Speaker 1: All right, let's get it drives out Monday afternoon, nine
Speaker 1: minutes past the hour of two o'clock. It's hot, but
Speaker 1: it's cloudy, keeping the temperatures down a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be kind of a topsy turvy weather week to
Speaker 1: some really hot days and a couple of random cold
Speaker 1: days later on. It's about eighty four degrees eighty five
Speaker 1: degrees and cloudy here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 2: Happy Monday to you, and.
Speaker 1: As it is every single day, it's going to have
Speaker 1: you along for the ride.
Speaker 2: Spence check. It's behind the mic.
Speaker 1: That is Porter Larsen behind the glass today producing the program.
Speaker 1: It is a game day on the radio station, as
Speaker 1: we will have Game five of the NBA Finals for
Speaker 1: you tonight between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 1: That series is deadlocked to two games apiece. Since you
Speaker 1: and I last spoke, Oklahoma City was able to get
Speaker 1: it done in Indiana, closing out in historic form in
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways on Friday night, taking care
Speaker 1: of Indiana one eleven to one oh four. We talked
Speaker 1: about the adjustments and our Dagnaut might make prior to
Speaker 1: that game and he made a lot of them, and
Speaker 1: so now the onus is back on Rick Carlisle and
Speaker 1: the Indiana Pacers to make their adjustments to try to
Speaker 1: win a game in a building that's almost impossible. Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City is really good at home. I think they only
Speaker 1: have one loss in the postseason at home. No, they
Speaker 1: have two actually because Indiana won game one. So we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens tonight as this series is deadlocked at
Speaker 1: two games a piece. Six thirty Mountain Time will be
Speaker 1: the tip time and will Saga night at six o'clock
Speaker 1: and send you over to ESPN's coverage of the NBA Finals.
Speaker 2: TV coverage, of course, is on ABC.
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup Finals continues to be wildly entertaining and feels
Speaker 1: like it might be coming to an end tomorrow night
Speaker 1: in Florida, but you never know, and certainly love a
Speaker 1: game seven. We'll love the game seven for both of
Speaker 1: these final series before we enter into the summer window
Speaker 1: and kind of tread water until football rolls along. Oiler's Panthers.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow is going to be six Mountain toime on Turner Sports.
Speaker 1: That's your TV covers and we're your radio home for
Speaker 1: these Stanley Cup Finals. A massive trade in the NBA
Speaker 1: that broke yesterday that caught a lot of people off guard,
Speaker 1: a lot of people off guard. We'll talk about what
Speaker 1: the Grizzlies elected to do and good news for the
Speaker 1: Orlando Magic. In my estimation, we'll get into that deal
Speaker 1: and then we'll kind of bring it around through the
Speaker 1: prism of the context of what it means for the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz and what the Jazz will attempt to do
Speaker 1: this offseason. Brian Windhorst himself said that he has been
Speaker 1: told the Jazz are actively actually trying to add to
Speaker 1: this roster. I don't know how they'll do that. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it's going to look like. But if
Speaker 1: Desmond Baine is able to grab that sort of return,
Speaker 1: what could lowry market and bring it to Utah Jazz
Speaker 1: elect to go in that direction.
Speaker 2: NBA Draft is right around the corner.
Speaker 1: It is let's see, ten days away from right now,
Speaker 1: I believe, yeah, ten days away. It is June the
Speaker 1: twenty sixth will be the first then June the twenty No. No,
Speaker 1: June the twenty fifth is actually the first round June
Speaker 1: and twenty six is the second round, and then June
Speaker 1: the twenty seventh is the first round the NHL Draft,
Speaker 1: where the Utah Mammoth find themselves with the number four pick. Overall,
Speaker 1: Jazz as of now have five and twenty one couple
Speaker 1: second rounders to boots. So we'll get to some NBA
Speaker 1: draft stuff on the program today. Big twelve released its
Speaker 1: basketball schedule last week.
Speaker 2: We touched on it.
Speaker 1: We'll go a little bit deeper, and we'll go a
Speaker 1: little bit deeper on Alex Jensen's roster now that it's
Speaker 1: basically finalized. We'll do some Utah basketball and of course
Speaker 1: some offseason college football at the same time, a lot
Speaker 1: of storylines going on real Salt Lake actually won a
Speaker 1: match over the weekend. They had not won a match
Speaker 1: since April twenty sixth. They were able to beat DC
Speaker 1: United too. Noil, Johnny Russell, Do we need to start
Speaker 1: calling Johnny Russell?
Speaker 2: Johnny Goles?
Speaker 1: One goal for Johnny, one goal for Gozo and RSL
Speaker 1: get a win and they break that seven match on
Speaker 1: beaten streak. Diego Luna was tremendous for the US men's
Speaker 1: national team and their first fora into Gold Cup play
Speaker 1: this year, as they beat Trinidad and Tobago five to
Speaker 1: Nilo Diego technically had two assists, but one of his
Speaker 1: assists really should have been his goal. He had a
Speaker 1: little step over and left the defender in their dust,
Speaker 1: and then he had a really good strike he just
Speaker 1: ricocheted off of a teammate went to the back of
Speaker 1: the net.
Speaker 2: So the teammate gets the goal, Diego gets the assist.
Speaker 1: Nonetheless, he was the best player in my opinion on
Speaker 1: the pitch for either side. So a little soccer on
Speaker 1: the program today as well. Massive trade in the world
Speaker 1: of Major League Baseball. That's catching a lot of people
Speaker 1: off guard.
Speaker 3: We'll get to that.
Speaker 1: So a lot to do on the show today. Good
Speaker 1: guest lists on this Monday afternoon. Hope you had a
Speaker 1: great weekend off to a great start to that work week.
Speaker 2: Happy Monday to you.
Speaker 1: Our first guest will be Kurt Schmidt, chief roster constructor
Speaker 1: for Real Salt Lake. After the weekend behind US where
Speaker 1: RSL was able to get three points, we are abouts
Speaker 1: let's see three and a half, four weeks away from
Speaker 1: the I'm transfer window opening in the world of Major
Speaker 1: League Soccer. What does Kurt have up his sleeve. It's
Speaker 1: clear that this team needs reinforcements badly. Miller family has
Speaker 1: taken over as the primary ownership group. What sort of
Speaker 1: budget does he have at his disposal?
Speaker 2: So we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: On the program today with Kurt Schmidt, will break down
Speaker 1: Game four of the NBA Finals and then preview Game
Speaker 1: five of the NBA Finals and talk about a massive
Speaker 1: trade in pro basketball. Tom Haberstrow Richard Smith stops by
Speaker 1: for his weekly hit one hour in studio. We'll do
Speaker 1: some jazz, we'll do some offseason NBA, we'll do some
Speaker 1: NBA finals and his thoughts on Desmond Bay going to Orlando.
Speaker 2: And then the Voice himself.
Speaker 1: Always good to catch up with my former radio partner,
Speaker 1: the Voice of the University of Utah, Bill Riley, the
Speaker 1: Voice of the Utes, rolls by during the four o'clock hour,
Speaker 1: So Kurt Schmidt, Tom habershow Richard Smith, Bill Riley, Me
Speaker 1: Spence Check. Its all of you, the great listeners, and
Speaker 1: that guy Porter Larson. On a Monday afternoon. Ye when
Speaker 1: we said good night on Friday, we wondered what we'd
Speaker 1: be breaking down on Monday, as we often do a
Speaker 1: lot of radio shows. Do you like, let's predict Monday's
Speaker 1: headlines today on a Friday being Bill used to do that.
Speaker 2: We got to too, and we're going back to Oka.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 2: Do you still believe in you're fighting Indiana Pacers?
Speaker 4: And I think we also said on Friday, the winner
Speaker 4: of that game likely wins the series, you know, And
Speaker 4: I felt that kind of vibe shift in the in
Speaker 4: the series. But Man, once you get down Spence, when
Speaker 4: you handle your business at home, you you know you're
Speaker 4: still a game on the road. When when you do
Speaker 4: that in the NBA Finals, you find yourself too too. Man,
Speaker 4: best of three, who knows what could happen? And yes,
Speaker 4: the Indiana Pacers absolutely have a shot at winning an
Speaker 4: NBA title. They've shown that, you know, they can beat
Speaker 4: Okay See in a few different ways. So am I
Speaker 4: confident in them doing so? No, I think the odds
Speaker 4: probably lie with the MVP and Okay See. But I
Speaker 4: think I think this is going I think it's gonna
Speaker 4: be a fun one to end it.
Speaker 2: I hope you're right.
Speaker 1: I would love to see a game seven, So we'll
Speaker 1: get to it. It is a busy, busy Monday show
Speaker 1: and it's great to have you guys along for the ride.
Speaker 1: Our first guest today on a Monday afternoon, will be
Speaker 1: Kurt Schmidt. We'll do a little RSL. We'll get his
Speaker 1: thoughts on the US men's national team as well, and
Speaker 1: then we'll go from there. But before Kurt rolls by
Speaker 1: on a Monday afternoon courtesy if our good friends and
Speaker 1: your good friends do with Prize Picks, it's time now
Speaker 1: for your opening tip.
Speaker 5: Welcome to the Drive with Spence. Check its on Utah's
Speaker 5: number one sports talk now into the studios of ESPN
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Speaker 1: game all season long, all right tonight. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: under on Tyrese Halliburton seventeen point five points. I'm actually
Speaker 1: gonna go under on Alex Caruso ten point five points.
Speaker 1: They have TJ McConnell's line at four point five points,
Speaker 1: and I cannot stand TJ McConnell, but I'll take more
Speaker 1: than six point five points. They've got the line at
Speaker 1: shit for Shay thirty four point five points. That's a
Speaker 1: big line, but I'm going over. I think Shay goes
Speaker 1: big tonight, and I think Oklahoma City gets to win
Speaker 1: at home where they are nine points five point favorite.
Speaker 2: All right, so a couple things here.
Speaker 1: We'll do some hoops right off the bat, and we'll
Speaker 1: actually we'll get to game five tonight. Tom haberstro is
Speaker 1: going to join us coming up in the three o'clock hour,
Speaker 1: so we'll give you a big preview of Game five tonight.
Speaker 2: We're gonna look back on Game four.
Speaker 1: But far more interesting in my estimation at least on
Speaker 1: this Monday, is the Memphis Grizzlies have traded Desmond Bane
Speaker 1: to the Orlando Magic in a blockbuster deal. So, Desmond
Speaker 1: Bane five years in Memphis, the Jazz had a chance
Speaker 1: to draft him and they did not do that, and
Speaker 1: he would have fit in very nicely with that team
Speaker 1: with Donovan and Gobert and obviously Quinn as the coach.
Speaker 1: So instead they went Adoka Abuza, the big kid from Kansas. Right,
Speaker 1: they drafted the big kid from Kansas that year when
Speaker 1: they had the chance to draft us as a bouquet.
Speaker 2: That's right, Audoko has a bouquet, the big kid from Kansas.
Speaker 1: Desmond Bane in five years in Memphis really established himself
Speaker 1: as one of the best three and D players in
Speaker 1: pro basketball. He is an absolute beast. He is a
Speaker 1: bold Defensively, he's a not down three point shooter. The
Speaker 1: Orlando side of this, the net net for the Orlando
Speaker 1: Magic is, in my opinion, they instantly have catapulted themselves
Speaker 1: into the conversation next year as the best team on
Speaker 1: paper in the Eastern Conference. Now, when you look at
Speaker 1: who they have and then when you juxtapose it to
Speaker 1: the rest of the conference, Cleveland probably and these this
Speaker 1: is bad news if you're a Jazz fan. The Jazz
Speaker 1: own all of these picks from the Calves, but the
Speaker 1: Calves continue to make pretty savvy moves to make sure
Speaker 1: they're a really good regular season team.
Speaker 3: If you're a.
Speaker 1: Jazz fan, it doesn't matter that the Calves potentially could
Speaker 1: fall on their face in the postseason because you know Donovan.
Speaker 1: But in the regular season, if they keep scratching sixty wins,
Speaker 1: the draft capital you've received in returned for Mitchell is
Speaker 1: never going to be good. So the Calves on paper,
Speaker 1: they're really good next year. I'm gonna use the term
Speaker 1: gap year, like if you were one of those college
Speaker 1: students where you know, after your junior year you were
Speaker 1: burnt out, so you decided to take a gap year
Speaker 1: and maybe work and then come back and get your degree.
Speaker 1: That's what I feel like the Celtics are going to
Speaker 1: look like next year with no Jason Tatum. Every single
Speaker 1: trade rumor that people publish in the world of professional
Speaker 1: basketball seems to dedicate Boston is willing to move on
Speaker 1: from maybe even Jalen Brown. If not true, Holliday and
Speaker 1: Derek White, Christaps porzingis they would move tomorrow if they could,
Speaker 1: so I don't view the Celtics as a serious contender
Speaker 1: next year. The Knicks don't have a coach, as we've
Speaker 1: talked about, They've tried to interview everyone else's coaches and
Speaker 1: everyone just gives them the double bird, like, please stop
Speaker 1: calling us. But the Knicks on paper gonna be good.
Speaker 1: The Pacers have to get their flowers for this NBA
Speaker 1: Finals run. But outside of that, Orlando, to me, has
Speaker 1: now catapulted themselves into this level with Polo ban Caro,
Speaker 1: Franz Wagner, now Desmond Baine and some other good pieces
Speaker 1: to have something to say about what the East is
Speaker 1: going to look like next year and then beyond. Because
Speaker 1: Desmond Bain has only been in the league five years now,
Speaker 1: what to me is more interesting about this deal is
Speaker 1: what it says about the mentality of the Memphis Grizzlies
Speaker 1: and what it might say about the mentality of the
Speaker 1: Western Conference.
Speaker 2: Right, So here's how this works.
Speaker 1: When a team is a juggernaut, and when a team
Speaker 1: achieves historic success the way Oklahoma City has, every roster
Speaker 1: constructor in pro basketball will look at that model, look
Speaker 1: at that blueprint and say, how do we get some
Speaker 1: of that. It's not like any other business model where
Speaker 1: if something is successful you want to copy, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially the way they go about their business and their
Speaker 1: blueprint and they're hiring practices and their best laid plans
Speaker 1: and their personnel like whatever it is, it's making it work.
Speaker 2: How do we get some of that?
Speaker 1: And I think this is what we're seeing as a
Speaker 1: result of what the Oklahoma City thunder have built, who
Speaker 1: they are and who they're going to be.
Speaker 2: Throughout the course.
Speaker 1: So probably the next I'll say three to four years,
Speaker 1: now we live in a different MBA where the days
Speaker 1: of the long dynasties have probably been put behind us
Speaker 1: for now as a result of the punitive nature of
Speaker 1: the economic infrastructure of a team that's paying a lot
Speaker 1: of money, even if it's really good for players that
Speaker 1: lead them to great things momentarily, but the longevity of
Speaker 1: dynasties are probably behind us unless you get an owner
Speaker 1: that is so rich he does not give a rip
Speaker 1: about literally losing hundreds of millions of dollars. And what
Speaker 1: we're about to see in Boston is probably the first
Speaker 1: real example of the punitive nature of the economic infrastructure
Speaker 1: of the NBA now, because this new ownership group has
Speaker 1: to write a check for five hundred million dollars just
Speaker 1: to have the team, just to have this roster. That's
Speaker 1: not even what they're paying their players. That is their
Speaker 1: luxury tax penalty for being a second apron team over
Speaker 1: the course of multiple years. That's why they have to
Speaker 1: make these decisions, and Oklahoma City at some point will
Speaker 1: have to make the same decisions. But the point is
Speaker 1: it's not coming anytime soon. That's why I'm going to
Speaker 1: use three to four years. Oklahoma City this year won
Speaker 1: sixty eight basketball games. Their net was plus thirteen. That
Speaker 1: is historic. They are a top five team on offense,
Speaker 1: they are a top five team on defense. They're about
Speaker 1: to win the NBA Championship in my opinion, and the
Speaker 1: bulk of their roster is between the ages of twenty
Speaker 1: one and twenty seven. Okay, So the only two exceptions there,
Speaker 1: and these are good players that they rely upon.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So Kendrick Williams is thirty and Alex Crusoe is thirty one, okay,
Speaker 1: But besides that, Lou Dort twenty six, Shay of course
Speaker 1: twenty six, Hartenstein is twenty seven, Chats twenty three, Isaiah
Speaker 1: Joe's twenty five, Cason Wallace is twenty one, Aaron Wiggins
Speaker 1: is twenty six, Jalen Williams is twenty four. And yes,
Speaker 1: at some point if they win, other players are going
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, it's time for me to get paid.
Speaker 1: But that the point is that's not coming anytime soon,
Speaker 1: and it will come at some point. But I have
Speaker 1: to wonder if the Memphis Grizzlies simply just did their
Speaker 1: calculations on who Oklahoma City is and then juxtaposed ok
Speaker 1: c's roster to their own and said, look, it's just
Speaker 1: not close. We're not close to them, and so we
Speaker 1: do not want to pay Jaron Jackson Junior, who's a
Speaker 1: really good player, but he's going to be coming up
Speaker 1: on a contract extension. They've already paid jaw but in
Speaker 1: Jaw you have an intoxicating talent and an absolute moron,
Speaker 1: and that's a tough thing to balance. And also, let
Speaker 1: me say this, I've heard a couple of people's surmise
Speaker 1: that they think this means Memphis is going to move
Speaker 1: off Jaw and they're going to move off Jaron Jackson Junior.
Speaker 1: I disagree with that. I don't think that's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: John Morana this point is under contract through twenty twenty
Speaker 1: eight and his final year is forty four point eight
Speaker 1: million dollars. Desmond Bane was actually the player who is
Speaker 1: under contract the longest. His contract runs through twenty twenty
Speaker 1: nine at forty four point eight. Jaron Jackson Junior is
Speaker 1: about to enter a contract year. He is eligible for
Speaker 1: an extension, and I wouldn't be surprised if they extend him.
Speaker 1: Jaron Jackson Junior next year is going to make twenty
Speaker 1: three point four mil. They got Brandon Clark, John conchar
Speaker 1: Zachi Edy who they drafted last year, and then grip
Speaker 1: of young players Scottie Pippen Junior and others that people
Speaker 1: don't really know a ton about. But I don't think
Speaker 1: they're gonna move off of job. I don't think they're
Speaker 1: gonna move off of Jaron Jackson Junior. I think they're
Speaker 1: just gonna kind of ride this thing out and then
Speaker 1: see what happens with Oklahoma City as this roster moves forward.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the books at Okasee and
Speaker 1: the reason I'm bringing this up and we are going
Speaker 1: to land the plane, I know we're circling in the
Speaker 1: airport a little bit, but it just leads me to
Speaker 1: wonder what other teams in the West are thinking about,
Speaker 1: and namely how the Jazz kind of view this through
Speaker 1: their prism. So we'll do this real quick before you
Speaker 1: catch a break. SGA Shay is under contract through twenty
Speaker 1: twenty seven. Now as a result of winning MVP. The
Speaker 1: new contract he's gonna get is gonna be wild. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be probably the richest contract in NBA history. They
Speaker 1: also have Heart and Stein under contract through twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 1: Dort under contract through twenty twenty seven, Isaiah Joe through
Speaker 1: twenty eight, Wiggins is signed through twenty nine, Chad is
Speaker 1: on as rookie deal that expires in twenty seven. Crusoe
Speaker 1: signed actually through twenty nine as well. Kendrick Williams through
Speaker 1: twenty seven. Casin's on his rookie deal, that's twenty eight,
Speaker 1: and I could keep going. Essentially, this group will be
Speaker 1: together for at least two more years, playing at a
Speaker 1: very high level.
Speaker 2: And my guess is they're of course.
Speaker 1: Going to extend Shay, They're going to continue to extend
Speaker 1: some of these young players, and then Jalen will come
Speaker 1: off of his rookie contract in twenty eight and then
Speaker 1: they're going to have a decision to make. So this
Speaker 1: is a three year situation where, barring something wild like
Speaker 1: a really bad injury to Shay knock on Wood, Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City has told the rest of the league, we built
Speaker 1: this up brick by brick, and we're here and we're
Speaker 1: not going anywhere for at least three years, and probably
Speaker 1: not after that as well, because Sam Presty has been
Speaker 1: so brilliant about his roster construction.
