Speaker 1: All right, let's get at drive time Tuesday afternoon, twelve
Speaker 1: minutes past the hour of two o'clock. It is a
Speaker 1: Chamber of Commerce Salt Lake City day. Outside it's about
Speaker 1: seventy five degrees clear and sunny here in downtown Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City, Utahs. We have turned our calendars to June,
Speaker 1: but it feels more springish outside. But as it is
Speaker 1: every single day, it's gonna have you along for the
Speaker 1: riots fence check.
Speaker 2: It's beyond the mic.
Speaker 1: Porter Larsen behind the glass, producing the program, booking the program.
Speaker 1: Today we are one day away from the battle for.
Speaker 2: Lord Stanley's Cup.
Speaker 1: The Stanley Cup Finals between Edmonton and Florida. Rematch gets
Speaker 1: rolling tomorrow. Then the NBA Finals will start on Thursday.
Speaker 1: Friendly reminder, we are your home of well not just
Speaker 1: the NBA and the Stanley Cup Finals, but all the
Speaker 1: biggest and best sporting events out there here on ESPN
Speaker 1: seven hundred. So if you're looking to listen to either
Speaker 1: it Stanley Cup Finals or the NBA Finals, we are
Speaker 1: your home for that. So we'll get you ready for
Speaker 1: both those series as we are the e of the
Speaker 1: night before Stanley Cup and then forty eight hours away
Speaker 1: from the NBA stuff breaking news right out of the gates.
Speaker 1: The New York Knicks have fired Tom Thibodeau after by
Speaker 1: far the best run that the team has had in
Speaker 1: twenty five years.
Speaker 2: I will get into that on the show today.
Speaker 1: Have some good NBA guests to talk about that on
Speaker 1: the show today, and the day after Austin Ainge was
Speaker 1: introduced as the new basketball excuse me, president of basketball
Speaker 1: operations for the Utah Jazz, will kind of react to
Speaker 1: some of the things Austin had to say yesterday, his
Speaker 1: response to a very very good question posed to him
Speaker 1: by our very own Shoan O'Connell about potentially tanking next year.
Speaker 1: Austin with a dynamite SoundBite, and no part of me
Speaker 1: believes he's telling the truth. We'll talk about why trying
Speaker 1: to win as mini games possible next year as an
Speaker 1: exercise and futility for a roster with not a lot
Speaker 1: of talent. It's great that you've locked in a front
Speaker 1: office you believe in. It's great that you've locked in
Speaker 1: a head coach that you believe in. If you don't
Speaker 1: have players, it doesn't matter who's coaching your team or
Speaker 1: who your general manager is, who your president is, who
Speaker 1: your CEO is.
Speaker 2: Who your owner is.
Speaker 1: If you do not have players, you are in trouble,
Speaker 1: and the Jazz just don't. So we'll get into a
Speaker 1: bunch of it on the show today Bobby Mark setting
Speaker 1: out his Jazz offseason spreadsheet. It will kind of dig
Speaker 1: into a little bit kind of understand what the Jazz
Speaker 1: can do this offseason and why next offseason is probably
Speaker 1: the more likely situation of when they can actually add
Speaker 1: talent that would make them a little bit more viable
Speaker 1: than clearly the fifteenth best roster in the West so
Speaker 1: far this year and.
Speaker 2: Entering next year. So we'll get into it on the
Speaker 2: show today.
Speaker 1: For Johnny Bryant is already being discussed as the next
Speaker 1: head coach of both the New York Knicks and the
Speaker 1: Phoenix Suns. Some other names are out there. I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear a lot of Jay Wright. I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear a lot of Michael Malone, who is
Speaker 1: a New Yorker by trade. Interesting news cycle this year
Speaker 1: as it pertains to coaching in pro basketball, where some
Speaker 1: really really good coaches who have done a really really
Speaker 1: good job lost their jobs. Most of the former coaches
Speaker 1: of the year are out out of work. Luckily, these
Speaker 1: guys signed contracts where Tom Thibodeau has an extension that
Speaker 1: goes through twenty twenty eight and the Knicks owe him
Speaker 1: thirty million dollars, so he'll receive thirty million bucks not
Speaker 1: to work, which must be nice. But a lot of
Speaker 1: NBA news to get to today, of course, with the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals, NBA Draft just over three weeks away now,
Speaker 1: and we have excellent coverage for you guys at both
Speaker 1: the first in the second round. Stay tuned as we're
Speaker 1: kind of locking in the details, but we'll both. We'll
Speaker 1: do both the first in the second round after our
Speaker 1: afternoon drive show, So starting at six o'clock you'll hear
Speaker 1: live coverage of the NBA Draft. Gordy Chaser, Richard Smith,
Speaker 1: two guys that are in draft rooms for decades and
Speaker 1: decades and decades, and we'll react to the picks the
Speaker 1: Jazz make.
Speaker 2: As of now, the Jazz have five and twenty one.
Speaker 1: They've got a couple of second rounders as well, so
Speaker 1: we'll dig into it. It's all the storylines on the
Speaker 1: program today. RSL has a seven match winless streak, Foresman's
Speaker 1: cannot be added until mid July, so RSL on a
Speaker 1: little bit of a break, will bring in Pablo Master,
Speaker 1: any RSL head coach today, see our guy's holding up
Speaker 1: and how the progress is kind of going, to see
Speaker 1: if they can get back off the snide. Diego Luna
Speaker 1: will be with the US men's national team playing in
Speaker 1: the World Cup. And as Christopher Camaraanie likes to say
Speaker 1: on the show, RSL this year does one thing pretty well,
Speaker 1: They Diego Luna well, and outside of that, they don't
Speaker 1: do much well. So Diego's gone for about a month,
Speaker 1: month and a half, we'll see what Pablo has to
Speaker 1: say about trying to replace his production.
