Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon, thirteen minutes past the hour of two o'clock.
Speaker 1: I'm getting that sunshine we were promised today, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty warm anyway. It's about sixty six degrees bud cloudy
Speaker 1: here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, on this April
Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon. And as it is every single day, it's
Speaker 1: gonna have you along for the Riot Spence check.
Speaker 2: It's beyond the mic.
Speaker 1: That's Porter Larson beyond the Glass today, producing the program,
Speaker 1: booking the program.
Speaker 2: Got a good guest list today.
Speaker 1: We have two members of the three Timers Club, three
Speaker 1: time sports Broadcaster of the Year. We'll tell you who
Speaker 1: our guests are in just a moment. But we've got
Speaker 1: a lot to do on the program today. It is
Speaker 1: the first day of win or go Home basketball in
Speaker 1: the NBA. Its one really good game last night, one
Speaker 1: blowout Atlanta in Orlando.
Speaker 2: Was close through about.
Speaker 1: Two and a half quarters, and then the magic at
Speaker 1: the end of the third and then throughout the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter just smoked Atlanta. So Orlando advances on as the
Speaker 1: seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, and the Golden
Speaker 1: State Warriors behind big games from Jimmy Butler and Stephen
Speaker 1: wardel Curry took care of the Memphis Grizzlies, but it
Speaker 1: was not easy.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Memphis counterpunched over and over and over. Desmond Bane was
Speaker 1: really good. John Morantz had a sprained ankle there in
Speaker 1: the third and fourth quarter but played well in addition,
Speaker 1: So Golden State advances on as the seventh seed and
Speaker 1: they're going to take on the Houston Rockets.
Speaker 2: The Warriors in the.
Speaker 1: Rockets have a lot of playoff history, but of course
Speaker 1: a brand new team down in Houston, full of a
Speaker 1: bunch of pit bulls man, full of a bunch of
Speaker 1: young guards that can really play defense, young wings with length.
Speaker 1: This will not be an easy series for the Golden
Speaker 1: State Warriors. So we'll get into it on the program
Speaker 1: today and get you ready for the games tonight. For
Speaker 1: the third straight year, the Heat and the Bulls are
Speaker 1: playing in the play in scenario. Now, tonight's games are
Speaker 1: nine v ten, so these are actually true elimination games.
Speaker 1: The loser of tonight's game games are done. Chicago's a
Speaker 1: slight favorite over Miami. Chicago finished the regular season winning
Speaker 1: seven of eight. Miami finished the regular season losing four
Speaker 1: of six. The winner of that game will advance on
Speaker 1: to play the Atlanta Hawks, who lost to the Orlando
Speaker 1: Magic last night.
Speaker 2: The loser of that game goes home.
Speaker 1: The late night game at Golden One Center and Sacramento
Speaker 1: will be the Mavericks and the Kings.
Speaker 2: The loser of that game is done.
Speaker 1: The winner of that game will play Memphis coming up
Speaker 1: on Friday for.
Speaker 2: The right to get swept by Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: Should Dallas lose, then Alex Jensen will be done with
Speaker 1: his employment for the Dallas Mavericks and high speed ahead
Speaker 1: here to Salt Lake to be the seventeenth head coach
Speaker 1: in the history of the Utah men's basketball program. So
Speaker 1: do some NBA today, as we are inching closer and closer.
Speaker 1: We are less than a month away from the NBA
Speaker 1: Draft lottery. For you Jazz fans, that's your next day
Speaker 1: to look forward to. That could be somewhat interesting. Kan
Speaker 1: k Nipple has entered the NBA Draft. There was some
Speaker 1: questions whether or not Con would leave Duke, but that
Speaker 1: became official today. So throughout the course of the next
Speaker 1: you know, three or four weeks prior to the NBA lottery,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a lot on the draft. We're gonna
Speaker 1: do a lot on some of these prospects, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna get you ready for the potential of one of
Speaker 1: these five players to land here in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: As a result of the Jazz having the worst record
Speaker 1: in the NBA, they will have a top five pick
Speaker 1: with a fourteen percent chance of landing number one overall,
Speaker 1: where the prize, of course, will be Cooper Flack. The
Speaker 1: spring transfer window is open in college football. It'll be
Speaker 1: open for ten days or so. I believe it closes
Speaker 1: on April the twenty fifth. Utah YU will they make
Speaker 1: some additions Utah State over the next ten days or so,
Speaker 1: and then the transfer.
Speaker 2: Portal will close after that.
Speaker 1: And I think both Utah and by you feel like
Speaker 1: they're set in a lot of different ways, but you
Speaker 1: never know who's out there. You never know ultimately how
Speaker 1: this will go down. So we'll bring you any rumors
Speaker 1: that we hear and of course any news that comes down.
Speaker 1: With the college football transfer portal now officially open on
Speaker 1: this Wednesday afternoon, so a lot to do on the
Speaker 1: show today. Rayel Saltlake will be back in action coming
Speaker 1: up on Saturday against Toronto. That game is here, it
Speaker 1: is home RSL is in the midst of a four
Speaker 1: match road trip with one truncated home match in between,
Speaker 1: and that is Saturday against Toronto. We are still awaiting
Speaker 1: word for this mythical number nine, these strikers that apparently
Speaker 1: are on their way. No clue if this is going
Speaker 1: to get done. We are now officially as of today,
Speaker 1: it's one week away.
Speaker 2: We have one week left before the primary transfer.
Speaker 1: Window closes for Rayl Salt Lake. NFL Draft right around
Speaker 1: the corner. Giants came out today and said they're willing
Speaker 1: to play Travis Santra on both sides of the football.
Speaker 1: Latest on Chad or Sanders, latest on some of the
Speaker 1: local prospects. As the NFL Draft is right around the
Speaker 1: corner coming up next week. So Jam packs show with
Speaker 1: a lot to get to on the program today. Some
Speaker 1: NBA Playing Action Elimination Game, NBA Draft Lottery for you
Speaker 1: Jazz fans, NFL Draft, and college football Transfer portal for
Speaker 1: you college football fans, Love RSL for the soccer fans
Speaker 1: out there, and whatever else comes our way. On this
Speaker 1: Wednesday edition of the show. The guest list today looks
Speaker 1: like this. Andy Larson, Salt Lake Tribune covers the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz Data columns RSL.
Speaker 2: You know, Andy does a.
Speaker 1: Lot of stuff, So bringing Andy today right off the
Speaker 1: bat on a Wednesday afternoon, Neil Smith will stop by.
Speaker 1: We'll do a little oh bit on the season that
Speaker 1: was for the Utah Hockey Club as they went to
Speaker 1: Saint Louis and got their butts handed to them. Blues
Speaker 1: wins six to one. So the season is over for
Speaker 1: the hockey club.
Speaker 2: So Neil will stop by today.
Speaker 1: We'll look back on the Jazz season, look ahead to
Speaker 1: the NBA Draft Lottery. The voice of the Utah Jazz
Speaker 1: Craig Bowler Jack and then the voice himself of the Utes,
Speaker 1: Bill Riley, stops by. Bill will be with us for
Speaker 1: the NBA Draft Knight covered John June the twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: and we may be out and about. Our sales team
Speaker 1: is looking to maybe sell a Draft Night remote, which
Speaker 1: will be me and Bill and the Great Gordy Chiasa.
Speaker 1: So Bill stops by as well. Craig Bowler, Jack, Bill Riley,
Speaker 1: I believe are the only two winners of the Utah
Speaker 1: Sports Broadcaster of the Year award on three separate occasions.
Speaker 2: So I'm just thinking porter.
Speaker 1: Of like the old five Timers Club on SNL like
Speaker 1: Steve Martin, those guys, I'm thinking like robes, cigars, maybe
Speaker 1: a little whiskey for Bowler and and and Riles say.
Speaker 2: That we need to get both of them together in
Speaker 2: their three timer robes in studio.
Speaker 4: We should have them in studio for that specifically. And
Speaker 4: I could see both of those guys puffing on a cigar.
Speaker 4: Not that not that they do often. I don't know,
Speaker 4: but yeah I could. I could picture that now now
Speaker 4: to be clear, three time Sportscaster of the Year between
Speaker 4: between the two of them, six total. I don't I
Speaker 4: don't know if there's anyone in the building that's even
Speaker 4: been nominated. So yeah, we were welcoming in some prestigious air.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think. I don't know if Bill likes
Speaker 2: himself a cigar. I feel like Bowler does.
Speaker 1: And Bill's a vod katonic guy, so he won't be
Speaker 1: sipping on any whiskey out of a sifter. But I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking, as long as we can get the three
Speaker 1: timer robes like they do for us and L on
Speaker 1: the five timers, to get those two in studio, I
Speaker 1: think we're onto something.
Speaker 5: Okay. Ron Ron sponsors some robes.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'll reach out. Let's see what
Speaker 2: we can do, all right.
Speaker 1: Our first guest today on this Wednesday afternoon will be
Speaker 1: Andy Larson. But before we get Dandy, courtesy of our
Speaker 1: friends at Prize Picks. On a Wednesday afternoon, it's time
Speaker 1: now for your opening tip.
Speaker 5: Welcome to the Drive with Spence.
Speaker 6: Check its on Utah's number one sports talk now into
Speaker 6: the studios of ESPN seven hundred to set the scene
Speaker 6: for the show. The opening tip of the Drive is
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Speaker 1: we have some meaningful basketball that's been played, was played
Speaker 1: last night, and we'll be played tonight.
Speaker 2: And I talked a little bit about this yesterday.
Speaker 1: You know, March madness for me with the way that
Speaker 1: the current landscape and quite frankly, the ecosystem of pro
Speaker 1: basketball in the NBA is operating where you literally are
Speaker 1: rewarding people for losing, which is such a wild way
Speaker 1: to do business when you kind of think about it.
Speaker 1: But the incentive structure in the NBA rewards certain teams
Speaker 1: are in certain situations if they're really bad. It's kind
Speaker 1: of wild, Like if you had a sales job, and
Speaker 1: your sales staff is all sitting down in a meeting
Speaker 1: and your general manager rolls in and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: good news. The top three earners this year, the three
Speaker 1: top salespeople on this staff this year, you get an
Speaker 1: extra one hundred thousand dollars bonus. So congratulations on that. However,
Speaker 1: the three worst sales people on the staff, you're going
Speaker 1: to get fifty grand. You know, it doesn't matter. We're
Speaker 1: just going to give you fifty grand. If you're horrible
Speaker 1: at this. Our bottom three sales members are going to
Speaker 1: get fifty grand. Our top three because winning is the
Speaker 1: bottom line. That's how you get paid. But the top
Speaker 1: three sales members of our staff one hundred grand if
Speaker 1: you hit your numbers.
Speaker 2: But the bottom three, if you're not even close, we're.
Speaker 1: Just going to give you fifty grand because we want
Speaker 1: to incentivize being bad at this. Pro basketball is like
Speaker 1: the only thing in the world that does it right.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I've always talked through the prism
Speaker 1: of what the jazz are doing. It's not fun, but
Speaker 1: it's the right approach. I don't know that they have
Speaker 1: any other choice, and they're in the kind of silo
Speaker 1: of teams that are being rewarded for being horrible at basketball,
Speaker 1: the losing teams. Actually, the incentive is there to lose,
Speaker 1: and that's why they're doing it. And if you get
Speaker 1: number one overall, and if you get Cooper flag, maybe
Speaker 1: the losing will be worth it because Cooper feels like
Speaker 1: he is a generationally special player. But ultimately, what you
Speaker 1: want to do is being one of the teams that
Speaker 1: every single year has a shot, right. And the awkward
Speaker 1: part about the NBA, and I think why a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't necessarily love it as much as they
Speaker 1: love the NFL. And the parity of the NFL and
Speaker 1: the at least the field that for most of the
Speaker 1: teams in pro football, you're not that far away unless
Speaker 1: you're a Jets fan or a Browns fan. More often
Speaker 1: than not, you know, there are some teams where you
Speaker 1: just are always far away. But the majority of NFL
Speaker 1: teams really have the ability to get back to their
Speaker 1: winning ways pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: And that's why you see very few dynasties.
Speaker 1: And that's why when you see a dynasty like the
Speaker 1: Pats with Brady and Belichick, it's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2: And that's why they're remembered the way that they are.
Speaker 1: But in pro basketball, the dirty little secret is every
Speaker 1: single year preseason, you give me four five guesses, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you who's gonna win the championship. Truly every
Speaker 1: single year. In some years you don't even need four
Speaker 1: or five guesses, like when the Warriors were peak Warriors.
Speaker 2: With Steph and Clay and Draymond and Durant.
Speaker 1: Like we all knew every year it was probably either
Speaker 1: going to be Golden State or whoever Lebron was playing on,
Speaker 1: whether it's Miami or Cleveland, right, But this year it
Speaker 1: wasn't hard to see. And look, Cleveland's had a really
Speaker 1: good year. We really should give Houston more credit than
Speaker 1: they deserve. And the Lakers have Lebron and Luca and
Speaker 1: Denver has the best player on the planet. But it's
Speaker 1: not hard to see that we're more or less high
Speaker 1: speed ahead to OKCE Boston in the finals unless there
Speaker 1: are some massive upset or a massive injury or something
Speaker 1: weird happens. And because of that, if you're a general
Speaker 1: manager and a roster constructor in the NBA and you
Speaker 1: don't feel like you actually have a shot, and by
Speaker 1: have a shot, I mean going to win the thing,
Speaker 1: and there are certain teams that can talk themselves into, yes,
Speaker 1: we think we have a shot this year. I think
Speaker 1: Cleveland probably has talked themselves into the fact that they
Speaker 1: think they probably have a chance. I don't see them
Speaker 1: beating Boston four times and seven tries, but you could
Speaker 1: do a lot worse than what the Cleveland Cavaliers have
Speaker 1: done this year and where they're at heading into the postseason.
Speaker 1: I guarantee I would be stunned if Houston thinks they
Speaker 1: actually have a shot. Like I said, the Lakers have
Speaker 1: Lebron and Lucas, so Brob Polenka and Jeanie Buss have
Speaker 1: probably talked themselves into believing, yeah, we have a chance
Speaker 1: because we have those two denver As Jokics.
Speaker 2: We've seen it before.
Speaker 1: The Clippers won eight straight ten the season, they have
Speaker 1: Kawai and when Kawi.
Speaker 2: Is healthy, he is one of those dudes.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, I think most people in the league this
Speaker 1: year realize that it's okay see in Boston if we're honest,
Speaker 1: and if you're not one of those two teams or
Speaker 1: the handful of teams that I just named, namely Cleveland,
Speaker 1: probably La Denver and maybe the Clippers. You can talk
Speaker 1: yourself into thinking you have a shot, but if you're
Speaker 1: not in that stratosphere, you're going to approach this thing
Speaker 1: a little bit differently to try to open up a
Speaker 1: championship one dow at some point when some of these
Speaker 1: other top teams start to fall down, which will happen
Speaker 1: as Lebron will exit stays left at some point, and
Speaker 1: of course the Lakers will slab Luca. We saw some
Speaker 1: real vintage Steph Curry moments last night, and whenever I
Speaker 1: lock in on Steph, I realize how blessed we've been
Speaker 1: as basketball fans to have him here.
Speaker 2: But at some point he's going to go away too.
Speaker 1: And I will say I do not view Golden State
Speaker 1: as a legitimate contender. I think they're having going to
Speaker 1: have a really difficult time beating Houston. If you don't
Speaker 1: know who Amin Thompson is, you're about to get familiar
Speaker 1: because he's about to guard Stephan Curry for an entire series.
Speaker 1: They've got a bunch of size with Sheng guon and
Speaker 1: Adams down low, and you know Draymond plays a lot
Speaker 1: of center for Golden State and always has. But they
Speaker 1: don't like Kevon Looney is not an answer down low,
Speaker 1: and Draymond's like six five six six. I just don't
Speaker 1: think Golden State has the size of the athleticism to
Speaker 1: compete with the best teams in the West or the
Speaker 1: NBA this year.
Speaker 2: So it's fun to see meaningful basketball.
Speaker 1: I thought that Warriors Grizzlies game last night was great,
Speaker 1: and we'll see what tonight brings. But from a Jazz
Speaker 1: perspective or any of these other teams that aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: in the group were at the start of every year,
Speaker 1: we say you have a chance, and there are exceptions.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people thought this year at
Speaker 1: the start of the season, Philly would have something to
Speaker 1: say out east and Phoenix would have something to say
Speaker 1: out west, and neither of those two things came to fruition.
Speaker 1: Of course, with Philly it was the MBAT stuff and
Speaker 1: then Paul George podcasting P do not call him playoff P.
Speaker 1: Of course that didn't work out, and it was just
Speaker 1: a bad approach by a new owner in Phoenix to
Speaker 1: think that he could basically slog together a bunch of
Speaker 1: aging talent. They can't stay healthy and certainly not ready
Speaker 1: to play with each other.
Speaker 2: So those are.
Speaker 1: Probably the two exceptions, but more often than not, every year,
Speaker 1: people around the league know the group of teams that
Speaker 1: are going to you have a chance to win it,
Speaker 1: and if you are not in that group, you have
Speaker 1: to go about your roster construction.
Speaker 2: A different way.
Speaker 1: And if you're in the group where the jazz are at,
Speaker 1: you are incentivized to lose, which is why they're doing
Speaker 1: what they're doing. Porter has taken the wheel today. So
Speaker 1: we are doing a hipster country is that kind of
Speaker 1: feels like an oxymoron? Can country music be hipster?
Speaker 4: That's kind of why I had a weird response when
Speaker 4: you when you mentioned it.
Speaker 5: Not that I'm not excited, right, this is.
Speaker 2: All your stuff today? Was that Colter? Was that our guy?
Speaker 4: No, that's our guy, Brent Cobb, Brent Cobb, Ran Cobb.
Speaker 4: So I like that you're you're doing the hipster country thing.
Speaker 4: I just don't know how to define that, right because you're,
Speaker 4: as you said, you're kind of combining a couple of things.
Speaker 4: You definitely can, but I don't know if it's it's
Speaker 4: like it's the same it's the same thing.
Speaker 5: It's down to two different avenues, you.
Speaker 1: Know, are we gonna get a little Florida Georgia line
Speaker 1: today or no, absolutely not, ok fair enough, not a chance,
Speaker 1: not a snowballs chance in hell. Okay, Porter's in charge
Speaker 1: today doing a hipster country music or whatever that is.
Speaker 1: Speaking of hipsters. He works for the Solid Tribune. He
Speaker 1: covers the Utah Jazz. He is Andy Larson on a
Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon. Hello, Andy, how are you?
Speaker 7: I'm great, I'm well.
Speaker 2: I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1: So you asked Will a really interesting question during the
Speaker 1: pre or excuse me, the postseason media availability a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago, about you know, if a team actually
Speaker 1: came Collin who had a I believe you said, a
Speaker 1: more winning organization, you know, just ready to win right away?
Speaker 2: What would what would Will do?
Speaker 1: And look, there was no way he was going to
Speaker 1: say like, yeah, I wish I was coaching Oka see
Speaker 1: or if I should have stayed and kept the Boston job.
Speaker 1: So he said what he of course was going to say,
Speaker 1: regardless of the question.
Speaker 2: My question to you is did you believe what he
Speaker 2: had to say?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Look, I mean I do I think you know, as
Speaker 7: we've evaluated the jazz and kind of stuck at the
Speaker 7: bottom right now, and we'll see what happened in the lottery,
Speaker 7: and there's there's a lot of good stuff that could happen.
Speaker 7: But this is in the middle of the rebuild. You know,
Speaker 7: would Will Hardy entertain offers from other teams? And you know, frankly,
Speaker 7: the real uh scenario that I envision is Greg Papavich
Speaker 7: retires for health reasons this summer. San Antonio looks around
Speaker 7: the NBA and says, Will Hardy could be our coach
Speaker 7: for the next ten to twenty years. Are you know,
Speaker 7: are you interested? And you know, I didn't ask him
Speaker 7: about that situation in particular because obviously he's got respect
Speaker 7: for Pop and blah blah blah, but like you know,
Speaker 7: in general, would Will Hardy leave the Utah jess to
Speaker 7: go somewhere else? And he was really clear, Look, I
Speaker 7: I'm all in, is what he said. And he said,
Speaker 7: I you know, this is I'm putting down roots in Utah.
Speaker 7: I want to be part of the community here. I
Speaker 7: believe in this rebuild and so on and so forth,
Speaker 7: and so.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, I thought it was a really forceful
Speaker 9: answer in a way that you know, like he could
Speaker 9: have Hemden had a little bit and I think, you know,
Speaker 9: frankly talking to him off the site too, Like.