Speaker 2: But the secret, sauce is it's not just finding these
Speaker 2: great players.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: What Oklahoma City is also positioned to do because they
Speaker 1: have thirteen future first round picks, both their own and
Speaker 1: picks that are owed to them. As they do have
Speaker 1: to make tough economic decisions, they'll maintain a core of
Speaker 1: two to three guys, probably Shae, Jalen, and and then
Speaker 1: incrementally surround them with smart draft picks and players on
Speaker 1: rookie scales. And the reason you have to knock on these,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to knock these draft picks out
Speaker 1: of the park, is that essentially it's cheap labor, is
Speaker 1: what it is. It's really good young players that you
Speaker 1: don't have to pay very much. Guess how much Jalen
Speaker 1: Williams is making this year four point seven million dollars
Speaker 1: for a number two option on a championship team. That
Speaker 1: is smart roster construction. And Jalen will get his, but
Speaker 1: not for at least two more years. So what Memphis
Speaker 1: did to me actually put my radars up a little
Speaker 1: bit more than I think most people have been talking about.
Speaker 1: This is an indication, in my opinion, that they've looked
Speaker 1: at Okasee and said, we're not close, so we might
Speaker 1: as well turn one of these players into an asset
Speaker 1: because we don't want to pay this roster an exorbit
Speaker 1: amount of money when we don't feel like we're in
Speaker 1: the mix to win a championship. We'll see what this
Speaker 1: means for the Utah Jazz and we'll get back to
Speaker 1: this coming up with Tom Haberstrow.
Speaker 2: Smithy will be good on this as well. All Right,
Speaker 2: it's game Day on the station.
Speaker 1: Game five of the NBA Finals tonight Paycom Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: where the Oklahoma City Thunder will host the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 2: Series of deadlock to two games apiece.
Speaker 1: We're gonna say good night at six o'clock and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna send you coverage of that game, and we'll
Speaker 1: have the Stanley Cup Finals resuming tomorrow. We've got Tom
Speaker 1: Haberstrow for some NBA Smidi Liven Studio Voice of the
Speaker 1: Youth's Bill Riley. But we'll start things off in a
Speaker 1: Monday afternoon talking a little soccer as RSL gets a
Speaker 1: much needed win over the weekend to nil over DC
Speaker 1: United and Kurt Schmidt, chief roster constructor.
Speaker 2: On the program on a Monday. Kurt, Happy Monday, sir,
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 6: I'm good?
Speaker 3: How are you good? Bud?
Speaker 2: Thanks for the time.
Speaker 1: So, I don't know what adjective you would like to use. Relieved, excited,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You tell me, uh what, what sort
Speaker 1: of emotion or whatever did that win on Saturday give
Speaker 1: you guys, after going seven matches without a dub, how
Speaker 1: about hungry?
Speaker 6: There we go. It's one of those where it's like, hey,
Speaker 6: that was necessary and now we got to focus on
Speaker 6: the next one for sure.
Speaker 1: And one of the one of the players you acquired
Speaker 1: during the primary transfer window, Johnny Russell opened his bank
Speaker 1: account soccer terms kid, no big deal. So how pleased
Speaker 1: were you in his I believe that was his first start.
Speaker 1: To see Johnny find the.
Speaker 2: Back of the net.
Speaker 6: No, it's fantastic. And obviously when when players score goals,
Speaker 6: you know, it gives them confidence and helps them repeat
Speaker 6: that performance and even improve. So you know, for Johnny
Speaker 6: to get that goal in his first start is huge
Speaker 6: for the team because obviously it helps us win the game,
Speaker 6: but it's huge for him as well.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the process, Kurt of bringing him along.
Speaker 1: So for our listeners, Johnny is a long time not
Speaker 1: just MLS VET, but he's played uh all over the
Speaker 1: world and the goal he scored on Saturday was his
Speaker 1: sixty first goal in Major League Soccer, so he's had
Speaker 1: a long career.
Speaker 2: He was a sporting case.
Speaker 1: A lot of people thought he was going to retire,
Speaker 1: did not have a preseason so you sign him, and
Speaker 1: I would imagine it took a minute for him to
Speaker 1: get in informed and fit. So tell us about this
Speaker 1: process and what can what sort of like can you
Speaker 1: shed on it?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, look, he's still still rolling into it.
Speaker 6: I mean he was he's a discipline professional, and he
Speaker 6: was certainly keeps himself ready and fit and working out
Speaker 6: while he was looking for his next club. But that's
Speaker 6: you know, that's different than obviously playing at a high
Speaker 6: level every day training day and day out and having
Speaker 6: that match fitness and that mass sharpness. So he's definitely
Speaker 6: starting to get his legs under him in that in
Speaker 6: that respect, I mean the match fitness still still isn't
Speaker 6: isn't quite there. Obviously, he came out at the half
Speaker 6: and you know, building him up is going to help
Speaker 6: us a lot. But he his sharpness is getting back
Speaker 6: to where it needs to be and you know saw
Speaker 6: that with the quality when it's finished.
Speaker 1: Tell me about because it was interesting to listen to
Speaker 1: Johnny post game where he talked about how grateful he
Speaker 1: was for this opportunity and even kind of pontificated on
Speaker 1: the possibility of walking away. Wasn't sure if he was
Speaker 1: going to get another team, said, he's here to score goals,
Speaker 1: goals and also help some of these younger players. So,
Speaker 1: throughout the course of your conversations with Johnny during the
Speaker 1: primary transfer window, what sort of kind of details did
Speaker 1: you guys share back and forth and what essentially was
Speaker 1: your ask of him before bringing him into the club.
Speaker 6: That's a great question. Yeah, I mean the conversations with
Speaker 6: him were about, yeah, definitely extending his career, but also
Speaker 6: what he could bring to our group. And we have
Speaker 6: a very very young team, you know, before Johnny came in,
Speaker 6: Rafa was the only player we had over thirty essentially
Speaker 6: on the roster. So one of the things that we
Speaker 6: talked to him about was just coming in and being
Speaker 6: a bit of a leader and a mentor and an
Speaker 6: experienced guy within the group, you know, just to help
Speaker 6: the group through some things, some things that he'd seen
Speaker 6: before and some of the younger guys, despite their talents
Speaker 6: or their quality in that moment, just haven't seen. So
Speaker 6: I think that that's something that manifested right away from
Speaker 6: day one, is how he integrated with the group and
Speaker 6: his ability to you know, just to talk to players
Speaker 6: on the field, you know. Pablo says this all the time,
Speaker 6: but to have you know, your teammate kind of make
Speaker 6: a point to you. It's sometimes a little bit different
Speaker 6: than the coach, right, especially when the veteran player puts
Speaker 6: his arm around you and is like, hey, next time,
Speaker 6: you know, do it like this, not like that, or
Speaker 6: next time playing me here and not there. You know,
Speaker 6: it brings a little more true for those guys, and
Speaker 6: so that little bit of experience in the group has
Speaker 6: been very helpful. And then obviously you know, just about
Speaker 6: setting expectations for him and his performance. And he's a
Speaker 6: high level player. He wants to, you know, play all
Speaker 6: the time. He wants to score goals every game, he
Speaker 6: wants to do all those things. He's very hungry, and
Speaker 6: it's just about setting his dissertations of how you've been
Speaker 6: out for a bit, like let's let's get you fit,
Speaker 6: let's get you into it, and when you're ready, you know,
Speaker 6: you'll go.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a chance when I was with
Speaker 1: the club on the road in San Diego. I had
Speaker 1: a chance to meet him and talk to him, and
Speaker 1: his intensity really just shines through. And that's always interesting,
Speaker 1: and it is player by player. I can remember the
Speaker 1: first time I met will Johnson, I thought he was
Speaker 1: going to shank me with a knife. I'm like, chill out, dude,
Speaker 1: it's okay. And Johnny kind of has that same intent
Speaker 1: just as a person when you just kind of meet
Speaker 1: him and talk to him. I wonder what sort of
Speaker 1: expectation you guys have moving forward now that he is
Speaker 1: fit and he has started and he has scored a goal.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's safe to say that he's a piece,
Speaker 1: But do you think we're going to see him in
Speaker 1: starting elevens and what sort of expectations do you have
Speaker 1: for him now that we've seen what he can do
Speaker 1: when he's fit and Pablo gives him the start.
Speaker 6: Honestly, I mean, I don't want to be in the
Speaker 6: business right now of saying this guy will play every
Speaker 6: game that day. You know it's going to be sub
Speaker 6: or any of that stuff, because the reality is where
Speaker 6: we're at, you know, and we're not you know, we're
Speaker 6: not clueless. We know where we're at in the season,
Speaker 6: and there there's no consideration other than form and performance
Speaker 6: on the day. And you know, for Pablo, he's just
Speaker 6: got to make those decisions.
Speaker 1: On the day.
Speaker 6: If it's Johnny, it's Johnny, if it's done, if it's Gozo,
Speaker 6: if it's Aiden Hether, Konnie or whoever it could be
Speaker 6: in that white midfield spot. You know, it's got to
Speaker 6: be who's going to put in the best performance on
Speaker 6: the day. So when that's Johnny, you know, he obviously
Speaker 6: brings something different than some of the other guys, you know,
Speaker 6: being left footed, having a little more experience in quality
Speaker 6: in the box. You know, he's a little more of
Speaker 6: a goal scorer than kind of the rest of the
Speaker 6: options out there. So he had a little bit different,
Speaker 6: which you know is a fantastic change your pace, whether
Speaker 6: it's from the start or it's off the bench later
Speaker 6: in the game.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I want to pan back here and talk
Speaker 1: about the club from kind of a thirty thousand foot
Speaker 1: view as we're sitting here, you know, more or less
Speaker 1: past midway. And you know, it seems like every time
Speaker 1: I have Pablo On and it's been more or less
Speaker 1: weekly and less. The other are travel issues. He often
Speaker 1: talks about how there have been moments in every game
Speaker 1: that he's very pleased with, and ultimately this can be
Speaker 1: a really really cruel sport where you get caught with
Speaker 1: a counter or there's a deflection and somebody scores a
Speaker 1: dumb goal, or you get a red card or a
Speaker 1: PK or whatever. So eighteen games played, five ten and
Speaker 1: three eighteen points. As you said, you guys know where
Speaker 1: you're out in the standings. Pablo kind of laid the
Speaker 1: math on us last week of what you need to
Speaker 1: do to make the postseason in. But what I wanted
Speaker 1: to get from you is, as you're watching your club,
Speaker 1: what do you feel like you can say that you're
Speaker 1: very good at and what you feel like you can
Speaker 1: say that you very much need to improve on with
Speaker 1: this club. I'm not talking about additions, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: what you see with the group.
Speaker 6: You have another good question, Svince. I think I think
Speaker 6: we've been pretty good in our in our ball progression,
Speaker 6: our build up most games this year, with maybe a
Speaker 6: few exceptions, and so some of that, that piece of
Speaker 6: our identity that that we established last year has carried through.
Speaker 6: And you know, I think Rafa has been a huge help.
Speaker 6: You know, obviously he's a goalkeeper, so defense first, but
Speaker 6: he's added a lot of calmness and composure to our
Speaker 6: buildout process. So I think we've seen good, good build
Speaker 6: out and ball progression from back to middle and and
Speaker 6: I think from middle to to front, middle to final third.
Speaker 6: I think it's been a little more hit or missed.
Speaker 6: I think it's been good, but I think we need
Speaker 6: to be a little more con stint where. I think
Speaker 6: last year we needed fewer chances of score goals. To
Speaker 6: be quite honest, this year we need we need some more.
Speaker 6: We need you know, we're volume finishers. You know, like
Speaker 6: again you saw in this game this weekend, Goes was
Speaker 6: a young guy. He's working, he's getting chances and you
Speaker 6: know he needs two or three good chances and he
Speaker 6: got his goal. But we need to keep giving them
Speaker 6: those chances to make sure he gets the goals. And
Speaker 6: you know, Will he's the same, Are He's going to
Speaker 6: be the same. You know, all those guys up top
Speaker 6: that we put in there, they need chances to score.
Speaker 6: So I think we've been creating those chances. We've been
Speaker 6: getting the ball in the good spots. Our movement in
Speaker 6: the box sometimes is an ideal. Our finishing obviously needs
Speaker 6: to improve with this group, but yeah, I think those
Speaker 6: those things are still there for us to improve upon.
Speaker 6: But I think we've put together some really good games.
Speaker 6: You know, back to middle and then you know, middle
Speaker 6: to to final third is where you know, I think
Speaker 6: he just needs to improve a bit, and I think
Speaker 6: we've focused on that in the last few weeks. And
Speaker 6: there's been some games. You know, when we started the
Speaker 6: Vancouver game, I thought it was you know, it was
Speaker 6: obviously really good early in the game, and then the
Speaker 6: defense wasn't able to sustain it and against a really
Speaker 6: good team that was playing with a lot of confidence.
Speaker 6: So yeah, but I think those aspects on the ball
Speaker 6: are where we're looking right now.
Speaker 1: Eight games played, six starts, two subs, one goal for
Speaker 1: Willy so far. Williagatta your other addition during the primary
Speaker 1: transfer window, I'm gonna ask you the same thing about
Speaker 1: Willie that I asked you about your club, because you
Speaker 1: reference movement off the ball in the box and you
Speaker 1: can see I mean, obviously he is a striker that
Speaker 1: has played significant time in MLS and he has goals
Speaker 1: in him that we've seen and it's probably more experience
Speaker 1: as if you juxtapose him to Ari, but his movement
Speaker 1: stands out to me. But we have not seen a
Speaker 1: ton of goals so far. So what have you liked
Speaker 1: from Willy in his eight games played and what are
Speaker 1: you hoping to see moving forward?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think Willy is sometimes it's hard to catch,
Speaker 6: but he is an incredibly strong player, and so his
Speaker 6: hole to play can be a strength of his I
Speaker 6: don't I don't think it. You know, it's not always
Speaker 6: there right, which which is something consistency can Even though
Speaker 6: he's a little more experienced than Ari, he's still relatively
Speaker 6: on the younger side, so but he's someone who can
Speaker 6: hold the ball up for us, and when he plays
Speaker 6: simple and gets back on the highest line, that can
Speaker 6: be very effective. I think this last week he got
Speaker 6: away from that a little bit and it was a
Speaker 6: little too many touches getting caught in possession in those moments.
Speaker 6: But when he does play one in two touch, he
Speaker 6: can hold the defender off and he can keep possession
Speaker 6: for us and get back on the highest flying which
Speaker 6: just gives us more time to get our team forward
Speaker 6: and get our numbers into the final third and hopefully
Speaker 6: into the box when the chance does come. And I
Speaker 6: think he's also someone that you know he gets his chances,
Speaker 6: and I think there are specific moments when you know, again,
Speaker 6: his movement, any any player's movement can improve in the box.
Speaker 6: But he finds a way, whether it's instinct or you know,
Speaker 6: whatever it might be, he finds a way to get
Speaker 6: chances in front of goal each game. But again he's
Speaker 6: you know, I think like Gozo. Like I mentioned with Gozo,
Speaker 6: I think he's going to be a volume finisher, and
Speaker 6: you know, he's not a guy that can stand around
Speaker 6: for the whole game and we'll give him a chance
Speaker 6: and we'll.
Speaker 2: Score a goal.
Speaker 6: I think he's got to be engaged in the entire game.
Speaker 6: We got to keep feeding him chances, getting them the
Speaker 6: ball in the final third, and he'll get his goals.
Speaker 1: So you reference Gozo and maybe I buried the lead,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to start with Johnny because it was
Speaker 1: his first goal. But you do have a second leading
Speaker 1: score now officially with Gozo Italian his second. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, Kurt, maybe it was three weeks ago, a
Speaker 1: month ago when you hopped on the show, when I
Speaker 1: said to you, Okay, I feel like you've got something
Speaker 1: with this young kid. And we'll get to Diego and
Speaker 1: his experience with a goal cup in a minute. But
Speaker 1: just for our listener's sake, what sort of insight can
Speaker 1: you shed about his growth and the process, what you're
Speaker 1: seeing so far that you like, and what he needs
Speaker 1: to do to keep it going.
Speaker 6: So gozo like you know, like I think any successful
Speaker 6: young player, the real differentiator is is an his head
Speaker 6: and his mentality, his work rate, his work ethic, his
Speaker 6: his ability to you know, refocus is maybe a word
Speaker 6: that I would use where you know, it's like, hey,
Speaker 6: something happens to distract him or take him out of
Speaker 6: his game, and he's he's able to refocus back in
Speaker 6: on the game and and get get back to it
Speaker 6: is really really good. And his adaptability from level to
Speaker 6: level has been really really good. And so what's gotten
Speaker 6: him these opportunities is that aspect his mentality, continuing to
Speaker 6: come back, continuing to try the next one. You know,
Speaker 6: he's like I said, he you know, he had a
Speaker 6: couple of chances early, didn't score them, made it, you know,
Speaker 6: had another chance, put it away, right, And so his
Speaker 6: ability to kind of you know, set those those prior
Speaker 6: instances aside and just take the next one as it
Speaker 6: is and and do his best with that opportunity is
Speaker 6: is really you know, elite from that standpoint, and his
Speaker 6: ability to do that is what's gonna do him, serve
Speaker 6: him the most well as he goes and progress. This
Speaker 6: sucre because as long as he has those things in
Speaker 6: his head, you know, he's going to do the extra work.
Speaker 6: The coaches will work with him, He's going to get
Speaker 6: the reps and the experience, and he sees these situations
Speaker 6: more and he's going to learn from those situations and
Speaker 6: you know all of that will will come along with
Speaker 6: it and his ability to just continue to work and
Speaker 6: go and try the next one and the next one
Speaker 6: and the next one is with you know, relentless, I
Speaker 6: guess is a word he could use. Is what's going
Speaker 6: to keep him developing and becoming a better and better
Speaker 6: player for us.
Speaker 1: Help me understand, because he's not I don't think he's
Speaker 1: a nine, right, but he can clearly finish with a
Speaker 1: couple of goals when it's fully baked, when Gozo is
Speaker 1: completely developed. What sort of position slash role do you
Speaker 1: think will allow him to magnify his talents the best?
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's played both, you know, I obviously when he
Speaker 6: was you know, Win's with the youth fifteens, which is
Speaker 6: kind of crazy to say or think about, but was
Speaker 6: with you fifteens he was all right when you replayed
Speaker 6: up top as well, and he's sort of served his
Speaker 6: time in both roles as he's moved his way through
Speaker 6: the pipeline. So he's he certainly done both for us,
Speaker 6: and he can do it. I mean, he's playing probably
Speaker 6: more of like a nine and a half or second
Speaker 6: striker role right now, where you know he's looking to
Speaker 6: stretch the defense and get in behind from a little
Speaker 6: bit of a deeper starting position. But if you look
Speaker 6: at us when we build right now, it's almost, you know,
Speaker 6: a two strikers set up with an attacking Mitchfielder coming underneath.
Speaker 6: You know that was maybe Luna before he left, and
Speaker 6: you know the other night it was Diogo coming in
Speaker 6: underneath and getting on the ball. So I think he's
Speaker 6: he makes give us a bit of a different look
Speaker 6: than we had last year or even earlier this year,
Speaker 6: where we in possession and we were sort of two
Speaker 6: attacking Mitchelly gined one striker. Now it's almost one one
Speaker 6: attacking Mitchiellder behind two strikers when we're trying to attack.
Speaker 1: So your reference Diego, he's credited with the assist on
Speaker 1: Johnny's goal that was kind of an individual effort from Johnny,
Speaker 1: but nonetheless he gets the credit. And as I talked
Speaker 1: to you about prior to diego leaving, it felt like
Speaker 1: this could be an opportunity for Diogo maybe to shut
Speaker 1: some people up and fill up or live up to expectations.
Speaker 1: We all know he's the only designated player on the roster. Technically,
Speaker 1: you guys were pretty dominant on Saturday, and he was
Speaker 1: intertwined in most of the you know, attacking plays that
Speaker 1: led to anything substantial. Give me an update on how
Speaker 1: he's doing and his progress and what you're hoping to
Speaker 1: see from him as diegoes with the US men's national team.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, look, I think he's putting his head
Speaker 6: down and he's working hard, and he knows there's there's
Speaker 6: responsibility that he needs to take with with Diego out
Speaker 6: and I think he did a good job of taking
Speaker 6: that on Saturday. And you know, the ball he played
Speaker 6: to Johnny for his goal was was a phenomenal through ball.
Speaker 6: But even more than that, it's his ability to maintain
Speaker 6: possession under pressure in the middle of the field and
Speaker 6: then and then spin out with some good technique and
Speaker 6: find that ball. And I think he finds those balls,
Speaker 6: maybe more than we realize, just because we have had
Speaker 6: some trouble finishing them, you know, But when you look
Speaker 6: at some of the more anthmetrics, you know, I think
Speaker 6: he shows that he had a pretty good game on
Speaker 6: the day. So you know, I think if he comes
Speaker 6: at it with that mentality and brings that level of
Speaker 6: work and quality to the game, because he has quality,
Speaker 6: I think he's going to be real, real interesting as
Speaker 6: we get in these next couple of games.