Speaker 2: Tim McMahon NBA Daily Assess Style.
Speaker 1: Tim sent out a tweet of his suitcase where I
Speaker 1: believe he has ten pairs of shoes.
Speaker 2: Packed for the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: We won't talk a lot about that, but I had
Speaker 1: that kind of copy off guard.
Speaker 2: I didn't take Tim to be a sneakerhead like that.
Speaker 1: But of course we'll talk about the Austin Range media availability,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about offseason for the Utah Jazz, and then
Speaker 1: we'll get into the stuff with Tom Thibodeaux and who
Speaker 1: Tim thinks is going to take that New York job.
Speaker 1: Then obviously preview the NBA Finals. Sarah Todd, guys, the
Speaker 1: Red News covers the Utah Jazz. She's had some interesting
Speaker 1: takeaways from ultimately what happened yesterday with Austin Ainge's media
Speaker 1: availability and what the Jazz could do this offseason. And
Speaker 1: then I'll be on TV tonight with Dave Fox. Begrudgingly,
Speaker 1: I have agreed to do it ten thirty five. We
Speaker 1: call it five Questions with Spence. So Dave will stop
Speaker 1: by today in the four o'clock hour to enlighten, to illuminate,
Speaker 1: and to entertain. Pablo Mashownnie, Tim mcmaon, Sarah Todd, Dave Fox, me,
Speaker 1: Spence check. Its all of you, the great listeners. And
Speaker 1: that guy Porter Larson on a Tuesday afternoon, that kazoo blowing,
Speaker 1: fedora wearing idiot really did it?
Speaker 2: He fired.
Speaker 1: Tom Thibodeau. I am I'm honestly stunned, and maybe I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be. Taylor Jenkins, Michael Malone, Frank Vogel, I could
Speaker 1: keep going.
Speaker 2: What do you think? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously when you you look at it on its face.
Speaker 3: Tom Thibodeau gave the Knicks what their best couple of
Speaker 3: seasons since twenty thirteen or or before, and then an
Speaker 3: Eastern Conference Finals run.
Speaker 2: It's hard to argue with the results. For one.
Speaker 3: Tom Thibodeau, I've and listen, you know this just going
Speaker 3: back and forth with me, I've always been kind of
Speaker 3: lukewarm on him. I always have felt like there is
Speaker 3: maybe that glass ceiling different term, but an actual ceiling
Speaker 3: there with Thibodeaux, just based on some of his coaching styles.
Speaker 3: But I don't know that it was firing time. The
Speaker 3: one thing I'll say, Spence is that if if there
Speaker 3: is a particular name that they already have connection with
Speaker 3: and he's ready to go, and they have someone, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of on deck, then maybe I'm okay with it,
Speaker 3: Especially if his name's Jay Wright or a real good
Speaker 3: name that you look at on the coaching market, then hey,
Speaker 3: let's let's try it out while while this corus together
Speaker 3: and while this roster is still good. But you know,
Speaker 3: I very much would have been fine running back with tips.
Speaker 1: So we'll get into it today. We have some good
Speaker 1: NBA guests. I'm stunned. As I've said before, and I
Speaker 1: will say it again and I'll say it probably until
Speaker 1: it changes. The Knicks will not win a championship when
Speaker 1: that while that clown owns the team. The clown is
Speaker 1: Jim Dolan. He really does play a kazoo in a
Speaker 1: band that he bank rolls and makes his employees go
Speaker 1: see at night in New York. It's a real thing,
Speaker 1: So we'll get into it. Pablo mash Joiny our first
Speaker 1: guest to do a little RSL. But before we catch
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the.
Speaker 4: Drive with Spence check its on Utah's number one sports
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Speaker 1: some I'll call it shocking surprising news. I know that
Speaker 1: certain people on basketball social media who think they know
Speaker 1: more about basketball than a guy like Tom Thibodeaux, or
Speaker 1: trying to dig in as to why this makes sense.
Speaker 2: It doesn't. It's stupid.
Speaker 1: Fresh off the deepest playoff round the New York Knicks
Speaker 1: have had in twenty five years. They fired Tom Thibodeaux,
Speaker 1: who's made the playoffs for the past five seasons. Over
Speaker 1: the past three years playoff wins number one, Boston number two,
Speaker 1: Denver number three, New York back to back fifty win
Speaker 1: seasons for the first time since nineteen ninety four and
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five. Prior to that, it was nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one nineteen ninety two. It has been literally thirty years
Speaker 1: since this franchise has won fifty games and back to
Speaker 1: back years. Tom Thibodeaux brought them back to relevance. They
Speaker 1: were ahead of schedule, as we've discussed. No part of
Speaker 1: me thought they had even a chance to hang with Boston,
Speaker 1: and let me remind you they were up three to
Speaker 1: one on the Celtics before Tatum's injury. Okay, this team
Speaker 1: was built with the idea of Boston having to break
Speaker 1: down their team because of luxury tax and second apron
Speaker 1: implications as a result of the new CBA, where the
Speaker 1: new ownership group in Boston next year is set to
Speaker 1: write a check for five hundred million dollars just for
Speaker 1: the right to have the roster. That's not even including
Speaker 1: what they're paying their players, and they've got Maxi money guys.
