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The Association Podcast, Ep. 18: "The Last Dance Nobody Asked For
Audio coming soon
# The Association Podcast, Ep. 18: "The Last Dance Nobody Asked For"
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JACKWelcome back to The Association Podcast. I am Jack Monroe. To my left, Marcus Vale.
MARCUSLet's go. Week 18. Things are getting ugly and I am here for every second of it.
JACKClaire Donovan is with us.
CLAIREI have been thinking about this episode for three days. There is so much to unpack here.
JACKEvan Cole holding it down on the comp side.
EVANTrade deadline week. Assets are moving. I have opinions. Many opinions.
JACKAnd Alex Mercer, accountability czar.
ALEXSomebody has to say the quiet parts out loud. Might as well be me.
JACKAlright. Week 18. We are at the edge of the regular season. The playoff picture is basically set. The bottom of the league is sorting itself out. And there is one dominant story that has followed this entire season from day one. brodiedean8. HeHateMe. 16 and 2. 6501.4 points. The most dominant team in this league's short but eventful history. We start there. We have to start there.
MARCUSWe always start there because he makes us start there. That's the most maddening thing about Brodie. He doesn't even have to do anything provocative. He just wins. He just keeps winning and the story writes itself and we sit here every week talking about the same guy.
CLAIREI want to give some context for anyone who has maybe drifted in and out of following this season closely. When Season 2 started, Brodie had already won Season 1. He was the defending champion. He was the guy everyone was gunning for. And then he went out and had arguably the best regular season performance this league has ever seen. 16 and 2. Six thousand five hundred points. We are not talking about a guy who squeaked into a title conversation. We are talking about a guy who has essentially been playing a different game than everyone else.
EVANThe points tell the whole story. Second place in points is alecb5 at 6215.1. Third is goochshot at 6076.3. Brodie is sitting two hundred and eighty-six points above the third-place team in points. That is not variance. That is construction. That is roster building at an elite level.
ALEXOr it is a schedule. I want to be fair here but I also want to be honest. We should look at who Brodie played and when. Because 16 and 2 is spectacular, nobody disputes that, but the conversation gets a little more interesting when you start mapping the schedule.
MARCUSHere he comes. Alex Mercer, the fun police, arriving right on time.
ALEXI'm not saying he isn't good. I am saying that before we retire a jersey and build a statue, let's make sure we are looking at the full picture.
JACKFair point and we will get into the schedule piece when we dig into playoff seeding. But right now I want to talk about the week itself. Week 18 results. Brodie won again. 16 and 2. Gooch is at 15 and 3. Those two have been in a two-horse race all season long and the gap is one game. One game with the regular season basically done. What does that mean for the final standings?
EVANIt means the first seed and second seed are locked. Unless something absolutely catastrophic happens, you are looking at Brodie one, Gooch two. The question then becomes matchups. Who do these guys want to see in the first round? And I will tell you, neither of them wants to see Alec.
CLAIREAlec is the name that does not get said enough in the first half of these episodes and then completely takes over the second half. Let me just put it out there early. alecb5. 12 and 6. 6215.1 points. That is the third-highest point total in the entire league. He is scoring more points than almost everybody. He is winning more games than almost everybody. The only reason he is a three seed and not a one seed is because he plays in the same league as two historically good teams.
MARCUSAlec has been the most quietly dangerous team all season. I have said it. I said it in week nine, I said it in week twelve, I am saying it again now. The point totals do not lie. This is a team that can beat anyone on any given week.
ALEXThe point totals are real. But 12 and 6 is 12 and 6. At some point the record has to mean something. He has dropped six games. Brodie has dropped two. Those are different resumes.
EVANSure, but in a playoff format, the resume gets folded up and put in a drawer. You play a series or you play a week and the best team wins that week. History does not travel with you into the bracket.
JACKLet's talk about the bubble before we get fully into playoff positioning. Because the middle of the table is genuinely interesting right now. 44Colt at 11 and 7. Nighthawk2334 and Natebarrett5 both sitting at 9 and 9. That sixth playoff spot is a genuine conversation.
MARCUS44Colt is fine. Eleven and seven, they are in the playoffs, that conversation is basically over. But Nighthawk and Nate sitting at identical records? That is a coin flip situation and both of those managers have to be sweating.
CLAIREWhat is fascinating to me is the points differential between those two teams. Nighthawk at 4962.0 points. Nate at 4814.6. Over a hundred and fifty points separating two teams with the exact same record. If they are both locked at 9 and 9 at season's end, points become the tiebreaker and Nighthawk has the edge. But that also assumes neither of them wins or loses differently in the final week.
