Speaker 1: The throwback to the old villain Spence days is what
Speaker 1: this is little YouTube for you on a Monday afternoon.
Speaker 2: We've got Ted Robinson from the.
Speaker 1: PAC twelve network, well formerly of the PAC twelve network.
Speaker 1: He'll stop body do some college football is the house
Speaker 1: of the NCAA settlement was pushed across the line on Friday.
Speaker 1: If you missed Eddie Gill a lot of fun catching
Speaker 1: up with Eddie Guild today. And then Rob Perez batted leadoff,
Speaker 1: but in the cleanup spot because that's where we save
Speaker 1: the big bats. Richard Smitty Smith forty years with the
Speaker 1: Jazz front Office.
Speaker 2: I love Smitty. Happy Monday. How are you sir?
Speaker 3: Did you got me in here ahead of Ted Robinson?
Speaker 3: Because there's no way I am following that guy. He's
Speaker 3: the best on a radio show. He is the absolute
Speaker 3: top of the mountain. I've admired him from Afar for
Speaker 3: so long, for all the stuff he does in all
Speaker 3: the areas he covers in the world of sports. He's
Speaker 3: just he's just terrific. And you know so he's he's
Speaker 3: a great get for you guys. Whenever you can get
Speaker 3: him on. He's terrific.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine with Ted, we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: rolling Arrows Grand Slam Final for the ages.
Speaker 2: You're a tennis guy, we'll do mostly basketball.
Speaker 1: But I was telling you off air, man, when I
Speaker 1: see shot making like that at the highest, it's just
Speaker 1: so wildly impressive.
Speaker 2: And you you watched the whole.
Speaker 3: Thing Alcaaz and Center yesterday. I was at five, said
Speaker 3: that was you know, Cinner was so good early and
Speaker 3: and Alcaraz just hung in and hung in.
Speaker 4: And those two guys.
Speaker 3: Alcoraz is twenty two years old, Sinner's twenty three, coming
Speaker 3: off the suspension that he had in the in the
Speaker 3: late winter, early spring, and and uh, and just getting
Speaker 3: right back into it in a major like that. He's, Uh,
Speaker 3: those guys will be battling for it for a lot
Speaker 3: of years with a couple of young guys who are
Speaker 3: on the way on the way up, I think, and
Speaker 3: and uh, but that's gonna that's gonna be fun to
Speaker 3: watch those guys.
Speaker 2: You know, it's very impressive.
Speaker 1: And you know, I my generation, you know, I was
Speaker 1: raised right in the sampras Agacy American tennis. You know, uh, what,
Speaker 1: why don't you think we have developed any of these
Speaker 1: young I mean we were talking about some of the
Speaker 1: American players. But the best American excuse me, the best
Speaker 1: male tennis players in the world right now, I don't
Speaker 1: feel like any of them reside in the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the last big boy, really you have to
Speaker 3: go back almost twenty years with Andy Roddick was the
Speaker 3: last guy who was really right in that top level
Speaker 3: group and around in terms of world class players.
Speaker 4: And I don't know. I think maybe it's.
Speaker 3: Maybe in our country we have too many sports, too
Speaker 3: many options, too many things the people get involved in.
Speaker 3: And it seems like a lot of kids are getting
Speaker 3: involved in specialization whatever it is they think they're good at,
Speaker 3: or their parents think they're good at, when they're twelve
Speaker 3: or thirteen or fourteen. And you know how many how
Speaker 3: many kids nowadays? And I don't this is a rhetorical question,
Speaker 3: but I don't know how many kids nowadays in high
Speaker 3: school play multiple sports. Like when I grew up, you know,
Speaker 3: you played football or golf or something in the fall,
Speaker 3: and then you played basketball in the winter, and then
Speaker 3: you played baseball in the spring or soccer or whatever.
Speaker 3: And now they just play one sport when they get
Speaker 3: to high school, and it's it's fascinating to me that
Speaker 3: that the kids are doing that at such a young age.
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, some of some of the
Speaker 3: foreign countries over in Europe, especially Skinnavan countries are more
Speaker 3: better ahead of us in terms of researching all that
Speaker 3: stuff and all the cross training benefits of doing different things,
Speaker 3: and and you know, maybe it's just guys, you know,
Speaker 3: don't get into tennis as much early on and then
Speaker 3: they just kind of drift away from it.
Speaker 1: Well, it feels like like the ecosystem surrounding sports for
Speaker 1: kids have really changed. Where if you want your child
Speaker 1: to be in a prism and paradigm and have the
Speaker 1: attention of like a head coach in high school, he
Speaker 1: needs to be playing AAU at ten for the AAU
Speaker 1: team that's tied to the coach, or he needs to be,
Speaker 1: you know, focusing on one sport when he's so young.
Speaker 2: And you know, I didn't raise my son that way.
Speaker 1: Connor ended up playing soccer in high school, but he
Speaker 1: tried basketball, golf, all these things, and like you, my sport.
Speaker 2: Was predicated on the season.
Speaker 1: I did end up only playing basketball my final two
Speaker 1: years in high school.
Speaker 2: Prior to that, it's football in the fall.
Speaker 1: It was basketball in the winter, then it was lacrosse
Speaker 1: in the spring, and I just feel like now parents
Speaker 1: are kind of I don't know if pressure.
Speaker 4: Is the red term.
Speaker 1: It may be motivated if they think they have a
Speaker 1: kid who can play high school basketball or whatever and.
Speaker 2: Maybe do something beyond it.
Speaker 1: It feels like they only hone in on that one
Speaker 1: sport to give the kid the best best chance at
Speaker 1: walking that path where he can make teams.
Speaker 2: I mean, it feels like it's changed that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I learned spence a while ago. A
Speaker 3: good friend of mine came through you with the twelve
Speaker 3: year old son, and he's a very good athlete at
Speaker 3: that time, like doing a lot of different things, and
Speaker 3: they were perplexed because they were being pressured by the
Speaker 3: respective coaches of the different sports, like, hey, hey, your
Speaker 3: son's got you gotta decide what he's gonna do because
Speaker 3: he can't do everything because we in our sport, whichever
Speaker 3: one it was, we go year round. We practice, and
Speaker 3: we travel and we do tournaments and we have our
Speaker 3: own schedule.
Speaker 4: And league or whatever.