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 3: That is reflective.
Speaker 7: I was thinking right now, so you know, I thought
Speaker 7: it was useful to get that kind of on record
Speaker 7: and that like, hey, yes, Will Hardy is probably likely
Speaker 7: hear safe for as long as he as long as
Speaker 7: the jazz will happen.
Speaker 1: And I know we've talked about this before, and honestly,
Speaker 1: it is a question and a topic that is steeped
Speaker 1: in hypothetical. So there's probably not a ton of use
Speaker 1: of spending a lot of time on.
Speaker 2: This, so we won't.
Speaker 1: But you know, look, if we are sitting here, you know,
Speaker 1: mid April of twenty twenty seven, and the options on
Speaker 1: Will's contracts are done, and it's been five full years,
Speaker 1: and Lady luck did not shine upon them, and they
Speaker 1: don't get a Cooper flag, and they don't get an
Speaker 1: AJ debantsa whoever else is that dude in the next
Speaker 1: class cam booz.
Speaker 2: Or what have you?
Speaker 1: And you ask Will that question in five years and
Speaker 1: they just have not given him a roster that allows
Speaker 1: him to compete. I think Andy, you might get a
Speaker 1: different answer.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts?
Speaker 7: I mean maybe, Yeah, it's hard to know. Right, like,
Speaker 7: and you know, because if you do this and you know,
Speaker 7: it doesn't go out and you have three more years
Speaker 7: of pain. I mean, this year was difficult on everyone involved,
Speaker 7: including Will. For sure, Yeah it might be different, and
Speaker 7: so you know, yes, it is in coming on the
Speaker 7: front office to get good players for Will to coach.
Speaker 7: I don't think there's any question about that. And I
Speaker 7: do think he's shown when he does have good players,
Speaker 7: or when he is even just allowed to play his
Speaker 7: good players, which he wasn't this season, like he has
Speaker 7: tended to overperform. And I know that's crazy, given but
Speaker 7: he just led a team to seventeen wins and has
Speaker 7: yet to have a winning record. But like, if you
Speaker 7: look at kind of just what's actually happened in those seasons,
Speaker 7: it's been Will having to put the brakes on his
Speaker 7: own team's success to some degree. You know, yeah, it's
Speaker 7: it's going to be you know, who knows what happens
Speaker 7: in three years. But I think it's a it is
Speaker 7: a consideration that you don't want Will to go away
Speaker 7: because you to some degree, like the Jazz front office,
Speaker 7: and I think many of the fans see this to
Speaker 7: see Will Hardy as the coach for for the for
Speaker 7: the next good Jazz team. And you know, Justin Zennik
Speaker 7: said that in the press conference on Monday, like when
Speaker 7: this Jazz team comes around to being good again, they
Speaker 7: want Will Hardy to be their coach.
Speaker 1: So I carry it may have been Sarah, or maybe
Speaker 1: it was you asked the question about what type of
Speaker 1: players that Will would like to see Ada just kind
Speaker 1: of generally speaking and among the things that Will said,
Speaker 1: he finished it with the comment, well, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of talent in the building, do they.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 7: I mean, yeah, less than the other NBA teams. I
Speaker 7: would say maybe, but other than one or two other teams.
Speaker 7: But yeah, they don't have a ton of talent. I mean,
Speaker 7: like you know, Larry Mark is good, Colin John Collins
Speaker 7: is good, calm sections, but like you know, I don't
Speaker 7: think they see them as with the EXCEP Varry, as
Speaker 7: building blocks moving forward. You've got Walker Kestler, and you've
Speaker 7: got kind of six ifty young players, you know. I
Speaker 7: asked Will variation of that question when the Jazz are
Speaker 7: playing the thunder to second last game of the year,
Speaker 7: kind of pointing at one of the things Well said
Speaker 7: earlier was that he was really interested in Oklahoma City's
Speaker 7: mentality in terms of getting role players who can kind
Speaker 7: of provide help to their star players. And you look
Speaker 7: at what they've done with Jay Mitchell and Aaron Wiggins
Speaker 7: and Isaiah Joe and you can kind of go down
Speaker 7: the list even like Brandon Carlsons from Utah right like
Speaker 7: not even drafted guys who have turned out to be awesome,
Speaker 7: awesome players for them. And he said, you know, look,
Speaker 7: they're looking for athletic guys who fit what they do.
Speaker 7: The jazz, he said, the jazz version of that is
Speaker 7: that they're looking for smart and tough role players. He
Speaker 7: use those words over and over again, smart and tough.
Speaker 7: I don't see a lot of toughness on this roster,
Speaker 7: and I'm not sure I see a lot of intelligence either,
Speaker 7: Like I think there are some players who play smartly,
Speaker 7: and I think there are a lot of players who
Speaker 7: put themselves in really tough positions and that's why they have,
Speaker 7: you know, lead the league in turnovers. So I do
Speaker 7: want to see, you know, and and will be interested
Speaker 7: to see how that changes, because I don't, you know,
Speaker 7: I think if you had to describe kind of the
Speaker 7: ethos of the young prospects that the Jazz have gotten
Speaker 7: right now, it's that they have shot for upside rather
Speaker 7: than they've shot for you know, that that toughness or
Speaker 7: or that intelligence you say on the court, I don't
Speaker 7: know that I see that right now. So it's going
Speaker 7: to be really interesting to see how that affects their
Speaker 7: drafting and role player acquisition plosophy.
Speaker 3: But it's hard to.
Speaker 7: Say that they've had any wins in those areas so
Speaker 7: far because you know, again you look around the league
Speaker 7: and you look at some other teams who have had
Speaker 7: more success. You know, Kyle Philipowski good draft pick, Asaya
Speaker 7: I call your.
Speaker 3: Good draft pick.
Speaker 7: But like in terms of creating a cohesive on court culture,
Speaker 7: I don't know that we've seen that.
Speaker 1: One of the things that kind of caught my attention
Speaker 1: when Will was asked about the offseason plans for his
Speaker 1: roster is he said it was about Keante, it was
Speaker 1: about Isaiah, and it was about bryce different variations of
Speaker 1: they have to be in better shape. They just have
Speaker 1: to take care of their bodies. They have to show
Speaker 1: up in camp in better shape.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think with Sensiba it's pretty obvious because
Speaker 1: he entered he entered the league, was just a body
Speaker 1: that needed work. As far as getting in better shape.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is a little Dennis Scott tam I've
Speaker 1: told you that before. Dennis never really was in elite shape,
Speaker 1: but he could always shoot it. That was his skill.
Speaker 1: That's why he was a pro for like twelve years.
Speaker 1: But Kiant didn't strike me as somebody that wasn't in
Speaker 1: great condition. And I was a little taken back when
Speaker 1: he said that about Isaiah as well. But all three
Speaker 1: of his young wing players basically said they need to
Speaker 1: come back and elite in better shape.
Speaker 2: Did that catch you off guard at all?
Speaker 7: Not a time I've heard will say that before. I
Speaker 7: think it's about being able to compete on both ends
Speaker 7: of the floor at every possession, right and you see frankly,
Speaker 7: Kyante and Isaiah give up or you know, fail to
Speaker 7: make that second rotation or you know, and whether that
Speaker 7: I think maybe some of that is due to endurance
Speaker 7: and getting in better shape, you know, like and then yeah,
Speaker 7: you just look at kind of their body and it
Speaker 7: makes sense because they're first and second year players, But like,
Speaker 7: I don't think that they have the strength to, you know,
Speaker 7: fight through screens. Or to fight for rebounds, or to
Speaker 7: put players off when they're boxing out, like kind of
Speaker 7: all the quote unquote little things Isaiah and Kyante have
Speaker 7: not shown an incredible ability to do yet. So in
Speaker 7: order for them to be plus players, you know, especially
Speaker 7: on the defensive ends, Yeah, they do have to change
Speaker 7: their bodies a little bit. And so I absolutely do
Speaker 7: see what we'll sing there, and you know, I guess
Speaker 7: Yeah would point to the defensive ends kind of the
Speaker 7: content an effort that he wants to see and then
Speaker 7: you know, contrast that to what we thought we actually
Speaker 7: did see there in their rookie and sophomore seasons. There's
Speaker 7: just a big gap. They just they do need to
Speaker 7: put more effort in over the course of forty eight
Speaker 7: minutes the minute than they are right now.
Speaker 1: So justin Zenik was asked about I think it may
Speaker 1: have been Ryan who just asked him about all the
Speaker 1: young players and to kind of run down the list
Speaker 1: of his thoughts on, you know, all the players, and
Speaker 1: he kind of went brick by brick and player by player,
Speaker 1: and when he landed on Cody, he basically said he's
Speaker 1: smart enough to stand in the right place right He's like,
Speaker 1: he's got a good brain, and he usually is not
Speaker 1: out of position. I don't know if that was a
Speaker 1: stretch to try to put a positive spin on what
Speaker 1: really was a rough year for the top ten pick.
Speaker 2: But do you jibe with that at all?
Speaker 1: After watching Cody play, does it appear that he at
Speaker 1: least has a good feel on how to play the
Speaker 1: game of professional basketball.
Speaker 7: Yeah, honestly yes, And like you see him making defensive
Speaker 7: rotations that Isaiah do not make, and you know, some
Speaker 7: of that different position a little bit, but also that's
Speaker 7: some of that's just like Tody Williams has a better
Speaker 7: defensive IQ than Isaiah and and code Isaiah and Kiante
Speaker 7: and brace to and so you see him be in
Speaker 7: the right place, and then he just doesn't do anything.
Speaker 7: Like he doesn't go for that rebound, he doesn't go
Speaker 7: for the strip, he doesn't work to keep himself in front,
Speaker 7: he doesn't gamble on the passing lane, he doesn't do anything.
Speaker 7: And it's so you have these really abysmal defensive statistics
Speaker 7: that also, frankly, were the worry with when he was
Speaker 7: at Colorado, where you know, super pretty athletic kid who
Speaker 7: moves you know well on the court, but then doesn't
Speaker 7: do anything in the statute or on on the court
Speaker 7: to kind of, uh take advantage of where he is placed.
Speaker 7: And so yeah, you know, like their their hope is, hey,
Speaker 7: you get you change the body, you you get stronger,
Speaker 7: you get more confident, you grow, you mature, and all
Speaker 7: of a sudden you have kind of the mentality to
Speaker 7: make those plays. And I think that's possible. But look,
Speaker 7: if you look at the history of NBA draft prospects
Speaker 7: who add as bad a rookie seasons as Cody Williams did,
Speaker 7: you are seeing a lot of abject, outright bust. You know,
Speaker 7: guys who are out of the league in four years
Speaker 7: or less, or kind of role player bench kind of types, right,
Speaker 7: and there's some players who can kind of be optimistic,
Speaker 7: but like, it's hard to imagine Cody becoming a star
Speaker 7: at this point. So which is you know, honestly, what
Speaker 7: the Jazz hopes is that they would at least maybe
Speaker 7: not an All Star or an All NBA player. But like,
Speaker 7: you know, someone frankly liked his brother Jalen, who just
Speaker 7: did make an All Star game. So yeah, it's it
Speaker 7: was an incredibly disappointing season for Cody Williams. Here's someone
Speaker 7: I thought could be better than this right away and
Speaker 7: in the future. And you know, I'm not that. His
Speaker 7: career is already a bus and he it could turn
Speaker 7: around for him. And I think he he does think
Speaker 7: about the game in the right way when I talk
Speaker 7: to him, you know, over and over again after some
Speaker 7: of these games, like he is seeing the right things.
Speaker 7: It's just like, all right, but now you've gotta you've
Speaker 7: got to actually do it. And we have not seen
Speaker 7: that at all in his rookieear.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get to the draft, which of
Speaker 1: And I ask you this, I asked you this prior
Speaker 1: to the trade deadline this year because I honestly thought
Speaker 1: they would find a spot for Clark, Center, Collins or Sexton.
Speaker 1: So we'll remove I'll say the young players. I'll say
Speaker 1: Walker and younger. Okay, so none of the rookies this year,
Speaker 1: and none the soft sat walker either the veteran pieces
Speaker 1: who's back next year?
Speaker 2: Who do you think is gone?
Speaker 7: I mean, I think they will try to move Colin
Speaker 7: Sexton and John Collins and Jordan Clarkson. Uh, And I
Speaker 7: think they will listen to offers on Larie Markin and
Speaker 7: even the problem is what the other teams want to do,
Speaker 7: Right Like, the Jazz have tried to trade Jordan Clarkson
Speaker 7: for like four straight trade deadlines for now, and in
Speaker 7: the end, the league is pretty uninterested at a guy
Speaker 7: who makes shots at a twenty five like a at
Speaker 7: a twenty fifth percentile rate making twelve million, thirteen to
Speaker 7: fourteen a year, right like, even though he's got a
Speaker 7: descending contract like it just you can get what Jordan
Speaker 7: Clarkson provides in an analytically oriented MBA at a cheaper
Speaker 7: at a cheaper contract, right like, So why are you
Speaker 7: giving up assets and to take on that deal even
Speaker 7: though those guys are expiring? You know, I think you
Speaker 7: can make an argument John Collins is is a plus
Speaker 7: deal right now, and so maybe some team goes after that.
Speaker 7: But you know, again, if the Jazz would have been
Speaker 7: able to get a you know, unencumbered first round pick
Speaker 7: for him at this deadline, they would have done so,
Speaker 7: and and in fact found that they were not able
Speaker 7: to do that. So you know, you can have the
Speaker 7: same conversation about Colin Sexton, who is kind of you know, in.
Speaker 3: The middle of those groups.
Speaker 7: Actually a pretty effiicsion score when you look at the numbers,
Speaker 7: but then may give it back on the defensive end,
Speaker 7: and then hasn't really changed the plus minus count. You know,
Speaker 7: it does say something that he was the only veteran
Speaker 7: guy that the Jazz felt kind of comfortable playing in
Speaker 7: a lot of the games to end the season when
Speaker 7: they were trying to lose. So look, you know, I
Speaker 7: think it's going to be entirely dependent on what happens
Speaker 7: with other teams around the league and whether or not
Speaker 7: they see Colin or John or Jordan as solutions. It's
Speaker 7: easier in the off season because you don't have the
Speaker 7: contract is you know, you don't have to necessarily get
Speaker 7: to the cast. You can you can have extra contracts
Speaker 7: on your rocks for all that good stuff. But in
Speaker 7: the end, it's just like, okay, which teams are the
Speaker 7: ones that are willing to provide value for what John
Speaker 7: Collins consext and Jordan's Farson provides And what we've seen
Speaker 7: is that that hasn't been the case so far. I
Speaker 7: think it's certainly possible that those deals are done and
Speaker 7: maybe you know, Golden State goes after John Collins or whatever,
Speaker 7: but now their contracts are tied up with you know,
Speaker 7: Jimmy Butler, I don't know. It's it will be really
Speaker 7: interesting because see what happens around the league, and I
Speaker 7: think a lot of it's determined in what happens in
Speaker 7: these playoffs. But as of right now, I don't know
Speaker 7: of teams that are just really excited about the opportunity
Speaker 7: to acquire the Jazz veterans in this year's offseason.
Speaker 1: It's pretty rare for a rookie, a first round pick
Speaker 1: to not have their at least third you know, the
Speaker 1: first option picked up after the three years where you
Speaker 1: kind of get a feel for what the player is.
Speaker 2: It doesn't happen often.
Speaker 1: It happened with for Dad, with jim Or and Sacramento
Speaker 1: when after a couple of years they did their calculation,
Speaker 1: they didn't pick up his option. Is there any world
Speaker 1: where they don't pick up Keyante's option? I mean next
Speaker 1: year is like sneaky big for Keyante, George.
Speaker 7: I mean, so you'd be talking about it. As for
Speaker 7: as your option, I think you still probably pick it up.
Speaker 7: Like you know, I I don't love Kiante as a player,
Speaker 7: but I still think like he might be the most
Speaker 7: offensively talented of the bunch, right Like he he does okay,
Speaker 7: he does two things. Really he can shoot, like he
Speaker 7: just can he can hit catch and two shots.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 7: And he does have the ability to take pull up
Speaker 7: shots and if you make him two percent three percent
Speaker 7: more often, then he becomes pretty efficient. And then he
Speaker 7: does have the ability to draw fouls in the NBA,
Speaker 7: which is a really valuable skill set right like he is.
Speaker 7: I believe it was a top twenty five or top
Speaker 7: thirty foul drawer this year in terms of just per minute.
Speaker 7: Like it's some good stuff. Like the defense is problematic,
Speaker 7: and the ball handling is problematic, and the decision making
Speaker 7: is problematic, and frankly, the like the attitude has been
Speaker 7: problematic at times. But like, I don't know that if
Speaker 7: you're in the jazz position at the very bottom, you
Speaker 7: can kind of give up on the idea of Kiante
Speaker 7: maturing a little bit.
Speaker 3: So I would be.
Speaker 7: Surprised if they turned down that option. I wouldn't be
Speaker 7: stunned if they traded him or moved him, you know,
Speaker 7: like to if they were able to get another swing back,
Speaker 7: but to just completely give up with no return, Like
Speaker 7: you know, what, what are you using that roster spot on?
Speaker 7: That's definitely better. I just don't know that there's a
Speaker 7: great answer to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct, fourth year option after three years of data.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't happen often, certainly with a player that
Speaker 1: has shown as much promise at times as Kante. But
Speaker 1: I do think next year is big for him because
Speaker 1: I oscillate on my opinion, you know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to who I think he can be in the league.
Speaker 7: Look, I agree, and look, there's maybe no young player
Speaker 7: in the NBA that's been kind of force fed possessions
Speaker 7: and opportunities in the way that Kiante has. Right that
Speaker 7: being said, you know, like if if you don't if
Speaker 7: you don't want to win next year, giving Kyante kind
Speaker 7: of the similar opportunities that he had in previous years
Speaker 7: is not a bad way to lose some games if
Speaker 7: he doesn't, if he doesn't improve, and then if he
Speaker 7: does improve, the then great, you actually might have a
Speaker 7: good player a building block. So yeah, well, I mean,
Speaker 7: we'll see what they end up doing with him. I
Speaker 7: don't think like there is not universal love for Keanty
Speaker 7: George in the front office or the coaching staff, believe me,
Speaker 7: but there is. You know, what else you're going to
Speaker 7: do with that spot that's more interesting, and it does
Speaker 7: just it doesn't make sense to kind of give up
Speaker 7: on a player who is it does have a pretty
Speaker 7: high level of talent given where the jasna.
Speaker 2: All right, two part question about the draft lottery.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you know it has become a consensus, It
Speaker 1: has been a consensus maybe for about six months, that
Speaker 1: there is one tier and that tier belongs to Cooper
Speaker 1: Flag and then there's a tier behind him that maybe
Speaker 1: in your opinion, contains one two players, and the opinions
Speaker 1: of a lot of people to do this for a living,
Speaker 1: they seem to think this is a five player draft
Speaker 1: of really really good, top tier talents, which good news
Speaker 1: because the Jazz will have a top five pick. However, Andy,
Speaker 1: there have been plenty of years where we all thought
Speaker 1: there was one tier to a draft, and then the
Speaker 1: better players turned out to be the players that were
Speaker 1: behind the star that we all thought would be game changing.
Speaker 1: A good example that people probably remember because it wasn't
Speaker 1: forever ago, but a long time ago, was the Greg
Speaker 1: Odin draft. And no matter what revisionist historians want to
Speaker 1: say today, in two thousand and seven, every general manager
Speaker 1: who had the number one pick would have taken Greg Odin.
Speaker 1: The number two pick was Kevin Durant, who obviously has
Speaker 1: been generational and historic.
Speaker 2: So my question is, you know your thoughts on what.
Speaker 1: Cooper would mean to the team, but attendant to it,
Speaker 1: is there another prospect that you think in a number
Speaker 1: of years we could potentially look back and say, wait,
Speaker 1: that player actually was better than Cooper Flag.
Speaker 7: Oh, that's a good question. I mean, I think given
Speaker 7: what Cooper did his freshman season at Duke right, like,
Speaker 7: the floor is so so high on him right that
Speaker 7: he is at least to be an extremely valuable NBA player.
