Speaker 1: All right, let's get it. It is drive time on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday afternoon. It's about ten minutes fast the hour
Speaker 1: of two o'clock. It's cold today, does not feel like me.
Speaker 1: It is rainy and cloudy and chilly. It's about fifty
Speaker 1: degrees here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. As we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a couple of days of chilly weather and yeah,
Speaker 1: very I don't know, early April, late March type day,
Speaker 1: in late March type week, but as it is every
Speaker 1: single day, it's gonna have you along.
Speaker 2: For the ride.
Speaker 1: Spence check, it's beyond the Mike Porter Larsen behind the glass.
Speaker 1: We have a lot to do on today's show, a
Speaker 1: lot to do on today's show. Last night, quite frankly,
Speaker 1: one of the most consequential nights in pro basketball that
Speaker 1: we've seen in a long long time.
Speaker 3: And only time will tell how this is going to
Speaker 3: play out.
Speaker 1: So of course, the big story locally of the day
Speaker 1: today and the night last night was the Utah has
Speaker 1: falling to number five in the draft lottery. Now, as
Speaker 1: I was sitting there and we'll get in all this,
Speaker 1: we got opening tip. We've got a bunch of great
Speaker 1: guest today including a couple of guests that were live
Speaker 1: in Chicago in the room where it happened. Shout out
Speaker 1: Hamilton on a Tuesday. It's not rigged. Okay, it's just not.
Speaker 1: It's not. It sucks, but it's not rigged. So we'll
Speaker 1: get into it. But I think the last thing I
Speaker 1: said before we signed off last night, right before five
Speaker 1: o'clock so we could bring you the lottery live was
Speaker 1: worst case scenario is simply the Jazz Fond of five
Speaker 1: because I think most people believe it's a tier four
Speaker 1: player draft at the top.
Speaker 3: One tier with four players.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to get into why that could be
Speaker 1: total nonsense, and we're going to try to bring some
Speaker 1: levity in, some calmness, and some optimism to the market
Speaker 1: today after a night that felt like a gut punch,
Speaker 1: there's no other way around it. I guess Ryan Smith
Speaker 1: on a run and let out a primal scream as
Speaker 1: the sun was rising over the Wassas Mountain.
Speaker 3: Did you do that too, point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just wanted to step in there and let
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: So you went on a run this morning and as
Speaker 1: the sun was rising over the mountains, you also.
Speaker 3: Let out a primal roar every morning though.
Speaker 4: That's the difference between Ryan and I.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Porter does that every day, but apparently Ryan
Speaker 1: letting out some seam.
Speaker 3: Look, we'll get into it. We'll talk about some players
Speaker 3: the Jazz could look at.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about what this could mean for the NBA
Speaker 1: big picture. So if you're Adam Silver, you're actually pretty
Speaker 1: pleased with how this went down, because everybody is talking
Speaker 1: about your league today. So we'll get into it, and
Speaker 1: then of course we will talk about and look, I'm
Speaker 1: a Knicks fan. That was probably the biggest win that
Speaker 1: the New York Knicks have had in twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Mike Breen set it himself on the broadcast, but I
Speaker 1: got a say, man, I love Jason Tatum.
Speaker 3: I don't care who he plays for, and that sucks.
Speaker 1: We're waiting word on what the MRI will reveal, and
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those guys that pretends on a
Speaker 1: doctor on air, so I'm not even gonna go there.
Speaker 1: I think we all know what it looked like, and
Speaker 1: the fear is out there that this could be pretty catastrophic.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to it. We'll talk about some of
Speaker 1: the games that went down last night. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: what could go down tonight.
Speaker 3: We'll preview tonight's action.
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards really woke up in the second half and
Speaker 1: the Warriors looked like they're cooked.
Speaker 3: There is a.
Speaker 1: Word out of Golden State that they're going to try
Speaker 1: to get Steph back for Game five in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3: To hope, hopefully get back excuse me, hopefully.
Speaker 1: Get that back down to Golden State to give them
Speaker 1: a chance. But thirteen teams in the history of pro
Speaker 1: basketball have come back from a three to one.
Speaker 3: Deficit, so it looks like Golden State's cooked. I'm not
Speaker 3: ready to say the nixt A're gonna win the series.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why a little bit later on, and
Speaker 1: tonight we'll see if the Calves can.
Speaker 3: Get back into it.
Speaker 1: Donovan Mitchell is a game time decision. The Pacers are
Speaker 1: going to try to put away the Calves a Rocket
Speaker 1: Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, and then what should be a knockdown,
Speaker 1: draft out heavyweight NBA matchup. The Denver Nuggets are in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City at Pecon to take on the OKAC Thunder.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to some of some of the NBA storylines,
Speaker 1: and yeah, of course we'll talk some draft.
Speaker 3: We'll talk some big picture of jazz and.
Speaker 1: What could uh you know, what it could mean, and
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk about, you know, basically, what the mocks
Speaker 1: look like and what most people believe the jazz is
Speaker 1: going to do at number five. So a lot to
Speaker 1: do on a chaotic Tuesday afternoon edition of the program.
Speaker 3: Our first guest.
Speaker 1: Right out of the gates is going to be Andy Larson,
Speaker 1: who covers the Utah Jazz for.
Speaker 3: The Salt Lake Tribune.
Speaker 1: Andy was in the Sacred Walls in Chicago where the
Speaker 1: NBA Draft lottery was held.
Speaker 3: So we'll see what Andy.
Speaker 1: Has to say about all these accusations about script writing
Speaker 1: in the NBA. How dare you NBA basketball? We'll get
Speaker 1: Andy's take, and then Tim McMahon stops by. Of course,
Speaker 1: Tim covers the jazz well. He covers the jazz. Sometimes
Speaker 1: hasn't covered the jaz as much as of late, but
Speaker 1: ver there's the Mavericks decent data. Talk to him about
Speaker 1: the Mavericks who won the NBA draft lottery depot a
Speaker 1: one point eight percent chance of doing so. Richard Smith
Speaker 1: will be live in studio for an entire hour. Smitty
Speaker 1: spent forty years with Utah Jazz and a lot of
Speaker 1: draft processes, a lot of player acquisition, talent evaluation.
Speaker 3: So we'll bring in Smitty today.
Speaker 1: Then our buddy A Lemeteo, who I interview a couple
Speaker 1: of times a year when the All polycamp is going on.
Speaker 1: So we have some college football for you guys later on.
Speaker 3: As well.
Speaker 1: Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson are now Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame eligible. There's a piece of news I was not
Speaker 1: expecting today, as Major League Baseball's lifted the band.
Speaker 3: Of course, both those gentlemen are no longer with us.
Speaker 3: Rest in peace.
Speaker 1: So Andy Larson, Tim McMahon, Richard Smith, A lemitel Me
Speaker 1: Spence check at all of you, the great listeners, and
Speaker 1: that guy Porter Larson who every morning goes on a
Speaker 1: run and as the sun is rising over the Wassatch Mountains,
Speaker 1: let's out I primal scream. Tell me, young man, how
Speaker 1: did you digest the NBA Draft lottery last night?
Speaker 5: I don't know that I'm up at sunset or sun
Speaker 5: rise enough to do that, but yeah, man, it's it's
Speaker 5: It's gotta be a gut punch if you're a jazz fan. Uh,
Speaker 5: just a visceral reaction online. I was I was walking home.
Speaker 5: We had just hung up and I stopped at I
Speaker 5: sick frets that the little deli.
Speaker 4: It's awesome.
Speaker 5: I grabbed a little sandwich and actually it took it
Speaker 5: took a minute. So I ended up watching the beginning
Speaker 5: of the lottery at the deli, thinking I'd get home
Speaker 5: in time for the the Jazz pick. Well it didn't
Speaker 5: take long, and I just thought to myself, Man, that
Speaker 5: has got to be a real gut punch if you're
Speaker 5: a fan who is kind of hinged, your expectations, your timeline,
Speaker 5: everything about this rebuild process onto having a top pick
Speaker 5: in this year's NBA draft, and listen, man, that's that's
Speaker 5: always wishful thinking. But it really seemed like Jazz fans
Speaker 5: were getting awfully, awfully familiar with one Cooper flag, and
Speaker 5: to not only drop, but to drop to number five
Speaker 5: the worst possible scenario for the Jazz. That that's a
Speaker 5: that's a tough pill to swallow. It's it's kind of
Speaker 5: ironic because markets like this one, we have been kind
Speaker 5: of lobbying for lowered, flattened lottery odds right for years
Speaker 5: and years and years, and now you know, we're where
Speaker 5: we see them and they don't give us the results
Speaker 5: that we want.
Speaker 4: And the script is completely flipped.
Speaker 5: So it's interesting to see, like you I you know,
Speaker 5: I'm a I'm a guy.
Speaker 4: I'm open to conspiracies. Let's be clear.
Speaker 5: I'm open to them, but I need in order to
Speaker 5: in order for a conspiracy, I needed to have just
Speaker 5: a little bit of lakes. I need some little bit
Speaker 5: of like actual evidence, and then we can go with it.
Speaker 5: This is ping pong balls that don't some some that
Speaker 5: sometimes don't go your way. And man, they did not
Speaker 5: last night.
Speaker 3: No they didn't.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into it. We'll talk to our guests
Speaker 1: about it. We got three really good NBA guests on
Speaker 1: the show today. Then we'll do some college football later on.
Speaker 1: Andy Larson will join us right out of the gates,
Speaker 1: but on a Tuesday prior to Andy hopping by courtesy
Speaker 1: of our friends at Prize Picks, It is time now
Speaker 1: for your opening tip.
Speaker 6: Welcome to the Drive with Spence check its on Utah's
Speaker 6: number one Sports talk now into the studios of ESPN
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Speaker 1: am going more on Aaron Gordon one point five three
Speaker 1: point shots made. I'm going less on Miles Turner twenty
Speaker 1: four points. I'm gonna go more on Shay Gillis Alexander
Speaker 1: thirty one points. I think Guesga goes off tonight and
Speaker 1: I'll take you know what, give me more on Nikola
Speaker 1: Joks twenty eight point five points as well.
Speaker 3: That kind of feels low.
Speaker 1: I think the two MVP candidates are gonna go out
Speaker 1: of tonight and it should be a fun game between
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City and the Denver Nuggets.
Speaker 3: All right, last night, say good night.
Speaker 1: A little bit early because we were fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: have the NBA Draft Lottery on our radio station just
Speaker 1: after five o'clock, So sign off air, grab the dog,
Speaker 1: we rush home, and I'm able to sit down just
Speaker 1: in time to watch Mark Tatum walk to the podium
Speaker 1: to kind of break the news to NBA fans about
Speaker 1: how this NBA Draft lottery went down. So, the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz with a fourteen percent chance of getting the number
Speaker 1: one overall pick, along with the Washington Wizards and the
Speaker 1: Charlotte Hornets, the three worst team in Pro basketball this year,
Speaker 1: and ultimately the most likely scenario for the Jazz was
Speaker 1: to land at five according to the numbers. According to
Speaker 1: the percentages, the Jazz had about a forty eight point
Speaker 1: seven percent chance of getting the number five overall pick.
Speaker 1: So the reality of the entire situation is what happened
Speaker 1: last night was the most likely scenario for the Jazz. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I don't really have patience today for jazz fans
Speaker 1: to scream foul and scream this is rigged and scream
Speaker 1: this is scripted. While I understand the frustration and honestly
Speaker 1: share some of that frustration that in fifty one years
Speaker 1: of existence, the Utah Jazz have quite literally never received
Speaker 1: any lottery luck. Right, the Jazz have moved up, They've
Speaker 1: had opportunities to move up, and as Canter comes to mind,
Speaker 1: Darren Williams comes to mind, But the Jazz are now
Speaker 1: one of five I think it's five or six NBA
Speaker 1: franchises that have never had the number one overall pick.
Speaker 1: But the ultimate explanation here the bottom line. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what we're going to do today to explain this is
Speaker 1: simply go back to the the Okham razor theory, which is,
Speaker 1: among competing hypotheses, the simplest one is generally the best.
Speaker 1: If you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon,
Speaker 1: you should prefer the simpler one. And the simpler one
Speaker 1: is the one that's real, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 1: and that is it is a lottery. It is a raffle,
Speaker 1: and it is completely up to chance, and that's all
Speaker 1: it is. The NBA lottery system is not rigged. It's
Speaker 1: not okay? Now, does that mean that there are not
Speaker 1: a few dynamics that have occurred throughout the NBA lottery
Speaker 1: that aren't a bit uncomfortable and even a bit okay,
Speaker 1: Like there's something that doesn't smell right here.
Speaker 3: I'm not denying that at all.
Speaker 1: And the fact that the Dallas Mavericks moved off of
Speaker 1: Lukadancic and are simply just getting the next superstar in
Speaker 1: their back pocket without ever really even making the attempt
Speaker 1: to be in the right spot to do that, I
Speaker 1: understand why that doesn't land well, certainly with Jazz fans
Speaker 1: or Wizard fans or Hornets fans. The three teams are
Speaker 1: the best chance of moving up to grab number one overall.
Speaker 1: I get that, Okay. There have been things that have
Speaker 1: happened in the past, with the Pelicans getting the number
Speaker 1: one overall pick after Chris Paul left, the Cavs getting
Speaker 1: the number one overall pick after Lebron left, Okay, I
Speaker 1: get all that right, and I'm not even saying it's wrong,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even saying I entirely disagree. There's something
Speaker 1: about some of these scenarios that are a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is we just live in a
Speaker 1: society right now that when something doesn't go your way,
Speaker 1: you either claim that it's rigged or people are cheating,
Speaker 1: or it was taken from you. Okay, whether it is elections,
Speaker 1: whether it's lack of trust in our institutions, If it
Speaker 1: doesn't go your way, suddenly the fix is in.
Speaker 3: Suddenly it's rigged. It is a lottery, and the.
Speaker 1: Jazz had a fourteen percent chance of getting the number
Speaker 1: one overall pick. Let's be real, that's not a great percentage.
Speaker 1: Because what Adam Silver decided to do, love it or
Speaker 1: hate it, And this is what I tend to have
Speaker 1: a little bit of an issue of the way the
Speaker 1: league has handled this. In twenty nineteen, Adam Silver in
Speaker 1: the league office decided to flatten the lottery odds. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now we have six different data points and examples
Speaker 1: of how this stuff goes down. And you know how
Speaker 1: many times the worst team in pro basketball has received
Speaker 1: number one overall pick since the odds have been flattened,
Speaker 1: The answer is zero.
Speaker 3: Not one time. Last year the.
Speaker 1: Hawks three point three percent chance of getting number one
Speaker 1: they did. Where were you last year crying a foul
Speaker 1: because it was Atlanta and it was Zachary Reschache, Like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't change the dynamic.
Speaker 3: That it's a lottery. Have you ever played the lottery?
Speaker 1: Drive across the border to Idaho or whatever, you drop
Speaker 1: one hundred bucks on some tickets and you lose. Do
Speaker 1: you claim it's rigged or do you understand the risk
Speaker 1: that you're taking? I mean, the reaction today is kind
Speaker 1: of like you hear all those office pools where a
Speaker 1: bunch of people in the same office chip in a
Speaker 1: couple hundred bucks to buy a bunch of lottery tickets,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, let's say you and a
Speaker 1: group of I don't know, we'll use fourteen. You and
Speaker 1: a group of fourteen people decide you're all going to
Speaker 1: play the lottery. Okay, So you drive up to Idaho,
Speaker 1: Wyoming wherever it's legal closest, and all of you drop
Speaker 1: a couple hundred bucks on lottery tickets.
Speaker 3: And your richest friend is the one who wins the lottery?
Speaker 1: Is it rigged or did the right numbers just pop
Speaker 1: up randomly because that's the way lotteries work, Like we
Speaker 1: will ackham raiser this thing today. The simplest explanation is
Speaker 1: usually the right one. And the bottom line is the
Speaker 1: wrong ping pong balls popped up for the Jazz last
Speaker 1: night and the right ping pong balls.
Speaker 3: Popped up for the Dallas Mavericks. Is that uncomfortable? Yeah?
Speaker 3: For sure? Does it suck? It does?
Speaker 1: And I was pulling for the Jazz to grab at
Speaker 1: least number two, if not number one overall, to get
Speaker 1: Cooper Flagger, Dylan Harper and jump start this thing because
Speaker 1: if we're honest, it's been three years of mediocrity at
Speaker 1: best and pathetic play at times at worse, and it
Speaker 1: makes it really hard to be engaged to give a
Speaker 1: rip about what they're doing. But the message Adam Silver
Speaker 1: sent the league lover Hated is we don't want you
Speaker 1: to tank. We know what tanking does to fan bases,
Speaker 1: we know what tanking does to communities, we know what
Speaker 1: tanking does to players and coaches.
Speaker 3: We don't want you to do that.
Speaker 1: So we're not gonna do what the NFL does and
Speaker 1: simply reverse it inverse standings to reward the worst team.
Speaker 1: We're not going to do that, because we want you
Speaker 1: to make the best effort possible, put your best foot
Speaker 1: forward to try to build the best team you can.
Speaker 1: It's also why they implemented the second apron and a
Speaker 1: more punitive salary tax penalty for big spenders, so you
Speaker 1: can't keep super teams together. Like we'll get to the
Speaker 1: Tatum stuff in a moment, but the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is the Boston Celtics were probably going to be
Speaker 1: torn down this offseason in a way, even if Tatum
Speaker 1: was healthy, and even if they won the championship.
Speaker 3: They have new ownership, they have a roster.
Speaker 1: That's why the expensive and no matter how much money
Speaker 1: you have, we learned what scares billionaires who own NBA teams,
Speaker 1: punitive financial penalties for paying too much money to keep
Speaker 1: your roster together. So Adam Silver did this thing where
Speaker 1: he's like, all right, we're not going to simply reward
Speaker 1: the worst teams for trying to lose. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: do that, and we're actually gonna make it harder for
Speaker 1: the worst teams to move up.
Speaker 3: They did that in twenty nineteen. We have six years
Speaker 3: of drafts.
Speaker 1: Now zero times has the worst team in pro basketball
Speaker 1: received the number one overall pick. On the other side,
Speaker 1: he said, we're also going to make it harder for
Speaker 1: owners to keep their great teams together because we're going
Speaker 1: to make the financial penalties more punitive. We've already seen
Speaker 1: the Denver Nuggets move off good players a couple of
Speaker 1: different times. Bruce Brown, Contavious Caldwell, Pope, Jeff Green. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: that's not in the most overwhelming list of players, but
Speaker 1: those were key contributors and key cox to championship level teams.
Speaker 1: Denver had to jettison them, trying to plug holes with
Speaker 1: young players like Christian Brown and veteran minimums like Russell Westbrook.
Speaker 1: The Golden State Warriors had to make a really difficult
Speaker 1: decision on Klay Thompson to try to expedite that decision
Speaker 1: with players like Buddy Healed and cheaper veteran players like
Speaker 1: It's it's a little bit of a two tiered approach where, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're not going to simply reward you for trying to lose.