Speaker 3: So you know, he can't play different sports because he's
Speaker 3: gonna have to practice, he's gonna have to and that's
Speaker 3: coming from these recreational slash volunteer coaches, from the dad
Speaker 3: who sits on the couch every night and watches ESPN
Speaker 3: and thinks he can do something. So then he's going
Speaker 3: out and he thinks he's running his twelve year old
Speaker 3: you know, soccer team or whatever, you know, like the
Speaker 3: RSL or something. I mean, you know, it's just crazy
Speaker 3: and and and the kids get it, you know, and
Speaker 3: the kids are pressured like, you know, well, if you
Speaker 3: want to play comp soccer, you want to play camp basketball,
Speaker 3: you have to choose because you can't do both because
Speaker 3: you know, because of the pressure that those teams are
Speaker 3: putting on them. And so sometimes I wonder if the
Speaker 3: kids really, you know, are being directed in that way
Speaker 3: by people other than their family, of the people who
Speaker 3: have the most interest in their own own development.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the other thing Smitty that I think has
Speaker 1: changed recently that probably adds an extra layer of the
Speaker 1: parental pressure because ultimately, like I coached my son's junior
Speaker 1: jazz team for a few years, and it's always the
Speaker 1: parents that ruined the experience, especially when they're six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight years old. These kids just want have fun, and
Speaker 1: their kids they should just have fun. But now with
Speaker 1: the ability to make real money in college, it's no
Speaker 1: longer like, oh, maybe my son can earn a scholarship
Speaker 1: and we can save money that way and he can
Speaker 1: still go to school. Or now it's mom and dad
Speaker 1: are seeing you know, dollar bills, and they're seeing dollar
Speaker 1: signs in their eyes, like, Okay, we've got a young
Speaker 1: man who's shown a little promise and if he can
Speaker 1: elevate himself to becoming a college athlete. Now there's millions
Speaker 1: of dollars being made from these kids in college, which
Speaker 1: probably ups the ante for a lot of the parents
Speaker 1: that selfishly believe their kid is the next Tiger Woods
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Right and and so so in my lifetime, how much
Speaker 3: that's that scale has slid backwards from being a so
Speaker 3: called professional at the you know, at the real professional
Speaker 3: level when you're in your twenties and whatever the sport is,
Speaker 3: and then backing up to to college right in recent years,
Speaker 3: and now that that's trickling back to high school where
Speaker 3: kids are being you know, being directed in certain areas
Speaker 3: you know, to go to, like you know, the the
Speaker 3: academy that's in Atlanta that's set up for the high
Speaker 3: school kids to go there and play and develop, you
Speaker 3: know as juniors or seniors and being paid to go
Speaker 3: to those schools, you know, to do that over time.
Speaker 3: Elite is who I'm referring to. And and you know,
Speaker 3: or you can go to IMG academy and get paid
Speaker 3: but you know, specialized training. But now how far does
Speaker 3: that keep sliding back?
Speaker 4: Do you know?
Speaker 3: When does it stop? Or does it when eventually it
Speaker 3: gets like the junior high level. And now we're we're
Speaker 3: directing kids, you know, coming out of sixth grade to
Speaker 3: go in a certain direction or what have you.
Speaker 4: In Europe, I would say this.
Speaker 3: In Europe they have all these youth academies that are
Speaker 3: high school age kids. And if you're identified in a sport,
Speaker 3: whether it's soccer, basketball, individual sports, tennis, you know, you
Speaker 3: can go to an academy that specializes in that when
Speaker 3: you're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old.
Speaker 4: That's what you know.
Speaker 3: Luka Doncic did from Slovenia. He was identified at a
Speaker 3: fourteen year old and was taken by Real Madrid and
Speaker 3: Spain to move from Slovenia to Spain to another country
Speaker 3: at fourteen years old to start playing so called professional
Speaker 3: basketball training for that and they do that and of
Speaker 3: course that's that's a model's us forever in the soccer world,
Speaker 3: all around the world, you know, and how much money
Speaker 3: the European soccer clubs, especially the English Premier League clubs
Speaker 3: put into scouting and development of guys where they just
Speaker 3: pour money into it hand over fist all over the
Speaker 3: world in hopes of finding the one guy or the
Speaker 3: two guys or whatever that are going to pan out
Speaker 3: ten years from now and be one of our star players.
Speaker 3: And you know that, you know how much of that
Speaker 3: is starting to creep into you know, the American system
Speaker 3: and the university collegiate system, which is which is fascinating,
Speaker 3: fascinating right now at this point in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you hear coach wit.
Speaker 1: I believe Morgan has talked about this too. Kyle oftentimes
Speaker 1: has talked about how when he's recruiting his high school
Speaker 1: football prospects he very much appreciates when they're versed in
Speaker 1: other sports and play other things and don't only do football.
Speaker 1: And look, there's not what this is. None of this
Speaker 1: is linear Australia. There's not one way to do any
Speaker 1: of it. But I think you know, there are so
Speaker 1: many skills you can ascertain from playing other sports that
Speaker 1: do translate to the one sport that you eventually land on.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't love that.
Speaker 1: A lot of these kids, even you know, when they're
Speaker 1: so young, are just basically told like you've got to
Speaker 1: pick one thing and do that one thing. I appreciated
Speaker 1: the lessons I learned playing other sports, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: Well, when you do that in your tunnel vision into
Speaker 3: one sport, you know, you as a kid, you're thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 3: fifteen years old, no matter what people are saying to you,
Speaker 3: there comes a time when internally, you know, you get
Speaker 3: to a point where you're thinking, well, I guess I'm
Speaker 3: just doing this one thing because it's supposed to take
Speaker 3: me somewhere, you know, and a financial or career oriented
Speaker 3: status or projection, rather than I'm doing it to have
Speaker 3: fun and to be involved and to you know, to
Speaker 3: enjoy being around the other kids my age and all,
Speaker 3: which is what it was supposed to be. Right now,
Speaker 3: it's now it's a business down to that level, which
Speaker 3: is which to me is a little a little scary.
Speaker 3: If you really pull back from thirty thousand feet and
Speaker 3: look at what we're doing in this country just in general,
Speaker 3: in our society with a lot of facets of our life.
Speaker 3: That part, to me, is going to be interesting years
Speaker 3: from now when we reflect back on this era era
Speaker 3: and we look and see what we were doing to
Speaker 3: the young kids in that regard, and and how how
Speaker 3: the the purpose of those endeavors changed over the years.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, all right, let's move over. We'll do some
Speaker 1: jazz in our second segment. Well, we'll do a little
Speaker 1: jazz here, but I want to bring in the NBA
Speaker 1: finals and kind of tie it all together a little bit.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's interesting he consider that both Indiana and Oklahoma City,
Speaker 1: UH turned Paul George into their franchise pillars in a
Speaker 1: roundabout way. Indiana and Paul George, they had him for
Speaker 1: Demo Sabonis. Then they trade Sabonis to the Kings and
Speaker 1: they land Halliburton. Oklahoma City turns Paul George into Jay
Speaker 1: Gilgris Alexander five draft picks, one of who was turned
Speaker 1: into Jalen Williams. And so now you have these two
Speaker 1: teams whose cornerstones were a direct result of a trade
Speaker 1: the front office made for a superstar that they jettisoned.
Speaker 2: Did the Jazz get enough for Donovan?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, and maybe at the time, Paul George was
Speaker 1: thought to be a better asset than Donovan and Lowry's
Speaker 1: a very nice player. But if you're gonna do what
Speaker 1: Indiana and Oklahoma City did with Paul George and what
Speaker 1: the Jazz did with Donovan, you better find something pretty
Speaker 1: special in return.
Speaker 4: Well, Paul.
Speaker 3: The Paul George thing is interesting because in both of
Speaker 3: those situations, he really he really cornered the organization and
Speaker 3: told him he wanted out right, you know. So in
Speaker 3: Indiana he threatened he wasn't going to re sign, so
Speaker 3: they traded him to Okay See.