Speaker 7: And then you know, if you believe in potential and
Speaker 7: he's ability to grow, and then he could be, legitimately,
Speaker 7: I think it's fair to say one of the best
Speaker 7: players in the NBA. So I think Jazz fans should
Speaker 7: be excited about their fourteen percent chance of getting Cooper
Speaker 7: flag Right, like it would change the franchise. He is
Speaker 7: one of the safest number one picks ever in my view,
Speaker 7: and absolutely deserves to be there. And then I think
Speaker 7: kind of the second tier is Dylan Harper, who I
Speaker 7: think has separated himself from three through five and the
Speaker 7: rest of the draft based on his production, Like, his
Speaker 7: numbers finishing at the rim are incredible. His ability to
Speaker 7: get downhill is great. His playmate, you know, like, he
Speaker 7: just shows nearly all of the hallmarks of being a
Speaker 7: really talented scoring guard in the NBA. After that, yeah,
Speaker 7: then you get some questions and some real upside chances,
Speaker 7: right like, So, like I could see a world in
Speaker 7: which a Bailey is a better NBA player than Cooper Flag.
Speaker 7: It would take a lot for him to improve on,
Speaker 7: right like, But he does have just an incredible jump
Speaker 7: shot that he can make contested ones from all over
Speaker 7: the court. He needs to get significantly smurder and how
Speaker 7: he uses that skill for opening up other parts of
Speaker 7: his game, opening up you know, success for his teammates.
Speaker 7: His defense is actually pretty fun. I think, you know,
Speaker 7: maybe if the right coaching staff is able to refine
Speaker 7: that he can be a really two way impact player.
Speaker 7: But there are a lot of questions, and there are
Speaker 7: a lot of times when guys with Ace's statistical profile,
Speaker 7: and you know, I test profiles turn out to be
Speaker 7: one dimensional scorers who don't actually help you that much.
Speaker 7: And so that's the worry, you know, I think elsewhere
Speaker 7: the water, I'm trying to think, you know, is there
Speaker 7: a chance that like jegor Demon puts it all together
Speaker 7: and can not only you know, figures out how to
Speaker 7: have a jump shot and pass like this and moves
Speaker 7: better on defense. Like I think they're possible, like five
Speaker 7: percent chance. I'm not sure I'm taking that bet, but
Speaker 7: uh hey maybe so.
Speaker 3: Look, I don't think.
Speaker 7: It's it's totally impossible, but what you said, But like
Speaker 7: Cooper is far and away the best prospect in the
Speaker 7: draft at this point, and it would surprise me to
Speaker 7: see other players overtaken.
Speaker 1: Last thing, Andy will get a little RSL from you
Speaker 1: that I'll set you loose another loss. Another week goes
Speaker 1: by where we're all waiting to see whether or not
Speaker 1: that the you know, these additions are actually going to
Speaker 1: get across the line. We are one week away from
Speaker 1: the primary transfer window closing. My question to you is simple,
Speaker 1: are you still standing up on your feet and shouting
Speaker 1: a loud rayal?
Speaker 2: Are you still believing Andy?
Speaker 7: I mean I am still shouting RAYL. I don't know
Speaker 7: if I'm.
Speaker 3: Believing it all right.
Speaker 7: I look, we'll see what they do in the next week.
Speaker 7: If they don't send a striker, it's a shifts a
Speaker 7: tremendous failure and they should be made fun of a lot. Look,
Speaker 7: I mean, Houston signed a striker today. That was cool.
Speaker 7: It would be neat if oursel did that. It sounds
Speaker 7: like txtalled with the Slovakian guy, is what I believe
Speaker 7: it was. Tom Boger reported it's it's look I mean again,
Speaker 7: I'm just going off what's been publicly reported. It looks
Speaker 7: pretty dreary right now. They got walloped by Columbus, Like,
Speaker 7: and I understand that it was an unlucky penalty at
Speaker 7: the end. Uh, you lost expected goals battle two point
Speaker 7: eight to zero point eight. Man Like, it's I don't
Speaker 7: love it when we when we like celebrate that a
Speaker 7: game could have been one, if just the rest would
Speaker 7: have been nicer when you're just getting out shot twenty
Speaker 7: to five or whatever, right Like, it's just it's tough.
Speaker 7: So anyway, ourselves just got to be better on the
Speaker 7: pitch to create more chances for themselves, get better players,
Speaker 7: and then yeah, you know if this can work out
Speaker 7: well for uh, you know where they have other good
Speaker 7: players on the roster, right like Diego Luna rules, the
Speaker 7: Machanelly rules. I think you know, Raphael Cabral has been
Speaker 7: awesome in goal. There is a lot of talent on
Speaker 7: this roster that's currently been wasted because soccer is a
Speaker 7: weaklink sport and because you don't have to guard right
Speaker 7: now ourselves attacking, you know, the tip of the spear,
Speaker 7: the number nine. So we'll see if that changes in
Speaker 7: the next week. They do have exactly one week left,
Speaker 7: but it needs change if oursels has any hope to
Speaker 7: do positive things and you know, real contention things in
Speaker 7: this year's season.
Speaker 1: But just to be clear, here at the riot, the
Speaker 1: battle hymns begun, and you're still here for RSL.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm going I'm gonna go all all the games.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna screen my heart out. I'm gonna flip off
Speaker 7: the rest as much as I can. It's you know, yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm all in.
Speaker 2: All right, buddy, all right, buddy, appreciate it. Thanks for
Speaker 2: the time, will chat soon.
Speaker 7: Thanks, I'm sing.
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Speaker 1: your valveline. Excuse me, synthetic oil change stop by a
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Speaker 1: the TV Voice of the Utah Jazz. We'll look back
Speaker 1: on the Jazz season that is now done. We'll look
Speaker 1: out to the NBA Playoffs with a couple of playing
Speaker 1: games Tonight. Tonight's win or go home. It's the nine
Speaker 1: to ten matchup in Pro Basketball. Voice of the UTS
Speaker 1: Bill Riley stops buy.
Speaker 2: As we prepare for.
Speaker 1: The Forever twenty two game, the spring football game for
Speaker 1: Utah's on Saturday. Practicing this week, and we do have
Speaker 1: some news on a new commit for Alex Jensen, so
Speaker 1: we'll get with Ryles on that today. But the season
Speaker 1: for the Utah Hockey Club came to an end, and
Speaker 1: they got shellac by the Saint Louis Blues six to one.
Speaker 1: Your final, Our next guest, Neil Smith, stops by on
Speaker 1: a weekly basis to talk to you to hockey club
Speaker 1: and the NHL.
Speaker 2: Neil, Happy Wednesday, sir, how are you.
Speaker 10: I'm real good to Spence.
Speaker 1: Thanks, I appreciate the time. So we'll start with our
Speaker 1: local team. Then we'll kind of pan back, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, Neil. For all intents and purposes, they were eliminated.
Speaker 1: Now it's it's it's it's funny because a three or
Speaker 1: a four point gap with like sixteen fifteen, sixteen games
Speaker 1: left doesn't feel like a lot, but it actually is.
Speaker 1: And when they went down and got smoked by Tampa
Speaker 1: Bay eight zero, they lost to Detroit five to one,
Speaker 1: and then the loss to the Panthers two one, that
Speaker 1: three game losing streak really kind of put a nail
Speaker 1: on their coffin. But they finished the season winning six
Speaker 1: of their final nine games, including hanging seven on the Predators,
Speaker 1: hanging seven on the Kraken, and five on the I
Speaker 1: know the Blackhawks aren't good, but they actually played some
Speaker 1: of their best hockey to end the year. Even though
Speaker 1: the playoffs weren't in their kind of in their future.
Speaker 1: What does that say to you as far as the
Speaker 1: way they ended the.
Speaker 10: Year, Well, first of all, I think they ended the
Speaker 10: year good. I think at the Saint Louis game. You
Speaker 10: can't really judge them on the Blues game when they
Speaker 10: got blown out, because the Blues wanted that game badly
Speaker 10: to make the playoffs, and Utah was eliminated already, and
Speaker 10: you had one team that was just hunting for bear
Speaker 10: and the other team that was sort of out there
Speaker 10: with a pop gun because they already knew what their
Speaker 10: summer was around the corner. But Spence, I looked at
Speaker 10: some things just to just to make some positive, some
Speaker 10: positive thoughts about the Utah Hockey club after last season
Speaker 10: and now after this season. They're minus ten. You've talked
Speaker 10: about goal differential before on the show, and they are
Speaker 10: the best the lowest goal differential being minus ten of
Speaker 10: any of the non playoff teams. So that's one positive.
Speaker 10: Last year when they ended the season they were a
Speaker 10: minus eighteen, they're only a minus ten. They finished the
Speaker 10: year over five hundred and NHL five hundred, both at
Speaker 10: Homan on the road. They ended the season with eighty
Speaker 10: nine points. Last season, they ended the season with only
Speaker 10: seventy seven. The other thing that I want you to
Speaker 10: take into the people that are listening to take into
Speaker 10: consideration is that this year, as it stands right now,
Speaker 10: with one game to go for Vancouver, they're only one
Speaker 10: point behind the Canucks. And the Canucks last year won
Speaker 10: the Pacific Division. They were in first place. The Calgary
Speaker 10: Flames had a great year. They're only five behind the
Speaker 10: Calgary Flames. And again, had it not been for the
Speaker 10: Saint Louis Blues having a miraculous run in the last
Speaker 10: fifteen games twenty games, Utah would have been right up there,
Speaker 10: digging away with Vancouver and Calgary. But Saint Louis sort
Speaker 10: of put a kibosh on everybody by just winning twelve
Speaker 10: games in a row, which is what they did, and
Speaker 10: blew their way into the playoffs. But if you look
Speaker 10: at the Western Conference, Utah is one of the clubs
Speaker 10: on the way up. Because I look at it this way,
Speaker 10: they're better than they were last year, and there are
Speaker 10: clubs that aren't as good as they were last year
Speaker 10: that are on their way down. So you know, as
Speaker 10: long as we keep seeing the trajectory going upwards. That's
Speaker 10: all you can hope for. As far as the way
Speaker 10: the year ended, there's a lot of things that go
Speaker 10: into that. I mean, it's a young team. You're going
Speaker 10: to hit losing streaks, You're gonna things like that, are
Speaker 10: going to They lost those three games that you mentioned,
Speaker 10: but they're a young team. They've got a bright future.
Speaker 10: I still say that. I've said that all season and
Speaker 10: I'm going to continue to say that they have a
Speaker 10: bright future.
Speaker 1: Quake and Keller are twenty six years old, captain of
Speaker 1: his team points as a result of grabbing another one
Speaker 1: at Saint Louis So thirty goals which led the team,
Speaker 1: sixty assists, which led the team as well. Put that
Speaker 1: into perspective for us here in saw lake Neil a
Speaker 1: twenty six year old captain and grabbing ninety points playing
Speaker 1: eighty one games.
Speaker 2: What does that say to you about this young man?
Speaker 10: Well, I mean, I just tells you where he is.
Speaker 10: He's an elite class of players. I mean he on
Speaker 10: my show NHL wrap Around at the beginning of the year,
Speaker 10: we said who we thought, individually, Vic Moore and my
Speaker 10: partner and myself who we thought would be who's their
Speaker 10: breakout player for the season, And I said it would
Speaker 10: be Clayton Keller. In my mind, that's who I was
Speaker 10: looking for to have a breakout season, and I think
Speaker 10: he did have a breakout season. I think thirty goals
Speaker 10: put you in a really elite class of players. There's
Speaker 10: not a lot. I don't have it in front of
Speaker 10: me how many scored thirty goals this year. But that's
Speaker 10: pretty good to get, and he got it on a team,
Speaker 10: in all due respect, that didn't make the playoffs. It's
Speaker 10: one thing to get thirty goals on the Winnipeg Jets.
Speaker 10: It's another thing to get thirty goals on the Utah
Speaker 10: Hockey Club who are just clawing and scrapping to try
Speaker 10: to get into the playoffs. I think he's I think
Speaker 10: he's a great young player. He's got tons of skill,
Speaker 10: and he's going to be around a long time and
Speaker 10: he's going to excite the fans for a long time.
Speaker 1: So at this point, I want you to walk us through,
Speaker 1: as somebody who was a general manager in the NHL,
Speaker 1: what are the immediate boxes that Bill Armstrong is checking now?
Speaker 1: The NHL the regular season isn't even over, let alone
Speaker 1: the playoffs.
Speaker 2: But the season is over for the Utah Hockey.
Speaker 1: Club, So what's the checklist for a general manager? Immediately
Speaker 1: right after the season is over. What's happening behind closed
Speaker 1: doors down there?
Speaker 10: Meetings with their scouting staffs. They'll have a pro scouts
Speaker 10: meeting at some point here in the in the during
Speaker 10: the playoffs. They'll have amateur scouts meetings at some time
Speaker 10: during the playoffs. They're preparing for the amateur draft, which
Speaker 10: is coming up in June, and then preparing for July
Speaker 10: first for free agency to decide who they who they
Speaker 10: want to try to get, and who in the where
Speaker 10: they stand in the order for the entry draft, and
Speaker 10: who they might be able to you know, who they
Speaker 10: might be able to draft. And that's that's the easy
Speaker 10: stuff as far as it's just what you do. The
Speaker 10: rest of it will be He'll be probably going to
Speaker 10: the World Championships looking at the players playing there that
Speaker 10: are all going to be non playoff players because that's
Speaker 10: where the clubs get their players from, and uh and
Speaker 10: and be judging some some perhaps free agents over there,
Speaker 10: and and continually working and figuring out how to improve
Speaker 10: at each position on the team. It's not like how
Speaker 10: do I improve the team in a macro sense, it's
Speaker 10: more like how I how do I improve our depth
Speaker 10: on defense? How do I What am I going to
Speaker 10: do about the goaltending? And thinking through the milk Ingram
Speaker 10: situation and knowing monitoring that where is that at. There's
Speaker 10: a lot of work to be done, but for a
Speaker 10: GM whose team has missed the playoffs, at least you
Speaker 10: get an early start on it. And so Bill Armstrong
Speaker 10: is getting a very early start. When you think about
Speaker 10: the manager of the Florida Panthers last year, Bill Zito,
Speaker 10: and his counterpart on the Edmonton Oilers, which last year
Speaker 10: was Ken Holland, they don't get to start to really
Speaker 10: work on their stuff until halfway through June because they're
Speaker 10: so occupied with the playoffs and their teams. So the
Speaker 10: non playoff teams, I guess the silver lining would be
Speaker 10: that the managers and the staff get more time to
Speaker 10: work on, you know, improving the club than the teams
Speaker 10: that go into deeper into the playoffs.
Speaker 1: So this could be taken both as good or bad
Speaker 1: news depending on your perspective. So as far as the
Speaker 1: issues that plagued the hockey club that came back to
Speaker 1: bite them, at the end that did not allow them
Speaker 1: to either seriously compete or actually grab one of the
Speaker 1: final two wildcard spots overtime in shootouts, So only the
Speaker 1: Flames in the Canucks had more overtime losses than the
Speaker 1: Utah Hockey Club twelve overtime or shootout losses. It either
Speaker 1: demonstrates that the Utah Hockey Club was in a lot
Speaker 1: of close games and those games, if you consider them
Speaker 1: coin flips, might go the other way next year, or
Speaker 1: they still have a lot of work to do to
Speaker 1: gain experience to win those close games when they put
Speaker 1: themselves in positions to win.
Speaker 2: How do you digest that number, Neil.
Speaker 10: Well, you know that the thing is with the overtime,
Speaker 10: it's a it's a skill competition too, because it's three
Speaker 10: on three and it's just crazy back and forth. And
Speaker 10: the foot out is simply, you know, again, a skills
Speaker 10: competition and who you've got and how much they practice it,
Speaker 10: and how good you're shooting. You know your penalty shot
Speaker 10: shooters are and it's all going to come with getting
Speaker 10: getting better and getting and putting in time. I don't
Speaker 10: I wouldn't read a lot into that because I think
Speaker 10: you can find some elite teams that haven't been good
Speaker 10: in the in the shootout. For example, Vegas is one
Speaker 10: in five in the shootout in their first place. In
Speaker 10: the Pacific, you know LA Kings one and three in
Speaker 10: the shootout. And in the East you've got some good
Speaker 10: teams that aren't good at either. Carolina Hurricanes are zero
Speaker 10: and three in shootout and they've got Sebastian Aajo and
Speaker 10: Seth Jarvis and some other great skilled players. So I
Speaker 10: wouldn't put a lot into it. It's something that the
Speaker 10: coach has you practice three on three because you are
Speaker 10: going to hit that once every four five games. I
Speaker 10: wouldn't start to worry about that number as much as
Speaker 10: finishing teams off in regulation, knowing how to getting and
Speaker 10: putting a system together that says, when we get the
Speaker 10: lead in the third period, we lock it down. There's
Speaker 10: no chance you're scoring on us in the third period,
Speaker 10: coming up with the system that shuts things down. Because
Speaker 10: regulation wins are the big thing you want. That's the
Speaker 10: number one tiebreaker when you're heading into the playoffs, and
Speaker 10: that's where I would be concerned, not about Utah, but
Speaker 10: I mean as a coach of any team, I would
Speaker 10: be concerned about that. We know.
Speaker 1: The other interesting thing is because we talked a lot about,
Speaker 1: you know, the goaltending situation with Mamelcoa and Ingram, and
Speaker 1: you know, Bill Armstrong spent a lot of money and
Speaker 1: made some moves to bring in defensive help. And you know,
Speaker 1: on paper, with Dylan Gunther and Clayton Keller, you probably
Speaker 1: just assumed that the offense was really dynamic. But the
Speaker 1: offense was twenty first and goals per game and the
Speaker 1: power play was fifteenth, which isn't horrible, but it's not
Speaker 1: good either. So you know, with twenty one million dollars
Speaker 1: in cap space and with a bunch of picks first, second, third, fourth, fifth,
Speaker 1: and sixth, I would imagine Bill's priority this year is
Speaker 1: going to improve those numbers with twenty first and goals
Speaker 1: per game, fifteenth in the power play. Any thoughts on
Speaker 1: just positionally, you know, some additions you don't have to
Speaker 1: get specific with names, but where on the roster do
Speaker 1: you think they can improve to make those offensive numbers
Speaker 1: jump a little bit?
Speaker 10: Well, I, first of all, I want to say that
Speaker 10: I think that the maturation process for Gunther and Keller
Speaker 10: will come and naturally they will get more goals, and
Speaker 10: they will get more power play goals. You know, I
Speaker 10: think that the coach has got to tell you why
Speaker 10: the power plays in the middle of the pack. I've
Speaker 10: been watching the New York Islanders all season, as you know, Spence,
Speaker 10: because I go to all their games and they're thirty
Speaker 10: one and thirty two in special teams, so to me, fifteen.
Speaker 10: They would be thrilled if they could be fifteenth. But
Speaker 10: I get what you're saying. It's halfway. It's halfway down
Speaker 10: in the league. You know, maybe they're going to spend
Speaker 10: money to get somebody like Brock Besser, who is the
Speaker 10: I think is the number one free agent coming up
Speaker 10: from Vancouver. Who knows where he's going to end up.
Speaker 10: There's thirty two teams, so you can't say where he's
Speaker 10: going to end up. But certainly I would think that
Speaker 10: Bill would look to use some of that twenty one
Speaker 10: million in cap space and improve perhaps another offensive defenseman,
Speaker 10: perhaps another you know, playmaking centerman, or something that he
Speaker 10: and coach Tourney identify as real needs to improve their
Speaker 10: power play and improve their offensive effects.
Speaker 1: The culture of of pro hockey, the culture of NHL.
Speaker 1: I wonder how would you articulate this to our fan
Speaker 1: base here in Salt Lake, where we have a basketball
Speaker 1: team that often throughout the course of their existence, has
Speaker 1: had a lot of trouble attracting NBA players to come
Speaker 1: here to play, and then the ones that they do draft,
Speaker 1: at least the modern day that turn out to be
Speaker 1: really good, end up leaving, some via trade, some via demand,
Speaker 1: and some via free agency. Darren Williams, Gordon Hayward, Donovan
Speaker 1: mitchell I could go on at a local soccer club
Speaker 1: signed a striker earlier this year that allegedly did not
Speaker 1: want to live in Saul Lake.
Speaker 2: So we have a little PTSD here.
Speaker 1: As far as our teams not being able to attract
Speaker 1: free agency or to attract free agents because we're not
Speaker 1: a destination, do you think that's anything that we'll get
Speaker 1: in the way for the hockey club trying to attract
Speaker 1: talent here or our NHL players a little bit different
Speaker 1: as far as what they look for before signing with a.