Speaker 3: We don't believe that that is the right move.
Speaker 1: As far as having integrity in your endeavor and treating
Speaker 1: the league in the game the right way. We want
Speaker 1: you as a front office to put your best foot
Speaker 1: forward and try to win. Now, there are complications in
Speaker 1: trying to do that in Salt Lake juxtaposed to South
Speaker 1: Beach or LA. So we need to be honest about that.
Speaker 1: And that's why last night's stung. Because what the Jazz
Speaker 1: we're selling you all year long is there is a
Speaker 1: reward at the end of the tunnel for all this
Speaker 1: pain tolerance we're asking you to go through as a
Speaker 1: fan base. And so you were sitting there last night
Speaker 1: expecting the reward to come, and it didn't. Even though,
Speaker 1: oh it was numerically and statistically the most likely outcome,
Speaker 1: it still sucked. I felt horrible for Ashley Ryan's wife,
Speaker 1: that poor girl man sitting there with that oh.
Speaker 3: My gosh look on her face.
Speaker 1: After Mark Tatum reveals that the Jazz fall to five,
Speaker 1: which was the lowest possible even though it was the
Speaker 1: highest possible scenario based on the percentages, the Jazz could
Speaker 1: not fall further than five.
Speaker 3: That was their floor.
Speaker 1: But again, Washington falls to six, Charlotte falls, and you know,
Speaker 1: Dallas is rewarded again, which makes it really uncomfortable. And
Speaker 1: I can't really refute any of that, but I'll end
Speaker 1: with this. For all the hey, my guy didn't win
Speaker 1: the election, so it was stolen crowd. For all the hey,
Speaker 1: my team didn't get the number one pick, so it's
Speaker 1: rigged crowd. Ever since the NBA went to its lottery structure,
Speaker 1: the team in market that has been most fortunate and
Speaker 1: rewarded most by it, by far, is the San Antonio Spurs.
Speaker 1: San Antonio is one of the least desirable markets in
Speaker 1: the entire league. We're a bigger market than San Antonio.
Speaker 1: And if there's a number two, it's probably the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Speaker 1: That might be, in my opinion, the worst market in
Speaker 1: Pro basketball. If there's number three, it might be the
Speaker 1: New Orleans Pelicans New Orleans Fun Town.
Speaker 3: But no, it's not New York, LA, Chicago, Miami.
Speaker 1: They have not gift wrapped every big star to bigger markets.
Speaker 1: The San Antonio Spurs literally had a dynasty that caused
Speaker 1: TV ratings to go into the tank. When Zion Williamson,
Speaker 1: who if he would ever stay healthy consistently, is one
Speaker 1: of those dudes. When he was coming out of Duke
Speaker 1: the team with the best chance at the number one
Speaker 1: overall pick was the New York Knicks.
Speaker 3: It went to the New Orleans Pelicans.
Speaker 1: So for every data point you can throw at me
Speaker 1: about Hey, New Orleans gets the number one pick.
Speaker 3: After the Chris.
Speaker 1: Paul debacle, Hey Cleveland gets the number one pick after
Speaker 1: Lebron leaves Wow, Nico Harrison trades Luka Doncic and they
Speaker 1: get Cooper Flagg to step in. For every one of
Speaker 1: those you can throw at me, I can throw twenty
Speaker 1: of them back at you. To refute your point that
Speaker 1: this thing is rigged. The bottom line is we live
Speaker 1: in a society now. When results don't go your way,
Speaker 1: you cry that it was stolen, you cry that it
Speaker 1: was rigged. No, that's just life, and especially when it's
Speaker 1: literally called a lottery, literally called the lottery. Finally, the
Speaker 1: implications at place for Ernst and Young, the NBA, anybody
Speaker 1: involved to have this thing rigged, felonies, lawsuits, billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: It might actually crumble the league if there was ever
Speaker 1: any actual evidence of impropriety, and by the way, there
Speaker 1: never has been.
Speaker 7: The fifth pick in draft will be made by the
Speaker 7: Utah Jazz. The number one pick in the twenty five
Speaker 7: NBA Draft goes to the Dallas Mavericks.
Speaker 3: You're just gonna rub it in, aren't you? All day?
Speaker 3: You're just gonna misbehave and rub it in all day,
Speaker 3: aren't you.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know what to do. I
Speaker 5: know it hurts, but we have to talk it out.
Speaker 5: I guess we get out now.
Speaker 8: We do.
Speaker 1: We do and it does hurt, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: the reality of how this process works.
Speaker 3: Love it or not.
Speaker 1: Whether or not you think it should be changed, certainly
Speaker 1: a different conversation. But our first guest on a Tuesday
Speaker 1: afternoon was in the.
Speaker 3: Room where it happened.
Speaker 1: Shout out Hamilton, Andy Larson, Salid tribute Andy, Happy Tuesday, buddy.
Speaker 3: How are we doing? Hello? Andy? Hello? Andy? What's going
Speaker 3: on with Andy?
Speaker 9: Can you hear me?
Speaker 7: Hey?
Speaker 3: Hi Andy?
Speaker 9: How are you sorry about that? Yeah?
Speaker 8: Well how about you?
Speaker 3: I'm well? So are you still in Chicago?
Speaker 2: I am? Yeah?
Speaker 4: You are all being here.
Speaker 9: They do the media availability tomorrow with all the all
Speaker 9: the players here at the combine, so we'll get the
Speaker 9: chance to talk to everyone kind of in the jazz
Speaker 9: is range along with a feu jake or demon and
Speaker 9: then head back Thursday.
Speaker 1: All right, Andy, So I'm just gonna ask you to
Speaker 1: respond to folks, and we just simply live in a
Speaker 1: time where if a result doesn't go your way, or
Speaker 1: if you don't understand why something is the way it is,
Speaker 1: the easy thing to do is yell that it's rigged
Speaker 1: or it was stolen or it was taken from you.
Speaker 1: And the reality is where the jazz landed last night
Speaker 1: was the most you know, the chances were the highest
Speaker 1: of the jazz are going to land where they did. Now,
Speaker 1: I know it stings, But for all of the hey
Speaker 1: this is rigged and the fixes in crowd, what do
Speaker 1: you have to say?
Speaker 9: Yeah, Look, I was stunned that that was as much
Speaker 9: of the reaction as it was that, you know, when
Speaker 9: I pulled my followers yesterday on Twitter that seventy six
Speaker 9: present to respond and said that they felt that the
Speaker 9: lottery is rigged, and I, I don't know me Like,
Speaker 9: look I was, I was in the room. You can
Speaker 9: see the ping pong ball blow around until one gets
Speaker 9: sucked up and then they call the number and then
Speaker 9: you know there are four that a combination of four
Speaker 9: different ping pong balls. You're not really sure which team
Speaker 9: it's going to be into that last King Pong ball
Speaker 9: all is drawn, and you know, so it would be
Speaker 9: extremely difficult to rig given that you have fourteen team
Speaker 9: executives there, you know, ten of which who are going
Speaker 9: home unhappy and are are going to have every reason to,
Speaker 9: you know, raise concern if something were to go wrong,
Speaker 9: plus fourteen media members there who would make their careers
Speaker 9: if they could, you know, really report out that the
Speaker 9: that the lottery was rigged. And then like, okay, let's
Speaker 9: say that it is rigged in favor of the Dallas Mavericks,
Speaker 9: you know, in return for giving Luca Dong just to
Speaker 9: the Lakers, which you know suffum both ends of that deal.
Speaker 9: But like, how did they convince Amthony Davis to go
Speaker 9: down with an injury? And how did they get Kyrie
Speaker 9: to tear his tendency? You know, so we won't play
Speaker 9: all next season? Right like this that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 9: They were a playoff team before then, So this like
Speaker 9: quid pro quote people are the conspiracy theories are turning
Speaker 9: out It just doesn't make any sense, guys, Like it is,
Speaker 9: it's the perfect theory that like makes so much sense
Speaker 9: if you think about it. For exactly er point five milliseconds,
Speaker 9: and then you know, the rest of us grow up
Speaker 9: from being twelve years old to kind of understand that, like, hey,
Speaker 9: the world works this way sometimes and a whole lot
Speaker 9: of the time you're gonna get unlucky. And that's that's
Speaker 9: what happened with the last night.
Speaker 3: That's why they call it a lottery.
Speaker 1: And you know, for all of the for every piece
Speaker 1: of if I don't know if you want to call
Speaker 1: a proof or maybe just an example that feels a
Speaker 1: little bit uncomfortable, I can throw twenty examples back at
Speaker 1: you to anicay, this thing is not rigged and it's
Speaker 1: just how lotteries work. Now, I understand the disappointment, and honestly, Andy,
Speaker 1: I share in it. I mean, I was hoping last
Speaker 1: night the Jazz would land at one, and I was
Speaker 1: hoping that Cooper Flag would be on his way to
Speaker 1: our market, because we badly need this team to be
Speaker 1: far more relevant than it has been outside of the
Speaker 1: little bubble of people that believe it's more relevant than
Speaker 1: it actually is. Like I have national guests on my
Speaker 1: show every year or every day during the NBA season,
Speaker 1: and I can't even ask them anything about the team
Speaker 1: outside of like, hey, what will Cooper flag look like
Speaker 1: in a Jazz uniform? So I understand the frustration, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that the fix is in. We just
Speaker 1: live in this time and place where if something doesn't
Speaker 1: go your way, instead of critically thinking about it, it's
Speaker 1: easy to say it was stolen, it was rigged, it
Speaker 1: was taken from me. Right, here's where I want to
Speaker 1: go next, though. Do you like this current format? Because
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, they flatten the odds and essentially they're
Speaker 1: not I'm rewarding the worst teams in pro basketball. So
Speaker 1: that's the message from the league office, like, we don't
Speaker 1: want you to tank, right, Like, we don't believe that
Speaker 1: that is a decision that is steeped in integrity and
Speaker 1: respect for the way this thing is built.
Speaker 3: Do you like the way that the current lottery is
Speaker 3: set up?
Speaker 9: Yeah? And I mean then didn't last night work out?
Speaker 9: Because the Jazz tanked harder and more blatantly and more
Speaker 9: anti competitively and less honorably than any other team in
Speaker 9: the NBA this year and potentially like honestly in league history.
Speaker 9: Like John Collins played forty games this season and was
Speaker 9: healthy all year long, right like that, it's crazy. You
Speaker 9: had Walker Kessler missing games as a twenty three year
Speaker 9: old due to rest when there were days off in
Speaker 9: between games. You had him shooting five threes a game
Speaker 9: even though you knew that he can't shoot threes, right,
Speaker 9: even though he is a fifty percent free throw shooter.
Speaker 9: You were kind of hoping that, hey, let's go in
Speaker 9: and see how many threes walking shoot, and in fact
Speaker 9: made him run in practice when he didn't get up
Speaker 9: at least five a game, like come on, like you
Speaker 9: know the idea. Yes, this went badly for the Jazz,
Speaker 9: but from a league perspective, like if you want if
Speaker 9: your number one priority is preventing teams from tanking, then
Speaker 9: this is absolutely what you want. I think there's a
Speaker 9: conversation to be had on do you want teams to
Speaker 9: tank less than you want them to reward them with
Speaker 9: the number one overall selection or the best draft selections?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 9: Like, is the should the priority be parody to some
Speaker 9: extent that you can cycle these teams out of the bottom,
Speaker 9: get them higher into contention windows more quickly, and then
Speaker 9: all of a sudden, Okay, it doesn't make any sense
Speaker 9: to flatten the lottery odds like they did in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 9: So I think, to me, honestly, that probably should be
Speaker 9: more of a priority than preventing tanking. But given that
Speaker 9: preventing tanking was seen as the league's number one issue
Speaker 9: in twenty nineteen and it's still seen as so important today,
Speaker 9: then what happened last night makes sense, like and it
Speaker 9: fits within that that setup. It just totally depends on
Speaker 9: what your priorities are as a result. Look, the Jazz
Speaker 9: are going to be bad for fix years to come.
Speaker 9: But you know what if the Jazz were in the league,
Speaker 9: you know, if they're in European Soccer or whatever, a
Speaker 9: team without a draft or a draft that does a
Speaker 9: league without a draft, or a league where drafts don't
Speaker 9: matter right like, then you just see teams stagnate at
Speaker 9: the top and at the bottom of the league. So anyway,
Speaker 9: I think it's a totally fair conversation to have, and
Speaker 9: is a conversation in fact, that the league most powerful
Speaker 9: people are having at the combine and in these Chicago
Speaker 9: hotel rooms as we speak.
Speaker 1: Well, and you know, ultimately people around here today don't
Speaker 1: want to hear this. But for all the pushback and
Speaker 1: for all the flak that the NBA is take today
Speaker 1: and that Adam Silver is taking today. Last night was
Speaker 1: an absolute win for them because it's going to make
Speaker 1: the off season incredibly interesting for a league that loses
Speaker 1: a ton of its market share to Pro football quite frankly,
Speaker 1: in just a.
Speaker 3: Matter of you know, five or six weeks.
Speaker 1: Last night was an absolute win for the NBA based
Speaker 1: on what they try to accomplish by flattening those odds
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen. It's going to bring attention, intrigue, probably
Speaker 1: gonna bring a lot of moves, probably going to bring
Speaker 1: some trades, maybe even some big time trades on Draft night.
Speaker 1: So folks don't want to hear that today because what
Speaker 1: it was in Andy was a win for the Jazz.
Speaker 1: And again, when it's not a win for your side,
Speaker 1: the easy thing to do without being a critical thinker
Speaker 1: is yelled that you know it's rigged and that it's
Speaker 1: been stolen. The complicated thing, though, is what does this
Speaker 1: mean for a roster construction in a city like Salt Lake,
Speaker 1: for a team like the Jazz that, if we're honest, Andy,
Speaker 1: have not found franchise pillars that wanted to stay here
Speaker 1: longer than seven or eight years since John and Carl
Speaker 1: were here.
Speaker 3: And that's the reality. So what's next? What do they do?
Speaker 3: What do the Jazz do? What are the next steps?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean you draft the best player who can
Speaker 9: at number five, and look, I think there are probably
Speaker 9: three guys with like some some kind of star upside
Speaker 9: at number five. I don't think like it's a hopeless
Speaker 9: position to be and I think you'd much rather be
Speaker 9: the Jazz at number five than the Wizards at number six.
Speaker 9: And then look, you can sell yourself on the Hey,
Speaker 9: you can always trade for Trey Young, you can always
Speaker 9: trade for Zion Williamson, and the Jazz have draft assets
Speaker 9: to do that. And heck, you know, maybe that makes sense.
Speaker 9: Maybe you give up on the tanking thing and just
Speaker 9: kind of go for it with that level of player.
Speaker 9: Then you need something crazy to happen with the rest
Speaker 9: of the roster, right Like otherwise you are in the
Speaker 9: Atlanta or you know, New Orleans kind of the the
Speaker 9: middle treadmill where you know, you need a second star
Speaker 9: to to appear next to those guys, Like I think
Speaker 9: the Tray Young, Lowry Markin and Walker Kessler team is
Speaker 9: a thirty five win team. You know, maybe a little
Speaker 9: bit less given how competitive the Western conferences. But on
Speaker 9: the other hand, you do have the chance to make
Speaker 9: the play in tournament, and then you have a chance
Speaker 9: for things to go right if there are injuries and
Speaker 9: your side of the bracket or whatever right like so,
Speaker 9: or if somebody unexpectedly pops and becomes a star you
Speaker 9: know that you didn't see coming, like a Nicola jokicch
Speaker 9: for example. So that's one pass forward. The other pass
Speaker 9: forward is stay the course and tank again next year
Speaker 9: and go for Aja Debansa and Cam Booser and Darren
Speaker 9: Peterson and these guys who are projected be franchise changing
Speaker 9: players next year. I mean, it's too soon, really, do
Speaker 9: I think understand what the Jazz want to do. I
Speaker 9: think there is some uncertainty as to like what Ryan
Speaker 9: Smith will instruct the team to do, and whether or not,
Speaker 9: you know he is this as a turning point in
Speaker 9: the team's decision making or again, if they want to.
Speaker 3: Stay the course all right.
Speaker 1: So I felt so bad for Ashley Smith, who had
Speaker 1: this look on her face after Mark Tatum revealed the
Speaker 1: envelope with the Jazz at five that she had just
Speaker 1: seen a ghost. But that's all we could see on
Speaker 1: TV you were there, you know, the reaction of the
Speaker 1: other jazz contingent, Ryan whoever else was there? What did
Speaker 1: that look and sound like? After I was revealed the
Speaker 1: Jazz were picking at five?
Speaker 9: Yeah, so I, you know, had a lot of interaction
Speaker 9: with Justin Zannik because he was in the lottery room
Speaker 9: and we had an hour to watch the TV show
Speaker 9: after the lottery happens, but we're sequestered in that room
Speaker 9: until the TV show ends, and so yeah, I had
Speaker 9: a lot of time to get just Zenic's reaction, which
Speaker 9: his shot disappointed, you know, and you know was just
Speaker 9: kind of bewildered laster at like how unlucky they had
Speaker 9: gotten and kind of what had happened and with the
Speaker 9: with the ping pong balls last night. Then you can
Speaker 9: you kind of get that out of this room. You
Speaker 9: have to grab your envelope from the table which has
Speaker 9: all your phone and watches and everything else in it.
Speaker 9: And then so then I run upstairs to the ballroom
Speaker 9: and as I run out, it's Ryan Smith walking out
Speaker 9: with his family, like clearly just stun devastated, like he
Speaker 9: gave me it's just a shake of his head like
Speaker 9: he was distraught. I think that's the right word to say,
Speaker 9: as as you know, was just leaving that room as
Speaker 9: quickly as possible where the TV studio at the filming happens.
Speaker 9: And then you know, saw Will Hardy for a second,
Speaker 9: who you know, just again was kind of disappointed, more
Speaker 9: silent rather than anything else. Uh never saw Danny Ames.
Speaker 9: And then after that followed Justin Zannik back to a
Speaker 9: hotel suite where we did the post media availability kind
Speaker 9: of on the record. So yeah, that's kind of what
Speaker 9: I seren last night in terms of running into those guys.
Speaker 9: Have seen a couple of them today at the Draft
Speaker 9: Combine itself. But like you know, there's an understanding like, yes,
Speaker 9: we prepared for worst case scenario, but we were really
Speaker 9: hoping best case scenario or at least an okay case
Speaker 9: scenario happened last night and worst case scenarios struck and
Speaker 9: a means that this starts all over again and is
Speaker 9: as it's not a great place to be as a
Speaker 9: franchise site.
Speaker 1: And they know that, all right, So let's dig into
Speaker 1: the number five pick.
Speaker 3: And I suppose it depends on who you read, who
Speaker 3: you listen to.
