Speaker 1: All right, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Drivetime Tuesday afternoon, about eleven minutes past the hour of
Speaker 2: two o'clock. It was snowing earlier today, then we had
Speaker 2: a little sunshine and now it's settled a little cloudy,
Speaker 2: about forty two degrees here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 2: A lot of snow over the weekend up in the mountains.
Speaker 2: Good for our resorts and good for the folks that
Speaker 2: travel out to Utah to do a little skiing this
Speaker 2: Sumer year. Happy Tuesday, or if you had a great
Speaker 2: long weekend, and as it is every day, it's going
Speaker 2: to have you along for the ride.
Speaker 1: Spence check, it's beyond the mic.
Speaker 2: That's Porter Larsen behind the glass jam Packed Tuesday Show.
Speaker 2: Since we were off yesterday, we'll do a little all
Speaker 2: star stuff. We're gonna talk about it, I mean, ultimately
Speaker 2: talked about.
Speaker 1: It during Crosstock with Sean today.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you fix a product when the
Speaker 2: people involved in said product don't seem to give a
Speaker 2: rip about showing up for their job. Whether you play
Speaker 2: it in Europe, whether you play it in Utah, whether
Speaker 2: you play it in the Bay Area. It's just continued
Speaker 2: to manifest itself as something that the league even look
Speaker 2: at doing away with. I know that sounds wild, but
Speaker 2: that's what I was thinking. Over the weekend, we did
Speaker 2: see some fun moments for Keante George with the Rising
Speaker 2: Stars stuff and he was able to play on Sundays.
Speaker 2: A lot of dissenting voices, including an employee of Pro Basketball,
Speaker 2: namely Draymond Green, and his thoughts on the weekend. That
Speaker 2: was but kind of the halfway home point as far
Speaker 2: as the calendar goes for teams that will be playing
Speaker 2: in the postseason. Of course, that does not include our
Speaker 2: local basketball team, the Utah Jazz. The Jazz will be
Speaker 2: back in action coming up on Thursday against OKAC, and
Speaker 2: we'll see what they do over the final you know,
Speaker 2: thirty ish games or so.
Speaker 1: Most teams are in that same space.
Speaker 2: I would imagine we're gonna see a lot of players
Speaker 2: resting in order to lose as many games as possible
Speaker 2: down the stretch. And so we'll do some Jazz today,
Speaker 2: We'll do some NBA basketball today, we'll do some All
Speaker 2: Star stuff as well. The Four Nations face off, by
Speaker 2: far was the most exciting in thralling sport events that
Speaker 2: I watched all weekend long, and the final is going
Speaker 2: to be a rematch of US and Canada in Boston,
Speaker 2: which is a great hockey city, and so we do
Speaker 2: have some local boys. Ali Mata had the game ted
Speaker 2: assists for Finland. But only one more game left and
Speaker 2: it is the US and Canada coming up on Thursday night.
Speaker 2: Excited for that one. College basketball starting to get pretty
Speaker 2: pretty exciting. Shout out to the University of Utah men's
Speaker 2: basketball team for their exciting play since you and I
Speaker 2: last spoke on Friday, a home win against Kansas Rock
Speaker 2: Chok Jayhawk. They sent them home with an l seventy
Speaker 2: four to sixty seven and followed it up with a
Speaker 2: nice win against k State last night seventy four to
Speaker 2: sixty nine on the road at UCF, on the road
Speaker 2: at Arizona home against Arizona State in West Virginia, then
Speaker 2: closing out against Brigham Young. Only five regular season games
Speaker 2: left for Craig Smith and his boys, and can we
Speaker 2: get a little weird and start talking about what could
Speaker 2: be possible after taking both games against the Kansas teams.
Speaker 2: So we'll do some college basketball on the show today
Speaker 2: BYU will take on the aforementioned Kansas Jayhawks tonight down
Speaker 2: in Provo, and Brigham Young was able to beat Kansas
Speaker 2: State on Saturday in West Virginia.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, after they beat West Virginia in Provo.
Speaker 2: They beat Case State on Saturday, and they are firmly
Speaker 2: entrenched as of now right in the NCAA tournament picture.
Speaker 2: So we'll get to some of that. Utah State was
Speaker 2: on the road since you and I last spoke. They
Speaker 2: lost to New Mexico again. New Mexico is the first
Speaker 2: place team now in the Mountain West Conference by a
Speaker 2: couple of games over the Aggies. It is franchised tag day.
Speaker 2: In Pro football, a lot of attention on the Cincinnati Bengals,
Speaker 2: what will they do with t Higgins. Minnesota Vikings have
Speaker 2: a decision to make under senter with Sam Darnold, so
Speaker 2: a little pro football as well, and college football randomly
Speaker 2: pretty topical today. There are some very very real serious
Speaker 2: meetings going on in New Orleans, and according to Stuart
Speaker 2: Mandel from the Athletic piece that I read from Stewart today,
Speaker 2: he's calling it a hostile takeover of college football between
Speaker 2: the Big ten the SEC.
Speaker 1: So unpack some of that on the show today.
Speaker 2: We have some good college football guests in addition to
Speaker 2: some NBA and some you know, some college basketball as well.
Speaker 2: And oh, by the way, the Genesis Invitational over the weekend,
Speaker 2: our guy Tony Fenow takes on McCool seven hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty six k for finishing fifth. And the world of
Speaker 2: pro golf starting to get really interesting as well. You
Speaker 2: can watch them pro golfers hit on a simulator tonight,
Speaker 2: including one Eldrick tiger Woods. But happy to see Tony
Speaker 2: off to a great star. We saw the Daytona five
Speaker 2: hundred over the weekend. Did you watch the SNL fifty special?
Speaker 2: My goodness, jam packed lot to do. Good to have
Speaker 2: you with us on a Tuesday. I hope you had
Speaker 2: some time off over the weekend. All right, we'll start
Speaker 2: things off today with a Roxy Bernstein, who's beefing with
Speaker 2: Corney Cox.
Speaker 1: It's the real thing.
Speaker 2: Do some college football, excuse me, some college basketball, then
Speaker 2: some hockey with Roxy today. He's a good friend of
Speaker 2: the show. Got to know him during the PAC twelve years,
Speaker 2: so he'll stop by today. Tim McMahon, NBA Daily Assists Style.
Speaker 2: Tim was not present in the Bay Area for him.
Speaker 2: He took some time off, so we'll do some all
Speaker 2: star stuff, some jazz stuff with Tim Matt Brown, extra
Speaker 2: points for the latest in the world of college football,
Speaker 2: namely these meetings going on down in New Orleans with
Speaker 2: the powers that be in the Big ten in the SEC,
Speaker 2: and the latest with some private equity groups looking to
Speaker 2: invest in collegiate athletics. We'll bring that in today. And
Speaker 2: then Dave Fox. He has two pelotons, he has two Emmys.
Speaker 2: It's a real thing. Let's get a stop bit during
Speaker 2: the four o'clock hour. I'll take this opportunity to let
Speaker 2: you guys know that I will be on television with
Speaker 2: Dave tonight ten thirty five km YU. We call it
Speaker 2: talking Jazz. Excited for that one tonight, so check it out.
Speaker 2: Dave's going to be live in studio on this Tuesday,
Speaker 2: Roxy Bernstein, Timmickman, Matt Brown, Dave Fox, Me, Spence Checkets,
Speaker 2: all of you, the great listeners, and that guy Porter Larson.
Speaker 2: So jam packed weekend, a lot of options if you
Speaker 2: had to land on one sporting event. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you're an SNL guy, but what caught the Porter
Speaker 2: Larson antenna more than anything else since you and I
Speaker 2: last spoke on Friday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you mentioned the All Star Game, and
Speaker 3: that was because of what it is and what it
Speaker 3: historically is is what kind of had my antenna.
Speaker 1: But it was, you know, it was.
Speaker 3: It was not necessarily overwhelming when it comes to the
Speaker 3: All Star weekend. I thought there were some good moments
Speaker 3: on Saturday. I think what they tried. I'm glad they're
Speaker 3: trying things, I guess on Sunday night as far as
Speaker 3: the actual All Star Game goes. But adding non All
Speaker 3: Stars to the game and then adding a bunch of
Speaker 3: breaks with YouTube stars and Kevin Hart is not going
Speaker 3: to fix the All Star Game. Hot take there, I guess.
Speaker 3: But that's kind of where the antenna was. And I'm
Speaker 3: not sure that I was entirely thrilled with the weekend,
Speaker 3: but it's what it, you know, for what it's supposed
Speaker 3: to be, just a celebration of the game, celebration of
Speaker 3: the players. I'm not gonna expect too much of the
Speaker 3: All Star Game, and that's probably the right way to
Speaker 3: approach That.
Speaker 1: Is the right way to approach it.
Speaker 2: So we'll get to some of that stuff on the
Speaker 2: show today. Again, it is Franchise Tag Day in the NFL.
Speaker 2: Any pro football news that comes our way, we will
Speaker 2: bring it to you. Our first guests right out of
Speaker 2: the gates will be Roxy burn Steam. But before we
Speaker 2: get to Roxy, Curtis of our good friends at Prize Picks.
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Speaker 2: gonna bring in Roxy Bernstein here coming up in just
Speaker 2: a little bit. But before we get to Roxy, we'll
Speaker 2: do a little All Star stuff. Okay, we're not going
Speaker 2: to do a ton today. Excuse me, ran out of
Speaker 2: cough drops. Wrong day to do that. Look, the conversation
Speaker 2: for far too long after NBA All Star weekend is okay,
Speaker 2: did the format change work? Are the players actually showing up,
Speaker 2: carrying and playing hard? What should we do about the
Speaker 2: NBA All Star Game? And for the first time, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: two years ago, I was here in the city porter
Speaker 2: and I went down to a couple events.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. I had some family
Speaker 1: in town.
Speaker 2: I was able to take my son to a bunch
Speaker 2: of things and say hi to a lot of old
Speaker 2: friends that I hadn't seen for quite some time. When
Speaker 2: it's in your city, it hits a little differently. Jazz
Speaker 2: had an All Star that year. It was lowry marketing,
Speaker 2: but watching it on television hasn't been intriguing and interesting
Speaker 2: if we're honest, probably for fifteen years or so, and
Speaker 2: maybe even longer than that. I mean, the last really
Speaker 2: fun close All Star game I can remember.
Speaker 1: Might have been in two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm not going to be the old guy that
Speaker 2: yells at you to get off my lawn all day
Speaker 2: about this. But here's the right format. Okay, if you
Speaker 2: want to solve this thing, here's the right format. It's
Speaker 2: the same format it's always been with the players caring
Speaker 2: about the product. That's the there's your solution, Adam Silver,
Speaker 2: Play a regular All Star game and make sure your
Speaker 2: players care about it. That's the format. That's the solution.
Speaker 2: Here's the rub. They don't and they're not going to start.
Speaker 2: There's nothing that can motivate these players to care. You know,
Speaker 2: they change it up with a group of teams, you know,
Speaker 2: one team from the you know, the Saturday Night cluster
Speaker 2: of rising stars players including Keante, George Advance on a Sunday.
Speaker 2: A lot of old heads were upset that these young
Speaker 2: players had the opportunity to play in an All Star
Speaker 2: format on Sunday. That's something you are supposed to earn.
Speaker 2: And then ultimately, I do think it did solve one thing.
Speaker 2: I saw a little bit more intensity. There were some
Speaker 2: defensive stops, but there was not enough of a care
Speaker 2: factor from start to finish of this mini tournament, and
Speaker 2: the format was just horrific. Now I am a grown up,
Speaker 2: I understand this is a front facing, revenue generating product
Speaker 2: and you have advertisers that you have to appease because
Speaker 2: the lifeblood of all sports right now is live TV rights,
Speaker 2: and the NBA is about to launch into a seventy
Speaker 2: eight billion dollar television deal, okay, and that is going
Speaker 2: to get a lot of people paid, not like they needed,
Speaker 2: but you know, paid, to the point where it's almost
Speaker 2: like the NBA is running itself like a fortune five
Speaker 2: hundred company in a way that Now David Stearn very
Speaker 2: much was a business man, don't get me wrong. I
Speaker 2: mean he understood that in order for this thing to survive,
Speaker 2: you had to find revenue streams and you had to
Speaker 2: make money, and you had to make sure the players
Speaker 2: got paid and the owners, you know, were paid for
Speaker 2: their investment in the product. And you know, so it's
Speaker 2: not like running this thing like a business is new.
Speaker 2: Running it only like a business is new, is what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. Like that is your main priority and they're
Speaker 2: so front facing and arrogant about it that it's such
Speaker 2: a turnoff.
Speaker 1: Like we need do we really need.
Speaker 2: Twenty minutes of freaking Kevin Hart's first of all, I
Speaker 2: don't need twenty minutes of Kevin Hart stand up ever.
Speaker 2: You know, there are all there are these things that
Speaker 2: occasionally remind me that this generation up behind me, like
Speaker 2: people in the early thirties, I don't relate to you
Speaker 2: at all. One of them's Pete Davidson, Like I've never
Speaker 2: Pete Davidson has never said one thing that I think
Speaker 2: is funny. I've never seen him on an SNL skit
Speaker 2: that I think is funny. I've never heard like a
Speaker 2: stand up bit that I think it's I don't think
Speaker 2: he's clever.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's witty.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's funny, Like congrats on the dating scene, bro,
Speaker 2: but like, get off my television. It's annoying. And I
Speaker 2: don't get Kevin Hart. I just don't. I respect the grind.
Speaker 2: That dude works as hard as anybody in any industry.
Speaker 2: I respect it. I just don't think he's funny. I
Speaker 2: don't think he's a funny stand up comic. I think
Speaker 2: he's okay in movies here or there, and I think
Speaker 2: he did a pretty good job, like m seeing that
Speaker 2: Brady Roast thing. But Kevin Hart with a microphone makes
Speaker 2: me want to turn my television off. And if I'm
Speaker 2: a player and I just finished a game and I
Speaker 2: have to sit for twenty five minutes while Kevin Hart
Speaker 2: makes fun of Shaq's hat and his turtleneck, I am
Speaker 2: beyond irritated. If you've ever played at any level, you
Speaker 2: know that if you go hard for a minute and
Speaker 2: then you have to sit for twenty Even Jokic was like,
Speaker 2: they asked him like, hey, what'd you do during the break?
Speaker 2: He's like, I just got tight, That's all I did.
Speaker 2: You're asking these players, some of whom on Shack Squad
Speaker 2: the Og Squad are up in their early and mid thirties. Okay,
Speaker 2: go hard for this game and then sit and watch
Speaker 2: a tribute to Inside the NBA on TNT. And by
Speaker 2: the way, I'm good with those tributes. That show rules.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite shows on television. But every
Speaker 2: single time there's some NBA event, there's a break to
Speaker 2: honor that show for fifteen or twenty minutes. I'm set
Speaker 2: everything's online. Okay, if you want to go find your
Speaker 2: inside the NBA tribute, go get it online. Don't put
Speaker 2: it on my television when I tune in to watch
Speaker 2: the best basketball players on the planet do dope thing.
Speaker 2: That's what the All Star Weekend to me, has always
Speaker 2: been about, the best athletes, the best players doing really
Speaker 2: cool things. And they had to find a G League
Speaker 2: player to save the dunk contest. And Mac McClung is
Speaker 2: an incredibly talented dunker. I'm not taking anything away from him,
Speaker 2: but it's this cowardice and this soft approach from the
Speaker 2: modern NBA players that has ruined this entire thing. And again,
Speaker 2: I will not simply harken back to the old days
Speaker 2: all the time, because I'm now to the point where
Speaker 2: if I'm the NBA, I believe the only approach is
Speaker 2: to admit to everybody this thing is a farce. It
Speaker 2: is simply a think about it like you're watching You're
Speaker 2: walking in to watch John Wick three. Okay, you are
Speaker 2: tuned into a movie. These guys don't give a rip. Okay,
Speaker 2: We're simply going to celebrate the league in a very
Speaker 2: non serious way instead of trying to sell it like
Speaker 2: it used to be, and that is truly the best
Speaker 2: basketball players on the planet playing the best pickup game
Speaker 2: on the planet was the All Star Game.
Speaker 1: Back in the day.
Speaker 2: We had one of the best ones here in ninety
Speaker 2: three when John and Carl won co MVPs. And yes,
Speaker 2: there were times back in the day where the first
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of quarters, maybe they're not going
Speaker 2: all that hard, but you go back and watch all
Speaker 2: of those games down the stretch, those dudes were trying
Speaker 2: to win and they were trying to kill each other.
Speaker 2: And Kobe kind of nailed this a number of years ago,
Speaker 2: a couple of years after Kobe retired, he gave a
Speaker 2: very honest assessment of the NBA and those comments have
Speaker 2: aged brilliantly. Obviously, Kobe passing away tragically in that helicopter
Speaker 2: accident called the way the league is going accidental basketball. Essentially,
Speaker 2: it's just driving kick and then it's make or miss,
Speaker 2: and there's no nuance. And there are some players that
Speaker 2: still have the nuanced approach and look, love him or
Speaker 2: hate him. Lebron is one of them. But that was
Speaker 2: a bad look for Lebron just decides to show up
Speaker 2: and he's like, yeah, I'm good. I'm just not playing
Speaker 2: and Lebron wields so much power nobody can say anything
Speaker 2: to him, and it ultimately leads me to landing the.
Speaker 1: Plane on this.
Speaker 2: The problem ultimately with All Star weekend, the problem ultimately
Speaker 2: with NBA regular season basketball. And you can draw a
Speaker 2: straight line between where we're at now and the time
Speaker 2: when the players were able to collectively bargain to receive
Speaker 2: and let me be clear, their fair share of basketball
Speaker 2: related income. For years, the scales were very, very tipped
Speaker 2: in the favor into the favor of the owners period,
Speaker 2: and of story, I mean the owners. It was like
Speaker 2: this oligarchy for a long time, old rich white dudes
Speaker 2: making money on the back of players, and the players
Speaker 2: really needing to play for a paycheck.
Speaker 1: Right, So I am for this shift that happened.
Speaker 2: I feel the same way about player compensation in the
Speaker 2: pros as I do about the player compensation in college.
Speaker 2: For years and years and years, it was highly unfair.
Speaker 2: The college athletes were the only people in our country
Speaker 2: that did not have the same basic economic rights as
Speaker 2: the rest of us.
Speaker 1: That's been rectified.
Speaker 2: Has it affected the I don't think so as of
Speaker 2: now on a massive level, But as we move forward,
Speaker 2: people are really nervous. And for years and years and years,
Speaker 2: it was kind of odd as the NBA started to
Speaker 2: rise and TV deals started to go through the roof,
Speaker 2: and you know, it was Magic and Bird. That was
Speaker 2: kind of the early thing with the Lakers and the Celtics.
Speaker 2: And then Mike comes in and changes everything, and David
Speaker 2: Stern as the commissioner, was able to lead this thing
Speaker 2: into a position where the money started piling in and
Speaker 2: the players were not receiving their fair share. So I
Speaker 2: am four the players receiving their fair share. The problem
Speaker 2: is when contracts became guaranteed and a player could show
Speaker 2: up and be like, Hey, I'm playing without pants tonight
Speaker 2: just so you know, and it doesn't matter because he's
Speaker 2: still getting paid. That is a direct line between now
Speaker 2: and that moment when this league started to decline with
Speaker 2: the care factor of the players, and that is a problem.