Speaker 10: Club, Well, I think almost all the NHL players, certainly
Speaker 10: the ones that become free agency, are veterans, and they
Speaker 10: have friends all throughout the league, and if they don't
Speaker 10: have friends at their agent represent somebody in the league,
Speaker 10: or there's a way to find out about a place
Speaker 10: when you get an offer. So for we were talking
Speaker 10: about this just yesterday about attracting free agents in New
Speaker 10: York and how if word gets around that you haven't
Speaker 10: treated your players very well, nobody's going to want to
Speaker 10: go there, even though it's New York and you know,
Speaker 10: New York's been a destination for years, but they've also
Speaker 10: been the first words you hear out of people is
Speaker 10: how well they're treated. I'm not saying they're not treated
Speaker 10: well now, by the way, I'm just saying, if that's
Speaker 10: the case, I think it all goes into how the
Speaker 10: players are treated, how first class the organization is, and
Speaker 10: that they love to live there. I've never heard ever
Speaker 10: why you wouldn't want to live in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 10: I've only heard good things about it. It is not Ottawa, Ontario,
Speaker 10: where it's you know, you're freezing to death all winter long.
Speaker 10: It is not a small, little, tiny market. It's not
Speaker 10: Buffalo that's missed the playoffs fourteen years in a row.
Speaker 10: It's you know, it's not these other places like that.
Speaker 10: And to be honest with you, it's not Arizona, who
Speaker 10: couldn't attract free agents because they didn't have the money.
Speaker 10: They were cheap on every thing they did. That's not
Speaker 10: the case with Ryan Smith in this ownership group. So
Speaker 10: I don't think you're going to have those problems. I
Speaker 10: would be surprised if you had those problems. I don't
Speaker 10: think hockey players are like that. But they yes, they
Speaker 10: move around, and yes they want as much as they
Speaker 10: can make in their contract to judge themselves as a
Speaker 10: good player. But I don't think you're going to have
Speaker 10: a situation where nobody wants to come to Salt Lake City.
Speaker 10: I find that extremely hard to believe.
Speaker 1: Music to the years of residence here who for years
Speaker 1: have been confused as to why people don't want to
Speaker 1: live here. And you know me, Neil, I grew up
Speaker 1: close to where you know you ran teams and I've
Speaker 1: lived here for twenty plus years. It's good living. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know why folks don't. Some folks don't even
Speaker 1: want to give it a try, you know, Like, it's
Speaker 1: odd to me why you wouldn't even want to give
Speaker 1: a place a chance.
Speaker 10: Well, you know what, sometimes people, as you know, the people,
Speaker 10: people judge, and they judge stupidly. You know, the Florida
Speaker 10: Panthers weren't able to attract free agents for years and years,
Speaker 10: and I mean, my goodness, that's Fort Lauderdale area where
Speaker 10: they couldn't get people. So I think people have preconceived
Speaker 10: notions and I don't know what it is, but they
Speaker 10: you know, they I don't want to go here. There
Speaker 10: there are NBA players and tell me, you tell me
Speaker 10: this because you're a lot more dialed into the NBA
Speaker 10: than me.
Speaker 3: I'm probably the least styled.
Speaker 10: I hear there's they don't want to go to Toronto.
Speaker 10: They don't want to play for the Toronto Raptors because
Speaker 10: they don't want to play in Canada. And I mean,
Speaker 10: I'm from Toronto. Toronto is a is a mini New York.
Speaker 10: I mean it's it's it's one of the destinations of
Speaker 10: North America that you'd want to go to. And yet
Speaker 10: I hear that NBA players don't want to play in Toronto,
Speaker 10: so who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 1: I mean, Toronto is one of my favorite cities I've
Speaker 1: ever visited, and it seems like all the NBA guys
Speaker 1: just want to simply be by a beach and most
Speaker 1: of them want to play in LA or Miami. I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it is the cold weather that scares
Speaker 1: them away, but yeah, we tend to run into this
Speaker 1: issue here when it comes to the stick man.
Speaker 2: Look. I've never Neil. I've never pulled any punches.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not New York, We're not LA, We're
Speaker 1: not Chicago, we're not Miami.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 1: And we do have residents here that get a little
Speaker 1: bit in their feelings when I say that, And I understand, like,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a different experience, then maybe Salt
Speaker 1: Lake isn't for you. But if you're looking to simply
Speaker 1: focus on your craft in a very safe place to
Speaker 1: raise a family, you could do a lot worse than
Speaker 1: saw Lake. And I do think the commitment that Ryan
Speaker 1: and Ashley and the ownership group have made would be
Speaker 1: very very attractive for players that maybe don't love playing
Speaker 1: for owners that are not necessarily as invested. I feel
Speaker 1: like they're building something Neil with a good group of
Speaker 1: young players, where maybe the right veterans to expedite the
Speaker 1: process would look at living in a place like this
Speaker 1: where they would like this is not unique to us,
Speaker 1: but residents here have a very very very soft spot
Speaker 1: in their heart for people that adopt this community and
Speaker 1: come into town and play really well or coach really well.
Speaker 1: You know, Jerry Sloan wasn't a Utah and he's a legend.
Speaker 1: John Stockton, Karl Malone, I could tell you about our
Speaker 1: local college football teams, Like, if you decide that you
Speaker 1: want to take a chance on us and you deliver,
Speaker 1: you walk on water around here.
Speaker 2: I can promise you that.
Speaker 10: Well, and Spence, I want to point something else out.
Speaker 10: There is no further outposts in the NHL than Winnipeg.
Speaker 10: And Winnipeg just secured the President's Trophy for this season,
Speaker 10: which represents number one in the entire league. And their
Speaker 10: goaltender is American and he's the best goaltender in the league.
Speaker 10: Connor Hallibuck, he could have gone anywhere he wanted, he's
Speaker 10: that good, and yet he wants to be in Winnipeg.
Speaker 10: Mark Schifeley is one of their stars. He wants to
Speaker 10: be in Winnipeg. Kyle Connor wants to be in Winnipeg.
Speaker 10: So why do I bring up Winnipeg? I mean, come on,
Speaker 10: we can't compare Winnipeg to Salt Lake. And yet the
Speaker 10: players get treated so well there, and the fan base
Speaker 10: is so rapid, and it's so good in the community
Speaker 10: with these players that the players enjoy playing there. And
Speaker 10: it's not like they got to you know, it's not
Speaker 10: like not enough will come that we can even have
Speaker 10: a good team. They've won the regular season of the NHL.
Speaker 10: So I see no reason why this can't happen in
Speaker 10: Salt Lake. As I said, I've been around a long time.
Speaker 10: I've never heard a bad word about Salt Lake ever.
Speaker 1: All Right, Neil, before I say you lose, here's how
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pose the question I want you to give me.
Speaker 2: As we sit here on the precipice of.
Speaker 1: The playoffs, a favorite in both the East and the
Speaker 1: West and a dark horse in both the East and
Speaker 1: the West to come out of the Stanley Cup playoffs
Speaker 1: and maybe lift Lord Stanley's Cup.
Speaker 10: I'm going to say that the Winnipeg I'm going to
Speaker 10: go to the obvious Winnipeg, that the team we just
Speaker 10: spoke about, and the dark horse is going to be Colorado. Now,
Speaker 10: one of those two is going to be gone after
Speaker 10: the second round for sure, because Winnipeg will play St.
Speaker 10: Louis in the first round. Colorado will play Dallas. Whoever
Speaker 10: survives out of Dallas in Colorado will probably play Winnipeg
Speaker 10: if Winnipeg does what they're supposed to do and eliminate
Speaker 10: Saint Louis. But that's through the two that I think
Speaker 10: in the West. In the East, I'm not sure about
Speaker 10: the Capitals. They came down the stretch, they didn't play
Speaker 10: that well. It seemed like everything was about Ovechkin's plot,
Speaker 10: you know, getting that record, and ever since they were
Speaker 10: focused on that, they really haven't played that well. I'm
Speaker 10: really not a fan of them going deep in the
Speaker 10: playoffs this year. I love their team during the regular season,
Speaker 10: but I'm not sure about that. I think that in
Speaker 10: that in the Eastern Conference, I love Florida and maybe
Speaker 10: Toronto could be the dark horse. Maybe for the first
Speaker 10: time since nineteen sixty seven, my hometown could be a
Speaker 10: dark horse to come out of the East. The reason
Speaker 10: I don't say Tampa is because Florida and Tampa are
Speaker 10: going to play in the first round, and one of
Speaker 10: those two teams, and they're both fabulous teams, is going
Speaker 10: to be gone. So you know, that's that's the answer
Speaker 10: to the question. Florida and Toronto in the East and
Speaker 10: as I said, in the West, I think Winnipeg and Colorado.
Speaker 2: Why do you tell all of our listeners where they
Speaker 2: can go find the pod?
Speaker 10: Well, they can find it on any platform. But if
Speaker 10: you want to look at if you want to watch
Speaker 10: it and see the guests like Paul Maurice and and
Speaker 10: Sam Rose and we had on this week, that's dropped.
Speaker 10: That drops today. I believe we had Sam. That was
Speaker 10: a fantastic one. You know Sam, Sam forty years doing
Speaker 10: Ranger games and a great friend of mine from wayback.
Speaker 10: It's on all the different podcast platforms anywhere where you
Speaker 10: find a podcast. If you put in NHL wrap around,
Speaker 10: you'd be sure to come up with And I hope
Speaker 10: folks are listening, and I hope folks in Salt Lake
Speaker 10: have really started to enjoy the podcas Cast and listen
Speaker 10: to it. I got to tell you, Spence before I go,
Speaker 10: who I was with last night. Please do you'll enjoy this?
Speaker 10: Mike Richter?
Speaker 2: Oh wow, oh wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 10: I took Mike Richter come to the hockey game with
Speaker 10: me and he's great. He's such a great guy. And
Speaker 10: you know, he's he's good, he's affable. You know, take
Speaker 10: as many pictures as you want, sign autographs and all that,
Speaker 10: and even without his mask on, everybody recognized him and
Speaker 10: wanted to talk to him. And this was at the
Speaker 10: Islander Arena, not at the Rangers Arena, at the Islanders Arena.
Speaker 10: So it was really fun to be with Mike last
Speaker 10: last night. And what a great guy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's the best, a legend. That's awesome, Neil,
Speaker 1: Thank you for the time, sir. Even though the hockey
Speaker 1: club season's over, do not think you're off the hook.
Speaker 1: We will be bothering you throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Speaker 2: If that's okay with you, sir.
Speaker 10: I'm happy to be bothered by you, all right.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Be well, thank you, Thank you, all right.
Speaker 1: The great Neil Smith, general manager of the Rangers and
Speaker 1: the Islanders, one of the headscts for the Detroit Red
Speaker 1: Wings during the eighties when they were winning everything.
Speaker 2: I always appreciate Neil's time.
Speaker 1: He's got a great podcast, NHL wrap Around, So go
Speaker 1: to NHL Wraparound dot com if you're interested in learning
Speaker 1: more about this new league and this new sport. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun to have here for year
Speaker 1: one and excited for the future of the Utah Hockey Club.
Speaker 1: Neil stops spot today courtesy of our friends at IFA
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Speaker 1: about your yard.
Speaker 2: You know, a little.
Speaker 1: Florida Georgia line might go a long way if we're
Speaker 1: just going to play singer songwriters that seem to be
Speaker 1: depressed all the time and whiskey is the only thing
Speaker 1: that makes him feel better.
Speaker 4: So I guess maybe maybe you're looking for a different
Speaker 4: type of country than.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the deal, good good.
Speaker 4: I was trying to find the hipster country, like what
Speaker 4: lane that is? So I went like way out there
Speaker 4: on the last one that was Ringo Star by the way, Wow,
Speaker 4: I think that's hipster like he's a original like hip
Speaker 4: guy on the country in two tenty twenty five. This one,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I listened to like although you think
Speaker 4: it may be hipster country, it's like just not popular.
Speaker 4: It's classic, I would say, traditional, or like country in
Speaker 4: Western so really old gene autry or guys that just
Speaker 4: play a guitar and sit on a stool like that's
Speaker 4: I don't know, that's just what I listened.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get a little genautry up in here. So
Speaker 1: who is that that you just played? That was Theo Laurence.
Speaker 1: So it's a newer song, newer artist. But yeah, he
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's just acoustic barstool and guys singing.
Speaker 1: But why can't they sing about happy things? That's the
Speaker 1: thing about like some of the country music. But it's
Speaker 1: always I'll get you, I'll get you. Okay, Please don't
Speaker 1: just like uplift a little and play little Johnny Cash
Speaker 1: if you want, play some of the old stuff you
Speaker 1: listen to. But it seems like and I'm not a
Speaker 1: country music uh savant by any means, I have more
Speaker 1: recently just become uh you know, into a place where
Speaker 1: I embrace it and okay, like give people a chance,
Speaker 1: don't be such a snob. And it's all like my
Speaker 1: wife left me, my girl took off, like the crops
Speaker 1: are in trouble.
Speaker 2: So I'm just gonna drink whiskey and be sad.
Speaker 5: I mean, there is some of those themes. There's no
Speaker 5: doubt about that.
Speaker 3: Yah.
Speaker 4: I guess you have a point. And there could be
Speaker 4: maybe less of that, but I don't know. It's it's uh,
Speaker 4: it's real.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, look sing about the struggle, sing about life,
Speaker 1: but like let's just mix it up a Look, there've
Speaker 1: gotta be some fun things.
Speaker 2: Cowboys.
Speaker 5: I got your cowboys do?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're rope and steer, you're at your line dancing,
Speaker 1: you're square dancing, You're at the Westerner on a Saturday night,
Speaker 1: hanging out, drinking some beers, meeting some women. And it
Speaker 1: can't all just be like my woman left me. And
Speaker 1: so I've got a numb my brain. And so it's
Speaker 1: gonna be whiskey tonight and bud light tomorrow. Maybe I'm projecting, maybe,
Speaker 1: and if we need to have a conversation about that,
Speaker 1: we can have a conversation about.
Speaker 5: It no, actually, no, no brown water for me. All
Speaker 5: of this year so far.
Speaker 2: I am proud of you. I don't care of last year.
Speaker 2: I don't care if it was Anthrew Cuberman or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you for making that change because you
Speaker 1: gotta be careful with that stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but y'all, next song, next song, Okay, it'll be
Speaker 4: country and western stuff, but there'll be a different vibe
Speaker 4: to how about that?
Speaker 2: So I know you're not a big Zach Bryan guy.
Speaker 1: I know Zach Bryan's like this uber popular country singer
Speaker 1: songwriter who's not being boxed into country because he's crossed
Speaker 1: over lines. But it seems like Zach Bryan sings a
Speaker 1: lot of duets with female country singers, and all the
Speaker 1: duets are like, Zach, you're drinking so much whiskey. Stop
Speaker 1: drinking whiskey. And he's like, hey, it helps, and they're like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you're ruining our relationship. Like the themes are the same with
Speaker 1: all the Zach Bryan duett.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're you're not wrong there, and listen, you're you're
Speaker 4: not wrong about it being like an overarching theme of
Speaker 4: country music, like there's a there's a song from the eighties.
Speaker 4: That's kind of playing off that, and it's talking about
Speaker 4: railroads and you know, your truck and all of this,
Speaker 4: and it's it's kind of just playing off of what
Speaker 4: is the stereotypical country song. So I get it. I
Speaker 4: get it.
Speaker 5: But we'll we'll expand our our horizons here next.
Speaker 1: Fair Enough Supporter is in charge of the music today
Speaker 1: because I know he gets tired of me ruining his
Speaker 1: algorithm by sending him songs.
Speaker 2: So we're doing a little country all right.
Speaker 1: We're gonna send you to golf at Mountaindale today, all right,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite tracks.
Speaker 2: I'll be there.
Speaker 1: Let's see on Saturday, I'm gonna play a little outain Dell
Speaker 1: Lake on Saturday. So it's the ESPN Festival at Teas.
Speaker 1: It's powered by the Utah Golf Association. Each day of spring,
Speaker 1: we are giving away rounds of golf to the best
Speaker 1: courses in the state. So listen to The Down and
Speaker 1: Dirty with Scott Mitchell, the Sean o'connells Show, and then
Speaker 1: this program. The drive was spent checkets from two to
Speaker 1: six for your chance to win each day from ESPN
Speaker 1: seven hundred and the Utah Golf Association. Details can be
Speaker 1: found on ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. So mountainde
Speaker 1: one of the best tracks. Right up the Canyon, It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: They just opened last week. I played there. The course
Speaker 1: is in great shape. Text in eight seven seven three
Speaker 1: five three zero seven hundred. Maybe we'll ask the listeners
Speaker 1: to text in their favorite country music artists. Okay, you
Speaker 1: have a different idea, No, I like that. Okay, I
Speaker 1: got the rest of them. But the listeners get one
Speaker 1: choice today.
Speaker 2: One choice.
Speaker 1: Text in a country music song that you would like
Speaker 1: to hear Porter play on the program today. And if
Speaker 1: it includes numbing your mind with little bourbon because your
Speaker 1: woman left you and your cows aren't producing whatever they do,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: You've heard my spiel. It's traditional country. It's country in
Speaker 4: Western So if you if you go down that lane,
Speaker 4: you may be more inclined to get on the show.
Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1: And then if Porter picked your song, he's going to
Speaker 1: send you to golf and boundell for free.
Speaker 2: Porter stand the mic. Let's do a little college football.
Speaker 1: So Nico Iamaliava, the Tennessee quarterback transfer who's been receiving
Speaker 1: a ton of attention because he I've heard the term
Speaker 1: held out and you know.
Speaker 2: If you listen to the show. First of all, thank you, hello,
Speaker 2: how are you?
Speaker 1: Second of all, For years, I simply have said, ever
Speaker 1: since the transfer of Portal and the NIL situation became
Speaker 1: a reality, it is time for the sport to lean
Speaker 1: into the pro model as soon as they possibly can.
Speaker 1: And the reason I said that is if you lean
Speaker 1: into the pro model and allow the athletes to unionize
Speaker 1: and collectively barred and there's a lot of complications, but
Speaker 1: what you eliminate are players coming and going every few months,
Speaker 1: and then you have some uniformity as far as a
Speaker 1: salary cap or a salary struck. Sure concerning what you
Speaker 1: can play pay each player. Quarterbacks may be different because
Speaker 1: they're valued higher, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing the NFL does, and as a result
Speaker 1: of the landscape of college football, situations like this were
Speaker 1: inevitable and will continue. So Nico is landed at UCLA now.
Speaker 1: According to reports, Utah's first game of the season against
Speaker 1: Nico iam Aliava and the UCLA Bruins, they have a
Speaker 1: new quarterback. Did you digest this as something overly problematic
Speaker 1: or do you think as most college football people I
Speaker 1: respect and I've listened to, seem to talk about, this
Speaker 1: is just an inevitable part of the changes and the
Speaker 1: growth of this sport.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is an inevitable step that you know, kind
Speaker 4: of surprise we haven't seen more of it, and frankly
Speaker 4: you have if you're in touch with folks around college football.
Speaker 4: These things are happening behind the scenes in a lot
Speaker 4: of different places. That's why kids are moving, It's why
Speaker 4: kids are understanding that they're not going to get a
Speaker 4: spot on this team. And that used to mean you
Speaker 4: don't have a scholarship. That used to mean, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe you're gonna gray shirt for us and be on
Speaker 4: the practice squad. Now it means you're not getting paid.
Speaker 4: Now it means you don't have anil collective deal with us.
Speaker 4: Now you know, it means different things. But it's nothing
Speaker 4: new in college football. What happened with the Tennessee thing
Speaker 4: as it went public, and it seemed to me that
Speaker 4: pretty much from the beginning, Nico approached Tennessee or Nico's people,
Speaker 4: his agent, whatever the hell it is, because there are
Speaker 4: no parameters on that and it doesn't there's nothing to
Speaker 4: tell us who should be making those negotiations. Gave Tennessee
Speaker 4: a number and Tennessee said no, like pretty early in
Speaker 4: that process, and then Nico his people were shopping that around.
Speaker 4: They're you know, hey, our talents are available, and Tennessee
Speaker 4: kind of said, yeah, we don't. We're not playing this game.
Speaker 4: We have a number that we can do. It's not
Speaker 4: that and we don't think you're necessarily worth that is
Speaker 4: a player. Obviously, you know they had some up and
Speaker 4: downs over the course of last season, but I think that, really, Spence,
Speaker 4: this is something we should expect to see more and
Speaker 4: more of in college football, and Nico probably did a
Speaker 4: service to a lot of college football players around the
Speaker 4: country that are going down this path thinking that they
Speaker 4: have more power than they do at the moment. Spence,
Speaker 4: your power as a college football player is in the NIL.