Speaker 1: You know, the Athletics got a couple of guys that
Speaker 1: do a really good job. Gavoni, over to ESPN, has
Speaker 1: been pretty steadfast. His belief is that there are four
Speaker 1: players in order, and I don't think he's changed his
Speaker 1: order once and he didn't change it today.
Speaker 3: That are franchise changing pieces, of.
Speaker 1: Course, And this is according to to Gavoni, because to
Speaker 1: your point, Andy, you can find franchise changing pieces at
Speaker 1: forty two or wherever Jokic win. And you know, I
Speaker 1: can't help but think about the draft process for Stephen Curry,
Speaker 1: who literally was a generational changer. I think he went seven,
Speaker 1: So Cooper Flag at one, and then Dylan Harper too.
Speaker 3: We'll see what san Antonio does.
Speaker 1: Like I said, if you're the NBA, last night was
Speaker 1: a win because there's gonna be a lot of intrigue
Speaker 1: about some of these moves. Ace Bailey at three, this
Speaker 1: is Givoni vj Edgecum at four. Then he has the
Speaker 1: Jazz taking Jeremiah Fears, a point guard out of Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Trey Johnson, who can really shoot it from Texas, will
Speaker 1: be there. And then you get into, like I get
Speaker 1: the Jazz fan frustration. We're like, wait a second, we
Speaker 1: just lost almost seventy games and Kank Nipple might be
Speaker 1: the prize to respect. But best case scenario at five Andy,
Speaker 1: in your opinion, sounds like what I've honestly.
Speaker 9: Got to, like look at these guys and make a
Speaker 9: firm decision for kind of myself on who's that. You know,
Speaker 9: I've watched a decent amount of film and trying to
Speaker 9: understand and you know, honestly, some of that process it's
Speaker 9: going to be talking to them tomorrow and learning more
Speaker 9: about their personalities. So like Ace Bailey right, like is
Speaker 9: a tremendous shooter. Shot forty six percent on mid range
Speaker 9: shots last year, which is awesome, Like you know, to
Speaker 9: make that many of your tough mide range shots is
Speaker 9: star level. And then it's like, okay, but why did
Speaker 9: you take two hundred mid rangers last year? And why
Speaker 9: were you not able to get to the rim more
Speaker 9: often or the free throw line more often? And why
Speaker 9: are your turnover numbers as bad? And you know, ultimately,
Speaker 9: do you think that you have to be Carmelo Anthony
Speaker 9: in order to succeed in the NBA? Or are you
Speaker 9: willing to work on your role player skills? Are you
Speaker 9: you willing to use your links and athleticism to block
Speaker 9: shots and defend and move the ball and be part
Speaker 9: of the good offense rather than just be offense. Like
Speaker 9: I'm excited to learn about those things when we get
Speaker 9: the chance to talk to them tomorrow. Vj. Edsom is
Speaker 9: a better pick by a lot of draft model if
Speaker 9: you just look at like the statistical analysis models. You know,
Speaker 9: Darryl Morian Phildelphia is gonna care a lot about but
Speaker 9: he's also you know, just six four and and is
Speaker 9: not did not have great shooting numbers in his freshman year.
Speaker 9: On the other hand, his block and steel numbers are terrific,
Speaker 9: and he also was a terrific dunker. So the athleticism
Speaker 9: is really popping kind of on boltons of floor. So
Speaker 9: that's nice. And then yeah, you know, I think probably
Speaker 9: those two guys are taking number three and number four.
Speaker 9: And then you're left with Trey Johnson, a good shooter.
Speaker 9: Does he do the other things you need in order
Speaker 9: to win? Does he defense? Does he playmake as well
Speaker 9: as he needs to? You know, I think that's a
Speaker 9: real question. I think there's a real chance that he's
Speaker 9: like pretty buddy healthy in the NBA. And then Jeremiah Fears,
Speaker 9: who is a tiny point guard but is as dynamic
Speaker 9: as as it gets and put up some really awesome
Speaker 9: stats in his freshman year. Our guy Jason Patakia, and
Speaker 9: this should not be trusted at all, is a huge
Speaker 9: Oklahoma you know who is an Oklahoma Sooner. Went to
Speaker 9: ou O you daily guy. He says he's Kyrie Irving
Speaker 9: and I'm like, dude.
Speaker 2: No he's not.
Speaker 9: Can like best casey be like dearon Foxy Okay, Maybe
Speaker 9: all of a sudden I can start to see it.
Speaker 9: So look, you know, this is the first top five pick.
Speaker 9: This is spin. This is a spin Justin Zanna gave yesterday.
Speaker 9: But it's true. This is the first top five picked
Speaker 9: the Jazz I've had since twenty fourteen. And you are
Speaker 9: going to get a higher caliber prospect at number five
Speaker 9: than you were at number nine or number ten when
Speaker 9: you were drafting Taylor Hendricks or Cody Williams.
Speaker 1: So as I alluded to and talked about this off
Speaker 1: the top.
Speaker 3: Today, as a result of how.
Speaker 1: This went down last night, there's a tremendous possibility for
Speaker 1: a lot of movements.
Speaker 3: A lot of players could be available.
Speaker 1: We already know that according to Shams Giannis is open
Speaker 1: to being moved. By the way, it's now been verified
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum did rupture his achilles, so he's going to
Speaker 1: be out obviously for at least a year, and we'll
Speaker 1: see how he comes back. But you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at the situation in Boston, new ownership group, second
Speaker 1: Apron team, awesome but really expensive, and now the Tatum injury,
Speaker 1: there's a chance that some of those Celtics could be
Speaker 1: available as well. Now San Antonio is very interesting too
Speaker 1: because they have Daron Fox and everyone loves Dylan Harper.
Speaker 1: But of course tremendous redundancy to have those two on
Speaker 1: the same roster with a ball dominant type you know,
Speaker 1: a redundant field because the two of them are somewhat similar.
Speaker 3: So you got San Antonio.
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City has to be brought up because they have
Speaker 1: a compendium of assets and a bunch of really good
Speaker 1: young players. The problem with will the Jazz get involved
Speaker 1: in any of these transactions is yes, they have the capital,
Speaker 1: but other teams have similar you know, trade capital in
Speaker 1: their back pocket. But what the other teams have that
Speaker 1: the Jazz don't is Okay, see can be like, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll give you five picks Jalen Williams and chet and
Speaker 1: whatever for Giannis. And the Jazz don't have that package.
Speaker 1: They don't have the package San Antonio does. They don't
Speaker 1: have the package Houston does. So yes, they have the
Speaker 1: draft capital. But you know, what does lowry marketing really
Speaker 1: do for you? And I guess that you know, beauty
Speaker 1: is in the eye of the behoulder. Is there any
Speaker 1: chance the Jazz have what it takes to get bold
Speaker 1: and try to get involved with some of these acquisitions
Speaker 1: to get better players here or maybe even move up
Speaker 1: in the draft.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 9: I mean, I think you can move up to three
Speaker 9: in the draft realistically, if you really want to, if
Speaker 9: that's meaningful to you, I think there is that opportunity.
Speaker 9: I don't think really number two or number one is realistic.
Speaker 9: I think that if you wanted to, I think Giannis
Speaker 9: is out of the picture for the reasons you describe,
Speaker 9: you just are going to be beat by significantly better
Speaker 9: teams with significantly better players to trade to Milwaukee that
Speaker 9: are more intriguing and all the draft app that's you
Speaker 9: can want, you know, whether that's from Houston or Opoma
Speaker 9: City or San Antonio, like teams just can.
Speaker 2: Make a better package.
Speaker 9: Where I do think the Jazz could if they wanted
Speaker 9: to get into it is on kind of that next
Speaker 9: tier of star. So do you want to take on
Speaker 9: Zion Williamson and his issues? Do you want to take
Speaker 9: on John Morant in his issues? Do you want to
Speaker 9: take on Trey Young in his issues?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 9: I think you can have those conversations if the Celtics
Speaker 9: decide to turn it around quickly or just decide they're
Speaker 9: paying Jalen Brown too much money. Is that an option?
Speaker 9: I can see a world in which it is, And
Speaker 9: you know, I don't think he is going to demand
Speaker 9: a Gyiannis level of return. I think there are a
Speaker 9: few situations around the league, like, if you really wanted to,
Speaker 9: you could trade for Kevin Durant Mike. Now do the
Speaker 9: Jazz want to? I don't think that that makes a
Speaker 9: lot of sense given Kevin Durant's age, But it is
Speaker 9: an option. So you're just not going to get the
Speaker 9: perfect superstar out there, like a Janis who's like clearly
Speaker 9: top five player in the world, clearly in his prime. Uh.
Speaker 9: And you know, because you're right that the other teams
Speaker 9: have more to offer. That's not draft capital that the
Speaker 9: Jazz just can't match with the Keyante Georges of the world.
Speaker 1: Oh dear well, Andy, before I set you loose, uh,
Speaker 1: just best guess and I'll just tell you my take
Speaker 1: on this. I think next year is gonna feel a
Speaker 1: lot like this year. Uh you know, call it tanking,
Speaker 1: call it whatever you want. And I've been a proponent
Speaker 1: of this because I just don't see any other avenue to,
Speaker 1: you know, for the Jazz to acquire the type of
Speaker 1: talent they need in order to establish a cornerstone franchise,
Speaker 1: changing peace, to change.
Speaker 3: Your trajectory, what the future could look like.
Speaker 1: I still believe their best chance is to do this
Speaker 1: in the lottery, and I still believe their best chance
Speaker 1: is to lose and have the best chance possible of
Speaker 1: getting one of those picks. I know today is the
Speaker 1: most unpopular day to say that. I don't know what
Speaker 1: else they do. So before I set you loose, my
Speaker 1: guess is next year looks and feels a lot like
Speaker 1: this year for the Jazz.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I kind of agree, And I mean the thing
Speaker 9: about the lottery being when it is is that you
Speaker 9: have a month and a week between now and the
Speaker 9: actual NBA draft. I guess six weeks to make decisions
Speaker 9: and to slow down and not react emotionally to what
Speaker 9: happened yesterday. And you know, I think there is an
Speaker 9: absolute temptation today that, hey, you should change what to
Speaker 9: you know, what the plan is, right, like change the process,
Speaker 9: try to be competitive and go in the Atlanta and
Speaker 9: Chicago route, which hey, you know will make games more
Speaker 9: interesting next year and be a lot more fun. What
Speaker 9: I suspect is that the Jazz do the calculations and
Speaker 9: do the mass and decide for the same reasons they
Speaker 9: decided this year that tanking is probably the best option
Speaker 9: next year, given who's available in the lottery, and given
Speaker 9: that in order to keep their Oklamas that he picked
Speaker 9: in the Derek Favors trade, they need to be one
Speaker 9: of the eight worst teams in the NBA. So I
Speaker 9: suspect ultimately you're right, they just stay with the status quo,
Speaker 9: even though it feels like such a dumb thing to
Speaker 9: do right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, today's the most unpopular day to talk about it,
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that's the reality. All right,
Speaker 1: my guy, Well, save travels and we'll get you back
Speaker 1: on again soon.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 9: Andy, all right, sounds good.
Speaker 8: Thanks Ben.
Speaker 1: Andy Larson covers the Utah Jazz for the Salt Lake
Speaker 1: Tribune Live on the ground in Chicago. The NBA Draft
Speaker 1: Combine is going on right now, obviously, the day after
Speaker 1: the NBA Draft Lottery, which turned out to be just
Speaker 1: a brutal gut punch for jazz fans. And we'll get
Speaker 1: back to some of this coming up in a bit.
Speaker 1: But on the other side, we'll do some college football.
Speaker 1: Lemon Tao stops by. Andy stopped by today courtesy of
Speaker 1: our friends at IFA Country Stores, and he drive to
Speaker 1: the basket begins with the first step on the court.
Speaker 3: That's the ultimate power move. IFA Step one.
Speaker 1: Crabgrass Preventor plus their lawn food is the first choice
Speaker 1: to give your yard the healthy, thick green look you desire.
Speaker 3: The neighbors will be green with envy.
Speaker 1: Shop IFA online at IFA dot co op, or stop
Speaker 1: by one of their eighteen Utah locations today.
Speaker 3: All right, Tim McMahon's gonna stop by.
Speaker 1: Tim covers ESPN, excuse me, covers the NBA for ESPN
Speaker 1: covers the Utah Jazz, the Dallas Mavericks, among others. Good
Speaker 1: day to have Tim on the program. A little bit
Speaker 1: of breaking news. It is official Jason Tatum has ruptured
Speaker 1: as achilles tendon. He already had surgery, so the recovery
Speaker 1: process begins now.
Speaker 3: Just to horrible news for a really, really good player
Speaker 3: who just entered his prime. Don't forget.
Speaker 1: Richard Smith stops by live in studio for an entire hour.
Speaker 1: Smith he spent forty years with the Utah Jazz. But
Speaker 1: let's bring in my buddy, A lemon Teou who stops
Speaker 1: by to talk about the All Poly Sports camp coming up.
Speaker 3: A Lemon happ you Tuesday, man, How you.
Speaker 8: Doing doing fine? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Appreciate the time. Appreciate the time.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of your time of year as we're
Speaker 1: approaching the All Poly camp. But I've been interviewing you.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like once a year for
Speaker 1: a long long time. So just before our listeners are unfamiliar,
Speaker 1: tell us about it. What do you want our listeners
Speaker 1: to know from like a macro viewpoint about all poly sports.
Speaker 8: So right now we're rated the number one contact camp
Speaker 8: in the country non institutional camps by the College Coaches
Speaker 8: of America. We're excited about that. We're going on twenty
Speaker 8: seven years, and we've had the opportunity of you know,
Speaker 8: waiting to see some great players come through and also
Speaker 8: see the elevation of high school football here in the
Speaker 8: great state of Utah.
Speaker 1: So I'll let's get some dates and locations. When is
Speaker 1: one of the actual camps going down and where they're
Speaker 1: going to be.
Speaker 8: Our right and Start camp will be June seventeenth, and
Speaker 8: our college prospect camp is going to be June eighteenth.
Speaker 8: Both will be held at the Lompeak Park here in Sandy.
Speaker 1: And over the years, as you reference, the high school
Speaker 1: football scene in our states has evolved and continues to
Speaker 1: evolve with players not just you know eleven. When I
Speaker 1: was growing up and felt like all the best players
Speaker 1: went to either b Y, you were Utah. Nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with that, But now we see players going all over
Speaker 1: the country and a number of players continue to go
Speaker 1: to the NFL to play pro football.
Speaker 3: Tell me, Alema, from your vantage point, how.
Speaker 1: The college football Excuse me, the high school football scene
Speaker 1: in the state of Utah has grown since you kind
Speaker 1: of started doing this.
Speaker 8: Well, I'll tell you right now, I honestly believe that
Speaker 8: the coaching here in Utah at the high school level
Speaker 8: is awesome. We got a lot of outstanding coaches who
Speaker 8: are very committed to the game and who are also
Speaker 8: have great teachers, you know. Not only that, and outside
Speaker 8: of you know, the great coaches that we have here
Speaker 8: in the state of Utah, we have outstanding traders. Guys
Speaker 8: that are taking kids I mean off season and really
Speaker 8: you know, honing in their skills. You know, I mean
Speaker 8: the skilled position guys, you know, I mean are doing
Speaker 8: some great things. I know we've got you know, Mattossi
Speaker 8: who does our Beast training does a great job with
Speaker 8: this linebackers, got the OPA training guys. They do a
Speaker 8: lot of stuff with the line and competition, I know,
Speaker 8: protech trenches and uh Boss gills. Uh those those are
Speaker 8: front guys that do a fabulous job. You know, we're
Speaker 8: we're known for for our front guys online d line guys.
Speaker 8: But people are underestimate the fact that we've had great
Speaker 8: quarterbacks come through City Utah as well. You know, I mean,
Speaker 8: I think this year we got three of the best
Speaker 8: quarterbacks in the country at the high school level. With
Speaker 8: the Cosuma kid at the Corner Canyon, you got the
Speaker 8: little Poppy kid at West and uh the Lone Peak
Speaker 8: kid kept a new metta. Those three guys, in my opinion,
Speaker 8: are outstanding quarterbacks that are going to make us some
Speaker 8: noise this year.
Speaker 3: So probably should be very clear.
Speaker 10: Lema.
Speaker 1: I know this because I'm familiar with you, but the
Speaker 1: name of the camp is all poly sports.
Speaker 3: But you are open to everyone.
Speaker 8: Yes, opened to everyone, inclusive of any and all. So yeah,
Speaker 8: originally started that way, but uh, you know, as the
Speaker 8: ability got bigger, and you know, we decided to make
Speaker 8: sure that everybody had the same opportunity. So uh uh
Speaker 8: you know, we've had great non pologies kids come through
Speaker 8: with the Kruger brothers. As you know, I had great careers,
Speaker 8: you know. Uh, and I see a kid very shimulary
Speaker 8: to those guys and Crew Jones. You know, he's an
Speaker 8: outstanding defensive lineman you know up in the Cash County
Speaker 8: area who's doing a great job. And that guy's being
Speaker 8: recruited all over the country. So he came to Dark
Speaker 8: Camp last year and just whooped everybody's trash. And uh,
Speaker 8: you know, he's really big on the recruiting scene right now,
Speaker 8: and there'll be more guys like him, uh coming to
Speaker 8: few as well. So uh, I want to say this,
Speaker 8: the Uh. In my opinion. UH, the there's a young
Speaker 8: man by the name of Kingston Stroshine. His dad runs
Speaker 8: Stroke Film. It's uh, he's only in eighth grade, going
Speaker 8: into the ninth grade. I project him to be uh
Speaker 8: part of the top recruit out of the state of
Speaker 8: Utah within the next couple of years. He is that
Speaker 8: good and UH I look forward to seeing him in
Speaker 8: shoulder pads and doing this thing at camp this year.
Speaker 1: Give our listeners a lemma an idea of just kind
Speaker 1: of the schedule how this camp works. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: what you do in the morning, the drills and such.
Speaker 1: Coaches that are present, give it. If we've got listeners
Speaker 1: who have some some some young man who they think
Speaker 1: might benefit from your camp, what's the feel like?
Speaker 3: What do you guys do.
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 8: But for we have three sessions, Okay, each camp has
Speaker 8: three sessions. First session, it's gonna be the helmet's only
Speaker 8: kids will come through, run through positions, specific grills with
Speaker 8: the different college coaches, and then they're gonna put him
Speaker 8: into various teams. The second session, we'll start off with
Speaker 8: some some limited contact where we're going to instill or
Speaker 8: install and offense and a defense. So the kids are
Speaker 8: gonna have to learn, you know, a scheme you know,
Speaker 8: at college tempo during that second period, and then the
Speaker 8: third period we'll go through a review session and then
Speaker 8: we're going to scrimmage at the end. And then during
Speaker 8: that time, you know, you see the cream rise to
Speaker 8: the top. And so over the years, we've had some
Speaker 8: very spirited, uh scrimmage years, and you know, the the
Speaker 8: level of competition that that that shows itself at the
Speaker 8: end is amazing and so uh and you will see
Speaker 8: a lot of college coaches around there during that time,
Speaker 8: just kind of taking notes and uh sneak and peak
Speaker 8: at at kids from the different parts of the country.