Speaker 1: It's not all on the players.
Speaker 2: Okay, we heard Zion Williamson a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: when he was asked about not playing back to backs
Speaker 2: for a kid that's still in his twenties. He's like,
Speaker 2: it's not my call, it's the team. So it's not
Speaker 2: all on the players, but this All Star weekend to
Speaker 2: me was a microcosm of a bigger issue with the
Speaker 2: product of pro basketball. Now, as I reference, they're about
Speaker 2: to enter a seventy eight billion dollar television windfall. So
Speaker 2: if they hear anybody say, yeah, you have a problem,
Speaker 2: they'll just email their P and L statement and say
Speaker 2: where's the problem. But if you're only running a pro
Speaker 2: sports league as if it's a fortune five hundred business
Speaker 2: and that's all, it is not an entertainment product where
Speaker 2: you owe your fans, who essentially pay the bills by
Speaker 2: either attending or watching games, I do think you have
Speaker 2: an issue.
Speaker 1: Now. Occasionally we hear the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 2: Jason Kidd a couple of years ago after the MAVs
Speaker 2: lost in the playoffs to the media and the fans,
Speaker 2: You guys don't get it.
Speaker 4: We are simply millionaires cheering for each other. And when
Speaker 4: you hear it.
Speaker 1: Out loud, you're like, oh, dude.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, I guess I guess there's the motivation.
Speaker 2: I guess that's their attitude. Kevin Durant saying, you guys
Speaker 2: don't get it. Nobody ever talks about the fans nobody
Speaker 2: ever gives a rip about the fans. So look, I
Speaker 2: am a fan of pro basketball. I've been around in
Speaker 2: my entire life. I've covered it now twenty years, and
Speaker 2: covered the Jazz and worked over there for a long time.
Speaker 1: I will continue to cover the league.
Speaker 2: And I do believe playoff basketball is awesome, because basketball
Speaker 2: is awesome when the best players in the world play
Speaker 2: and they care.
Speaker 1: But if you don't care, we don't care.
Speaker 4: I was watching this show, I think it was Hulu
Speaker 4: last week, and it had the biggest beefs in celebrity
Speaker 4: I think it was the nineties, the biggest beef between
Speaker 4: celebrities and the nineties, right, and they're going back and forth,
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of Tupac Biggie, you know, and
Speaker 4: they were ranking them, you know, they're ranking them, and
Speaker 4: for some reason they completely decided to ignore the Roxy
Speaker 4: Bernstein Courtney Cox beef.
Speaker 1: I thought it was malfeasance on their part. Interesting, was
Speaker 1: this to see an end thing? Was it the nineties
Speaker 1: documentary or whatever?
Speaker 2: It was the nineties, like, biggest beefs between celebrities and
Speaker 2: the nineties, And for my money, I don't know that
Speaker 2: there's a bigger beef between, you know, than between our
Speaker 2: next guest, Roxy Burns steaming the Great Corney Cox Roxy.
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday, sir.
Speaker 5: How are you, Spence? I just want to know with
Speaker 5: Vanilla Ice and Sugar Knight on there was that part
Speaker 5: of the beef it was not.
Speaker 2: But Shug I think was featured I think three or
Speaker 2: four times, which is not surprising at all.
Speaker 1: How you been, my friend?
Speaker 5: I'm good, you know, busy. It's getting the real grind
Speaker 5: of the season. But I'm good, you know, bouncing around
Speaker 5: doing what I do.
Speaker 1: There you go, there, you go? All right?
Speaker 2: Right off the top. Is there any way to fix
Speaker 2: the NBA All Star Game?
Speaker 5: I don't know, to be honest with you, right, and
Speaker 5: there is there a way to duplicate what the NHL
Speaker 5: slash hockey has done. Considering how great this four nation's
Speaker 5: face off has been and the anticipation that a lot
Speaker 5: of people have for Thursday night with the final between
Speaker 5: US and Canada, I mean, is there a way to
Speaker 5: generate internationally? And will they care enough? That's the other thing,
Speaker 5: And I'm not exactly sure, Spence, what you can do
Speaker 5: to make the NBA players care. They tried to do
Speaker 5: something different this year. I think there was a little
Speaker 5: bit more of a player participation and excitement about it,
Speaker 5: but I wouldn't even come close to putting on the
Speaker 5: same level what hockey's doing right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll get talking in a moment, because the
Speaker 2: Four Nations Canada US game, by far was the dopest
Speaker 2: thing I watched all weekend. So we'll get to that
Speaker 2: in a moment. But I don't know that the NBA
Speaker 2: at this point roxy has any other choice than just
Speaker 2: to admit what we're all seeing, and that is nobody
Speaker 2: gives a rip about this. It is simply a celebration
Speaker 2: of the league because and I don't want to be
Speaker 2: the old man yelling at a cloud about this, but
Speaker 2: you remember, once upon a time that was the greatest.
Speaker 1: Pickup game in the history of everything.
Speaker 2: When the best players in the world cared about playing
Speaker 2: in that game and wanted to beat each other, there
Speaker 2: was nothing better.
Speaker 1: And now, honestly, they's just nothing worse.
Speaker 2: Because to your point, I don't care if you play
Speaker 2: it in the Bay, I don't care if you play
Speaker 2: it in Salt Lake. I don't care if it's US
Speaker 2: versus International, East versus West. These dudes can't even be
Speaker 2: bothered to play hard for a for a large portion
Speaker 2: and then Lebron shows up and he's like, yeah, I'm out,
Speaker 2: just so you know, like I'm just not even participating.
Speaker 4: I think at this point the league just needs.
Speaker 2: To admit that they're seeing what we're seeing and it's
Speaker 2: just unwatchable.
Speaker 1: And then that's just kind of the deal now.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: And look, I had an issue with Lebron did this
Speaker 5: weekend you take the spot from somebody else that could
Speaker 5: be there and made himself the center of attention in
Speaker 5: a lot of ways that all of a sudden dropping
Speaker 5: it on everybody. I am not playing that. That's the
Speaker 5: frustrating thing I had with with what Lebron did. But
Speaker 5: the NBA, it's, look, I don't want to be this
Speaker 5: gut off my long guy. But when we were growing up, Spence,
Speaker 5: Michael Jordan cared right when he wanted to be involved.
Speaker 5: He had to win and he wasn't alone. Larry Bird
Speaker 5: took the floor, Magic Johnson. They wanted to win desperately
Speaker 5: and it meant something. Now we're exactly going all out
Speaker 5: and trying at the beginning, no, but when the game
Speaker 5: mattered and they had to play defense late in the game,
Speaker 5: or they had to make a physical screen on somebody
Speaker 5: they were doing it. You're not seeing that right now
Speaker 5: with the NBA in the All Star Game, with the
Speaker 5: young stars and having those teams there. It just is
Speaker 5: a different feel than it was for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: Last thing on this. And look, we both work in
Speaker 2: media and I do some TV. You do a lot
Speaker 2: of TV and call a lot of games, and so
Speaker 2: I understand, and I'm a grown up. So this is
Speaker 2: a front facing, revenue generating product, and you have television
Speaker 2: partners that you need to take care of. But if
Speaker 2: I'm a player and I play hard and I get
Speaker 2: a win and we advance on and then you tell
Speaker 2: me that I have to sit down and listen to
Speaker 2: Kevin Hart make fun of Shaq's hat for thirty minutes
Speaker 2: before I'm playing again, I would be roxy. I would
Speaker 2: be so annoyed, because you know the deal, Like, if
Speaker 2: you've ever played any sport at any level, Okay, you
Speaker 2: play hard for a while and then you sit for
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 1: What happens? You get tight?
Speaker 2: Like they even interviewed Yokitch and they're like, hey, what
Speaker 2: have you done during the break? He's like, I tightened up,
Speaker 2: you know, like if you're trying to avoid injury the
Speaker 2: format itself while they're force feeding us Kevin Hart I
Speaker 2: thought was horribly misguided.
Speaker 5: They're with you that when you play all right, you
Speaker 5: want to keep going. You don't want to sit because
Speaker 5: and as you alluded to, you get stiff and you
Speaker 5: make yourself susceptible to an injury. You want to keep going, Like, okay,
Speaker 5: could you set up two courts? I don't know what
Speaker 5: you could do if you're going to try to do
Speaker 5: a format like this and keep guys going, oh, we
Speaker 5: got next, right, That's the format that they used is
Speaker 5: not viewer friendly and even a friendly to that regard,
Speaker 5: and there has to be a better solution. I just look,
Speaker 5: I'm not smart enough to figure it out. That's the
Speaker 5: job for Adam Silver in the NBA to try to
Speaker 5: get a better fit for what this should be. And look,
Speaker 5: it's not necessarily a joke like the NFL had become
Speaker 5: with the Pro Bowl. Baseball does a decent job I
Speaker 5: think with the All Star Game and making it competitive
Speaker 5: and guys are out there and they are competing. But
Speaker 5: right now I'd say that the NBA is probably third
Speaker 5: as far as those All Star games. And look, I'm
Speaker 5: not including the MLS in this, but I think what
Speaker 5: hockey has right now is clearly number one. I'd put
Speaker 5: the Major League Baseball game number two, then a third
Speaker 5: would be the NBA and they're All Star weekend.
Speaker 2: Well, somebody didn't watch jaseus for that and the skill
Speaker 2: challenge in the MLS All Star Game a year ago
Speaker 2: apparently rock so that you tuned out on that one.
Speaker 5: Huh Sorry, I I am not up with my MLS.
Speaker 1: My bad, All good, All good, All right, let's move
Speaker 1: over to hockey.
Speaker 2: And before we talk about what we saw last week
Speaker 2: and what we could see on Thursday. We are a
Speaker 2: new hockey market, so give us a little you know,
Speaker 2: context and maybe even a history lesson US Canada hockey
Speaker 2: is among the best rivalries in all of sport, period,
Speaker 2: but help us understand just how how intense this rivalry
Speaker 2: has been before we talk about what's in front of us.
Speaker 1: Now, Hello, did you drop? He's still there? But Roxy, Roxy?
Speaker 1: Are you there? Hello? Check one?
Speaker 6: Two?
Speaker 2: All right, we'll try to get Roxy back. Four nations
Speaker 2: face off coming up on Thursday. That will be the
Speaker 2: final US Canada. It's going to be played in Boston.
Speaker 2: Which is a great hockey city. After the US was
Speaker 2: able to be cam a two to one in an
Speaker 2: event that saw three fights in the first nine minutes.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was one of, if not the
Speaker 2: most entertaining products all weekend long. At its peak, five
Speaker 2: point four million American viewers watched the tournament. And so
Speaker 2: this is a new thing that hockey is trying to do,
Speaker 2: and as of right now, the early returns have been very,
Speaker 2: very positive. So Matthew, Brady, Kachuck, and j. T. Miller
Speaker 2: each had a fight to open the game.
Speaker 7: JT.
Speaker 2: Miller fought a dude that's twice his size. But of
Speaker 2: course the Kachuck brothers started things off. So let's get
Speaker 2: Roxy Bernstein back on Roxy. Unfortunately, we didn't hear any
Speaker 2: of your answers, so I'll just ask it in a
Speaker 2: very short way, give us a little bit of context
Speaker 2: as to why US Canada in hockey is so intense.
Speaker 5: Well, that was the best thing I was said all day,
Speaker 5: Spence clearly.
Speaker 1: Oh damn it, Okay, your best.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: It's funny because of the international stage international hockey, the
Speaker 5: it was more Canada Russia when you go back some
Speaker 5: years and it's only within the last I don't know,
Speaker 5: twenty years or so, maybe twenty five years, that the
Speaker 5: US is really surged and this rivalry is heated up
Speaker 5: between Canada and the US. And it's clear that this
Speaker 5: matters to the guys in the dressing room, to USA hockey,
Speaker 5: to Canadian hockey, and they went out there and responded
Speaker 5: like it, especially when you get Matthew Katruck dropping the
Speaker 5: gloves right off the opening face off and you get
Speaker 5: a brawl going. And the only thing that would have
Speaker 5: made it more intense, I think Spence is if he
Speaker 5: had fought Sam Bennett, initially his teammate in Florida, right
Speaker 5: instead of Brady Kitchuck fighting Sam Bennett, if you got
Speaker 5: Matthew Kachuck and Sam Bennett fighting each other off the
Speaker 5: opening draw. But I'm not expecting the same kind of physicality.
Speaker 5: If you will, I'm not expecting fights off to get
Speaker 5: go on Thursday night. I think it's going to be
Speaker 5: a physical hockey game. Could we see some sticks come up,
Speaker 5: some pushing and shoving, Yeah, I think we're going to
Speaker 5: be witnessing that. But if you look at the wind
Speaker 5: and the game settled in, it became a smart, defensive
Speaker 5: game that the US played, and when you have the
Speaker 5: best goaltender in the world, which the US does with
Speaker 5: Connor Hallibuck, and the way the defense really shut down,
Speaker 5: I thought the firepower of the Canadians that was more
Speaker 5: of the story, even though the headlines clearly were the
Speaker 5: three fights coming in the first nine seconds to get
Speaker 5: the night started. And was there a build up from
Speaker 5: the booing of the anthem. I think there was part
Speaker 5: of that, and the Kachucks s wore it on their
Speaker 5: sleeve out there and took out some aggression. But this
Speaker 5: has become a rivalry I think over years just because
Speaker 5: of the US has elevated their platform on the international
Speaker 5: stage in hockey, where for years it was Canada and
Speaker 5: that was international hockey for a lot of people, or
Speaker 5: I mean Russia and Canada, I should say so.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, I just was chuckling when I was listening to
Speaker 2: some of the coverage earlier today because they were talking
Speaker 2: about some of the players that are heard on both sides,
Speaker 2: and there was the sound by sound bite where I
Speaker 2: think it was Brady Kachuck and may have been Matthew,
Speaker 2: one of the Kachuck brothers, was asked like, hey, you
Speaker 2: guys are you know, you had to sit for the
Speaker 2: portion of the game against I think it was Sweden,
Speaker 2: and there are rumors about you guys being banged up
Speaker 2: in there, and he's like, we're playing just so you know,
Speaker 2: like we're we're playing on Thursday.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt.
Speaker 2: And it's one of the things roxy not to go
Speaker 2: back to the NBA bashing, but I love pro basketball and.
Speaker 1: I'm mad at it right now.
Speaker 2: I just I love that hockey players will just show
Speaker 2: up because and look, this obviously means a lot more
Speaker 2: than a exhibition game. So I'm not going back to
Speaker 2: Lebron entirely, but it's one of the things that I've
Speaker 2: always loved about hockey players. They're they're they're real tough guys,
Speaker 2: and they care about competing. They care about showing up
Speaker 2: and playing because it makes the product better obviously.
Speaker 5: And that's the mentality, and that's the hockey mentality. If
Speaker 5: you go back that you're gonna play, if you can
Speaker 5: blace up your skates, you're gonna go out there and play.
Speaker 5: And I know so the NHL teams are obviously a
Speaker 5: little nervous about it when they see, for example, Charlie
Speaker 5: McAvoy and the injury that he's dealing with right now.
Speaker 5: Matthew Kuchuk was scratched doing a little lower body injury
Speaker 5: from yesterday's game. Brady Kulchuck then they for precautionary reasons,
Speaker 5: pulled him from the game yesterday. So that's the tough
Speaker 5: thing for the NHL is they're so invested in this
Speaker 5: event and it means a lot, and it's clearly elevated
Speaker 5: hockey on the national stage here in the United States,
Speaker 5: and with the television ratings that they had for the
Speaker 5: game on Saturday night shows that there's interest. And now
Speaker 5: you move forward and you just hope that you're going
Speaker 5: to get the best product on both sides because of
Speaker 5: the injuries. And look, these guys are out there to compete,
Speaker 5: they're out there to win. They're not just mailing it in.
Speaker 5: This isn't just okay, a whole hum event. National pride
Speaker 5: means a lot to these players, and it's evident the
Speaker 5: way they've responded so far in this tournament.
Speaker 2: Before we move off the hockey stuff, and you know,
Speaker 2: you've got a game to call tonight, so I want
Speaker 2: to do some college basketball with you. In a moment,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to kick the tires on where we
Speaker 2: find ourselves year one with the Utah Hockey Club. They
Speaker 2: are right now as my computer refreshes, there's six points
Speaker 2: behind the Canucks and a full eleven points behind the
Speaker 2: Avs for the wild card. What a peg like won't
Speaker 2: go away? It's wild what the Jets have done this year.
Speaker 2: But your thoughts on I guess I'll just say the
Speaker 2: first half, even though we're more than halfway home of
Speaker 2: the season for the Utah Hockey Club, and you think
Speaker 2: there's a chance they're able to catch the Canucks and
Speaker 2: maybe be a wild card playoff team this year, there's
Speaker 2: a chance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you have Calgary lodge in there in between, and
Speaker 5: some of the teams have dropped off, like, for example, Okay,
Speaker 5: Saint Louis is a couple points behind Utah. The Seattle
Speaker 5: Kraken to me, have been a major disappointment. They firmly
Speaker 5: expected to be in the playoff race, but they're well
Speaker 5: out of it right now. Is there are eleven points
Speaker 5: behind the Canucks. Nashville has been another huge disappointment in
Speaker 5: the Western Conference. But the opportunity is there and I
Speaker 5: know the schedule could be favorable here coming up for
Speaker 5: Utah with some home games, and even though they haven't
Speaker 5: played great at home, they've actually been a better team
Speaker 5: on the road for whatever reason. But there's gonna be
Speaker 5: opportunities here and they're going to have to hit a
Speaker 5: really good run here to open up the second half,
Speaker 5: if you will, because Vancouver and Calgary both have a
Speaker 5: game in hand on Utah, so they're going to have to,
Speaker 5: I think play at a pretty brisk pace here to
Speaker 5: make a push. Can it be done, Absolutely, it can
Speaker 5: be done.
Speaker 7: And the injuries that Utah has dealt with on the.
Speaker 5: Blue line, Connor Ingram missed a good chunk of time
Speaker 5: when he was away from the team. The injuries even
Speaker 5: up front that that they've had to deal with, that's
Speaker 5: been a concern. But they've tried to piece it together
Speaker 5: here and set themselves up to make a run. They're
Speaker 5: in this thing and they're gonna have an opportunity now.
Speaker 5: They're gonna have to help themselves out. There's been certainly
Speaker 5: drama surrounding Vancouver with the whole JT. Miller situation in
Speaker 5: Elias Petterson, but there's gonna be opportunity here when you
Speaker 5: look at the schedule, what's looming for Utah and you
Speaker 5: open up the second half. Okay, it's gonna be tough,
Speaker 5: you're at LA, But then you have a run of
Speaker 5: home games Vancouver, Chicago, the Wild New Jersey. There's some
Speaker 5: other clutch games coming up, like, for example, the Leafs
Speaker 5: still come here. They're gonna be opportunities, but they're gonna
Speaker 5: have to hit the ground run into the second half
Speaker 5: in place of really good hockey coming out of the break.
Speaker 2: All right, before we end with a thought on BYU
Speaker 2: and their basketball program, let's give a little love to
Speaker 2: Craig Smith and the Utah you two over the weekend
Speaker 2: was able to get two home wins against the two
Speaker 2: Kansas teams. They beat the number seven team team in
Speaker 2: the country, Kansas, who I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, man, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, the Jayhawks I believe were preseason top two
Speaker 2: or three, maybe even preseason one. And that group does
Speaker 2: not look like a connected group to me at all.