EVANThe pressure on Nate right now is enormous. 9 and 9. One bad week and you miss the playoffs entirely in a six-team field. And Nate's team name, Coopa Troopas, has this kind of lovable underdog energy that I think masks the fact that this manager has actually put together a functional roster. They should not be in survival mode. And yet here we are.
ALEXNate had stretches this season where the roster management was, and I want to be diplomatic here, questionable. There were weeks where decisions were made that are hard to justify in hindsight. And now they are on the bubble paying for it. That is not bad luck. That is accumulated consequence.
MARCUSI love when Alex says he wants to be diplomatic and then is absolutely not diplomatic at all.
ALEXI said I want to be diplomatic. I did not promise I would be.
JACKLet's get to the bottom of the table because that is its own complete story. michaelhebb, The 3rd Options. 6 and 12. BigSuge, Bullet Risacher. 5 and 13. Ctwhitaker1, CJ's Squad. 3 and 15. blakeeverroad, Ayton on Brodie's Team. 3 and 15. These four teams are in the lottery. These four teams are not seeing playoff basketball this season. But the stories inside that group are different from each other.
CLAIREI need to talk about blakeeverroad for a moment because the team name alone is a piece of performance art. Ayton on Brodie's Team. This manager named their own team as a monument to a trade they made or assets they surrendered to Brodie. That is either the most self-aware thing in this league's history or it is a public cry for help. I genuinely cannot decide which.
MARCUSIt's both. It's absolutely both. You do not name your team that unless you are simultaneously laughing and crying. That is a person who has made peace with their decisions in the most theatrical way possible.
EVANFrom an asset evaluation standpoint, whatever blake gave up to Brodie during this period has clearly tilted the competitive balance. You look at Brodie's roster construction and his point totals and the way he has maintained elite scoring across 18 weeks, and some of that foundation was built on value extracted from transactions that did not end up benefiting the other side.
ALEXThe team name is an admission. That is all I will say. When you name your team after the thing that defeated you, you are not being funny. You are confessing.
JACK3 and 15. Tied with Ctwhitaker1 for the worst record in the league. CJ's Squad. 3 and 15. But here is the thing. Ctwhitaker1's full season record if you include the weeks we are tracking is pushing toward territory that becomes historically bad for this league.
CLAIREThe number I keep coming back to is the full season projection for Ctwhitaker. 3 and 18 is where this is tracking. In a league that is only in its second season, having a team finish 3 and 18 is a record that will be referenced for years. It will be the baseline. When a team is struggling in Season 4 or Season 5 someone is going to say, well at least they are not CJ's Squad from 2025.
MARCUSThe real question is why. Why has this team been this bad? Is it roster? Is it management? Is it lineup decisions? Because 3 and 15 heading toward 3 and 18 is not variance. Variance evens out. This is structural.
EVANFrom a draft lottery perspective, Ctwhitaker has positioned themselves for the best possible pick. If you are going to be bad, be historically bad. At least you come out of it with a top pick and a real chance to rebuild.
ALEXThe draft lottery only helps you if you know what to do with the pick. Having the worst record and having the best rebuild plan are not the same thing. Let's see what happens in the offseason before we celebrate the consolation prize.
JACKBigSuge. Bullet Risacher. 5 and 13. This team has nearly 4900 points. 4908.9 to be exact. Let me just remind everyone what that number means in context. BigSuge has the fifth-highest point total in the entire league. Fifth. And they are 5 and 13.
MARCUSThis is the great tragedy of the 2025 season. This is a team scoring at a legitimate playoff level and getting nothing for it. Schedule. Matchups. Timing. Whatever the reason, BigSuge has been the most unlucky team in the league. You cannot score that many points and finish 5 and 13 without something going wrong that is outside your control.
CLAIREThe points versus wins disconnect for BigSuge is the kind of thing that becomes a cautionary tale. You can build a great team and still miss the playoffs if the schedule breaks wrong. This sport, fantasy or otherwise, is not always just. And BigSuge is the proof of that this season.
EVANIf BigSuge's points had been distributed more favorably across the schedule they are a bubble team at minimum. They might be fighting for the four or five seed. Instead they are in the lottery. The margins in this league are brutal.
ALEXI want to gently push back on the pure bad luck narrative for BigSuge. High point totals mean you are scoring. It does not mean you are managing every week optimally. There could be weeks where better lineup decisions turn a loss into a win. Points and wins are related but they are not the same thing.