Speaker 1: We've talked about the depth you have centrally with the midfield,
Speaker 1: and of course, you know, I have a two part
Speaker 1: question here because a Mecca is unavailable for now, so
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what the update is for Mecca and then
Speaker 1: how nice is it? And certainly Nelson is part of
Speaker 1: this equation too, but I don't know. Man Like for me,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, before Ruiz hurt both knees,
Speaker 1: he was one of the better players on the entire
Speaker 1: team on a number of different levels, not just centrally,
Speaker 1: but he would take corners, he would take free kicks,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to expect him to look the same
Speaker 1: after two devastating injuries. So update on a Mecca and
Speaker 1: then tell me what you're seeing when Pablo Ruiz steps in,
Speaker 1: and what you like and maybe what you're hoping he
Speaker 1: can continue to try and find after those devastating injuries.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a little bit different, you know, Pablo and
Speaker 6: Nelson is a much different look than than the Mecca
Speaker 6: and Ojeta. You know, I think I'm going I hate
Speaker 6: to do a phenomenal job of chewing up ground and recovering,
Speaker 6: recovering balls, recovering second balls, and then keeping the game,
Speaker 6: taking over and playing the next half. I think, you know, Pablo,
Speaker 6: his game is a little bit different, right because he
Speaker 6: can close guys down defensively and recover balls, but that's
Speaker 6: not really the main part of his game.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: What he really brings to the team is is quality
Speaker 6: in our build up and our progression, and especially in
Speaker 6: our ability to open the game and change the point
Speaker 6: of attack. He does a great job with that. And
Speaker 6: Nelson is you know, even though he's a younger player,
Speaker 6: but he's he's a good balance of the two. His
Speaker 6: physical gifts are are fantastic. He covers so much ground
Speaker 6: so quickly, He's so athletic. But you know, he also
Speaker 6: has the ability to hit that diagonal you know, as
Speaker 6: Pablo does. So those types of balls really open open
Speaker 6: the game for us and allow us to get behind
Speaker 6: the defense a little bit quicker maybe than otherwise when
Speaker 6: we're not able to hit that ball.
Speaker 1: So are we getting close with a mecca or is
Speaker 1: it a situation where he's going to need some time?
Speaker 6: Look, he he needs time because it's certainly something that
Speaker 6: you know, I think it's if if we worse than it,
Speaker 6: the prognosis becomes much worse. So you know, we want
Speaker 6: to make sure we take take care with it and
Speaker 6: make sure we get him back when he's ready.
Speaker 1: To get back and for all, Right, before I set
Speaker 1: you loose, I thought Diego was the best player on
Speaker 1: the pitch yesterday. You know, he has the assist after
Speaker 1: a brilliant steel where he just was able to read
Speaker 1: the play and then probably should have had the goal.
Speaker 1: But yes, it deflects off his teammates, So technically Diego
Speaker 1: ends with two assists and a five zero win for
Speaker 1: the US men's national team over Trinidad and Tobago. Tobago,
Speaker 1: excuse me after losing five straight matches, of course, a
Speaker 1: lot of noise because we're one year away from the
Speaker 1: World Cup.
Speaker 2: So give me your thoughts, he says.
Speaker 1: You watch Diego perform with US men's national team, what
Speaker 1: you hope he's able to learn and do with them
Speaker 1: and bring back to you when the Gold Cup is finished.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's I mean he's been playing really well for them.
Speaker 6: I think every time he's gotten the chance, and credit
Speaker 6: to him, you know, grabbing those opportunities is massive, and
Speaker 6: I think he what he's brought to that group is
Speaker 6: more than his individual quality as a team first mentality,
Speaker 6: and I think he's you know, he obviously has those moments,
Speaker 6: you know, reading that back pass, picking it up. You know,
Speaker 6: I know they gave him an assist for that, but
Speaker 6: I really think that probably should have been his goal.
Speaker 6: But you know that that play was fantastic, even the
Speaker 6: I think it was the first goal.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: His activity and movement, I think is what creates a
Speaker 6: little bit of space in the defense for the goalscorer
Speaker 6: Tillman to to finish his chance and to find a
Speaker 6: little more space when he when he receives the ball.
Speaker 6: So again, I think he's he's making that team tick
Speaker 6: a little bit right now, which is for him, and
Speaker 6: you know, I hope it keeps happening, and I'm sure,
Speaker 6: but I also hope the coaching staff sees it as
Speaker 6: well as I do, or certainly seems like the majority
Speaker 6: of the fans do.
Speaker 1: All Right, my guy, I appreciate the time today. Congrats
Speaker 1: on the three over the weekend. Let's keep it rolling, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll do all right. Kurt Schmidt, chief roster
Speaker 1: constructor for Alsaw Lake Risol hits the road coming up
Speaker 1: on the twenty eighth. Geez, another week off, only two
Speaker 1: matches all month. They're going to be at Children's Mercy
Speaker 1: Park in Kansas City on the twenty eighth to take
Speaker 1: on Sporting k C, who was the team that had
Speaker 1: both Williagatta and Johnny Russell, so that'll be interesting. And
Speaker 1: then they're back home for two straight games against Saint
Speaker 1: Louis and Houston before hitting the road at Providence Park
Speaker 1: to take on Portland. As we talked about with Pablo
Speaker 1: last week, this is a team badly in need of
Speaker 1: getting all three points pretty much every time they're at home,
Speaker 1: hoping to steal some on the road and then keep
Speaker 1: that ship afloat well. Diego Lune is with the US
Speaker 1: men's national team RSL DOT com for single game tickets
Speaker 1: support our local soccer club. All right, smittye Liven Studio
Speaker 1: coming up in just a bit for an entire hour
Speaker 1: Voice of the Youths Bill Riley stops by. But big
Speaker 1: game tonight, Game five NBA Finals, got a blockbuster trade
Speaker 1: to talk about. Tom Haberstrow Monday afternoon, Tommy, Happy Monday, buddy.
Speaker 2: How are we doing doing?
Speaker 3: Great?
Speaker 7: Spence, how you guys doing?
Speaker 3: I'm good?
Speaker 1: So tell me what's your read on the mentality of
Speaker 1: the Memphis Grizzlies as a result of what they just
Speaker 1: decided to do with Desmond Baine and the Orlando Magic.
Speaker 2: What do you think it means for the Memphis side.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it means they really hope they could switch to
Speaker 7: the Eastern Conference, because really, that's what this is about. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it's the Memphis Grizzlies looked at the Western Conference field
Speaker 7: and said, we can't compete at the highest levels and
Speaker 7: is that climb in The GM of the Memphis Grizzlies
Speaker 7: said this a couple of weeks ago, and they got
Speaker 7: eliminated from the playoffs by the Alklamath City Thunder and
Speaker 7: he's like, you know what, you can look at this
Speaker 7: and just say like we're close, but we're definitely not.
Speaker 7: And when you are looking at the juggernauts of the
Speaker 7: Western Conference and Oklahoma City and Denver Jokich, you're looking
Speaker 7: at Lebron and Luca, you're looking at Golden State of
Speaker 7: Houston potentially adding a big time veteran to help their
Speaker 7: contention push, Memphis is just so far away right now.
Speaker 7: And if you're in the Eastern Conference, if Memphis geographically
Speaker 7: was in the right conference, you could see them holding
Speaker 7: onto dozen Bane and not only that, adding and trying
Speaker 7: to win the East. And for the on the Orlando side,
Speaker 7: that's exactly what they're trying to do, is they're trying
Speaker 7: to win the East because they saw Indiana do this
Speaker 7: very thing, which is they made an incredible run and
Speaker 7: now they're two wins away from winning a championship. And
Speaker 7: so for Memphis, it really is this kind of clerical error,
Speaker 7: the fact that they were the team from Vancouver, that
Speaker 7: they're in the Western Conference despite being in Tennessee, and
Speaker 7: that has long term effects is that they're constantly fighting
Speaker 7: uphill in a Western Conference that is way better than
Speaker 7: the Eastern Conference. And they've got this rookie Jalen Wells
Speaker 7: that they really believe in. And if you're going to
Speaker 7: look at five first round picks coming from this Orlando team,
Speaker 7: one of which could be the Phoenix pick next year.
Speaker 7: In twenty twenty six, they were looking at the situation saying,
Speaker 7: this is too good of an offer we cannot refuse. So,
Speaker 7: in the very Godfather way, this was an offer they
Speaker 7: could not refuse on a player that hasn't been an
Speaker 7: All Star. But you know, when you're a small market team,
Speaker 7: you have to make tough choices. And as much as
Speaker 7: they want to say that they're right there in the
Speaker 7: thick of it, I think the first round exit and
Speaker 7: the uncertain future of John Morant and just how available
Speaker 7: he can be, I think Memphis decided, look, let's take
Speaker 7: these picks and take another big swing down the road.
Speaker 7: But right now, this is quite a hall for a
Speaker 7: guy who is just a tier below the all star level.
Speaker 1: Lot of people, Tom, I know, you know this surmised.
Speaker 1: This means Memphis is very much open for business. And
Speaker 1: maybe they put John the table. Maybe they put Jaron
Speaker 1: Jackson Junior on the table. I don't know that I
Speaker 1: read it that way. Jaron Jackson Junior a is really good.
Speaker 1: He is intert excuse me, entering a contract year, so
Speaker 1: he's eligible for an extension twenty three point four mil
Speaker 1: next year. Jobs signed through twenty eight. I don't know
Speaker 1: what kind of market there is for job. I mean,
Speaker 1: his talent is intoxicating, nobody denies that. But the off
Speaker 1: court stuff just makes it hard to commit. But do
Speaker 1: you read it that way that as a result of
Speaker 1: moving on from Desmond Bain they might just break this
Speaker 1: whole thing down and build it back up from the studs.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I think they're going to keep those two and
Speaker 7: build around them, you know, for a small market team.
Speaker 7: John Moran represents so much more face of the franchise
Speaker 7: for better for worse, and Jared Jackson Junior is up
Speaker 7: to that extension, like you said, And this deal does
Speaker 7: save them some money to throw more at Jaron Jackson Junior.
Speaker 7: With the apron and the tax and the hardcap all
Speaker 7: of this stuff, they had a little bit of wiggle
Speaker 7: room to extend Jaron Jackson Junior at the full max level,
Speaker 7: and this Desmond Bain deal does free up a little
Speaker 7: bit more cast space to do that. Look, this is tough,
Speaker 7: you know, this is tough. If you're a fan of
Speaker 7: the Grizzlies, I think Utah fans can really sympathize with this.
Speaker 7: With Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. It's like, if you're
Speaker 7: the margin for error for these teams, these small market
Speaker 7: teams in the Western Conference is so thin, which is
Speaker 7: why it's so remarkable to see what Okac has done.
Speaker 7: And they're kind of like in the second inning, it
Speaker 7: seems of what seems to be the parts of a dynasty.
Speaker 7: It really is amazing to see that the Utah Jazz
Speaker 7: were able to make that run with Rudy Gobert and
Speaker 7: Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley. But as what we're seeing
Speaker 7: with the Memphis Grizzlies, even having those two young studs
Speaker 7: on your team Jared Jackson Junior and John Morant, does
Speaker 7: not guarantee you anything. And as we saw with that
Speaker 7: Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell Corps, you know they probably
Speaker 7: are going to try to take a couple more swings
Speaker 7: at the Apple in the next two three years. John
Speaker 7: Moran is on the books for another three seasons. I
Speaker 7: think maybe we'll see that in these next two three
Speaker 7: years with Zach Edie out for the for a substantial
Speaker 7: amount of time next season with his ankle at surgery.
Speaker 7: I think this could be kind of like a gap
Speaker 7: year for them, is that they're going to try to
Speaker 7: continue to contend for a playoff position. But I think
Speaker 7: they're going to try to reload with these draft picks
Speaker 7: and take another swing, probably a year down the road.
Speaker 2: If they decided to put jaw out there.
Speaker 1: If they decided to put Ja Moran on the table,
Speaker 1: it's a tough one, Tom, because when he's right, he's hey.
Speaker 1: He's as exciting as any player individually. I still maintain
Speaker 1: that he is box office and the production certainly is there.
Speaker 1: I do think if you have John Moran on your team,
Speaker 1: there's a little iverson element where you got to play
Speaker 1: a way, And I don't know that that's good or bad,
Speaker 1: it just is. But what sort of market would be
Speaker 1: out there if they decided to put you on the table.
Speaker 7: Well, what's interesting is his salary is very close to
Speaker 7: Trey Young and they're kind of having identity issues too
Speaker 7: there in Atlanta. So I wonder if Jamran ever got
Speaker 7: on to the table, whether both franchises would just say, like, look,
Speaker 7: let's just let's just swap point guard and see where
Speaker 7: we're at. And it's funny because that's kind of what
Speaker 7: the Atlanta Hawks did on Draft Night with Luka Doncic,
Speaker 7: where they had the opportunity to draft Luka Doncic and
Speaker 7: they traded out and took Trey Young. And I think
Speaker 7: you could see something similar with John Morant if there
Speaker 7: is a market for a point guard who's as unreliable
Speaker 7: from not just a off court stuff, but injury wise too.
Speaker 7: This guy has not been very healthy that the last
Speaker 7: few years. Even the off court antics aside, I could
Speaker 7: see a team like Charlotte Atlanta really think about, you know,
Speaker 7: if we're gonna make a splash, is John Morant our guy?
Speaker 7: Toronto is another name I think about. Is trying to
Speaker 7: get into that conversation of taking someone else's star player
Speaker 7: disgruntled or you know, depreciated in value star player. I
Speaker 7: think you can talk yourself into it, but you know,
Speaker 7: this is John. Like you said, John Morant is a
Speaker 7: big risk reward move because the reward is you've got
Speaker 7: an all NBA talented point guard but doesn't have a
Speaker 7: reliable jump shot. And if you squint, you might see
Speaker 7: like a Shay Guildris Alexander, dynamic downhill driver. But if
Speaker 7: he doesn't have the same legs and bounce as he
Speaker 7: used to, and he doesn't have that defensive value, that
Speaker 7: that effort that you get from Shay Gildriss Alexander, it's
Speaker 7: gonna be tough to convince someone to take his long
Speaker 7: term contracts, no matter how much star power he has.
Speaker 7: It would take a team like charlot At Washington, Atlanta, Chicago,
Speaker 7: these teams that are kind of in the bottom of
Speaker 7: the East and look at like, hey, if they're selling
Speaker 7: off those stars in the Western Conference because it's just
Speaker 7: so hard to compete, we'll take a guy like that.
Speaker 7: So I think that the Southeast Division basically for the
Speaker 7: for the Eastern Conference, I think we could all think
Speaker 7: about whether Ja Morant is in the right situation for them.
Speaker 1: All right, So moving back to the Orlando takeaway here,
Speaker 1: because you use the term gap year earlier, very much
Speaker 1: feels like that's what's gonna happen in Boston. With Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum on the sideline and reports on a daily basis
Speaker 1: that they're willing to deal whoever, including Jalen Brown, the
Speaker 1: Cavs on paper still have a really talented team. All
Speaker 1: those guys are back next year, and ultimately they're gonna
Speaker 1: have something to say about it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: the Knicks have contacted you about their head coaching job,
Speaker 1: but there's certainly a lot to like about the roster.
Speaker 2: We don't know who's going to coach.
Speaker 1: Them, so just generally speaking, you know, you can throw
Speaker 1: the of course, the Pacers deserve their flowers. They're still
Speaker 1: playing basketball, and we'll see what happens with Giannison Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: Detroit has some things about them to like as a young,
Speaker 1: evolving team, But generally speaking, what does this mean for
Speaker 1: Orlando as far as where they're at on the pecking
Speaker 1: order in the Eastern Conference?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, this Orlando team just added one of
Speaker 7: the best three point shooters, swing guys, two way players.
Speaker 6: In the league.
Speaker 7: And he's not someone who's going to be an All Star,
Speaker 7: you know, guaranteed, but he's not a bona fide All Star.
Speaker 7: But he's right on that tier below like mckel bridges.
Speaker 7: And he got five first round picks last year. So
Speaker 7: I think the magic you know, last season, we're the
Speaker 7: fifth seed. Like two years ago, I named this past
Speaker 7: season they were the seventh seed. About a fire win
Speaker 7: or five hundred team next year with Desmond Vane, if
Speaker 7: you get that three point shooting that he does a
Speaker 7: high volume forty percent three point shooting, it's going to
Speaker 7: open up a lot for those those drivers in Franz
Speaker 7: Wagner and Paolo Bancaro. I think they could get into
Speaker 7: that top four. Like you said, Cleveland's going to be
Speaker 7: at the top there, Indiana, Detroit, the Knicks will be
Speaker 7: up there. But Orlando's going to try to take one
Speaker 7: of those top four spots. I don't think that they're
Speaker 7: a guarantee to make the Eastern Conference finals with this move.
Speaker 7: It's a hefty price. But if you're Orlando and you
Speaker 7: need three point shooting and putting a premium on it,
Speaker 7: this is the price tag. I think that they were also,
Speaker 7: you know, rumored to be in Anthony Simon's talks where
Speaker 7: it's like that guy is also an elite three point
Speaker 7: shooter that could really help them. But that price tag KCP,
Speaker 7: the Cole Anthony and the five picks, that's that's a lot,
Speaker 7: and I do think that that's worth you know, Desmond Bain,
Speaker 7: maybe a little bit of overpay, but as we're seeing
Speaker 7: with Drew Holliday, Chris af Zingis with the Celtics and
Speaker 7: this year with Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein. If you
Speaker 7: have your guy that you think is a missing piece
Speaker 7: to a title contention, go get them, go get them.
Speaker 7: And we're seeing that on both of these champions, these
Speaker 7: these finalist teams, they both identify players that they really
Speaker 7: thought were the missing piece, Pascal Siaffram for Indiana and
Speaker 7: that baulted them into the NBA Finals. And so Orlando
Speaker 7: just feels like with Jason Tatum and the Damian Lillard
Speaker 7: Achilles injuries, they feel like they're a piece away from
Speaker 7: contending for the East. I think they're on the outside
Speaker 7: of that conversation right now with Cleveland and with the
Speaker 7: with the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers, but
Speaker 7: they could certainly try to snag that number four slot.
Speaker 1: So I want to go back to something you reference
Speaker 1: because I agree with you that this does indicate that
Speaker 1: the Memphis Grizzlies did their calculation on their own situation
Speaker 1: and mainly Oklahoma City, whose roster is so young, and Okay, see,
Speaker 1: at some point we'll have some financial decisions to make.
Speaker 1: But they're so rich with draft capital that even if
Speaker 1: they have to move off the piece here or there,
Speaker 1: if they just want to build around shay Chet and Jalen,
Speaker 1: they can do that while continuously adding pieces through the
Speaker 1: draft because Sam's so good at that. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's a microcosm of the mentality of other front offices
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference just doing their calculation on OKAC
Speaker 1: and saying, Okay, we've got to wait it out a
Speaker 1: bit because we're not close to where they're at.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we didn't even talk about the Santonio Spurs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, or Dallas, right, maybe the MAVs with Cooper.
Speaker 7: Maybe the MAVs right, we didn't even mention Minnesota earlier,
Speaker 7: the Clippers. I mean, look at that, I mean San
Speaker 7: Antonio with Wemby, with Dear and Fox and maybe I
Speaker 7: don't know if you want to talk about this, but
Speaker 7: on the Kevin O'Connor show, the KOs Show this week,
Speaker 7: we were talking about if Utah moves up or tries
Speaker 7: to move up, and if they really believe that Dylan
Speaker 7: Harper is their guy, the Spurs could absolutely ask for
Speaker 7: lowry marketing and say like, look, if you're gonna if
Speaker 7: if you're gonna want to move up from five to two.
Speaker 7: It's going to cost your marketing. I don't know if
Speaker 7: Utah would do that train, but just for the hypothetical,
Speaker 7: if the Spurs ad Lowry and they get Dearon Fox,
Speaker 7: Stefan Castle and whomever they get at number five, that
Speaker 7: seems loaded. That starting lineup is loaded. And so you
Speaker 7: know the Spurs could be in that in that mix
Speaker 7: for a home court advantage in the Western Conference first round. Uh.
Speaker 7: And so for a lot of these teams in the middle, Sacramento, Memphis, Phoenix.
Speaker 7: You're seeing Phoenix try to offload Kevin Durant.
Speaker 6: Why would they do that?