Speaker 1: But a good win for the Utes.
Speaker 2: They were an underdog and then kse State, who had
Speaker 2: won six straight prior to their trip to Provo. You know,
Speaker 2: that was a really good basketball game and the best
Speaker 2: thing that I saw, in my opinion, roxy those two games.
Speaker 2: That I really haven't seen much of from Utah this
Speaker 2: year is their ability to close. You know, they were
Speaker 2: in the game it was seventy two to seventy two
Speaker 2: at Cincinnati. Then since he ended on like a thirteen
Speaker 2: to two run. They were close against West Virginia, they
Speaker 2: were close against Oklahoma State, even Baylor.
Speaker 1: They had some moments, but.
Speaker 2: The closing stretches have been difficult because they do not
Speaker 2: have a ball in hand, lead guard, decision maker that
Speaker 2: has the ability to make dynamic things happen like they
Speaker 2: did a year ago with Davon Smith. But with five
Speaker 2: games left, you know, you look at the rest of
Speaker 2: the schedule, they're gonna have to pull off some upsets,
Speaker 2: but they might be a double digit win team in conference.
Speaker 2: In the Big Twelve. They're seven and eight with five
Speaker 2: games left to play. And I want to get too
Speaker 2: far ahead of myself, but I'm really happy for Craig.
Speaker 2: Next year is the final year of his deal. So
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on this year from the Utah Uts.
Speaker 5: This was a big weekend I think for him and
Speaker 5: the program to get those wins, and it is a
Speaker 5: little more difficult for them to get things done offensively
Speaker 5: They're a team that has to do it by committee. Yes,
Speaker 5: Gate Madison's your volume shooter and your go to guy
Speaker 5: would need a big bucket, as he was with huge
Speaker 5: shots against both Kansas and Casetate last night. But it's
Speaker 5: a team that shares the ball that they average eighteen
Speaker 5: assists per game, their top ten in the country and
Speaker 5: assist and that's the way they have to play. They
Speaker 5: have to be connected offensively, and the effort on the
Speaker 5: offensive glass the last two games has been phenomenal. It's
Speaker 5: not just Ezra Sr. That they appeared to me wanted
Speaker 5: it more. They were the more aggressive team in these
Speaker 5: two games. And now you go out and they have
Speaker 5: five games left before they go to Kansas City in
Speaker 5: the Big Twelve Tournament. Getting to eighteen wins is a
Speaker 5: realistic possibility for this team, and you mentioned the double
Speaker 5: digit wins in the league. They have to prove they
Speaker 5: can win on the road, and that's what they're gonna
Speaker 5: have to do if they're going to try to get
Speaker 5: out of the first day, maybe even the first two
Speaker 5: days of the Big Twelve Tournament, They're going to have
Speaker 5: to go to Central Florida and win a tough home
Speaker 5: game against West Virginia, but they got to win at home.
Speaker 5: If they can go three and two of these last
Speaker 5: couple of games, I think that goes well for them.
Speaker 5: And I think that for a team that was picked
Speaker 5: what sixteenth spence in the preseason poll, and if they
Speaker 5: can finish right around middle of the league seven days,
Speaker 5: that would be I think a really big accomplishment for
Speaker 5: this group.
Speaker 2: So Kevin Young has a litany of talent at his disposal.
Speaker 2: He's got two potential well one lottery pick with Jegor
Speaker 2: Demon and then a lot of people think Kennon Catching's
Speaker 2: is the first round player. So there's some you know,
Speaker 2: some seven figure players on this roster according to a
Speaker 2: lot of reports, and what I've been told and started off,
Speaker 2: you know, not great as far as what we were expecting,
Speaker 2: but they've kind of settled in now. They had a
Speaker 2: couple of losses Arizona, that at Cincinnati where they got trounced.
Speaker 2: They go to Morgantown and get a win over just
Speaker 2: a pain in the ass. West Virginia is the tough
Speaker 2: team to play against. Yeah, and then they end that
Speaker 2: six game winning streak from k State and it really
Speaker 2: wasn't close when this is gonna sound reductive and simplistic,
Speaker 2: but when Brigham Young is knocking down shots, that's a
Speaker 2: tough team. Kevin's got a tough team. So they see
Speaker 2: Kansas tonight you're on the call, So kind of same question.
Speaker 2: Your thoughts with year one under Kevin Young? What do
Speaker 2: you expecting tonight? Is the Jayhawks are down in Provo.
Speaker 5: And this is an enormous game because the winner of
Speaker 5: tonight's game between KU and BYU will have the inside
Speaker 5: track at the five seed because you'll have the only
Speaker 5: matchup between the two teams this year, so you'll have
Speaker 5: the tiebreaker, and then can you make a push to
Speaker 5: get into the top four, which would be a huge boost.
Speaker 5: You get a buy into the quarterfinals if you could
Speaker 5: do that. And so for BYU, they've been dominated a
Speaker 5: home home. Kansas has been very inconsistent this year, and
Speaker 5: they've in fact, they've lost three consecutive road games to
Speaker 5: unranked teams, which is kind of an hurt up spence
Speaker 5: for a bill self team. But this BYU team, I
Speaker 5: think they've gotten better as the season has gone on.
Speaker 5: And this is an adjustment for Kevin Young. Right, He's
Speaker 5: an NBA guy and both of the last number of
Speaker 5: years with the Suns, also with Philadelphia, So he's going
Speaker 5: through a learning curve of the college game and learning
Speaker 5: the tendencies of going up against Bill self or a
Speaker 5: Scott Drew in this league. And that's a it's a
Speaker 5: big adjustment. I think it's a bigger adjustment than people
Speaker 5: realize what Kevin Young has had to do this year.
Speaker 5: And that's why I think they've gotten better and better
Speaker 5: is this season has gone on and for example, tonight
Speaker 5: is a big opportunity. They know it and it is
Speaker 5: going to be rocking very at Center. This is this
Speaker 5: is a game at BYU has been waiting for for
Speaker 5: a long time. This is a reason why in a
Speaker 5: number of ways, BYU is so active in wanting to
Speaker 5: get to the Big twelve. It's not just the money,
Speaker 5: and it's not just the more exposure, but to get
Speaker 5: a blue blood on your home floor. It's the first
Speaker 5: time a blue blood program will have been to the
Speaker 5: Marriott Center since the late eighties. And that's what BYU
Speaker 5: has tonight.
Speaker 2: All right, before I say you lose a college football question,
Speaker 2: because for the second time in four months, I guess
Speaker 2: I'll say conference leaders from the SEC and the Big
Speaker 2: ten are meeting in person to discuss common ground, is
Speaker 2: what I'm reading during a critical decision making period in
Speaker 2: college athletics. So the meetings are talking about the House
Speaker 2: versus nca A and future governance and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But maybe most importantly, simply to the consumer and people
Speaker 2: like us that love to watch and cover the sport,
Speaker 2: is the conversations about the college football playoff and what
Speaker 2: the two most powerful conferences. If it's not the two best,
Speaker 2: it's the two most powerful power of the perse. We
Speaker 2: know the deal rumors about both these two four auto
Speaker 2: bids and you know, the Big twelve and the ACC
Speaker 2: getting two and the G five essentially being shut out.
Speaker 2: So we are in the middle of this, you know, neoliberal,
Speaker 2: capitalist takeover of college athletics. I mean, there's no denying that,
Speaker 2: but it appears that maybe these two conferences are trying
Speaker 2: to expedite this process to kind of move things even
Speaker 2: more in their favor. Does this concern you at all?
Speaker 2: How do you think it plays out? Before I set
Speaker 2: you loose?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, concerns me.
Speaker 5: And because it's just so unstable the landscape of college
Speaker 5: athletics right now. And that's that's the frustrating and kind
Speaker 5: of unnerving thing about this whole movement that we're seeing.
Speaker 5: And look, the SEC is still ticked off that Alabama
Speaker 5: didn't get in right. There's no doubt that on selection
Speaker 5: day when they saw Alabama left out, which I do
Speaker 5: believe was the right move, even though potentially they were
Speaker 5: the better team. But I thought that SMU had earned
Speaker 5: it and deserved to be in the playoff for what
Speaker 5: happened during the course of the season. But that's what
Speaker 5: they're trying to do, is they're trying to make an
Speaker 5: exclusive club. It's US and the Big Ten against everybody else,
Speaker 5: and they're trying to gang up on the competition, and
Speaker 5: they're not going to be happy, I don't think until
Speaker 5: they get control. And look, I think we're headed. This
Speaker 5: is just my feeling of speculation, Spence. I think we're
Speaker 5: headed to college football breaking away and being its own entity,
Speaker 5: that it's going to just be college football governed by
Speaker 5: a body, and every other sport, including basketball, will probably
Speaker 5: go back to a regional model. But I believe that's
Speaker 5: where we're headed, and it's going to be the haves
Speaker 5: and the have nots, and I don't know if it's
Speaker 5: going to be a premier league like system from soccer.
Speaker 5: But we could be headed in that direction. I don't
Speaker 5: see this model being sustainable. I really don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the danger, you know, in what is being proposed
Speaker 2: is if you dilute the regular season in college football,
Speaker 2: you are taking away what makes it special. You have
Speaker 2: to games have to matter, rocky. You can't just automate like, sorry, Bama,
Speaker 2: don't lose four times.
Speaker 1: Like that's like you can't.
Speaker 2: Minimize or dilute the regular season in college football, or
Speaker 2: in my opinion, you're taking away what makes it so special.
Speaker 5: Championships should matter and that's what the committee valued, and
Speaker 5: I applaud them for that because SMU was the Big
Speaker 5: Twelve champ, but they didn't win in the Big Twelve
Speaker 5: championship game, so they but I think they deserved it
Speaker 5: because of what they accomplished in the season. And that's
Speaker 5: what the framework they laid out before the season was
Speaker 5: that if you're a conference champ, that should be a
Speaker 5: significant thing to add to your resume as far as
Speaker 5: what the committee will look at. And that's what they
Speaker 5: got rewarded for. And now if you're going to take
Speaker 5: that away and you're talking about that's what it would
Speaker 5: devalue with the regular seasons about then we're just gonna
Speaker 5: take a look, and it's kind of like the old
Speaker 5: Siston that we have. Well, I'm looking at just the
Speaker 5: I test tells me Alabama's better than them. Alabama should
Speaker 5: be in. That's not what this should be about. And luckily,
Speaker 5: even though we had those blowouts in the first round
Speaker 5: this year, I do believe the committee got the right
Speaker 5: teams in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Roxy, you're the man.
Speaker 2: Enjoy that cougartail tonight in Provo and have a great call.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: Oh, it's never a BYU game if you don't.
Speaker 7: Have a cougartail right, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2: If you finish the whole thing, I'd be wildly impressed.
Speaker 2: It's very unhealthy.
Speaker 5: I won't Okay, I won't, and I won't even even
Speaker 5: try to. Okay, I'm just a couple bites guy. Just
Speaker 5: need a little little bit of a sugar boost before
Speaker 5: the game.
Speaker 2: Moderation and all things Roxy, including moderation. By the way,
Speaker 2: my friends, have a great call.
Speaker 5: Okay, any time, fans, thanks.
Speaker 6: For having me.
Speaker 1: I had the great Roxy Bernstein.
Speaker 2: He'll be on the call that I be yu welcomes
Speaker 2: in Kansas down to provo. That game is on ESPN,
Speaker 2: It's at seven o'clock. Utah was able to take care
Speaker 2: of the Hawks here at the Huntsman Center over the weekend.
Speaker 1: All right, before we catch a break, we.
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Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 7: Next on the drive, Tim McMahon dropping dimes for your
Speaker 7: NBA daily assists.
Speaker 8: Van McMahon, Van Man that is duding all the land,
Speaker 8: Texas flood as, thickets, Mudy's Man, Banmavanman, then.
Speaker 2: Man Playoff push for the Utah Jazz gets back in
Speaker 2: action coming up on Thursday. Oklahoma State, excuse me, Oklahoma City. Obviously,
Speaker 2: college basketball and the mine we'll get back to some college.
Speaker 1: Ups are the big one tonight.
Speaker 2: But let's do a little jazz mostly just big picture
Speaker 2: NBA topics with our guy Tim McMahon, fresh off vacation
Speaker 2: on this Tuesday afternoon, Tim, how's your time off?
Speaker 6: Brother? Not long enough, but welcome. Just wish it lasted
Speaker 6: a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: Did you consume any of the festivities in the Bay
Speaker 2: Area over the weekend.
Speaker 6: I will be honest. I've seen a couple little clips
Speaker 6: on social media, but I watched zero seconds of All
Speaker 6: Star Weekend Live.
Speaker 2: Good for you, but we do have to do the
Speaker 2: media thing where you and I talk about what a
Speaker 2: horrible product it is and how we're going.
Speaker 1: To fix the thing.
Speaker 2: So here, here's where I'm at with it. There's no
Speaker 2: fixing it. They've tried everything. I like the US versus
Speaker 2: international idea, but hey, we've seen it before. I don't
Speaker 2: care if it's played in Russia or California or Europe
Speaker 2: or wherever it's.
Speaker 1: The proof is in.
Speaker 2: These guys don't give a rip, and I don't think
Speaker 2: there's any way to fix that. So for me, it's
Speaker 2: just kind of maybe time for the league to admit
Speaker 2: that this is the deal. It's a non serious celebration
Speaker 2: of the National Basketball Association and that's it.
Speaker 6: Okay, Like, what d damn do I mean? Does anybody
Speaker 6: think the Pro Bowls like some kind of serious football game.
Speaker 6: I mean, I guess, I mean playing more, but like,
Speaker 6: you know, are they throwing brushback pitches in the in
Speaker 6: Baseball's All Star Game? Is Pete Rose still running over
Speaker 6: the catcher? Like? I mean, what do we do? It's
Speaker 6: an All Star game? You know, of course, the silly exhibition.
Speaker 6: I don't know why the NBA keeps on allowing this
Speaker 6: to be some sort of crisis that exists. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: you know, blood's not being spilled on the All Star
Speaker 6: Game who cares?
Speaker 2: Is there a format that you actually think is good?
Speaker 2: This is what I said earlier, Like, my preferred format
Speaker 2: is the All Star Game with players who play hard
Speaker 2: like we used to have.
Speaker 1: That's my preferred all That's my preferred format.
Speaker 6: And look, it ain't like every All Star Game has
Speaker 6: been some kind of classic. I mean, there were forty
Speaker 6: point blowouts, but Michael Jordan's on the wrong end of
Speaker 6: so let's not you know, I think one we kind
Speaker 6: of need to get over this good old days syndrome
Speaker 6: thing to a certain agree. But yeah, East versus West
Speaker 6: totally fine, USA versus International, Okay, interest in flavor fine,
Speaker 6: don't give me some first of forty tournament. Hold on,
Speaker 6: what are the rules again? Why is Kevin Hart still
Speaker 6: yammering like I'm mean, come on, man, like you're doing
Speaker 6: too much trying to fix something that I don't think
Speaker 6: it is some kind of like massively serious problem.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: And uh, you know that's kind of the deal. That's
Speaker 2: kind of where we've landed today. And there's some fun
Speaker 2: moments here or there. Is there anything that simply an
Speaker 2: experience or Kyante George can do for him as far
Speaker 2: as being able to play on Sunday in that format.
Speaker 1: Is there is there anything tangible?
Speaker 2: He was the only local rep you know, is there
Speaker 2: anything he can take from simply being part of the experience.
Speaker 6: I am concerned you're gonna pull some sort of muscle
Speaker 6: at that reach. I don't I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: You want to talk about Johnny juz Ang's pr tim,
Speaker 2: Let's do that.
Speaker 6: I mean, listen, it can't be a negative for Kante
Speaker 6: George like to be me, you know, I don't know
Speaker 6: what how did he spend his all Stra weekend with?
Speaker 6: You know, did he try to pick the brains of
Speaker 6: guys who are uh, you know, who have been in
Speaker 6: that game over and over again. Maybe there's some benefit there,
Speaker 6: you know, But more did he go to a bunch
Speaker 6: of parties and have a good time, like the Master
Speaker 6: Jordan people, a good all Star we can did? And
Speaker 6: if that's the case, they're putting wrong with that either.
Speaker 2: So there's not the second half of the season entirely.
Speaker 2: Most teams have, you know, have about thirty games left
Speaker 2: a little bit less than that. But with the calendar,
Speaker 2: it's kind of halfway home for teams that are playing
Speaker 2: for the postseason. And of course the big story just
Speaker 2: continues to be the Dallas deal with the Lakers and
Speaker 2: how the Lakers are gonna look. It's kind of interesting
Speaker 2: because the Jazz have actually been the team that the
Speaker 2: Lakers have played twice since the deal went down, and
Speaker 2: you know, they got got pretty good in La. Then
Speaker 2: they came here and the Jazz absolutely smoked them. But
Speaker 2: of course that's gonna take some time to kind of
Speaker 2: gel down the stretch. What how do you think the
Speaker 2: Luca Lebron thing is going to kind of manifest itself
Speaker 2: now that they've been together for a minute, They've had
Speaker 2: some time to digest and what are you looking for
Speaker 2: kind of right out of the gates when they get
Speaker 2: back going the Lakers start playing again.
Speaker 6: Well, I think the biggest question about that is, like,
Speaker 6: is Luca going to be full speed? Does he still
Speaker 6: need time to be ramped up after you know, a
Speaker 6: month and a half or so off with that cast string.
Speaker 6: I mean, the two games against the Jazz were mega height,
Speaker 6: preseason type of games for Luca. You know, like he's
Speaker 6: on a twenty four minute limit and you know, obviously
Speaker 6: he's trying to get his rhythm and so you know,
Speaker 6: I don't know when we will see like full blast
Speaker 6: Lika Luca. I do have a feeling that will at
Speaker 6: least get a glimpse of it February twenty fifth, when
Speaker 6: the Master in la I think he'll be ready to
Speaker 6: amp up for that one. But like the fit between
Speaker 6: those guys, I mean, we're talking about two guys who
Speaker 6: are basketball geniuses. They'll figure that out. I think it's
Speaker 6: a flawed roster and my obviously the biggest flaw is
Speaker 6: they don't have a legitimate big man on the roster.
Speaker 6: They try to address that with the Mark Williams thing,
Speaker 6: then they got to look at the physical and said, hey,
Speaker 6: we can't do this, and so you know, that's that's
Speaker 6: an issue that they're going to have to fix over
Speaker 6: the summer. But you know, so they're kind of they're
Speaker 6: not operating at full capacity because if you're going to
Speaker 6: have Luca, you need to have that rim running dig
Speaker 6: and you know, Jackson Hayes is a very poor man's
Speaker 6: version of that. But I don't think you can consider
Speaker 6: the Lakers any sort of real contender until they've got
Speaker 6: a complete roster, and they're not going to be a
Speaker 6: contender this year.
Speaker 2: You were one of the first guests that we had
Speaker 2: to kind of point out, like, hey, just keep an
Speaker 2: eye on Houston. You know, I don't know what it means,
Speaker 2: but just keep an eye on what they've been doing.
Speaker 2: And you know, Van Vlietz missed some time, and you
Speaker 2: can tell that they really miss him in crunch situations
Speaker 2: when they're trying to close out games. But they have
Speaker 2: kind of come back down to earth, losing seven of
Speaker 2: their last ten. And I do have concerns simply about
Speaker 2: their lack of experience. They've never been to the postseason before.