Speaker 1: They've got Jalen Brown, They've got Jason Tatum, they're paying Porzingis,
Speaker 1: they're paying Derek White, they're paying Drew Holliday. That's an
Speaker 1: expensive team. And so the Knicks were kind of built
Speaker 1: with the idea of, Okay, maybe we'll just concede that
Speaker 1: Boston's really good again this year, we don't really have
Speaker 1: a chance against them. But next year, if Boston breaks
Speaker 1: it down, then we're going to be right there with
Speaker 1: everybody else.
Speaker 2: Now the Pacer has spoiled everybody's party.
Speaker 1: Nobody thought the Pacers would be the Eastern Conference rep
Speaker 1: in the final, but they are so a seriously misguided,
Speaker 1: stupid decision today to fire Tom Thibodeau. There's no other
Speaker 1: way around it. He did a remarkable job. He was
Speaker 1: the coach of the year three years ago. Three years
Speaker 1: ago they beat Boston, he undressed Joe Missoula. Now he
Speaker 1: was out coached, in my opinion by Rick Carlisle, and
Speaker 1: I have been very honest about that.
Speaker 2: Now Tom gets a lot of heat.
Speaker 1: Before not digging into his bench very much and playing
Speaker 1: his starters a lot of minutes, did you notice who
Speaker 1: was on the Knicks bench.
Speaker 2: Really not a lot of great options.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we saw Tom dust Off, Landrew Shammitt and
Speaker 1: former Ute Delon Wright when it came to the Indiana
Speaker 1: series at that point it was probably too late, but
Speaker 1: they do not have a great bench. They're very top heavy.
Speaker 1: And Leon Rose was calculated about identifying Jalen Brunson, and
Speaker 1: really that was as a result of what the MAVs
Speaker 1: did to the Jazz when Luka Doncis was hurt and
Speaker 1: Jalen took over as the primary offensive initiator and everybody's like,
Speaker 1: oh dude, is this real? Well just turned out to
Speaker 1: be real, and then some and then some really good
Speaker 1: decisions bringing in Josh Art, bringing in Ogann and Obi
Speaker 1: when Toronto decided they were going to yard Sail. This
Speaker 1: really could come down to one thing, and that is
Speaker 1: the caa relationship depth between Karl Anthony Towns, Leon Rose,
Speaker 1: and Worldwide West because car Carl Anthony Towns has known
Speaker 1: these guys since he was a freshman at the University
Speaker 1: of Kentucky, and their speculation that Karl Anthony Towns actually
Speaker 1: didn't like playing for Tom and Minnesota. Remember this is
Speaker 1: their second stop together and their speculation the cat didn't
Speaker 1: love playing for Tom Thibodeau in New York and Karl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns is under contract and is actually up for
Speaker 1: an extension, and the problem is the coach is the
Speaker 1: one that always falls on the sword.
Speaker 2: You can trade players, but.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna cut Cat, and you're not gonna trade
Speaker 1: Cat unless you get a lot in return. So if
Speaker 1: this was a power struggle between Karl Anthony Towns and
Speaker 1: Tom Thibodeau, maybe Leon Brose really had no choice. This
Speaker 1: does reakive another misguided decision from the worst owner in
Speaker 1: professional sports by far, and that's James Dolan. He was
Speaker 1: named by Sports Illustrated as the worst owner in pro
Speaker 1: sports twice for owning the Knicks and the Rangers. He
Speaker 1: is a guy that is more focused on truly playing
Speaker 1: the kazoo in a band which he bankrolls with some
Speaker 1: of the best musicians in New York and forces his
Speaker 1: employees to come watch his stupid band like this is
Speaker 1: why since he took over it has been more or
Speaker 1: less a bleep show, and as long as he owns
Speaker 1: the team, it will be more or less a bleep show.
Speaker 1: And finally, they actually had gone about their business the
Speaker 1: right way to build this thing slowly. Leon Rose came in,
Speaker 1: was a longtime agent and did a good job of
Speaker 1: making sure that they didn't make rash decisions, making sure
Speaker 1: that they weren't trying to sign some aged, overpriced superstar
Speaker 1: like Amari Stodemeyer to believe he could be what he
Speaker 1: was a decade ago. They did it slowly, They made
Speaker 1: right decisions. They were on the right track. But today
Speaker 1: is a step in the wrong direction. They have personnel
Speaker 1: issues if they want to take the next step from
Speaker 1: an Eastern Conference Finals team to an NBA Finals team.
Speaker 2: It wasn't because of the guy coaching the team.
Speaker 1: It was because of their lack of depth and the
Speaker 1: defensive issues that present themselves when you have Karl Anthony
Speaker 1: Towns on your roster.
Speaker 2: Minnesota fans know this, so it's done. It's a dumb move.
Speaker 1: Okay, now, before we catch a break, I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that we should point out here is, well,
Speaker 1: I still believe the Utah Jazz have a ton of
Speaker 1: work to do with roster construction to even be relevant
Speaker 1: and somewhat competitive. And I'm not talking about being in
Speaker 1: close games and winning thirty thirty five games. Who gives
Speaker 1: a rip about that. I'm talking about getting back to
Speaker 1: the postseason and advancing, competing for home court, giving this
Speaker 1: fan base something to actually latch onto. So while I
Speaker 1: think the rebuild and we're yes, we're entering year four
Speaker 1: of the rebuild, okay, don't listen to the propagated information
Speaker 1: or propagated information coming out of team owned media outlets like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we actually tore it down for three years and it's
Speaker 1: only one year of No, it's not. This is year four.
Speaker 1: You're on the clock and it's been bad. It's been clunky.