Speaker 7: Well, they missed the plan this year. That's how good
Speaker 7: the Western Conference group is. And so I think those
Speaker 7: teams are going to be looking at the situation and saying, yeah,
Speaker 7: let's try to fight. Let's try to figure out a
Speaker 7: way to land a franchise piece.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 7: Because if Desen Bayne isn't that guy, then you know what,
Speaker 7: let's take another bite at the apple in a couple
Speaker 7: of years when Oklahoma City probably will have to have
Speaker 7: some tough decision makes around their core.
Speaker 1: Okay, moving over to the jazz angle here, Brian Windhorst.
Speaker 1: I don't know what show it was, but there was
Speaker 1: a video going around where he said he's told the
Speaker 1: Jazz are going to try to get involved here and
Speaker 1: actually not take a step backwards and maybe try to
Speaker 1: add some pieces to take a couple step forward. I
Speaker 1: think that's the wrong approach with that top eight protected
Speaker 1: pick that goes to you guessed it, Oklahoma City if
Speaker 1: the Jazz are out of the top eight. But you
Speaker 1: know the reports out there, and there are several are
Speaker 1: that the Jazz are very much open for business, taking
Speaker 1: calls on everybody, including Lowry Marketing. So when you look
Speaker 1: and look, player rankings are arbitrary and sometimes make me
Speaker 1: roll my eyes, but it is what it is. The
Speaker 1: Ringer Player rankings has Desmond Bane at forty seven, which
Speaker 1: feels low to be honest, and Lowry Marketing at fifty three.
Speaker 1: So maybe generally speaking we can agree that they're kind
Speaker 1: of in the same area, although I think maybe depending
Speaker 1: on what your need is, you look at one over
Speaker 1: the other. But if the Jazz are going to move
Speaker 1: on from Lowry based off of what Memphis just received
Speaker 1: for a player, that we can say is kind of
Speaker 1: in that could to sack. What sort of return can
Speaker 1: we expect if they make that decision?
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 7: Think multiple first round picks. You also have to figure
Speaker 7: the fact that in that scenario that I mentioned, you're
Speaker 7: getting a guaranteed number two pick, whereas in the Orlando case,
Speaker 7: these picks are not guaranteed to be even lottery picks,
Speaker 7: you know, like or top ten picks. And so if
Speaker 7: you're you know, the the Utah jazz that matters is like,
Speaker 7: if you're going to move off of Larry Market and
Speaker 7: you're gonna want at least three first round picks or
Speaker 7: a guarantee top five pick, you know, something like that.
Speaker 7: It's so hard to pin down Spence because as someone
Speaker 7: who covers this nationally, the currency of a player like marketing,
Speaker 7: it's really hard to pin down when you've got guys
Speaker 7: like you know, Nico Harrison just throwing this for a
Speaker 7: total loop. The wrench that they threw into this whole
Speaker 7: thing by having Luka Doncic, who's way more valuable than
Speaker 7: Desmond Dane go for one first round pick, and Anthony
Speaker 7: Davis and Max Christy, it's really hard to peg. If
Speaker 7: you just find one GM, you can get a steal
Speaker 7: and get a haul for lowry marketing. And that's what
Speaker 7: that deal tells me, is that we can talk in
Speaker 7: these generalities about what lowry marketing will get you. But
Speaker 7: mckel Bridges is another cop for marketing, where it's like
Speaker 7: you can get a haul of first round picks. But
Speaker 7: in the case of Utah, I almost think that getting
Speaker 7: like guaranteed lottery picks rather than just like kicking one
Speaker 7: down the road, might be even more valuable at this point.
Speaker 7: And so I don't know what you think, Spence. If
Speaker 7: if the Spurs called often Age and the front office
Speaker 7: and said, look, we will move down to five, you
Speaker 7: guys can jump to two if you really want Dylan
Speaker 7: Harper to be the point guard of the future. But
Speaker 7: it's gonna cost you market in I think you're gonna
Speaker 7: if you're Utah, you asked for more than that, and
Speaker 7: I know your listeners will probably say yeah, absolutely. But
Speaker 7: I propose this to Koc this week, and he said,
Speaker 7: if I'm Utah, I'm good. As long as I get
Speaker 7: Dylan Harper, I'm good. I want that it is such
Speaker 7: a big jump to getting number two in this draft
Speaker 7: that it is worth marketing in a trade. I said,
Speaker 7: man if I am utah Jazz, I want fourteen. I
Speaker 7: want Spurs number fourteen pick as well, So in the
Speaker 7: deal it would be marketing. It would be the number
Speaker 7: five for the number two pick, the number fourteen pick
Speaker 7: from the Spurs, and then like Harrison Barnes and Kelden
Speaker 7: Johnson as salary filler. If I'm utah, I think about
Speaker 7: that deal to get off of Larry Markinen and just
Speaker 7: get that number two pick. But it really depends how
Speaker 7: much you believe in Dylan Harper as a franchise cornerstone.
Speaker 7: But there there are some people out there that think
Speaker 7: he has a lot of the makings of a James
Speaker 7: hard and Shae Gilders Alexander type. If you're Will Hardy,
Speaker 7: if you're Danny Ainge and Austin Angel and you're looking
Speaker 7: at this and trying to find your point guard of
Speaker 7: the future, how much do you believe that Dylan Harper
Speaker 7: is a vastly bigger upgrade than what you have now
Speaker 7: well said?
Speaker 1: And you know it leads us into the space of
Speaker 1: what win Horse had to say about the Jazz intension
Speaker 1: and who knows, But a deal like that makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to me. I mean, in my opinion, Tom,
Speaker 1: Priority one next year has to be holding onto that asset.
Speaker 1: You cannot win thirty seven games and fall to nine
Speaker 1: or ten. Now, there's no guarantee. We saw this year
Speaker 1: in the lottery. I get that, And so maybe there's
Speaker 1: a paradigm shift where we are going to be serious
Speaker 1: about competing and put our best foot forward about actually
Speaker 1: trying to win.
Speaker 2: But if we operate off and win. Horse is a
Speaker 2: very plugged in guy. I'm not trying to knock on
Speaker 2: him at all.
Speaker 1: But if we say that his assertion is actually the
Speaker 1: mentality of the Jazz front office and they do want
Speaker 1: to go all in taking legitimate steps forward, well, your plan,
Speaker 1: to me is the right one to go young and
Speaker 1: maybe grab a Dylan Harper. What would the what would
Speaker 1: the opposite look like with all these players available, Like,
Speaker 1: how could they add to this group to take a
Speaker 1: couple of legitimate steps forward and bring in some veteran
Speaker 1: players that are good, know how to win and want
Speaker 1: to come in here and do just that.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I see any avenue.
Speaker 7: You know, Boston might be moving off of Kris steps
Speaker 7: Forzingis or Drew Holiday. Right, there's there's those pieces. If
Speaker 7: you really want to go in now, but that requires
Speaker 7: you know, stomaching Drew Holiday and the fact that he's
Speaker 7: I mean, he's someone who's gonna win right now. But
Speaker 7: you have to make sure that that is like three
Speaker 7: dominos down. Is that like, you're not going to just
Speaker 7: take Drew Holiday at thirty five years old without two
Speaker 7: other players coming in there and ramping up. You know,
Speaker 7: let's just say, for just for throwing around some names here,
Speaker 7: let's just say that you got Drew Holiday potentially in
Speaker 7: a salary switch out where you're like, you know, maybe
Speaker 7: you move John Collins off and you try to bring
Speaker 7: in Drew Holiday to win right now, you talk to
Speaker 7: talk to New Orleans about their pieces and say, if
Speaker 7: you're really serious about Trey Murphy the third, let's talk
Speaker 7: He's a really good Desmond Bain type, two years younger
Speaker 7: than Desmond Bane, but I could see him being a
Speaker 7: star in another role. And then you just try to
Speaker 7: figure out are you able to get some more depth
Speaker 7: at the center position, whether it's Clint Capella, whether it's
Speaker 7: someone who can really help Walker Kess when I have
Speaker 7: to play thirty five minutes. But even as I'm talking
Speaker 7: myself through this experiment, this exercise. I just it's going
Speaker 7: to be a tough sell. They were not just bad,
Speaker 7: I mean seventeen wins bad last year, and so if
Speaker 7: they're going to go for it, I can't tell you
Speaker 7: how rare it is Detroit what they did this season.
Speaker 7: It is not wreckonabable replicable. That whole jump from Detroit
Speaker 7: is insane. And so I know it was possible. They
Speaker 7: showed the blueprint to do that, but look, you look
Speaker 7: at Utah's roster. Who's their Kake Cunningham. They don't have
Speaker 7: it right now, No, they don't. And so to that's
Speaker 7: delusional to think that you can ramp up and be
Speaker 7: like a really solid playoff team after being a seventeen
Speaker 7: win team. I think Brian spot On, I think there
Speaker 7: are intentions to add to this team, and maybe this
Speaker 7: front office wants to add to this team to be
Speaker 7: a playoff contender. But I think also what's true is
Speaker 7: that they might go to market and say, you know what,
Speaker 7: those guys are not available at the price that we
Speaker 7: can afford. And maybe they go into the market with
Speaker 7: one idea and they come out with another.
Speaker 1: All right, well end with the thought on tonight and
Speaker 1: the NBA Finals overall, you know, it's been it's really
Speaker 1: been cool because all four games have been different, right,
Speaker 1: and we've seen a chess match, We've seen adjustments, We've
Speaker 1: seen back and forth. Dad Nolt went deeper into his bench,
Speaker 1: gave ches, he gave Shay more rest. Jalen was initiating
Speaker 1: the offense. You know, zero assists. Would you look at
Speaker 1: it if you didn't watch the game, you'd like, what's up? Well,
Speaker 1: that wasn't what they asked of him, and allowed SGA
Speaker 1: to stay fresh, and he closed out the way that
Speaker 1: he can close out. Fascinated to get your take on
Speaker 1: these adjustments and what you think happens tonight, Tom, before
Speaker 1: I set you loose.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think Okasey wins. I picked OKAC in five
Speaker 7: and so I feel like they gave away game one
Speaker 7: and we could be looking at a closeout game here
Speaker 7: if that didn't happen. I think OKAC is the vastly
Speaker 7: better team. But Indiana plays so hard. This is the
Speaker 7: most competitive NBA Finals since I would say twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7: It's just insane how hard these teams play. They play
Speaker 7: the full ninety four feet and they cover so much ground.
Speaker 7: I mean they're averaging three more miles traveled per game
Speaker 7: than we saw last year. Between Boston and Dallas. Each
Speaker 7: team is covering three more miles of ground in forty
Speaker 7: eight minutes than last year's finals team. It six more
Speaker 7: miles are being covered by these players. I mean they're
Speaker 7: just all over the place, zooming around the floor, playing
Speaker 7: at such high speeds, up tempo, different actions. And Shay
Speaker 7: Gilders Alexander, they figured out a way to get him
Speaker 7: off the ball with Jalen Williams that was really smart
Speaker 7: and it also preserved him for that final stretch.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 7: I talked about it in on Tomdefinder dot com and
Speaker 7: the fact that Scott Foster being on the game really
Speaker 7: benefited them because he calls so many fouls out there
Speaker 7: that it lengthens the game and actually builds in rest time.
Speaker 7: And I think they're going to try to do that again,
Speaker 7: is try to figure out how we can keep up
Speaker 7: with this in young Indiana Pacers team that really throws
Speaker 7: you through loop with how fast they play. I mean
Speaker 7: it's not seven seconds or last, it's five seconds or less.
Speaker 7: They're getting past half court in like two seconds repeatedly.
Speaker 7: And that's the new York Mix couldn't keep up the
Speaker 7: Milwaukee Bucks, the Cavs couldn't keep up and shake Gildsris
Speaker 7: Alexander by playing off the ball. It is wonderful to
Speaker 7: have Jalen Williams on your team. Chet Holmgren and k
Speaker 7: som Wallace, guys who can bring the ball up up
Speaker 7: the floor today are just so good on both ends.
Speaker 7: I expect OKAC to win tonight, and I would suspect
Speaker 7: them closing out in Game six. It's been an amazing series.
Speaker 7: I do not want it to end in six because
Speaker 7: it's been such great basketball. But this OKAC team is
Speaker 7: just on another level, and I think they found.
Speaker 6: Something in Game four.
Speaker 2: Where can people go? Get your work?
Speaker 7: Tommy Yahoo's Sports, The KOC Show and The Big Number
Speaker 7: both podcasts every week on Yahoo Sports, as well as
Speaker 7: Tom Deefinder dot Com and Basketball Luminati podcast and right
Speaker 7: here every week on Mondays.
Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend. Enjoy the game tonight. We'll chat soon. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 1: The Great Tom Average shows some really good stuff in
Speaker 1: there about his conversation with the KOC about the Jazz
Speaker 1: potential to maybe move up to two, and we'll get
Speaker 1: back to it. Well, coming up on the other side,
Speaker 1: I'll get Smithy's take on that. I will do some
Speaker 1: NBA Finals, We'll do some jazz, we'll do some draft.
Speaker 1: Bill Riley, Voice of the Utes. About an hour from
Speaker 1: right now, move into the five o'clock hour of the program.
Speaker 1: That will Sega night at six o'clock in time for
Speaker 1: the NBA Finals. Tom stops by today courtesy of our
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Speaker 5: He's deprived of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son of
Speaker 5: Salt Lake City. After forty years with the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 5: there's no one better to talk some hoops.
Speaker 2: Richard.
Speaker 5: Smitty Smith is back on the Drive on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 1: Are you trying to make Bill jealous? You know we
Speaker 1: do have Bill on the show today. We can't bring
Speaker 1: this back twice. I think Smitty's trying to make Bill checks.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I think it's a great situation here. It's
Speaker 1: a great song Bill. Bill Riley's going to stop by
Speaker 1: in one hour from now, Voice of the Utes. But
Speaker 1: Richard Smith is live in studio for an entire hour
Speaker 1: on a jam packed Monday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Smitty, Happy Monday, sir, How are you I'm doing great?
Speaker 3: How are you doing? I'm good?
Speaker 1: There's so many things that I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about. Let's start with a quick like JJ Spawn,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh moment, because you and I are both
Speaker 1: golf fans, and it's interesting watching the best players in
Speaker 1: the world just have no answers for the problems that
Speaker 1: a coast of course like Oakmond presents. You know, the best,
Speaker 1: the best players in the world, some of them missed
Speaker 1: the cut, most all of them fell apart, and JJ
Speaker 1: Teeter two bogeying five of six and I wrote him off.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, he's not ready for this moment. Sam
Speaker 1: Burns probably feels hard done because of the ruling. I mean,
Speaker 1: water was everywhere, Adam Scott falls apart, and after the
Speaker 1: weather break, JJ Spawn rolls back into the thing and
Speaker 1: wins it with a sixty footer on eighteen. I mean,
Speaker 1: a life changing moment. It's my favorite thing about watching
Speaker 1: sports like that. Dude's life just changed right there. How
Speaker 1: did you digest that moment? It's the whole thing.
Speaker 9: Spen's about a live theater, you know, like you go
Speaker 9: to a Broadway show and you sit down and there's
Speaker 9: been reviews of the show, and you're going there because
Speaker 9: you're excited to see it, and you're gonna be there
Speaker 9: for three hours, and you know what you're gonna get
Speaker 9: in terms of entertainment, and you know how how the
Speaker 9: play adds, right, the guy gets the girl and everybody's
Speaker 9: happy at the end or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know what's coming.
Speaker 9: But in sports, and then you know, in these kinds
Speaker 9: of moments, you have no idea what is coming next.
Speaker 9: And for those guys to be put in the position
Speaker 9: of the weather, the rain, the wind, you know, spawn
Speaker 9: goes out five bogies in the first six holes. Okay, well,
Speaker 9: you know it's just those are the conditions, and you
Speaker 9: got to hit the ball in the fairway. You can't
Speaker 9: get it out of the fairway. And if you do,
Speaker 9: then you know everybody's in the same boat. And he
Speaker 9: just held on and you know, grind and grind. And
Speaker 9: then in thirteen and fourteen, there's like five guys all
Speaker 9: tied for the lead and three other guys one shot back.
Speaker 9: And so all these guys on the leaderboard, out of
Speaker 9: a legitimate chance with four or five holes to play,
Speaker 9: to come out and grab it. Who's gonna grab you know?
Speaker 9: The one masters I was fortunate enough to go to
Speaker 9: who Spens in twenty eleven. It was the same a
Speaker 9: beautiful day, night's weather on that particular day, but it
Speaker 9: was the same scenario on the leader board. Everybody had
Speaker 9: a legitimate chance to come up and grab it. And
Speaker 9: who does it, of all people, Charles Schwartzel, who wins
Speaker 9: his one Masters in twenty eleven, comes down the back.
Speaker 3: Nine and goes birdie, birdie, birdie.
Speaker 9: On sixteen seventeen eighteen and just runs by everybody like
Speaker 9: in a horse race analogy in the last you know,
Speaker 9: fifty yards, runs right by everybody and ends up winning
Speaker 9: by half a length, you know whatever. And so jj
Speaker 9: Spahn is a grinder, thirty four year old guy, you know,
Speaker 9: a journeyman guy who's had some success, but one of
Speaker 9: those guys who's really playing from year to year to
Speaker 9: just keep his tour card. And he's able to grind
Speaker 9: something out on a special Sunday afternoon for him and
Speaker 9: then to do it with that but that he didn't
Speaker 9: need to. Obviously he had to. He just had the
Speaker 9: two putt to win it. But for that thing to
Speaker 9: go in like it did for him to win and
Speaker 9: clinch it right at that moment on the last stroke,
Speaker 9: you take of a major. That's that's your defining moment.
Speaker 9: That's what you're gonna have to carry with you the
Speaker 9: rest of your life, which which is.
Speaker 1: A great feeling, legendary. I mean, it was really and
Speaker 1: I don't know, I didn't know much about JJ. I'd
Speaker 1: seen his name near the top of the leader boards,
Speaker 1: he has one on the tour before, and he's been
Speaker 1: right in the mix. Do you think we've seen the
Speaker 1: birth of a star on tour? I mean, he's got
Speaker 1: to be getting consideration for the Ryder Cup now, doesn't he.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean he's he's uh, you know, he's in.
Speaker 9: To me, Spence is in a mix with there's a
Speaker 9: whole bunch of guys that are like him. Okay, not
Speaker 9: to diminish what he did, and not the diminish him
Speaker 9: as a play. He's a he's a regular tour player,
Speaker 9: but he he has been a grinded out kind of
Speaker 9: guy and he has been, uh, you know, from year
Speaker 9: to year, really has been playing to get in a
Speaker 9: mix every now and then, but mostly to have enough
Speaker 9: success to be in the one twenty five so he
Speaker 9: can keep his tour card and keep going the next year. Right,
Speaker 9: and so now he's thirty four years old. He gets
Speaker 9: on top of this mountain at the moment, and he
Speaker 9: should be feeling really good about it, you know. But
Speaker 9: there are a lot of those guys, whether it's Gary
Speaker 9: Woodland who did it several years ago, you know in
Speaker 9: LA You know guys who come up and they win.
Speaker 9: There one Charles Schwartzel I just mentioned in twenty eleven.
Speaker 9: You know Mike Weir, who's a long time pro, who's
Speaker 9: one of our favorites from the local area. You know,
Speaker 9: who won the Masters, you know when his one major.
Speaker 9: You know, these guys who are who are great, excellent
Speaker 9: golfers on the PGA Tour, but there's always something that
Speaker 9: separates them from the real top guys.
Speaker 3: And it's such a fine line.
Speaker 9: And you play seventy two holes and like we saw
Speaker 9: this this past weekend, and you played in the in
Speaker 9: the all kinds of weather conditions, and the thing that
Speaker 9: separates you from the next guy is a sixty five
Speaker 9: foot putt, is it, or or as one missed fairway
Speaker 9: where you had to hack it out just another thirty
Speaker 9: yards to get back and play, and that costs you
Speaker 9: an extra stroke, and now you lose the tournament by
Speaker 9: one or two or whatever. You know, It's just it's
Speaker 9: just that's how thin that line is over a four
Speaker 9: day period with the top golfers in the world. That's
Speaker 9: that's what makes it so daunting. But that's also what
Speaker 9: makes it so exhilarating as a fan to watch that
Speaker 9: live theater. Yeah, I thought I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 9: I was captivated.
Speaker 1: All right, Smitty, let's start here and then we'll kind
Speaker 1: of uh move it into a direction and involve our
Speaker 1: local basketball team, the Utah Jazz. Uh So, there's a
Speaker 1: method in the madness stick with us. So uh kind
Speaker 1: of us shocking trade, kind of a trade that nobody
Speaker 1: saw coming. It was announced yesterday and made a fish
Speaker 1: that the Memphis Grizzlies traded Desmond Bane to the Orlando
Speaker 1: Magic for Contavious called Well Pope Cole Anthony for unprotected
Speaker 1: first round picks and one first round pick swap.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's.