Speaker 4: There's not a collective bargaining agreement. You do not have
Speaker 4: a players association, you don't have a player's association president.
Speaker 4: Going out and working on your behalf, you have to
Speaker 4: look out for yourself and your NIL, and you have
Speaker 4: to be very careful of not making that something separate
Speaker 4: from the football team, because then you may be kind
Speaker 4: of hung out to dry like Nico is. Part of
Speaker 4: it is owndoing, and part of it just Tennessee saying, hey, not.
Speaker 5: Worth the number that you're trying to give us.
Speaker 4: It's business and a lot of eighteen nineteen year olds
Speaker 4: are going to learn business pretty quick in the college
Speaker 4: football world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And part of if you know, if I don't
Speaker 1: continue down the theme of what I've been preaching for years,
Speaker 1: and I'll sound like a hypocrite. Part of leaning into
Speaker 1: the pro model and part of allowing athletes to unionize
Speaker 1: and collectively bargained does bring a negotiation element to contract
Speaker 1: discussions that make college football fans really uncomfortable. Like one
Speaker 1: of the things that I just think is really misguided
Speaker 1: or all the people that have been piling on Nico
Speaker 1: for what I perceived to be simply a play to
Speaker 1: try to maximize your talent. Now, because we're all accustomed
Speaker 1: to the propaganda that we've been fed for years by
Speaker 1: decision makers and college athletics where we say dumb things
Speaker 1: like student athlete, and we use dumb things and dumb
Speaker 1: words that really are farcical, like amateurism. We're all kind
Speaker 1: of conditioned to believe that these young men should be
Speaker 1: grateful just for the opportunity to play college football. Well,
Speaker 1: if you still think like that, it's time to pay
Speaker 1: attention because those days are long gone.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like this weird dynamic that's happening in
Speaker 1: provo with BYU clearly outbidding teams for basketball players. Yet
Speaker 1: they're in house media and I'm using median air quotes
Speaker 1: because they actually work for BYU, are being forced to
Speaker 1: go on social media to further this narrative. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not about money, it's about love and development and work. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: like stop stop stop trying to muddy the way. Stop
Speaker 1: pulling as Steve Bannon when it comes to your athletic department,
Speaker 1: call it what it is. You are modernizing your approach
Speaker 1: and you are keeping up with the Joneses with the
Speaker 1: ability to write checks alongside Kentucky and Carolina and Duke,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 2: And there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand why you have to convolute the
Speaker 1: message when everybody can see exactly what's going on.
Speaker 2: Don't tell me I'm not seeing what I'm seeing.
Speaker 1: It's one of the problems with this whole approach of
Speaker 1: muddying the waters and you know, flooding the zone with
Speaker 1: misinformation to distract people from what actually is going on.
Speaker 1: It's a trick in religion and politics that they use everywhere,
Speaker 1: and now it's heaped into sports, certainly culturally in certain
Speaker 1: places more than other places. But this whole movement to
Speaker 1: try to distract people from what's actually going on with
Speaker 1: BYU basketball, Because what's actually going on with BYU basketball
Speaker 1: is the Royal Blue Collective, as a result of their
Speaker 1: nine seven figure donors, has the ability to pay aj
Speaker 1: debantsas seven million dollars for five months of basketball, or
Speaker 1: pay the Baylor the guard they got from Baylor three
Speaker 1: point five million dollars reported by Jeff Goodman, Like, we
Speaker 1: know what's happening, So don't try to convolute the message
Speaker 1: and lie to people, straight up fool people and lie
Speaker 1: to people like, No, these young men care about the
Speaker 1: love culture of BYU. They care about the family community
Speaker 1: and the feel around campus.
Speaker 2: No they don't.
Speaker 1: They care about the seven million dollars you're paying for
Speaker 1: you're paying for them to play, And yes, do they
Speaker 1: like the ability that Kevin Young seems to have to
Speaker 1: develop players and the message that he is able to
Speaker 1: bring them that he coached Devin Booker and Kevin Durant,
Speaker 1: Chris Paul. If you want to know how to be
Speaker 1: a pro, come play for me. Certainly that's part of it.
Speaker 1: But you know what, the bigger part of it is
Speaker 1: the fact that you can write checks. So stop lying
Speaker 1: about it. And like everything else has come out of
Speaker 1: this Nico situation with the college Football Transfer Portal, he
Speaker 1: simply and maybe he was getting bad advice because again
Speaker 1: back to the way we're all conditioned to think about
Speaker 1: college football, Nico was being paid two and a half
Speaker 1: million dollars to play college football at Tennessee. And because
Speaker 1: just a few years ago none of these guys were
Speaker 1: being paid anything other than their stipends and their scholarships,
Speaker 1: we all hear two and a half million dollars as
Speaker 1: a nineteen year old to play college football, and we
Speaker 1: say you should be grateful for what you have.
Speaker 2: Well, look in the mirror.
Speaker 1: If you have the opportunity to leverage your talents to
Speaker 1: go to your boss to try to get more money,
Speaker 1: are you going to do that?
Speaker 2: You would be an idiot if you said no.
Speaker 1: So the venom that has gone in his direction is
Speaker 1: entirely misguided. And if you are that old school guy
Speaker 1: that says a scholarship is enough value for college football,
Speaker 1: well you need to find something else to watch, because
Speaker 1: that mentality is as antiquated and dated as watching a
Speaker 1: black and white television when you have the ability to
Speaker 1: watch in all of its glory with the way we
Speaker 1: can watch TV these days, like it's simply a different
Speaker 1: time now, And it looks like Nico. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he got with UCLA, but he is going to UCLA.
Speaker 1: And so that opening game for Utah football just got
Speaker 1: a lot more interesting because the world of sports and
Speaker 1: college football had been on this story. And I have
Speaker 1: no problem with Josh Heipel, the head coach of Tennessee,
Speaker 1: essentially sending the message like nobody's bigger than our program.
Speaker 1: I would imagine coach wit would do something similar. So
Speaker 1: we'll get back to some of this stuff because Bill
Speaker 1: Riley's going to join us during the four o'clock hour.
Speaker 1: But the four o'clock hour of the show has two
Speaker 1: three timers.
Speaker 4: Utah spring football closes out as Kyle Whittingham and the
Speaker 4: Utes prep for the annual twenty two Forever Game.
Speaker 5: On Saturday.
Speaker 4: Coverage up at ESPN seven hundred, Sports dot Com, brought
Speaker 4: to you by Advanced Windows and Jersey Mike's. The NBA
Speaker 4: Play In Tournament continues tonight at Sacramento plays host to
Speaker 4: the Dallas Mavericks, winner taking on Memphis Kings and the
Speaker 4: MAVs on ESPN seven.
Speaker 5: Hundred and seven.
Speaker 4: Tipping off this afternoon, it's Miami and Chicago in the
Speaker 4: Windy City. Winner of the Heat and the Polls takes
Speaker 4: on Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Oh a great goal by Kels.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Keller with a goal, and he's at it again
Speaker 8: in Saint Louis, and the power play.
Speaker 2: Remains red hot and Utah's on the board.
Speaker 4: The Utah Hockey Club closed out the NHL regular season
Speaker 4: last night with a six to one loss to Saint Louis,
Speaker 4: ending the year thirty eight, thirty one and thirteen, good
Speaker 4: enough for it in the West outside of postseason eligibility,
Speaker 4: but the highest win mark in the franchise since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: In Arizona, any drive in the basket begins with the
Speaker 4: first step on the court. It's the ultimate power move.
Speaker 4: IFA Step one crabgrass preventner in lawn food is the
Speaker 4: first choice for a healthy greenyard this summer shop online
Speaker 4: at IFA dot co op or stop by one of
Speaker 4: eighteen Utah stores today. IFA helping to grow the Things
Speaker 4: you Love. I importer Larsen on Utah's number one sports Talk.
Speaker 4: It's ESPN seven hundred ninety two point one FM live
Speaker 4: on YouTube. Man at ESPN seven hundred sports dot.
Speaker 2: Com in that big rug. All right, you don't have
Speaker 2: to overcorrect?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: What is who is this? What are you playing?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Come on, little Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have heard this one.
Speaker 4: I am as you said, you wanted something upbeat, something happy.
Speaker 4: I did overcorrect, obviously, Big Rock Candy mountains sing about
Speaker 4: like lemonade springs and cigarette trees and and uh hey
Speaker 4: it is a Utah connection, though I don't know if
Speaker 4: you've been to Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Speaker 5: Where is it at Severe County?
Speaker 2: I have not.
Speaker 4: It's like a big natural some some force form of landmark.
Speaker 4: It looks like a big pile of candy. I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: did you did you say cigarette trees?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess you don't have to pay for your stove.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, okay, exactly, all right, we have a big
Speaker 1: hour coming up for the next hour, we have the
Speaker 1: only two people in our market to win the Utah
Speaker 1: Sports Broadcaster of the Year Award three separate times.
Speaker 2: On SNL they have the five Timers.
Speaker 1: Clubs, So on uh, on this show, we have the
Speaker 1: three Timers Club. And I'm just picturing Craig Bowler, jack
Speaker 1: in his robe, saying three Timers Club with a stogy
Speaker 1: and a cigar and celebrating the jazz season that is
Speaker 1: now behind us.
Speaker 2: Bowler.
Speaker 3: How you doing, buddy, Yeah, Spence's good to hear.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I got a little stogie, You got a little brandy,
Speaker 8: just kind of warming that up right now, you know
Speaker 8: it is. It's five o'clock somewhere.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 8: Yeah, sitting back, taking a deep breath on a challenging
Speaker 8: season and hopeful that we see some progress on May twelfth,
Speaker 8: and we see something on Draft Night, and we see
Speaker 8: something on during Summer League and then and on we go.
Speaker 8: But yeah, challenging season. As you know, we have had
Speaker 8: multiple chats this year, and you know, I thought we
Speaker 8: saw some growth after the All Star break, especially with
Speaker 8: two guys in Koyer and Philipowski. And that's a good thing,
Speaker 8: you know, as a Jazz move forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I will say you and Thurrell did
Speaker 1: a really really professional job of handling what was a difficult,
Speaker 1: difficult year, a historic year for all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 2: As far as the wins and the losses go.
Speaker 1: Let me just stay in the space though, what was
Speaker 1: what's the biggest challenge lenge of trying to make a
Speaker 1: product entertaining and look to be fair. There are plenty
Speaker 1: of close entertaining games, and I do think this is
Speaker 1: a smart basketball community that understands that when you exist
Speaker 1: in an ecosystem where the governing body tells its members,
Speaker 1: if you're not one of the teams it has a
Speaker 1: chance to win a championship, we actually will reward you
Speaker 1: if you lose games, then its members are going to
Speaker 1: take you up on that, and they're going to lose
Speaker 1: games because that's the ecosystem of how you reward certain teams.
Speaker 1: So we all know what time it is, we all
Speaker 1: know what the organization was doing. But for one of
Speaker 1: the front facing members of the organization that has to
Speaker 1: present this product to the community, when the community knows
Speaker 1: that they're unseerious about winning, how does that bring the
Speaker 1: challenge up in your job Craig.
Speaker 8: Oh wow, that's a great question. I thought COVID was
Speaker 8: tough Spence in twenty twenty and twenty one when we
Speaker 8: throw an cold about one hundred games off the jumbo
Speaker 8: Tron and empty arenas, that was a challenge, But this
Speaker 8: one was a different one because you just said something
Speaker 8: very poignant in the fan base here knows what's going on.
Speaker 8: I think Danny and Justin and Will have all said
Speaker 8: they understand the.
Speaker 3: IQ of the fan base.
Speaker 8: They've been through a lot highs lows, two title runs,
Speaker 8: a lot of playoff action, you know, fifty one years
Speaker 8: now of jazz basketball. I think for me, honestly, I'm
Speaker 8: trying to do a deep dive in how I kind
Speaker 8: of approached this with thorough because we had a lot
Speaker 8: of talks on buses, on airplanes and arenas prior to
Speaker 8: tip off on what we could talk about that had
Speaker 8: a positive spin or twist to it, but real so,
Speaker 8: my point is I wasn't going out as a broadcaster
Speaker 8: to be one to make it a candy what is it?
Speaker 3: Cigarette and mountain.
Speaker 8: You know, it's almost appropriate that Porter played that coming
Speaker 8: out right, because look, fans understand, they're smart. I'm not
Speaker 8: sitting there trying to sell them a bill of goods.
Speaker 8: I get excited on a big play. Do they have
Speaker 8: twenty three turnovers?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Do they like to hear that?
Speaker 8: Probably not, But I gotta be real on what some
Speaker 8: of the issues are. Defense got to be much improved
Speaker 8: as the next year or two comes about, So I
Speaker 8: think Thurll and I we try to find the fact
Speaker 8: that Isaiah was chasing Stockton that was a feel good moment.
Speaker 8: Philipowski's development. We try to put that, you know, as
Speaker 8: a positive as well. And I really believe that even
Speaker 8: Walker Kessler's third year after the sophomore slump, was another
Speaker 8: big story that we tried to just focus on. We
Speaker 8: didn't try to make up anything. I wasn't going to
Speaker 8: be a part of that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just thought, look, let's be real here
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 8: Let's try to find some positives and then let the
Speaker 8: fans for themselves see what I'm seeing. And they saw mistakes,
Speaker 8: they saw growth, they saw potential, but they also saw
Speaker 8: what we all saw a need for better ball handling,
Speaker 8: a much bigger need after watching even the play in games.
Speaker 8: Got to be better defensively, got to commit to be
Speaker 8: a defensive player in this league, a two way guy
Speaker 8: and you know, the postseason, as everyone says, I know
Speaker 8: it gets it's a play on words or you hear
Speaker 8: it all the time, Spence, but it is a different
Speaker 8: level of basketball. I mean, guys going to a different mode.
Speaker 8: Look at Curry and Jimmy Butler last night, seventy five combined. Wow,
Speaker 8: There's just certain players that do turn it on and perform,
Speaker 8: and they did last night.
Speaker 3: Do the Jazz have those that combination?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Will they hopefully?
Speaker 8: And you know, I think the future there are some
Speaker 8: bright spots, but there's definitely need. I think Will Hardy
Speaker 8: and his post season comments were really straight up, and
Speaker 8: I think the other thing, Spence, to answer your question,
Speaker 8: I think I just kind of followed to the way
Speaker 8: Will approached the media. I don't think he cut corners.
Speaker 8: I think he chose the right times to really call
Speaker 8: out the team. He didn't really bury any one individual
Speaker 8: per se, which kept the locker room intact. So I
Speaker 8: have to give him a lot of kudos for going
Speaker 8: through a rough time, but also a guy that says
Speaker 8: he's committed, and I believe he is. I've watched him
Speaker 8: and the way he continued to coach down the last
Speaker 8: ten games. Wow, some coaches or some players may just
Speaker 8: not care much or even show up, but that team
Speaker 8: was still has engaged. I can promise you that in
Speaker 8: the last ten.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this while we're in the space
Speaker 1: of talking about this odd incentive structure that pro basketball
Speaker 1: has where they literally offer great rewards for teams who
Speaker 1: decide to lose on purpose.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's such a weird model.
Speaker 1: It'd be like, Creig, It'd be like if your boss college,
Speaker 1: you know, was like, hey, look, if you are awesome
Speaker 1: this year, we are going to give you a massive
Speaker 1: bonus and you might win Utah Sports broadcaster there. However, Craig,
Speaker 1: here's your other option. You can bumble through every broadcast.
Speaker 1: You can be the worst broadcaster in the league, and
Speaker 1: we are still going to give you a reward. It
Speaker 1: might not be the reward that you get if you're awesome,
Speaker 1: because look, the winning teams in pro basketball to the
Speaker 1: victor goes the spoils.
Speaker 2: That will never change.
Speaker 1: But there's no other industry in the world that actually
Speaker 1: tells you that if you're one of the worst at
Speaker 1: what you do, we will still reward you. Is this
Speaker 1: a structure you would like to see changed because it's
Speaker 1: an interesting topic because the fact of the matter is
Speaker 1: there are certain teams in certain cities, namely the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz and Salt Lake City that actually do need the
Speaker 1: ability to add a premier, big time talent through the
Speaker 1: draft in a way that maybe the Lakers don or
Speaker 1: the heat down or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: We all know the deal here.
Speaker 1: So it's a difficult juxtaposition because, on one hand, get
Speaker 1: us Cooper flag at number one and the losing has
Speaker 1: been worth it. On the other hand, if the Jazz
Speaker 1: don't get lottery luck and they're spinning their wheels, we're
Speaker 1: in danger of being a lottery team year in in,
Speaker 1: year out, like some of the teams in the NBA
Speaker 1: have been for years that have never been.
Speaker 2: Able to find their way back out.
Speaker 1: So there are pros and cons to what the NBA
Speaker 1: does to incentivize losing with this you know this ecosystem,
Speaker 1: but it does lead to unwatchable basketball for about a
Speaker 1: third of the product in the entire in the entire NBA.
Speaker 1: So do you like where we're at? Do you think
Speaker 1: improvements or changes need to be made?
Speaker 8: Well, I'm not a fan because that wasn't the way
Speaker 8: I was raised. I was raised it could be competitive
Speaker 8: and if you go out and bust your tail on
Speaker 8: the field, then the reward is going to come your
Speaker 8: way weight room in the huddle on those hot days
Speaker 8: in practice. And that's just the way I think. I
Speaker 8: think we're in a different era of athlete that has
Speaker 8: been raised a bit differently, with a lot of aau
Speaker 8: and you know, I think also, gosh, if I could
Speaker 8: go to highlight reels at sportscasts around the country on
Speaker 8: national they kind of applaud just, you know, the remarkable
Speaker 8: and it's not remarkable every night. Not all the players
Speaker 8: that play this game have the athleticism or the skill
Speaker 8: set that Curry or what MJ had or what Lebron does.
Speaker 8: So you know, they've got to get real about basketball skill.
Speaker 8: Can you pass? Can you catch the ball? Can you
Speaker 8: do it to two hand chest pass? Thence, I'm going
Speaker 8: back to your where you came from on just the
Speaker 8: real simple basics of the game. Hold the pivot foot.
Speaker 8: What's wrong with the mid range? I know analytics would
Speaker 8: say three is more than two, but you know what,
Speaker 8: it still as part of the game. Three level scoring
Speaker 8: has kind of disappeared. There's a few Demarta Rosen comes
Speaker 8: to mind that can still hit a jump shot the
Speaker 8: low block. You know, play is not that common anymore,
Speaker 8: like in the day. It's a three ball game, so
Speaker 8: you know, I think fans will have to adjust along
Speaker 8: with it. I mean, there's not a lot of defense
Speaker 8: played except in playoff action. And I think the reason
Speaker 8: why Boston won a title last year Spence was because
Speaker 8: of defense. I think Oklahoma City is the by far
Speaker 8: the favorite to win in my opinion, from what I
Speaker 8: saw multiple times this year, OKAC is absolutely a blanket
Speaker 8: of hell. They are constantly at you, and I think
Speaker 8: that's going to bode well for the Thunder unless you know,
Speaker 8: an injury happens or Boston decides the flexter their championship
Speaker 8: muscle again. But I think those two teams, I think
Speaker 8: we'll see East and West. Those two teams, in my opinion,
Speaker 8: will be the ones in the finals. But you know,
Speaker 8: I think, gosh, man, there's so many issues that talk about.
Speaker 8: I'm not a fan of having the lottery. I'm not
Speaker 8: a fan of having three teams. They have fourteen percent
Speaker 8: chance of winning. The Jazz are guaranteed a top five.
Speaker 8: But you know what, in this world, that's not what
Speaker 8: the Jazz would prefer, that's not what the fans would prefer.
Speaker 3: Because there's a.
Speaker 8: Kid at Duke named Cooper Flag that quote has been
Speaker 8: labeled as a potential generational player and that could change
Speaker 8: things in a big way overnight on May twelfth, e Spence.
Speaker 8: I mean, bottom line, if that's what happens when they
Speaker 8: walk out and introduce it, then they'll say it was
Speaker 8: worth it. And you just said if they don't, then
Speaker 8: where do you go from there? Danny has a plethora
Speaker 8: of picks. What he does with that don't know, but
Speaker 8: I think it's probably and I always think in the
Speaker 8: summertime that boy, this summer is.