Speaker 1: So so lot local college coaches, coaches from around the
Speaker 1: country checking out these kids. I wonder, Alemma, how you
Speaker 1: because we talked about the changing landscape of high school
Speaker 1: football in Utah and how it's grown. What about the
Speaker 1: landscape of college football in Utah. Somebody has been around
Speaker 1: football forever. Uh, what do you what do you make
Speaker 1: of the current state of the college game and the
Speaker 1: changes that have been implement over the past four years.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, in a sense, man, it's uh, it's
Speaker 8: kind of level of the playing field, you know, and
Speaker 8: then I mean, you know before backs, you know, within
Speaker 8: I mean as recently as three four years ago, everybody
Speaker 8: was going to Alabama.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: Now that's not the case anymore. I mean, uh, you know,
Speaker 8: the dollar has taken over the game. You know, it's
Speaker 8: unfortunate because you know, you don't have the stability of
Speaker 8: the roster. You know, from year to year. I mean
Speaker 8: ten years ago, you knew if you signed somewhere, the
Speaker 8: chances are you're gonna be there for four to five years.
Speaker 8: Now the projection is, man, you're gonna be average. You
Speaker 8: guys are gonna transfer two times, you know, which is unfortunate,
Speaker 8: Which is unfortunate because they don't get that that growth
Speaker 8: or that experience, you know, in one program. And so
Speaker 8: I mean, it's it's it's specially it's basically professional football now,
Speaker 8: you know, in all sense of the word. You know,
Speaker 8: they're they're following the uh, the NFL model. Everybody's got
Speaker 8: a GM now instead of a DFO, and those guys
Speaker 8: got to manage the roster. And and you know, obviously
Speaker 8: they're paying the players now.
Speaker 11: So uh.
Speaker 8: And then what I'm finding out and the word I'm
Speaker 8: getting from a lot of the college coaches that I
Speaker 8: deal with is you know, everybody is more concerned with
Speaker 8: what the NIL deal versus what kind of education can
Speaker 8: I get or how, you know, how can you develop
Speaker 8: me as a football player? Which which is?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: The sad thing now is I meet every year with
Speaker 8: a lot of the college guys and a lot of
Speaker 8: the a lot of the recruiting courterinators out of convention,
Speaker 8: and this year it was basically like, we just don't
Speaker 8: have the time to develop players anymore. So we got
Speaker 8: to recruit guys that can come in. Now that means,
Speaker 8: you know, only the top tier high school players are
Speaker 8: going to be able to get a shot to get
Speaker 8: that D one scholarship, you know. So it's it's different,
Speaker 8: you know. I mean there's a plus center minus, you know,
Speaker 8: and so everybody's just going to have to adjust to it.
Speaker 3: So from a boat oh yeah, no, great.
Speaker 1: Now, Now let me move over here, because from a
Speaker 1: local standpoint, you know, we're broadcasting a mile away from
Speaker 1: Ryseckles and we're the home of the Utes and have
Speaker 1: a good relationship with all the b YU guys as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, hell half of them coached here anyway. So
Speaker 1: how do you feel the Kyle and Kalani are positioned
Speaker 1: to make sure that they continue on the right path
Speaker 1: to make sure the b YU and b YU and
Speaker 1: Utah football can can keep having success.
Speaker 8: You know, I know this. They're they're only going to
Speaker 8: have access to good players. The problem isn't within BYU
Speaker 8: or or Utah itself, is the outside guys that are
Speaker 8: run interference, you know, with their best players. You know,
Speaker 8: there's you know, there are predators out there that are
Speaker 8: going to go after their best players. And that to
Speaker 8: me is probably going to be the hardest thing to
Speaker 8: do for our local schools is how do you keep
Speaker 8: those guys away from our best players? You know, That's
Speaker 8: that's that's a tough job moving forward, because no matter
Speaker 8: what DNC double A says, hey man, you know and
Speaker 8: outside so it's is gonna come in and say he
Speaker 8: and they meet me at McDonald they got to brown
Speaker 8: back for you and that's the end of the story.
Speaker 8: You're gone, you know. So that's the biggest problem I see,
Speaker 8: and that that that's gonna that's gonna hurt them is
Speaker 8: both institutions do a great job recruiting and developing players
Speaker 8: and even taking players that are not even rating and
Speaker 8: turning them into four five star level players. But can
Speaker 8: they keep on keep those guys on the roster? You know,
Speaker 8: that's tough part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean that that's kind of where my
Speaker 3: head is at.
Speaker 1: I mean because as you know, Kyle's best teams, certainly
Speaker 1: if you go back to Sugar Bowl, go back to
Speaker 1: back twelve championships, like you know, the deal, like the
Speaker 1: ethos is, uh, we will develop you and you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not ready to play right out of the gates,
Speaker 1: give us some time, put in the work, do what
Speaker 1: we ask you to do, and then when you're a third, fourth,
Speaker 1: fifth year guy, you'll be ready to roll, and so
Speaker 1: will we.
Speaker 3: I mean that's kind of all he's been. The deal.
Speaker 1: Is that type of model sustainable in modern day college football?
Speaker 8: Geez? I? And honestly, I don't like the direction that
Speaker 8: the college football is taken, and it's not. I don't
Speaker 8: think it's sustainable, you know, in my opinion, you know,
Speaker 8: just because you can't, I mean, you can't. You can't
Speaker 8: if you can't keep your best players, you know, how
Speaker 8: do you expect to be good year in the year out?
Speaker 8: You know when you know that, Yeah, I'm gonna I
Speaker 8: just signed a five star d lineman or whole lineman
Speaker 8: or whatever, knowing that, hey, if I don't give this
Speaker 8: guy enough playing time his freshman year, he's gone, you know.
Speaker 8: And if he's not happy with the offense, shoot, he's gone.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 8: So there's so many variables that are going to attack
Speaker 8: the game. I think it really to me, it handcuffs
Speaker 8: the coaches, you know, on how they can do their job.
Speaker 8: You know, they're they're expected to go out and recruit
Speaker 8: the best players they possibly can. You're a saying, you know,
Speaker 8: try to help these guys create these nil deals and
Speaker 8: then keep them happy. I mean, but then when you
Speaker 8: try to do that, shoot, what happens to the plan
Speaker 8: be guys that are in your backup guys, you know,
Speaker 8: I mean, they get left behind. So man, I you know,
Speaker 8: in the NFL you can do that. That's just part
Speaker 8: of the game. But to try to do that at
Speaker 8: the college level, I think it urged the game. My
Speaker 8: personal opinion.
Speaker 1: Tell me, if you've noticed, as you're working with these
Speaker 1: young players, a difference in the attitude, a difference in
Speaker 1: the approach of both the players and I'll say the
Speaker 1: parents around them or the groups around them, now that
Speaker 1: there's so much money at stake, Alemma, and money immediately,
Speaker 1: not money in four or five years when they maybe
Speaker 1: they make the NFL. Now that these young men can
Speaker 1: make hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more as
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old freshman.
Speaker 3: Have you noticed a change in kind of.
Speaker 1: The attitude of the young kids and the people around
Speaker 1: them that you work with every year?
Speaker 8: Well, I'm telling you right now, the difference is this.
Speaker 8: I mean, when I was sixteen, fifteen, sixteen, I was
Speaker 8: just I was just happy to be hanging out with
Speaker 8: my guys, playing ball in the park, you know, just
Speaker 8: doing fun things.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 8: Now, hey, guys at fifteen aren't getting financial planners, you know,
Speaker 8: I mean, they're you know, I mean, if you're that
Speaker 8: good of a player, now you're gonna have to start,
Speaker 8: you know, looking for the right kind of legal advice,
Speaker 8: the right kind of financial planner. People are starting to
Speaker 8: prep you for the next you know, six years of
Speaker 8: your life, you know, I mean, and so which in turn,
Speaker 8: I mean, parents are different now too. Parents all feel
Speaker 8: like you know that, hey, you know, my kid's going
Speaker 8: to be the guy. So you know, they're they're into
Speaker 8: the negotiation game as well. I mean all the parents
Speaker 8: that are involved with with the with the anile stuff,
Speaker 8: the recruiting stuff. You know, some of them get it,
Speaker 8: but a lot of them don't. And she I think
Speaker 8: that hurts him. So the attitude of the kids have
Speaker 8: changed too, Like there's no loyalty even at the high
Speaker 8: school level. I mean, kid can play three different high
Speaker 8: schools in four years, you know, so everybody's going to
Speaker 8: try to go to where the best deal is. And
Speaker 8: that's a sad thing, right And you know, I've been
Speaker 8: a high school coach for you know, thirty plus years.
Speaker 8: I love the development part and the long term relationship
Speaker 8: that you've been able to get with the athlete. Man,
Speaker 8: that's going by the wayside. That's going by the wayside
Speaker 8: because even the high school kids are transferring after one
Speaker 8: and two years.
Speaker 1: So if you had any advice, if we have parents
Speaker 1: listening to the show who have a young promising football player,
Speaker 1: what advice would you give them?
Speaker 8: If you're as good as if the kids as good
Speaker 8: as as as everybody says he is he has, he
Speaker 8: would be okay where he's at. You know, he's They're
Speaker 8: gonna find them the way recruiting is right now, and
Speaker 8: they find those guys they you know, you know, each
Speaker 8: each division won or pe for school. They got paid
Speaker 8: a lot of money just to find the best players
Speaker 8: out there. So I mean, be careful not to you
Speaker 8: not to just jump and run, you know. I mean,
Speaker 8: we develop, you know, that's that's my thing. Developed and
Speaker 8: get better where you're at, you know now if it's
Speaker 8: you know, obviously I can't speak for everybody, but geez,
Speaker 8: you know, you're just you're just telling people that, hey,
Speaker 8: things get hard, you're gonna up and go, you know.
Speaker 8: So I don't know if that helps your recruiting that
Speaker 8: much too, you know, so, but I would tell them
Speaker 8: to they make sure you surround yourself with good people
Speaker 8: that you trust, that have the best interest in mind,
Speaker 8: you know. And I meet with a lot of parents, say,
Speaker 8: a lot of people come to me and I tell them, hey,
Speaker 8: the landscape of the high school recruiting is different now,
Speaker 8: and so you need to learn how to manage it.
Speaker 8: You know, they're gonna have to learn how to deal
Speaker 8: with it. And so if you're in a position, if
Speaker 8: I'm a parent and I got a good kid, maybe
Speaker 8: I try to learn how to be a negotiator myself,
Speaker 8: you know, because you got other services out there that
Speaker 8: are available. You know you got to pay money for those.
Speaker 8: But you know that's up to you obviously. But you know,
Speaker 8: no one loves their kids more than their parents. So
Speaker 8: I always encouraged parents study, study the game, learn, learn
Speaker 8: about it. You know, if you're in a position to
Speaker 8: do it, then go in.
Speaker 2: And do it.
Speaker 8: It's not then reach reach out to other services that
Speaker 8: you have trust in and see if they can help you.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm up for so you lose one more
Speaker 1: time all poly Sports camp. Tell us the dates, tell
Speaker 1: us the location, all the good stuff you want our
Speaker 1: listeners to know.
Speaker 8: The Rising Star Camp is going to be June seventeenth. Now,
Speaker 8: the one unique thing about the Writing Star Camp, going
Speaker 8: back to the recruiting conversation, is right now, we got
Speaker 8: to target these kids as every as we possibly can.
Speaker 8: So we hope to identify some of the top players
Speaker 8: in the country in the grade seven, eight to nine
Speaker 8: at this year's camp. So, but that's it's going to
Speaker 8: be June seventeenth. June eighteenth is our college prospect camp.
Speaker 8: We're excited to get kids that come down and you
Speaker 8: know and let me because again one percent are going
Speaker 8: to get the offers. The other ninety nine you need
Speaker 8: to be at the All poly Camping friends of the
Speaker 8: twenty five different colleges there so you can showcase.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 3: Well you go, Thank you, my friend. I appreciate the time.
Speaker 3: Best of luck and reach out if you need.
Speaker 8: Okay, thank you, have a great date.
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Let me tell the website is allpolysports dot com. That's
Speaker 1: all polysports dot com. As you as an Alemma reference
Speaker 1: the dates. Rising Stars camp will be June seventeenth at
Speaker 1: Lone Peak Park in Sandy and then the College Prospects
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five camp the next day at June twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: also at Lone Peak Park.
Speaker 3: You get deals with early registration. Oh you know what
Speaker 3: that has ended. Nevermind, you still get.
Speaker 1: Deals right now as opposed to just walking up the
Speaker 1: day of the camp.
Speaker 3: So check it out.
Speaker 1: All polysports dot com is the website where you can
Speaker 1: get all the information.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Tim McMahon is going to join us coming up next.
Speaker 1: Tim just released a piece on the Dallas Mavericks. According
Speaker 1: to Tim sources, and Tim would know, Dallas will not
Speaker 1: be trading the number one overall pick and they are
Speaker 1: going to draft themselves a young man named Cooper flag
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Speaker 6: Next on the drive, Tim McMahon dropping dimes for your
Speaker 6: NBA Daily assists.
Speaker 12: Van McMahon, Vancman that is ding old Land, Texas flood tickets.
Speaker 12: Mud He's and Manvan McMahon, Van mcman The man.
Speaker 8: Man.
Speaker 1: All right, Richard Smith about a half hour from now. Smith,
Speaker 1: he spent forty years with Utah Jazz front office. He's
Speaker 1: already here and he is about to take me to
Speaker 1: task for my opinion last year that the Jazz were
Speaker 1: doing the right thing tanking for their lottery luck.
Speaker 3: But our next guest, you know.
Speaker 1: Him, you love him, timmick Man, Tuesday afternoon. All right, Tim,
Speaker 1: the whole thing is rigged. The whole thing is fixed.
Speaker 1: The Jazz did the right thing. Yeah, they fell to five.
Speaker 2: How are you, buddy, party partner. I know it's a
Speaker 2: gloomy day in Salt Lake City. I'm in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: It didn't work out the way they wanted to either,
Speaker 2: with the Philly Pick moving up into the top three,
Speaker 2: So Dotter Oak get their hands number seventh. My hometown's
Speaker 2: excited though they liked the way that lottery worked out.
Speaker 2: Old mav has just falling ass backwards into the number
Speaker 2: one overall pick. After months after dinner traded generational talent,
Speaker 2: here's a gift of another one. So yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I can imagine that you folks are a little bit
Speaker 2: perturbed right now.
Speaker 1: It is literally rainy and like forty eight degrees, so
Speaker 1: it is cloudy, it is cold. It is perfect for
Speaker 1: what today has brought with our local basketball fans.
Speaker 3: But tim, let me, I mean, look, obviously I'm being facetious.
Speaker 1: You know, what happened last night, ironically was the most
Speaker 1: likely outcome for the Jazz about a forty eight percent
Speaker 1: chance to get that number five pick. It's called a
Speaker 1: lottery for a reason. But of course it is kind
Speaker 1: of a ride of passage for an NBA fan base
Speaker 1: that feels like they've been screwed to scream foul. So
Speaker 1: for Jazz fans that believe the fixes in what do
Speaker 1: you have to say?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not going to get into conspiracy theory stuff.
Speaker 2: I believe there are two Salt Lake City based reporters
Speaker 2: that were in the lottery drawing room. I would invite
Speaker 2: you to read the coverage of Andy B. Larson and
Speaker 2: Sarah Todd. I mean, I'm pretty sure if there was
Speaker 2: a conspiracy that would have screwed the Utah Jazz, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure they would have covered it in you know,
Speaker 2: in their reporting. It was just what a storyline, what
Speaker 2: an insane outcome, and what a bummer for the Jazz fans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nandy was our guest earlier on the on the show,
Speaker 1: and to your point, he was in the room and
Speaker 1: talk to Justin Zannak. I thought, Xana Candle it really
Speaker 1: well and like I said, when you look at the odds,
Speaker 1: what happened last night was the most likely outcome. So
Speaker 1: before we move over to the bigger story, which is
Speaker 1: what it means for the MAVs and potentially some player
Speaker 1: movement and such. And I am like you where when
Speaker 1: it comes to who the number five pick should be,
Speaker 1: I'll read Jonathan Cavoni or some of the guys at
Speaker 1: the Athletic. So just instead of me asking you to
Speaker 1: nail down a name, just what sort of value is
Speaker 1: your understanding that will be there for the Jazz at five.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna look. Obviously number one is clear cut, far
Speaker 2: and away the easiest decision in this draft. There's a
Speaker 2: generational talent there. I think number two seems to be
Speaker 2: pretty concrete, and then things get a leal, it gets
Speaker 2: to be more in the eye of the beholder. There
Speaker 2: have been a lot of great players stick for the
Speaker 2: fifth overall pick. There have been a lot of guys
Speaker 2: who didn't end up having star caliber careers. You know,
Speaker 2: we'll see where this ends up for the Jazz. Who
Speaker 2: I should the Jazz have had to fit overall pick?
Speaker 2: What Dante's in the fifth overall pick?
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yes he was Tim, Thanks for bringing that
Speaker 1: up last time. The Jazz pick five.
Speaker 2: It was Dante Hey, so it's the guy who's got
Speaker 2: an ownership shared. Dwyane Wade brooked out pretty well for
Speaker 2: the Miami Heat, so you know, it's kind of there's
Speaker 2: a wide spectrum there.
Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. Charles Barkley was the number five pick. Look,
Speaker 1: you can get value at five. I mean, hell yeo,
Speaker 1: GI's forty two. We could keep going down the list,
Speaker 1: Like while it feels like chicken little, this guy is falling.
Speaker 3: You never know how this stuff is going to play out.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you one more Jazz question before
Speaker 1: we move on, because you hear a lot of reports
Speaker 1: and Shams himself was on television yesterday saying he is
Speaker 1: hearing the Jazz are going to be very active and
Speaker 1: aggressive even if they didn't get one or two, they're
Speaker 1: going to try to move up. And you're reporting the
Speaker 1: MAVs have no interest in trading one, and I completely
Speaker 1: get it. I wouldn't either, But can you illuminate our
Speaker 1: market out here as to whether or not you have
Speaker 1: any understanding of now we know where the Jazz will draft,
Speaker 1: what do you think this offseason looks like.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this all season is going to first
Speaker 2: have to there's gonna be a lot of internal discussions
Speaker 2: because clearly they picked a route this year and took
Speaker 2: a risk this year that did not have the intended reward,
Speaker 2: did not come close to the intended reward, And then
Speaker 2: I think, you know, they're really going to have to
Speaker 2: have some serious discussions debate whatever it may be about
Speaker 2: whether it is a rational, irrational and and smart approach
Speaker 2: to basically repeat to to kind of run it back
Speaker 2: and aim for the number one overall pick again next year,
Speaker 2: or whether that's counterproductive, whether you're you know, how much
Speaker 2: damage are you doing in the developmental process, all those
Speaker 2: kind of things. I think it's a rational approach. I
Speaker 2: also think it's extraordinary risky. And again the risk is
Speaker 2: number one. Even for the worst record of league, the
Speaker 2: most likely spot is going to be fifth. But the
Speaker 2: risk is also like, are you just stunning the development
Speaker 2: of the young players that you already have on board?