Speaker 1: Start with what that says to you of the mentality
Speaker 1: of the Memphis Grizzlies. Why does Memphis do this deal?
Speaker 9: Well, I think probably what they're looking at is is
Speaker 9: that they're trying to a get off some money. Okay,
Speaker 9: trying to manage their books a little bit. Bu they
Speaker 9: look at what they've got going and they see, okay,
Speaker 9: we're in the middle of the mix, but we don't
Speaker 9: really have anything that's going to jet propose us, you
Speaker 9: know above and you know, to get in the top
Speaker 9: three or four teams that you know, if everybody's healthy
Speaker 9: in the league, which you never can count on. And
Speaker 9: so we're making a calculated guestimate that that it's going
Speaker 9: to be better for us as long as we can
Speaker 9: get Morant and Jackson on the floor. We have two guys, Okay,
Speaker 9: all right, we're giving up our third guy. All right,
Speaker 9: maybe we can find another third guy somehow, Like they
Speaker 9: found Bain who was an early second round pick. And
Speaker 9: we're talking all all spring Spence about the draft and
Speaker 9: missing out on the top pick and having the fifth
Speaker 9: pick and you know, what are we doing when I
Speaker 9: can get a guy and whatever? You know, Desmond Baine
Speaker 9: it was an early second round pick, you know, by
Speaker 9: Memphis and were always talking about you can find guys.
Speaker 9: But that's what your job is when you're in that position.
Speaker 9: You have to go identify them, you have to evaluate them,
Speaker 9: and then you have to figure out a way to
Speaker 9: procure them, and uh, you know, Memphis is looking at it,
Speaker 9: I think probably in saying, well, you know, if we
Speaker 9: we can keep on Morant and Jackson for the next
Speaker 9: several years, then we have to just find another third
Speaker 9: guy and maybe we can get into another trade or
Speaker 9: maybe maybe KCP. I don't think he's that guy, but
Speaker 9: I think he's a good rotation guy now in his career.
Speaker 9: But maybe we find another young guy that we like
Speaker 9: to get in the mix. Maybe we get lucky in
Speaker 9: the draft, or maybe there's a guy we see in
Speaker 9: the draft that nobody else is seeing and we got
Speaker 9: him in our back pocket.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna go ahead and make this move because
Speaker 3: we think we can get that guy, you know.
Speaker 9: And again, who that would be, I don't know, but
Speaker 9: you know, that's that's one possible scenarios. They've identified a
Speaker 9: guy they like that they're they're hearing around the league
Speaker 9: nobody else is even talking about. And you know, so
Speaker 9: if they can get another Bane like they did at
Speaker 9: thirty one, thirty two, whatever it was several years ago,
Speaker 9: and and do something like that, then you know, then
Speaker 9: they're feeling like they're they're getting their books down, but
Speaker 9: they're also giving themselves some more flexibility going forward to
Speaker 9: build that roster out and try and be competitive as
Speaker 9: long as Morant and Jackson are there to help them.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you brought that up. One more thing,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna bring the Jazz angle into this.
Speaker 1: I've heard and read several people's surmise Memphis is open
Speaker 1: for business.
Speaker 2: This is a yard sale. I don't read it that way.
Speaker 1: Jaws under contract through twenty eight, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: actually kind of a reasonable deal for who he is
Speaker 1: when his mind is right, and I don't know what
Speaker 1: sort of market there would be for him. I would say,
Speaker 1: prior to all the gun chaos and off court bs,
Speaker 1: there was probably a robust market for a talent like
Speaker 1: that at his age. I don't know what sort of
Speaker 1: calls they would receive if it was out there that
Speaker 1: he's available. Jaron Jackson Junior is up for a contract extension.
Speaker 1: He's going to get paid. I believe he's up for
Speaker 1: the Supermax because he won Defensive Player of the Year.
Speaker 1: So look, if they put Jared Jackson Junior on the table,
Speaker 1: I think they get a lot of phone calls.
Speaker 2: I don't know that they get a Ton for ja
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: But I don't know that I read this as Memphis
Speaker 1: is now open for business and everyone's available.
Speaker 2: What's your take on that?
Speaker 9: Yeah, well it could be you know, maybe there maybe
Speaker 9: they're going to take a page out of the Utah
Speaker 9: Jazz book and just trade all their guys and start over,
Speaker 9: because they're looking at the grand landscape from thirty thousand
Speaker 9: feet and saying, well, let's see OKAC the youngest team
Speaker 9: in the league and they're about to maybe win a championship,
Speaker 9: and San Antonio was about to get a guy another guy,
Speaker 9: and they're all all of a sudden going to make
Speaker 9: a big leap, and they're young guys. And then and
Speaker 9: then we've got the Denver is still sitting there in
Speaker 9: the in the weeds. And then we got you know,
Speaker 9: Golden States, or they just got Butler with you know,
Speaker 9: we got Dallas just and they're looking and going, well,
Speaker 9: where are we going? We can't get anywhere we're gonna
Speaker 9: get so yeah, so so maybe they're looking at what
Speaker 9: the Jazz did a few years ago and saying, hey,
Speaker 9: maybe while our guys are you know, good and highly
Speaker 9: thought of, and we can get something for him, you know,
Speaker 9: maybe we do that thing because I.
Speaker 3: Don't know where we're going.
Speaker 9: You know, we with our group that we got, now,
Speaker 9: we we like them, we think they're competitive, but these
Speaker 9: other guys are a step or two or three ahead
Speaker 9: of us. So we can grind and play hard and
Speaker 9: have everybody healthy and all that and end up you
Speaker 9: know in six, seven, eight, and so what where we going?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 9: So there's that scenario because because you have to always
Speaker 9: marry that idea spends the basketball stuff, roster building with
Speaker 9: your financial and the business part of it, and sometimes
Speaker 9: you have to look at and say, spending this amount
Speaker 9: of money on this group for the expected end result
Speaker 9: just doesn't make any sense. And so you know, we're
Speaker 9: better off re calibrating a step or two and trying,
Speaker 9: you know, maybe to reinvent ourselves on the fly. I
Speaker 9: I could see somebody saying, yeah, that's behind the closed doors,
Speaker 9: that's what they're trying to do.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: And I would also throwing the wrinkle that that I would.
Speaker 9: Guess that if that's a scenario, that there's some weight
Speaker 9: on the idea that you know, they've they've grown tired
Speaker 9: of the jah morant, you know, soap opera, and no
Speaker 9: matter how talented he is, you know that it's just
Speaker 9: not worth, you know, all the heavy lifting it takes
Speaker 9: on the rest of the organization, you know, to try
Speaker 9: and keep the ship going forward. And so maybe it's
Speaker 9: just time to cut bait and figure out what our
Speaker 9: plan B is.
Speaker 2: So one more follow up.
Speaker 1: Then we're gonna bring the jazz into this, because there's
Speaker 1: an interesting jazz portion concerning job.
Speaker 2: And I can remember when.
Speaker 1: And this isn't a fair parallel, a perfect parallel, but
Speaker 1: you'll understand where I'm going when so news comes out,
Speaker 1: and this was before social media, it was before twenty
Speaker 1: four to seven inundation of information that Latrell Spreewell had
Speaker 1: choked his coach, right, and it's like, okay, what exactly
Speaker 1: what does that look? Because he was such a great talent,
Speaker 1: came out of Alabama, nobody really knew.
Speaker 2: What sort of NBA player he would be.
Speaker 1: Golden State kind of rises up to be this really exciting,
Speaker 1: great defensive wing that could get up and down finish
Speaker 1: on there. He's never a great shooter, but a really
Speaker 1: good player. And then the thing comes out about Carlossimo
Speaker 1: and it's like, Okay, what's the deal. The Knicks at
Speaker 1: the time ha an aging roster, and they were trying
Speaker 1: to make sure Ewing's final years in New York were
Speaker 1: supported with a good team. And I can remember when
Speaker 1: the opportunity came down for the next to trade for
Speaker 1: Latrell Spree Well, and part of the package was going
Speaker 1: to be John Starks, who was like the heart of
Speaker 1: that team in the nineties, And there was a real debate,
Speaker 1: internal debate, and my dad flew Spree out and he
Speaker 1: sat down with Jeff Ernie Grunfeld was the one that
Speaker 1: was kind of like somewhat against this, and you get
Speaker 1: it right now, Jeff was all for it because coaches
Speaker 1: want to win, and he knew he could coach him.
Speaker 1: He knew he was awesome. So with a talent like Jaw,
Speaker 1: I suppose there's a market for it. But let's say
Speaker 1: you're running a team and Memphis calls and they say,
Speaker 1: what about jaw you?
Speaker 2: What do you say? How does that process go down?
Speaker 1: And if Jow would be available, do you think the
Speaker 1: market would be robust enough to get what you should
Speaker 1: for a talent like that.
Speaker 9: Well, so as in any Shoppers market, Spence, it only
Speaker 9: takes one one guy. It only takes one general manager
Speaker 9: or one coach who has a lot of sway with
Speaker 9: the organization, you know, to say, hey, I want I
Speaker 9: want that guy, or I can work with that guy,
Speaker 9: or you know the the you know, other people are
Speaker 9: afraid of him or or don't know how to handle him.
Speaker 9: I know how to do it, you know, whatever, whatever
Speaker 9: it's going to be. Or you have a GM who
Speaker 9: feels like he's too talented and he you know, you
Speaker 9: have to get him if you can, and then it's
Speaker 9: up to the coach to to figure out how to
Speaker 9: work with them. And you know, and you have those
Speaker 9: conversations before you do anything like that because you want
Speaker 9: to make sure that that everybody's on board.
Speaker 3: You know, we had a scenario.
Speaker 9: I won't mention names, but we we had a scenario
Speaker 9: years and years ago with the Jazz where we were
Speaker 9: looking at adding a player through free agency who we
Speaker 9: thought would be a good piece to what our our
Speaker 9: core was still going on with stocking them alone. And
Speaker 9: and one of our guys went out and made a
Speaker 9: bunch of phone calls and talked to people who knew
Speaker 9: we are on the league or whatever comes back to
Speaker 9: a meeting and says, yeah, yeah, I did a bunch
Speaker 9: of homework on that guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you think.
Speaker 9: Well, well, I was oh for seven and we're sitting
Speaker 9: around the table going, oh for seven.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 9: Well, I talked to seven guys and none of them
Speaker 9: can support the idea of us bringing that guy in
Speaker 9: for whatever the varying reasons. Everybody had a different view,
Speaker 9: of different touch, a different experience. And then he said, however,
Speaker 9: having said that, I still think we need to bring
Speaker 9: him in because I think he can help us. And
Speaker 9: and so there was a lot of debate about that
Speaker 9: and a lot of discussion about well, what are we
Speaker 9: doing and how is it going.
Speaker 3: To affect our overall group.
Speaker 9: And you know, at that time, we had you know,
Speaker 9: two heavyweight guys and stocked in them alone who we felt,
Speaker 9: you know, could along with obviously with coach Sloan uh,
Speaker 9: you know, could deal with whatever the deal the fallout
Speaker 9: was going to be, or the or the the tough
Speaker 9: parts were going to be. And so, you know, eventually
Speaker 9: that decision was made to go forward, but it was
Speaker 9: but there's a lot of discussion around you know, when
Speaker 9: you're adding someone like that into a mix that you
Speaker 9: have to really be uh, be confident that your group,
Speaker 9: whether it's the coach, whether it's a couple of assistant
Speaker 9: coaches on your staff who know the guy or knew
Speaker 9: the guy in college, or I had prior experience with
Speaker 9: him on another team, or you know, whatever it could be,
Speaker 9: that your group will be able to handle it in
Speaker 9: a way that's professional, that is going to get you
Speaker 9: the desired results that you're after, you know, in that
Speaker 9: kind of move And and with with those kinds of things, Spence,
Speaker 9: there's a there's always a lot of moving parts and
Speaker 9: there are a lot of things you have to consider
Speaker 9: before you really decide to pull the trigger on something
Speaker 9: that's going to really have a big effect, maybe one way,
Speaker 9: maybe the other way, on how your group performs.
Speaker 1: Well said, let's move over to the jazz and you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to consider exactly what the Memphis deal says
Speaker 1: on a number of different levels. And I bring that
Speaker 1: up because I didn't know Desmond Bane was available, right.
Speaker 1: So I bring that up because there are always players
Speaker 1: that are available that are really good that the public
Speaker 1: just doesn't know about.
Speaker 3: But you knew donc was available. No, you knew that.
Speaker 1: Another good example, right, like that's why this league is wild.
Speaker 1: You wake up and you're like, wait, they traded who?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 1: So maybe there's the reason I bring it up in
Speaker 1: that context is Brian Windhorst goes on TV and references
Speaker 1: that he's been told the Jazz are going to try
Speaker 1: to level it up whatever that means, right, So like,
Speaker 1: I don't see that path, but I want to be fair.
Speaker 1: Maybe there are things out there that we have no
Speaker 1: idea about. So if that's the mentality of the Jazz, now,
Speaker 1: if they're like, Okay, we're gonna do the thing we're
Speaker 1: gonna take this off season, we're gonna add some pieces
Speaker 1: and we're gonna be right in the mix next year,
Speaker 1: what does that look like?
Speaker 2: I don't know that I see it, And we'll get
Speaker 2: to the other path that a moment.
Speaker 1: And the other path is I just talked about with
Speaker 1: Tom Haverstrow engaging with the San Antonio Spurs or a
Speaker 1: team that's ahead of them if they've identified the player
Speaker 1: they like to go move up in the draft to
Speaker 1: get a young player they can grow with their other
Speaker 1: young players. That seems more sensible to me. But Win
Speaker 1: Horses plugged in. He's an NBA reporter that people seem
Speaker 1: to trust. So if the Jazz are serious about adding
Speaker 1: to the group this year to take legitimate steps up
Speaker 1: next year, what do you think that looks like?
Speaker 9: Well, I mean again, Spence, there are a lot of
Speaker 9: different options and a lot of different ways they can go.
Speaker 9: And you know, as the old saying goes, it takes
Speaker 9: two to tango. So you can have an idea and
Speaker 9: you can say, this is what we want to do,
Speaker 9: and we can lay out a plan and we want
Speaker 9: to add this kind of a guy, we want to
Speaker 9: add that kind of a player, and we can shore
Speaker 9: up a couple of things on the wings with a
Speaker 9: couple of long defensive guys because we're one of the
Speaker 9: worst defensive teams in the league the last several years,
Speaker 9: and so we've got to start addressing that stuff. So,
Speaker 9: you know, if you're looking at building a foundation and
Speaker 9: trying to get better incrementally better, you know you have
Speaker 9: to do it.
Speaker 3: You know the old adage brick by brick.
Speaker 9: So you know, if you need to lay a whole foundation,
Speaker 9: you know, you may do it just one pieceet of
Speaker 9: time and just keep waiting and waiting and waiting, or
Speaker 9: you can try and add three or four or five
Speaker 9: at one time. But it's going to take you know,
Speaker 9: you have to pay something for that. You just don't
Speaker 9: get that stuff for free. And so you're gonna have
Speaker 9: to give up players or draft picks or you know
Speaker 9: what have you to be able to do something like that.
Speaker 9: But does it make sense in what your overall objective
Speaker 9: and your long range game plan is like? For example,
Speaker 9: I heard you mentioned in the earlier segment with Tom
Speaker 9: about you know, just hypothetically a guy like Porzingis or
Speaker 9: a guy like Drew Holliday.
Speaker 3: Okay, older guys.
Speaker 9: Porzinkus isn't he isn't old, he's writ in his private
Speaker 9: But a guy like Drew Holliday who needed toward the
Speaker 9: end of it, or if you had a chance that
Speaker 9: Kevin Durant who you know, you know, somebody like that
Speaker 9: who's still a very good player. But you know, what
Speaker 9: is it gonna take to get them and what real
Speaker 9: impact are they gonna have on what you're trying to do,
Speaker 9: you know, going forward and being sustainable for a while,
Speaker 9: that those are the things you have to factor in.
Speaker 9: You know, you can say all you want about well,
Speaker 9: you know, we're gonna we're gonna go fast and we're
Speaker 9: gonna get you know, stuff done or whatever. You know,
Speaker 9: but you know that is much harder to do, uh,
Speaker 9: to say, than this to to accomplish. And those are
Speaker 9: the things, you know. Look, Austin Ainge is gonna really work.
Speaker 3: Hard at it.
Speaker 9: He's gonna he's gonna give it a maximum attention and
Speaker 9: effort to trying to do those things. But but he
Speaker 9: doesn't come in with a magic wand you know he's
Speaker 9: he doesn't have a special potion just because he came
Speaker 9: from the vaunted Boston Celtics. You know, that doesn't that
Speaker 9: that doesn't lie. You know, you come, you come with
Speaker 9: your own set of of abilities and your skill set
Speaker 9: and your sensibilities to try and do what makes sense.
Speaker 9: But you know he doesn't have any magic answers. You know,
Speaker 9: if if there was such a thing, Danny Ainge would
Speaker 9: have had them, because Danny Ainge had already been through
Speaker 9: those kinds of mills several times.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 9: So so he's gonna come in and Austin Ainge is
Speaker 9: gonna try and do what he thinks make sense, and
Speaker 9: he's gonna throw stuff against the wall and something's gonna stick,
Speaker 9: and something's not and he's gonna come across some things
Speaker 9: that that he might be able to act on, and
Speaker 9: there's gonna be something that comes out, like you know,
Speaker 9: you're referencing defreen Dane and and we mentioned, you know,
Speaker 9: a guy like Luka Doncic, but something of that nature
Speaker 9: is gonna come around the corner and he's gonna blindside you,
Speaker 9: you know, whether it's the day before the draft or
Speaker 9: whether it's the middle of the summer whatever where you know,
Speaker 9: like the Jazz did with Gobert and Donovan Mitchell and
Speaker 9: all of a sudden, you want, somebody's best player is
Speaker 9: on the market for whatever the reason, and the Jazz
Speaker 9: are gonna try and and get involved in that.
Speaker 3: Are they able to do something? Does it work?
Speaker 9: Who knows, you know, But those are the kinds of
Speaker 9: things they're trying to give the fans hope that we're
Speaker 9: trying these things. We're gonna try a lot of different things.
Speaker 9: So hang with us because if we can get some
Speaker 9: stuff done, it's gonna be exciting, you know.
Speaker 3: But are they gonna get stuff done? Who knows?
Speaker 9: It's it's you know, the whole thing is a crapshoot
Speaker 9: when it comes to working with other teams and what
Speaker 9: they're after and what their their goal is is in
Speaker 9: the deal as well. You know, other teams are gonna
Speaker 9: want good players, right, So somebody's gonna want Marketing, right,
Speaker 9: or somebody's gonna want a young Kessler because they can
Speaker 9: add to their group because they think they have a
Speaker 9: chance to kind of win. Right now, the Jazz are
Speaker 9: trying to add guys who can help them to build
Speaker 9: a foundation of winning getting better going forward, without any
Speaker 9: expectation that we're going to be the Detroit Pistons, who
Speaker 9: I know you mentioned last time, the Detroit Pistons had several.
Speaker 3: Top five draft picks.
Speaker 9: Okay, they were a bad team, but they kept drafting
Speaker 9: and drafting and drafting, and they had a couple of guys,
Speaker 9: have a couple of very good players that they got
Speaker 9: high in the draft. But those guys have been in
Speaker 9: and out the last few years, have been hurt. And
Speaker 9: this year the guys are healthy and they're playing, and
Speaker 9: they added the right veterans, by the way, with big
Speaker 9: influence from Dennis Lindsay who's now with Detroit and who
Speaker 9: knows what he's doing. And you saw the leap the
Speaker 9: Pistons took to get in the playoffs, and now they're
Speaker 9: expecting to be able to take that next leap going forward,
Speaker 9: and the Jazz are hoping to duplicate something like that
Speaker 9: in their work.
Speaker 1: One more thing here, we'll catch a break, we'll do
Speaker 1: some NBA finals coming up and talk about some more potential.
Speaker 1: I will do a little draft on the other side too.
Speaker 1: So player rankings are arbitrary, and it's eye of the
Speaker 1: beholder stuff. I get that, and every outlet does it.