Speaker 1: The draft picks so far, for the most part, have
Speaker 1: not been great. Now they're so young, I'm not willing
Speaker 1: to anoint or dismiss. Will give them time to grow.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the things that could turn
Speaker 1: out to be a really smart move by Ryan is
Speaker 1: locking in a front office and a coaching staff that
Speaker 1: you do believe in and then riding with them. Will
Speaker 1: Hardy was rewarded with a five year extension for winning
Speaker 1: thirty percent of his basketball games. Tom Thibodeau just lost
Speaker 1: his job after going to the Eastern Conference Finals and
Speaker 1: winning fifty games in back to back years. Think about
Speaker 1: that for a second. Will Hardy is going to receive
Speaker 1: a nine year runway and he's won thirty percent of
Speaker 1: his games. Tom Thibodeaux just lost his job after the
Speaker 1: most successful five year stretch the Knicks have had since
Speaker 1: the late nineties. Okay, so what New York did today
Speaker 1: is exactly why they've been treading water and running in
Speaker 1: circles for twenty five years. So while the Jazz have
Speaker 1: a mile to go, excuse me, a marathon to go
Speaker 1: with actually finding talent to make this team relevant, what
Speaker 1: Ryan has done is decided to give these front office
Speaker 1: people and his coaching staff a ton of security and runway. Now,
Speaker 1: only time will tell as to whether or not that's
Speaker 1: the right move, but hypothetically, theoretically speaking, it is the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. If you believe in your people.
Speaker 1: Now you've got to go find players.
Speaker 5: Sean O'Connell ESPN seven hundred. As someone correctly stated, it
Speaker 5: seems like a team in a rebuild, and some things
Speaker 5: were done this past season to potentially manipulate where the
Speaker 5: team would end up in the draft. Lot ofy odds,
Speaker 5: and unfortunately some of that is dependent on luck and
Speaker 5: the team got a little bit unlucky. So do you
Speaker 5: have a philosophy what is your philosophy on, for lack
Speaker 5: of a better term, to be in delicate tanking or
Speaker 5: manipulating minutes and player performance in order to achieve better
Speaker 5: lot of re odds.
Speaker 2: I won't see that this year.
Speaker 1: Yesterday, during Austin Ange's media availability, our very own Sean
Speaker 1: O'Connell the question that has made the rounds. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have reacted to it. Our next guest was
Speaker 1: also present and certainly will have some thoughts on that
Speaker 1: and all things related to the Utah Jazz. Two time
Speaker 1: Utah Sports Writer of the Year, Sarah Todd des Red News, Sarah,
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 6: I'm doing great. I actually was not present, so I
Speaker 6: should I should say that I'm actually in San Diego.
Speaker 1: So, sir, literally nobody knew knew that you could have
Speaker 1: just faked it.
Speaker 6: I know, Honor System. I started to feel bad before
Speaker 6: I even talked.
Speaker 1: That says a lot about you. That's I'm jealous you're
Speaker 1: in San Diego. But let's get your reaction and also
Speaker 1: whether or not you believe what Austin had to say
Speaker 1: that this idea of making sure certain players are encouraged
Speaker 1: to not show up for work in order to have
Speaker 1: the best lottery odds.
Speaker 2: Is something we will not see from the Jazz next year.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I was just as shocked as everyone else.
Speaker 6: I mean not just from that comment, but google whole
Speaker 6: press conference. I mean the way that it started right
Speaker 6: off the that like Ryan Smith had some comments, Austin
Speaker 6: said some comments, and then they opened up the questions.
Speaker 6: But literally, like the first thing that Ryan said to
Speaker 6: reporters was, I know, everyone's going to probably have some
Speaker 6: questions about like organizational structure and hierarchy, and I'm going
Speaker 6: to clear that up right now. Like Austin is in charge,
Speaker 6: he has final say, he'll be giving the recommendations to me.
Speaker 6: And so what I would thought was going to end
Speaker 6: up being another confusing press conference like it was when
Speaker 6: Danny Age was hired, was not like that at all.
Speaker 6: It was very clear that they are making Austin Ange
Speaker 6: the most powerful decision maker in the front office, and
Speaker 6: so that was surprising. The second thing was that was
Speaker 6: surprising was that Danny Ainge by all accounts, did not
Speaker 6: know that this was happening. That they weren't like interviewing
Speaker 6: President of Basketball Operations candidates, and that it all happened
Speaker 6: what seemed very impulsively. So that was a second surprising thing.
Speaker 6: And then the final surprising thing was a very clear
Speaker 6: and concise you just play the audio. You won't see
Speaker 6: that next year as it pertains to tanking. And I
Speaker 6: reached out to different people within the organization and kind
Speaker 6: of pretty frankly like asked people like, is this real
Speaker 6: or we be just being told what needs to be told.
Speaker 6: And I was told pretty plainly, like, no, this is real.
Speaker 6: Now There's two ways that could go right, Like the
Speaker 6: Jazz could trade away enough players to wear tanking by
Speaker 6: manipulating injury reports and minutes and games played is not
Speaker 6: necessary in order for them to be bad mess or
Speaker 6: they will just play the roster they have and live
Speaker 6: with the results. But I've been told by a number
Speaker 6: of people that they do not plan to tank.
Speaker 1: All right, Well I don't believe, Okay, like I don't
Speaker 1: believe them. I don't believe what Austin said to be
Speaker 1: a truthful statement.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a great SoundBite.