Speaker 2: There's not. It's not like it's an easy solution here.
Speaker 2: They're in a tough spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah they are. Yeah they are.
Speaker 1: And we'll see what sort of magic Danny and jay
Speaker 1: Z can execute and hopefully give this thing turned around
Speaker 1: prior to twenty forty five, because that's the way everybody
Speaker 1: feels around here. But of course, Tim, the one team
Speaker 1: that could have grabbed number one to lead the entire
Speaker 1: country to scream foul was the team that grabbed number
Speaker 1: one with the Dallas Mavericks. So of course you know
Speaker 1: Dallas better than probably any media member out there. I
Speaker 1: want to know what went through your mind when you
Speaker 1: saw that that was the deal and where you're at
Speaker 1: with it now you know about.
Speaker 2: A day later, I just started cracking up, to be
Speaker 2: honest with you, I'm like, you have got to be
Speaker 2: kidding me. And you know, I've heard some people say, oh,
Speaker 2: is this does this prove that Nigol Harrison made the
Speaker 2: right decision on like, folks, what this does is bailed
Speaker 2: out the franchise from what appeared to be a disastrous trade.
Speaker 2: And when they made that trade, the plan wasn't like, well, man,
Speaker 2: let's make this trade to win. A lot of the
Speaker 2: plan was let's make the trade and win a championship
Speaker 2: this season, which obviously didn't happen for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 2: And then they just fell ass backwards into unbelievably good fortune.
Speaker 2: And you know, look if if the tanking teams, the
Speaker 2: outright tankers, the full season tankers got punished and got
Speaker 2: you know, if Carmel was a factor there, I don't
Speaker 2: see how the Manix ended up with the first overall pick.
Speaker 2: But what this does is it totally bails them out
Speaker 2: a fan base that was outraged, that had been apathetic,
Speaker 2: It was just kind of turning toward apathy. Well, those
Speaker 2: folks are going to be excited again. They're going to
Speaker 2: be on board. They've not not just a generational talent,
Speaker 2: but an extraordinarily marketable talent. The long term concerns, oh,
Speaker 2: you traded your pitch from twenty seven to thirty building
Speaker 2: around Luca, building that founcing around Luca. What happens at
Speaker 2: the end of this three to four year time frame,
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, we're going to be given up top three,
Speaker 2: top five picks. Well, I don't think you have to
Speaker 2: worry about that now. You just got a gifted, an
Speaker 2: eighteen year old generational talent that you can build around
Speaker 2: for you know, they hope the next fifteen to twenty years.
Speaker 1: And as you reported, you know, because it was interesting,
Speaker 1: Like I listened to your guy Wendy last night and
Speaker 1: then watch some stuff on ESPN today and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation about what And I called this earlier today.
Speaker 1: I called last night one of the most consequential nights
Speaker 1: literally in the in NBA history.
Speaker 3: And only time will tell.
Speaker 1: It's the Tatum injury, it's the next getting a win,
Speaker 1: It's the lottery going down the way that it did.
Speaker 1: It's maybe honest is available, maybe Boston breaks it down.
Speaker 1: We'll get to San Antonio at too. But you're reporting
Speaker 1: Dallas is not going to move off of one and
Speaker 1: they are going to draft Cooper Flag.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And like I'm not sure what Nico Harrison's
Speaker 2: thoughts are, to be honest with you, but I'm telling
Speaker 2: you that that doesn't matter. Patrick Dumont, who just finished
Speaker 2: his first year as the Maths governor, who had the
Speaker 2: thing blow up in his face, who was looking at
Speaker 2: bleeding money for the foreseeable future, is not going to
Speaker 2: entertain We thought of potentially trading this pick for one second.
Speaker 2: Cooper Flag will be under Dallas Mavericks. Again, this is
Speaker 2: a gift. Course, they ain't looking at the mouth. This
Speaker 2: solves their massive business woes. It certainly mitigates the long
Speaker 2: term concerns of being out all those picks. Cooper Flag
Speaker 2: will be in Dallas.
Speaker 1: And I know you reference the portion of the intrawebs
Speaker 1: that actually believe this was Nico Harrison playing chessnut Checkers,
Speaker 1: which is beyond But let me ask you. Are MAVs
Speaker 1: fans now in a place where they, I don't know,
Speaker 1: don't want to show up at his house so.
Speaker 3: He doesn't have to have security.
Speaker 1: Is is this completely removing the heat from Nico Harrison
Speaker 1: as it pertains the way MAVs fans are feeling today.
Speaker 2: I you know, I don't think that it solves his
Speaker 2: relationship with the the fan base, but it does solve
Speaker 2: the will people show up to you know to games
Speaker 2: next year? Will people tune in on TV to watch
Speaker 2: this team? Look, Nico, he put himself in a spot
Speaker 2: where he's going to be the guy who backstabbed Luca. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know that's a Luke is always going to be
Speaker 2: beloved in Dallas. I don't know that fans are going
Speaker 2: to you know, they're they're they're not going to be uh,
Speaker 2: they're you know, they're they're not going to be chanting
Speaker 2: give Nico a raise. I can tell you that whether
Speaker 2: there's fire Nico chance or not again next year, I
Speaker 2: can't say, but I would say this, this is a
Speaker 2: This is a stroke of massive luck that I do
Speaker 2: think will absolutely change the vibe around the franchise. And
Speaker 2: what I think will happen is Nicol Harrison will no
Speaker 2: longer be a focal point for fans.
Speaker 3: Fair enough, so then it gets interesting it too with
Speaker 3: san Antonio.
Speaker 1: And you know, everything I read about Dylan Harper and
Speaker 1: everything I've watched about Dylan Harper indicates that he's gonna
Speaker 1: he has a chance.
Speaker 3: To be really good.
Speaker 1: Now, these are all young players, and you never know
Speaker 1: how it's gonna work out. San Antonio, you know, at
Speaker 1: this point is in a really really advantageous spot because
Speaker 1: of all of the assets they have not just now
Speaker 1: and moving forward, and some really exciting young players, and
Speaker 1: you know, does Dylan Harper provide some redundancy after acquiring
Speaker 1: Daron Fox? And you have Stefan Castle like they san Antonio.
Speaker 3: I mean, Dallas is the clear winner.
Speaker 1: But san Antonio comes out of this once again in
Speaker 1: a really great spot. Of course, the conversation turns to
Speaker 1: Giannis and anyone else that could be available. When you
Speaker 1: put Giannis next to whem Yama, it feels like it's
Speaker 1: completely unfair.
Speaker 3: But what do you think the Spurs do it too.
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 2: You know, miss Johnson now they're head coach. Uh talked
Speaker 2: to the media last night and he's the way he
Speaker 2: phrased it was that puts them in position to make
Speaker 2: a really big acquisition. I thought that was a very
Speaker 2: interesting phrase. And I definitely think that they've got you know,
Speaker 2: they've got two lout picks too, and what is it fourteen?
Speaker 2: I believe you know, they've got young talent on some
Speaker 2: of that young talents on its second contract. So there's
Speaker 2: the you know, they've got plenty of flexibility and assets.
Speaker 2: They've got extra picks down the road to Atlantis, which
Speaker 2: has some value, some significant value. I think the second
Speaker 2: of all pick is absolutely in play. Now it's not
Speaker 2: in play for anybody. I think it's in play for
Speaker 2: Gianness and you know, the honest wim be Fit, Holy moly, boy,
Speaker 2: like for all the reasons brook Lopez and Jiannis. You
Speaker 2: know brook Lopez is complimented Jannis so well, Wimby does
Speaker 2: that we has a superstar skills package, like are you
Speaker 2: kidding me?
Speaker 10: Weird?
Speaker 2: Defensively you want to try to score on the battanem
Speaker 2: and then offensively, you know, Winby can space it out
Speaker 2: to thirty open it up for you, honest, and then
Speaker 2: also have the ability to be a go to guy,
Speaker 2: Like if that happens, it could be pretty being scary.
Speaker 1: So the other teams that I've heard and I've heard
Speaker 1: you guys talk about this on the collective, Houston, of course,
Speaker 1: that had a great regular season, advanced to the postseason
Speaker 1: probably ahead of schedule for most certainly for me. And
Speaker 1: then Oklahoma City, which of course is going to be
Speaker 1: in the mix because of all the assets they have
Speaker 1: and all the great young players they have. So does
Speaker 1: this feel like Milwaukee can just kind of sit back
Speaker 1: and say, make us your best offer, and a bidding
Speaker 1: war could ensue for Giannis.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that Jannis is going to have significance,
Speaker 2: say on where he goes, and I think that there
Speaker 2: was an understanding when he signed this last extension if
Speaker 2: it just that point that they wouldn't they wouldn't trade
Speaker 2: him without giving him some say. My anticipation is number one,
Speaker 2: we don't know for certain that you honest is gonna
Speaker 2: ask to be moved, But should he do so, I
Speaker 2: think he will give them a probably a very short list,
Speaker 2: and I think the Bucks will respect his wishes and
Speaker 2: operate off that list. And you know, we'll see maybe
Speaker 2: those teams that you just mentioned are on the list,
Speaker 2: and then they you know, it does become the highest
Speaker 2: bitder type of situation. I would tell you this. I
Speaker 2: think it is ill advised to assume that Oklahoma City Thunder,
Speaker 2: the Oklahoma City Thunder will be involved here. They could
Speaker 2: if they could be right. They obviously have the assets.
Speaker 2: But I number one, okay See might be you know,
Speaker 2: about a month away from a parade in Bricktown, but
Speaker 2: I will be surprised if oka See makes a core
Speaker 2: altering trade this summer. I could be wrong not guaranteeing
Speaker 2: it doesn't that happen. I would be surprised.
Speaker 1: So the Tatum news, which became official about an hour ago,
Speaker 1: and it just it's it sucks.
Speaker 3: I mean, entering the prime of a.
Speaker 1: Career that's already been incredibly successful and he was so
Speaker 1: good at the Garden before going down with a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes left. You know, Mark Spears today said something
Speaker 1: that was interesting that he was told based off of
Speaker 1: new ownership in Boston, based off of payroll next year
Speaker 1: that's like two hundred and twenty four million, and you
Speaker 1: know second Apron, you know, economic liabilities with a punitive
Speaker 1: nature of the way the CBA is laid out that
Speaker 1: there were going to be changes in Boston anyway, and
Speaker 1: now the Tatum thing probably changes the entire scope I
Speaker 1: guess of the approach. Is there a chance that a
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown is available? Is there a chance that Derek
Speaker 1: White is available?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What do you think happens in Boston this offseason? And
Speaker 1: who are the players that could potentially get involved? You
Speaker 1: grab maybe some of the pieces they decide the shed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been pretty well understood throughout the league that
Speaker 2: this up is We're going to make some sort of
Speaker 2: cost cutting move this summer. Drew Holiday, frankly, is the
Speaker 2: one that I've heard most often as the possibility. Obviously,
Speaker 2: when you're looking at age, that makes sense, but you
Speaker 2: know whether it's him, whether it's you know, Porzingis, whether
Speaker 2: it's Janson Brown would be the most surprised to me,
Speaker 2: just because you know of the age, but he's biggest
Speaker 2: contract out of the non Tatum guys. What this does
Speaker 2: is basically what Boston is not going to repeat champions
Speaker 2: probably knocks them out of real contention next year, but
Speaker 2: they're still going to have a chance to contend the
Speaker 2: championships during the Tatum during the Tatum era, he's twenty seven,
Speaker 2: just turned twenty seven. She has to enter in his prime.
Speaker 2: The medical technology is better than it's ever been, you know.
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant is kind of exhibit a of just how
Speaker 2: strong guys can come back from it Achilles these days,
Speaker 2: and he's going to be six foot time, you know,
Speaker 2: with a great NBA body, with extraordinarily skill. I don't
Speaker 2: think Jason Tatum's days is a superstar done by any stretch,
Speaker 2: but this is obviously a massive blow to the Celtics
Speaker 2: over the next you know, two playoff cycles, and there's
Speaker 2: going to be big changed at Boston roster.
Speaker 1: Now to your earlier point, a lot of the offseason
Speaker 1: will be colored by the remainder of the postseason, which
Speaker 1: leads me to Cleveland. And I suppose if you're Cleveland,
Speaker 1: you can say, well, Darius wasn't right, we lost DeAndre
Speaker 1: Hunter and Evan Mobley, and you know, you can lean
Speaker 1: back on the injury stuff and the health stuff because
Speaker 1: by every metric, they had a historic regular season. Donovan
Speaker 1: Mitchell knows a thing or two about having historic regular seasons,
Speaker 1: and it looks like he is about to go home
Speaker 1: again after the second round. Is there a pivot in Cleveland?
Speaker 1: Do they look at these four and say, maybe it
Speaker 1: doesn't work or are they going to run it back?
Speaker 2: I would wade draw on them running it back. You
Speaker 2: know they obviously they didn't hit it last year and
Speaker 2: changed coaches. But from our officer standpoint, they didn't pivot
Speaker 2: last season. You know, I don't. I don't think you
Speaker 2: can just chalk this uping with other's entries and whatnot. Like, look,
Speaker 2: it looks like they're going to exit in the second round.
Speaker 2: That's a massive disappointment given the success they had in
Speaker 2: the regular season, which raises the standard. I think you've
Speaker 2: got to give it at least another year and say, hey,
Speaker 2: they showed during the regular season, this can be a
Speaker 2: contending caliber team. Didn't happen like you wanted to in
Speaker 2: the playoffs, but let's give this group another year, especially
Speaker 2: a group where you know, I think there's reasonable belief
Speaker 2: that Evan Mobley will continue to grow and develop and
Speaker 2: evolve as a player, and you know that there's a
Speaker 2: lot more upside to be had there.
Speaker 1: Are you ready to say that it's Indiana and New
Speaker 1: York and Eastern Conference Finals?
Speaker 2: I mean, certainly that's where I would put my bets.
Speaker 2: How's that for going on all in with those teams
Speaker 2: up three to one and they're being injury issues on
Speaker 2: the teams that are down three to one. I mean,
Speaker 2: it would be shocking at this point. And it's funny
Speaker 2: because if it ask them going in this series, I
Speaker 2: how to laugh at the possibility. But it's it certainly
Speaker 2: looks like that's what we're looking at. Middie Miller, you know,
Speaker 2: get all the old Regi Miller clips out Regi Miller
Speaker 2: versus Spike Lee and all that stuff. It looks like
Speaker 2: we're gonna get a repeat that.
Speaker 3: I'm with you.
Speaker 1: No part of me ever thought, you know, and mostly
Speaker 1: it was because of how much I respected Boston. But
Speaker 1: things have changed, and so we'll see how it plays out.
Speaker 1: We'll end with the game you're on tonight. But before
Speaker 1: we get there, you know, I felt like Golden State
Speaker 1: just needed to get one. You ball, Steph was on
Speaker 1: the sideline, and now it just kind of feels like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's possible for them to get
Speaker 1: Steph back and what's realistic to expect. But do you
Speaker 1: think they closed it out going back to the Twin Cities?
Speaker 2: I would think so. I mean, without staff is just
Speaker 2: a struggle for the Warriors to score. The thunder Wolves
Speaker 2: are obviously playing with an extreme amount of confidence. And
Speaker 2: you know, according to esp and research, when Rudy Gobert
Speaker 2: has a close that opportunity against the guy who's made
Speaker 2: a point of humiliating and during this postseason, he averages
Speaker 2: twenty seven points to twenty four rebounds, So look out.
Speaker 3: Dray mom Well said, all right, what do you think
Speaker 3: happens tonight?
Speaker 1: This Nuggets Okay series, OKAC series has been awesome and
Speaker 1: I don't even know which way to lean at this point. Tim,
Speaker 1: So where are you at with this series? And how
Speaker 1: do you think tonight plays out? Before I set you loose?
Speaker 2: Well, it's been an awesome competition. The game four, honestly
Speaker 2: was awful to watch, So let's not lie. That's I'm
Speaker 2: sitting there watching that thing in person, and my eyeballs
Speaker 2: are still aching. And it's a really tough spot for
Speaker 2: the Nuggets, man. Honestly, the silver lining for them is
Speaker 2: they were able to salvage a win during this stretch.
Speaker 2: Has been the worst shooting three game one of Nukoleok's career,
Speaker 2: and look, man, jokers capable of coming out tonight and
Speaker 2: getting you know, going to forty to fourteen and fourteen
Speaker 2: or whatever. He's that good. He's that great. But man,
Speaker 2: they're playing him tough. But Te's back for the Nuggets.
Speaker 2: They're not deep, They're an older team. Eight games, fifteen nights.
Speaker 2: It's a really, really tough spot for Denver against a
Speaker 2: team that won sixty eight games and best point difference
Speaker 2: from NBA history and goes ten deep by the start
Speaker 2: of every second quarter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's wild how many guys they have. They
Speaker 1: can play high level. All right, enjoy the game. Great
Speaker 1: work today and we'll chat soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks him, Appreciate you well.
Speaker 3: McMahon covers the NBA for ESPN.
Speaker 1: He technically is the ESPN guy on the Jazz Beats,
Speaker 1: But the past couple of years it's not a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about with the Jazz. Rough day man, no
Speaker 1: other way to put it. And Richard Smith is going
Speaker 1: to join us live in studio smid. He spent forty
Speaker 1: years with Utah Jazz, and he is going to take
Speaker 1: me to task for my opinion that the Jazz we're
Speaker 1: doing the right thing by losing games this year. Tim
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Speaker 11: Because the fans are used to coming to a game,
Speaker 11: no matter what it is, their son's high school game
Speaker 11: or the college game, whoever it is, and trying to
Speaker 11: watch your team put best it's best foot forward to
Speaker 11: try and win the game you're playing. And the Jazz
Speaker 11: didn't do that this year. Obviously, they held out guys
Speaker 11: who were healthy. They got fined along the way by
Speaker 11: the NBA for doing that. It's just it's just not
Speaker 11: a very good look to me for any organization that
Speaker 11: puts themselves in that position. They're not the only ones
Speaker 11: who were doing it, you know, several other teams were
Speaker 11: in that same kind of race, and the Jazz happened
Speaker 11: to win it by getting the worst record. So we'll
Speaker 11: see what happens on May twelfth when the lottery balls
Speaker 11: come up and see how that plays out for them.