Speaker 4: In Okay See, he just.
Speaker 3: Bluntly told him I want out of here and and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna sulk and you know, I'm not gonna, you know,
Speaker 3: be a good boy or whatever if if you don't
Speaker 3: do this, and you know, in both organizations, you know
Speaker 3: felt like, well we're back in the corner. We got
Speaker 3: to do something whatever. Uh And Okay, see's a point. Look,
Speaker 3: whether they were smart, whether they got lucky. I think
Speaker 3: Sam Presty, who's you know, obviously one of the the
Speaker 3: great general managers and in NBA history really when you
Speaker 3: look at what he's done over the years, and okay
Speaker 3: see and and even his work before in San Antonio
Speaker 3: when he first got into the league. But he you know,
Speaker 3: he may be the first one to tell you that, hey, look,
Speaker 3: you know, we had to make the trade for Paul George.
Speaker 3: We got a bunch of stuff from from the Clippers.
Speaker 3: Paul George was the big asset. Shay Gil just that
Speaker 3: we wanted him put in the deal. They said, Okay,
Speaker 3: do the Clippers think that s g A would be
Speaker 3: the player he's become? Would they have traded them right?
Speaker 3: I mean, of course they wouldn't. So the fair question
Speaker 3: on the flip side is, did ok see think he
Speaker 3: could become that type of player? I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I think he was a nice player. They had to
Speaker 3: make a deal. They did the deal. He came in,
Speaker 3: he blew up. Okay, we look good. Okay, we look
Speaker 3: like we're pretty smart. You know, you know, similar to
Speaker 3: the Jazz, you know, several years old, drafting Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 3: at thirteen or Rudy Gobert twenty seven, and and you know,
Speaker 3: you look pretty good when they show up and they
Speaker 3: develop into what they are. And some of it is
Speaker 3: you know, you and your projection and how you evaluate players,
Speaker 3: and some of it is luck and up to the
Speaker 3: players to do what they do. I mean, Frank Layton
Speaker 3: was always great about, you know, deferring. You know, whenever
Speaker 3: that John stocked in the draft and in the eighty
Speaker 3: four would come up and they got stocked in at sixteen,
Speaker 3: and they said, oh, how do you know he's gonna
Speaker 3: be such a great player, And and you know, Frank
Speaker 3: Lane would always quickly say, hey, if we knew he
Speaker 3: was gonna be such a great play, we were to
Speaker 3: trade it up to get him, because you know, when
Speaker 3: I can wait till sixteen to get them, you know,
Speaker 3: so nobody knows those things. So there's only there's only
Speaker 3: a few players now and then everybody you know, whether
Speaker 3: it's Shack or whether it's Duncan, or whether it's Wembin Yama,
Speaker 3: you know, even you know, even Yannis Jokic. Those guys,
Speaker 3: those guys weren't that coming in in the door. They
Speaker 3: were like, yeah, we hope they can do something. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll see, we'll work with them whatever. And then they
Speaker 3: you know, much to their their their credit, they blow
Speaker 3: up and they become who they are, and so it
Speaker 3: makes you look good as an organization. And I know
Speaker 3: the Jazz are trying to latch onto somebody who they can,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe get in that regard at some point.
Speaker 3: I don't think they've got it yet, but they're trying
Speaker 3: to keep taking swings at it and trying to find
Speaker 3: the next guy who may jump out at him. And
Speaker 3: and they continue to do that, and so far, you know,
Speaker 3: they haven't hit on it. And and you know, again
Speaker 3: s as we've always said, some of it is stuff
Speaker 3: you do, and some of his stuff you plan and
Speaker 3: you can execute based on your acumen and doing so.
Speaker 3: And then some of it is just luck or something
Speaker 3: that falls in your lap. And you've got to be
Speaker 3: able to to to be ready to accept that when
Speaker 3: it when it comes your way. And you know, the
Speaker 3: Jazz so far are still treading water in that regard.
Speaker 1: I really am genuinely curious how history will look at
Speaker 1: the Mitchell deal. And again, whether it's the Donovan trade
Speaker 1: or the Rudy trade. I said it at the time,
Speaker 1: I'll continue to say, we can't accurately analyze it until
Speaker 1: all the picks have been conveyed and we see who
Speaker 1: the Jazz are able to draft and whether or not
Speaker 1: that works. So far, the picks that have been conveyed
Speaker 1: and the opportunities that Jazz have had, I think they've
Speaker 1: been swings and misses.
Speaker 2: I think it's only fair to say so.
Speaker 1: I just have to wonder every time we talk about
Speaker 1: this situation with the Mitchell stuff, juxtaposed to what both
Speaker 1: Indiana and OKC were able to turn Paul George into.
Speaker 1: Larry's a nice piece, but he's not SGA and he's
Speaker 1: not you know, he's not a cornerstone.
Speaker 2: He's a good player.
Speaker 1: If you're going to trade a first team All NBA
Speaker 1: guy in his mid twenties, you better get something pretty special,
Speaker 1: bet Well.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing, Spence, what you're doing at that time.
Speaker 3: You're making the decision as an organization, which the Jazz did,
Speaker 3: and the really the new Jazz ownership group headed up
Speaker 3: by Ryan Smith, made the decision that they wanted to
Speaker 3: move on from all star level players who were just
Speaker 3: coming into their prime and who were signed and were
Speaker 3: under contract for several more years. They had something that
Speaker 3: was in place that was competitive and you know, and
Speaker 3: one of the better teams in the league. Obviously, the
Speaker 3: year before they moved those guys, they had the best
Speaker 3: in the NBA. But you're you're talking about making the
Speaker 3: decision to move guys who are proven. This guy can
Speaker 3: do it, he's done it. We got him, we got
Speaker 3: him under contract. Why are we moving him? You know
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. And so they made the decision
Speaker 3: to move him. They made the decision to do that
Speaker 3: with for a bunch of guys that, Okay, we don't
Speaker 3: know what any of these guys are. Okay, marketing comes in,
Speaker 3: good player, all star level player. Okay, a bunch of
Speaker 3: draft picks. Don't know who they are. The guys who
Speaker 3: are gonna be those draft picks are still in high
Speaker 3: school right now, or you know something. And so we're
Speaker 3: just we're just waiting to see, you know, when that
Speaker 3: bus comes by, you know who it drops off in
Speaker 3: our lap and how that works out. But that's always
Speaker 3: the debate, Spence, when you're getting those situations. We have
Speaker 3: a proven commodity, and we have something in our hand
Speaker 3: that we control and we know that it works, and
Speaker 3: we're willing to move on from that for something that
Speaker 3: we don't know what we have, and we don't know if.
Speaker 4: It's gonna work that.
Speaker 3: That is the interesting dichotomy there, because that is a
Speaker 3: tough to me, that's a tough decision, you know, to
Speaker 3: get into making if you're going to trade one for
Speaker 3: the other. And you know so far, you know, the
Speaker 3: the jury's still out, and you know you can argue,
Speaker 3: you know, the results of Gobert, Mitchell and the other
Speaker 3: guys who they moved on from, whether it's Mike Conley,
Speaker 3: and you know who's near the end of it, Joe Ingles,
Speaker 3: who certainly is probably at the end of it. And
Speaker 3: you know with those guys by Danovich and all those guys,
Speaker 3: you know they were they were certainly very good players
Speaker 3: in that group that they had, and you know that
Speaker 3: was the decision that was made. Now the Jazz are
Speaker 3: dealing with that.