Speaker 2: They don't have a ton of great three point shooting.
Speaker 2: So what do you make of kind of maybe a
Speaker 2: regression of the mean after a really great start to
Speaker 2: the season for the Houston Rockets. What's kind of their
Speaker 2: their max ceiling come playoff time?
Speaker 6: Well, I think you point out Van's lead is a
Speaker 6: smart observation, and I don't think I said that very
Speaker 6: often about.
Speaker 4: You, you know, sun shine on dogs, but every once
Speaker 4: in a while with that situation here.
Speaker 6: But look, he's like, there's a reason they took such
Speaker 6: a leak when they brought in him and Dylan Brooks,
Speaker 6: but especially Van Vleet. He's the captain, He's the organizer,
Speaker 6: you know, he's he's the conductor, and his impact goes
Speaker 6: away beyid like they look at his shooting, steady shot
Speaker 6: the ball. Well, he's the one who keeps everybody kind
Speaker 6: of you know, rolling in the same direction, and they
Speaker 6: definitely need him to have any kind of a chance
Speaker 6: to do playoff damage. But look, the Rockets have punched
Speaker 6: above their weight. I think this year they're tough as hell.
Speaker 6: They're paying the button playing on a night the basis,
Speaker 6: they play hard, they play defense, they rebound, they do
Speaker 6: all those things. They don't have a good offensive team.
Speaker 6: They need an offensive engine, and not just an organized
Speaker 6: is like Van Vliet, but a legitimate, big time number
Speaker 6: one option Offensely, they need a Devin Booker, who they'd
Speaker 6: love to get. Booker doesn't want to leave Phoenix. The
Speaker 6: Sons don't want to give him up. We'll see if
Speaker 6: that changes at some point. I think it would make
Speaker 6: a lot of sense for everybody involved, given that the
Speaker 6: Rockets are sitting there holding a whole bunch of a
Speaker 6: future Phoenix drafts capital. You know, Darren Fox decided he
Speaker 6: wanted to go to San Antonio. The Rockets weren't quite
Speaker 6: ready yet, and then and they you know, they also
Speaker 6: want to you know, they want to evaluate hek Jalen Green.
Speaker 6: Let's let's see, there's gonna be some ups and downs
Speaker 6: this season. Where's their hope going to be after the playoffs?
Speaker 6: On Jason Green's ability to grow into that role Am
Speaker 6: and Thompson. I think he's going to be a star.
Speaker 6: I think he's on his way to being a star.
Speaker 6: I don't think he's going to be a number one
Speaker 6: offensive option. You know, he can be a star, not
Speaker 6: a number one offensive option. Honestly, they haven't given up
Speaker 6: hope on Leed Shepherd being that guy, even though he's
Speaker 6: been out of the rotation for most of the season.
Speaker 6: But at this point, I think the Rockets are going
Speaker 6: to be a tough playoff matchup. But I don't think
Speaker 6: they're a real Western Conference contender yet. I think they're
Speaker 6: on the path to be in there. The question is
Speaker 6: that they're gonna have to take a big swing in
Speaker 6: the trademarket to get there, or can that you know,
Speaker 6: that legitimate go to guy be home grown.
Speaker 2: Here's how I'll phrase this question, what sort of team?
Speaker 2: Because I've listened to a bunch over the weekend of
Speaker 2: of you know, some mental gymnastics to try to make
Speaker 2: the West as interesting as possible from a lot of
Speaker 2: people who cover the league. But then they land the
Speaker 2: plane like, okay, see is impossible. So it's kind of
Speaker 2: an exercising futility. I still think if Jamal's gonna Jamal
Speaker 2: Murray's gonna play like this, You've got to talk about
Speaker 2: the Nuggets because Jokich is Jokics.
Speaker 1: We talked about that last week.
Speaker 2: What type of team we'll give Oka see the biggest
Speaker 2: issues come playoff time, like what is their achilles heel
Speaker 2: if they have one?
Speaker 6: Well, and you know, they did a great job of
Speaker 6: addressing their achilles heels over the off season. One was
Speaker 6: they could get bullied, they could get pushed around. They
Speaker 6: went out and paid Isaiah Hartstein a whole lot of
Speaker 6: money in free agencies to have the option of playing big.
Speaker 6: Now chet Holman has just gotten back. Him and Heart's
Speaker 6: not have played I don't know what is it, three
Speaker 6: or four games together something like that. But you know,
Speaker 6: now when they play Joker with that big front line
Speaker 6: that the Nuggets have, they can go seven foot seven
Speaker 6: foot and then you know the other guys. So that
Speaker 6: that was one big thing. The other big thing was
Speaker 6: just a fit of Josh Gidty. It was a bad fit.
Speaker 6: They flipped him into Alex Caruso or just another you know,
Speaker 6: great role player, great defender. So I don't know they
Speaker 6: have an achilles heel. If you look at the numbers,
Speaker 6: you'll still say it's rebounded. But you have to recognize
Speaker 6: that they've only had one or the other of their
Speaker 6: seven footers for almost the entire season until very you know,
Speaker 6: basically until the trade deadline. Hadn't said all that, like,
Speaker 6: what kind of team can beat Oklahoma City? I think
Speaker 6: a very big, extremely skilled, recent championship team that employees
Speaker 6: I think, very strongly arguably the best player in the
Speaker 6: world would be that the team that would have the
Speaker 6: best chance. And oh, by the way, the Denver Nuggets
Speaker 6: have won eight straight games coming out of the All
Speaker 6: Star Break.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's the answer.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I take Okay, so you off the table,
Speaker 2: I still I mean, from what I've seen, I've been
Speaker 2: so incredibly impressed with the Thunder that I probably would
Speaker 2: pick them in seven games right now over the Nuggets.
Speaker 2: But at this point, I think Denver's probably the only
Speaker 2: other team that I would put in the same category.
Speaker 2: But let me ask you about the Timberwolves, because they've
Speaker 2: been better as of late, and obviously around here everybody
Speaker 2: keeps their eye on the Timberwolves. At one point, it's like, wait,
Speaker 2: are the Jas getting luck into a lottery pick? I
Speaker 2: never thought the t Wolves were a lottery team. And
Speaker 2: you know, this is a team that's not too far
Speaker 2: removed from squad that was probably in the mix to
Speaker 2: win it all. They made the cat deal for Randall,
Speaker 2: which I just as somebody who watches the next all
Speaker 2: the time, I understand the financial implications of it, But
Speaker 2: are you buying kind of the improved play from Minnesota
Speaker 2: over the past five or six weeks?
Speaker 6: Improved play? Sure, you know Randall has been out, which
Speaker 6: is right, you know, interesting, kind draw your own conclusions there.
Speaker 6: I just I can't see the Wolves being a real
Speaker 6: bona fide contender, and I think that does go back
Speaker 6: to the trade where they moved Carl Anthony Towns. You know,
Speaker 6: they had a Western Conference finals team and they took
Speaker 6: away the second best player on that team, and not
Speaker 6: just sevend best player. But like the Wolves, one of
Speaker 6: their huge advantages last year is that they were huge.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, they had gobaar in Towns in
Speaker 6: their front line, and then you know, if Gobert wasn't
Speaker 6: on the floor, it was Towns and Reed. If Kat
Speaker 6: was on the floor, it was Towns in Gobear. They
Speaker 6: were honestly just this massive team. And if you look
Speaker 6: at the way that they played Joker in that series,
Speaker 6: where look, Joker had some huge games, but they played
Speaker 6: him well enough and they're able to win the series
Speaker 6: in seven. Kat was the primary defender on Joker. Now,
Speaker 6: did Cat shut Joker down one on one? Obviously not,
Speaker 6: it's an entire team concept, but that allowed them to
Speaker 6: play Rudy on Aaron Gordon and really just kind of
Speaker 6: be that that rover and you know, it's they don't
Speaker 6: really have that option anymore, and that to me is
Speaker 6: just a massive, massive difference if they get matched up
Speaker 6: with the Nuggets. So you know, I and I also
Speaker 6: I just don't think that the Wolves are going to
Speaker 6: be good enough late in close games, you know, in
Speaker 6: those clut situations to make a deep playoff run. They're
Speaker 6: not the same dominant defensive team that they were last year.
Speaker 6: You know, they kind of show that in ebbs and flows,
Speaker 6: but yeah, I just I think that the ceiling for
Speaker 6: the Wolves is probably the second round.
Speaker 2: Who'd you have in the Timmy Bontem's good time, Timmy
Speaker 2: Bontem stropol?
Speaker 1: Who do you think the MVP is this year? And why.
Speaker 6: We'll put it this way. A lot of Nuggets fans
Speaker 6: are mad ato right now, and I think a lot
Speaker 6: of Serbians are cussing at me. I've already I've been
Speaker 6: getting cussed at the Slovenian recently for doing things like
Speaker 6: reporting the reasoning that the Mavericks made the most shocked
Speaker 6: in trading NBA history, And now Serbians are out of me.
Speaker 6: And listen, there's not a single thing I could or
Speaker 6: would say to tell you why Joker is not deserving
Speaker 6: of winning his four straight MVP. Like the guy's case
Speaker 6: is incredible. I just think if it's even you go
Speaker 6: with a guy who hasn't won an MVP yet, whose
Speaker 6: team is by far the number one seeming conference, who
Speaker 6: is the lead in the league in scoring not just average,
Speaker 6: but in points per game or in total points by
Speaker 6: over two hundred points, and in plus minus by over
Speaker 6: two hundred points, the most important stats in basketball plus minus,
Speaker 6: because that's the score and points, because that's how you
Speaker 6: score Jacobs. Alexander has a two hundred and something point
Speaker 6: cushion over everybody else in the league in both of
Speaker 6: those categories on crazy efficiency while being a significant tributor
Speaker 6: on the number one defense in the league, filling the
Speaker 6: stat sheet up across the board. Four team that's very
Speaker 6: likely in the season with the best record. That's the
Speaker 6: hell of a case for him to win his first MVP.
Speaker 6: And that's the guy that I went with.
Speaker 2: Dam It's one thing to have snot knows losers who
Speaker 2: use the Internet to feel brave coming at you. I
Speaker 2: don't think you want to get sideways with serbians, bro,
Speaker 2: That's just little piece of advice.
Speaker 6: Listen, man, I've been over to the Balkans, beautiful land
Speaker 6: over there. I might not be a return of the anytime soon.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, fair enough, fair enough. Hey, let's before
Speaker 2: I say you loose. Let's move over now to the
Speaker 2: latest with the MAVs and what this entire citizens. You're
Speaker 2: the guy that's been on this and we've used your
Speaker 2: reporting on the show to color the context of the conversations.
Speaker 1: Just because it's been.
Speaker 2: A week, I mean, it seems like they've got a
Speaker 2: ton of injury issues, So the jury's going to be
Speaker 2: out as far as whether or not they'll be able
Speaker 2: to do anything special this year, because they still have
Speaker 2: a lot of talent. We've been reminded what Kyrie looks
Speaker 2: like when he's when he's engaged in playing basketball. So
Speaker 2: just the latest with the Dallas Mavericks, and now you
Speaker 2: think the rest of the season plays out after making
Speaker 2: one of the wildest deals in the history of pro sports.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well he's here, and say, if they get healthy,
Speaker 6: the simple fact is they're not going to be healthy,
Speaker 6: probably not for the rest of the regular season. Daniel
Speaker 6: Gafford has a Grade three sprain of his MCL, probably
Speaker 6: at the rest of the regular season. There's no certainly
Speaker 6: that Derek Olively, the second who has a stress faction
Speaker 6: his right ankle, is available for the rest of the
Speaker 6: regular season. We're looking at still weeks before Anthony Davis
Speaker 6: is able to return, and there's not like a firm
Speaker 6: certain timetable in place there, so there's no if they
Speaker 6: can get healthy, they're not going to be healthy. The
Speaker 6: vision that they have to this team of this huge, massive,
Speaker 6: ridiculously athletic front court is not happening this season. And
Speaker 6: here's one of the things about that trade is what
Speaker 6: you did was instead of having this twenty five year
Speaker 6: old generational talent that you have, I don't know, they
Speaker 6: felt like the runway wasn't going to be that long.
Speaker 6: You have potentially a ten or twelve year runway left
Speaker 6: for Mukado, and you crunch that down in the three
Speaker 6: or four years. So you can call it bad like,
Speaker 6: you can call it whatever you want. But if it
Speaker 6: looks like injuries are really going to mar this season
Speaker 6: for the Mavericks, that's twenty five to thirty three percent
Speaker 6: of the timeframe that you decided to create. And you
Speaker 6: know that's that's part of the risk of trading twenty
Speaker 6: five for thirty one, and of trading the guy that
Speaker 6: you're afraid is going to break down for a guy
Speaker 6: who's got significant history of durability issues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well said, I can't wait for Kyanta to come
Speaker 2: back and average thirty five down the stretch and completely
Speaker 2: give it all the credit to his experience in the
Speaker 2: Rising Stars situation over the weekend, and then you and
Speaker 2: I will have the conversation about exactly what that meant
Speaker 2: for young Kyante. George that's my prediction for the rest
Speaker 2: of the year for Jazz.
Speaker 6: Kyanti is not going to average thirty five minutes, much
Speaker 6: less thirty five points. So I would say that my
Speaker 6: advice to Kiante George would be you better start playing
Speaker 6: as hard as it can defensively and locking into details
Speaker 6: if you ever want to take your starting job back
Speaker 6: from Isaiah Callier, who you know right now, Will Hardy
Speaker 6: is very happy with one of those guys and it's
Speaker 6: not Kiante George.
Speaker 2: I will stretch one more time to simply ask you this,
Speaker 2: what's the most interesting story about the Jazz over the
Speaker 2: final twenty eight games of the year.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think like there's the obvious answer, and
Speaker 6: it's the one that's not any fun to follow until
Speaker 6: the Night of the Water, you know, Like listen, there's
Speaker 6: just like Cooper Flag has a chance to be a
Speaker 6: generational type of talent. This whole season is about maximizing
Speaker 6: your chance to get that guy. And if it's not him,
Speaker 6: there's some other really good players at the top of
Speaker 6: this draft. As far as I actually watching this team,
Speaker 6: which I was, I was a little bit surprised I
Speaker 6: didn't move any of the veterans you know, I think
Speaker 6: when we talked for the deadline, you and I set
Speaker 6: the over under one point five and it ended up
Speaker 6: being zero, So that surprised me. But it's still about like, hey,
Speaker 6: Isaiah Collier, you're getting this extended audition as a starting
Speaker 6: point guard. You know, what can you do with it?
Speaker 6: Deontay George you had your audition. You know you basically
Speaker 6: you got demoted. How are you going to respond to that?
Speaker 6: You know, Cody Williams, you know, it's been a fairly
Speaker 6: rough rookie season, but everyone understood you were raw. You
Speaker 6: know that you're nowhere near you finished product. What kind
Speaker 6: of progress can you make down the stretch? And you know,
Speaker 6: kind of on down the list of the guys, especially
Speaker 6: in these I was going to say the young guys,
Speaker 6: but especially in these last two draft classes, I think
Speaker 6: you have an idea at this point kind of who
Speaker 6: Walker Kestler is, what he can be. You know, it
Speaker 6: hasn't been like just linear progress for him, but we've
Speaker 6: seen enough to know, Okay, hey, that dude's going to
Speaker 6: be a very good starting center for a while in
Speaker 6: the NBA. What about these other guys who can show
Speaker 6: who can kind of prove or at least make a
Speaker 6: strong case and have a kind of an encouraging feeling
Speaker 6: about going into the off season that they can be
Speaker 6: a key part of this thing once the Jazz are
Speaker 6: able to get it going. Because you know, right now
Speaker 6: the list is Walker Kestler, and then you know kind
Speaker 6: of a whole bunch of will sees.
Speaker 1: That was bravo.
Speaker 2: In fact, I should stand out of my chair and
Speaker 2: start clapping because you made the final twenty eight games
Speaker 2: this season interesting, Tim, and we didn't even have to stretch.
Speaker 1: So well done, my friend.
Speaker 6: He's fine. I'll listen. Rebuilding's not fun, but in a
Speaker 6: lot of senses it ain't complicated. Accumulated assets, hopeful lottery
Speaker 6: luck and hope some of the young guys to develop.
Speaker 2: Well said, all right, welcome back from VAK. I appreciate
Speaker 2: the time and we'll get you back on soon.
Speaker 6: Text him, all right, appreciate your brother.
Speaker 2: Tim McMahon covers the It covers the NBA. I should
Speaker 2: say for ESPN when the Jazz are interesting. He's at
Speaker 2: her quite a bit and covers the jazz. He's kind
Speaker 2: of their jazz guy on the National Beats. Joins the
Speaker 2: Shawn a weekly basis and has for five and a
Speaker 2: half years now at ESPN. Underscore McMahon is where you
Speaker 2: find him. That's brought to you today by my good
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Speaker 2: Run your game all season long. All right, We got
Speaker 2: Matt Brown in about a half hour. Good day to
Speaker 2: have Matt on. We'll do some college football, the business
Speaker 2: of college football. The latest with the meetings going on
Speaker 2: in New Orleans with the Power Brokers and the Big
Speaker 2: Ten in the SEC, and it's just those two conferences
Speaker 2: talking about adjustments to the CFP format, as many as
Speaker 2: four auto bids for those two leagues, then two for
Speaker 2: the Big Twelve and two for the ACC leaving the
Speaker 2: group of five schools to just a single bid. And
Speaker 2: then the latest with the private equity groups interested in
Speaker 2: putting some cash and some investments into collegiate athletics, namely
Speaker 2: buying football programs. Matt wrote a really interesting piece last
Speaker 2: week on a topic that we've covered on this show
Speaker 2: quite a bit. Dave Fox will stop by later on.
Speaker 2: He has two Pelotons and two Emmys. I'll be on
Speaker 2: TV with Dave tonight. I'll say, accidentally, I was accidentally
Speaker 2: listening to counting Crows over the weekend. I think it's
Speaker 2: just the algorithm sees what I usually listen to.
Speaker 1: Accidentally. Well, no, look, I like counting Crows. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I don't.
Speaker 2: I've seen Counting Crows in concert four times Jones Beach
Speaker 2: shout Out Northeast.
Speaker 1: But it's almost like Dave.
Speaker 2: I don't listen to Dave as much as I used to,
Speaker 2: but the algorithm is like, hey, you listened to this
Speaker 2: quite a bit once upon a time, so boom, whenever
Speaker 2: I put on like a random Spotify playlist, I'm fed
Speaker 2: a little more Counting Crows than I would.
Speaker 1: Like his I'm saying, don't take this the wrong way.
Speaker 2: Okay, what you know, don't start out like that now
Speaker 2: now I'm on guard.
Speaker 1: Now you are on guard. You're gonna say this, I
Speaker 1: should know you better.
Speaker 2: Well, that's like saying, with all due respect, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know you're not wrong.
Speaker 1: I'll try not to take this the wrong way, but
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 3: How how well do you think some of your like
Speaker 3: favorite nineties I'll even throw eighties music in the early
Speaker 3: two thousands, how well do you think it ages even
Speaker 3: for your taste?
Speaker 1: If we can narrow it down.
Speaker 2: There, really fair question, and the answer is a combination
Speaker 2: of sorts.
Speaker 1: What did I pull up the other day?