Speaker 3: Awesome dynamite analysis. I'm not sure who that was. It
Speaker 3: sounded like Richard Smith.
Speaker 1: Well May twelfth, came and went yesterday, and the lottery
Speaker 1: balls did not fall in the favor of the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 3: Now, I will remind you the Jazz ended.
Speaker 1: Up with a pick that they were most likely to
Speaker 1: get based off the percentages, even though the reaction from
Speaker 1: folks around here is that the whole thing is rigged
Speaker 1: and the fixes in. But Richard Smith is live in
Speaker 1: studio during the four o'clock hour. My goodness, Smitty, one
Speaker 1: of the most truly one of the most consequential nights
Speaker 1: that the NBA has had in a long time for
Speaker 1: several reasons.
Speaker 3: But of course we'll start with your reaction to the
Speaker 3: Utah Jazz.
Speaker 1: I'll say, falling to five, they could not fall any
Speaker 1: further than five, but they fell as far as they could.
Speaker 3: Where you at with it today, Yeah.
Speaker 11: Well that's that's uh, that's what the numbers of your mathematician.
Speaker 11: That's what you would expect, you know, would most probably happen.
Speaker 11: Of course, you and I have bantered about this all
Speaker 11: all season long, Spence, and and you were in the
Speaker 11: tank group. No, no, no, no, I'm just I'm just
Speaker 11: reviewing what the facts are. And you know, people can
Speaker 11: take it for what they will you know, I've I've
Speaker 11: said all along and I'm not saying this in any
Speaker 11: way to pat myself on the back or anything, but
Speaker 11: I'm not just I just can't get on board with
Speaker 11: the whole idea that you try and manipulate the system, or,
Speaker 11: in my opinion the way I view it, you try
Speaker 11: and game the system to try and get an artificial
Speaker 11: advantage for something that's that's a professional sport where people
Speaker 11: are paid a lot of money and trained to try
Speaker 11: and perform at the highest level that they can in
Speaker 11: the night out and the jazz obviously, you know, we're
Speaker 11: we're in a in a situation where they didn't play
Speaker 11: healthy players and they wanted to be in the position
Speaker 11: they were in last night. And then I don't know
Speaker 11: if it's karma. I don't know if it's you know,
Speaker 11: you the old Jerry Sloan saying that most of the
Speaker 11: time in life you get what you earn, and you know,
Speaker 11: but you know a part of me, you know, I
Speaker 11: feel bad because I'm a jazz guy, and uh, I
Speaker 11: want them to do well. And I have a lot
Speaker 11: of friends who still work there and and work hard
Speaker 11: and try and do the right thing and all that
Speaker 11: but last night was was a telling tale that that
Speaker 11: you can't you know, just somehow manipulate these things to
Speaker 11: to put yourself in in a winning advantage and and
Speaker 11: and some somewhere in that spence, for me on a
Speaker 11: personal level, it just feels like, you know, this is
Speaker 11: this is what happened can happen to you when you
Speaker 11: try and and and not do what most people would
Speaker 11: consider the right thing, or to do it to the
Speaker 11: best of your ability, and and then you get something
Speaker 11: like what happened last night.
Speaker 1: Well, and to your point, and maybe it's time to
Speaker 1: start thinking about this a little differently. My assertion, uh
Speaker 1: continues to be that the Utah Jazz have to find
Speaker 1: a franchise pillar that wants to stay here for a while.
Speaker 3: And if we're honest, we haven't had that since John
Speaker 3: and Carl.
Speaker 1: We thought we added with Gordon, we thought we added
Speaker 1: with Darren, we thought we added with Donovan.
Speaker 3: How do they find that? Smitty, Well, what do you do? Well,
Speaker 3: that's always a trick.
Speaker 11: And and and the NBA the way it's set up,
Speaker 11: spencing the collective Bargain agreement, and and we've we've we've
Speaker 11: talked about this before and and Gordon Hayward and and
Speaker 11: uh is the perfect, a textbook example of how the
Speaker 11: system is set up to work, and that is that
Speaker 11: we've If you draft a guy and you develop him,
Speaker 11: and you like him, and he's your guy, you know,
Speaker 11: for the long term at least that's what you plan for,
Speaker 11: the team has control of that player basically for the
Speaker 11: first half of their career. In other words, if you
Speaker 11: like him and he's developing the way you want and
Speaker 11: you're building with him or around him, and you want
Speaker 11: to keep him long term, the team has control of
Speaker 11: him for a minimum of seven years. In other words,
Speaker 11: you got the four year rookie contract, and then he
Speaker 11: becomes a restricted free agent, so you as a ball
Speaker 11: club have the right to match any outside offer he
Speaker 11: might get in order to retain him. So he doesn't
Speaker 11: have any say in reality about where he plays the
Speaker 11: first seven years of his contract. The back half of
Speaker 11: the contract. Now the player controls where he wants to go.
Speaker 11: And that's exactly what Gordon Hayward did. He was here
Speaker 11: seven years, he had the player option for the eighth year,
Speaker 11: he opted out. He got to choose where he wanted
Speaker 11: to go, and he went off to Boston and obviously
Speaker 11: then then to Charlotte and and finished his career. Okay, see,
Speaker 11: but that's that's that's how it's set up to be. So,
Speaker 11: you know, a team like last night, you know, Dallas
Speaker 11: ends up winning the lottery a two percent chance to
Speaker 11: do it. That means they had basically two out of
Speaker 11: one hundred chants to get it, and they got it.
Speaker 11: And so okay, that's why, as I've heard you mentioned before,
Speaker 11: that's why they call it a lottery. And so they
Speaker 11: got the lottery ticket and they won it, and so
Speaker 11: Dallas will have the chance for the whoever they the
Speaker 11: presumptive number one pick. Everyone's assuming it's it's a Cooper flag.
Speaker 11: And if we make that assumption, they will have the
Speaker 11: control of a player like him for at least a
Speaker 11: minimum of seven years that they can play. And of
Speaker 11: course they try and get him in the system and
Speaker 11: get him to love them and blah blah blah, so
Speaker 11: that you end up with a you know, hopefully John
Speaker 11: Stockton or a Carl Malone type thing where you got
Speaker 11: the guy for fifteen or seventeen years or whatever if
Speaker 11: it works out.
Speaker 10: But it doesn't.
Speaker 11: Usually it doesn't work out like that. It usually works
Speaker 11: against you. But one of the things I wanted to
Speaker 11: mention Spence along with that. I don't know how you
Speaker 11: felt about this, but I'm watching the program last night
Speaker 11: and I was I found myself somewhat offended by or
Speaker 11: embarrassed by the way the league had all these players
Speaker 11: at the at the at this lottery, all the so
Speaker 11: called top pick players, and they paraded them out, and
Speaker 11: they had some of them in interviews before Hey, what
Speaker 11: do you think about the Lonny? What do you think
Speaker 11: you're the two kids from Rutgers? What do you think
Speaker 11: about kid? What do you think about yourself? You know,
Speaker 11: you know whatever? And all I could think of the
Speaker 11: whole time was has any did anybody watch the NFL draft?
Speaker 11: Did anybody pay any attention to all the stuff that
Speaker 11: was going on with Shador Sanders And he's supposed to
Speaker 11: be a top five pick and he ends up going
Speaker 11: on the third day, And how embarrassing that was for
Speaker 11: him and everybody else who was saying he's gonna be
Speaker 11: a top five guy. And hear the NBA of parading
Speaker 11: these guys. And now they bring Cooper fly to the
Speaker 11: to the table after the draft, and there every one
Speaker 11: of the guys on the table asked him a question
Speaker 11: directly about being a member of the Dallas Mavericks. And
Speaker 11: I'm sitting there going, did did I miss something? Was
Speaker 11: the draft tonight? Because I thought the draft was in
Speaker 11: six weeks. I mean, there's so much that can happen
Speaker 11: between now and June twenty sixth. And we presume that
Speaker 11: they're gonna keep the pick. We presume they're gonna take
Speaker 11: Cooper flag, but a lot of things can happen.
Speaker 10: Spence.
Speaker 11: Item A on the table is Yannis, and Yanna says,
Speaker 11: you know, maybe I'll look at some other stuff and whatever, now,
Speaker 11: you know. And I'm surprised I didn't read anything today
Speaker 11: where anybody said, oh, would if you were put in
Speaker 11: the position, would you trade the number one pick right
Speaker 11: now for Yannis?
Speaker 10: Would you do that?
Speaker 11: As an organization? You know, Like, I'm surprised nobody said that,
Speaker 11: because you know, Yannis is a real guy. He's already
Speaker 11: proven he's a real guy, and he's in his prime.
Speaker 11: And you're telling me, you know, teams wouldn't look and go, well,
Speaker 11: wait a minute, now, I'm going to take an eighteen
Speaker 11: year old kid from college, or I can have Yannis
Speaker 11: in his prime to go with my group because my
Speaker 11: job is to try and see if I can get
Speaker 11: us to a championship level.
Speaker 10: Like, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 11: I think it's just that's an interesting question to me.
Speaker 11: But I even heard that, And that's because everybody on
Speaker 11: the broadcast I was doing the whole broadcast aimed at
Speaker 11: Cooper flag is number one, and he's going, whoever gets
Speaker 11: number one, and that's it, and we're all in on it,
Speaker 11: and his parents are there, and everybody's sitting there, and
Speaker 11: I'm going, does somebody have Deon Sanders number? Because somebody
Speaker 11: should call him and say, hey, how is this for
Speaker 11: you guys? When it didn't happen on the first day
Speaker 11: of the draft, and then it didn't happen on the
Speaker 11: second day of the I mean, I just thought that
Speaker 11: was I don't know.
Speaker 10: I know it's TV.
Speaker 11: I know they're doing it for TV, but I just
Speaker 11: I thought that was so egregious by the NBA making
Speaker 11: all these presumptions about what they think is already going
Speaker 11: to take place six weeks from now.
Speaker 10: For some reason, I just found that at a little distasteful.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a good angle to take because you've been
Speaker 1: part of rooms for a number of different years, namely
Speaker 1: four decades, where you do have to make decisions, and
Speaker 1: sometimes the decisions you make are completely counter to what
Speaker 1: everyone on the on the outside looking in believes is
Speaker 1: going to happen.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Tim McMahon, it was our guest last hour, wrote a
Speaker 1: piece for the dot com side. It also is ESPN,
Speaker 1: who's a partner with the NBA, of course, quoting Patrick
Speaker 1: Demond saying we're not trading one and we are taking
Speaker 1: Cooper Flag.
Speaker 3: But the reason why I like this angle is, look.
Speaker 1: Man, I can read all of the Jonathan Gavoni mock
Speaker 1: drafts I want, and I can read all the guys
Speaker 1: over at the Athletic do a really good job. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of really good NBA writers who
Speaker 1: cover the draft and scouts who dig into this in
Speaker 1: a way that I just don't day to day because
Speaker 1: I have four hours of radio to do, so I
Speaker 1: do lean on them, and you know, ultimately, at least
Speaker 1: Gavoni has been very consistent that the order is Cooper flag.
Speaker 3: Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey and VJ.
Speaker 1: Edgecombe and gavoni assertion is if you have one of
Speaker 1: the top four picks in this draft. You have a
Speaker 1: chance to draft the player that should be very special
Speaker 1: for you for a long time. But I feel like
Speaker 1: I hear that every year and then there's a Kawhi
Speaker 1: mid first round or even Steph goes seven and Steph
Speaker 1: is generational.
Speaker 3: The best player in the world was the second round pick.
Speaker 1: So for the Chicken Little Crew and saw Lake to
Speaker 1: believe the sky is falling, help us understand why it
Speaker 1: might not be falling.
Speaker 11: Well, Spencer's a couple of things. One is the Jazz
Speaker 11: fell to number five, right, so they're gonna be you know,
Speaker 11: they have the fifth pick. And that was also another
Speaker 11: thing the Assistant commission by Commissioner.
Speaker 3: Martatum.
Speaker 11: Tatum sorry, he he kept fascilating back and forth when
Speaker 11: he was saying who the picks were by using the
Speaker 11: phrase the number five pick will be taken by the
Speaker 11: Utah Jazz, and I kept thinking, well, you don't know
Speaker 11: if the Utah Jazz are going to take number five.
Speaker 11: The the number five pick will be going to the
Speaker 11: Utah Jazz. It should be the phrase and be kept
Speaker 11: going back and for that, you know, a little semantic.
Speaker 11: And that's that's what I spend my nights doing. That
Speaker 11: was picking apart that kind of stuff. But anyway, but
Speaker 11: but look at this, for example, Spence the most recent
Speaker 11: in the last decade, the number five picks in the
Speaker 11: draft going backwards, okay, starting last year. And you can
Speaker 11: tell me you need jerk reaction. You like them, you
Speaker 11: don't like them. They made it, they didn't make it,
Speaker 11: you know whatever. The thing is, number five picks. Ron
Speaker 11: Holland in Detroit wildly still out, Onsar Thompson love it Detroit,
Speaker 11: Jade and Ivy. Yeah, by the way, straight number five
Speaker 11: picks in Detroit and they were That's exactly right, That's
Speaker 11: exactly right. Jalen Suggs in Orlando, mixed results, Isaac a carokay,
Speaker 11: Cleveland not great, Darius Garland like him, Trey Young.
Speaker 1: I don't like Trey as much, which some people. I
Speaker 1: don't hate Tree as much as something. Hey, the Aaron Fox,
Speaker 1: I'd say that's a win at five. Former jazz man
Speaker 1: Chris Dunn probably not the pick.
Speaker 11: Marioizzonia, same thing, okay, Alex lenn this is not going
Speaker 11: well Smith Thomas Robinson.
Speaker 3: When do we get to the Kevin Garnetts and the Trois.
Speaker 10: Okay, the Marcus Cousins, Ricky Rubio. Okay.
Speaker 11: So the point being, you got some hits, you got
Speaker 11: some missus, Okay, at number five. That's what happens. Flip
Speaker 11: it around. Okay, we're watching the playoffs now right. Here's
Speaker 11: names for you of guys who are contributing, guys on
Speaker 11: playoff teams.
Speaker 10: That are still alive, which is what you want. Okay.
Speaker 11: These are the guys who are still helping to drive
Speaker 11: the bus at this point in time, the middle of May,
Speaker 11: in the NBA playoffs, and where they were taken in
Speaker 11: the draft. Jalen Brunson thirty three, YEP, Michael bridget ten,
Speaker 11: Peyton Pritchard twenty six, Max Struce undrafted, YEP, Podzemski nineteen,
Speaker 11: Jokic forty one, Rudy Gobert twenty seven, Jane McDaniels twenty eight,
Speaker 11: Josh Hart thirty, nas Reid undrafted. Point being what you
Speaker 11: can find players anywhere in the draft or even not
Speaker 11: in the draft, as we just said with Struce, naz
Speaker 11: Reid and former Jazz man Wesley Matthews, who had a
Speaker 11: terrific career being undrafted. But as an organization, you have
Speaker 11: to you have to be able to find them. You
Speaker 11: have to evaluate them accurately. You have to value what
Speaker 11: they can bring to a team, and then you have
Speaker 11: to make an assessment if that, if that, adding a
Speaker 11: player like that to your group is going to make sense.
Speaker 11: So this whole thing, you know, last everybody's disappointed. I
Speaker 11: was disappointed.
Speaker 10: I get it.
Speaker 11: You know, people are jumping off the bridges and whatever,
Speaker 11: you know, because the Jazz didn't get the number one pick.
Speaker 11: But they're going to get a good player if they
Speaker 11: evaluate accurately, and as always Spence, only time will tell that,
Speaker 11: but they will have the opportunity amongst a handful of
Speaker 11: players that they like and evaluate very critically to add
Speaker 11: someone to their group. They're also going to be picking
Speaker 11: twenty one from Minnesota. At least they have the twenty
Speaker 11: one pick. So you know, we just mentioned a bunch
Speaker 11: of guys who were picked after twenty one. Jalen Brunson, Prichard, Struce, Jokic,
Speaker 11: Rudy McDaniels, Josh Hart, and Nazreid. All those guys went
Speaker 11: after twenty one.
Speaker 13: Right.
Speaker 11: So the point, my belabored point is you can find guys,
Speaker 11: and you can find more than one guy that can
Speaker 11: actually help and add to your in what you're trying
Speaker 11: to do, but you have to evaluate that in the
Speaker 11: right frame, and you have to be able to have
Speaker 11: a group that believes in what they're doing and be
Speaker 11: able to go go find those guys and how to
Speaker 11: procure them. And that's gonna be the interesting part over
Speaker 11: the next six week process between now and June twenty sixth,
Speaker 11: which is the draft day.
Speaker 1: Tim McMahon is on TV. He was just on our
Speaker 1: show fifteen minutes ago. Look at that, all right, McMahon.
Speaker 11: See see everybody tries to use you, Spence as the
Speaker 11: stepping starts true, they come here, true, and then boom
Speaker 11: fifteen minutes later, Doron t You won't see me doing that, Spence.
Speaker 1: No, I appreciume with you. I appreciate with you. Okay,
Speaker 1: Porter's using me as a step inside.
Speaker 9: I know this.
Speaker 11: I'm riding with you. I don't just run to eat.
Speaker 11: Oh did you say yes, pans On Spence, Sorry, I
Speaker 11: gotta go yes, yes, pans On.
Speaker 1: The final I know you're lied to be all right,
Speaker 1: at the risk of insulting your intelligence, here we go
Speaker 1: only because you worked in the league for forty years.
Speaker 1: Let me put the caveat on the question before I
Speaker 1: ask it. Yes that no party me believes any of
Speaker 1: this stuff is rigged, never have, never will.
Speaker 3: But it is a rite of passage for NBA fans
Speaker 3: this time of year. Who is there?
Speaker 1: Who are fans of a certain team that they perceive
Speaker 1: to be that they perceive got screwed. Right, So it
Speaker 1: ultimately depends on who you cheer for. There are no
Speaker 1: Dallas Maverick fans today that believe the lottery is rigged.
Speaker 1: They just believe they got lucky. San Antonio just wants
Speaker 1: the lottery to continue because you know they built dynasties
Speaker 1: on lottery luck.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And by the way, non seculitor.
Speaker 1: If there is an example that the lottery isn't rigged,
Speaker 1: it's that San Antonio, Texas has been the biggest beneficiar ever. Okay,
Speaker 1: but for the jazz fan listeners today, that's say little
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City Jazz moved down last year, the jazz
Speaker 1: moved down this year. Ten lottery appearances. We've never moved up.
Speaker 1: The fixes in What do you say.
Speaker 11: To them, It's, well, it's insulting anybody's intelligence, I know
Speaker 11: out the the NB Yeah, I mean, but but look,
Speaker 11: you know, people want to and and I think you're right.