Speaker 3: A big one.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, this one is probably a big impact,
Speaker 8: a big big, maybe the biggest impact on this franchise
Speaker 8: since they moved to Salt Lake. Yeah, they got stocked
Speaker 8: him alone. That was a long long time ago and
Speaker 8: they were mid first rounders and look what happened. So
Speaker 8: lady luck has to shine on you somewhere, and I
Speaker 8: think it's time for the Jazz that had that type
Speaker 8: of lady luck that they really haven't had last year
Speaker 8: eight down to ten, what Canner was a pick Dante
Speaker 8: was the top five. But you have to hit and
Speaker 8: you have to be lucky, and hopefully the Jazz will
Speaker 8: have that luck on their side. If they don't and
Speaker 8: Washington scoots in or Charlotte whomever, then the Jazz probably
Speaker 8: will have to reevaluate what how they're going to go
Speaker 8: in their next direction? Right, And I think that's going
Speaker 8: to be important. I think fans are going to be
Speaker 8: very intrigued with that. And I will say again as
Speaker 8: I rambled, but there's so many topics here a plot.
Speaker 8: Jazz Nation, you were there. They put bodies in that
Speaker 8: building all year long, watching the process, and I have
Speaker 8: to applaud them for that because I've been to a
Speaker 8: lot of arenas even this year, where man, if you're
Speaker 8: not in the forty five to fifty one category, man
Speaker 8: you look around like, wow, there's nobody in this building.
Speaker 8: You know, it has to be manufactured excitement. But for
Speaker 8: the Jazz Nation jazz fans, I give them a lot
Speaker 8: of credit. Man. They were there and they watched these
Speaker 8: young guys grow, and hopefully they saw some things.
Speaker 1: Like totally agree and I do have to wonder, and
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. So we're just going to talk
Speaker 1: about it because this is a community that has a
Speaker 1: history with his team where part of me feels like
Speaker 1: jazz fans are always going to show up no matter what. Now,
Speaker 1: there have been years in the past, ties last year,
Speaker 1: Quinn's first year, where they weren't very good, and there
Speaker 1: were some signs here there that maybe they had something
Speaker 1: with Hayward, maybe they had something with a young go Bear,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that'd something with Fave And you know,
Speaker 1: there were some signs here there, and the building was
Speaker 1: not full every night during those years. I was on
Speaker 1: the broadcast team, so I was there every single night.
Speaker 1: So but you know, there there's part of me that
Speaker 1: believes that there are so many basketball and jazz fans
Speaker 1: in our community. And you know, we do live in
Speaker 1: a city, in a community that has a winter where
Speaker 1: you know, you just kind of want to get out
Speaker 1: of the house and do something fun. And it's not Miami,
Speaker 1: it's not South Beach, it's not La where those fans
Speaker 1: oftentimes are there for the scene and they're happy to
Speaker 1: leave to go to the bar or the beach or
Speaker 1: whatever at halftime. I've seen that aside an NBA Finals
Speaker 1: game in Miami, we have fans that you know, there's
Speaker 1: not a plethora of other options at times. So maybe
Speaker 1: people just want to go to a damn game, and
Speaker 1: maybe they don't really give a rip as to whether
Speaker 1: or not the team is on the way up, or
Speaker 1: they're not listening to sports socc radio. They just want
Speaker 1: to leave the house. The neighbor got on some tickets
Speaker 1: and they want to go to a Jazz game. But
Speaker 1: how long do you think because the dirty little secret, Craig,
Speaker 1: it is not a secret. The Jazz are not one
Speaker 1: piece away from being close to where Oklahoma City is
Speaker 1: or Denver, the Lakers or the Click like whatever, like
Speaker 1: the West is so good and so deep, and the
Speaker 1: Jazz are not one player away, even if that player
Speaker 1: is Cooper Flag. And there is this kind of thing
Speaker 1: hanging over the jazz fan base in the community that
Speaker 1: a lot of people believe that we will be in
Speaker 1: for next year. We're going to be in for what
Speaker 1: we were in for this year. Next year is going
Speaker 1: to look a lot like this year. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that we have to acknowledge is if there's no
Speaker 1: lottery luck this year and there's no lottery luck next year,
Speaker 1: how long.
Speaker 2: Is this going to take?
Speaker 1: So as we continue to watch the organization stretch the
Speaker 1: pain tolerance of the fan base. How patient do you
Speaker 1: think Jazz fans will be at the end of the
Speaker 1: day if this thing doesn't get going quick, Spence, that.
Speaker 8: Is really the question of unknown. You know, Will Hardy
Speaker 8: would be in his fifth year with the scenario that
Speaker 8: you just outlined right and up for renewal. So even
Speaker 8: though he said he's bought in three years in yeah,
Speaker 8: I think he wants to see how this process is
Speaker 8: going to work itself out. And he he's a hell
Speaker 8: of a coach. He's really good with the individuals. He
Speaker 8: doesn't try to coach everyone the same, and I like
Speaker 8: that because each guy needs his own different approach and
Speaker 8: there's a lot of different personalities on each team, especially
Speaker 8: the Jazz. But Spence, that is something that we're gonna
Speaker 8: have to wait and see. Jazz fans, you said, have
Speaker 8: always been very supportive. They remember the past and they
Speaker 8: hope for the future. And sometimes those tickets are sold
Speaker 8: to Laker fans, Sometimes those tickets are sold to thunder fans.
Speaker 8: Sometimes those tickets are sold to New York or Miami fans.
Speaker 8: But I think that the Jazz base that comes wants
Speaker 8: two things. They want to see the opponent and some
Speaker 8: of their star players. And I think all of us
Speaker 8: get a little bit twisted when that particular night. This
Speaker 8: is where the NBA has to step in on how
Speaker 8: many nights off does an individual star get right, Because
Speaker 8: I ran across so many people even on the road,
Speaker 8: Oh my gosh, they're not playing tonight. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 8: this is the only game I.
Speaker 3: Could go to.
Speaker 8: That's tough to hear when that superstar player is not
Speaker 8: going to be on the floor. And I feel for
Speaker 8: a dad and a son or a daughter and the mother,
Speaker 8: father whatever on a birthday night.
Speaker 3: Right. The other part of it is, you know, I'd
Speaker 3: tell you the luck part. The luck part of it is.
Speaker 8: You have to you do have to be lucky like
Speaker 8: Atlanta last year that went and got Reshaw sche right,
Speaker 8: And if the Jazz don't get their number one pick,
Speaker 8: then I think that, you know, Ryan will have to
Speaker 8: maybe even get more involved in what Danny's strategy is
Speaker 8: with Justin as well, those three and Will who admitted
Speaker 8: yesterday that he's very involved in what direction the Jazz
Speaker 8: go in draft night, which is a good thing. I mean,
Speaker 8: he's going to coach these guys. So you know, I
Speaker 8: don't I tell you I said here, and I wish
Speaker 8: I could just give you an answer like one year,
Speaker 8: two years. My question to you may be, and what
Speaker 8: your thoughts if indeed they land the number one pick?
Speaker 8: Does that accelerate the process because of the excitement and
Speaker 8: the fact that Danny has picks to maybe move and
Speaker 8: even grab another lottery pick if he needs to. That's
Speaker 8: the unknown. What do you do with the picks he
Speaker 8: gathered for Golbert and Donovan, the number one pick he
Speaker 8: got for Semoni Fontekiel. You know they're sitting there waiting
Speaker 8: to be used. But in what way and what time frame?
Speaker 8: Those those answers I don't have. But it's it's interesting
Speaker 8: to ponder that right to see if it accelerates the process, right,
Speaker 8: And that's what I'm anxious to see.
Speaker 1: It's a really fair question to bring up, and it's
Speaker 1: a really fair point to make.
Speaker 2: You know, the issue as we sit.
Speaker 1: Here today, and let's be very clear things can change
Speaker 1: at the drop of a hat, is that neither Cleveland
Speaker 1: nor Minnesota look like they are going to be bad
Speaker 1: anytime soon.
Speaker 2: I don't think Cleveland's gonna win sixty four games every year.
Speaker 1: But that's a young roster with a new coach, and
Speaker 1: they're all they're all under contract for a while. So
Speaker 1: if we look Craig at the incoming first round picks,
Speaker 1: the jack have six of their next seven of their own. Okay,
Speaker 1: they have the most favorable Cleveland Minnesota twenty five, Cleveland
Speaker 1: Minnesota twenty seven, Cleveland Minnesota twenty nine, six through thirty,
Speaker 1: top five protected pick for the Lakers in twenty seven,
Speaker 1: which looked really somewhat exciting prior to you know, they
Speaker 1: just got Luca, right, so that's different. Now they've got
Speaker 1: an unprotected first from Phoenix in twenty thirty one, and
Speaker 1: we'll have to revisit that because that's in.
Speaker 2: Freaking six years.
Speaker 1: I have no idea, but what they have in their
Speaker 1: treasure test right now does not look to be a high.
Speaker 1: You know, the odds of any of these picks being
Speaker 1: very high in the lottery are very low as we
Speaker 1: sit here today, because Cleveland and Minnesota are good and
Speaker 1: they've got good young players that'll be around for a while.
Speaker 1: The Lakers have Luca again, We'll put the Phoenix one
Speaker 1: on the shelf.
Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is on paper, their.
Speaker 1: Best chance to get a high lottery pick continues to
Speaker 1: be their own pick. Okay, so that's the problem, right,
Speaker 1: So what does that mean about how Danny and.
Speaker 2: Justin approached this construction? Moving forward?
Speaker 1: Now, we should also acknowledge that the best player on
Speaker 1: the planet right now was drafted what forty thirty. He
Speaker 1: looks like his diet consists of Pringles and pp and J's.
Speaker 1: So you can find a good player in the second
Speaker 1: round and the best players we've had, yeah, we've and
Speaker 1: the best players we've had John Carl, Donovan Rudy. I
Speaker 1: could keep going. The majority of them have been mid first,
Speaker 1: late first.
Speaker 3: Right, and go go with Paul Millsap.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, right, And so I'm not saying that because
Speaker 1: on paper it looks like the chances of them getting
Speaker 1: a really high pick as if today aren't great unless
Speaker 1: they decide to keep tanking because their own picks could
Speaker 1: continue to be really good.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean they can't find good players.
Speaker 1: But if you play the odds, the better players typically
Speaker 1: are faut at the top of the draft. So if
Speaker 1: they luck into number one with Cooper Flag, part of
Speaker 1: me believes that everyone else is on the table, including Lowry.
Speaker 1: I don't know that, but part of me believes they're
Speaker 1: going to look at this as Okay, our organizational timeline
Speaker 1: is the timeline that we have with Cooper, who is
Speaker 1: a young eighteen year old, and so therefore we are
Speaker 1: actually starting this process with him, and Lowry at the
Speaker 1: age of twenty eight doesn't fit the timeline. Walker even
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty five twenty six might not
Speaker 1: fit the timeline. Like there's part of me that believes
Speaker 1: if they get Cooper they actually go all in on
Speaker 1: a massive rebuild surrounding him, and the timeline starts with
Speaker 1: Cooper flag at eighteen. But there is another part of
Speaker 1: me that looks at what they could be if they
Speaker 1: don't tank, and if they don't rest everybody, and you
Speaker 1: add Cooper Flag another first round pick, and maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of vets, and then you say, okay, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's actually try to see what we have when we
Speaker 1: play Lowry as many games as he'll play, or Walker,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Those are the two avs. Craig and I
Speaker 1: honestly don't know which direction they'll take.
Speaker 8: I don't either, but you know it's possible for either,
Speaker 8: very very possible. The second one you just mentioned about
Speaker 8: the young players and Flip and Walker and Isaiah Collier.
Speaker 8: That's intriguing. With Cooper Flag the timelines you mentioned are
Speaker 8: intriguing as well. Age is always going to win, Father
Speaker 8: time is never defeated.
Speaker 3: And what is the value.
Speaker 8: Of any player on this Cavs roster at the moment
Speaker 8: and marketing the courses is that highlighted player didn't get
Speaker 8: to see a lot of them this year legitimate back
Speaker 8: injury early and then basically, you know, the JAD just
Speaker 8: said let's wait and see what happens with a lot
Speaker 8: of players down the stretch. And you know, that's a
Speaker 8: million dollar question that every Jazz fan wants to know,
Speaker 8: and there's only about three guys really that know it.
Speaker 8: It's got to be Ryan and he may maybe dictates
Speaker 8: the future. He owns this franchise, and I think with
Speaker 8: the downtown development and looking at the Olympics coming in
Speaker 8: thirty four, you know how important is that as well
Speaker 8: all to have a base of excitement this time.
Speaker 3: Of year with postseason play.
Speaker 8: Spence, you know this team, had they played all year long, yeah,
Speaker 8: they probably could have manufactured a play in potentially. I
Speaker 8: don't think that's a stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 3: But you know, one and done.
Speaker 8: It doesn't get it done, but it still adds the
Speaker 8: excitement of the moment as the season progresses and something
Speaker 8: to look forward to. But how deep does Ryan want
Speaker 8: to go? And how far does Danny you know go
Speaker 8: as well? In Justin's mindset, it may really dictate Spence
Speaker 8: the lottery on May twelfth. What direction the Jazz want
Speaker 8: to go? I think it's it's huge for this franchise.
Speaker 8: You know, maybe one of the top two or three
Speaker 8: moments in franchise history. I don't want over you know,
Speaker 8: I can't say it's number one. I mean, you had
Speaker 8: the Miller's, you know, save the franchise, you had Ryan
Speaker 8: and Ashley buy it from them. I mean there's some
Speaker 8: mega moments in this franchise. To stay in Salt Lake,
Speaker 8: by the way, and this one, this one's right there,
Speaker 8: This one's big. I always say summertime is always fun
Speaker 8: to see what direction each franchise goes. But for the
Speaker 8: Jazz fan base, this is big. And if the number
Speaker 8: one pick happens to be the kid from Duke, it
Speaker 8: could change direction. If it isn't, then they're going to
Speaker 8: have to probably rethink. I'm sure though, up on a
Speaker 8: board somewhere they've got all these options. I'm thinking that's
Speaker 8: the way that you know, Danny works and justin They're
Speaker 8: always thinking about different scenarios. But right now, the focus
Speaker 8: is on that number one pick, and you know what
Speaker 8: spends fourteen percent doesn't sound all that much, but it
Speaker 8: does when it comes down how you break it down
Speaker 8: with everybody else, right, the other thirty teams in the league,
Speaker 8: So three teams have the best opportunity to grab the
Speaker 8: number one. In the NFL, as you mentioned, NFL, if
Speaker 8: you're the worst team in the league, what happens you
Speaker 8: get the pick right In the NBA, it's not that way.
Speaker 3: So I'm sure.
Speaker 8: I'm sure the league's talking about some of these other
Speaker 8: issues we talked about too. They tried to make the
Speaker 8: All Star Game more functionable, more watchable, and I'm sure
Speaker 8: that Adam Silverwill has some discussions as we speak about
Speaker 8: how they're going to stay active with these players and
Speaker 8: how teams are going to be Can they reward teams
Speaker 8: for wins?
Speaker 3: Can you get another pick if you win fifty? I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 8: Those are just ideas, but you know, I'm sure that's
Speaker 8: being talked about right now and all summer long.
Speaker 1: All right, baller, before I say you loose, I'm going
Speaker 1: to hold you to one name the biggest bright spot,
Speaker 1: whether it was a surprise, whether it was growth, whether
Speaker 1: it was you know, just a player that you would
Speaker 1: say to the fan base, this is the guy that
Speaker 1: impressed me the most this year.
Speaker 2: And why who would you go with?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 8: And right off the top, and you said that to me.
Speaker 8: Two names popped in my head, actually three, but I'm
Speaker 8: going to go with Collier just because of the pace
Speaker 8: he plays with and the fact that he is his
Speaker 8: brain is wired to be a point guard and to share.
Speaker 8: He led all rookies with six point three assists a game.
Speaker 8: He was near double figures and scoring. I think he's
Speaker 8: a bulldog mentality. I think he has a grit and
Speaker 8: a grime the Jazz need, like a Desmond Bane. He's
Speaker 8: not the biggest kid in the world, but he's strong
Speaker 8: and I think he changes the look. He has to improve,
Speaker 8: as Will echoed, and we all see it. You know,
Speaker 8: he went from sixteen seventeen percent from downtown to about
Speaker 8: twenty five from three. That's got to jump another ten points.
Speaker 8: Ten percentage points. And also he's got to be more
Speaker 8: dedicated to defense. That's where everybody in the league, and
Speaker 8: not only the Jazz, but I think defenses does win
Speaker 8: championships in the end.
Speaker 3: So Isaiah just popped in my head, flip.
Speaker 8: I can't help but like as an early second round pick,
Speaker 8: he grew big time and proved a three point shot
Speaker 8: on the run after the All Star and he seems
Speaker 8: to have a little bit better attitude and a voice. Spence,
Speaker 8: I don't know what you saw, but that's kind of
Speaker 8: those two guys, and again Walker's growth after a tough
Speaker 8: sophomore season. Those three guys jumped down at me the most.
Speaker 8: But Isaiah, you know, is he a starter in this league?
Speaker 8: Yet to be seen? Could it be a dynamic six guy? Yes,
Speaker 8: I think so. But I like his attitude. I like
Speaker 8: the fact that his voice. He started to use his
Speaker 8: voice more. And as a rookie I can't imagine coming
Speaker 8: into a veteran situation trying to, you know, be a
Speaker 8: guy that says, hey, follow me. But I think his
Speaker 8: play on the floor was enough to say, okay, guys,
Speaker 8: look here, I am let's roll. And that's that's a
Speaker 8: good thing. And I think Will Hardy's looking for leadership,
Speaker 8: as you know.
Speaker 1: All right, my friend, Well, I was hoping to hear
Speaker 1: the sounds of either slot machines in the background or
Speaker 1: maybe waves crashing on the shore. Because you deserve some
Speaker 1: time off, so I'll let you get back to the road,
Speaker 1: the brandy and the stogy. Craig, thank you for the time,
Speaker 1: my friend.
Speaker 3: All right, man, don't be a stranger.
Speaker 8: You know, sometimes I'll have to walk into the studio
Speaker 8: and just to air my air my just to get
Speaker 8: you know, just to get it on the table once
Speaker 8: in a while.
Speaker 2: It's an open invitation, buddy, you know that.
Speaker 3: All right, pal, Good to talk.
Speaker 1: To you, great Craig Bowlerjack TV Voice the Utah Jazz
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Speaker 1: at IFA dot co op. All right, we continue a
Speaker 1: very big, important hour with Bill Riley coming up on
Speaker 1: the other side, probably the last day of that year,
Speaker 1: in charge of our musical selection. But there's a method
Speaker 1: of your madness here. Vince Gill is the artist and
Speaker 1: Bill Riley is our guest. So what's the reasoning here?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you explain it.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 4: I guess not much of a hipster country thing like
Speaker 4: you were saying, No Vince Gill, Bill Riley, lou stoppelgangers.
Speaker 5: Oh, there's some certain pictures of.
Speaker 4: Vince Gill you can find, and it looks like Bill
Speaker 4: Riley belting out of country too.
Speaker 2: It's awesome.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that our next guest is going
Speaker 1: to take on bird with that. Bill Riley joins the program.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard Ryle's that you look like Vince Gill.
Speaker 8: I've had people stop me in airports and places saying
Speaker 8: I look like Vince Skill.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 3: Porter Larson is on it. Today.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, well we're continuing Ryle's a very important hour
Speaker 1: on the program because last segment we had Craig Bowler
Speaker 1: Jack who has won the Utah Sports Broadcaster the Year
Speaker 1: three times, and you Bill have one Utah Sports Broadcaster
Speaker 1: the Year three times. Have you guys been able to
Speaker 1: get together with the robes in the andy and the
Speaker 1: stoves to celebrate.
Speaker 8: Yet we were going to come in studio and where
Speaker 8: are Hugh Hefner smoking jackets? And if Steve Johnson would
Speaker 8: let us maybe fire up a stogy, have a brandy sniffer,
Speaker 8: one of those type things.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out and limb and say Steve probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't be thrilled if we're just smoking cigars in the studio,
Speaker 1: But your point stands. My follow up question is have
Speaker 1: you guys cultivated the handshake like they have at SNL
Speaker 1: for the five Timers Club where you just go one, two, three,
Speaker 1: You're great, You're great.
Speaker 2: Have you and Baller done that yet?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 8: But I will let you know.
Speaker 3: I will let you know that someone that you know
Speaker 3: that is.
Speaker 8: Close to you may or may not have shared a
Speaker 8: secret handshake with.
Speaker 3: Me that you would know.
Speaker 2: Oh no, was it Morgan.
Speaker 3: It was just not Scaley. No, it was that Scaley.
Speaker 2: Are you gonna tell me who is share the name.
Speaker 8: With you off air because I don't want to. I
Speaker 8: don't want to out him publicly.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, just so you don't want you share the name.