Speaker 1: The ringer does it every year. Then they updated throughout
Speaker 1: the course of the season. Desmond Bane forty seven, which
Speaker 1: actually feels low to me. Lowry market in fifty three,
Speaker 1: So that's essentially indicates that maybe they're in the same
Speaker 1: cul de sac. Maybe they're in the same area as
Speaker 1: far as and look at like, what do you need.
Speaker 1: It's not like they're different players. I understand that. But
Speaker 1: if we agree to say, okay, in the ecosystem of
Speaker 1: pro basketball, these two are around top fifty guys, which
Speaker 1: again might be a little bit low. And we see
Speaker 1: what Memphis just received as a result of trading Desmond Bane.
Speaker 1: Is it a similar type expected return if the Jazz
Speaker 1: do decide to deal Lowry.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it would be it's always spent. All those things
Speaker 9: are different. They are all everything is predicate it on
Speaker 9: what you need, what you are trying to accomplish, and
Speaker 9: how much you value being able to get to the
Speaker 9: goal that you're trying to get to. For example, you know,
Speaker 9: we talk about the Doncic and ad trade. You know,
Speaker 9: everybody says that Nico Harrison you know, got way too
Speaker 9: little and you know whatever and settled, you know, for
Speaker 9: for thirty cents on the dollar or whatever, you know,
Speaker 9: in terms of value of what he got. But to him,
Speaker 9: hard to believe we're still talking about this, But to.
Speaker 3: Him it was.
Speaker 9: He valued getting Davis, an All NBA player and defensive
Speaker 9: player and a big who's a top level player when
Speaker 9: he's healthy, and moving out someone who he didn't think
Speaker 9: fit the culture of what they were trying to build
Speaker 9: in Dallas.
Speaker 3: So other teams who aren't.
Speaker 9: Working with Doncic every day for six years, you know,
Speaker 9: saw differently, said are you kidding me? What's going on?
Speaker 9: So everybody looks at it through a different lens. That's
Speaker 9: why you see guys who are you know, you know,
Speaker 9: and you know, not really related, but just just comes
Speaker 9: to mind, you know, how you I have the beholder
Speaker 9: in the draft with Raphael Adoujou, the player from BYU
Speaker 9: right Toronto. For whatever their reason, Okay, they valued him
Speaker 9: high enough where they took him number eight in the draft.
Speaker 3: Okay. All of our research when we were.
Speaker 9: In that draft showed us that if he didn't go
Speaker 9: eight to that one team that decided to make that pick,
Speaker 9: he would have gone in the mid to late forties. Okay,
Speaker 9: So that's how everybody else viewed it. Okay, guess what
Speaker 9: everybody else was? Pretty right? Yes, yes there were, but
Speaker 9: one team saw it differently, and one team interpreted what
Speaker 9: they saw through a different lens. And that's what makes
Speaker 9: you know, the drafts so fascinating because you can get
Speaker 9: you can get uh a Ujo at eight, and in
Speaker 9: another year you can get Jalen Williams at eight, or
Speaker 9: another year you can get Steph Curry, who I think
Speaker 9: it was seven, right yo. But the point being that
Speaker 9: you know those things, You look at it and everybody's
Speaker 9: got a different take. And that's why you don't have
Speaker 9: one guy in your room just making decisions. That's why
Speaker 9: you have a whole group of guys who are doing
Speaker 9: it all year long. And so you're sitting there, you know,
Speaker 9: right now as we speak, ten days away from the draft,
Speaker 9: and those guys are hammering it out and discussing and
Speaker 9: debating and and throwing stuff across the room at the
Speaker 9: other guy who said, you know, you want to take
Speaker 9: Spence checkets.
Speaker 3: What are you nuts?
Speaker 2: Guy doesn't guard, but don't leave him open.
Speaker 9: Yeah, but that's that's what happened. And that's what's interesting
Speaker 9: to me, also, Spencer, about the draft stuff. It's really
Speaker 9: fascinating to me that the Jazz ownership, Ryan Smith, right,
Speaker 9: he's a decision maker, decides to bring in a lead
Speaker 9: decision maker three weeks before the draft. So you have
Speaker 9: a group in the room that's been working all year,
Speaker 9: and they've been working with each other, and they've been
Speaker 9: cross referencing and cross tracking guys, and they've been going
Speaker 9: to see guys, and they've been discussing in November and
Speaker 9: December and January about different guys and hey, Spence, you
Speaker 9: got to go see this guy. I just saw him
Speaker 9: last week. You know, we want to put him on
Speaker 9: our list. Okay, I'll go see it.
Speaker 3: Whatever.
Speaker 9: You got all of that, you know, working together, you've
Speaker 9: got that flow, You've got that energy from the group.
Speaker 9: You've got the equity of the people in the room
Speaker 9: who have been there all year doing it. I've been
Speaker 9: listening to Spence check its every week in our meeting
Speaker 9: about what he's been saying about this guy, or how
Speaker 9: he changes mind two months.
Speaker 3: Later, and this and that, whatever it is. And then
Speaker 3: here it is in the you know, use a.
Speaker 9: Baseball reference in the ninth inning, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: a new guy walks in the room. And we're not
Speaker 9: just adding a new guy in the room to the discussion,
Speaker 9: but it's a new guy who's the guy calling the shots. Right,
Speaker 9: So now we have a new boss in the room
Speaker 9: three weeks before the draft. That has got to be very,
Speaker 9: very awkward for all the people involved. It's it really
Speaker 9: can can really tip the balance of the discussions of
Speaker 9: the the the vibe of the room, of what people
Speaker 9: have been discussing all year. It's really interesting that they
Speaker 9: chose to do that at that moment. They could have
Speaker 9: easily done something to add austin Ings to the group
Speaker 9: in some capacity. And then in August said, hey, you know,
Speaker 9: we've discussed things and blah blah blah, and and we're
Speaker 9: gonna make Austin ames the boss going forward or whatever.
Speaker 3: But they do that now.
Speaker 9: So that's that's fascinating to me because being in those
Speaker 9: rooms for a lot of years doing something like that,
Speaker 9: you know, can be very unsettling to a group that
Speaker 9: has been working in a certain direction for for a
Speaker 9: lot of a lot of months and and putting a
Speaker 9: lot of time and effort into it and then having
Speaker 9: someone else come in, uh proverbially at the last minute
Speaker 9: and maybe, you know, rock the boat or have a
Speaker 9: maybe maybe it's good. You know, maybe that's a good thing.
Speaker 9: I don't know, but but I certainly know that you know,
Speaker 9: that changes the vibe and the flow in the room.
Speaker 9: And that's going to be fascinating too when we get
Speaker 9: to see what kind of decisions the jazz Employee's.
Speaker 1: Still amazing that Ryan was able to hire Austin without
Speaker 1: ever mentioning a word to his dad.
Speaker 3: That's it happens all the time.
Speaker 2: It's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people gepped out of the loop all the time,
Speaker 1: and Austin never said anything. Especially your family, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: for sure, you never talk about any of that when
Speaker 1: it comes to changing your life entirely. Speedy's taking a
Speaker 1: victory laughter and a break about his Red Sox beating
Speaker 1: my Thankees over the weekend. John Carlos Stanton will be
Speaker 1: activated tonight.
Speaker 2: Spinny about that?
Speaker 3: How about that? And you know what he's being activated.
Speaker 9: He's in New York and nobody knows about it because
Speaker 9: Otani's pitching tonight in LA.
Speaker 1: You know, we probably don't talk enough about Otani, right,
Speaker 1: like in the context of really being as unique as
Speaker 1: any player has ever been to his respective sport, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, he probably deserves more airtime like everywhere, every
Speaker 1: every time I see a highlight or see a stat
Speaker 1: and don't really understand how specifically unique he is.
Speaker 2: I'm like, we should talk about this, this, this dude
Speaker 2: more than we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 9: You know what's interesting, though, Spence, when you have guys
Speaker 9: that are like international players and they and they're reticent
Speaker 9: to speak the language and uh and some of them
Speaker 9: can speak, you know, somewhat, and you know, but they
Speaker 9: just they're uncomfortable in front of a media and and
Speaker 9: and and the public speaking because they don't want to
Speaker 9: make a mistake and they don't want to look look. Uh,
Speaker 9: So they err on the side of not saying anything
Speaker 9: and talking their native language through an interpreter, and so
Speaker 9: sometimes that, you know, loses a little bit of the
Speaker 9: luster or or the attention you might get on what
Speaker 9: you're doing, you know. But but Otani, this is this
Speaker 9: is like a generational guy, like just you know what
Speaker 9: he not only what he does, but how he handles
Speaker 9: his business every single day and goes about being a
Speaker 9: two way player. Now we're going to see how much
Speaker 9: of his arm is still there and and how he
Speaker 9: eases back into it. He's going to open tonight, maybe
Speaker 9: pitch just the first inning. If he gets through the
Speaker 9: first inning, and maybe they'll see how he feels and
Speaker 9: he says, yeah, I can go on throw another ten pitches.
Speaker 9: So we'll let him go out in the second inning
Speaker 9: and see how that goes and and ease him into it.
Speaker 9: But he still wants to be in the rhythm of
Speaker 9: pitching and hitting and pitching and hitting and playing all
Speaker 9: the time. That's what he's used to doing. That's where
Speaker 9: he gets his rhythm for being able to focus all
Speaker 9: the time. And it's it's gonna be exciting to see
Speaker 9: to see how he performs tonight, first time in almost
Speaker 9: two years on the mound.
Speaker 1: Total non sequitor, random question, but it was based off
Speaker 1: of what you said last segment about Raphael Rougeo. Yes,
Speaker 1: who I can remember like scouting during that time in
Speaker 1: Washington playing and be like, well, he's bad at basketball.
Speaker 1: I know he's big and strong, but he doesn't do anything.
Speaker 1: He can't shoot, he can't dribble, he doesn't move well,
Speaker 1: but he's just big. So stunned that he was drafted eight,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask what was your because that had
Speaker 1: a really unique experience at the Mountain West Conference tournament
Speaker 1: when for debt was for debt when Jimmer was jimmering,
Speaker 1: and it was actually Danny Ainge who said, comes sit
Speaker 1: by me and let's watch this game. That was when
Speaker 1: Jimmer went for like I don't know, I think it
Speaker 1: was forty two against Kawhi and San Diego State. And
Speaker 1: I said to Danny, said, what do you think as
Speaker 1: far as Jimmer is an NBA prospect? He said he said,
Speaker 1: he has no shot test have a chance. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you're a BYU guy. And he kind of walked me
Speaker 1: through his assertion as to why he didn't believe for
Speaker 1: that was an NBA player. He was a lottery pick
Speaker 1: and BYU fans love to be revisionist. Historians will say
Speaker 1: he wasn't used correctly by Keith Smart, and then you
Speaker 1: know that hinder disagree. He would have led the NBA
Speaker 1: in scoring if he landed. It's very Zach Wilson Jets.
Speaker 1: You just don't want to say out loud that he
Speaker 1: might not be very good. What was your calculation on
Speaker 1: for det as a pro?
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, well we thought our group, you know, really
Speaker 9: was mixed on him, mostly about whether he could be
Speaker 9: a fridge a rotational guy or whether he just wasn't
Speaker 9: good enough to play at the NBA level. I personally
Speaker 9: always thought that he was the kind of guy, you know,
Speaker 9: who would thrive either in Europe because of the way
Speaker 9: they play. I really thought he'd be a good player
Speaker 9: in the euro League, which is which is a top
Speaker 9: level league, or a place where he ended up which
Speaker 9: was the best thing for him in the long run,
Speaker 9: playing in China where there is no defense and where
Speaker 9: he could shoot thirty five balls a game, and which
Speaker 9: he did, and he did it, and he was the star.
Speaker 9: And he was playing in Shanghai and which is like
Speaker 9: playing in New York City. So he's getting all the
Speaker 9: endorsements and he's getting all the love from the fans
Speaker 9: and all that kind of stuff. And he didn't have
Speaker 9: to worry about playing defense, and he didn't have to
Speaker 9: worry about, you know, not being very athletic. Uh and
Speaker 9: and that league is that way, and and it was
Speaker 9: a good good spot for him, made a lot of money,
Speaker 9: got to play a lot for him. You know, he
Speaker 9: was you know, bounced around several NBA teams just not
Speaker 9: athletic enough, not not quite good enough, you know, to
Speaker 9: stick with the team to be able to offer something
Speaker 9: like that like we we had.
Speaker 3: We had j C.
Speaker 9: Carroll in for a workout when he was coming out
Speaker 9: of Utah State, all Utah States, all time leading score.
Speaker 9: And I remember meeting with jay C and saying to him, hey,
Speaker 9: you know, you uh, you have to have one skill
Speaker 9: you can lay on and you have to be able
Speaker 9: to do that at such a high level to just
Speaker 9: get a foot in the door. And for him, it
Speaker 9: was going to be you know, being his catch and
Speaker 9: shoot jumper and and and it wasn't gonna work out
Speaker 9: in the NBA because he's a six to two shooting guard.
Speaker 9: But he went to Europe and and got his foot
Speaker 9: in the door with Real Madrid and became a a
Speaker 9: UH main guy and a rotational guy and a key
Speaker 9: piece to several UH euro League and La Liga championed
Speaker 9: ACB Championship teams in Madrid and UH became a mainstay
Speaker 9: in Real Madrid for over a decade and UH, you
Speaker 9: know it was it was a very good player in Europe.
Speaker 9: And Jimmer I always thought he could have been that
Speaker 9: he had one year panton KOs and Athens and there
Speaker 9: there a can be a top level team. I just
Speaker 9: won the euro League but last year. But they they're
Speaker 9: a team that where he could have a chance. But
Speaker 9: they were they kind of have a goofy owner, you know,
Speaker 9: who gets involved in everything there and UH, and he
Speaker 9: didn't get any traction with them, and and I think
Speaker 9: smart for him he went back to UH, to Shanghai
Speaker 9: and and UH where he could play his game and
Speaker 9: and and make some money and and UH and have
Speaker 9: a good successful career that way. So you know, I
Speaker 9: don't think Jimmer was taken ten by Sacramento. And he
Speaker 9: was the perfect example spence of how the CBA is
Speaker 9: set up to work. And that is on the one end,
Speaker 9: you can have like a Gordon Hayward, who if a
Speaker 9: team drafts you, and they like you, and they develop
Speaker 9: you and they want you. The team controls your career
Speaker 9: for the first seven years, and then the back half
Speaker 9: of your career you control where you want to go.
Speaker 9: And we saw that with Gordon Hayward when he had
Speaker 9: the free agency after the seventh year and chose to
Speaker 9: go to Boston. Jimmer for Debt was taken the first round.
Speaker 9: You get two years guaranteed money. You have a third
Speaker 9: year team option and a fourth year team option. Sacramento
Speaker 9: took him. They had him for two years. They liked
Speaker 9: him as a player, they liked him as a guy,
Speaker 9: as a person, as a worker, all that stuff. They
Speaker 9: determined after two years he's just not an NBA guy.
Speaker 9: So instead of continuing to have him on the roster
Speaker 9: and to pay him money and we just don't believe
Speaker 9: he can do it, we're just gonna cut our losses.
Speaker 9: So in that example, they drafted him, they go for
Speaker 9: he played for two years, he gets the guaranteed money,
Speaker 9: and then they let him go and now he's a
Speaker 9: free agent and do whatever he wants. But then the
Speaker 9: team is out of the obligation and they can move
Speaker 9: on to make other decisions. That's that's how the CBA
Speaker 9: is set up to work. Oddly enough, two guys involved
Speaker 9: locally that we know very well, Jimmerferd Debt on one
Speaker 9: end and Gordon Hayward on the other end, that there
Speaker 9: are prime examples of how the CBA is set up
Speaker 9: to work, yep, in the way that the teams choose
Speaker 9: to do.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do one more Jazz thought because I
Speaker 1: didn't get to this last segment. Then we'll end with
Speaker 1: your thoughts on tonight's game five. It's a massive game.
Speaker 1: It's about two hours and twenty minutes away. You can
Speaker 1: hear it on our station. It's okay, see Indiana Game
Speaker 1: five in the NBA Finals. So we discussed the win
Speaker 1: horse stuff where he's been told the Jazz are going
Speaker 1: to try to take steps forward and add to the
Speaker 1: group and maybe win at a higher level next year.
Speaker 1: I'm not buying it because I just don't think it's
Speaker 1: the right approach. As I have said a million times,
Speaker 1: and we'll say another million times. Eighth pick, top eight
Speaker 1: protected pick that goes to OKC. At this point in
Speaker 1: your journey, you have to hold on to it.
Speaker 2: That's my opinion.
Speaker 1: So the other avenue that Tom Haberstrow and I had
Speaker 1: spoke about, is if san Antonio is willing to move
Speaker 1: on from two and the Jazz have done their determination,
Speaker 1: that Dylan Harper, as you would say, is a guy
Speaker 1: the guys somebody that you can say, Okay, maybe this
Speaker 1: is Arcade, Maybe this is our Bancaro, Maybe this is
Speaker 1: our Tyres, maybe this is our Maybe this is the
Speaker 1: guy that can actually be a guy that we can
Speaker 1: build around san Antonio. It's interesting, like they're not gonna.
Speaker 1: I don't think they would trade Devin Vessel. They're obviously
Speaker 1: not trading Wembin Yama, They're obviously not trading Stefan Castle.
Speaker 1: So the framework of a deal Smitty that could work
Speaker 1: would sound like this Kelton Johnson, who there's some things
Speaker 1: like about Kelton Johnson, like he's still young's twenty five,
Speaker 1: doesn't shoot it all that well. He's about twelve points
Speaker 1: five boards last year, and Harrison Barnes in exchange for
Speaker 1: lowry marketing number five. You move up to two, you
Speaker 1: bring in Johnson and Barnes just for salary matches, and
Speaker 1: you go up to two, and you grab, you grab
Speaker 1: Dylan Harper. Something like that seems to make a lot
Speaker 1: more sense than like, if you add Porzingis and Holiday
Speaker 1: to this team now for nothing in return, you're still
Speaker 1: treading water. So that direction seems to make more sense
Speaker 1: to me just generally speaking. Give me your thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it makes sense, Bence.
Speaker 9: If you've determined that you know in this scenario that
Speaker 9: Dylan Harper, you think he's gonna be another the next
Speaker 9: John Morant, or the next Damian Lillard or the next
Speaker 9: Gilgess Alexander whatever. If you think he can be that
Speaker 9: kind of a guy and drive a team that way,
Speaker 9: then you do. If you're in the jazz seat, you
Speaker 9: do whatever you have to do to get that guy,
Speaker 9: because it doesn't matter because the other the guys you're
Speaker 9: giving up, the assets you're giving up, what does it matter.
Speaker 9: That's why you have them. So when you have an
Speaker 9: opportunity to land on a guy that you believe can
Speaker 9: be one of your main guy's long term going forward,
Speaker 9: you do that now. I do remember, and I don't
Speaker 9: know if it's been talked about reported on lately, you know,
Speaker 9: in that framework, way back early in the season, I
Speaker 9: remember there was some quote from his dad saying something about, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: my son and I don't want my son playing in
Speaker 9: Utah or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he sent out something on social media.
Speaker 3: Yea, it was something like that, but okay whatever. But
Speaker 3: but you but those those are real things.
Speaker 9: So if you you know, you know, that's how Eli
Speaker 9: Manning got from instead of being in San Diego, got
Speaker 9: to New York Giants because he said he's not going
Speaker 9: to play in San Diego. And now what John Elway,
Speaker 9: did you know he wasn't gonna play for for Baltimore?
Speaker 3: Are you you know?
Speaker 9: That's how we ended up in Denver and all these
Speaker 9: kinds of things. So if a guy is saying right
Speaker 9: out of the shoot, you know, I you know, if
Speaker 9: that's true. I don't know if it is or not.
Speaker 9: And it wasn't him, it was his dad whatever. And
Speaker 9: I don't know this kid and haven't been in a
Speaker 9: room with him, so I don't know how he how
Speaker 9: he interviews, what his personality is, whatever. But if those
Speaker 9: things line up, and those things match up to what
Speaker 9: you're trying to do, and his talent is something that
Speaker 9: you think is really has a chance to be a
Speaker 9: special thing, especially at the point guard position, that's a
Speaker 9: guy you want to get hands on because as we
Speaker 9: just mentioned Spence A. You're resetting the salary clock. Okay,
Speaker 9: you get out of marketing his money. In that scenario,
Speaker 9: you bring in Barns, you bring in somebody to get
Speaker 9: money for a year or so, and then that money
Speaker 9: goes away. But you'd have Harper for at least a
Speaker 9: minimum of seven years under control while you try and
Speaker 9: build stuff around him. If that's something that that you're
Speaker 9: convinced about is a real thing and that you would
Speaker 9: like to hang your hat on, then those are the
Speaker 9: kinds of things that you as a jazz have been
Speaker 9: positioning yourself to do. And now if this is something
Speaker 9: that might be presented, it might be on the table.