Speaker 2: Oh, Interstate Love song, this Stone Temple Pilot song Okay,
Speaker 2: randomly popped up on a mix.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I love this song.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard it for a while, so I put
Speaker 2: on You know how in Spotify you can you're listening
Speaker 2: to a song, you can go to radio station then
Speaker 2: it'll pip play and it played a grip of like
Speaker 2: nineties one hit wonders now stp not one hit wonders.
Speaker 1: But there were some.
Speaker 2: Really really bad songs that popped up that honestly two
Speaker 2: call pop pukashell dyed blonde hair Spence jammed out too
Speaker 2: back in the mid to late nineties. So some of
Speaker 2: it has not aged well, I will admit that, but
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it has. But I'm you know,
Speaker 2: hip hop, nineties hip hop the best period, end of story.
Speaker 2: And a lot of the alternate you know, the alt
Speaker 2: rock bands like r Em I think Dave was back
Speaker 2: in the day, they've they've aged pretty well.
Speaker 1: Some of it not so much though, So I understand
Speaker 1: where you're going.
Speaker 3: Just a question, because yeah, like like you mine's a
Speaker 3: little later, right, like some of the early two thousands.
Speaker 3: I want to call it like alt or grunt rock
Speaker 3: that I listened to. I hear it now and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh oh, just like a cringing and I know that
Speaker 3: twelve thirteen year old me was just rocking out to
Speaker 3: that at one point.
Speaker 2: You know what, I'm going to take some flak if
Speaker 2: any of my friends are listening to this. Alison Chains
Speaker 2: has an aged very well and I went through like
Speaker 2: a big like were they good?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, and they do have some The lead singer
Speaker 2: died of a heroin overdose.
Speaker 1: I believe, uh luke something rest in peace.
Speaker 2: They had a moment where I was like all in
Speaker 2: on Alison Chains, and uh, you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: all stay away.
Speaker 1: Alison Chains is a good is a good song, but
Speaker 1: I kind.
Speaker 4: Of did a little bit of a deep dive and
Speaker 4: not great, not great, not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: So your question is a fair one. Here here's a
Speaker 1: question for you.
Speaker 2: I stay away alis In Chains in fact play that
Speaker 2: coming up next.
Speaker 1: It's very good. I was thinking about this over the leak.
Speaker 3: They have a good album, though, like, does als and
Speaker 3: Chains actually have a good album? Is Dirt probably their
Speaker 3: biggest album I was.
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: I think it probably is Dirt No Alison Chains, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Dirt was there. Jarra Flies nineteen ninety four good album, Okay,
Speaker 2: but I was sixteen.
Speaker 1: Go listen to that whole album. That's what I want
Speaker 1: you to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you might be correct, because, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know what, Jarra Flies was their best album. Give me
Speaker 2: a give me an example of an artist who you
Speaker 2: should like on paper but you just don't.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? I'll give you one for me.
Speaker 1: Oh Aar, who's that?
Speaker 2: It's this corny note. You know, they're from Maryland, They're
Speaker 2: from the DMV area, and they're it's like if Dave
Speaker 2: Matthews band could be even cornier. Oar was like trying
Speaker 2: to capitalize on the pop you know, the popular uh
Speaker 2: you know, the explosion of the Dave Matthews band. Oar
Speaker 2: was trying to kind of be like the next Dave
Speaker 2: type band on paper. I should very much like them,
Speaker 2: and I very much do not, and I've tried hard.
Speaker 2: They're too corny, man, They're just too corny. Give me
Speaker 2: an example, not Toby Keith, rest in peace, of an
Speaker 2: artist that you should like on paper that you just don't.
Speaker 1: Well, I wasn't say you always think I like Zach Bryan.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean cause I equate him to actual
Speaker 4: country music.
Speaker 3: I think it's because he's you know, he's slower acoustic usually,
Speaker 3: and listen, I think he's fairly talent. I just I
Speaker 3: am in more of My musical inclination is always lyrical.
Speaker 3: And when I listened to him, I don't know, it
Speaker 3: just doesn't resonate or I don't believe him, one of
Speaker 3: the two. And that's that's kind of where it comes with.
Speaker 1: Lack of authenticity. Yeah, all right, well I got you.
Speaker 3: Which is fine. Like, listen, a majority of these people
Speaker 3: are playing a character, but maybe with him, it's just
Speaker 3: not resonating.
Speaker 2: Did you watch any of the SNL fifty stuff over
Speaker 2: the weekend.
Speaker 1: I saw some clips, which is how I intake SNL.
Speaker 4: Now that's how your generation takes in everything, just the clips.
Speaker 1: Probably the NBA you can talk about one.
Speaker 2: Hundred percent, And we talked about this earlier. Do you remember,
Speaker 2: Actually I have not talked to you about this because
Speaker 2: you're a resident lebron apologist. Probably your boy shows up
Speaker 2: and he's like, no thanks, right, which is such a
Speaker 2: bad look. But do you remember that story about because
Speaker 2: this really if you missed it from earlier, I talked
Speaker 2: about this during Crosstalk with Sean. If you want the
Speaker 2: problem with the end reduced down to one anecdote, this
Speaker 2: is probably it. I think it was Lebron's third or
Speaker 2: fourth year in the league. You know, he clearly had
Speaker 2: already burst on the scene and he became Lebron and
Speaker 2: he was carrying this horrible Cavs team to the finals,
Speaker 2: and everybody's like, all right, he's awesome, we get it.
Speaker 2: And he held a camp I think it was for
Speaker 2: high school players at the time, and Jordan Crawford, who
Speaker 2: ended up playing in the NBA, dunked on Lebron, and
Speaker 2: as the story goes, Lebron shut everything down. He stopped
Speaker 2: the game, and he walked around the gym to anybody
Speaker 2: who had a phone and he said, kill that video.
Speaker 2: I do not want that online. That Lebron James is
Speaker 2: that it established NBA superstar got dunked on by a
Speaker 2: high school kid. And honestly, I mean, look, if you
Speaker 2: want to be super reductive, we can reduce it to
Speaker 2: guaranteed money as far as lack of effort, but I
Speaker 2: do think there's this fear of having a highlights go
Speaker 2: viral on social media and then it lives forever on
Speaker 2: the internet. So if you want to look up Lebron
Speaker 2: get dunked on by high schooler, you can look that up.
Speaker 2: But that's such a soft mentality and it's such a
Speaker 2: far cry from the competitors that used to play in
Speaker 2: this league. And I do think there is something there
Speaker 2: as far as the social media, you know, indoctrination of
Speaker 2: our society where the generation that you're in in the
Speaker 2: younger generation, my son's generation. Honestly, my son and my
Speaker 2: son and his friends were the first kind of group
Speaker 2: of people that I talked to about the NBA where
Speaker 2: they're like, no, we're we're a step fan, or we're
Speaker 2: a Lebron fan, or we're a Donovan fan. We're not
Speaker 2: a Jazz fan, we're not a Knicks fan. Where individual
Speaker 2: players house of highlights. It feels like that's how the
Speaker 2: younger generation consumes NBA basketball, and the players know that,
Speaker 2: so they don't want to be on the wrong end
Speaker 2: of these highlights.
Speaker 3: And there's something probably too that where there's more of
Speaker 3: a maybe not more, but a different thought process behind
Speaker 3: when you're performing and I'm not just talking about the
Speaker 3: eighty two games. I'm talking about in the media, at events,
Speaker 3: at All Star events, you know, doing different pickup get
Speaker 3: whatever it may be, the Dru League, like all of
Speaker 3: these things.
Speaker 6: You may.
Speaker 3: Have a different calculus nowadays than you did before. Where
Speaker 3: like you said, the All Star Game was just the
Speaker 3: best pickup game in the world. It didn't have to
Speaker 3: be like a manufactured thing where we're trying to you know,
Speaker 3: we're trying to bring meaning to it. And I think
Speaker 3: some of it's unfair to put that all on Lebron.
Speaker 3: I think the fact that we're we're looking to Lebron
Speaker 3: to save the All Star Game is a problem with
Speaker 3: the All Star Game, not Lebron. That being said, like you,
Speaker 3: this weekend, I would have liked to see him out
Speaker 3: on the floor, you know, I have. And I don't
Speaker 3: know that he showed up this weekend with the intention
Speaker 3: to not play at all and then and then like
Speaker 3: pulled the rug out. I don't know what the behind
Speaker 3: the scenes stuff are there, but there is is clearly
Speaker 3: a different motivation for players when it comes to I'm
Speaker 3: not even just talking about the All Star Game. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about fifty plus games during the regular season, where
Speaker 3: there may be a different motivation to be out there.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think that is a problem that
Speaker 3: the league has to figure out, and I've talked about
Speaker 3: it for a long time. It's more meaningful basketball and
Speaker 3: less of the everything else. And the All Star Game
Speaker 3: might be a good example of that because during the
Speaker 3: course of a two and a half hour broadcast, I
Speaker 3: think we watched like twenty five minutes.
Speaker 1: Of basket if that. Man if that and is like,
Speaker 1: do you think that's going to fix the All Star Game?
Speaker 2: No, It's why I was saying, And you know what,
Speaker 2: the Lebron Let's stay in the Lebron space for a
Speaker 2: moment before I do my All Star Game die trivy Ken,
Speaker 2: Kevin Hart making fun of Shaq's turtleneck for thirty minutes
Speaker 2: while the players are getting tight on I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, what Damian Lillard letting a guy win a three
Speaker 3: point content? Like, what exactly are we doing here?
Speaker 2: I mean, but the Lebron conversation is interesting because I
Speaker 2: honestly wonder how his peers view him, how his fellow
Speaker 2: players view him, because there are two sides of this coin.
Speaker 1: Number one, you could view.
Speaker 2: Him really as the kind of pioneer of player empowerment,
Speaker 2: you know, realizing that as the superstar player, the power
Speaker 2: is in your hand.
Speaker 1: Now, Lebron wasn't the first.
Speaker 2: There have been other players in the past and pro
Speaker 2: basketball that have kind of forced their way to bigger market.
Speaker 1: Shack did it with the Lakers.
Speaker 2: We could all go all the way back with Kareem
Speaker 2: Abdul Jabbar wanting out of Milwaukee to live in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: But Lebron was kind of the first one that was
Speaker 2: front facing, took the power in his own hands. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people will always and at this
Speaker 2: point unfairly knock on the way he handled his exit
Speaker 2: from Cleveland because so many players have followed suit, and Lebron,
Speaker 2: for his peers, might be applauded for kind of paving
Speaker 2: the pathway for players not to be treated simply as
Speaker 2: employees and workers that have to show up and do
Speaker 2: the job every single day. Maybe players like that. But
Speaker 2: you hear all these rumors and you see all these
Speaker 2: things going around on social of players kind of subtweeting him,
Speaker 2: taking subtle shots about his tendency to exaggerate his own
Speaker 2: story from time to time. But here's the other thing.
Speaker 2: That Lebron did over the weekend. He took money out
Speaker 2: of somebody's pocket. Now, I've never loved the whole like
Speaker 2: All Star Game clause and contracts, because it's such an
Speaker 2: arbitrary process. I don't really love postseason awards in NBA
Speaker 2: player contracts because you're relying on media members who at
Speaker 2: times don't necessarily get it right, but love it or
Speaker 2: hate it. These clauses are in the contract. You make
Speaker 2: the All Star Game, you get an extra two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty K. Lebron simply could have said, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: not healthy, They name his replacement, and that player gets paid.
Speaker 2: What Lebron did to me over the weekend was less about, hey,
Speaker 2: we all want to see him play, because we do.
Speaker 2: He's the great to this generation and he's going to
Speaker 2: be done soon. You want to see him on the floor.
Speaker 2: But if I'm one of the players that was on
Speaker 2: the fringe and didn't make it, and I watched Lebron
Speaker 2: show up in street clothes, and I'm like, dude, say
Speaker 2: something to somebody, because then I take your place, I
Speaker 2: get my two hundred and fifty K.
Speaker 1: We're all good.
Speaker 2: Like, I think what Lebron did over the weekend was
Speaker 2: innately extremely selfish in my opinion, and.
Speaker 3: That's where I do wonder how that process played out.
Speaker 3: Because Lebron will play the politics game. That's one of
Speaker 3: the way the ways I don't really have his back
Speaker 3: is that when it comes to the power game of
Speaker 3: the NBA, he will exert his power on other players,
Speaker 3: on execs, on coaches that he's not getting along with.
Speaker 3: And hey, when you're a billionaire, you're one of the
Speaker 3: most powerful people in sports, you kind of get that
Speaker 3: privilege to exert your power. But when you do it
Speaker 3: on All Star weekend and like you said, maybe take
Speaker 3: a moment from another player here, here's where I wonder,
Speaker 3: does he know who that other player was and like
Speaker 3: intentionally waited to last second.
Speaker 1: Or it was Anthony Davis, He's like no right, or.
Speaker 3: Like a player that he doesn't get along with. That's
Speaker 3: something Lebron would do because it is as much as
Speaker 3: I back him as a player, as a as a
Speaker 3: guy that you know, when it comes to petty beefs
Speaker 3: and stuff, he has a long memory. So I do
Speaker 3: wonder if something like that played into it. Now, to
Speaker 3: be clear, I'm also not going to like complain about
Speaker 3: how bad the All Star Game was, while then also
Speaker 3: being like, oh, the sanctity of the All Star Game.
Speaker 3: I didn't get to see Norman Powell fill in for
Speaker 3: Lebron in a game that already saw Dalton Connect and
Speaker 3: Keyonta George and a bunch of guys who are not
Speaker 3: All Stars. It's hard to find a middle ground when
Speaker 3: the league doesn't even know what they're trying to do
Speaker 3: with All Star weekend.
Speaker 2: But tell that to Norman Powell, right right, And actually
Speaker 2: that might be the name. And Norman Powell is not
Speaker 2: a maximuney guy. He does just fine, but he's had
Speaker 2: a great year. And look, as I said a little
Speaker 2: bit earlier, it's probably just and I will certainly admit
Speaker 2: this because I am old enough to remember attending All
Speaker 2: Star games that were awesome and being wildly entertained by
Speaker 2: All Star games. They were taken seriously by the best
Speaker 2: players on the planet. That's why what's happened to it
Speaker 2: is an absolute bummer in my opinion, But it probably
Speaker 2: is beyond time just to admit what it is, and
Speaker 2: that is it's an un serious celebration of the NBA
Speaker 2: that is content for their television partners and that's the
Speaker 2: name of the game.
Speaker 1: That's what this entire thing is all about.
Speaker 2: It's not like TNT wanted to air horse during COVID
Speaker 2: or ESPN wanted to air horse during COVID. They called
Speaker 2: the NBA and said, look, I know that this is chaotic.
Speaker 2: I know it's a workstoppage. We have holes in our
Speaker 2: programming to fill. You have to give us something. And
Speaker 2: if you watched what happened on Sunday with the format
Speaker 2: and the timing, to Porter's point about the nonsense that
Speaker 2: went on compared to the actual basketball that was played,
Speaker 2: it's like the Emperor has no close stuff.
Speaker 1: We can see what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're forcing these guys to sit for twenty minutes
Speaker 2: at a time while you have these weird bits going
Speaker 2: on so you can appease sponsors, and you have all
Speaker 2: these commercial breaks, and the loser ultimately is the consumer,
Speaker 2: and honestly only the consumer and the NBA I don't
Speaker 2: think gives a rip. So there were some fun moments
Speaker 2: here or there. I think this is a weekend that
Speaker 2: might be the latest thing that simply is a sunk cost,
Speaker 2: and it's time to admit that maybe it even just
Speaker 2: goes away.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how many people watch it.
Speaker 2: The All Star Game we had here two years ago,
Speaker 2: despite the bravado from some local folk.
Speaker 1: Was the lowest rated All Star game in the history
Speaker 1: of the game.
Speaker 2: I have not seen the overnight splits for the All
Speaker 2: Star Game or Saturday Night.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine they were very high.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was going up against the SNL fifty reunion,
Speaker 2: we have the four Nations face off. College basketball is
Speaker 2: gaining steam, but mostly I mean, unless you are just
Speaker 2: a diehard MBA fan and there is some nostalgia like
Speaker 2: there is for me, I can't imagine you were very
Speaker 2: tuned in f at all. All Right, for the second
Speaker 2: time in four months, conference leaders from the SEC and
Speaker 2: the Big Ten are meeting in person. Okay, so there's
Speaker 2: a lot to get to with this. They're talking about
Speaker 2: the House versus the NCAA settlement. They're talking about potential
Speaker 2: adjustments to the CFP format. They're talking about auto bids.
Speaker 2: They're talking about scheduling partners. So we'll get to Matt
Speaker 2: Brown coming up next for some college football. Tim mcmahonor
Speaker 2: excuse me, Dave Fox. Tim McMahon already joined US and
Speaker 2: enjoyed the conversation with Dave or excuse me with Tim Davis.
Speaker 2: Stop by later, but Matt Brown's gonna join us coming
Speaker 2: up on the other side.
Speaker 1: Before we catch a break.
Speaker 2: Want to tell you about my friends at Ogden Clinic
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Speaker 1: Now here's the deal, both Porter and myself.
Speaker 4: Porter, during the summer months when the weather's warm, what
Speaker 4: is your typical routine on a weekend when the weather's
Speaker 4: really nice.
Speaker 2: I'm out all the time, getting baked right, right and
Speaker 2: then yes, clear whoa. You know, that's none of my business,
Speaker 2: but I'm not judging.
Speaker 1: It's on PTO types. Fair enough.
Speaker 2: Porter will roll in to do a show on a
Speaker 2: Monday looking like he just laid out for forty eight
Speaker 2: hours because he's a hiker. And like, if you're like me,
Speaker 2: you play a lot of golf when the weather's warm,
Speaker 2: or you hike with the dog, you walk with the dog,
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Speaker 2: Our good friends at Ogden Clinic Hadley See, I think
Speaker 2: Allison Chains has aged fine, you know, excuse me, I'm
Speaker 2: not speaking for the entire catalog. Matt Brown might be
Speaker 2: close to my age. I think I'm older than Matt.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm older than Matt. But you know
Speaker 2: what this, It feels like your dad at some point
Speaker 2: may have gone through an Allison Chains phase.
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 6: Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that fair? They were in there for sure.
Speaker 3: He was like the more early eighties hair metal, and
Speaker 3: then there was a bunch of bands that tried to
Speaker 3: like keep that going, kind of as the grunge and
Speaker 3: alternative thing kind of blew up, so that they were
Speaker 3: in there for sure.
Speaker 2: Let's ask our guy Matt Brown. I'm guessing Matt that
Speaker 2: I'm older than you. But my producer, Porter, who I love,
Speaker 2: is a child. He is a young and so he
Speaker 2: asked me, Yeah, he asked me a very fair and
Speaker 2: honest question.
Speaker 1: I was very introspective.
Speaker 2: How has the music that I loved from the nineties aged?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 1: How would you answer that question?
Speaker 7: Matt? Oh, that that's a really that's a really good question.
Speaker 6: It is.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know that much of it has aged
Speaker 7: all that well. It's funny. I was having this exact
Speaker 7: same conversation with my wife a couple of days ago. Like,
Speaker 7: one of the commercially biggest bands of the nineties was
Speaker 7: Blues Traveler.
Speaker 6: Yeah, who's like.