Speaker 1: And respectfully, Sarah, if anybody out there is buying that,
Speaker 1: Danny didn't know Ryan was talking to his son about
Speaker 1: this job. I've got a great piece of property we
Speaker 1: can talk about like. There's no way that happened behind
Speaker 1: closed doors either. But let's operate because your sources are
Speaker 1: good as good as any beat writer we have in
Speaker 1: the market.
Speaker 2: You're connected.
Speaker 1: So if we operate off the assumption and take Austin
Speaker 1: at his word that next year they are going to
Speaker 1: put their best foot forward and not be unserious about competition,
Speaker 1: you tell me what that looks like in your opinion,
Speaker 1: because as we've talked about, and as you know, they
Speaker 1: have a top eight protected pick next year that if
Speaker 1: they don't finish in the top eight, that pick goes
Speaker 1: to the team that's about to win the World championship.
Speaker 1: But if they hold onto that pick next year, the
Speaker 1: first round convey turns into second rounders the year after.
Speaker 1: So it really makes zero sense to go all in
Speaker 1: on trying to win if there's a chance that you
Speaker 1: win thirty two games in Draft ninth and send that
Speaker 1: to OKAYC. In my opinion, the smart approach is doing
Speaker 1: everything you can to hold on to that asset, especially
Speaker 1: based off of where this team is in the process
Speaker 1: of trying to get back to relevance. So if he's
Speaker 1: telling the truth and they go all in and they
Speaker 1: try to win next year, what does that look like.
Speaker 6: Well, I think that's the difference is I don't believe
Speaker 6: that they're going to go all in and try to win.
Speaker 6: I think that that there is a difference between not
Speaker 6: tanking and trying to win, like there is a middle
Speaker 6: ground there, which is why I believe that if they're
Speaker 6: talking about, like if they're being serious about not manipulating
Speaker 6: the injury report in minutes, I think that you have
Speaker 6: to offload players from the roster in order to make
Speaker 6: it so that you can put your best foot forward
Speaker 6: and still keep that top eight pick. And so that's
Speaker 6: what I think it looks like. I think that it
Speaker 6: looks like you can't just hang on to these contracts.
Speaker 6: I think that the fact that you have quite a
Speaker 6: few expiring deals now means it's probably going to be
Speaker 6: easier to get rid of guys like John Collins, Jordan Clarkson.
Speaker 6: I think that it makes it interesting when you think
Speaker 6: about what kind of suitors may come calling for Walker
Speaker 6: Kessler or Lowry Markinen. I think that those are kind
Speaker 6: of more likely than they ever have been to be moved.
Speaker 6: That I don't mean that super likely, but more likely
Speaker 6: than they were previously. And so if you are going
Speaker 6: to make it to where the roster is bad enough
Speaker 6: that you don't have to manipulate it in order to
Speaker 6: keep that top eight pick, that feels like what is
Speaker 6: probably going to happen. And I agree with you, and
Speaker 6: I'm pretty sure at this point it doesn't even turn
Speaker 6: into seconds like after this year, if the Jazz don't
Speaker 6: convey the pick to Okay, see, the obligation extinguishes. And
Speaker 6: so that's even more of a reason, like don't give
Speaker 6: this finals team a lottery pick, because that would just
Speaker 6: make the Western Conference even more difficult, Like don't reward
Speaker 6: them when you.
Speaker 7: Could just keep the pick.
Speaker 6: And so, I mean, it just feels insane if they
Speaker 6: were to not go after that pick. And so if
Speaker 6: they're going to stand by the word that they're not
Speaker 6: going to manipulate things in order to get better lottery
Speaker 6: odds as it pertains to like performances and minutes, then
Speaker 6: I would expect a lot of trading to start happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said, I do think there's a world because
Speaker 1: in my opinions, it's Lowry and it's Walker. Are the
Speaker 1: two players where you've got a little something there, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have questions about literally every other player on the roster.
Speaker 1: So if you wanted to tank and also meet the
Speaker 1: minimum salary floor requirements because you do have to pay players,
Speaker 1: then moving on from Marketing and Kessler and holding on
Speaker 1: to Collins, Clarkson and Sexton is something that you could
Speaker 1: probably look at because do respect to those three that
Speaker 1: are all good guys. That's the kind of situation like
Speaker 1: John Collins might be a perfect vet for a team
Speaker 1: that's not trying to win, even though you know they're
Speaker 1: claiming they're not going to manipulate minutes because he's making
Speaker 1: twenty six point five and while he's been good in spurts,
Speaker 1: he's fine to have on the roster because John Collins
Speaker 1: is not going to win you a bunch of games.
Speaker 1: Marketing and Kessler are good enough that if you play them,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they play sixty five to seventy games,
Speaker 1: they're good enough that you are going to win games.
Speaker 1: We've seen Lowry be able to do that. And Walker
Speaker 1: is an emerging player in this league. So what do
Speaker 1: you think of the potential of maybe moving on for
Speaker 1: market and Kessler holding on to the other veterans and
Speaker 1: then playing the young players a grip of minutes that
Speaker 1: could include four new rookies on the roster.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, and it kind of depends on what
Speaker 6: kind of timeline that you're going to be looking at, right, Like,
Speaker 6: these are all discussions that are going to be happening
Speaker 6: in the very coming days and weeks with Austin Ainge
Speaker 6: and the rest of the front office. Like the idea
Speaker 6: of if you're moving on from Kessler, who is going
Speaker 6: into his fourth and market In, who is now kind
Speaker 6: of really entering the prime of his career in age,
Speaker 6: and you're thinking, Okay, we're just going to have like
Speaker 6: the contracts that you're talking about John Collins concepts and
Speaker 6: on the roster in order to take up money space,
Speaker 6: but banking on young players that we can get this
Speaker 6: year with the fifth pick and maybe next year with
Speaker 6: a top eight pick. Then you're talking about an even
Speaker 6: longer timeline. Obviously you'd be getting more picks if you
Speaker 6: were to unload Kessler and market In, and so what
Speaker 6: are you going to do with those? What do the
Speaker 6: trade and free agent markets look like down the road two, three, four,
Speaker 6: five years from now? And so if you were to
Speaker 6: move those guys, it feels like an even more elongated timeline.