Speaker 9: That's the kind of thing that you know, from my perspective,
Speaker 9: you you just grab, you do that that Jim Fossil thing.
Speaker 9: You just push all your chips in the middle of
Speaker 9: the table, and you bet on that one hand and
Speaker 9: you do whatever you gotta do to make that move happen.
Speaker 9: And that that's the kind of stuff. Spencer really also
Speaker 9: regenerates or reignites, i should say, a fan base, right
Speaker 9: because they because they say, oh, you you got a
Speaker 9: guy you really like, Oh and you're really you're really
Speaker 9: going after and you got him and you're bringing him, Okay,
Speaker 9: let's go. You know, and you know and then and
Speaker 9: then you see it plays out how it plays out.
Speaker 9: But those are the kind of moves that you want
Speaker 9: to be in position to be able to do and
Speaker 9: and uh and if they're there, you want to really
Speaker 9: be able to to make your full commitment to pounce
Speaker 9: on it.
Speaker 1: Man if san Antonio added lowry marketing and let's say VJ.
Speaker 1: Edgecomb or Trey Johnson to this group, Hello, talk about
Speaker 1: ahead of schedule. Uh, so we'll see, all right, smitdie
Speaker 1: before I set you loose. I think my favorite thing
Speaker 1: about the NBA Finals is from my prism, all four
Speaker 1: games have been really different, right, and this is a
Speaker 1: battle of two very well respected, smart coaches and two
Speaker 1: groups that have been able to come together and in
Speaker 1: different ways been able to find success. I keep saying
Speaker 1: since January, the two best teams in the NBA are
Speaker 1: these two teams. Okace is one and the Pacers are two.
Speaker 1: So we saw Mark Dagnall in Game four take Shay
Speaker 1: off the ball and actually give Shay more rest and
Speaker 1: Jalen was kind of initiating the offense. So if you
Speaker 1: didn't watch the game, and you look at Shay's line,
Speaker 1: he said, wait, zero assists, what gives? That was part
Speaker 1: of the design he was not initiating. It allowed him
Speaker 1: to stay fresh and in the fourth quarter he closed
Speaker 1: he had twelve point I think fifteen in the fourth
Speaker 1: they outscored Indiana twelve one down the stretch to get
Speaker 1: the winning game four. We go back to Okase tonight
Speaker 1: for game five. Obviously very pivotal. It's two two. What
Speaker 1: do you think goes down?
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, it's a fun series to watch, and I
Speaker 9: don't count out anybody spends you know, you like okay see,
Speaker 9: I like okay see. The defense has been unbelievable all
Speaker 9: year and during the playoffs, and they can ratchet it up.
Speaker 9: But Indiana has had some special thing going on. And
Speaker 9: you can look at all the three series they had
Speaker 9: before this, and they had, as you well know, being
Speaker 9: a Knixt guy, special bounces of the and special things
Speaker 9: that happened.
Speaker 1: And the next contact to you about the coaching job.
Speaker 9: Yet by the way, just you know, I I am
Speaker 9: on the bottom of the list, but they're getting very
Speaker 9: close to me, so so we will see the But
Speaker 9: but with that, you know, Indiana has had a lot
Speaker 9: of things go their way and and and a lot
Speaker 9: of them been.
Speaker 3: Because of them.
Speaker 9: You know what we would we always use the word,
Speaker 9: you know, you want to make an if you make
Speaker 9: an error doing something, you want to make an error
Speaker 9: of co mission rather than an error of O mission,
Speaker 9: meaning meaning if you're going to fail as something, you
Speaker 9: want to try and and and and get something done
Speaker 9: and try and go after it. Those guys have gotten
Speaker 9: to where they are because they just keep getting after it.
Speaker 9: And even when they're down a bunch, as we've seen
Speaker 9: in several of their playoff games, they just keep grinding
Speaker 9: and going after it. They don't give up. They don't
Speaker 9: they don't wave a white flag. They keep getting after it.
Speaker 9: And they and they've shown what you can do when
Speaker 9: you play a full forty eight minutes. You know the
Speaker 9: old Yogi berral line that it ain't over till it's over.
Speaker 9: And so you know, I don't put anything by them.
Speaker 9: I'm excited for the game tonight. It's gonna be fun,
Speaker 9: you know, for those guys to see both teams lay
Speaker 9: it all out there. And again, Spence, you just hope
Speaker 9: it doesn't hinge on somebody having an early Jason Tatum
Speaker 9: type injury or somebody getting three early fouls and two
Speaker 9: ticki tac foul calls and now they're out of the.
Speaker 3: Game for a big stretch.
Speaker 9: You just hope they can both go full bore and
Speaker 9: and go at it and then and then see like
Speaker 9: we did in the US Open yesterday, see what happens
Speaker 9: coming down the stretch in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 2: Should be fun.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 1: I've been wildly impressed with both these teams for different reasons.
Speaker 1: So Game five tonight comes your way about two hours
Speaker 1: from right now, six thirty Mountain time.
Speaker 2: We'll say good out at six o'clock. Smity, Great to
Speaker 2: see my friend.
Speaker 3: Great to see you. And we're gonna we're gonna be
Speaker 3: a show next.
Speaker 1: Week, right, Yes, we are Draft Draft cover Smitty Gordy,
Speaker 1: and we will be on location for both round one
Speaker 1: and round two. Oh good, June the twenty fifth, June
Speaker 1: the twenty sixth. And when I have all the information,
Speaker 1: you will be the first to know. I promise you
Speaker 1: that be the first.
Speaker 3: I'll be the first to though yet well I.
Speaker 1: Don't know yet. When I know, I promise you will know.
Speaker 3: There we go, Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week I met the great at Smith.
Speaker 1: I'm just realizing I dropped the ball. My bad lot
Speaker 1: going on fluid situation, busy show, and I was supposed
Speaker 1: to bring in our next guest with the best boy
Speaker 1: band in the history of Provo. And of course I
Speaker 1: don't have to say the name, because everybody knows who
Speaker 1: I'm talking about when I say that, Ryles Jericho Road.
Speaker 2: I forgot, man, I apologize, how are you, Bud?
Speaker 8: We've got We've got a lot more appearances coming up
Speaker 8: through the summer and fall. I have no doubt that
Speaker 8: Porter will be able to find some I mean, who
Speaker 8: doesn't love a little good JR On on a Monday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Don't call them JR.
Speaker 1: And in an honest moment, I'm actually very upset you
Speaker 1: reintroduced them to me because I may have gone down
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole to watch their music. It's the most
Speaker 1: irritating thing in the world. So I'm actually kind of
Speaker 1: mad at you, Bill.
Speaker 8: Are they are they still playing?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 8: Are they still doing summer tours? Are they are they
Speaker 8: they hitting you know, linger longers and trying to trying
Speaker 8: to get people to re rekindle their careers.
Speaker 1: I really hope not because now they're probably in their
Speaker 1: late forties. But the one that looks like Tony Jones
Speaker 1: is probably still making music somewhere.
Speaker 6: I hope Tony's listening. Jack probably have no idea who
Speaker 6: they are. Now he's going to google them.
Speaker 1: Jerich Co wrote, has a member that looks like Tony Jones.
Speaker 1: That's stop me when I'm lying, Bill, stop me when
Speaker 1: I'm lying.
Speaker 8: I'm not stopping you.
Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough?
Speaker 2: How you doing?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 8: Oh good?
Speaker 5: Are you?
Speaker 3: I'm good?
Speaker 2: What's uh?
Speaker 1: What's got the attention? What's got the Bill Riley attention
Speaker 1: these days?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 8: Well, today I was fortunate enough to sit down with
Speaker 8: some of the football coaches putting kind of a podcast
Speaker 8: series together with Utah Football that will drop a little
Speaker 8: bit later on this summer. So I was kind of
Speaker 8: in a little bit of a football mode. Porter reminded me,
Speaker 8: I believe we're seventy five days until kickoff. So that's
Speaker 8: that's there. And outside of that, I've I've not been
Speaker 8: wildly entertained by the NBA Final. I don't know why
Speaker 8: I've tried. It's it's just not catching me. But the
Speaker 8: hockey is I've been all in on Panthers oilers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Stanley Cup Final has been awesome. It has been.
Speaker 1: It has been every year. It's great. I'm hoping for
Speaker 1: seven games. I feel like Florida might close it out tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But since you, you know, our listeners always interested for
Speaker 1: a little behind the scenes peak at the Utah football program,
Speaker 1: and we'll do some big twelve basketball schedule stuff and
Speaker 1: maybe some house VN Cuba because everybody wants to talk
Speaker 1: about that. But since you, since you are behind closed
Speaker 1: doors now in a way that you didn't used to
Speaker 1: be working up there, what can you shed on a
Speaker 1: little light as far as as the coaching situation, how
Speaker 1: they're feeling, and maybe you know, expand on this podcast
Speaker 1: here as you have coming up.
Speaker 8: It's well, the series will be kind of a little
Speaker 8: bit later on this summer. It's just me sitting down.
Speaker 8: It's not all football. It's just kind of like lifetimes,
Speaker 8: how did you get here? Things like that, kind of diving.
Speaker 8: They're not super long, they're not Joe Rogan three hour
Speaker 8: long deals, but it's kind of a good snapshot. And
Speaker 8: there's a handful of new coaches on the staff. Some
Speaker 8: of the guys have been there. It's just kind of
Speaker 8: just kind of you know, talking about football and careers
Speaker 8: and things like that. It's been a lot of fun
Speaker 8: to catch up with these guys. I know them, but
Speaker 8: you know, some of the guys you see and everybody's
Speaker 8: always busy. There's been a fun time just to kind
Speaker 8: of sit down and catch up and reconnect with them.
Speaker 8: But as far as you know, I'm over at the
Speaker 8: football building a couple of times a week, and you know,
Speaker 8: it's a lot of what we talked about Spence. There's
Speaker 8: just a really good vibe around the group. I mean,
Speaker 8: there just really is. Talking to some of the defensive coaches,
Speaker 8: they saw that all offense firsthand this spring. They're excited
Speaker 8: about what the possibilities are. You talk to the offensive coaches,
Speaker 8: they're like, hey man, we went against one of the
Speaker 8: best defenses all spring in the Big twelve in college football,
Speaker 8: and it's you know, kind of the iron sharpens iron thing.
Speaker 8: So you know, there's still a month and a half
Speaker 8: out from camp beginning, but there's a really, really good vibe,
Speaker 8: and I think there's a lot of excitement in the building,
Speaker 8: not just among coaches. When you talk to the players,
Speaker 8: there's a good buzz about it too, So that's just
Speaker 8: kind of where football is right now. But I'll give
Speaker 8: you some dates maybe on a future hit with you
Speaker 8: on when some of these podcasts are going to drop.
Speaker 8: But it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a nice
Speaker 8: look inside of Utah football on the coaching side of things.
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, we're not going to get
Speaker 1: two hours of Jim Hardy and on Iver Mechnin.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 8: Yeah, probably not more Haley incitings with Marcott tuwaya.
Speaker 1: Okay, Hey, I'm an idea man. I think there might
Speaker 1: be something there. But fair enough so I know that
Speaker 1: as an employee, you can't speak about the past, you know,
Speaker 1: three or four weeks when they've been hosting recruits. But
Speaker 1: we do have media information on players that have signed,
Speaker 1: so I'll leave that aside for the sake of this conversation,
Speaker 1: give our listeners kind of an inside peak on what
Speaker 1: these visits are like and what the coaching staff says
Speaker 1: to the players. And now they're kind of selling their
Speaker 1: program to these young men.
Speaker 8: You know, I think they're really obviously selling culture. They
Speaker 8: always sell culture up there, and even with all the
Speaker 8: changes in college football, one of the constants. I think
Speaker 8: has been the culture and the family atmosphere. The Kyle
Speaker 8: Whittingham and before Kyle it was Ron McBride have really
Speaker 8: fostered up there. And I think in this day and age,
Speaker 8: where you go around a lot of places, I think
Speaker 8: some of the feedback is that a lot of places
Speaker 8: these recruits go. You know, we know money is going
Speaker 8: to certainly be a component of it, but the feedback
Speaker 8: that they get a lot from these recruits is how
Speaker 8: impressed they are by the culture and the continent. He
Speaker 8: up there with the Utah coaching staff and even the
Speaker 8: players within the building, and you know, you know in
Speaker 8: the years, here's interesting. I got this from a few
Speaker 8: different people. One of the guys and we talked about
Speaker 8: this a little bit with Cam Robot, with Cam Rising
Speaker 8: and even Britain Covey when he was there. How those
Speaker 8: guys were such great ambassadors for Utah football. And we're
Speaker 8: really in on the recruiting. I've been told by a
Speaker 8: number of people to Devin Dampier, we're talking about a
Speaker 8: guy that's been here all of six months. He's already
Speaker 8: won over his teammates. But apparently he's been a guy
Speaker 8: that's been all in and you know, during the recruiting
Speaker 8: process and being wanting to meet with recruits and talk
Speaker 8: with guys and do some of that stuff. So I
Speaker 8: think the message has really been a positive one. And
Speaker 8: I think the new offense certainly is getting some shine
Speaker 8: too because of some of the track record that Beck
Speaker 8: has had at both Syrah Hughes. But even last year
Speaker 8: at New Mexico.
Speaker 1: What have you learned about coach back? Of course, new
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator. A lot of fans very excited about this
Speaker 1: new offense with Devin and Waishan and some other new pieces.
Speaker 1: But from the day you and it's one thing to
Speaker 1: read about him, it's the one. It's one thing to
Speaker 1: watch film on his previous you know, offenses or what
Speaker 1: have you. It's another thing to know the measure of
Speaker 1: the man. It's another thing to get to know him
Speaker 1: and talk to him. And in the course of the
Speaker 1: months he's been on campus. What sort of information can
Speaker 1: you sut as far as getting to know him? What
Speaker 1: kind of person is he? What kind of coaches he?
Speaker 8: Well, he's a great guy. His door is always open,
Speaker 8: you know, sometimes coaches even if you pop by it
Speaker 8: or like oh hi, well I'm busy Jason's one of
Speaker 8: these really outgoing, affable guys who it feels like every
Speaker 8: time I bump into and we talked for five or
Speaker 8: ten minutes about football and about life and about his
Speaker 8: move and getting the family here and being back here
Speaker 8: in Utah and how excited they are. But from a
Speaker 8: football standpoint, a lot of the feedback I've gotten in
Speaker 8: talking to players and coaches through the spring as they
Speaker 8: integrate this offense is how malleable it is. Meaning he's
Speaker 8: a guy that has an idea of what he wants
Speaker 8: to do. But what he's really good at doing, because
Speaker 8: he did it at both Syracuse and New Mexico, is
Speaker 8: is adapt his offense to the personnel that he has,
Speaker 8: If that makes sense. A lot of guys talk about it,
Speaker 8: but what they did in the one year at New
Speaker 8: Mexico was pretty impressive, being fourth in the NCAA in
Speaker 8: au total offense. When you know they Devin dan Pierre
Speaker 8: hadn't really been a starter, and some of the guys
Speaker 8: that they had were first year in the program. So
Speaker 8: what I've gotten is he's been really good at bringing
Speaker 8: these guys up to speed and melding his offensive philosophy
Speaker 8: with the guys that are in the program already. So
Speaker 8: I think that people are going to be very pleasantly
Speaker 8: surprised when they see this offense roll out this fall
Speaker 8: against UCLA and cal Poly and Wyoming and then obviously
Speaker 8: into conference play.
Speaker 2: So I was reading a big twelve.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the time of year where all
Speaker 1: the previews out and people are trying to prognosticate about
Speaker 1: predictions and such, and I believe I read Utah is
Speaker 1: near the bottom of the conference ever returning starters, which
Speaker 1: maybe some years that's not necessarily a good thing, but
Speaker 1: coming off a year where it was tough sledding in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, that may not necessarily be a
Speaker 1: bad thing.
Speaker 2: Forty new comers.
Speaker 1: According to coach Wit, it's looking like at this point
Speaker 1: the total includes twenty two high school signees from the
Speaker 1: early signing period in eighteen transfers overall. So talk to
Speaker 1: me about that dynamic ryles Like, again, some years, maybe
Speaker 1: losing a number of different starters for whatever reason could
Speaker 1: be catastrophic. It doesn't feel like that's the deal this year,
Speaker 1: with all the buzz surrounding the forty newcomers, tell me
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that.
Speaker 8: Dynamic offensively, about the only starters you have returning or
Speaker 8: the offensive line. Running backs are new, wide receivers are new.
Speaker 8: The tight ends that played last year really a lot
Speaker 8: are all gone. So you know the offensive line is
Speaker 8: going to be really good and they're all back, but
Speaker 8: it almost feels like, you know, Utah was recruited for
Speaker 8: a former offense, Andy Ludwig offense. A lot of that
Speaker 8: personnel was brought in for that. I don't think it's
Speaker 8: such a bad thing, especially in this day and age
Speaker 8: where rosters turn over so much, that you've got some
Speaker 8: new faces on offense. Defensively, they lost some starter spence,
Speaker 8: but because of all the injuries they had last year,
Speaker 8: so many of those guys played. So I don't think
Speaker 8: it's as big a deal on defense, and they actually
Speaker 8: return a bunch of starters on defense. But on the
Speaker 8: offensive side, especially with the changeover on offense, I don't
Speaker 8: think it's such a bad thing. Plus, you've upgraded your
Speaker 8: quarterback position in some ways. I think you've probably upgraded
Speaker 8: your starting tailback. Plus the overall depth of tailback tight
Speaker 8: end isn't going to be as big a part of
Speaker 8: the offense as it was maybe under Andy Ludwig. That's
Speaker 8: not to say it won't be a part of it,
Speaker 8: but you're not going to probably see as much three
Speaker 8: tight end sets as you did when Andy was calling
Speaker 8: the plays. The big question still is and they added
Speaker 8: some nice pieces in the in the summer portal period
Speaker 8: or the spring portal period at wide receiver. You know
Speaker 8: who those top six or seven wide receivers are, and
Speaker 8: so I think that's really the big task that Jason
Speaker 8: Beck and Mike A. Simon, the wide receivers coach have
Speaker 8: once they get back together camp at the end of July.
Speaker 1: It's always an interesting conversation out about the dynamic between
Speaker 1: coach Wit and his offensive coordinator. And you know, for
Speaker 1: a long time there was so much turnover that there
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of continuity. Coach Lot brought that to
Speaker 1: the program, and oftentimes it was discussed about how much
Speaker 1: autonomy did Andy hadjuckstaposed to the influence that Kyle has
Speaker 1: on a program that is his to run. Bottom line.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is the bucket will always stop with him.
Speaker 1: But tell me what you've noticed about the relationship and
Speaker 1: the dynamic between Coach Beck and Coach Wit. As far
Speaker 1: as how you think that's going to work with communication
Speaker 1: and autonomy and all those things.
Speaker 8: Well, I haven't seen a lot of it, only because
Speaker 8: it was springball. I mean, Kyle was around a little
Speaker 8: bit watching the new offense, but he's such a CEO,
Speaker 8: you know, you see him at practice moving around watching
Speaker 8: the offense, watching the defense, watching different things. I think
Speaker 8: that that's a relationship. Obviously, because they've never worked together,
Speaker 8: that's still evolving. But my sense is he hired Jason
Speaker 8: for a reason. He liked his offense. And I know
Speaker 8: that Morgan Scally had some input on it too, because
Speaker 8: obviously Scally's there, and I think Morgan's made the comment
Speaker 8: a couple of different times, and hey, what he likes
Speaker 8: about that the offense that Beck runs is Jason Beck
Speaker 8: is very good at finding ways to stress your defense,
Speaker 8: finding that weak link or where you're not quite as
Speaker 8: good defensively, and then exploiting it. And so I think
Speaker 8: that's a lot of what Kyle was looking for. Something
Speaker 8: that was a little bit more simplistic, that's a little
Speaker 8: bit more plug and play, but something that could stress
Speaker 8: other defenses while still kind of maintaining and Beck's offenses
Speaker 8: doesn't do this. There's balance with it. I mean they
Speaker 8: ran for over three thousand yards last year at New Mexico,
Speaker 8: they threw for about three thousand, and they rush for
Speaker 8: three thousand. That's pretty good balance. But as far as
Speaker 8: how that dynamic goes, I haven't seen it enough. I
Speaker 8: haven't been around it enough. I think it'll take kind
Speaker 8: of a fall. But I'm sure it's just kind of
Speaker 8: an evolving relationship now. Just because they haven't they haven't
Speaker 8: worked together a toime.