Speaker 1: He's getting dinged. We're kicking him out because that's not allowed. Bill,
Speaker 1: that is not allowed.
Speaker 3: He's one of your guys, though, he is one of
Speaker 3: your guys.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, now my mind is spinning, but we
Speaker 1: shall move on.
Speaker 3: Bill.
Speaker 2: How you been man? What's going on with you these days?
Speaker 3: I've been good. I was hoping.
Speaker 8: I'm glad that Porter brought me in with Vin skilled today.
Speaker 8: I was hoping for some third eye blind though, No, we.
Speaker 1: Hit our quota. Porter got loose with the third eye blind.
Speaker 1: We had like five third eye blind socks the other day.
Speaker 1: But let's let's get an update. You know, obviously you're
Speaker 1: busy up there, and it's a new it's a new world.
Speaker 1: So it's been a while since we've checked in with
Speaker 1: you as far as all of the things you have
Speaker 1: going on as the director of Broadcasting at the University
Speaker 1: of Utah.
Speaker 2: Let's get an update.
Speaker 8: There a lot of baseball as of late. Did some
Speaker 8: softball yesterday Weber State and Utah softball. Lots of prep
Speaker 8: going on for the big spring football game coming up
Speaker 8: on Saturday, a chance for Utah Angewhich. I'm sure we'll
Speaker 8: talk about her momentarily. We'll get to see Devin damp
Speaker 8: here in all this glory and the rest of Utah football,
Speaker 8: and just kind of winding down the season a little
Speaker 8: bit and then really ramping up for next year. We
Speaker 8: did we're on our way to about fifty events this
Speaker 8: year on ESPN Plus, and next year we'll have in
Speaker 8: the neighborhood of one hundred and ten to one hundred
Speaker 8: and twenty events, So it will be it will be
Speaker 8: a big lift next year.
Speaker 2: Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 1: So let's stay in the football space, and let's start
Speaker 1: the football portion of the conversation with the fact that
Speaker 1: the transfer portal has once again opened up, and it's
Speaker 1: a small one. I think it's only ten days. I
Speaker 1: think it'll close on the twenty fifth. And you know,
Speaker 1: you hear some of the interviews and some of the
Speaker 1: sound from coach Wit and others, but what do you anticipate,
Speaker 1: if anything, Utah football doing over the next ten days.
Speaker 8: I you know, when spring football ends this weekend, they'll
Speaker 8: probably be some departures for the program.
Speaker 3: You know, that's always going to be the case.
Speaker 8: Some of the guys that figured out that they are
Speaker 8: not in the two or the three deep and they
Speaker 8: probably want to move on to go someplace where they
Speaker 8: can play.
Speaker 3: I think Utah.
Speaker 8: Will probably be a little active. They've always been a
Speaker 8: little active in the spring portal, and I could see
Speaker 8: them targeting some folks. I could see them maybe adding
Speaker 8: a little bit.
Speaker 3: I don't think that they're.
Speaker 8: Necessarily going to be out hunting for somebody that's going
Speaker 8: to be an a one top line starter, but I
Speaker 8: could see them probably looking to add a little bit
Speaker 8: of depth on both sides of the ball. I'm not
Speaker 8: sure where it would be yet. Got to talk to
Speaker 8: Jason Beck and Morgan Scalley after football kind of wraps
Speaker 8: up in the spring. But I wouldn't anticipate, as they've
Speaker 8: been the last couple of years, I could see Utah
Speaker 8: probably going out and do it a little shopping and
Speaker 8: probably adding some depth on both offense and defense. You know,
Speaker 8: I wouldn't expect double digits, you know, I'd probably expect
Speaker 8: maybe a handful of guys, four or five guys, maybe
Speaker 8: they would add the portal, But again that's just guesswork
Speaker 8: on my part.
Speaker 1: What about wide receiver because just you know, on paper
Speaker 1: and look on paper, there are so many new players
Speaker 1: that we still need to kind of understand what sort
Speaker 1: of hand we've been dealt. And honestly, Bill, you know this,
Speaker 1: we won't know until fall. You know, spring is spring
Speaker 1: and springball springball, and I'm excited to be up at
Speaker 1: Rice Ecles on Saturday in the spring game Forever twenty two.
Speaker 1: Game is always fun. Go to Utah Youth dot Com
Speaker 1: for tickets. But just on paper, and then what coach
Speaker 1: Witt has said during media, it feels like wide receiver
Speaker 1: might be a position of need. What tell me your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think they're trying to I think they've got
Speaker 8: numbers right now Spence, and I think what they've been
Speaker 8: trying to do through spring and that's why it's going
Speaker 8: to be interesting for me to talk to Beck. I'll
Speaker 8: get a chance to talk to him over the next
Speaker 8: day or two leading up to the game is where
Speaker 8: are you're at. The one name that's come up consistently
Speaker 8: through spring football has been Zacharias Williams Zack. They call
Speaker 8: him Zach now, but Zach Williams I think has kind
Speaker 8: of separated himself as kind of the wide receiver one
Speaker 8: as the guys that they have right now. But they've
Speaker 8: got a bunch of other guys, you know, Zipper Or
Speaker 8: who's been in the program, Otto Tiya who's new to
Speaker 8: the program, the Ryan Davis kid who came from New Mexico.
Speaker 8: With Jason Beck who's been in the Pro. There's some
Speaker 8: guys that have been there. But I think that they're
Speaker 8: trying to figure out what the hierarchy is. So it's
Speaker 8: gonna be really interesting for me to be able to
Speaker 8: talk to Jason Beck and see what he's seen over
Speaker 8: spring football. But to your point, because there haven't been
Speaker 8: a lot of names that have really jumped out, it
Speaker 8: wouldn't surprise me if maybe wide receiver was an area
Speaker 8: they look. Now, you know, here's your problem at wide receiver.
Speaker 8: Your problem at wide receiver is the elite guys are
Speaker 8: probably on teams, and if an elite guy comes out,
Speaker 8: then you're gonna you know, it's going to be a
Speaker 8: bidding war for somebody like that. So I think that
Speaker 8: they would look to add somebody who's probably got a
Speaker 8: little bit of a resume already that's probably played and
Speaker 8: produced some places. But I think wide receiver might be
Speaker 8: an area that they could look. But I'll find out
Speaker 8: a little bit more after the talk. I am able
Speaker 8: to talk to Jason.
Speaker 1: Beck, tell me what you're hearing about Devin about Devin
Speaker 1: damp here. And you know, we've had an opportunity over
Speaker 1: the past couple of months, both Jason Beck and coach
Speaker 1: with and Morgan too, who joined week. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I asked Jason and I asked Kyle this too. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how much he loved it, but I asked
Speaker 1: both of them like Devn's the guy, right like based
Speaker 1: off of just the difficulty. Certainly the health has been
Speaker 1: the biggest thing. But you know, we certainly have a
Speaker 1: Utah football fan base that I think at times were
Speaker 1: frustrated with the lack of information and the ambiguity surrounding
Speaker 1: your starting quarterback under center. And I'm not putting that
Speaker 1: on any one person. And I will maintain that Cameron
Speaker 1: Rising should never pay for a beer again in Salt
Speaker 1: Lake and should be remembered as a legend as he
Speaker 1: exits stage left. But you know, Jason said, yeah, the
Speaker 1: jobs devns and Kyle said, yeah, if we were playing tomorrow,
Speaker 1: Devon's our starting quarterback. So at least there there's no
Speaker 1: ambiguity around the decision, at least as of now. Tell
Speaker 1: me what you're hearing about the progress of Utah's quarterback
Speaker 1: Devin dan Pierre.
Speaker 8: He's he's spectacular spence in the times that you had
Speaker 8: a chance to watch him and I've had, I've been
Speaker 8: able to get over to a number of practices.
Speaker 3: He is electric.
Speaker 8: I can't think of a quarterback has had in the
Speaker 8: last twenty five years that's comparable to his skill set.
Speaker 8: And I say that from an athleticism standpoint. As good
Speaker 8: an athlete as Tyler Huntley was, Devin dam Piers a
Speaker 8: better athlete than Tyler Huntley. He's just got the ability
Speaker 8: to do and move and do things that other quarterbacks
Speaker 8: haven't been able to do. Now again, he's doing it
Speaker 8: in practice against the defense that's been relatively vanilla. You know,
Speaker 8: Morgan Scalty will dial it up from time to time,
Speaker 8: but he is a very unique athlete and his passing
Speaker 8: and I watched a lot of his stuff from New
Speaker 8: Mexico a year ago. His accuracy, at least in practice
Speaker 8: and on the practice field looks like it's gotten better
Speaker 8: to me. But here's the thing, you've got to love
Speaker 8: talking to the coaches up there. He is a leader already.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 8: Some of that has to do with the fact that
Speaker 8: he knew the offense coming in. That's the leg up
Speaker 8: he had on everybody else. But he is a guy
Speaker 8: that people have kind of been attracted to. He's been
Speaker 8: kind of a a teammate magnet, and he is most
Speaker 8: deadly a leader on the field and in the in
Speaker 8: the in the in the classroom as well, in the
Speaker 8: in the in the film room, and in the offensive
Speaker 8: meeting room.
Speaker 3: So I've not heard.
Speaker 8: One thing on or off the field that is in
Speaker 8: any way, shape or form negative about Devin dan Peer.
Speaker 8: He has been really impressive this spring with his new teammates.
Speaker 1: When it comes to just the dynamic bill of spring football,
Speaker 1: what over the years, since you've been doing this for
Speaker 1: as long as you have, because you're really old, what
Speaker 1: are some of the things that are real that you
Speaker 1: would say to the fan base, Because for me, it's
Speaker 1: always just been an excuse for those of us that
Speaker 1: are in the space to do this for hours every day,
Speaker 1: to actually talk college football in the spring, and for
Speaker 1: college football fans that are chomping at the bit always
Speaker 1: because they're crazy people.
Speaker 2: In addicts a reminder that it is coming back.
Speaker 1: But what are real things that the coaching staff is
Speaker 1: trying to implement that we can actually learn from spring ball.
Speaker 8: Well, I think it's athleticism more than anything else, and
Speaker 8: football moves. It's not that somebody breaks a fifty yard
Speaker 8: touchdown in practice. It's how they break the fifty yard touchdown.
Speaker 8: A guy like way Sean Parker who's able to he
Speaker 8: looks the part of running back one. They've got four
Speaker 8: really good running backs on the team right now, but
Speaker 8: Parker looks different than the other three. Maybe that's because
Speaker 8: he had a really good freshman year at Washington State.
Speaker 8: But I think when you see guys out there, athleticism
Speaker 8: and the freakishness that some of these guys possessed, that's
Speaker 8: what flashes for you. It's not the fact that they
Speaker 8: score a touchdown or they do well against the ones
Speaker 8: or the twos. It's when you see a guy come
Speaker 8: out of a break and he leaves the defensive back
Speaker 8: of the dust or you see a defensive back make
Speaker 8: a break on a ball and make a really nice
Speaker 8: play against the first team offense. To me, I don't
Speaker 8: look at the overall results because again, those can come
Speaker 8: and go, and in football, it's how they got there.
Speaker 8: It's how they made the play. It's out jumping somebody
Speaker 8: or outrunning somebody, or just looking the part. So that's
Speaker 8: to me what usually translates. It's not that they, oh,
Speaker 8: they had a ninety yard touchdown run. That's not it
Speaker 8: for me.
Speaker 1: I asked Morgan this question last week, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was a typical coach answer, which I expected when
Speaker 1: it comes to preseason expectations.
Speaker 2: And look, we all know the truth of the matter.
Speaker 1: Coaches and players tell us they don't read, they don't listen,
Speaker 1: they don't watch, and they do they pay attention. And
Speaker 1: certainly in this day and age where we all have
Speaker 1: computers in our hand and the ability to be inundated
Speaker 1: with information twenty four or seven, you're going to be
Speaker 1: curious about what other people are expecting from you in
Speaker 1: this ecosystem. And last year, everybody expected you tough football
Speaker 1: to win the Big Twelve. Everybody expected you tough football
Speaker 1: to go to the expanded CFP this year, Bill, the
Speaker 1: pressure to do that is not there at all most
Speaker 1: of the way too early, big twelves have Utah about
Speaker 1: mid tier, about mid table, five, six or seven. Does
Speaker 1: the lack of pressure take anything off the plate of
Speaker 1: these players and coaches? Because coaches, whether it's Kyle or Kilani,
Speaker 1: we always hear the moniker in the message nobody believes
Speaker 1: in you play with a chip on your shoulder. Remember
Speaker 1: everyone picked us six, seven, eight, not one, two or three.
Speaker 1: Does the lack of pressure do you think it bodes
Speaker 1: well for Utah football this year?
Speaker 8: Maybe a little bit, Spence, But what I would say
Speaker 8: is there's a lot more internal pressure. I think the
Speaker 8: lack of results, or the lack of usual results last
Speaker 8: year dials it up more internally because the bar has
Speaker 8: been set so high within the program. I can tell
Speaker 8: you Kyle Whittingham and those guys on that staff were
Speaker 8: really disappointed with how last year played out. Some of
Speaker 8: it was out of their control, like injuries. But you know,
Speaker 8: a five win season is not you know, good by
Speaker 8: Utah standards, and so I think that there's a lot
Speaker 8: more internal pressure this year to have a bounce back
Speaker 8: year than there was any kind of external pressure even
Speaker 8: last year, because you know, Kyle Whittingham is not going
Speaker 8: to coach forever, and I don't think that he wants
Speaker 8: to have back to back down years toward the end
Speaker 8: of his career. So I just I think there's a
Speaker 8: lot more internal pressure to do well. But here's what
Speaker 8: I will tell you too, And I think you and
Speaker 8: I may have talked about this on prior hits about
Speaker 8: spring football. There's a real energy and a real kind
Speaker 8: of vibe around this team this spring, and I think
Speaker 8: some of it's the disappointment of last year, but I
Speaker 8: think some of it's the new blood and the new
Speaker 8: energy that stuff, you know, that that kind of Jason
Speaker 8: Beck and Micah Simon and Mark out to Why have
Speaker 8: brought in with the offense. And I think with this
Speaker 8: new offense, it's kind of brought a little bit out
Speaker 8: of the defense as well. So yeah, going back to
Speaker 8: your original point, I think, you know, externally, there's not
Speaker 8: a lot of people talking about him, though some people are,
Speaker 8: but I think there's a lot of internal pressure to
Speaker 8: get back to where they've been the last couple years.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting you reference that because I
Speaker 1: had a list of things I wanted to kick the
Speaker 1: tires with you today, and one of the things I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about is, you know, you listen
Speaker 1: to Kyle Morgan. You know, you listen all the coaches
Speaker 1: after practice and during their media availability, and ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of it is coach speak. Ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: it is just kind of them filling their obligations, and
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: But sometimes Kyle will say some things.
Speaker 1: That kind of, you know, make me perk up a
Speaker 1: little bit as my my antenna's buzzing a little bit.
Speaker 1: And on a number of occasions, Bill, not once, not twice,
Speaker 1: multiple times he has said there's more positive energy in
Speaker 1: this building than we've had in quite some time, which
Speaker 1: struck me because Kyle's not one to run down former players.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's doing that, and he's not one
Speaker 1: to run down form or whatever, but just his expression
Speaker 1: of this positive energy around the club the football team
Speaker 1: has caught me. It's just got my attention on multiple times.
Speaker 1: So elaborate on that and maybe specifically what you've seen
Speaker 1: and felt from Kyle himself.
Speaker 8: I just think that there's some people that I think
Speaker 8: the new offensive staff brought a new offensive energy and
Speaker 8: kind of a new excitement around the program, and that
Speaker 8: certainly jumps start of the offensive side of things, but
Speaker 8: I think it's been kind of contagious on the defensive
Speaker 8: side as well, because they're seeing all this energy in
Speaker 8: this everything that's going on over there. And I think
Speaker 8: there's some of it too, is there's a lot of
Speaker 8: new faces on this team.
Speaker 3: There's you know, your roster, whether you're Utah.
Speaker 8: Your BYU, or your Tennessee or your or your Alabama,
Speaker 8: you're turning your roster over. So I think some of
Speaker 8: the new faces to go along with some of the
Speaker 8: new energy on the offensive side and some of the
Speaker 8: new terminology has really done that. And I think it's
Speaker 8: permeated through the players and the staff, and I think
Speaker 8: the head coach has felt some of that too, and
Speaker 8: I think there's an excitement about that. I think when
Speaker 8: Kyle decided he was going to come back and coach again,
Speaker 8: I think he felt a little re energized by it.
Speaker 8: So I think he's brought that with it.
Speaker 1: All right, a couple of minutes least, So let's do
Speaker 1: a little basketball. As Alex Jensen will potentially be coaching
Speaker 1: his last game with the Dallas Mavericks tonight, so you know,
Speaker 1: potentially we'll see that they win. They're going to maybe
Speaker 1: have one other game, but Alex might be a week
Speaker 1: away from leaving Dallas behind and moving here, moving back
Speaker 1: here well where he will be the seventeenth head coach
Speaker 1: in the history of the Utah men's basketball program.
Speaker 2: Before we get to the specifics, bill from your.
Speaker 1: Vantage point, thirty thousand foot view, about a month, month
Speaker 1: and a half of Alex's tenures so far.
Speaker 2: What are the main takeaways.
Speaker 8: Well, I think that he's finally beginning to get his
Speaker 8: staff in place, and I think that's important. I think
Speaker 8: the HighRes this week and getting close to completing his
Speaker 8: staff are big. I do know, though I don't know
Speaker 8: a lot of exact names, I know that they've had
Speaker 8: a lot of visitors on campus. I know that the coach,
Speaker 8: the staff that's here, Chileas the GM, some of the
Speaker 8: other staff members are really working hard right now.
Speaker 3: So I think that they're they're vetting.
Speaker 8: I think they're doing their time, They're kind of doing
Speaker 8: the work in vetting these guys. I don't think they're
Speaker 8: just going out willy nilly and grabbing guys because I
Speaker 8: think that they want to you know, as Alex has said,
Speaker 8: and I think he's probably said it with you and
Speaker 8: said it on Sean's show too, he wants to build
Speaker 8: it the right way and doesn't want to just grab
Speaker 8: guys for the sake of grabbing guys, because I think
Speaker 8: we've seen how that's worked in some other places and
Speaker 8: it doesn't necessarily work. So I think that the I
Speaker 8: think he's had a plan. I think a lot of
Speaker 8: people have maybe not necessarily felt it because he's not
Speaker 8: here full time. But the sense I've gotten is he's
Speaker 8: working a lot behind the scenes, and he's got the
Speaker 8: staffed in place. It's working too, So I think as
Speaker 8: he's filling out this staff, I think we're going to
Speaker 8: be starting to see more and more players.
Speaker 3: I think we've got, you know.
Speaker 8: Four commitments right now, or four guys they got a
Speaker 8: commitment today according to some of the reports, and then
Speaker 8: you've got Dawes and Terence Brown and James Occono who
Speaker 8: have committed publicly. So I think that some of that
Speaker 8: stuff is good for them. And I think it's very
Speaker 8: interesting to see, you know, how he's putting this thing together.
Speaker 8: But I like the pace instant that they've come forward with.
Speaker 2: Does it feel like there?
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about the positive energy on the
Speaker 1: football side of things, and I didn't talk to one
Speaker 1: person who felt like Market landed on the right the
Speaker 1: wrong choice with Alex. It's one of the rare hires
Speaker 1: for my prism where everybody felt It felt to me
Speaker 1: like everybody was on board. Do you have any context
Speaker 1: as far as the positive energy around the basketball program,
Speaker 1: whether or not they're receiving phone calls for season ticket
Speaker 1: deposits and you know, a basketball community build they're quite
Speaker 1: frankly has been more or less dormant since Rick left.
Speaker 1: If we're honest with truncated moments here or there, what
Speaker 1: has been the buzz in the building around the new
Speaker 1: era that we're in now with Alex Jensen as the coach.
Speaker 8: Everybody here is excited about expense. I haven't talked to
Speaker 8: ticketing per se about you know, whether their ticket numbers
Speaker 8: are up, but I just know that there's a real
Speaker 8: buzz and talking to some folks in the Crimson Club,
Speaker 8: they've gotten great feedback and positive vibes from it two,
Speaker 8: So I think everything has been really really positive. As
Speaker 8: you know, I mean Alex is beloved here as a
Speaker 8: former player and for just a local guy that's got
Speaker 8: such great ties. But everything to this point in time
Speaker 8: that I've heard or been talked to about is really
Speaker 8: positive about the hire.