Speaker 6: If that's what they want to do, and if that's
Speaker 6: that's what they feel comfortable with it, and we'll be
Speaker 6: more successful with the team. Like I'm not going to
Speaker 6: say that it's not, but just you know, it would
Speaker 6: be another reason to temper the expectations of fans who think, like, oh,
Speaker 6: he came in, he said that there's not going to
Speaker 6: be any tanking. This is it, We're going to go win.
Speaker 6: It's like, no, this actually could be a situation where
Speaker 6: things could take longer than expected.
Speaker 1: On the other side, Okay, on the other side, and
Speaker 1: we'll just kind of talk about possibilities, Sarah, because there's
Speaker 1: no way of knowing how this will go. But you know,
Speaker 1: even Ryan yesterday, when Austin alluded to the success that
Speaker 1: he and his dad had in Boston, Ryan said, I'd
Speaker 1: take some of that success right now. And Ryan oftentimes
Speaker 1: in the past, has you know, I heard Ryan talk
Speaker 1: about a potential Christaps Porzingis deal that he thought they
Speaker 1: had done.
Speaker 2: Bobby Mark's on my show said.
Speaker 1: He was told that the Jazz had a really nice
Speaker 1: offer for Drew Holliday Andrew wanted to go play in
Speaker 1: Boston because they thought they could win, and they did.
Speaker 2: He's an NBA champion now, so we know that Ryan.
Speaker 1: Has expressed in the past the desire to bring in
Speaker 1: really good players. I still don't know who the guy
Speaker 1: down there was that uttered the we are going to
Speaker 1: sign Paul George and trade for mckel bridges. But good luck.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would have been awesome. Obviously that was
Speaker 1: not steeped in reality. But those are the desires that
Speaker 1: certain people down there have. And we are entering Sarah
Speaker 1: and offseason where Kevin Durant and maybe Jannis and maybe
Speaker 1: Kat and I could keep going. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know what Phoenix does, but they've got a they've got
Speaker 1: a problem where they've got to try to find some answers.
Speaker 1: Boston has a really expensive roster. They'll probably jet in
Speaker 1: some players. The Jazz do not have cap space. John
Speaker 1: Collins is probably gonna pick up his player option. I'll
Speaker 1: go out on a limb there. If he doesn't, then
Speaker 1: we have a different conversation. Next year is the off
Speaker 1: season where the Jazz have very clean books.
Speaker 2: So next year is.
Speaker 1: The year that I think it's more realistic to talk
Speaker 1: about adding more viable pieces and talent to give them
Speaker 1: a better chance of competing. But is there are there
Speaker 1: avenues for the Jazz to add talent this offseason to
Speaker 1: make next year much more competitive? And if you're able
Speaker 1: to add a couple of really good veteran players, add
Speaker 1: them to these young pieces and maybe put a couple
Speaker 1: of players next to Larry and Walker. Is there is
Speaker 1: that a real scenario for the Jazz this offseason to
Speaker 1: add some really good veteran players and actually take a
Speaker 1: couple of tangible steps forward next year.
Speaker 6: It doesn't feel real. I agree, because even if we're
Speaker 6: talking about, like, you know, some of the guys that
Speaker 6: are on the table right now, like you're honest, right Like,
Speaker 6: why in any world or any scenario would Milwaukee.
Speaker 7: Talk to.
Speaker 6: Utah about the fifth pick and some of the young
Speaker 6: players that the Jazz have when clearly they could have
Speaker 6: the second pick from San Antonio and better young players.
Speaker 6: I just think that there are better deals and better
Speaker 6: situations that the Bucks would want to deal with, Like
Speaker 6: they're not looking to get rid of Yannis and be
Speaker 6: completely in the lurch with someone like Isaiah Collier who's
Speaker 6: not proven and probably is going to end up being
Speaker 6: like a backup point guard at best at this point,
Speaker 6: with what we know about him, Why would they do
Speaker 6: that if they could just get Dylan Harper and you know,
Speaker 6: Devin Befl or something like that. So it just doesn't
Speaker 6: feel like the Jazz have the players and picks that
Speaker 6: a lot of other teams could offer the Bucks right now.
Speaker 6: But I just can't get past the fact that the
Speaker 6: Jazz are just not in a position to be okay
Speaker 6: with giving up that top eight pick next year. It
Speaker 6: just feels irresponsible to do that, and so I don't
Speaker 6: see that happening. I don't see them wanting or willing
Speaker 6: to just give it up outright just to get a
Speaker 6: few more wins. But I think the biggest question is
Speaker 6: who is ultimately making that decision at the end, right
Speaker 6: Like we know that the front office hierarchy. What we've
Speaker 6: been told is that Austen Change is in charge. But
Speaker 6: like every other professional sports team, he will make a
Speaker 6: decision and take that decision to ownership, and that is
Speaker 6: where the true finals say happens. That is, with every
Speaker 6: professional sports organization, ownership signs off on decisions, and in
Speaker 6: this case it's Ryan Smith.
Speaker 7: And he is.
