playoff field was six teams. That means six of these ten managers make it. Right now Brodie, goochshot, and Alec feel like locks from the top. Then you have 44Colt at 7 and 5 who is in good shape. That leaves two playoff spots for three teams who are all sitting at 6 and 6 or worse. This is going to come down to the wire for someone.
MARCUSI want to talk about 44Colt for a second because Wet Like I'm Book is a team I do not think gets enough credit. Last year this team finished 13 and 8, made the playoffs, and got eliminated. This year they are 7 and 5 at the midpoint. That is a team that is consistently in the hunt. They are not dominant. They are not flashy. But they are right there. Every. Single. Season.
CLAIREThe names in this middle tier are genuinely great and I think they tell us something about the culture of this league. Wet Like I'm Book. Shane Gillis Alexander. Coopa Troopas. These are managers who are engaged, who have a sense of humor about what they are doing, and who are grinding through a middling record trying to find their way into a playoff spot. That energy is what makes a league like this fun to follow week to week.
JACKLet us talk about the bottom of these standings because the story down there is just as important as the story at the top. We have got michaelhebb with The 3rd Options at 4 and 8. BigSuge with Bullet Risacher at 3 and 9. And then the real bad news. Ctwhitaker1 at 2 and 10 and blakeeverroad at 2 and 10. That bottom four is rough. Alex, take us through the wreckage.
ALEXThe wreckage is real and I am not going to sugarcoat it. Four teams below 500. Two of them at 2 and 10. And when you look at the point totals it makes sense. The 3rd Options at 2906 points. Bullet Risacher at 3272. CJ's Squad at 3011. Ayton on Brodie's Team at 2821. That bottom four is separated from the playoff picture by wins and by points. These teams are not close. They are not on the fringe. They have been dropped and the season is happening without them.
MARCUSI will say this about BigSuge and Bullet Risacher. Three and nine is an ugly record. But 3272 points is not the number of a completely broken team. That is more points than Nighthawk at 3308, who is 6 and 6. So BigSuge is putting points on the board. The losses are piling up. But this is not a team that has given up. The production is there. The wins just are not following.
CLAIREThe most poetic story in the bottom four, and I use the word poetic generously, is blakeeverroad. Ayton on Brodie's Team. The name alone. It is this perfect piece of self-aware grief. You name your team after the transaction that hurt you and you wear it every week on the standings page. Two and ten. 2821 points. Last in scoring. And the team name is a monument to the decision that helped Brodie Dean become 11 and 1.
EVANThe draft lottery implications here are significant. If the bottom four miss the playoffs, they are all in the lottery for the 2026 draft. And in a ten-team league, draft position can accelerate a rebuild in a way that makes a painful season worth something. Ctwhitaker1 at 3 and 18 last year, which is one of the worst records in league history, is