Speaker 7: Now doomed to play like the Canton, Ohio State Fair
Speaker 7: Circuit and if you play run around I think on
Speaker 7: the radio and I were like, what is this? What
Speaker 7: am I doing? I mean, there's a couple of bands
Speaker 7: that are going to be on the Classic Rocks, you know,
Speaker 7: circuit for our grandkids. But I think there's a lot
Speaker 7: more tumble wombles in there than maybe we might care
Speaker 7: to admit.
Speaker 2: Blues Traveler, as Porter points out, as an excellent example,
Speaker 2: because Matt I am old enough to remember nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: I was at a music festival where Blues Traveler was
Speaker 2: the open Excuse me, the closing act at a festival
Speaker 2: have included Fish and Dave Matthews band Blues Traveler was
Speaker 2: the closer.
Speaker 7: I am almost positive I went to a concert where
Speaker 7: Dave Matthews opened for Blues Traveler and not the other
Speaker 7: way around.
Speaker 2: That sounds right. Yeah, it was Horde Festival, that's right.
Speaker 2: It was Fish, Blues Traveler, widespread Panic and Blues Traveler
Speaker 2: was the main act. That That is an excellent one,
Speaker 2: my friend. I'll give you a lot of credit for
Speaker 2: that one. That's a good one.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'll have to think about this a little bit more.
Speaker 7: I mean, like, there's there's some classics there, there are
Speaker 7: some bands that went to the Hall of Fame, but
Speaker 7: there was a lot of forgettable moments. I mean, people
Speaker 7: forget this. But if you were around in the nineties
Speaker 7: and early two thousands for like nine months, and I'm
Speaker 7: guessing in Utah it was probably a little bit longer
Speaker 7: than nine months. Like swing music inexplicably became extraordinarily popular. Yep,
Speaker 7: they let they let Big Bad, Voodoo Daddy plays the
Speaker 7: Super Bowl. Everyone just got watched Swingers and had a
Speaker 7: collective panic attack.
Speaker 1: That's what it was.
Speaker 2: These things happened, That's that's what it was. It was
Speaker 2: the Swingers call and kid. Swingers is a movie with
Speaker 2: Vince Vaughan. Okay, everybody, calm down, Okay, just get your
Speaker 2: heads out of the gutter. Great movie, but that ultimately
Speaker 2: launched the big bag Voodoo Dad, he's excellent.
Speaker 1: Pull Now you're on fire today already.
Speaker 7: Well, I listen. I may or may not have been
Speaker 7: somebody who was swept into that too, right, because if
Speaker 7: you know, if you're like one of the nine LDS
Speaker 7: kids in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker 5: And you're like, oh, I will for.
Speaker 7: Some inexplicable reason, I already learned how to swing dance
Speaker 7: and after on Wednesday Night, mutual Now I can finally
Speaker 7: participate in popular culture and that poof it's gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were yep, I remembered it.
Speaker 2: Two LDS kids in my high school, me and my sister,
Speaker 2: and so I was able to introduce a lot of
Speaker 2: my classmates to the Lion King soundtrack and the Saturday's
Speaker 2: Warrior soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Now that was my addition to the music scene.
Speaker 6: Sure, sure.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I know, it's amazing that we weren't more popular
Speaker 7: if your kids, oh.
Speaker 2: Well said speaking of the LDS folk and our friends
Speaker 2: down south. Tom Homo has announced that, after twenty years
Speaker 2: on the job, Matt he is electing to find something
Speaker 2: else to do with his time. And I've got to
Speaker 2: say I've often said this, and I don't know if
Speaker 2: being the athletic director at by U is the hardest
Speaker 2: job in college athletics administration, but it's among it's among
Speaker 2: the hardest jobs. I mean, look, as you know, you
Speaker 2: have to align with the institution while running a department
Speaker 2: that is probably least naturally aligned with what BYU is
Speaker 2: as a university. I think Tom did a remarkable job.
Speaker 2: He has earned his flowers on the way out the door.
Speaker 2: So your thoughts on the news that Tom is stepping down,
Speaker 2: and who do you think BYU looks at now?
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's funny I wrote about this. I think I
Speaker 7: think earlier this week that I the longer I do
Speaker 7: this job, the more hesitant I am to publicly proclaim
Speaker 7: somebody to be a good athletic director, because I feel
Speaker 7: like I've been burned by this a couple of times,
Speaker 7: and like Oh, this guy made a couple of good hires,
Speaker 7: and he returns my phone calls he must be a
Speaker 7: good ad, and then he ends up like a gigantic scandal,
Speaker 7: like six months after he gets the plaque at NACTA.
Speaker 7: And so I tend to try to, you know, be
Speaker 7: hesitant about that, but I'll stay it on the radio.
Speaker 7: I've said it in print. I think I think Tom
Speaker 7: was excellent, and I think he was excellent for a
Speaker 7: lot of the reasons that you just mentioned, Like he
Speaker 7: didn't us do the things that we can commonly associate
Speaker 7: with ads making good hires, which at EYU is hard
Speaker 7: raising money, you know, building a culture that develops other
Speaker 7: coaches and other administrators. But one of the things that
Speaker 7: I really admire about him, besides the fact that I
Speaker 7: think he's like legitimately good human being, is I think
Speaker 7: it was really important to him about to find ways
Speaker 7: to make by U Athletics to be a front porch
Speaker 7: that made that was accessible to everybody, even if those
Speaker 7: people might have had complicated feelings about the sponsoring institution
Speaker 7: or didn't want to sign up for maybe everything else
Speaker 7: that comes with YU fanhood, right, Tom is not a
Speaker 7: ninth generation Pioneers Science Camp person. He's a convert. He's
Speaker 7: in charge of the department, which I think is inarguably
Speaker 7: the most diverse and least LDS part of the church
Speaker 7: education system, and has to learn how to speak the
Speaker 7: language that maybe comes a little bit more naturally to
Speaker 7: people like you and I, and I think I think
Speaker 7: did a great job. It's very difficult to navigate conference realignment.
Speaker 7: It's difficult to operate a Netholic department where their resources
Speaker 7: don't match fan expectations. And I think that was true
Speaker 7: for BYU for a long time. And to do all
Speaker 7: that and to still have almost everybody that knows you
Speaker 7: and has worked with you, and even if they're not
Speaker 7: from the state say you're a good person, that's rare.
Speaker 7: And I think as somebody who just who cares about
Speaker 7: this industry, like not because I care about BYU, like
Speaker 7: specifically when we're another I'm sad he's gone because I
Speaker 7: think there's some really difficult or leaving Like he's not dead,
Speaker 7: but he's he's leaving this industry because there's some really
Speaker 7: difficult questions that I think would benefit from good human beings.
Speaker 7: I think Tom is one of those good human beings.
Speaker 2: I agree with you, and he's always been good to
Speaker 2: me in the opportunities I've had to interview him and
Speaker 2: affair as well. So I think BYU lost a good one.
Speaker 2: So during the press conference to announce it was very reverend.
Speaker 2: It was a very reverend press conference to announce that
Speaker 2: that Tom was stepping down. The president of BYU, Shane Rees. See,
Speaker 2: Shane Rees got to have the sea, you know, this match,
Speaker 2: you got to have the see President c. Shane Rees
Speaker 2: went over his list of you know, kind of criteria
Speaker 2: for who he would look at next for Tom, and
Speaker 2: it was the standard bring him young answer that you
Speaker 2: would expect to align with the institution, even said, you know,
Speaker 2: he's got to lead with Jesus in mind. You know
Speaker 2: the things that they say, and it leads to the question,
Speaker 2: who do you think they look at next? You think
Speaker 2: it's in house? President Rees said it was going to
Speaker 2: be a national search. Who do you think they land out?
Speaker 2: Give me your thoughts there, Matt.
Speaker 7: So I'm told it is a national search, and I
Speaker 7: could be wrong here, but this is the first time
Speaker 7: that I can recall since I've been doing this professionally
Speaker 7: that BYU has retained the services of like a third
Speaker 7: party search firm. Normally you don't need to do that
Speaker 7: because you and I could sit down here and I
Speaker 7: was like, there's only six LDS coaches, right, we can
Speaker 7: figure out who the list is is not it's not
Speaker 7: rocket science, And it's true there's not a lot of
Speaker 7: people that have the college athletics industry experience and presumably
Speaker 7: a Temple recommend Right. I want to say there's five,
Speaker 7: maybe six sitting Division one ads who are LDS, and
Speaker 7: for a variety of reasons, be that age, of personal preference,
Speaker 7: most of them are not going to be candidates for
Speaker 7: this role. I think there's three really excellent, very capable people,
Speaker 7: at least three, maybe more. I don't know everybody at BYU,
Speaker 7: but at least three capable internal people who could do
Speaker 7: this job. But the fact that they're working with an
Speaker 7: outside firm makes me think that BYU is going to
Speaker 7: seriously consider a lot of folks who are not currently
Speaker 7: working in college athletics. The Marriott School of Business is
Speaker 7: good for a lot of things. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 7: of CEOs out there, a whole lot of attorneys that
Speaker 7: have worked in the entertainment industry. In some capacity by
Speaker 7: you've done this before, I would be pretty surprised if
Speaker 7: the AD is not either, you know, one of one
Speaker 7: of the two three people that are currently on staff,
Speaker 7: Like if it's not somebody that's already in the athletic department,
Speaker 7: I think it's gonna be somebody that most people listening
Speaker 7: to this have never heard of, because it's not going
Speaker 7: to be a senior associate AD at Kentucky or the
Speaker 7: number three of Utah or anything like this is this
Speaker 7: is the kind of world where I think they're going
Speaker 7: to look at, you know who, am I.
Speaker 6: Jet Blues who?
Speaker 7: Because this role is changing so much. Right it's not
Speaker 7: as much about hiring the best baseball coach as it
Speaker 7: is now navigating some really complicated business and legal realities.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly where I wanted to go next, because
Speaker 2: this is a job that is a different ask than
Speaker 2: it was twenty years ago. And yeah, you know, you
Speaker 2: could go over a litany the guy who I think
Speaker 2: they I don't know if Brian Rolapp answers the phone,
Speaker 2: because he's the CEO of the National Football League, he
Speaker 2: essentially is Goodell's number two. I think if Rolap stays
Speaker 2: with the NFL. He's going to be the next commissioner,
Speaker 2: and therefore I don't know that he even interviews for it.
Speaker 2: But he is a BYU grad, He's a Harvard MBA.
Speaker 2: I've met him a number of times, You've had him
Speaker 2: on the show. He is a dynamic pro and he's
Speaker 2: a really smart dude. He is kind of credited by
Speaker 2: you know, for essentially leading the NFL to where they're
Speaker 2: at right now with their myriad of revenue streams based
Speaker 2: off their broadcast deals. But this is a long and
Speaker 2: complicated way of me asking you a simple question, which
Speaker 2: is how has the changing dynamic and landscape of collegiate athletics,
Speaker 2: namely college football changed the ask for what this job
Speaker 2: is now?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 7: And I would say that the I think the ask
Speaker 7: for being the AD at BYU is different than being
Speaker 7: the AD at Utah, although both of those jobs have
Speaker 7: changed very significantly over the last five or six years,
Speaker 7: in part because of some of the changing finances. Right
Speaker 7: you know, DYU, as I understand, it is not a
Speaker 7: place where you're going to be able to, you know,
Speaker 7: permitted to habitually deficit spend. You're going to have to
Speaker 7: bring in revenues that match what do you want to
Speaker 7: be at to spend and that means you're going to
Speaker 7: need somebody who is dynamic about finding new money in
Speaker 7: a way that aligns with church principles that that you know,
Speaker 7: you're not going to be able to make come up
Speaker 7: with an extra fifteen million dollars through selling data rights
Speaker 7: to gambling companies, which is something that a few other
Speaker 7: major conferences have kicked the tires on or or deeper.
Speaker 7: You know, MMR deals with with with with with deer
Speaker 7: or something. So, whether that's getting even more creative about
Speaker 7: earned revenue from sponsorships, whether that's potentially playing more games
Speaker 7: or other games outside of of the United States and
Speaker 7: trying to engage globally, whether that's that's doing different things
Speaker 7: with yu TV, All that kind of stuff's on the table.
Speaker 7: But there's also almost a government affairs and legal component
Speaker 7: to all of this. Right, everybody who's an AD now
Speaker 7: has the responsibility to comply with Title nine, and that
Speaker 7: is much more complicated now than it was two weeks ago,
Speaker 7: and certainly and two years before or you know before
Speaker 7: then you have various reporting responsibilities with the Department of Education,
Speaker 7: which may or may not continue to exist your athletes
Speaker 7: may or may not be employees in three or four years.
Speaker 7: You're being sued six ways from Sunday as part of
Speaker 7: the NC double A. If you're a Big twelve athletic
Speaker 7: director or university president, you have to be worried that
Speaker 7: the big tenant sec aren't going to try to muscle
Speaker 7: you out of big time college sports. So this is
Speaker 7: a job that's not just about hiring and training and running,
Speaker 7: you know, successful athletic programs. And it's not just a
Speaker 7: sales job. I think it's a little bit of a
Speaker 7: lobbying job. It's a little bit of a lawyer job.
Speaker 7: It's certainly some some back channel political diplomacy kind of job.
Speaker 7: And then at BYU you're also a very public ambassador
Speaker 7: for the church. This is not a place where you
Speaker 7: can get photographed on a fundraising visit in a bar,
Speaker 7: even if you're not drinking, even if you're not doing
Speaker 7: anything wrong, because there's going to be pressures here that
Speaker 7: are just not not a thing that you have to
Speaker 7: deal with at Utah or with the Philadelphia Eagles at
Speaker 7: the Phoenix Suns. And that's not necessarily a criticism, that's
Speaker 7: that's just the reality of the gig so I had.
Speaker 2: I had breakfast with a gentleman about three months ago
Speaker 2: who is a pretty heavy hitter in our market, and
Speaker 2: we discussed the dynamic of, you know, where the schools
Speaker 2: are at locally with their collectives, and he told me
Speaker 2: that his understanding is bringing me on. Right now has
Speaker 2: nine seven figure donors, while the University of Utah only
Speaker 2: has two. Now, that was about three or four months ago.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's changed, But do you have a
Speaker 2: grasp or an accurate understanding on just how that collective
Speaker 2: down in Provo is doing? It seems like it's very healthy.
Speaker 2: They signed the number one player in college basketball next year.
Speaker 2: According to what I've been told, both Jegor Demon and
Speaker 2: Cannon Catchings are seven figure kids. I don't know how
Speaker 2: much of the support Kalani gets on the football side
Speaker 2: that Kevin gets on the basketball side, but the football
Speaker 2: team was really good this year. Do you have an
Speaker 2: accurate understanding of just exactly where they're at down there
Speaker 2: with their finances?
Speaker 7: Yeah, And it's hard because so many of these things
Speaker 7: get you know, cut through telephone, and it's the private
Speaker 7: institutions and you don't have to you don't get the
Speaker 7: same stuff you do from the irs as you might
Speaker 7: for other places. The folks that I trust has said, Hey,
Speaker 7: you know, there's this kind of meme around the internet
Speaker 7: that b what US basketball budget is just from the youth,
Speaker 7: it's just just from Ryan Smith, and that isn't true.
Speaker 7: Whether it's nine seven big donors or four big donors
Speaker 7: or six big donors. Don't know the exact number, but
Speaker 7: I know it's multiple people. And my understanding and I
Speaker 7: think we've said this on the year before here too,
Speaker 7: and that hasn't changed. Is the amount of money and
Speaker 7: the kind of major financial commitments coming to be what
Speaker 7: you basketball are not the same that are coming into
Speaker 7: BAU football. And part of that I think is just
Speaker 7: a business decision. You can drop seven figures on one
Speaker 7: basketball player and that can be the difference between playing
Speaker 7: in Dayton and playing in the Sweet sixteen. You could
Speaker 7: put seven figures into one football player and you've changed nothing.
Speaker 7: You really can't overspend on four or five guys. You
Speaker 7: need fifty five guys to be a really, really expective team.
Speaker 7: And I think the rules for roster management in football,
Speaker 7: especially at a place like BYU, are always going to
Speaker 7: be very different. So it probably does make more financial
Speaker 7: sense to make a bigger splash for basketball. I'd hope
Speaker 7: that you can win sixty five percent of your games
Speaker 7: in conference.
Speaker 6: I can't speak to.
Speaker 7: Where the elite heavy hitter donor activity is happening in Utah.
Speaker 7: I think that that was a school that did a
Speaker 7: really good job of engaging their corporate community, did a
Speaker 7: really good job of engaging some of their donors who
Speaker 7: are maybe not dropping seven figures, but are comfortable dropping
Speaker 7: high five figures, and you need a lot of those two.
Speaker 7: I think maybe if there are some either a basketball
Speaker 7: head coaching change or a reason for more of the
Speaker 7: basketball folks to get a little bit more engaged, or
Speaker 7: some other kind of big news on the football side,
Speaker 7: I wouldn't be surprised to see more of that money
Speaker 7: coming back out. It's very hard for almost anybody, if
Speaker 7: you're not Ohio State, to get the same twelve people
Speaker 7: to write you big checks every single year. There's gonna
Speaker 7: be years when you're just going to financially go for it,
Speaker 7: and there's probably gonna be years when you don't. And
Speaker 7: that's going to be true for most P four programs.
Speaker 2: All right, So moving off of BYU but staying in
Speaker 2: the space and thank you for doing this. If I
Speaker 2: could quote Kendrick Lamar, not like us, because there's no
Speaker 2: way I would dig through dozens and dozens of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three NIL collective nine nineties.
Speaker 1: But Matt, you did that. So what did you learn
Speaker 1: through this exercise?
Speaker 2: You know, you can go whatever direction you want, just
Speaker 2: kind of a big picture question. You wrote on this
Speaker 2: just a few days ago, and you know you've learned
Speaker 2: about how these collectives grew or shrank to your point,
Speaker 2: and how they're paying athletes. It is a topic that
Speaker 2: all college athletic fans are interested in.
Speaker 1: What did you learn as you kind of undertook this exercise?
Speaker 7: Yeah, and so for those for folks who are listening
Speaker 7: here right, an NIL collective can be set up as
Speaker 7: a nonprofit or a for profit or not for profit.
Speaker 7: And if you're a nonprofit, if you're a five o'
Speaker 7: one C three, you have to file at nine to ninety,
Speaker 7: which is a form that any any reporter or any
Speaker 7: JOQ public person can examine where you have to declare
Speaker 7: how much money you brought in and where you spent
Speaker 7: a lot of it, and who you're paying. One of
Speaker 7: Utah's main collective for fiscal year twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 7: Crimson Collective was one of those nonprofits. They told the
Speaker 7: i r S that they brought in a little over
Speaker 7: five and a half million dollars, which was on the
Speaker 7: higher end of the collectives that we examined over the
Speaker 7: course of the year. I think that the largest one
Speaker 7: from fiscal year twenty three was Notre Dames that that
Speaker 7: was well into the eight figures. That doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 7: that five and a half million dollars was all of
Speaker 7: Utah's budget, right There's going to be commercial deals and
Speaker 7: activities or other collective activities, our individual athlete deals that
Speaker 7: have nothing that don't show up there. But I think
Speaker 7: this was an interesting snapshot because for a while it
Speaker 7: seemed like that was the future. Everyone's going to have
Speaker 7: a five to one seats three collective. People could donate
Speaker 7: to it and and and write that off their taxes,
Speaker 7: and that was going to be the most efficient way.