Speaker 6: He literally tweeted out that he was screaming outside the
Speaker 6: day after the lottery, Like he is emotional and he
Speaker 6: reacts to things as a fan. He is a fan
Speaker 6: of this team that he owns, and so if Ryan
Speaker 6: Smith wants to win, I think that that is what
Speaker 6: is going to push decisions.
Speaker 1: When it comes to the front office hierarchy. I guess
Speaker 1: we can only go off of what you've been told.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like Justin Zanik and Danny Ainge report
Speaker 1: to Austin Ange? Is that is that the gut the
Speaker 1: gut feel, is that kind of how this thing is
Speaker 1: going to play out?
Speaker 6: That's what I mean, That's what we're led to believe
Speaker 6: right now. Right And like if they if the president
Speaker 6: of basketball operations job has been open for three years
Speaker 6: and they haven't made any indication that they were going
Speaker 6: to promote Justin Zanik, and he has stayed and for
Speaker 6: by all accounts, happily been in the position of general manager.
Speaker 6: And if you're if you're there for three years while
Speaker 6: that job is open, I don't think that Zanik ever
Speaker 6: expected to have that job, you know, but it is
Speaker 6: it is a strange dynamic to have the new person
Speaker 6: come in and have everybody be reporting to them, including
Speaker 6: his father.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised that Danny was not quoted in any
Speaker 1: press releases nor was made available during the media stuff.
Speaker 6: I'm not surprised by that at all. I mean, number one, like,
Speaker 6: it's not shocking that they didn't make him available because
Speaker 6: probably posing some weird questions to him would be uncomfortable,
Speaker 6: So like why would they make him available for that?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 6: But then also a little unfaired often, right, like if
Speaker 6: he just got hired at President of Basketball Operation, that's
Speaker 6: like the biggest job in the NBA that he's ever had,
Speaker 6: Like it would feel a little infantilizing to be like, Okay,
Speaker 6: now let's talk to your daddy.
Speaker 1: Okay, the way, if you put it like that, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm on board. What do you Okay, let's see
Speaker 1: how to pose this question if you got Zanik in
Speaker 1: an honest moment about this entire thing. And let me
Speaker 1: start with this. We all want to keep our jobs
Speaker 1: and there are not a lot of NBA general manager
Speaker 1: jobs out there now. Zanik at one point was to
Speaker 1: be the new GM in Milwaukee before that went to Horst,
Speaker 1: and then he was elevated after Dennis Lindsay decided he
Speaker 1: was not interested in working for this ownership group anymore. So, ultimately,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the bottom line for jay Z is I'm
Speaker 1: an NBA general manager and this is awesome and I
Speaker 1: love my job. But I wonder ultimately how he feels
Speaker 1: about this entire thing where it's clear that you know,
Speaker 1: he's part of the group but not running the show,
Speaker 1: maybe in a way that he thought maybe at some
Speaker 1: point he would be, If that makes sense.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, like I said, he's known the score
Speaker 6: because he hasn't been given that promotion for three years, right, Like,
Speaker 6: if he thought that he was getting it then one year,
Speaker 6: two years ago, then it would have become clear, right
Speaker 6: and so, and I also think a lot about Justin's
Speaker 6: personal life when I think about his position. He's been
Speaker 6: in Utah for a long time, recently had a kidney transplant,
Speaker 6: learns that all of his children have the same genetic
Speaker 6: variant that he has that leads to the kidney disease
Speaker 6: that he has. So like, all of his doctors are
Speaker 6: in Utah, his children in high school, Like, there's not
Speaker 6: a lot of personal reason for him to want to leave.
Speaker 6: And if he's in a position where staying general manager
Speaker 6: and continuing to have a very lucrative and successful job
Speaker 6: keeps him in a place where him his family are
Speaker 6: not only.
Speaker 7: Happy, but healthy.
Speaker 6: I think that that plays a lot more into Justin's
Speaker 6: decisions and perception on his life then maybe it did
Speaker 6: even two or three years ago. And then in addition
Speaker 6: to that, there are a lot of owners in the
Speaker 6: NBA who are less willing to spend money and less
Speaker 6: willing to keep things to keep continent. I mean, look
Speaker 6: at what is happening in New York right now. Like
Speaker 6: you know, James Dolan is as sickle as they come,
Speaker 6: and is as horrible as they come, and they're firing
Speaker 6: TIBs after he just took the next to the furthest
Speaker 6: points they've been in over twenty years, and so like,
Speaker 6: things could be worse. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 6: if you're if you're a front office person in the
Speaker 6: NBA and you're serving the landscape, there are a lot
Speaker 6: worse places to be and where Justin Zanik is right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you're good to bring up the personal side.
Speaker 1: That's something that we fail to do in this space often.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate that perspective. I like Justin, I'm a
Speaker 1: Xanta guy, and so you know, I just kind of
Speaker 1: wonder how this is all landing with him, But yes,
Speaker 1: we all want to keep our jobs, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: Justin is in that that space as well. So you
Speaker 1: brought up where I wanted to go next, which is
Speaker 1: and I'll start here just to reduct, you know, to
Speaker 1: be reductive and reduce it to really what the bottom
Speaker 1: line is of pro basketball, and that is, if you
Speaker 1: don't have players, it doesn't matter who your coach is.