Speaker 1: Last thing, what to you will indicate next year? Because
Speaker 1: I've been asked this a million times, And first of all,
Speaker 1: we don't know who the players are going to be,
Speaker 1: so it's impossible to analyze how good the team is
Speaker 1: going to be. But if you look at what the
Speaker 1: Big twelve could be next year, Houston is going to
Speaker 1: be impossible.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: They've got a bunch of transfers coming in to replace
Speaker 1: some of the players that are leaving. Your rock Chop
Speaker 1: Jayhawks are bringing in a tremendous amount of transfers and
Speaker 1: talent byus open up the checkbook. And there's a rumor
Speaker 1: that they're going to grab the Williams kid from Texas Tech,
Speaker 1: which might make them a top ten team in college
Speaker 1: basketball next year. So I'm trying Bill to be very
Speaker 1: diligent to set expectations. You're one, so Alex doesn't get
Speaker 1: a bunch of heat on him if he's not one
Speaker 1: of the top four or five teams of the Big Twelve.
Speaker 1: So just generally speaking, what will you look for next
Speaker 1: year to indicate that this thing is at least moving
Speaker 1: in the right direction.
Speaker 8: But I think it's being competitive into Big twelve and
Speaker 8: winning games on the road, and being you know, being
Speaker 8: in contention for, you know, being in the top half
Speaker 8: of the league, because if you're in the top half
Speaker 8: of the league, you're then in contention for an NC
Speaker 8: double A tournament birth. So it'll be interesting to see,
Speaker 8: you know, once the rosters put together, how that looks.
Speaker 8: But I think that's progress. I think being in the
Speaker 8: top half of one of the best leagues in the
Speaker 8: country and also being talked about, you know, when joeln
Speaker 8: already's putting bracketology and stuff together. That's that's important too,
Speaker 8: because I think that's the standard that you know, Mark
Speaker 8: Harlin and and Taylor Randall said they want to be
Speaker 8: an NC double A tournament team. So I think competing
Speaker 8: for an NC DOUBLEA tournament birth and being in that conversation,
Speaker 8: that's progress.
Speaker 1: Wednesday, June twenty fifth, the NBA Draft will take place,
Speaker 1: and a little birdie tells me that we might see
Speaker 1: the triumph return of the former program director and longtime
Speaker 1: host over here at ESPN seven hundred to do a
Speaker 1: little radios can you coroborate those reports?
Speaker 3: Bill?
Speaker 8: You know, it sounds like I was extended an invitation
Speaker 8: on the air while I was listening to Third Eye
Speaker 8: Blind and you and and Porter talking the other day,
Speaker 8: A chance to be in studio with you and Gordie
Speaker 8: to talk about the draft. I mean, I you know,
Speaker 8: maybe at full six, maybe we do just six seven hours,
Speaker 8: go into the wee hours of the morning. It sounds
Speaker 8: like something that would excite me.
Speaker 1: Love to see it, love to hear it. We'll look
Speaker 1: forward to catching up with the Bill. Thanks for your
Speaker 1: time today and have a great week.
Speaker 3: Okay, see you Saturday expense.
Speaker 1: Bill Riley, Voice of the Utes. Saturday is the spring
Speaker 1: game Forever twenty two game. Go to Utah Utes dot
Speaker 1: com for tickets. We gave you a chance. We gave
Speaker 1: you a chance all day long to play your music
Speaker 1: during our bumps, and.
Speaker 2: I think we made it mistake.
Speaker 5: You may have made a mistake. Well that's up to you.
Speaker 5: It is subject.
Speaker 2: It's on me. Uh who's this? Who were we entering
Speaker 2: the five o'clock hour with?
Speaker 4: Oh, just the late Luke Bell which you are disgracing
Speaker 4: the name of Now that's okay.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't disgrace the name that I've never heard before.
Speaker 1: Who is Luke Bell again?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Less or no?
Speaker 4: Less or No, but I really really good album that
Speaker 4: he released right before he passed away super young.
Speaker 2: So oh that's sad.
Speaker 5: Sorry?
Speaker 1: Is this the song that a listener selected that you
Speaker 1: decided to send golfing?
Speaker 4: No, we got one more for that, all right, okay, no,
Speaker 4: this one was you wanted something that wasn't like sad? Well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, every song you played before was the guy whose
Speaker 1: girl left him and so he's drowning himself in whiskey.
Speaker 2: It was a little sad. Yeah, yep, but we move on.
Speaker 5: It's okay. It's not for everybody.
Speaker 1: So before we say good night, and in about an hour,
Speaker 1: you will play the song that a listener selected that
Speaker 1: you picked to send golfing. Yes, all right, fair enough.
Speaker 1: Five o'clock hour of the program today.
Speaker 2: Sure I will.
Speaker 1: I mean, so far you're zero for ten, but you
Speaker 1: know what, different strokes different folks.
Speaker 2: It's all good. I'm trying to embrace country music more
Speaker 2: than I have my entire life.
Speaker 1: Five o'clock out of the show Today is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Friends at Advanced Window Products.
Speaker 2: Here's the deal.
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Speaker 1: the best windows in Utah. All right, So NBA basketball
Speaker 1: last night. NBA basketball tonight, the play in tournament continues.
Speaker 1: We saw really fun game last night as the Golden
Speaker 1: State Warriors were able to take care of the Memphis Grizzlies.
Speaker 2: But it was not easy, one twenty one to one sixteen.
Speaker 1: It combined seventy five points from Jimmy Butler and Stephen Curry,
Speaker 1: but Memphis counterpunched over and over and over, and Golden
Speaker 1: State needed a real vintage Steph Curry fourth quarter where
Speaker 1: he scored fifteen points at three threes to get that done.
Speaker 1: The Orlando Magic ran away from the Atlanta Hawks one
Speaker 1: twenty to ninety five after a pretty competitive two and
Speaker 1: a half quarter stretch.
Speaker 2: Orlando just overwhelmed them.
Speaker 1: So tonight we move over to the nine to ten
Speaker 1: matchups where it is a true lose and go home.
Speaker 1: The Heat and the Bulls are about to tip off
Speaker 1: the United Center in Chicago. It's the third straight year
Speaker 1: the Heat and the Bulls have played in the play
Speaker 1: in Tournament. And then your late night game is at
Speaker 1: the Golden One Center in Sacramento, California, where the Dallas
Speaker 1: Mavericks and Alex Jensen will be playing the Sacramento Kings.
Speaker 1: Kings win, Dallas goes home, and Alex will be done
Speaker 1: with his stint with the Dallas Maverickson. We'll be here
Speaker 1: coaching the Utah Utes men's basketball program pretty quickly. Of course,
Speaker 1: he's been doing a lot of work behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: and we did receive news today that Alex and the
Speaker 1: Utah basketball program received a commitment from Kendall Sanders, IMG forward,
Speaker 1: who I guess visited the campus last week. The transfer
Speaker 1: portal in college football open today. No news on any
Speaker 1: utes at this point, BYU did have five.
Speaker 2: Players enter the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: Bill Riley, voice of the Utes, joined us last segment
Speaker 1: and he brought up a good point. So after this weekend,
Speaker 1: Utah football will have their spring game on Saturday. That
Speaker 1: Forever twenty two game coming up on Saturday, so I'd
Speaker 1: love to see you there. Go to Utah Utes dot
Speaker 1: com for ticketing information. I would imagine after the spring
Speaker 1: game Monday of next week, we will hear Utah football
Speaker 1: players entering the transfer portal. Coach Wit did some media
Speaker 1: today and he kind of alluded to that possibility. The
Speaker 1: bottom line is every team will lose players, and once
Speaker 1: the two deep comes out, and once spring football is
Speaker 1: kind of behind us and these players understand where they're
Speaker 1: at on kind of the pecking order, then they're going
Speaker 1: to make their decisions. So at this point, Kendall Sanders
Speaker 1: is the sixth player on Alex Jensen's roster, James o'conquo,
Speaker 1: Terrence Brown, Keanu Dawes.
Speaker 2: Of course, that we saw play last year.
Speaker 1: Eb Treori and Alvin Jackson are the players on Utah's
Speaker 1: roster right now, six players, So Alex still has nine
Speaker 1: open roster spots to work with and this is going
Speaker 1: to be a slow build. Ultimately, we are seeing the
Speaker 1: staff round out a little bit. Wes Wilcox, your general manager.
Speaker 1: Rafael Chilius added as the lead assistant. Apparently Rafael Chilius
Speaker 1: is the one that had the relationship with Kendall Sanders.
Speaker 2: Remember when coach Chilius was hired.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the mo that people use to
Speaker 1: discuss him when it comes to his reputation around the
Speaker 1: world both high school and college basketball. Spent some time
Speaker 1: in the pros as well. Martin Schiller was named as
Speaker 1: the third assistant coach Alex's staff. Of course, as this
Speaker 1: staff continues to kind of round out a little bit,
Speaker 1: Martin Schiller is the one that is thought to have
Speaker 1: a bunch of connections overseas as he coached the German
Speaker 1: national team with Alex by the way, so that's kind
Speaker 1: of how they got to know each other. So the
Speaker 1: staff filling out players filling out. Six players have signed
Speaker 1: on the dotted line, leaving nine different players available with
Speaker 1: the open roster spots that Alex has to work with,
Speaker 1: so I referenced BYU Football. Utah football, with the transfer
Speaker 1: portal opening, BYU had five players announced that they will
Speaker 1: hit the transfer portal as of right now. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know that any of these players are really
Speaker 1: anything that BYU fans need to worry about ultimately. You know,
Speaker 1: these are players that after spring ball we're probably told like,
Speaker 1: this is kind of the deal. So if you're not
Speaker 1: going to play here, we would welcome me to go
Speaker 1: find another place to play if that's what you're interested in.
Speaker 1: And that's what any good coach would do when it
Speaker 1: comes to communicating with his players.
Speaker 2: So final week of spring practice for.
Speaker 1: Utah football, BYU football wrapped up their spring ball. Cale Breslin,
Speaker 1: a running back, is into the transfer portal. Nason Coleman
Speaker 1: at tight end, Justin Anna, who is the son of
Speaker 1: BYU linebackers coach Justin n As ender the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: Nathan Hoke defensive end linebacker, son of Chris Oak. He
Speaker 1: has entered the transfer portal for BYU, and Landon Rico,
Speaker 1: who's a punter. He has entered the transfer portal as well,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of the news that's moving the needle today.
Speaker 2: It looks like these reports are not official yet.
Speaker 1: But Nico Iamaliava, who is the Tennessee quarterback that's received
Speaker 1: a ton of attention after quote unquote holding out looking
Speaker 1: for about double of the nil he was getting from Tennessee.
Speaker 1: The rumors are he will land at UCLA, which would
Speaker 1: be interesting because Utah's first game of the season is
Speaker 1: against ucl So there you go some NBA basketball tonight
Speaker 1: after a couple of fun games last night. So it
Speaker 1: is a true win or go home situation in pro
Speaker 1: basketball tonight. It has been a painful, painful Wednesday show.
Speaker 1: Music is part of the vibe of the show The
Speaker 1: Driver with Spence Jackets Monday through Friday Live two to six,
Speaker 1: no exceptions.
Speaker 2: Music is a big part of the vibe. Why are
Speaker 2: they all so sad?
Speaker 8: Man?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Look, expressing your feelings and your sadness through artistic expressions
Speaker 1: is a healthy endeavor. I'm not saying it's not, But
Speaker 1: what's I guess? I bury the lead? Who are you playing?
Speaker 1: End the show here?
Speaker 4: It's a little Rose Colored Glasses by John Conley. That
Speaker 4: was our guy, Phil the Texter wanted that one. Now
Speaker 4: I love the song. You're not wrong. There's some sad
Speaker 4: overtones there, but a little UT's angle. Spring football rose
Speaker 4: colored Glasses. Oh also, okay, that's ultimately why I chose it,
Speaker 4: because I think it is It is a good time
Speaker 4: of the year for some rose colored classes. Your quarterback's
Speaker 4: the best in the country. You got running backs all
Speaker 4: over the place, the defense is flying around, and the
Speaker 4: pads are popping. It's spring ball, rose colored glasses.
Speaker 2: Did you say your quarterback is the best quarterback in
Speaker 2: the country.
Speaker 5: Everyone says in spring. That's kind of what I was
Speaker 5: getting in.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, spring is time for hope.
Speaker 5: He can really spin it, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's why some of the superlatives in some
Speaker 1: of the you know, just the spring football takeaways on
Speaker 1: social like Nate Johnson's fast.
Speaker 2: Oh really, we do know that one man, Nate Johnson
Speaker 2: can really run. Okay.
Speaker 1: You know, Like as I said with Bill earlier, and
Speaker 1: I've told you before, spring football is an excuse for
Speaker 1: people like us to talk ball because you know me,
Speaker 1: I love ball.
Speaker 2: I'm all about ball. I just want dudes who love ball.
Speaker 2: I'm all about the dudes who love ball.
Speaker 5: You know, what I want?
Speaker 2: What do you want?
Speaker 5: I want all twenty two film of spring football.
Speaker 1: Stop it, let's get weird. No like Look, it's a
Speaker 1: great excuse to soft football. There just are very few
Speaker 1: times where anything that happens in the spring turns out
Speaker 1: to manifest itself. Is very important when it comes to
Speaker 1: the fall. Now, transfer portal is open right now, I
Speaker 1: misspoke earlier. By the way, Utah football throughout the spring
Speaker 1: window has had players into the transfer portal. Wyatt Becker, quarterback,
Speaker 1: Sammy Hunter, Komari Semwell both cornerbacks have entered the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: None of those players really germane to what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: In the fall?
Speaker 1: Well, are you hearing anything up there about what could come?
Speaker 1: Because Bill makes a good point. Like BYU football, they
Speaker 1: wrap up their spring session and after it was announced
Speaker 1: that they were done with spring ball, they lost five
Speaker 1: players immediately into the portal.
Speaker 2: Now, none of the players.
Speaker 1: That BYU was lost to the portal were expected to
Speaker 1: play big minutes. Hence the reason why they're looking for
Speaker 1: another place to play. But come Monday after spring football
Speaker 1: is behind us for Utah, what are you expecting to hear?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I like Bill kind of alluded to, there's going to
Speaker 4: be a name or two on that list that you
Speaker 4: will see enter the transfer portal.
Speaker 5: And you know, this is.
Speaker 4: Something that shouldn't surprise anybody. Number one, this is just
Speaker 4: the reality of college football. There are going to be
Speaker 4: transfers post spring, pre fall camp, regardless of the NIL situation,
Speaker 4: regardless of what's going on with your team behind the scenes,
Speaker 4: team vibes, doesn't matter. You're going to have transfers between
Speaker 4: the spring, between the fall, no matter what. Every year
Speaker 4: before the NIL situation was a reality that was true.
Speaker 4: But I will say that Kyle and this team, much
Speaker 4: like we've talked about, they have leaned into the professional model.
Speaker 4: They've leaned into you know, obviously they got a general
Speaker 4: manager up there now working the contracts and working the
Speaker 4: NIL stuff. And there are players that are going to
Speaker 4: not be getting what they think they are are worth
Speaker 4: or vice versa. There are going to be spots on
Speaker 4: the roster that don't have the money allotted to them
Speaker 4: that some of those players think that they deserve. So
Speaker 4: you're going to see players enter the transfer portal. From
Speaker 4: what I understand, everything is kind of already understood in
Speaker 4: that regard. Players know their places. Kyle's gone to folks
Speaker 4: and kind of given them the lowdown on that. And
Speaker 4: you're not going to see it publicly right like you
Speaker 4: did with Tennessee. You're not going to see drama come
Speaker 4: out of it, if you ask me. But you will
Speaker 4: see a few names that enter that transfer portal. I
Speaker 4: don't think any that are of much consequence.
Speaker 1: Well, any of the players threatening to leave for the
Speaker 1: transfer portal have to have a come to Kyle moment.
Speaker 1: That was one of my favorite things you said all
Speaker 1: of last year.
Speaker 8: It ruled.
Speaker 2: It was awesome, No, it was great.
Speaker 4: Listen, Hey, when a man rules the house like he
Speaker 4: does there, you know you look to him in a
Speaker 4: certain way if you're involved in that.
Speaker 2: I forgot to tell you this.
Speaker 1: So last week when I was at the Utah Sports
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame dinner where my high school coach is
Speaker 1: being inducted, since you know, I played for him, and
Speaker 1: that was like enough for them to get it over
Speaker 1: the top.
Speaker 2: Of course, that's not real.
Speaker 1: Kyle was there in support of a couple of other people,
Speaker 1: and so I saw him.
Speaker 2: I said hello.
Speaker 1: And every interaction with Kyle, he talks to you like
Speaker 1: a coach. He comes up and he's like, how's your father.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like he's good.
Speaker 2: He's good. So what's he up to?
Speaker 1: Like it's you're not wasting. He just wanted to know
Speaker 1: how's your dad? What's he up to? And it wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 1: how's your dad. He's like, no, no, no, Logistically, what
Speaker 1: is going on in your father's life right now? He
Speaker 1: asked about the grandkids and he's you know, what he's
Speaker 1: doing for work. But you know, it's a fifteen second interaction.
Speaker 1: That's when he also said, Hey, anytime you need me
Speaker 1: on the show, let me know, I'll come on. So
Speaker 1: I told him weekly hit from here on out. But
Speaker 1: it was just very pragmatic. It was very matter of fact.
Speaker 1: He just wanted to know the details. Then he had
Speaker 1: to move on to go to dinner. A little peak
Speaker 1: behind the window with Kyle.
Speaker 4: He has like a what's it called when a musician
Speaker 4: has like the clicking talk in their head in there,
Speaker 4: the clicking clock. Right, he's got like a metronome going
Speaker 4: where We've done this with coaches, shows and whatnot. You
Speaker 4: can tell Kyle exactly how long the commercial break is
Speaker 4: and he will be sitting down for the Coaches Show
Speaker 4: that second, like in his brain he knows this is
Speaker 4: a minute, a minute there, a minute there, and every
Speaker 4: one of those minutes is calculated and accounted for, right
Speaker 4: as you know.
Speaker 5: He's very serious about his business.
Speaker 4: But going through normal conversations, that's still the guy you're
Speaker 4: talking to. So yeah, like you said, sometimes it's short,
Speaker 4: not in a bad way, just very concise and short
Speaker 4: and yeah, coach speak if you will.
Speaker 5: I I once mentioned to Kyle that I play a lot.
Speaker 4: Of tennis, and now when we talk he's asking me
Speaker 4: about my tense. He's like wondering how my tennis game is.
Speaker 4: You just can't turn it off with that guy.
Speaker 1: Gotta love it, God to love it all. Right, Time
Speaker 1: to say good night, get out of here. Watch the
Speaker 1: NBA basketball last night. Man, last night was so fun
Speaker 1: that Warriors Grizzlies game. Man, when the best players in
Speaker 1: the world give a rip, basketball is still awesome. So
Speaker 1: little NBA hoops tonight Portal, Let's get out of here?
Speaker 1: What comes our way? On a Thursday edition of the show.
Speaker 4: On a Thursday edition to the program, it's gonna be
Speaker 4: a lot of reaction to the NBA play in and
Speaker 4: look ahead to the NBA play off. Stave mcminnimon stops
Speaker 4: by for our NBA Daily assist Richard Smithy Smith in
Speaker 4: studio for an entire hour. We'll catch up with RSL's Gaffert,
Speaker 4: Pablo Mastro, any little sports court action, and we'll go
Speaker 4: from there on a Thursday.
Speaker 2: All right, there you go. That'll be a good Thursday show.
Speaker 1: We will say goodnight and a very special thank you
Speaker 1: to today's guest Sandy Larson, Neil Smith, Craig Bowlerjack and
Speaker 1: Bill Riley. Some good stuff on the show today. If
Speaker 1: you missed any of it, good news. It's all online
Speaker 1: for your digital consumption. Our website is ESPN seven hundred
Speaker 1: sports dot com. I would recommend downloading our mobile app
Speaker 1: and taking us on the go. It's how I listen
Speaker 1: to our station every single day and then for what
Speaker 1: we do in our space, specifically four hours every afternoon.
Speaker 1: Check out our podcast page. It's called The Drive with Spence.
Speaker 1: Check its and that's available wherever you get your show.
Speaker 1: So subscribe, rate review saying ice things in the comments,
Speaker 1: give us all the stars that it really does help.
Speaker 1: Reporter I'm Spence saying tonight, better music on the program.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Joy your Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Talk to you tomorrow right here on ESPN seven and
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