Speaker 7: The i r S on multiple times has has has
Speaker 7: questioned that distinction. More and more of these groups are dissolving.
Speaker 7: Some of them are dissolving just because the collectives in
Speaker 7: general are going to be less powerful in the post
Speaker 7: House Settlement era. So I don't I don't think this
Speaker 7: is the future anymore. But you know, from what we
Speaker 7: were able to see, you could see, Hey, this this
Speaker 7: UTAH was able to raise more money than than many
Speaker 7: other similar programs, Like it was a bigger fund than
Speaker 7: Washington's main collective.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 7: It was a bigger fund than than what Purdue was reporting.
Speaker 7: It was. It was bigger than what some of the
Speaker 7: other schools in the Big twelve are reporting, which it
Speaker 7: which speaks to some of that donor activity.
Speaker 2: All right, excuse me, moving over to a story you
Speaker 2: and I talked about and the Biden administration they handed
Speaker 2: down the Title nine guidance, which at the time indicated
Speaker 2: nil payments would follow under the Title nine guidelines. And
Speaker 2: you were kind of the first guest we had on
Speaker 2: the show to talk about the potential roll back once
Speaker 2: the Trump administration took over.
Speaker 1: And it's not just that, is it.
Speaker 2: It's the rescinding the National Lation National Labor Relations Memorandum
Speaker 2: viewing college athletes as employees. And then there's the Title
Speaker 2: nine stuff as well that's been rolled back. So walk
Speaker 2: us through this. What does it mean? What do we
Speaker 2: need to know? About this map.
Speaker 7: Yeah, let's try to translate this into like non policy
Speaker 7: dorc language here. Right right before the Biden administration left
Speaker 7: the White House, their Department of Education put out a
Speaker 7: memo that said, hey, you know, based on this case law,
Speaker 7: based on how Title nine has traditionally been interpreted, we
Speaker 7: believe that the House Settlement revenue sharing needs to be
Speaker 7: split the same way that scholarship money is distributed. You
Speaker 7: have to comply with Title nine for this particular thing,
Speaker 7: which is very significant because almost every school, and I'm
Speaker 7: sure including the schools in this market, we're planning on
Speaker 7: distributing you know, eighty five plus percent of their you know,
Speaker 7: direct direct payments to football, men's basketball, maybe women's basketball,
Speaker 7: but certainly not anything resembling a fifty to fifty or
Speaker 7: fifty three to forty seven split. You know, the industry
Speaker 7: perception and expectation was, I think the Trump White House
Speaker 7: is going to roll this back, which is exactly what happens.
Speaker 7: But I think, not to get like partisan here, it
Speaker 7: just still creates a sense of uncertainty and challenge if
Speaker 7: you're an athletic administrator right now. One of the reasons
Speaker 7: is that historically the federal government arm that investigates Title
Speaker 7: nine is out of the Department of Education, with the
Speaker 7: Office of Civil Rights within there. And the Trump administration
Speaker 7: wants to get rid of the Department of Education, and
Speaker 7: if not completely, then then to gut it so much
Speaker 7: that I can't handle most of its responsibilities. And this
Speaker 7: isn't me as like a crazy live saying this like
Speaker 7: that's that's what they said they wanted to do as
Speaker 7: part of their government restructuring. So I mean, it isn't
Speaker 7: really clear whether that responsibility goes to the Department of Justice,
Speaker 7: if it goes away entirely, if it goes to somebody else,
Speaker 7: And that that's true for other similar Title nine reporting.
Speaker 7: So part of the challenge right now if you're a
Speaker 7: school isn't just how do I protect myself from being
Speaker 7: sued or losing a lawsuit when I set up this
Speaker 7: house settlement money, but how do I set myself up
Speaker 7: for long term compliance? And also how do I set
Speaker 7: myself up for long term compliance in case, you know,
Speaker 7: Democrats come back in the White House in four years
Speaker 7: and bring a bunch of this stuff back. Do I
Speaker 7: want to be able to go into a lawsuit and
Speaker 7: then realize that I haven't been keeping receipts for a while,
Speaker 7: Like there's there's there's a lot of concern because the
Speaker 7: speed and the somewhat randomness of the federal government cutbacks
Speaker 7: and reorganizations is faster than what people understand how to
Speaker 7: comply with any of those rules are so long answer
Speaker 7: to say, people are confused, and they're.
Speaker 6: Probably going to be confused for a few more weeks.
Speaker 2: So moving over into this space, while kind of staying
Speaker 2: in the same general area, you were one of the
Speaker 2: first that I heard say that you are now skeptical
Speaker 2: that college football will eventually land on this pro model
Speaker 2: that we've all pontificated on for a number of years,
Speaker 2: and very smart college football media members like yourself right
Speaker 2: about all the time. And that was prior to the
Speaker 2: new administration taking over, and you articulated why you were
Speaker 2: a little bit skeptical that we were going to fall
Speaker 2: into this model even though a lot of people believe
Speaker 2: it is an eventuality. Let's revisit it now that the
Speaker 2: Trump administration is in the White House. Are you still
Speaker 2: in that space where you're not sure that this pro
Speaker 2: model is the eventual place where this plane will land
Speaker 2: or have you kind of change your stance there.
Speaker 7: No, I think where I am right now is very uncertain.
Speaker 7: I completely understand the it's inevitable argument, and a lot
Speaker 7: of that centers on not the White House and not
Speaker 7: Congress necessarily, but the court system. Where a world where
Speaker 7: you are directly distributing revenued athletes and what they are
Speaker 7: doing and practice resembles an employment relationship. More and more
Speaker 7: that that courts would eventually rule that big time football
Speaker 7: players and big time basketball players are employees and have
Speaker 7: to be treated as such. And in a divide to Congress,
Speaker 7: there isn't really the ability to pass the law to
Speaker 7: prevent that. But where we are right now is one
Speaker 7: a world where so much of the kind of administrative
Speaker 7: law and precedent around labor relations it's being thrown out
Speaker 7: the window gone here in four months from the National
Speaker 7: Labor Relations Board ruling in favor of athlete unionization too,
Speaker 7: they're legitimately not potentially not being a National Labor Relations
Speaker 7: board at all. Uh, there's there's a there's a real
Speaker 7: chance this Supreme Court might decide it's unconstitutional.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 7: They've already fired all the people that that that said
Speaker 7: that they were ruling in favor of the college athletes
Speaker 7: to begin with, we're also moving towards the world here
Speaker 7: where Republicans have unified control of of of the legislature.
Speaker 7: And the guy that's most invested in college sports right now,
Speaker 7: and and who's going to lead a committee is Ted Cruz,
Speaker 7: and Ted Cruz is already signaled, Hey, I am I'm
Speaker 7: broadly sympathetic to to college sports concerns right now. I'm
Speaker 7: not exactly a friend of organized labor, whether he grants
Speaker 7: the NC double A and outright anti trust exemption or
Speaker 7: or something different. The idea that Congress can just step
Speaker 7: up and say, I don't care what the court say
Speaker 7: new law, college athletes aren't employees is a legitimate possibility
Speaker 7: right now. And you might go, ah, but I won't
Speaker 7: do that because that's not very free market of them.
Speaker 7: Like come on, have you met Tommy Tuberville like that?
Speaker 7: That's that's not the point. This isn't about ideology anymore,
Speaker 7: right Like, this is about whether guys that don't follow
Speaker 7: college sports very closely are reading the tea leaves and
Speaker 7: think that there's gonna be enough you know, fan resentment
Speaker 7: on the nil era to try to slam the door
Speaker 7: on some of this stuff. So I don't want to
Speaker 7: say that that's that's absolutely going to happen. But I
Speaker 7: think any attorney, any athlete, labor rights advocate, any athletic
Speaker 7: director that's not willing to grapple with the actual political
Speaker 7: reality right now it has their head in his hand.
Speaker 7: It's such a different world than it was six months ago,
Speaker 7: and you just simply cannot rely on on on past
Speaker 7: precedent and previous institutions to rule a particular way anymore.
Speaker 2: Dovetails are to the final question for today, For the
Speaker 2: second time or four months, the powerbrokers from the SEC
Speaker 2: and the Big ten are getting together to discuss what
Speaker 2: they want this entire thing to look like moving forward.
Speaker 2: They'll discuss the House for NCAA settlement, future governance, and
Speaker 2: then of course the CFP format, scheduling, partners ships and such.
Speaker 1: We're in the Big twelve footprints.
Speaker 2: What do you make of this continued momentum moving in
Speaker 2: the direction of those two conferences essentially calling all the shots.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think if I was a fan of a
Speaker 7: Big twelve institution, I'd be deeply concerned about this, because
Speaker 7: I don't know if there's a really effective way that
Speaker 7: the Big twelve and ACC can can fight some of
Speaker 7: these changes. The idea that hey, the last college football
Speaker 7: playoff format was built around a conference alignment world that
Speaker 7: doesn't exist anymore. I think that has some merit. And
Speaker 7: I don't think the Big Ten and the SEC demanding
Speaker 7: multiple automatic bids has any merit. I think that that's
Speaker 7: terrible and honestly anti American. But they have the leverage
Speaker 7: to potentially push for some of those things. So and
Speaker 7: I think that would be absolutely terrible for this conference.
Speaker 7: The more spots that are locked up by these these
Speaker 7: bigger brands, it's not going to free up more space
Speaker 7: for you guys. It's gonna it's going to create a
Speaker 7: path to help them get seven. And nobody in this
Speaker 7: league for football recruits anywhere close to the championship caliber
Speaker 7: level to compete with the Ohio States or Organs on
Speaker 7: a year and year out basis. So this is I
Speaker 7: would consider this a borderline existential threat. I don't I
Speaker 7: can't sit here on the radio and tell you I
Speaker 7: know exactly how this is going to go or whether
Speaker 7: they're going to be successful in twenty sixteen or successful
Speaker 7: a little bit later on. But this is a concern
Speaker 7: that I think really needs to animate, not just Big
Speaker 7: twelve and ACC athletic directors, but university presidents and their attorneys.
Speaker 2: All right, man, Where can people go find all that
Speaker 2: work that ultimately allows you to talk for twenty minutes
Speaker 2: about things and none of us fully understand.
Speaker 7: You can find the Extra Points newsletter at extra Points
Speaker 7: mb dot com. I have a story coming out tomorrow
Speaker 7: about changes in the video game group licensing space, which
Speaker 7: I understand are of interest too many fans. I've also
Speaker 7: got some original reporting coming on in a day or
Speaker 7: two about the US Soccer Federation potentially trying to take
Speaker 7: over college soccer, and more about what's happening here in
Speaker 7: New Orleans. To find at Extra Points MV dot com.
Speaker 7: You can find me on the internet at Matt BROWNEP.
Speaker 1: You're the man, Matt. Thanks for the time, buddy. We'll
Speaker 1: chat soon, Okay, always my pleasure.
Speaker 7: Be well friends.
Speaker 2: All Right, Matt Brown, I'm telling you it is the
Speaker 2: best college football newsletter if you're trying to understand the
Speaker 2: landscape and the business of what's happening. I read it
Speaker 2: every time. He post one at Matt Brown EP is
Speaker 2: where you find him. We got a little duet between
Speaker 2: Pitbull and Cindy Lapper rolling in on a Tuesday afternoon.
Speaker 1: What did you do to us today? What is this Dave?
Speaker 4: That's all disco song? It's called Let's All Chant by
Speaker 4: Michael Zagerband.
Speaker 2: Is that one of the tracks you played when you
Speaker 2: were at disco?
Speaker 1: Dated when I was in.
Speaker 4: The Wax back in the late seventies. That was a hit,
Speaker 4: didn't I hit?
Speaker 1: Was it DJ Dave? What was your DJ d It
Speaker 1: was just a dave?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I worked at a couple of clubs locally.
Speaker 4: The front page twenty first South Broadway over here?
Speaker 1: Okay, Broadway?
Speaker 6: Enough?
Speaker 1: Is that? What where the movie theater is now?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, sorry, it's on main Street.
Speaker 4: It was called the Broadway and it's in a down
Speaker 4: it's now just an office downstairs. But we had a
Speaker 4: night club, disco in there. What was the name of
Speaker 4: the first club you said? The front page, twenty first
Speaker 4: South ninth East. Okay, now, I think a Walgreene had
Speaker 4: a big lit dance floor.
Speaker 1: It was awesome. Was it really lit? Oh?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was it lit like the kids say lit? Or was
Speaker 2: there like literally light?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: It was literally light like Saturday night fever. Okay, that's
Speaker 4: the same thing. I thought, you're trying to be happy.
Speaker 6: No, it was.
Speaker 4: It was a lit flooring and uh man, if that
Speaker 4: DJ Booth could talk.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's enough, let's move on.
Speaker 2: Dave Fox Liven Studio two pelotons too, Ammys, Dave, how
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing great?
Speaker 6: How easy?
Speaker 1: How was your President's Day weekend? It was good.
Speaker 2: I was honoring the decorum, decency, and honesty of the
Speaker 2: highest office in a lands.
Speaker 1: That's what was supposed to be on President Day, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. I do the same thing.
Speaker 4: I just I spent about an hour and I just
Speaker 4: meditate or I'm all or how honored we are to
Speaker 4: have what we have in this country.
Speaker 1: You don't strike me as a meditator. Okay, maybe I
Speaker 1: didn't meditate, that's.
Speaker 6: What I thought.
Speaker 1: But you definitely didn't work because the goat. I didn't.
Speaker 4: The goat was on the show last night, Yes he was.
Speaker 4: How was our guy, Mikaelic? He's doing great, Adams Sue.
Speaker 4: We chatted briefly this morning and he's doing well. He's
Speaker 4: doing really well.
Speaker 1: How much have got NBA All Star weekend? Did you consume?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, well, so, as you know, the Fox Household.
Speaker 4: Every Sunday night, the entire family comes over. So there
Speaker 4: was a big debate do we watch the Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 4: which I just recorded and watched it later, or then
Speaker 4: we had a handful that wanted to watch the NBA thing.
Speaker 1: So what was I reading?
Speaker 6: Though?
Speaker 1: Maybe you could help me with this.
Speaker 4: I want to say in the three hour broadcast, I
Speaker 4: read somewhere that there was like a total of thirty
Speaker 4: eight minutes of basketball.
Speaker 1: I don't even think that, maybe not even that much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was, in my view, awful, but a couple
Speaker 4: of family members wanted to see it, and so they
Speaker 4: sat through that, and it is what it. It's like
Speaker 4: they keep trying to figure out ways to fix it.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just time to move on.
Speaker 2: So okay, let me kind of kick the tires with
Speaker 2: you as far as where you're at with the whole topic,
Speaker 2: because ultimately, I definitely sound like the old dude that
Speaker 2: misses the old All Star games, but you're certainly a
Speaker 2: guy that's covered sports in the market. Ninety three was
Speaker 2: really cool. We had the NBA All Star Game here.
Speaker 2: It was a good game. John and Carl co MVPs
Speaker 2: the game at MSG in two thousand, we saw a
Speaker 2: young or I think nineteen ninety nine, we saw young
Speaker 2: Kobe go up against his idle Michael Jordan, and that
Speaker 2: game was competitive and it was fun. So where I'm
Speaker 2: at with it is I continue to be frustrated with
Speaker 2: the product, but only because I do remember when it
Speaker 2: was awesome. And when it was awesome, it was top shelf.
Speaker 2: It was the greatest pickup game in the world. It
Speaker 2: was the best basketball players in the world who showed up.
Speaker 2: They cared, they played hard, and they tried to beat
Speaker 2: each other. And simply put, that should not be a
Speaker 2: complicated formula.
Speaker 1: But to your point, I'm kind of now resigned.
Speaker 2: To the fact that these dudes don't give a rip
Speaker 2: no matter where it's played, no matter what the format is,
Speaker 2: they just don't care.
Speaker 4: And if you don't care, guess what, we don't care. Yeah,
Speaker 4: here's the problem. Today's athlete has been enabled. I mean
Speaker 4: you could barely get them to care during the regular season,
Speaker 4: much less in an All Star game. Think about, you know,
Speaker 4: load management? What did I hear a comment the other
Speaker 4: day from Michael Jordan just laughing at the idea of
Speaker 4: load management?
Speaker 1: How old is he? Retired?
Speaker 4: Forty years old, and he played every single game with Washington. Granted,
Speaker 4: as you know, skills have diminished, but these athletes are
Speaker 4: enabled now and they rest for anything. Well, they're sure,
Speaker 4: is he not going to go put their all into
Speaker 4: an All Star Game? Back in the nineties, And you're
Speaker 4: right now both being that guy in ninety three, every
Speaker 4: game meant something, or at least to the athletes. They
Speaker 4: played every game, and they play in even the All
Speaker 4: Star Game. It's it's the whole thing is I just
Speaker 4: don't see anyway fixing it short of paying every player
Speaker 4: on the winning team a million dollars or something, and
Speaker 4: even that, who knows because they make so much money.
Speaker 4: It's it's really just bad. And then I don't mind
Speaker 4: the round robin idea. It feels like they're just throwing
Speaker 4: out stuff and see what sticks.
Speaker 1: But the thought that.
Speaker 4: You know, one of the teams is a bunch of
Speaker 4: kids who really aren't All Stars was just kind of weird, Like,
Speaker 4: does you know Zach Edie and Dalton connect and Keyantay
Speaker 4: George deserve to be playing on All Star Sunday Night.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it just seemed weird. It's just a mess.
Speaker 1: I don't see any solution to it.
Speaker 4: I like, what the NBA or excuse me, the NHL
Speaker 4: is doing with that four nations thing. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 4: that's kind of cool. That's been really cool.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the NBA has the answer to it,
Speaker 2: and look, they have a theoretical answer to it, because
Speaker 2: because I'll get people like, hey, what's your preferred format?
Speaker 2: My preferred format is a basketball game played by the
Speaker 2: best basketball players in the world who actually care.
Speaker 1: That's my preferred format. But I do think.
Speaker 2: There could be a little bit of juice with this
Speaker 2: international versus domestic players, the international pool versus the NBA players.
Speaker 1: It has been tried before, but this is different.
Speaker 2: You can make an argument right now, shake Gilges, Alexander Nikola, Jokic,
Speaker 2: Jannis Nbid when he's healthy, obviously Luca, like five or
Speaker 2: six of the top seven or eight players in pro
Speaker 2: basketball right now, or international players. So could they do
Speaker 2: a Rocky four type thing where Rocky goes to Russia
Speaker 2: and he's running through the snow and he's training to
Speaker 2: fight Drago And I'm honestly thinking out loudier because I
Speaker 2: think even if they did that, the domestic players would
Speaker 2: go over to Europe or whatever, and they still would
Speaker 2: mail it in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I think. I do think there's anything
Speaker 1: you can do to get these guys to care.
Speaker 4: And even the international team, they're still NBA players. Same
Speaker 4: look at Yokachi doesn't want to play. He didn't want
Speaker 4: to be at the All Star Game, right, And then
Speaker 4: here's this doesn't help either when you have, you know,
Speaker 4: the face of the league, Lebron shows up the day
Speaker 4: before and says I'm not playing. Not the day before,
Speaker 4: a few hours before the game, You're right, a few hours.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just stunning. But again, it all gets
Speaker 4: back to being enabled. It's it's their world. We're just
Speaker 4: living in it. They'll play when they feel like it.