Speaker 1: So two separate NBA sources, uh Bill Simmons in addition
Speaker 1: tomorrow Stein, have mentioned written or spoken of the possibility
Speaker 1: of Utah actively taking phone calls on Larry actively talking
Speaker 1: to teams about trading Larry. Marketing twenty eight years old,
Speaker 1: be twenty nine next year at the end of next
Speaker 1: to next season, which certainly is not old, but it
Speaker 1: could be a scenario where maybe he just doesn't fit
Speaker 1: the timeline of what they're trying to build, as they've
Speaker 1: got a couple of first rounders this year, a bunch
Speaker 1: of young players on the roster, So help us understand
Speaker 1: Smitty kind of the thought exercises that go into a
Speaker 1: decision like that if they do decide to move off
Speaker 1: of him, just based off of maybe his desire to
Speaker 1: try to win games somewhere else and the Jazz desire
Speaker 1: to maybe continue to be set to go extremely young.
Speaker 1: No idea whether or not this is going to happen.
Speaker 1: These are just discussions that are being had. So if
Speaker 1: the Jazz are actively taking phone calls on Larry, what
Speaker 1: are the exercises they're going through.
Speaker 2: Is to make the right decision for the club.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well they have to do that, Spence, that's their responsibility.
Speaker 3: Austin and is now the president basketball operations. You know
Speaker 3: he's going to be the point man going forward for
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff. When you're the team that's
Speaker 3: the worst record in the league, you have nothing to
Speaker 3: hang your hat on in terms of protecting something we have.
Speaker 3: In other words, whatever you have, you like it. It's
Speaker 3: it's really high on the chart. It's so so wherever
Speaker 3: it lands on the landscape, it's not helping you win games,
Speaker 3: so it doesn't matter. So so it's you know, Larry
Speaker 3: market and now that he's trade eligible because of the
Speaker 3: contract he signed last year, so now they can look
Speaker 3: and see if he has value to other teams. What
Speaker 3: you're really doing in that regard is a you're not
Speaker 3: subtracting much from your group, right because your group only
Speaker 3: won seventeen games last year, and obviously they held him
Speaker 3: out on purpose a lot. They got fined by the
Speaker 3: league for it, and all those those kinds of things,
Speaker 3: and the tanking and the trade and the draft scenario thing.
Speaker 3: But you know they have to be if they're not
Speaker 3: accepting calls that they should also be making calls to
Speaker 3: see if there's any interest. Because the other part of
Speaker 3: that equation, which is a big part that plays into expenses,
Speaker 3: is he's going to be making in the neighborhood forty
Speaker 3: five million, and so you want to pay a guy
Speaker 3: forty five million on a team that's not going anywhere
Speaker 3: at the moment and isn't winning games, you might as
Speaker 3: well look to see what you can turn that into
Speaker 3: to be able to recalibrate, reset, spend less money somewhere else,
Speaker 3: and then look at what your whole landscape is going
Speaker 3: to be. I think bringing Austin Ainge into the equation
Speaker 3: for me, means that they've decided that they're going to,
Speaker 3: you know, open all those doors and talk to everybody
Speaker 3: who wants to talk and put it all up on
Speaker 3: the wall and have discussions, ongoing discussions with twenty nine
Speaker 3: other teams to see who's offering and what and who
Speaker 3: has an in trust in what and whatever, because you
Speaker 3: you have to. You have to figure out something to
Speaker 3: get this train going forward, and whatever it takes, that's
Speaker 3: what we have to entertain and and market In is
Speaker 3: your best player at the moment and your most marketable one,
Speaker 3: along with maybe Kessler maybe a little more marketable because.
Speaker 4: He's younger and less money.
Speaker 3: But those guys, I don't think anything can be off
Speaker 3: the table because of the situation that you've put yourself in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these are not easy decisions to make, obviously
Speaker 1: when you have a player that you like an awful lot.
Speaker 1: But you know, the last thing before we catch a break,
Speaker 1: the timeline analyzation of roster construction is very much a
Speaker 1: real thing, And I don't know how much of that includes.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you guys really had the Mitchell and
Speaker 1: Cobert group ticking and you were winning a lot of games.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to analyze it through the prism of like
Speaker 1: when is Lebron going to retire? And when does Durant
Speaker 1: leave the Warriors? And when is Steph not Steph anymore?
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, and then when that window opens, you
Speaker 1: have to be ready to walk through it.
Speaker 2: And before we catch a break.
Speaker 1: How do you think the Jazz are analyzing the landscape
Speaker 1: of basketball right now? And is that something they're utilizing
Speaker 1: to bring color and context into their process and decision making.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City has two players in their rotation that are
Speaker 1: over twenty six. It's Caruso and Kendrick Williams just turn thirty,
Speaker 1: and they've got their guys signed. They also have draft
Speaker 1: assets in capital to continue to add pieces to the
Speaker 1: core that they want to keep together. So will they
Speaker 1: have to make some economic decisions at some point? Certainly
Speaker 1: you always bring up the OKAC team with Harden and
Speaker 1: Durant and Westbrook that at some point the rubber was
Speaker 1: going to meet the road, and it did, and it
Speaker 1: will for them too, But it doesn't feel like it's
Speaker 1: gonna meet the road anytime soon. Like I think they're
Speaker 1: gonna win it this year and have something to say
Speaker 1: about it for the next four or five years, assuming
Speaker 1: full health. So before we catch a break, how much
Speaker 1: do teams analyze like Okay, well, okase's here, we're in
Speaker 1: this space. Uh, maybe in four or five years when
Speaker 1: they're done with this, we like, do you understand what.
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 3: That's what That's what we would do all the time.
Speaker 3: We always had a three to five year plan, uh
Speaker 3: that we looked at for every team of the league,
Speaker 3: and so we had we would always have that laid
Speaker 3: out as to what we thought was gonna happen. Now,
Speaker 3: there's certain things you can project, like you know, in
Speaker 3: two years, this guy is gonna be up for a
Speaker 3: either a rookie extension or this guy's gonna be up
Speaker 3: for a second contract, and he's playing at a certain level,
Speaker 3: so he's gonna get X amount of money, and whether
Speaker 3: the team likes him and wants to keep him at
Speaker 3: that number or whether they're going to try and move
Speaker 3: him before. Those are always projections and guesses you're making
Speaker 3: based on your knowledge of the league. And how each
Speaker 3: individual team operates. You're looking at what you think your
Speaker 3: group is gonna be three, four or five years from now,
Speaker 3: and how can we position ourselves to be competitive. But
Speaker 3: then there's always spens that area, there's always a gray
Speaker 3: area twenty percent, thirty percent, forty percent. It's it's always
Speaker 3: fluctuating of stuff that's just gonna come out of the
Speaker 3: blue and hit you in the face, that that that
Speaker 3: you don't expect. Whether it's uh, you know, Giannis decides tomorrow,
Speaker 3: I definitely want out of Milwaukee whatever whatever it is.