Speaker 2: So last Friday.
Speaker 1: And you'll get a kick out of this because you
Speaker 1: did this job on a daily basis for how many years?
Speaker 1: How many years did you do a daily radio show?
Speaker 3: Bill?
Speaker 8: Right? About twenty seven?
Speaker 1: All right, so you did it for a long long time.
Speaker 1: Next year will be twenty for me full time. I
Speaker 1: did part time for about four or five. So I'm
Speaker 1: getting close to your riles. But I got a few
Speaker 1: years left before I can say twenty seven. So you know,
Speaker 1: when when you finish your show and you getting alert
Speaker 1: five minutes later that something sizable has happened, you're like, oh, man, Like,
Speaker 1: so Friday News done, plast, Friday House NCAA is across
Speaker 1: the line, all right. So here's where I want to
Speaker 1: start with this portion of the conversation. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that are saying, Okay, finally, even playing field.
Speaker 1: Finally rules read will does sport ever have an even
Speaker 1: playing field? Or will will there always be a car
Speaker 1: dealer in Tuscaloosa that's willing.
Speaker 2: To pay a player five five million dollars or what like?
Speaker 1: Is it possible to make an absolutely even playing field
Speaker 1: so the Utahs and the Byus can keep up with
Speaker 1: the Oklahomas and the texas Is and the Bamas.
Speaker 2: Is that ever going to be a thing?
Speaker 8: Well, No, I don't think the even playing field. What
Speaker 8: this does is kind of balance it out a little
Speaker 8: bit more. But you're still able to donate to your
Speaker 8: I don't know if collective is the right word anymore.
Speaker 8: Some are still separate, Some have been brought in house
Speaker 8: that that house settlement money is almost just kind of
Speaker 8: like a floor or a baseline spence. There's going to
Speaker 8: be programs that are still going to be spending more
Speaker 8: and above that based on donations that come in. But
Speaker 8: that does enable schools to be able to remain competitive
Speaker 8: in some places. But the Ohio States and the Oregons
Speaker 8: and the Michigan and maybe the USC's of the world.
Speaker 8: They're you know, if they're committed, and it doesn't even
Speaker 8: have to be just those schools, schools where they're committed
Speaker 8: to it, they'll they'll probably still go above and beyond that.
Speaker 8: But what it does do is give schools the ability
Speaker 8: to be able to be competitive to a certain level.
Speaker 8: But unless you went to a full on salary cap.
Speaker 8: And here's the other problem, and we've seen this forever
Speaker 8: in collegiate athletic spense. People have always been willing to
Speaker 8: break the rules, or been the rules, or circumvent the rules.
Speaker 8: Now they's supposed to be a third party coming in
Speaker 8: that's supposed to be, you know, kind of the law
Speaker 8: enforcement branch of this, and they're supposed to be very
Speaker 8: punitive penalties if schools are found to be breaking rules.
Speaker 8: But we've heard that before with the n double A.
Speaker 8: I'm going to be really curious to see how that works.
Speaker 8: But you know, unless you go to some sort of
Speaker 8: a pro model where you know, you know, you can't
Speaker 8: circumvent the salary cap in the National Football League, other
Speaker 8: leagues do, I mean nobody else as a hard cap.
Speaker 8: They have aprons and luxury taxes and things like that,
Speaker 8: but if you want to be truly even, the only
Speaker 8: way to do that is to go to a hard cap,
Speaker 8: and there's only one place that's done that really in
Speaker 8: all of sports. Well, I shouldn't say that, because I
Speaker 8: think the NHL has a hard cap too, don't they.
Speaker 8: So maybe the NFL and the NHL, I think, are
Speaker 8: the only two professional sports to do that. But I
Speaker 8: don't see a day anytime soon where college athletics is
Speaker 8: even for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't see that. I don't see that day ever,
Speaker 1: quite frankly. And yes, I mean, I do believe that
Speaker 1: collective bargaining is needed, and I think at some point
Speaker 1: powerful attorneys will step in and unionize these young people
Speaker 1: that play sports and institutions and implement collective bargaining with
Speaker 1: governing bodies. I don't know if that's for all sports,
Speaker 1: probably not, but certainly for football and basketball. And I
Speaker 1: want to move over here. So, according to Dan Wetzel,
Speaker 1: the initial estimate within the industry as far as how
Speaker 1: athletic departments will to siminate the cash they have at
Speaker 1: their disposal to pay these players now, so twenty point
Speaker 1: five million, okay, so seventy five percent of that allocated
Speaker 1: to football players, fifteen percent of that allocated to men's
Speaker 1: basketball players, five percent to women's basketball players, and then
Speaker 1: five percent to other sports. Now, Mark, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: I'm asking him the question, So get off of them
Speaker 1: if you don't like the answer. Do you have any
Speaker 1: insight as to how Utah plans to disseminate their twenty
Speaker 1: point five million No.
Speaker 8: I don't. I haven't set in on any of those meetings.
Speaker 8: I don't know if that will become public either. I
Speaker 8: think what Wetzel did was probably average it based on
Speaker 8: his guestimations and talking to people. That feels a little high,
Speaker 8: not completely high. But I think I was on with
Speaker 8: Sean on Friday and I said, probably in that sixty
Speaker 8: five to seventy percent range would be probably where you
Speaker 8: saw football. One because it's the engine that drives the machine.
Speaker 8: But two, there's just so many more players on the roster.
Speaker 8: You need more money to be able to fund that.
Speaker 8: So I you know, again everybody's guessing at it. It
Speaker 8: sounds a little high to me. The Wetzel numbers not
Speaker 8: too high, but it sounds a little high. I would
Speaker 8: guess more in the sixty five to seventy range probably
Speaker 8: for football across the board, and I would say men's
Speaker 8: basketball probably will get, you know, in the neighborhood of
Speaker 8: fifteen to eighteen percent, and then women's basketball and that
Speaker 8: five to ten and the rest spread out along the
Speaker 8: among the Olympic sports, would be my guest.
Speaker 1: Now, when it comes to NIL, I think there are
Speaker 1: people that maybe don't fully grasp that this is not
Speaker 1: that okay, this is money that schools can now pay
Speaker 1: the players.
Speaker 2: NIL is separate from it.
Speaker 1: You reference this new College Sports Commission that's being run
Speaker 1: by Brian Seey, who is a former Major League Baseball executive.
Speaker 1: So now everybody has to report NIL deals of six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars or more and it goes through kind of
Speaker 1: this algorithm Deloitte, you know, some other software will be involved.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you have any insight on how, if
Speaker 1: at all, this effects in the University of Utah.
Speaker 8: No athletes will still be able to go out and
Speaker 8: pursue individual deals, There's no doubt about that. And in
Speaker 8: a lot of ways, the athletic department, the Crimson Club,
Speaker 8: all those folks are going to do their best. They
Speaker 8: have been already. They're going to make even more of
Speaker 8: a concerted effort on top of what you said, and
Speaker 8: you said it correct. The settlement is different. But most
Speaker 8: of these universities in Utah included, have a you know,
Speaker 8: a section of their athletic department now dedicated to this,
Speaker 8: and they want to do their best to help these athletes,
Speaker 8: Like you said, whether it's a six hundred dollars deal
Speaker 8: or whether it's a sixty thousand dollars deal, you know,
Speaker 8: help connect them with donors or business owners in the
Speaker 8: community to be able to do that. So yes, I mean,
Speaker 8: I think we've conflated the terms nil And for a
Speaker 8: long long time, the true nature of name, image and
Speaker 8: likeness was supposed to be about the individual going out
Speaker 8: and kind of seeking it on their own, and I
Speaker 8: think that's still there, and I think schools, including Utah,
Speaker 8: got to try to get back to that a lot
Speaker 8: more and help their athletes connect. On top of what
Speaker 8: we had already talked about with the house settlement money.
Speaker 2: What have been your impressions of Brett Yormark.
Speaker 1: I forgot to ask you this last hit because he
Speaker 1: signed a contract extension, we had a chance to sit
Speaker 1: with him big twelve media days. I'm sure we'll have
Speaker 1: a chance doing that coming up in just a few
Speaker 1: weeks in Dallas. But whether it's being able to interview
Speaker 1: him or just kind of sit back and witness the
Speaker 1: way he's gone about his business, what's your impression of
Speaker 1: the Big twelve commissioner.
Speaker 8: I've not had a chance to interview him before I
Speaker 8: left the station last year. I tried and tried and tried.
Speaker 8: I was never able to connect with it. I'm hoping
Speaker 8: I'm going to be down to Big twelve media days
Speaker 8: as well. I'm hoping to get a chance to do that.
Speaker 8: What I like about brett yor Mark is he's out
Speaker 8: there and he's not taking a back. I always kind
Speaker 8: of felt like, until the very very end, where the
Speaker 8: Pac twelve was fighting for its life, that the past
Speaker 8: twelve was a lot more reactive versus proactive. And I
Speaker 8: like the fact that your Mark in a lot of things.
Speaker 8: Nobody's perfect, but I like the fact that he's a
Speaker 8: lot more proactive, whether it's with college basketball ideas or
Speaker 8: marketing the league, or I just I liked when you know,
Speaker 8: the Big ten was trying to shove a you know,
Speaker 8: all those automatic bids down everybody's throat for the college
Speaker 8: football playoff. I've never understood that, Spence. Why why do
Speaker 8: we give multiple automatic bids for all these different like
Speaker 8: we don't do the college basketball Tournament's what we all love.
Speaker 8: You get one automatic bid is a conference champion, then
Speaker 8: everything else is up in the air.
Speaker 6: I never understood.
Speaker 8: I love the five to eleven matchup where every conference
Speaker 8: champion the five big conferences or the four and then
Speaker 8: the one get an automatic bid. Then there's eleven at largest.
Speaker 8: You're trying to get the best teams in there. And
Speaker 8: I liked what your Mark said about that is, you know,
Speaker 8: if you're having a good year, then you deserve it.
Speaker 8: If you're not, why should you get more automatic bids?
Speaker 8: You actually deserve so round about way to say what
Speaker 8: you said, it's still a small sample size. I'd like
Speaker 8: to get a chance to talk with him. But from afar,
Speaker 8: I think Utah being in the Big twelve, and your
Speaker 8: Marcus a commissioner, has been has been positive reports today.
Speaker 1: More conference alignment on the way, it doesn't really affect
Speaker 1: Utah are the Big twelve, you know, and this is
Speaker 1: another deal. I've just become resigned to the fact that
Speaker 1: we are going to have to deal with stuff like this,
Speaker 1: probably in perpetuity, and there will be appeals to lawsuits
Speaker 1: that have been settled, and it's just the lawyers are
Speaker 1: just going to get rich and we're all going to
Speaker 1: sit back and wait for Saturdays in the fall.
Speaker 2: But before we get to basketball and we'll end with
Speaker 2: some hoops.
Speaker 1: Are you still in a space where you believe college
Speaker 1: football eventually will mirror the NFL? Or do you think
Speaker 1: it's kind of be what it is and we're just
Speaker 1: going to continue to see lawsuits filed here and appeals
Speaker 1: filed there, and we're just going to kind of have
Speaker 1: to deal with the chaos, you know, kind of moving forward.
Speaker 8: It feels like we're trending toward the Super League, and
Speaker 8: I think whatever that's super league happens to be, whether
Speaker 8: it's thirty, forty fifty or sixty teams, I think that's
Speaker 8: set up because I think it's going to be separate
Speaker 8: from everything else. Again, this is just me hypothesizing. I
Speaker 8: think that will be an NFL type model. It will
Speaker 8: be either a pro type model to it, whether it's
Speaker 8: wildcards or conference champions or whatever it is. I think
Speaker 8: when the day comes, whether it's three years, five years,
Speaker 8: or ten years from now, when college football does eventually
Speaker 8: go to that super league, I think it's going to
Speaker 8: have very much a pro and kind of an NFL
Speaker 8: feel to it. I don't know what happens with the
Speaker 8: rest of it. I don't know what happens with basketball
Speaker 8: at that point, if conferences are still a thing for
Speaker 8: everything but football. But my sense is on the football
Speaker 8: side of it, we're trending toward the Super League at
Speaker 8: some point, and I think that will have a bit
Speaker 8: more of a pro model to it all.
Speaker 1: Right before I said, you lose summer practice going on
Speaker 1: for the basketball team and the roster has been compared
Speaker 1: he did with a German guard. I believe it's Jacob Patrick.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like a German player, but there you go.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you've got a chance to
Speaker 1: witness any of the practices. We had al on a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, and we kind of got to
Speaker 1: know some of these new players. But just your thoughts
Speaker 1: on and also realistic expectations you're one in the big
Speaker 1: twelve for this roster and this new coaching staph Anie
Speaker 1: information on the new basketball team led by former you
Speaker 1: and Alex Jensen.
Speaker 8: I think if you want to make it sound more German,
Speaker 8: you go with Yakob, there we go, there we go,
Speaker 8: and that'll make it feel more. I've seen them working
Speaker 8: out a little bit. I've seen a little bit of
Speaker 8: open gym. Here's what I think. I think that they
Speaker 8: have gone with the upgraded athletic get after it model,
Speaker 8: kind of a just talking with Alex and you've talked
Speaker 8: to him too, I just get the sense they're building
Speaker 8: this foundation and they want to really get after it
Speaker 8: defensively and they want to get out and run. And
Speaker 8: I think they've gone out and I fight guys that
Speaker 8: fit with where they're at. With all of that, I
Speaker 8: don't have any idea yet. I want to see him
Speaker 8: kind of on the floor a little bit more together.
Speaker 8: But you know, I've said it before and I'll say
Speaker 8: it again. When you're at the University of Utah, your
Speaker 8: expectation should always be competing for an NCAA tournament Berth.
Speaker 8: I know that they've turned the roster over, but I
Speaker 8: think if you're at Utah, with the resources Utah has,
Speaker 8: I think that you should be able to at least
Speaker 8: compete for an nc doll. I'm not saying it'll happen
Speaker 8: in year one with twelve new faces. But we've seen
Speaker 8: that happen in other places around the country. But I
Speaker 8: think they should certainly be competitive and be in the conversation.
Speaker 8: You know, you want Lenardi talking about you, at least
Speaker 8: if that makes sense, sometime in February and March.
Speaker 3: No doubt.
Speaker 1: All right, Ral, I'll let you go so you can
Speaker 1: go into the rabbit hole of Jericho Road's greatest hits.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Don't do that.
Speaker 2: It will put you in such a bad mood, but
Speaker 2: I appreciate the time matter.
Speaker 8: I believe you did that. By the way, how long
Speaker 8: were you in the rabbit hole?
Speaker 1: I watch four I have Jericho wrote videos and I
Speaker 1: just hated myself afterwards, so I would not take you
Speaker 1: back it did.
Speaker 2: By the way, how did that become a thing on
Speaker 2: our show? I honestly don't remember.
Speaker 8: It may have been a Shep thing, Okay, he may
Speaker 8: have brought it up. We may have been talking about
Speaker 8: boy bands. You and I may have been something, you know,
Speaker 8: It might have been a Nikolach ninety eight degrees reference,
Speaker 8: and then Shep may have injected all have you guys
Speaker 8: heard about the Utah County version of ninety eight degrees,
Speaker 8: and you and I would have gone, what are you
Speaker 8: talking about? And then he would have introduced Jericho Road
Speaker 8: to us.
Speaker 1: That sounds right, or you were expressing your admiration for
Speaker 1: Louke Pearlman. I cannot remember which one it was, Bill,
Speaker 1: see you, buddy, Bill Riley, Voice of the Utes. You
Speaker 1: know it's weird when you do a radio show with
Speaker 1: somebody for a number of years, how odd like inside
Speaker 1: jokes emerged. I honestly don't remember how Jericho Road became
Speaker 1: a thing on the show I did with Bill for oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, six years whatever that was. Our producer
Speaker 1: was a young man who is named Jason Sheppard who
Speaker 1: works for BYU TV. Sweet guy, very. I'll just say
Speaker 1: he's working where he should be working, and I'll leave
Speaker 1: I'll leave it at that. I don't I don't remember
Speaker 1: if Shep was the one that brought up Jericho Roade.
Speaker 1: All I know is last week after one of the shows,
Speaker 1: I'm home decompressing and Ryles texts me like, Hey, what
Speaker 1: I'm on the show next?
Speaker 2: Bringing me in with some Jericho wrote.
Speaker 1: Jericho Wroade is a Mormon boy band. I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to articulate it. So when it was like
Speaker 1: in sync Backstreet Boys ninety eight degrees, the boy band
Speaker 1: thing was everywhere. A bunch of bros down in Provo
Speaker 1: decided to start their own boy band, and the videos
Speaker 1: that they made are exactly what you would expect, I
Speaker 1: guess is how I'll put that. You know, And they
Speaker 1: do have a member that looks like Tony Jones. I
Speaker 1: don't know, have you watched any of the videos since
Speaker 1: Bill brought this up?
Speaker 4: I haven't, but I do remember a little bit of this,
Speaker 4: this inside joke before, so I've looked him up before.
Speaker 4: There is Yeah, there's a guy that looks a bit
Speaker 4: like Tony.
Speaker 1: And at this point, have you been able to learn
Speaker 1: whether or not they're still doing it? Are there still standing?
Speaker 3: I mean there?
Speaker 1: Oh, there can't be anything more awkward than a boy
Speaker 1: band when every members in there like mid to late forties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, can you call that a boy band?
Speaker 2: A man band, a middle aged man band? At that point?
Speaker 4: Jericho Roads last, let's see their last release, Spence with
Speaker 4: It looks like twenty ten.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, you know they did the thing for
Speaker 1: a while, and uh, good for them, for you know,
Speaker 1: pursuing their dream. So we'll end the show some Jericho road.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that lands with you, I'll but
Speaker 1: there you go. All right, fun show ton going on.
Speaker 1: Don't forget NBA Draft right around the corner. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have a bunch of coverage, few guys, a lot of
Speaker 1: rumors surrounding the Utah Jazz, NHL Stanley Cup playoffs resoomed
Speaker 1: tomorrow for the Battle of Lord for your Lord Stanley's Cup.
Speaker 1: But the NBA Finals coming way coming up on the
Speaker 1: other side, Porter tomorrow, are we talking about oka Ce
Speaker 1: up three two or Indiana up three two?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 4: You know my my brain is telling me, okay, see,
Speaker 4: it's the better team, it's the better roster. I love
Speaker 4: the way Indiana's fighting, man, And I think that now
Speaker 4: that we're here, we're at a best of three scenario.
Speaker 4: I really do think that this is as close to
Speaker 4: a toss up as you could have asked for if
Speaker 4: you're the Indiana Pacers coming into the series. Now, I
Speaker 4: know that Vegas is saying it's still okay, see a
Speaker 4: heavy favorite, But man, I give Tyrese Haliburton and the
Speaker 4: Pacers a big chance tonight and hell for the sake
Speaker 4: of the show. I'll go, I'll go Indiana, all right, all.
Speaker 1: Right, there you go, all right, we will say good night.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the other side, it is time for
Speaker 1: Game five of the NBA Files between the Pacers and
Speaker 1: the Thunder.
Speaker 2: The Thunder are a nine point five point favorite.
Speaker 6: Porter.
Speaker 1: What comes our way on a Tuesday edition of the show.
Speaker 4: On a Tuesday edition of The Drive, Well, well, it'll
Speaker 4: be Tony Parks and I in the saddle. So we'll
Speaker 4: recap of course NBA Finals action, Indiana and Oka. See tonight,
Speaker 4: we'll look ahead to the NHL Stanley Cup and talk
Speaker 4: some offseason football, baseball, whatever comes along with Tony and I.
Speaker 4: Stevenson Sylvester seventy four days from Utah football, Tim McMahon
Speaker 4: of course for the NBA Daily Assist, Bell Fraser will
Speaker 4: stop by and like I said, Tony Parks will be
Speaker 4: in with myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, give Tony and Porter your ears tomorrow. I'll be
Speaker 1: back on a Wednesday show. We'll say good night and
Speaker 1: special thank you today to Kurt Schmidt, Tom Haberstrow, Richard Smith,
Speaker 1: and Bill Riley for any of the sound you may
Speaker 1: have missed from the show today. Go to the website,
Speaker 1: which is ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Download our
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Speaker 1: on your time. Don't want to talk Utah, Okay, don't
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Speaker 1: It's awesome. It's called The Drive with Spence. Check its
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Speaker 1: for Portram Spence saying to I enjoy your Monday evening.
Speaker 1: NBA Finals Game five coming up on the other side
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