Speaker 4: It's that way in the regular season. It's that way
Speaker 4: certainly in the All Star Game. You know, it's interesting
Speaker 4: because that the end season tournament is more competitive. I think,
Speaker 4: wouldn't you agree with this than the All Star Game.
Speaker 4: Now that's in the entire team and the wins and
Speaker 4: losses actually count. But I don't even know how you
Speaker 4: would replicate that. So, you know, I don't think there's
Speaker 4: a solution other than just get rid of it. The
Speaker 4: Lebron stuff. I think was a horrible look. Oh awful
Speaker 4: for a few different reasons.
Speaker 2: First of all, it's just a bad look when you
Speaker 2: have not announced that you're not going to play, and
Speaker 2: so the general public is watching intros and then suddenly
Speaker 2: they say, okay from the Lakers Lebron James, and he's
Speaker 2: in street clothes and you're like, dude, what are you doing.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, if you're one of Lebron's peers, I do
Speaker 2: not like that All Star games are in contracts, that
Speaker 2: the stipulation of if you make an All Star team, then.
Speaker 1: You're gonna yeah, what's the point.
Speaker 2: You're going to trigger a mechanism of a bonus. I
Speaker 2: don't like that they're in the contracts. But Dave, they're
Speaker 2: in the contracts.
Speaker 1: Okay. So what Lebron just did.
Speaker 2: Is take two hundred and three hundred K out of
Speaker 2: the pocket of somebody. Instead of saying, hey, I'm not playing, Okay,
Speaker 2: we'll name your replacement and then this player can get paid,
Speaker 2: Lebron selfishly took the spotlight for himself and just decided
Speaker 2: to sandbag it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a really selfish, bad look for me.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's getting back to the contract idea is just
Speaker 4: to word it that you get this bonus if you
Speaker 4: play in the All Star Game, not if you're named
Speaker 4: an NBA All Star. That might and but again that
Speaker 4: doesn't solve the All Star I'm just talking about your
Speaker 4: You mentioned the contract thing that might that might fix that.
Speaker 2: My point is if Lebron said I'm not playing and
Speaker 2: they name his replacement, the replacement player gets his check.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying. That's that's the way that contract
Speaker 4: should be worded. But that's again that's not gonna happen
Speaker 4: because it's it's their world, their money.
Speaker 1: I do just pay him. I do think we saw
Speaker 1: some fun Keyante moments.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's anything that, Like I asked
Speaker 2: Tim McMahon earlier, like, is there anything he can take
Speaker 2: from the experience, And Tim didn't really think so. I mean,
Speaker 2: just to just to know that you were named in
Speaker 2: a group that has the best young players in pro
Speaker 2: basketball and you advanced to play on Sunday against the
Speaker 2: best players in the world. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 2: stretching to kind of make this a topic, but I'm
Speaker 2: sure Keyante came home from that experience with a little
Speaker 2: peppinist step I would imagine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he had a nice first game. I believe
Speaker 4: first game he had ten and the three in each
Speaker 4: of the next two. I think when you're there in
Speaker 4: the moment, and you know this because you were referring
Speaker 4: to ninety three and then the one we had here
Speaker 4: just a couple of years ago, there is something cool
Speaker 4: about being in the moment there, especially for the younger players.
Speaker 4: Obviously the older players they're done with it, you know,
Speaker 4: they're just they know what it is. So I'm sure
Speaker 4: just that, and like you said, the idea of just
Speaker 4: being named and being there all weekend, that's that's a
Speaker 4: really a cool thing. So and he really looked like
Speaker 4: he was having some fun, especially in that Friday game
Speaker 4: and he.
Speaker 1: Hit the game winner. You know, that allowed them to advance.
Speaker 2: So look, we're a market that's used to seeing our
Speaker 2: players play in the game and also participate. We have
Speaker 2: Dunk Contest champions with Donovan and Griff I think Jeff
Speaker 2: won the three point Contest one year we've had all
Speaker 2: Stars and to only see one rep.
Speaker 1: Don't forget Jeremy in the dunk content. Jeremy Evans.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm shaking my head because every year we
Speaker 2: hear this thing, like, hey, Jeremy Evans, he was able
Speaker 2: to get two more inches on his vert I'm like,
Speaker 2: did is he shooting free throws? Did he learn how
Speaker 2: to dribble and pass?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Thanks for the vert update on Jeremy, but he's getting
Speaker 2: jumpers up.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it was just.
Speaker 2: Kind of odd, you know, for the second straight year
Speaker 2: to have a very minimal representation for our local.
Speaker 4: Team and the dunk contest winner isn't even in the NBA.
Speaker 4: He's a good dunker though, least Mac is fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but put him in dunk well.
Speaker 4: Look, everyone Jordan competed or guys Larry Nance Well, and
Speaker 4: here's the.
Speaker 2: Other issue, Dave, Like, in my opinion, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: grab Mac McClung, who's it good.
Speaker 4: He's a G League MVP. I mean, it's not like
Speaker 4: he's a bad player.
Speaker 2: You can go on YouTube and watch highlights of professional
Speaker 2: dunkers that are wild and NBA players have never touched.
Speaker 2: So if you're gonna let Mac dunk, go, get all
Speaker 2: these pro dunkers and let's have a little fun, why not?
Speaker 2: Because your point about so it wasn't as Jordan, like
Speaker 2: Kobe participated, he wanted to dunk contest.
Speaker 1: Vince Carter was an awesome player, and they were great dunkers.
Speaker 1: There were great dunkers.
Speaker 2: I could keep going, Aaron Gordon, Zach Levine like, but
Speaker 2: Muggsy Bogues, I mean, how incredible was that Bogues, Dominique Wilkins,
Speaker 2: all fifty like all NBA seventy fifth anniversary team. And
Speaker 2: now these dudes are so scared to look dumb, and
Speaker 2: I think that starts with Lebron But like Zion Williamson,
Speaker 2: Jah Moran, and I can keep going. There are really
Speaker 2: good players that are really good dunkers, but they don't
Speaker 2: want to be embarrassed.
Speaker 1: It's like this weird, soft dumb approach. They're like Prima Donna's.
Speaker 4: But it all gets back to the whole weekend, and
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, I think, yeah, I
Speaker 4: think you made the best point of all. I'm guessing
Speaker 4: there are a number of those guys that are excited
Speaker 4: to be a part of it only because they have
Speaker 4: some big bonus coming to them.
Speaker 1: Other than that they could do without.
Speaker 2: It well, and the money is so big now doesn't
Speaker 2: even motivate them and try hard.
Speaker 1: That's very true.
Speaker 4: That's why I don't think you could pay them spence
Speaker 4: because how much could you pay them? They would make
Speaker 4: what they are already making worth it, No.
Speaker 1: Like one hundred million.
Speaker 2: If you play hard, like you know, the money is
Speaker 2: already astronomical crazy. And I'm for the players getting their
Speaker 2: fair share of the pie. But if you're going to
Speaker 2: show up and mail it in because you know your
Speaker 2: check is coming anyway, then we're watching a product that's
Speaker 2: being run like a fortune five hundred business and not
Speaker 2: an entertainment product.
Speaker 1: And I do think that's an issue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you refer to some of the you know,
Speaker 4: I had another game pop into my head. There was
Speaker 4: an All star game was in Phoenix. I don't remember
Speaker 4: the year. Carl Malone, I want to say, game winning shot,
Speaker 4: not for his team, and he jumps up and I
Speaker 4: think he accidentally tips it away. And then afterwards one
Speaker 4: of the guys that's doing the play the being interviewed says,
Speaker 4: I think I think Carl was point shaven.
Speaker 1: Oh really, I do not recall this. It was a
Speaker 1: game in Phoenix.
Speaker 4: They were kidding around, but they the point is it
Speaker 4: went down to the last second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they fought to the bitterer.
Speaker 4: You know what, the game in Utah ninety three that
Speaker 4: went to overtime, I believe, yeah, I know it was.
Speaker 4: And that's just that just shows you how far we
Speaker 4: have drifted away from the competitive nature of that game.
Speaker 4: And look, the NFL finally realized that that game stinks
Speaker 4: and what they're doing instead isn't much better.
Speaker 1: But I just I don't see a solution to these things.
Speaker 4: Baseball, you know, you show up, you get one at bat,
Speaker 4: but the main you know, so I was, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't do a lot of combative radio, right.
Speaker 2: But when somebody says, well, what about the Pro Bowl?
Speaker 2: What about the Major League Baseball All Star Game? The
Speaker 2: Pro Bowl was never good, No, and the NBA All
Speaker 2: Star Game was good once upon a time. That's the difference.
Speaker 2: Like the Pro Bowl has always been horrible, the NBA
Speaker 2: All Star Game for thirty forty years was awesome, and
Speaker 2: now that it's not, I don't know. I think maybe
Speaker 2: I just need to move into the area of acceptance
Speaker 2: that this is not something that's going to be fun
Speaker 2: ever again, the way that it used to be.
Speaker 1: The whole weekend's fun for fans to show up when
Speaker 1: it was here. It was cool.
Speaker 4: Go see all the great displays and that at the Salpeals.
Speaker 4: But it's the game's just it's brutal.
Speaker 2: All right, We'll end with the little college football before
Speaker 2: we get there. Twenty eight games left for the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 2: The playoff pushes on. It's very much not so oh.
Speaker 4: There's a playoff push, but it's a playoff for the
Speaker 4: lot It's a lottery push.
Speaker 1: What do you look? What's exciting about the final twenty
Speaker 1: eight for you?
Speaker 4: Okay, Spence, Here's what I think, And maybe I'm going
Speaker 4: to be wrong, but this seems to me like this
Speaker 4: is the time where you're going to start to see
Speaker 4: players sitting more. They did the same thing last year
Speaker 4: if you remember. And then guys that are never going
Speaker 4: to be in the league, like Kenny Lofton became an
Speaker 4: All Star right overnight because he played so well in
Speaker 4: the last ten games of the year. I don't know
Speaker 4: when this is going to kick in, but I just sense,
Speaker 4: if you're this close to you know where you want
Speaker 4: to be in that lottery, do you really blow it?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 1: You Now you've harped on this for the last two
Speaker 1: or three years.
Speaker 4: The problem is the Jazz front loaded their wins and
Speaker 4: by the time this time of year rolled around, it
Speaker 4: was too late to seriously get into tanking. And what
Speaker 4: do they end up with a tenth you know, number
Speaker 4: ten pick something like that.
Speaker 1: The draft kid can't play exactly.
Speaker 4: You are this close to getting a top three or
Speaker 4: top four, and there's three or four really good players
Speaker 4: out there. We all know Cooper Flags the Grand Price.
Speaker 4: I just don't think you run the risk of not finishing.
Speaker 4: And when I say not finishing, I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: sitting down some of these players. Look at this next
Speaker 4: six game homestand there's two games that I think are
Speaker 4: almost impossible for the Jazz to lose, Pelicans and maybe Trailblazers.
Speaker 4: So the only way they've either got to resign themselves
Speaker 4: the fact that they're going to win those two and
Speaker 4: go ahead and surrender, okay, see in Houston and Minnesota
Speaker 4: and maybe the Kings, or they're gonna have to sit them.
Speaker 1: They're a ton of players.
Speaker 4: So my I'm of the thought that over that last
Speaker 4: twenty eight that you just mentioned, at some point you're
Speaker 4: going to start to see guys like you know, Mark
Speaker 4: and and Section still hurt. But Clarkson whoever John Collins
Speaker 4: start to sit out. I don't know if they rest
Speaker 4: the younger guys because they really need even more time,
Speaker 4: you know, like call your in that. But that's what
Speaker 4: I think is gonna happen. Maybe I'll be wrong, but
Speaker 4: that's that's that's what I would do. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 4: up to management spence, because players aren't trying to lose.
Speaker 2: No, I think in a way they've been doing that.
Speaker 2: But to the point, like you've got to I think
Speaker 2: you got to step it up. You've got to run
Speaker 2: through the tape. Yeah, you've got to finish what you started.
Speaker 1: There may be a point where you hear the shutdownward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, why are you playing anyone?
Speaker 2: I guess when you know what the deal is it Look,
Speaker 2: I keep using this line what the Jazz are doing
Speaker 2: is the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: But it sucks. It just does if you're if you're
Speaker 1: a fan, it's tough.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think a lot of jazz fans simply
Speaker 2: want to go to a jazz game, eat a hot dog,
Speaker 2: and drink a beer with their friends and go home.
Speaker 2: You know, like they're fine with the deal because it's
Speaker 2: winter here. It's cold, and people just want to kind
Speaker 2: of go watch a game. Maybe they don't give a
Speaker 2: rip about exactly how competitive the team is, but the
Speaker 2: diehard Jazz fans really badly want to see a competitive
Speaker 2: team have to really have had a frustrating year.
Speaker 4: And I really only think this is they only need
Speaker 4: to do it. I know we've talked about another year
Speaker 4: of tanking. I think this is it. You do it now,
Speaker 4: get in that top three, maybe even number one, and
Speaker 4: then you're off and running.
Speaker 1: That's my opinion. Have you seen aj debounce a play?
Speaker 4: Yes, I know, I know, but I don't think you
Speaker 4: can survive another year of this. These these kids are
Speaker 4: anxious to get going. It'd be a guarante don't.
Speaker 2: If it was a guarantee that you get Cooper flag
Speaker 2: this year and aj Debounca next year.
Speaker 1: I think you do it if you could guarantee it.
Speaker 1: But you know you can't. You cannot, all right, Dave,
Speaker 1: Before I set you loose.
Speaker 2: Since you and I last spoke after twenty years on
Speaker 2: the job, Tom Homo is a very nice vacation. He
Speaker 2: did a hell of a job in a spot where
Speaker 2: just that job. The athletic director for BYU has to
Speaker 2: be among the hardest jobs in college athletics administration. You
Speaker 2: have to align yourself with the message of the institution
Speaker 2: while running a department that is probably least aligned with
Speaker 2: the institution because of the diversity involved. And ultimately, I
Speaker 2: think Tom traverse the space in a very very respectable manner.
Speaker 4: Give me your thoughts for a set. You absolutely great guy,
Speaker 4: hard workers, you said. I don't think people really understand
Speaker 4: how difficult it was to navigate the era of independence.
Speaker 4: I know he had two or three assistants who were
Speaker 4: strictly in charge of helping with scheduling.
Speaker 1: When you're in a league, you know this. What are
Speaker 1: you looking for?
Speaker 4: You're looking for two or three non league games, not
Speaker 4: when you're in an independence And he did a masterful
Speaker 4: job of that great person. I've known him well for many,
Speaker 4: many years, and I'm happy for or you know, whatever
Speaker 4: led to this and whatever's next for him and his
Speaker 4: wife and their family.
Speaker 1: I think it's great.
Speaker 4: Did you attend the press conference for the station or
Speaker 4: we sent the goat? Oh why didn't you go?
Speaker 2: It was too early? All right, I had to work
Speaker 2: late that TV gold tonight. What have we got?
Speaker 1: Well, it is solid gold. Because you know what we've
Speaker 1: got tonight.
Speaker 4: We've got talking Jazz with the one and only Spence
Speaker 4: check its who will join us? And you're gonna hear
Speaker 4: I'll play a little snippet if you give me something
Speaker 4: good on two News at ten. Oh wow, I'll do
Speaker 4: my best. Then, well, I thought it's at ten thirty five.
Speaker 4: Other than that, the actual show is at ten thirty
Speaker 4: five on KMYU Television and we stream it as well.
Speaker 1: Dave, great to see my friend. We'll see a few hours. Okay,
Speaker 1: thanks man.
Speaker 2: Two pelotons too, Emmys. Dave Fox wrapping up the show
Speaker 2: for a Tuesday. We got Utah Women's Hoops and I
Speaker 2: taking on Oklahoma State six forty five pre game seven
Speaker 2: o'clock tip. Final segment of the show brought to you
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Speaker 2: dot com. I still can't get behind this whole pro
Speaker 2: golfers hitting on this simulator thing.
Speaker 7: Dude.
Speaker 2: It's wild to me. And you know what, the ratings
Speaker 2: are actually pretty good. COVID did a lot of things
Speaker 2: in a lot of different directions, but it is wild
Speaker 2: what it did to the game of golf.
Speaker 3: It's It's definitely been something that I've struggled to even
Speaker 3: remotely have an interest in. And I am someone who,
Speaker 3: regardless of the tournament, if Tiger woulds is swinging a
Speaker 3: club on a golf course. I am not only watching Spence.
Speaker 3: I'm up on Thursday morning watching right and this is
Speaker 3: his thing and I can't get into it, and a
Speaker 3: lot of it, and I think most of it has
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: With the simulator thing I was watching.
Speaker 3: I think the first night they had it, Tiger hit
Speaker 3: a shot on the simulator and it was it was
Speaker 3: right down the middle. It looked like a good swing,
Speaker 3: and everyone of the building was like, what happened because
Speaker 3: the shot went clear off. It was a glitch in
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 1: Is what it was.
Speaker 3: But it affected the score and they just kind of
Speaker 3: acted like it didn't happen. There are people betting on
Speaker 3: these things. There is there is an element to sports
Speaker 3: that I cannot get past once it turns over to
Speaker 3: like sot machine, video game, computer involvement, all of the above.
Speaker 3: And it's the reason I never could get into like
Speaker 3: streaming video game stuff. Clearly it's for some people, not me.
Speaker 2: Tiger Wood's out of the sand. Oh he blew it.
Speaker 2: That's weird to see Tiger blow like that. So yeah,
Speaker 2: pro golfers on a simulator, if you're into that. The
Speaker 2: NBA is back on Wednesday. We got a little college
Speaker 2: hoops tonight with BYU taking on Kansas of course as
Speaker 2: a reference, Utah Women taking on Okay State. I'll be
Speaker 2: on TV tonight with Dave Fox ten thirty five. We
Speaker 2: call it talking Jazz. All right, Porter, let's get out
Speaker 2: of here. What comes our way? On a Wednesday edition
Speaker 2: of the program.
Speaker 3: On a Wednesday edition of The Drive, the NBA Daily
Speaker 3: Assist with Zach Harper comes your way, as we do
Speaker 3: each and every week with our guy Neil Smith stops
Speaker 3: by for behind the Glass, the latest in the NHL UHC,
Speaker 3: and of course the Four Nations face off. Bill Riley
Speaker 3: will stop by talking ute's latest, probably some college basketball
Speaker 3: and maybe some offseason football with the spring schedule, the
Speaker 3: Big Twelve schedule now announced. And then on a Wednesday
Speaker 3: early in the week, we're getting Chris Camaranie in studio
Speaker 3: for an entire.
Speaker 2: All right good stuff ck in studio on a match
Speaker 2: day for RSL By the Way special Thank you too,
Speaker 2: Roxy Bernstein, Tim McMahon, Matt Brown, and Dave Fox Benning
Speaker 2: the sound you made miss from the show website c
Speaker 2: ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Our podcast page is
Speaker 2: called The Drive with Spence check Its that's available wherever
Speaker 2: you gets your shows. If you have a minute tonight
Speaker 2: while you're hanging out watching pro golfers hit on a simulator,
Speaker 2: give us a rating and a review, say nice things,
Speaker 2: give us all the stars day. Allow you to, and
Speaker 2: you'll be eternally blessed. Reporter, I'm Spence saying tonight, we'll
Speaker 2: talk to you on a Wednesday edition of this radio show.
Speaker 2: As always, you can find it right here on ESPN
Speaker 2: seven hundred