Speaker 3: Or Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and James Harden put
Speaker 3: together this big three in Brooklyn and they're going to
Speaker 3: run the league for years, and they play sixteen total
Speaker 3: games together, and then COVID hits and that was part
Speaker 3: of it. But then one, you know, one domino fell
Speaker 3: and another one another one all of a sudden, that
Speaker 3: thing just fizzles out, and all those guys are somewhere
Speaker 3: else now, you know. And so you can make those
Speaker 3: kind of projections, but you you can't control those kinds
Speaker 3: of things. But you try and make educated guesses and
Speaker 3: and and based decisions on what you think may happen
Speaker 3: in what position you want to put your your group in.
Speaker 1: We got Smitty in studio for another segment after we
Speaker 1: catch a quick break. But before we do that, I
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Speaker 2: All right, we got on to te Ted Robinson's gonna
Speaker 2: roll by.
Speaker 1: We'll do some college football with Ted, probably some rolling
Speaker 1: Garo's French Open final conversation for the massive heavyweight Blow
Speaker 1: by Blow tennis match.
Speaker 2: Over the weekend.
Speaker 1: Then we'll get to the five o'clock hour of the program,
Speaker 1: and then after that we'll say an eiden time for
Speaker 1: Game three of the Stanley Cup Final Florida Edmonton series
Speaker 1: is tied to one game apiece.
Speaker 2: Both games have gone overtime. It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: But one more segment with our guy Richard Smith live
Speaker 1: in studio. All right, Smittie, we are just a few
Speaker 1: weeks away from the NBA Draft, and so we'll end
Speaker 1: this segment with some finals conversation. But before we get there,
Speaker 1: what's going on right now with the Jazz front office
Speaker 1: and their preparations for the draft. They currently have two
Speaker 1: first round picks two second round picks. That could change,
Speaker 1: but that's where they're at. So with just a few
Speaker 1: weeks left before its decision time. With a big decision
Speaker 1: to make whether they stay at five or utilize it
Speaker 1: as an asset. Who knows, But what's going on right
Speaker 1: nowt behind closed doors as they're prepared for the draft.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting, Expens's because of the situation the Jazz
Speaker 3: find themselves in. Now they've got four picks, and those
Speaker 3: picks are all over they're spread all over the board,
Speaker 3: so they've got five and twenty one, and then they've
Speaker 3: got forty three and fifty three. So they're looking at
Speaker 3: a whole slew of guys. I don't know what they're
Speaker 3: doing specifically with workouts and interviews now, I know back
Speaker 3: in the day, you know, in this scenario, we would
Speaker 3: literally bring in eighty ninety one hundred guys and work
Speaker 3: them out and get a hold of everybody and do interviews.
Speaker 3: You know, you're working with other teams on travel arrangement.
Speaker 3: So a player is going to Denver on Tuesday and
Speaker 3: they've got another workout scheduled at Golden State on Friday. Hey,
Speaker 3: can we jump in and grab them and have them
Speaker 3: stop off in Salt Lake on Thursday and work them
Speaker 3: out and get a chance to visit with them and
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. You can only have six guys
Speaker 3: a maximum on the floor at one time for a workout.
Speaker 3: You can bring in more than that, but then you
Speaker 3: have to split the workouts and you have to do
Speaker 3: like a morning afternoon thing. So you you can set
Speaker 3: that up. You do interviews, you do personality profiles, you
Speaker 3: do some measurement, some uh, you know, you might do
Speaker 3: physical depending on whether they were in the Chicago pre
Speaker 3: draft combine or not. So you're getting all those all
Speaker 3: those boxes checked with all the guys. You might have
Speaker 3: an interest in the guys that you're that you're looking at.
Speaker 3: Then when you don't have a workout and you don't
Speaker 3: have guys in you're in the in the theater at
Speaker 3: the practice facility over Designs Bank Basketball Campus, you're watching film.
Speaker 4: You're with your group of guys.
Speaker 3: You're talking about, you know, each guy individually, you're ranking guys.
Speaker 3: You're at some point you go through an exercise where okay,
Speaker 3: you know, everybody ranked their top ten point guards, whatever
Speaker 3: you got, and we compile them, you put them together.
Speaker 3: You talk about that, and you kind of you know,
Speaker 3: you feel that through and and and then you talk about, okay,
Speaker 3: how about the top ten guys period, regardless of position
Speaker 3: and whatever it is, and and and it's a it's
Speaker 3: a major organizational process.
Speaker 4: But we always used to have the the goal.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And this is going way back to when when Scott
Speaker 3: laden was was the GM and then carried through with
Speaker 3: Kevin O'Connor and Dennis Lindsay who were very process oriented guys,
Speaker 3: and we would have all that stuff laid out and
Speaker 3: and sorted out and talked about and argued about and
Speaker 3: debated about all the way up to the day before
Speaker 3: the draft because we would want to have everything in
Speaker 3: line with what we want to try and do or
Speaker 3: what our different options would be going into draft day.
Speaker 3: So on draft day we weren't debating, we weren't arguing,
Speaker 3: we weren't pointing fingers about. You know, you said this,
Speaker 3: I thought we were gonna go with that guy. Why
Speaker 3: why is this guy in the picture?
Speaker 4: Whatever?
Speaker 3: You've got all that stuff, it's already hashed out before.
Speaker 3: So now on draft day you can calmly execute what
Speaker 3: your plan is, whether it's Plan A, Plan B, Plan OPQ,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, and put that into action. And you've
Speaker 3: already thought those things through. So right now is the
Speaker 3: heavy lifting time for the personnel people and not added
Speaker 3: laya to it, Spenser this year is they bring in
Speaker 3: Austin Ainge at this critical time. And Austin Ainge is
Speaker 3: going to have certain ways that he does he organizes it,
Speaker 3: how he processes it, how he wants the flow of
Speaker 3: the information or of the evaluation and discussion process to go.
Speaker 3: So the guys who have been there and working on
Speaker 3: this stuff all year long, all of a sudden have
Speaker 3: a new boss, if you will, in the room saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're not doing it like that anymore. Now we're going
Speaker 3: to do it this way. Oh okay, and we've got
Speaker 3: what if we got we've got fifteen days or seventeen
Speaker 3: days or whatever till we do that. Okay, all right,
Speaker 3: And you've got to be able to you know, this
Speaker 3: is the shuck and jive time. So you've got to
Speaker 3: be able to react, read, and react and figure out
Speaker 3: how you're gonna go about that business. And so that's
Speaker 3: gonna be tricky for them because it's one thing to
Speaker 3: have a process in place, but then to have someone
Speaker 3: come in like in this and you know, proverbially, and
Speaker 3: you know, the relief pitcher in the eighth inning, and
Speaker 3: now you got to go with what he's bringing to
Speaker 3: the table.