Speaker 11: I heard you earlier say something about you know, we
Speaker 11: always want to blame somebody else. You know, this is
Speaker 11: this is the Trump's n b A, if you will, right, Like,
Speaker 11: it didn't go your way, so we got to find
Speaker 11: somebody else to blame, that's right.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so you know, which is obviously ridiculous.
Speaker 11: I know you had I know you had Andy Larson
Speaker 11: on the last hour, and and he was in the
Speaker 11: room and and he saw the pingbound balls, and and
Speaker 11: I saw a fascinating article. Someone who else was also
Speaker 11: in the room wrote wrote a piece. It might have
Speaker 11: been Andy, I'm not sure that I wrote read late
Speaker 11: last night about exactly how the balls came up there
Speaker 11: were it wasn't, yeah, and and recounting how the numbers
Speaker 11: were and all that kind of stuff, and and uh,
Speaker 11: you know, look that that's why it's a lot of
Speaker 11: this this stuff happens, you know there the jazz just
Speaker 11: didn't get lucky. You you know, you work all year
Speaker 11: to try and get that blunt. And look, Spencer, we've
Speaker 11: talked about this, and I use this example with you,
Speaker 11: you know, a while ago on this show. I don't
Speaker 11: know who else would would take a fourteen percent chance
Speaker 11: and put all their chips in the middle of the table.
Speaker 10: You don't go in.
Speaker 11: You don't go into Caesar's palace and they say, hey, hey,
Speaker 11: come on over to the table here, son, We're going
Speaker 11: to give you a fourteen percent chance to win some
Speaker 11: big money tonight. You go, wow, what table is that?
Speaker 11: I want to go to that table? Like, you know,
Speaker 11: nobody does that, I mean, so so, you know, And
Speaker 11: then I read with Justin Zanik, you know, said after
Speaker 11: the draft, you know, we knew going in that, you know,
Speaker 11: we had a fourteen percent chance to get the thing,
Speaker 11: which meant we were also having eighty six percent chance
Speaker 11: not to get it.
Speaker 10: And we're prepared for this. I'm not sure if I'm
Speaker 10: sure they knew that.
Speaker 11: Obviously they know all those kinds of things, but I
Speaker 11: think everybody was hoping against hope that this would happen
Speaker 11: for them. Hey, the people in Washington were doing the
Speaker 11: exact same thing. Yeah, they had the one game better
Speaker 11: than the Jazz on the last second shot in the
Speaker 11: last game of the season whatever, and they had a
Speaker 11: fourteen percent chance and they went from possibly one to six.
Speaker 11: The Jazz went from possibly one to five. Yeah, and
Speaker 11: Charlotte dropped the spot. So Pelicans dropped to seven. Yes,
Speaker 11: they dropped two. Yeah, And so you know that's just
Speaker 11: what the lottery is. It made for great TV for
Speaker 11: half an hour, okay. But the interesting thing is that
Speaker 11: great TV for half an hour quickly turned the fortunes
Speaker 11: of one group, which was the Dallas Mavericks.
Speaker 10: Into a big plus.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 11: They sent people like the Washington Wizards a group and
Speaker 11: the Utah Jazz Group going out the side door with
Speaker 11: their heads hung low because they're all disappointed because they
Speaker 11: were hoping against hope that that would this would work
Speaker 11: out for them and it didn't. And you know, I,
Speaker 11: as we've we've talked about before, Spence, it's I don't
Speaker 11: get it.
Speaker 10: That's just me.
Speaker 11: I did these things for a lot of years. I
Speaker 11: was in these draft rooms. I was, you know, in
Speaker 11: discussions with how we're gonna move up and down and
Speaker 11: out and in and all this stuff. And you know
Speaker 11: the fact that you spend a whole year positioning yourself
Speaker 11: purposely to be in a spot where you are going
Speaker 11: to the the poker table, you're going to the blackjack table,
Speaker 11: and they're telling you, hey, for all of your effort
Speaker 11: and all of your hard earned money. Son, We're gonna
Speaker 11: give you a fourteen percent chance to win tonight. Sit
Speaker 11: right down, we're gonna get your ginger ale.
Speaker 10: And here we go. And like who would do that?
Speaker 10: Like I, I just don't get it.
Speaker 11: And unfortunately it didn't work out for the Jazz And
Speaker 11: now they're they're trying to regroup.
Speaker 10: They're going to get a good player at five. Not
Speaker 10: gonna get a Cooper Flag.
Speaker 11: They're not gonna get a Dylan Harper, all right, but
Speaker 11: they're gonna get a good player unless they come up
Speaker 11: with something else. There's a lot of things that can
Speaker 11: happen between now and the draft day. They got six
Speaker 11: weeks to try and move up if that's what they
Speaker 11: want to do. Put a package together with another team,
Speaker 11: work with three teams, you know, move the balls around,
Speaker 11: do something, you know, to position themselves differently, if that's
Speaker 11: the way they see it. Danny Ainge has been known
Speaker 11: to do that in the past, and so he may
Speaker 11: have some ideas about, you know, how to be able
Speaker 11: to uh work this in his in his favor to
Speaker 11: the to the Jazz's benefit, and only time will tell.
Speaker 11: But it certainly puts them, you know, behind a bigger
Speaker 11: ball if you will in the next six weeks, then
Speaker 11: they would have been if they had come out, you know,
Speaker 11: with what they what they deemed to be the top prize.
Speaker 1: All right, before we catch a break, one more question
Speaker 1: here coming up next, we'll talk about some of the optionality,
Speaker 1: which is the buzzword in pro basketball. The Jazz do
Speaker 1: have with Giannis reportedly open to being traded and the
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum news that the Achilles is ruptured.
Speaker 3: Does Boston try to pivot move on?
Speaker 1: Could the Jazz get involved in any of these discussions
Speaker 1: to maybe expedite the process a little bit, or will
Speaker 1: next year look a lot like this year did?
Speaker 3: But before we catch break, and I don't know this,
Speaker 3: but in order to be.
Speaker 1: Fair, and yes, I cannot debate or argue with you
Speaker 1: my opinion of what I thought the Jazz should do
Speaker 1: right out of the gates when they traded Donovan and Rudy.
Speaker 1: If that was your decision to jettison Donovan, Rudy, Bogdanovitch, Conley, O'Neil,
Speaker 1: the whole group in Quinn Leaves and Dennis Leaves, my
Speaker 1: opinion was you do have to go all in in
Speaker 1: one direction of the other. That's my opinion, okay, and
Speaker 1: I will not change that opinion. But based off of
Speaker 1: what they elected to do this year, is it only
Speaker 1: fair to assume that they did try to get a
Speaker 1: mckel bridges or a Paul George or whatever it was
Speaker 1: last last offseason, and when their best laid plans disintegrated,
Speaker 1: this was kind of their only course.
Speaker 3: Is that fair to assume?
Speaker 10: I don't know, Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 11: You know, you're always trying to find a quicker way
Speaker 11: to get on the on the in the fast lane
Speaker 11: on the highway, right, so so you're always trying to
Speaker 11: improve your team. You know, there's no such thing as
Speaker 11: a six year, a seven year and eight year you know,
Speaker 11: rebuilding a time frame. Nobody puts an artificial time limit
Speaker 11: on how long this is supposed to take. Because in
Speaker 11: the perfect world, something would happen for you tomorrow that
Speaker 11: would make you go from you know, the seven Celtics
Speaker 11: to the eight Celtics, right from the bottom of the
Speaker 11: league to winning a championship in one year because of
Speaker 11: some moves that you're able to make. That was a
Speaker 11: Danny Ainge deal where he was able to parlay you know,
Speaker 11: a disappointment where he felt like they were hoping to
Speaker 11: get the top pick. They were hoping to get the
Speaker 11: second pick at that year, which happened to be the
Speaker 11: Greg Oden Kevin Durant draft.
Speaker 10: They didn't.
Speaker 11: They moved, They moved down like the Jazz did last night,
Speaker 11: ended up moving back to five. They didn't like that
Speaker 11: spot in the draft. Danny Ainge was able to move
Speaker 11: that pick to end up getting Ray Allen to come
Speaker 11: from Seattle, and then in a different move, was able
Speaker 11: to move some picks, move some other guys to Minnesota
Speaker 11: to get Kevin Garnett, and all of a sudden, you've
Speaker 11: got Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce and you
Speaker 11: go from being a bottom five team in the league
Speaker 11: to winning the championship twelve months later. So everybody wants
Speaker 11: to do that type of thing. The Jazz they what
Speaker 11: they have done successfully to this point is they put
Speaker 11: themselves in a position, as you mentioned a minute ago,
Speaker 11: you know the favorite word optionality or flexibility, to be
Speaker 11: able to do a number of different things depending on
Speaker 11: what's presented to you. Forty eight hours ago, you would
Speaker 11: have never thought there was anything that could ever, you know,
Speaker 11: impermeate the Boston Celtics roster right because they've got a
Speaker 11: good group. It's a high paid group, it costs a
Speaker 11: lot of money, but they're a top five NBA team,
Speaker 11: the reigning champions, you know, and all of that. Now
Speaker 11: Jason Tatum goes out as a ruptured Achilles more than likely,
Speaker 11: you know, most estimations are that he would more than
Speaker 11: likely miss the whole of next year. So that puts
Speaker 11: a big hole there where he's out. So now you're
Speaker 11: paying a lot of money to a lot of guys,
Speaker 11: and how much does that damage what you've planned to
Speaker 11: do because he's in his prime. So now do you
Speaker 11: just wait it out if you're the Celtic, or do
Speaker 11: you say, well, we can't do this. They got a
Speaker 11: new ownership group in place, and it's costing him a
Speaker 11: lot of money and salaries, luxury tax and penalties. So
Speaker 11: do they look at it and go, well, we may
Speaker 11: have to do something different, and so maybe we get
Speaker 11: rid of Jalen Brown, and maybe we get rid of
Speaker 11: Drew Holliday, and maybe we get rid of you know,
Speaker 11: whatever it is. Because we can't sit around and just
Speaker 11: wait and hope Tatum comes back to be the old
Speaker 11: Tatum that he was yep, And so that becomes something
Speaker 11: on the table. So now the Jazz are sitting there
Speaker 11: at the bus stop, so to speak, with a big
Speaker 11: basket of draft picks and players that they're willing to
Speaker 11: trade because they don't care because at the moment, you know,
Speaker 11: the guys they've got, whether they like him, they don't
Speaker 11: like them, and they're in the middle or something on
Speaker 11: their own guys, you know, they're not winning, so it
Speaker 11: doesn't matter. So everybody's in play. So whether it's your
Speaker 11: players or your your treasure trove of picks, you you
Speaker 11: are in a position to go to Boston and say,
Speaker 11: what are you thinking? I don't know, we probably gotta
Speaker 11: do something with Jaln Brown. Okay, what's it gonna take?
Speaker 11: You know, five draft picks, Lowry Marketing and this guy
Speaker 11: or that guy whatever, And so you're in position to
Speaker 11: pounce on something like that.
Speaker 10: Is it something like that that may come up? We
Speaker 10: don't know.
Speaker 11: Is it something like Phoenix, which is around the corner
Speaker 11: that probably has to do something with Durant and Beale
Speaker 11: in some way, shape or form, because that's obviously not working.
Speaker 11: Is it something that involves Giannis who wants to go
Speaker 11: somewhere else, and it may not be the Jazz, but
Speaker 11: the Jazz may be a third team that helps something
Speaker 11: get involved. All of those things are in play spence,
Speaker 11: so so that's that's the one thing that Jazz have
Speaker 11: going for them is they've got a lot of open
Speaker 11: doors that they could walk through depending on what presents
Speaker 11: itself to them in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: The world of professional golf turns inside of the PGA
Speaker 1: Championship at Quell Hoilo coming up this weekend.
Speaker 3: One year ago today, well not one year ago today,
Speaker 3: but one year.
Speaker 1: Ago Smitty PGA Championship Scotti Scheffler arrested prior to round two,
Speaker 1: which was just so wild. Richard Smith is live in studio,
Speaker 1: Jordan Speith going for the career Grand Slam coming up
Speaker 1: this weekend after Rory McElroy was able to grab it
Speaker 1: with his green jacket.
Speaker 3: All right, Smitty.
Speaker 1: Of course, the big news of the day today that
Speaker 1: we've been dissecting so far as the Utah Jazz will
Speaker 1: draft number five in the upcoming NBA Draft down June
Speaker 1: the twenty fifth.
Speaker 3: Shamsherarnia reporting that.
Speaker 1: The Jazz will try to be very active to move
Speaker 1: up in set NBA drafts. I've had a lot of
Speaker 1: friends reach alie, Hey, can they just move up and
Speaker 1: draft Cooper Flag at one? I'm like, well, you have
Speaker 1: to have the other general manager agreed to the deal
Speaker 1: in place. Like, yes, in theory, just do that, But
Speaker 1: what are what are the conversations like when it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, we like this guy at three, but we're
Speaker 1: at five. Can we get to three? Or we kind
Speaker 1: of like the guy that might be at seven? Can
Speaker 1: we move down to seven and grab a couple of
Speaker 1: other assets? Like what does that sound like?
Speaker 11: Well, you know, it reminds me suspense you say that
Speaker 11: about just moving up, you know. Frank Laydon said he
Speaker 11: one time got a call from someone who a very
Speaker 11: influential person in the community, said, hey, Hi, great, I
Speaker 11: do we have a good young team with that Stockton
Speaker 11: kid and the Malone guy. You know, you know would
Speaker 11: be really good with them, would be uh, would be
Speaker 11: Patrick Ewing. You know, you guys should get Patrick Ewing.
Speaker 11: And Frank said, really, he goes, that's that's a good idea.
Speaker 11: He goes, Now, how do you suggest we do that? Well,
Speaker 11: you just call call New York, you know, and and
Speaker 11: they're gonna give us Patrick Ewing.
Speaker 10: He goes like, you.
Speaker 3: Guys like rich Rich Kelly. In the second for Patrick.
Speaker 11: Shout out to Rich Kelly's that's one of my guys,
Speaker 11: Rich Kelly.
Speaker 3: Yes, so Smittie.
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, if I just asked you for your
Speaker 1: best guess as far as what next year is going
Speaker 1: to look like, because you know, again, Adam Silver and
Speaker 1: the NBA in twenty nineteen decided to flatten the lottery
Speaker 1: odds and was their motivation to dissuade teams from tanking.
Speaker 1: Probably they also put some financial things into place that
Speaker 1: make your overspending very punitive. So great teams like the
Speaker 1: Nuggets we've seen lose some players. The Warriors had to
Speaker 1: make a decision on Clay Phoenix as you referenced. Boston,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about, well maybe jettison off from some
Speaker 1: of their talent players. Do the Jazz have what it
Speaker 1: takes to potentially do what Danny Ainge said two summers
Speaker 1: ago and go big game hunting to get some good players.
Speaker 1: So therefore next year you're not insulting the integrity of
Speaker 1: the game by intentionally losing every night. And as you
Speaker 1: said earlier, Fate Karma, I don't know I don't know
Speaker 1: nothing about nothing.
Speaker 3: Is that stuff real? Maybe?
Speaker 1: But twenty nineteen lottery odds flattens. Six drafts later, the
Speaker 1: worst team in the NBA has not received the number
Speaker 1: one pick since. So just best guess. What do you
Speaker 1: think the offseason looks like? And what do you think
Speaker 1: next season looks like for Jazz fans?
Speaker 11: Well, again, I think the Jazz have a lot of
Speaker 11: stuff they they can propose, you know, again, to beat
Speaker 11: the dead horse. You know Danny's famous comment about we're
Speaker 11: gonna go big game hunting. And we've said this before, Spence,
Speaker 11: you can go big game hunting.
Speaker 10: You can.
Speaker 11: You can tell your wife on Friday, Hey, I'm going
Speaker 11: up in the mountains and I'm gonna get a bag
Speaker 11: of big, big buck and I'm gonna bring it back
Speaker 11: and we're gonna have deer meat all winter or whatever.
Speaker 11: And you go up and you come back at the
Speaker 11: end of the weekend and you have nothing, and your wife,
Speaker 11: I thought you were going. I thought you were going
Speaker 11: big game. Well I did, and where's the big game.
Speaker 11: I didn't get him. You didn't see him. I saw him,
Speaker 11: but I didn't get them, you know, And whatever I mean,
Speaker 11: that's you know, the Jazz are gonna do that. They're
Speaker 11: gonna do a version of that this spring and summer.
Speaker 11: They're gonna try and do a lot of different things
Speaker 11: that can improve their team quickly. Uh, They're gonna have
Speaker 11: some some opportunities to look at stuff. You know, you
Speaker 11: always need a trade partner, You need someone who has
Speaker 11: sometimes a different motivation than you. So it may be
Speaker 11: a team that is trying to get out from a
Speaker 11: high paid player who's a good player, but it just
Speaker 11: isn't working.
Speaker 13: I e.
Speaker 10: The Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 11: It may be something, you know, where a top line
Speaker 11: player just needs a change of scenery and the team
Speaker 11: that has them under contract feels like they need a
Speaker 11: change of scenery because it just isn't working the way
Speaker 11: they thought, i e.
Speaker 10: Milwaukee.
Speaker 11: It could be you know, from a couple of years ago,
Speaker 11: you know when the Brooklyn Nets look like they were
Speaker 11: going to be running the NBA for five, six, seven
Speaker 11: years with Durant and Harden and and and Kyrie Irving,
Speaker 11: and those three guys played a total of sixteen games
Speaker 11: together during their time in Brooklyn, which is unfathomable now
Speaker 11: when you look back on it, and it just didn't work.
Speaker 11: And so they were trying to get rid of each
Speaker 11: one of those guys in different, different fashion. So those
Speaker 11: kinds of things can come up. You don't know tomorrow
Speaker 11: if they're going to happen. You don't know next week
Speaker 11: if it's gonna happen. But if you're prepared to be
Speaker 11: able to react, you might have some stuff you might
Speaker 11: be able to do. You couple it with a draft pick,
Speaker 11: with two draft picks, with one of your guys, with
Speaker 11: three of your guys, whatever it is, and you can
Speaker 11: make over your team somewhat quickly, as we mentioned earlier
Speaker 11: what Danny Ainge did in seven the Summer of seven
Speaker 11: with the Boston Celtics. But a lot of things have
Speaker 11: to fall into place. But the situation the Jazz are
Speaker 11: in now, as much as you don't like the way
Speaker 11: they lost and the way they were the worst team
Speaker 11: this year and a lot of metrics and a lot
Speaker 11: of the analytics said that they were really bad. So
Speaker 11: from the Jazz perspective, in that regard, you don't have
Speaker 11: anything to lose, Like you're not giving up something that ooh,
Speaker 11: I don't know if we can give away this, because
Speaker 11: that may damage what we've been doing so far because
Speaker 11: we haven't done anything so far, so in that regard,
Speaker 11: you know, the door's wide open, and they could do
Speaker 11: a lot of things, and a lot of things would
Speaker 11: have to fall their way and would have to some
Speaker 11: things within their ability to control, they could do that.
