Hour 2: Stearns is Safe

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast. I gotta get more Kay. Listen live weekdays at 1 on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

**Grats** (0:41)
Right, hour number 2 on this busy, busy Wednesday. Grats is hitting in for Michael. First day of July 2026 at 800-919-3776.
That is your telephone number. Don't forget The Michael Kay Show on Espn New York. It could also be watched and viewed and streamed, all those things on YouTube presented by the Parisman firm. Real quick, high drama down in Atlanta in the World Cup and it has just gone final. England avoiding what would have been a stunning, stunning upset. They get two goals late in the second half to come from behind and beat the Democratic Republic of Congo 2-1 to avoid what would have been an absolute disastrous result for them. So they move on to the round of 32 They will take on Mexico coming up Sunday in the round of 16 That is going to be a doozy of a matchup. But we're obviously all going to have eyes on the World Cup game tonight with the United States and Bosnia Herzegovina. You think about the heavy favorite aspect and not slipping up on this stage and you don't want to have the same thing happen to you that Germany and the Netherlands suffered just a couple of days ago and then when you see England having a fight through it but somehow find the solution to get out of here alive and win this match. Hopefully we're not going to be biting our nails coming up a little bit later on tonight at 8 o'clock with the USA and Bosnia. But a lot of baseball, a lot of NBA in that first hour and I would also be remiss if I didn't wish a happy birthday to my mom, big birthday for her July number one. So we'll see her a little bit later on. Happy birthday to her and happy birthday in a sense for Mitchell Robinson who is now $47.5 million richer to the tune of a three year deal from the Boston Celtics. So the Knicks are going to be in the market for a backup center after not being able to retain Mitch's services. I don't even know if you could even say not being able to retain his services. You knew that once the owner told you that they weren't going to veer into the second apron that that was not going to be financially possible because a guy like Mitchell Robison and what he was going to be able to provide some team out there was going to be worth more than the money the Knicks were going to be willing to offer. Like I said, the Knicks were $9 million away or are $9 million away from the second apron and that was just an area that financially was not going to be able to be worked out. So Mitch is a Celtic and you're going to have to watch him in a green uniform at least for the next couple of seasons and we'll see what happens here moving forward.
Not just in the sense for the Knicks and where they go for a backup center, whether that's the trade market, whether they're going to get somebody to sign, for the financial parameters that they're going to be willing to put forward, whether it's a Jock Landell, whether it's Kevon Looney, guys like that. Mo Wagner, he went to the Brooklyn Nets as a matter of fact, but again, he was going to command more money than the Knicks were going to be willing to offer here.
I say it's mildly disappointing. From a basketball standpoint, you should be able to go out there and find somebody who's going to be able to give you anywhere from 12 to 15 minutes a night over the course of a long season. Mitchell Robinson played 13 minutes a night for the Knicks in the postseason. He was somebody that throughout his career here as a second round pick, I think exceeded all expectations and then some for where the Knicks drafted him, for how much basketball he had played prior to getting drafted, the fact that he was a Knick for upwards of eight years and became their longest tenured player and then capped it off by winning a championship. I think that is everything you could ask for and then some when it comes to a second round draft choice and what you can be able to maximize from him. So it's back to work for Leon Rose and Company. If you're a Knick fan, guys, you should have the utmost faith on what he and his staff are going to be able to do as far as putting forward and putting together a good basketball team and one that's going to be able to win a lot of baseball game or basketball games for this city and helping them try to run it back and defend their world championship because that's the goal right now. You know, there has not been a team in close to a decade win back to back championships. And that's why we've had eight different winners in as many seasons and the Knicks, of course, being the latest. But this is just like the tip of the iceberg here when it comes to the NBA, you know that wacky things are going to happen, right? It happens every time, you know, this time of year. And that's what makes it a heck of a lot of fun. Does it not? I mean, you know, already with the Yankees fireworks going to Miami, you hear all these rumblings going on about LeBron and where he could possibly end up, Kawhi Leonard already being traded to the Toronto Raptors. I mean, to me, that's interesting, right? I mean, but Kawhi, you know, not quite like Mitchell Robinson, but is also somebody that you're going to have to manage his workload. And, you know, maybe Toronto is not going to be that team that is going to finish in the top, you know, 2-3 in the Eastern Conference standings because Kawhi's value is going to come in the playoffs. You know, that's why you go out and get a guy like that. But a Toronto team that the Knicks have had the better of for the last couple of seasons and, you know, have really owned them, they now take on a little bit of a different wrinkle when it comes to how they're going to look come playoff time. You know, Jalen Brown, even with the Boston Celtics, okay, you got Mitchell Robinson now, but what is the rest of that roster going to look like when push comes to shove in that regard? It's all part of the process, and that's what makes this thing a heck of a lot of fun this time of year. I wanted to at least give you a little bit of a snippet of audio here from our pal Brian Windhorst, who was on NBA Today on ESPN, talking about in particular Jalen Brown, who we just mentioned, LeBron James as well, and could they possibly be joining forces in the Eastern Conference? Maybe, just maybe, or is another reunion with the Cavaliers in the offing for LeBron James? Take a listen to Brian Windhorst.