Speaker 4: You know that that adds another wrinkle to it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to
Speaker 1: go there next. And I look, I I don't know
Speaker 1: how Austin operates. I don't know what his personal ethos
Speaker 1: or way of going about This is no clue. He's
Speaker 1: worked in Boston for seventeen years, fourteen in the front office,
Speaker 1: three as a g leadue coach, certainly worked for his dad,
Speaker 1: and then worked alongside Brad Stevens. So you know, two
Speaker 1: guys that are very well respected in an organization that
Speaker 1: has had a ton of success, including a recent championship,
Speaker 1: and maybe would have won it again if they could
Speaker 1: have stayed healthy this year. But what sort of dynamic
Speaker 1: because you reference the guys that have been over there
Speaker 1: doing the groundwork, scouting players, going to games, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, Spide is not just that they brought Austin in.
Speaker 1: They bring him in and Ryan said, he's the guy
Speaker 1: calling the shots now. So what sort of complication or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to label it as, does that bring
Speaker 1: to a group when you've been doing the work and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden there's a guy that's not just
Speaker 1: been brought in as an addition to your staff, he's
Speaker 1: brought in and he's the boss.
Speaker 2: What he says goes No.
Speaker 3: That's a big deal because now all year long, you've
Speaker 3: been in a certain rhythm, you've had a certain schedule,
Speaker 3: you've been following, you've been discussing with your group all along.
Speaker 4: You know what your.
Speaker 3: Goals, what you're pinpointing, what your evaluation points are as
Speaker 3: you go out to watch the co college guys, as
Speaker 3: you go out to watch the G League guys for
Speaker 3: you know, potential ad INDs during the summer as free agents,
Speaker 3: what you're looking at overseas on the international market. All
Speaker 3: those things you're trying to put together, and you're trying
Speaker 3: to figure out where the different pieces lay and how
Speaker 3: do we structure this, and who do we value and
Speaker 3: and and your group has been having these discussions all along.
Speaker 3: So back in November, December, January, you've been having meetings. Hey,
Speaker 3: I just got off the road and I saw these
Speaker 3: three guys. Can we have a meeting tomorrow to discuss
Speaker 3: these guys? Come in Boom boom boom. Hey Spence, you
Speaker 3: better get out next the next couple of weeks and
Speaker 3: see those those two guys, because I think they're going
Speaker 3: to be in the mix for something okay, you know whatever.
Speaker 4: So you got all of that.
Speaker 3: Organization, all of those moving parts going on, and you've
Speaker 3: had a certain rhythm, and you've had certain voices in
Speaker 3: the room who have been directing that action. And then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden last week, the the owner comes
Speaker 3: in and goes, oh, by the way, you know, we
Speaker 3: got a new boss. And here he is, and everybody
Speaker 3: good luck, and everybody's going okay, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: and they know Austin Ainge and they know, you know,
Speaker 3: the guys know him to different levels, but you know,
Speaker 3: they know who he is and you know, respect who
Speaker 3: he you know what he's bringing to the table. But
Speaker 3: we don't know what his how he reacts. He we
Speaker 3: don't know how he wants to organize things. We don't
Speaker 3: know if he wants to you know, start from A
Speaker 3: and go to Z, if he wants to start over
Speaker 3: in this area and and and and organize it that way,
Speaker 3: or how he sees it. Because look, he's been doing
Speaker 3: that stuff with the Celtics all year long, so he
Speaker 3: has a certain place in that process where his head
Speaker 3: is at and how he sees these guys. So he
Speaker 3: may come into a meeting the first day and go, hey,
Speaker 3: let's talk about uh, you know, Jimmy Jones from so
Speaker 3: and so, and somebody goes, Jimmy Jones, we haven't, we
Speaker 3: didn't scout him. He's he's not good enough. What do
Speaker 3: you mean he's not gonna know, I've been watching him
Speaker 3: all year.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: You can have those kinds of discussions, and so now
Speaker 3: you're going, Okay, we haven't talked about Jimmy Jones all year,
Speaker 3: and now this guy's coming in and saying he's been
Speaker 3: following Jimmy Jones all year and he's really a legitimate problem.
Speaker 3: So you have those kinds of things that can come up.
Speaker 3: So you're trying to read through all of that, and
Speaker 3: the guys who have been doing all that that groundwork
Speaker 3: for you all year long, you know, are now suddenly
Speaker 3: they're trying to reorganize their notes, their information, what they've
Speaker 3: set up as things that they thought were going to
Speaker 3: be important at this at this point in time in
Speaker 3: the process and reconfiguring what those are based on what
Speaker 3: the boss is now saying. And so that's gonna be
Speaker 3: the interesting part of that, because Austin Ainge is gonna
Speaker 3: come in with his own uh set of guys and
Speaker 3: and priorities and what he sees from Afar. He's been
Speaker 3: watching the jazz from Afar obviously with his dad. You know,
Speaker 3: he's pretty well acquainted with what the where the Jazz
Speaker 3: are at this this this juncture and uh and so
Speaker 3: you know he's got an opinion I'm sure about Hey,
Speaker 3: you guys, uh, you guys really need a B and C.
Speaker 3: And the guys in the room are going, well, we
Speaker 3: know that, but we also need D, E and F
Speaker 3: and so what what are we prioritizing. So those are
Speaker 3: big discussions. This is a tough time of the year,
Speaker 3: you know, to do this, not quite sure the impetus
Speaker 3: of that on the ownership level of why to do it,
Speaker 3: you know, three weeks before the draft, But okay, that's
Speaker 3: that's what they did. And so now they everybody in
Speaker 3: the room has to react to that and and they
Speaker 3: go with the flow. And you know that part is
Speaker 3: going to be interesting, I think in in uh over
Speaker 3: there and their their facility for the next three weeks.
Speaker 1: So look, there's no there's no other way around it.
Speaker 1: The Jazz need everything right now. They don't need a
Speaker 1: point guard, they don't need a center. They need good players.
Speaker 1: They need a lot of good players, because when you
Speaker 1: analyze the Jazz and juxtapose their current situation with the
Speaker 1: teams in pro basketball that are winning games right now,
Speaker 1: there's just a Grand Canyon gap when it comes to
Speaker 1: the talent on the floor. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: landed on best case scenario at five. If they stay
Speaker 1: at five, just curious as to what sort of if
Speaker 1: you want to throw names out there, going to throw names,
Speaker 1: but just what sort of player should Jazz fans hope
Speaker 1: they walk away from the draft with coming up in
Speaker 1: just a few weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they, as you say, since they need everything. So
Speaker 3: what it's really going to come down to at the
Speaker 3: end of the day is how they judge, how they evaluate,
Speaker 3: and what they think is most important in terms of
Speaker 3: your somebody's skill level, their talent, their acumen for the game,
Speaker 3: and who is the best player that brings the best
Speaker 3: chance to have some kind of impact with the group
Speaker 3: that you have. If you end up staying at five,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have several options. You know, whether whether an
Speaker 3: Ace Bailey, like the six to eight kid, who's a
Speaker 3: long wing, you know, who's a mid range scorer. You know, erratic,
Speaker 3: long range shooter, but you have some athleticism and may
Speaker 3: be able to play multiple positions in the NBA. Whether
Speaker 3: there's someone like that you want to add to your group,
Speaker 3: you think, if he's good enough and can be you know,
Speaker 3: a guy like that, like you know, he's not as
Speaker 3: long as but a Jade McDaniels type guy to get
Speaker 3: out on the floor and be a three and D
Speaker 3: type player. If you want a pure shooter or score,
Speaker 3: whether you like the kid from Baylor, the Edgecombe kid,
Speaker 3: or you like the Johnson kid from Texas who's a
Speaker 3: little bit bigger, if you think you just need a
Speaker 3: pure sure or a score, you know, in that regard,
Speaker 3: if you think that's what you're gonna need. I think
Speaker 3: there's a couple of intriguing players to me, uh that
Speaker 3: they that they could be looking at that I think,
Speaker 3: you know, could be helpful and what they're trying to
Speaker 3: get toward and build and and uh and ironically enough,
Speaker 3: they're both from uh Cooper Flags teammates from Duke UH.