MARCUSMan, you really cannot let anyone have anything, can you?
ALEXI am not paid to make people feel good. I am paid to be right.
JACKYou are not paid at all.
ALEXWhich means I have nothing to lose by being honest.
JACKFair enough. Let's shift to trade deadline. This is trade deadline week and the activity around the league has been something. Bubble teams making desperate moves. Let's talk about the motivations. Evan, you have been tracking the asset movement. What is the picture?
EVANTrade deadline dynamics in a league like this are really split between three groups. You have the top teams, Brodie and Gooch, who are essentially locked in. They are not making panic moves. They might add depth or make a fine-tuning move but they are not restructuring anything. Then you have the middle group, Alec, 44Colt, the bubble teams. These managers are making moves with urgency because they see the playoff window. And then you have the lottery teams who are deciding whether to buy assets for a future rebuild or sell off anything with value.
CLAIREThe psychological piece of trade deadline week is what I find endlessly interesting. When a manager is on the bubble, every decision feels existential. You are not making a rational long-term calculation. You are making a survival calculation. And those two things do not always produce the same answer.
MARCUSPanic trades are real and they happen every season in every league. A manager at 9 and 9 stares at that record and thinks, I need to do something. I need to shake this up. And they make a move that feels decisive in the moment and looks catastrophic six weeks later.
ALEXThe bubble teams this week that are most at risk of panic trading are Nighthawk and Nate. Both at 9 and 9. Both looking at the same desperate math. The temptation to overpay for a perceived upgrade in that situation is enormous. And the teams on the other side of those potential deals, the lottery teams, know it. This is how asset extraction happens. This is how blakeeverroad ends up naming their team after a player they gave away.
EVANThe smart play at the deadline for a bubble team is surgical precision. Identify one specific weakness. Address it without gutting your future. Do not set your 2026 draft capital on fire because you want to make the playoffs with a 9 and 9 record in Week 18 of Season 2.
JACKLet's talk about the playoff picture in full. Six teams make the playoffs. Based on current standings you are looking at Brodie one, Gooch two, Alec three, 44Colt four, and then the five and six seeds are going to be determined by how the final week plays out with Nighthawk and Nate essentially competing for the same spot.
CLAIREWhat is remarkable about that top six is how stratified it is. The top two are historically dominant. The three seed is scoring at historically elite levels. And then there is a significant drop to the four seed and another drop to whoever comes in at five and six. These are not six evenly matched teams. This is a two-tier playoff field.
MARCUSWhich means the bracket matters enormously. If Brodie draws the six seed in the first round and Gooch draws the five seed, both of them are probably advancing. But if somehow the bracket shakes out and one of those top two teams draws Alec early? That is when this gets interesting. That is when records stop meaning anything.
EVANI have been thinking about the Alec matchup for weeks. 12 and 6. 6215 points. This is not a team that any one seed or two seed wants to see before the championship. This is a team that can put up a week that beats anyone.
ALEXAlec has earned the reputation as the danger team. But there is a difference between being dangerous and being the best. Twelve wins against Brodie's sixteen wins is a real difference. I am not discounting Alec. I am contextualizing him appropriately.
MARCUSThe playoffs have a way of eliminating context and replacing it with what happened this week. That is the only context that matters when you are actually in it.
JACKLet's talk about what a Brodie exit would mean if it happened. Because this is the elephant in the room. Brodie won Season 1. He is the one seed in Season 2 with the best regular season record in league history. If he does not win the championship again, what does that mean for his legacy in this league?
CLAIREThis is the question I have been sitting with for weeks. There is a version of Brodie's story where he is the unquestioned greatest player in this league's history. Two seasons, two titles, dominant in ways that defy comparison. And there is another version where he is the guy who built the biggest sandcastle and watched someone else knock it over. The championship is what separates those two stories.
MARCUSIf Brodie loses in the playoffs after going 16 and 2 in the regular season, that is not a footnote. That is the headline. Forever. Every time someone talks about this league, every time someone brings up Season 2, the story is not the 16 and 2. The story is what happened after.
EVANThe assets Brodie has accumulated, the construction of his roster, all of it gets reframed if he does not convert a dominant regular season into a title. You cannot spend draft capital and regular season wins and not close it out. The investment demands a return.
ALEXI want to say something that might be uncomfortable. The fact that we are even having this conversation, that we are sitting here in Week 18 asking whether the most dominant regular season team in league history can actually win the championship, that tells you something about how this playoff format operates. One bad week and everything changes. One bad week and the record becomes a relic.