Speaker 11: There's some things that may have to just fall in
Speaker 11: their lap that are beyond their control, that just happened
Speaker 11: to them or become present to them to take advantage of.
Speaker 11: But those are all things that they're going to look
Speaker 11: at and all things that Danny Inge has used to
Speaker 11: doing and has done before and has shown that he's
Speaker 11: not shy about making those kinds of decisions. And we
Speaker 11: just see it here spends with the Jazz in the
Speaker 11: situation they're in now because Danny Hinch came in in
Speaker 11: the first twelve months he was on the job with
Speaker 11: the Jazz, you know, jettisoned the whole thing that that
Speaker 11: was in place then and decided to start over. So
Speaker 11: we know that he has he has the uh, the
Speaker 11: intestinal fortitude and the guts to make those kind of
Speaker 11: decisions and not blink and so so will he have opportunities,
Speaker 11: will they be able to execute them? Will there be
Speaker 11: things that that he uh, he can act upon but
Speaker 11: needs other people to cooperate. All those things are movable parts,
Speaker 11: and those are those are the things that become exciting
Speaker 11: and at the same time become frustrating when you're trying
Speaker 11: to get something done.
Speaker 3: So do you think next year will look a lot
Speaker 3: like this season did?
Speaker 10: Well? I think that.
Speaker 11: I think they're going to try and make it look
Speaker 11: a lot different in terms of making some moves. Whether
Speaker 11: it's a draft, whether it's a free agent thing, whether
Speaker 11: it's trades, Whether they get stuff done on any of
Speaker 11: those fronts or all of them, remains to be seen.
Speaker 11: And I but I think, you know, if they just
Speaker 11: if they don't get anything done, and they just go
Speaker 11: through this draft and and and pick whoever they get
Speaker 11: and try and develop them, then I think they could
Speaker 11: be in for another type of season next year because
Speaker 11: that they've had this year. Because Spence, to your point earlier,
Speaker 11: everybody in the NBA is looking to be one of
Speaker 11: the top five teams in the league that has a
Speaker 11: serious chance of competing all year long and through the playoffs,
Speaker 11: or you want to be one of the five worst
Speaker 11: teams to have a chance. Like last night, Okay, they
Speaker 11: did that part didn't work out. Okay, that's one big
Speaker 11: swing and mess. Okay, that happened, But you don't want
Speaker 11: to be one of the one of the twenty teams
Speaker 11: that's in between those two areas what we always would
Speaker 11: refer to with the gray area, because those are the
Speaker 11: teams that either they're fooling themselves because they're a eight nine,
Speaker 11: ten type team or they're a twenty twenty one, twenty
Speaker 11: two type team and they want to convince themselves that
Speaker 11: they're better than they really are and they have a
Speaker 11: chance to compete when they really don't.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 11: A current example of that to me is somebody like
Speaker 11: the Atlanta Hawks, who you know, maybe the Miami Heat,
Speaker 11: although the Heat broke through a couple of years ago
Speaker 11: and and you know, got to the finals and you know,
Speaker 11: but they had some breaks to get through that, but
Speaker 11: it worked. But sometimes you can fool yourself into thinking
Speaker 11: you're one of those guys. You don't want to be
Speaker 11: in that gray area because you're just trading water. So
Speaker 11: if you can make some moves, then then you look
Speaker 11: at that with a strong eye to try and get
Speaker 11: better quickly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the irony in what you're saying is the number
Speaker 1: ten team in the Western Conference here this year was
Speaker 1: the Dallas Mavericks, who now own the number one overall pick.
Speaker 1: There you go, and so you know now that we have,
Speaker 1: you know, after they flattened the lottery odds in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people said, Okay, well, let's
Speaker 1: wait and see how this looks. And now that we
Speaker 1: have six drafts in six lotteries behind us, and the
Speaker 1: data now says tanking does not guarantee you anything.
Speaker 3: In the NFL, it does, Okay, it's inverse order. Period.
Speaker 3: They reward teams that are horrible.
Speaker 1: Ironically enough, teams like my Jets do not seem to
Speaker 1: ever find their way out of that group. But in
Speaker 1: pro basketball, the data is in that you can tank
Speaker 1: all you want, and if you think that's the right
Speaker 1: way to roll, then you can roll that way. And yes,
Speaker 1: your percentages are slightly higher than the teams behind you.
Speaker 1: But now that we know that guarantees nothing, is it
Speaker 1: time to maybe consider a paradigm shift for the teams
Speaker 1: like the Jazz or Washington or whoever that clearly have
Speaker 1: been unseerious about winning.
Speaker 11: Now for a minute, well, I don't know the lottery
Speaker 11: I think, I mean, I understand what you're saying about.
Speaker 11: You know, now we have six years, we can look
Speaker 11: at it a little bit. But the lottery, I know
Speaker 11: this sounds kind of simplistic, but the lottery is the lottery.
Speaker 11: In other words, you can't predict what's going to happen.
Speaker 11: So anybody who wants to play that game, like the
Speaker 11: Jazz did this year again, spence to be the dead horse.
Speaker 11: You know, anybody who works that hard for six months
Speaker 11: to get a fourteen percent chance to win something, I mean,
Speaker 11: good luck to you. I mean, you know, that's that's uh,
Speaker 11: you know, I don't know that. I don't get that
Speaker 11: whole thing. But anyway, that's that's what they did. That's
Speaker 11: what Washington did, That's what Charlotte did. Toward the end
Speaker 11: of the year. None of them ended up in the
Speaker 11: top three. You know that That's that's just the way
Speaker 11: that that stuff it goes. That's that's, you know, just
Speaker 11: taking a big gamble. The NFL, well, the NFL is
Speaker 11: a different animal because they schedule differently. You don't play
Speaker 11: everybody else in the NFL over a whole season, and
Speaker 11: the NFL schedule is weighted so that the better teams
Speaker 11: last year play each other next year, and the lesser
Speaker 11: teams last year play each other this year. And it's
Speaker 11: all in the hopes Spence, that when you get to
Speaker 11: week sixteen and seventeen in the NFL, everybody's eight and eight,
Speaker 11: everybody's nine and seven, everybody's got a chance. The last
Speaker 11: couple of weeks. In the NBA, everybody plays everybody else.
Speaker 11: In your conference, you play four games a couple of
Speaker 11: teams of three games, but most of them you're playing
Speaker 11: two at home, two in the road, and the other
Speaker 11: conference you play one home, one on the road.
Speaker 10: And so over the course of.
Speaker 11: An eighty two game season, it usually works out that
Speaker 11: the better teams are the better teams. And you know,
Speaker 11: when you get to this stuff, that's just what it is.
Speaker 11: And I don't I don't understand people who you know, don't.
Speaker 11: I mean, it's not that complicated, Spence. It's just like
Speaker 11: going to the playground, like the hard scrabble streets that
Speaker 11: you grew up in a New Canaan. There we go
Speaker 11: see that and you guys you get to the playground
Speaker 11: and you go okay, you know, Spencer and Spidder, you
Speaker 11: guys are choosing up okay, okay or Okay, I got
Speaker 11: first pick.
Speaker 10: Who are you going to take?
Speaker 11: You're gonna take the kid you know is the best
Speaker 11: player in the neighborhood, and then you're going to take
Speaker 11: the next guy and whatever. And the whole purpose is
Speaker 11: what the whole purpose is to win the game you're playing,
Speaker 11: so you get to stay on the court and the
Speaker 11: losers have to go off and play the next group
Speaker 11: of guys. Right, the NBA system in the playoffs, it's
Speaker 11: it's just a bigger, grandiose version of that. All the
Speaker 11: teams are trying to get the better players so they
Speaker 11: can stay on the court and keep laying right.
Speaker 10: So when it comes to the lottery, the lottery is
Speaker 10: what it is.
Speaker 11: It's just a flip of the coin, or in this case,
Speaker 11: literally the bounce of the ping pong balls. And I
Speaker 11: was interested to read Andy Larson's description last night, specifically saying,
Speaker 11: you know, they they turned the machine on, and the
Speaker 11: balls bounce around for twenty seconds, and then the guy
Speaker 11: pulls the plug and the ball comes out, and then
Speaker 11: they reset it and then the balls bounce around for
Speaker 11: another ten seconds and then blah blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 11: and you know, and it's very precise and direct in
Speaker 11: how they do that to give everybody a fair shot.
Speaker 11: And you know, I would rather be in a lottery
Speaker 11: spence where I have an eighty six percent chance of
Speaker 11: getting it, but you have an eighty six percent chance
Speaker 11: of not getting it. So that's what you're rolling with.
Speaker 11: I say, good luck, and I'm going to keep my
Speaker 11: money in my back pocket.
Speaker 1: And the system is not changing anytime soon. Do you
Speaker 1: think they look at it? I mean, would you like
Speaker 1: to see a different approach?
Speaker 11: I mean no, because I think they I think they've
Speaker 11: I think they've uh not overthought. I think they've thought
Speaker 11: it through enough with enough statisticians and mathematicians and and
Speaker 11: what are the odds?
Speaker 10: And how do you do this?
Speaker 11: And there used to be one ping pong ball and
Speaker 11: fourteen teams, and they ruffled it up and they go okay,
Speaker 11: and they pull out one ball and they go, uh,
Speaker 11: number five, who's got number five?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 11: The Atlanta Hawks have number five? Okay, they get the
Speaker 11: first pick. I mean it used to be that. Now
Speaker 11: that's four ping pong balls, and they each have a.
Speaker 10: Number on them.
Speaker 11: So they get the one number okay, and number seven okay,
Speaker 11: all right? The next one number thirteen, whatever. And then
Speaker 11: they then you have a you have a big, you know,
Speaker 11: print out sheet and you look at, okay, do we
Speaker 11: have lottery number. It's just like Spence buying a lottery
Speaker 11: ticket over across the border in Idaho and you got
Speaker 11: the numbers on the ticket and they read off the
Speaker 11: fourth number.
Speaker 10: Ah, I had a seven, they called the six. I
Speaker 10: didn't win it.
Speaker 11: You know, it's the same thing, I mean, And and
Speaker 11: so they've got that figured out. It just doesn't work
Speaker 11: for you. And to your point, Spence, everybody wants to
Speaker 11: find a reason that we didn't win and somebody's against us,
Speaker 11: and you know whatever, and that's just it's just not
Speaker 11: the case.
Speaker 10: It's just that's the reality of what a lottery is.
Speaker 1: And I think, well, my guess is the other thing
Speaker 1: that really stings about last night? And John Hollinger wrote
Speaker 1: a piece on this for The Athletic Today. So again
Speaker 1: the jazz fault, I'm gonna say, air quotes fall to five.
Speaker 1: It was the most likely scenario based off the percentages
Speaker 1: prior to the lottery, and Zanak talked about this.
Speaker 10: Yeah, one and two. It was basically a fifty percent change,
Speaker 10: right right.
Speaker 1: Right, So forty eight point seven percent chance they were
Speaker 1: gonna draft it five fourteen percent chance they were gonna
Speaker 1: draft it one. But I don't think think the sting
Speaker 1: that fans are feeling today is only about that. I
Speaker 1: think it's also about the fact that Dallas and San Antonio,
Speaker 1: two of your Western Conference peers, are at one and two.
Speaker 1: Because if you're a Jazz fan, you're already looking up
Speaker 1: at well, I'm not even gonna read the list everybody,
Speaker 1: You're already looking up at everybody. At least San Antonio
Speaker 1: was kind of in your cul de sac right this year,
Speaker 1: even though they got Wembanyama and Dallas took such such
Speaker 1: a calculator risk to get rid of Donchic so you thought, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe they're falling back down on earth as well.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now two of the teams that you thought maybe
Speaker 1: we're not that far away from you're miles away from again.
Speaker 1: So I think if you're a Jazz fan today, it's
Speaker 1: not just man, we didn't get one or two, we
Speaker 1: actually are drafting five. It's two of our Western Conference
Speaker 1: piers have one and two, and now we've got miles
Speaker 1: to go to catch them.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And and and the fact that their Western Conference
Speaker 11: is a good point. But but you're right when when
Speaker 11: they when they showed Ashley Smith, who I felt on
Speaker 11: the stage and and her being in that position and
Speaker 11: she's on an island by herself at that moment in time,
Speaker 11: and and not used to that that scenario and everything, and.
Speaker 3: I just want to reach the TV.
Speaker 11: Yeah, felt really bad for her, and and uh, but
Speaker 11: then they but then they exacerbated by going and now
Speaker 11: we're gonna go to commercial and we'll go come back
Speaker 11: for the final four picks, and they go to a
Speaker 11: three minute commercial and they rearrange the stage and all
Speaker 11: that stuff, and and uh and when when they when
Speaker 11: they picked Charlotte at the at four And then I'm
Speaker 11: sitting there, going, are you kidding me? San Antonio and
Speaker 11: Dallas and and then and then those two are left,
Speaker 11: and I go and I literally I I started laughing
Speaker 11: a little bit out loud. I was watching with coach
Speaker 11: Coach Layton and and and with Linda and and I'm
Speaker 11: sitting there. You gotta be kidding me, I said. And
Speaker 11: then at that moment in time, I thought, boy, I
Speaker 11: hope san Antonio gets the first pick. This is just
Speaker 11: gonna be a bigger story. If they get the first
Speaker 11: back again, are you kidding me? You know, and and uh,
Speaker 11: you know, then all the guys would really be out
Speaker 11: of the woodwork. But as it is, they're gonna get
Speaker 11: a They're gonna get one of those two guys, I
Speaker 11: would assume, and you know, and they're they may be
Speaker 11: off to the races again.
Speaker 10: I know.
Speaker 11: It's uh, that's that's you know. I don't know what
Speaker 11: to say about that, except except that's that's the proverbial
Speaker 11: and literal bounce of the ball.
Speaker 3: That's why they call it the lottery. There we go, Minni.
Speaker 3: Thanks for your time, my friend. We'll see you soon, okay.
Speaker 10: Ben's appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Richard Smith live in studio five o'clock out and I
Speaker 1: will kind of continue some of this conversation with the
Speaker 1: Jazz Draft at A five. If you missed it earlier,
Speaker 1: it's official Jason Tatum as ruptured as Achilles. He actually
Speaker 1: already had surgery, so hopefully we'll see Tatum back and
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Speaker 1: Little James Taylor put you in a good mood if
Speaker 1: you're a bummed out jazz fan today.
Speaker 3: Nothing wrong with a little jt the right song. Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: Brian Santiago is now the new athletic director at Brigham
Speaker 1: Young University. Tom Holmo stepped down a number of months
Speaker 1: ago now, and apparently a search was held. I will
Speaker 1: tell you this, Brian Santiago is very good friends with
Speaker 1: Ryan Smith and Danny Ainge.
Speaker 3: So keep it in the family, I guess.
Speaker 5: I mean, especially in today's age, those are relationships that
Speaker 5: you don't look at. Is weird in the college space anymore.
Speaker 5: You want them, you want all the money, all the boosters,
Speaker 5: all the zoubs, You want them in that room, you
Speaker 5: want their checkbooks open, and you want to be as
Speaker 5: nice to them as possible.
Speaker 4: And it appears that's going on at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, all right.
Speaker 1: NBA playoff action tonight because of the massive story of
Speaker 1: the NBA Draft lottery again not just the Jazz ending
Speaker 1: up at number five, but also two Western Conference teams
Speaker 1: with already good young rosters, well good young roster in
Speaker 1: San Antonio, still a lot of talent in Dallas, with
Speaker 1: of course, a D and Kyrie. That's kind of taken
Speaker 1: up most of our oxygen here. But Porter, are you
Speaker 1: ready to say with Jason Tatum's sideline sadly that the
Speaker 1: New York Knicks are going to the Eastern Conference Finals?
Speaker 4: I think so, I think so. I decided, well, I
Speaker 4: didn't decide.
Speaker 5: It's not up to me to decide, but I had
Speaker 5: a good feeling yesterday that the winner of that game
Speaker 5: would win the series. I told my Celtics friends the
Speaker 5: same thing. And then not only did the Knicks win
Speaker 5: the series, but the Celtics also lost their best player,
Speaker 5: a player who, yes, we've gone back and forth about
Speaker 5: what he is in big moments and big times. He's
Speaker 5: got a title, he's their most consistent wing. He's and
Speaker 5: a good player on both ends of the floor. I
Speaker 5: just don't know how you come back from three to
Speaker 5: one without Jason Tatum, much less the the feat that
Speaker 5: it would be to come back with Jason Tatum.
Speaker 3: I've been wildly impressed, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jalen is Jalen, but mckel bridges two different
Speaker 1: fourth quarter just dominant offensive performances, and OG's been awesome.
Speaker 1: A Pacers Nicks Eastern Conference finals no part of me.
Speaker 1: You could have given me a million guesses at the
Speaker 1: start of the year, no part of me would have
Speaker 1: landed on that.
Speaker 5: It also makes me a little a little scared, not
Speaker 5: necessarily the matchup, that's more of a nostalgia history thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look you're preaching to the choir. There a little
Speaker 1: PTSD for Nick fans for sure. So look, all is
Speaker 1: not lost Jazz fans. You can find great players all
Speaker 1: over the place. But I understand why last night was
Speaker 1: just in need of the groin. I will repeat, Let's
Speaker 1: not be the type of people that win something to
Speaker 1: not go our away. We simply cry like it's cheating
Speaker 1: or it's fixed.
Speaker 3: It's not. But it sucks.
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Speaker 1: All right, Porter, let's get out here. I'll be on
Speaker 1: TV with Dave Fox tonight thirty five Cam. Why you
Speaker 1: would call it? Five questions with Spence? What comes our way?
Speaker 1: On a Wednesday edition of the show.
Speaker 5: On a Wednesday edition of The Drive, Spence of course,
Speaker 5: Sarah Todd talking some jazz, talking some NBA Draft lottery,
Speaker 5: the number five pick. She is like Andy at the
Speaker 5: NBA Draft combine. So we'll get some stuff from her
Speaker 5: on the ground. There Neil Smith will stop by NHL
Speaker 5: wrap around a little update. I know it's been heavy
Speaker 5: on the NBA side the last few days, but a
Speaker 5: little update on the NHL postseason. Chris Camerannie in studio
Speaker 5: for an entire hour on a Wednesday and speaking of
Speaker 5: our New York Nicks. One of my favorites that I've
Speaker 5: met in this sports business. He is one Quentin Richardson,
Speaker 5: the former Nick and NBA great. Now with the ESPN
Speaker 5: we got Q on the show. You knucklehead, that's our guy.
Speaker 3: You can't see what I'm doing, but look on YouTube.
Speaker 3: All right, there you go. That'll be a fun Wednesday
Speaker 3: show special.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Andy Larson, Alamiteou, Tim McMahon and Richard
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