Speaker 3: And I'm talking about the con Kinnipple kid, who's a
Speaker 3: playmaker who measured out at the combine shorter than people thought.
Speaker 3: He was six five so he's gonna play sixty six
Speaker 3: in shoes. He's gonna be a guard, playmaker type guy,
Speaker 3: all around guy. Uh. And then the other kid I
Speaker 3: really like as as a prospect is his teammate is
Speaker 3: a young big kid malowak Uh the the the kid
Speaker 3: from Africa, who's who's who's measured seven to one uh
Speaker 3: in bare feet on the combine over nine foot wings,
Speaker 3: nine foot standing of reach.
Speaker 4: Just real.
Speaker 3: I think he's a raw talent, but I think in
Speaker 3: this league and the way the game is going, someone
Speaker 3: like him who can move his body the way he
Speaker 3: can and and can really can really disrupt the game defensively.
Speaker 4: Uh is a kind of guy that that.
Speaker 3: You could be looking at, you know, to make UH,
Speaker 3: to get a guy who is a unique type of
Speaker 3: player in his frame and in his his athleticism for
Speaker 3: his size. That's a ways away. And again, you're not
Speaker 3: gonna be winning next year. So do you want a
Speaker 3: guy like that who you value, who you think, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, can can can come up and and can
Speaker 3: improve the next several years and and uh and get
Speaker 3: someone like that going. If you did that, then you
Speaker 3: got to figure out what you're gonna do with someone
Speaker 3: like a Walker Kessler, and if that's someone you move
Speaker 3: on from in a trade scenario or sign a trade
Speaker 3: something because because now again you're talking about what our
Speaker 3: path to winning, how long is that going to take?
Speaker 3: And what is the money you were going to be
Speaker 3: spending to get there. So those are all the moving
Speaker 3: parts that you're trying to juggle, you know, within the
Speaker 3: framework of the upcoming draft.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to and I don't look, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to make something out of nothing. I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know how the summer is going to play out.
Speaker 1: In the landscape of the NBA, you hear a lot
Speaker 1: of people pontificating on the possibility of real movement, real
Speaker 1: movement from players that could make a big difference. And
Speaker 1: most off seasons we see maybe one or two of those.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many we'll see, if we'll see
Speaker 1: any at all. But one of the teams that people
Speaker 1: continuously bring up and they do have some decisions to
Speaker 1: make are the Boston Celtics. They a new ownership group
Speaker 1: who was just informed that just for the right to
Speaker 1: have the team, you have to pay five hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars in luxury tax punitive penalties because of the way
Speaker 1: that the CBA is set up now, Danny Austin will
Speaker 1: all spent time in Boston. Danny spent a long time
Speaker 1: in Boston. Austin comes to the Jazz straight from the
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics. What sort of, if any at all, synergies
Speaker 1: would exist in that scenario that if Boston's open to
Speaker 1: do business and the Jazz wants to get involved here
Speaker 1: because of the familiarity, is that something Jazz fans can
Speaker 1: look at potentially as a positive?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The issue with the Celtics is that the new ownership
Speaker 3: group came in, they knew what the books were like.
Speaker 3: I mean, they didn't come in blind, So they knew
Speaker 3: they were going to be coming into a scenario where
Speaker 3: next year there's a potential if they kept the team
Speaker 3: the way it is currently constructed, that with salaries, taxes, penalties,
Speaker 3: second Apron repeater tax, all these levels of financial responsibility
Speaker 3: that you have toward your player salaries, they could be
Speaker 3: paying close to five hundred million dollars into that area.
Speaker 3: But they but that ownership group was willing to do
Speaker 3: that when they took over because they had the prospect
Speaker 3: that all of our guys are in place. They're all signed,
Speaker 3: we know they can win. We are hopeful they can
Speaker 3: win again, and that's that's what we're in the business for.
Speaker 3: That takes a major hit, major when Jason Tatum goes
Speaker 3: down and now he's out for probably most of next year. Okay,
Speaker 3: how does that affect the rest of their team competitively?
Speaker 3: What does that do to their real chances of winning?
Speaker 3: Because as a new ownership group, well, we might want
Speaker 3: to pay or willing to pay that kind of money
Speaker 3: in all those salaries and penalties, et cetera. If we
Speaker 3: really believe we have a legitimate chance to win. Okay,
Speaker 3: if we don't think we have a real chance to win,
Speaker 3: then why are we spending all that money? And so
Speaker 3: now the Jason Tatum injury comes into play, he's a
Speaker 3: major cog out of the lineup. You we're not gonna
Speaker 3: have him for most of next year, maybe all of
Speaker 3: next year. You never know how he's gonna recover from
Speaker 3: that that injury. But say in a worst case scenario
Speaker 3: he doesn't come back, we're gonna be a good team still.
Speaker 3: But are we really a championship level team? And if
Speaker 3: we don't think we are, but we can be competitive,
Speaker 3: how much. Do we want to still get into that
Speaker 3: that money issue or do we just back off it
Speaker 3: and say, Okay, we gotta we gotta take our lumps.
Speaker 4: We got a bad break.
Speaker 3: Okay, maybe we have to retool and we have to
Speaker 3: do something else with the finances to to reel that
Speaker 3: back in somewhat. And so that may be something where
Speaker 3: other teams, the Jazz, for one, Phoenix another one. I
Speaker 3: don't know other teams that have room. Brooklyn has a
Speaker 3: lot of room where the vultures might be circling the
Speaker 3: Boston Celtics and saying, hey, hey, we'll be willing to
Speaker 3: talk to you about you know, Jalen Brown, or we'll
Speaker 3: be willing to talk to you about Drew Holliday or
Speaker 3: you know, or whoever it is and that we think
Speaker 3: can help us. And you know, and then of course
Speaker 3: the Celtics have to want to play ball and and
Speaker 3: have to you know, feel like, you know, these are
Speaker 3: going to be moves that makes sense business wise because
Speaker 3: of this bad break we got with the Tatum injury.
Speaker 3: And nobody is going to know that better than Austin
Speaker 3: h who is right on the front line with all
Speaker 3: of that. So so the Jazz will have an inner track,
Speaker 3: not necessarily getting a deal done or something like that,
Speaker 3: but but at least information and knowledge wise about how
Speaker 3: those owners are thinking, how the the internal workings are going,
Speaker 3: what Brad Stevens is thinking. All these kinds of things
Speaker 3: that would play in to it, and of course the
Speaker 3: relationship between the two when you get down to you know,
Speaker 3: maybe discussing stuff that's real or that you may want
Speaker 3: to be able to do. Because the other thing that
Speaker 3: can come into play that can be helpful and these
Speaker 3: kinds of discussions is the fact that, oh, you're out
Speaker 3: West and you're one of the worst teams, so you're
Speaker 3: not really going to affect us, the Boston Celtics if
Speaker 3: we do a deal with you, and and we're not
Speaker 3: gonna you're not in our division, right, You're not the Knicks,
Speaker 3: So we're trying to do business with you and and
Speaker 3: and feed our nearest competitors, so to speak. So that
Speaker 3: also can play a factor in those kinds of discussions.
Speaker 3: So that kind of stuff can come up. That's what
Speaker 3: we've talked about Spence all along. You know, with this
Speaker 3: losing and tanking and whatever, that part of that process involves,
Speaker 3: you know, being in the right place at the right time,
Speaker 3: when something happens to somebody else and another team all
Speaker 3: of a sudden has to pivot off something, and you're
Speaker 3: standing there, you know, with your hand up and going hey, hey,
Speaker 3: me over here, you know, you know, let's talk about something.
Speaker 3: So the Jazz are in that kind of position, and
Speaker 3: only time will tell how those those kinds of things
Speaker 3: may come about.
Speaker 2: Before I set you loose, do you anticipate?
Speaker 1: So if we operate off the premise, and this is
Speaker 1: a dangerous assumption because nobody knows. But if Boston's open
Speaker 1: for business, if Giannis is okay with potentially looking to
Speaker 1: leave Milwaukee, if the Phoenix Suns have to move off
Speaker 1: of Durant, if all of this veteran star talent really
Speaker 1: is available, do you think the Jazz get involved. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone is latched onto Austin's comments last week where you know,
Speaker 1: in a response to Sean's question about your personal theory
Speaker 1: or whatever when it comes to taking or manipulating minutes,
Speaker 1: and Austin said, you won't see that this year. And
Speaker 1: as we discussed last week, that's all find and good.
Speaker 1: You have a top eight protected pick that you have
Speaker 1: to keep. You just do if that if they win
Speaker 1: thirty five games and Mark Tatum pulls the number nine
Speaker 1: envelope out and says Utah Jazz and they send a
Speaker 1: top ten pick to the team that I think is
Speaker 1: about to win the World championship, it is a massive failure.
Speaker 1: So it's all finding good to give lip service about Hey,
Speaker 1: great sound by a way to go.
Speaker 2: They've got a hold lot of that pick.
Speaker 1: And if they get involved with some sort of Jalen
Speaker 1: Brown whatever deal, I don't know that I see that
Speaker 1: making sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, well, you know, again, all those things are hypothetical. Spence,
Speaker 3: I would say, just on the surface when when fans
Speaker 3: are looking at just what could happen in the coming
Speaker 3: weeks and and and during the summertime. You know, Kevin Durant,
Speaker 3: you know, Phoenix has to do something with him, in
Speaker 3: my opinion, because that's just not working. You know, he's
Speaker 3: got one year left. He's gonna want to go to
Speaker 3: somebody who can win win a but b uh, You'll
Speaker 3: offer him a possible contract extension, but he doesn't control that.
Speaker 3: Phoenix has to be able to man up and say,
Speaker 3: this is what we're going to do for the best
Speaker 3: interests of the Phoenix Suns and so whatever that ends
Speaker 3: up being, you know, that's Kevin Durant. That's your problem. Okay,
Speaker 3: janis a different deal. Janie has has several years left.
Speaker 3: Janice is the good guy. Yannis is the guy you
Speaker 3: want in your organization. Janice has not said that he
Speaker 3: wants to be traded. He has not made any kind
Speaker 3: of demand, and that's not going to be his nature.
Speaker 3: That's not his personality. What has come out and sometimes
Speaker 3: been misconstrued by the media is that Janice has made
Speaker 3: it known that he's willing to discuss with with the
Speaker 3: people who run the Milwaukee Bucks organization the idea of
Speaker 3: what makes sense to you as an organization, and how
Speaker 3: does that affect me as a player, And if we
Speaker 3: mutually agree that it's better for you to move on
Speaker 3: from me, because Dame Lillard is going to be out
Speaker 3: next year like Tatum, and he is going to be
Speaker 3: getting paid over fifty million dollars to watch the games
Speaker 3: from the bench, and were really going to be a
Speaker 3: serious competitive team and if we're not, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: the good soldier. I'll do whatever you guys want. But
Speaker 3: if it makes sense for you to move on from
Speaker 3: me and my big number and I'm still in my
Speaker 3: prime and you just have to recalibrate because again we
Speaker 3: got a bad break with the Damian Lillard injury, and
Speaker 3: so you want to move me, then I think that
Speaker 3: one would be more where Giannis would be, you know,
Speaker 3: saying behind closed doors, Hey, look, I'm willing to play ball,
Speaker 3: but don't don't send me somewhere where I can't win,
Speaker 3: because you know, I, you know, I've been the good
Speaker 3: guy and you know I brought a championship here and
Speaker 3: a couple MVPs and you know, and I think the
Speaker 3: Milwaukee organization will say, you know, dude, we got you.
Speaker 3: We're going to get you to you know whatever, the Lakers,
Speaker 3: so we're going to get you to okay, see somehow
Speaker 3: or whatever it's going to be. But they that that
Speaker 3: one would be a little bit different to me. I
Speaker 3: think Giannis would be able to dictate quietly and and
Speaker 3: and and good, good conscience, you know what he would
Speaker 3: want to do in that regard. But that's a tough
Speaker 3: deal from Milwaukee too, because they got to figure out
Speaker 3: that's a financial thing, and that's that's a real thing
Speaker 3: that that you gotta be honest with yourself and that's
Speaker 3: a that's a tough deal to hope when you when
Speaker 3: you're in that position and you didn't count on it,
Speaker 3: and and here we are and we gotta we gotta
Speaker 3: figure this thing out, and you know, and but again
Speaker 3: Spence to the point earlier, that's why the Jazz put
Speaker 3: themselves in the position of not being a good team
Speaker 3: of having all these draft picks, having all this freedom,
Speaker 3: if you will, to make and move and and and
Speaker 3: shuffle guys and whatnot. And they may be the guys
Speaker 3: who are waiting there on the sideline going yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: we'll we're willing to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got a bunch of you know, what do
Speaker 4: you like? You like? A, you like B, you like C?
Speaker 4: What do you like? You know? And and and have.
Speaker 3: The opportunity to get into that kind of discussion and
Speaker 3: then and then you never know how things are gonna roll.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only time will tell. Should be a fascinating offseason.
Speaker 1: All right, my man, great to see you. We'll see
Speaker 1: you next week, right, Yes, you got it, thanks man.
Speaker 1: The Great Richard Smith