Speaker 1: If you don't have players, doesn't matter who your front
Speaker 1: office is, it doesn't matter who your owner is if
Speaker 1: you don't have players. And the Jazz don't have players,
Speaker 1: they don't the Knicks do. But what happened today is
Speaker 1: another example of why New York has been treading water
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. They have a petulant owner who's
Speaker 1: impatient and makes ration, you know, irrational decisions without thinking
Speaker 1: them through. And so where I will give the Jazz credit,
Speaker 1: and only time will tell if this is the right approach,
Speaker 1: because again, if you don't have players, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who your coach is or who your front office is.
Speaker 2: But what Ryan is elected to do will.
Speaker 1: Hardy received, he's going to receive a nine year runway
Speaker 1: and he's won thirty percent of his basketball games. Tom
Speaker 1: Tibdeau was just fired after going to the Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: Finals and winning fifty games in back to back years
Speaker 1: for the first time in twenty five thirty years. So
Speaker 1: what Ryan has elected to do is like the anti
Speaker 1: Dolein approach, and that is lock in a front office,
Speaker 1: lock in a coach, and let's go again. Bottom line,
Speaker 1: you have to have players and the Jazz don't. But
Speaker 1: what do you make of that dichotomy where I pus
Speaker 1: to be uh, you know, the wrong approach from James
Speaker 1: Dolan for years to bring in aged you know, aging
Speaker 1: overpriced players and aren't ready to win, to fire coaches
Speaker 1: left and right, and it clearly has not worked consistently
Speaker 1: in New York and Ryan is taking the opposite approach.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts.
Speaker 6: I'm long been a believer that like consistency and continuity
Speaker 6: when it comes to coaching is really important. Like it
Speaker 6: is really hard to look at some of the teams
Speaker 6: in the NBA and think like, wow, that's not part
Speaker 6: of it, right, Like you look at the turnover and
Speaker 6: coaching in Phoenix, the turnover and coaching in Milwaukee, the
Speaker 6: turnover and coaching in Philadelphia, and like now New York
Speaker 6: is going to do it.
Speaker 8: It's like, what do they.
Speaker 6: Expect that someone else is going to think that just
Speaker 6: the biggest named coach, you know, budenholz Er, Doc Rivers,
Speaker 6: Nick Nurse, you just like rotate those guys in and
Speaker 6: it's going to fix all the problems.
Speaker 9: Like if we're looking at New York, I would say,
Speaker 9: like one of their biggest problems is that, like you know,
Speaker 9: the Andiana Pacers could have played thirteen guys and the
Speaker 9: Knicks were struggling to play seven, right, like your bench
Speaker 9: is Landry's chant. I like, I think that there are
Speaker 9: problems beyond TIBs. And you know, Jalen Brunson is the
Speaker 9: best player on that team, and he seems like he
Speaker 9: had all of the conference in TIBs. And so I
Speaker 9: just like don't understand why you would, you know, cut
Speaker 9: the legs off at coaching and say that that was
Speaker 9: the problem. That wasn't the problem. The players weren't good.
Speaker 2: Enough, all right, Sarah?
Speaker 1: Before I set you loose, so lets you get back
Speaker 1: to beautiful San Diego. Have you landed on UH and
Speaker 1: look at Of course it depends on who's drafted before five,
Speaker 1: But if the Jazz stay at five, who at this
Speaker 1: point do you believe is best case scenario for them
Speaker 1: to walk away with?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I have gone through probably five guys
Speaker 6: and I am I reserve the right to change this
Speaker 6: in two minutes as well in ten days, because I
Speaker 6: feel like that's how often I'm changing my mind on this.
Speaker 6: Right now.
Speaker 10: If he was.
Speaker 6: Available, my top choice there would be VG Edgecombe. I
Speaker 6: do really like Trey Johnson. I think at this point,
Speaker 6: like I feel like I'm out on Ace Bailey. I
Speaker 6: just think that, like with the fifth pick, you need
Speaker 6: to have someone that is that is going to feel
Speaker 6: like they could be a star. But also if they
Speaker 6: just turn into like a really really reliable role player
Speaker 6: that then you're really happy with that. But they have
Speaker 6: to have like starter potential and a little glimmer of
Speaker 6: hope for them being a star. And if you're looking
Speaker 6: at someone who has like the best two way ability there,
Speaker 6: I think it's VJ. But I think that's what a
Speaker 6: lot of other people are thinking too, which makes me
Speaker 6: thinks he won't be there at five.
Speaker 1: Well, we are a few weeks away. We'll see what
Speaker 1: the jazz end up doing. Sarah, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for the time. And Joyce San Diego, chatsoon, All right, chatsoon.
Speaker 1: Sarah Todd covers Utah Jazz for the des Ret News.
Speaker 1: She's on social media at NBA Sarah is where you
Speaker 1: find her.
Speaker 2: I want to remind you guys.
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Speaker 4: Next on the Drive, Tim McMahon dropping dimes for your
Speaker 4: NBA Daily Assists.
Speaker 10: McMahon Van McMahan added dud in all the Land Texas
Speaker 10: flood as tickets, Muddy's and Mainan McMahon Van McMahon.
Speaker 7: The Man.
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup Finals begin tomorrow nights. NBA Finals start Thursday night.
Speaker 1: We are your home for both of those events here
Speaker 1: on the ESPN Utah Sports Network, So stay tuned for that.
Speaker 2: Random, big, busy NBA news.
Speaker 1: Cycle over the past twenty four hours. Our next guests
Speaker 1: good enough to give us some time. NBA Finals week.
Speaker 1: Tim McMahon, Happy Tuesday, sir, how are.
Speaker 7: You, howdy, partner? How you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm good. So I see let's see. I
Speaker 1: see two Jordan eleven's. I see two Jordan threes. I
Speaker 1: see a Jordan four. I think that's a sick. I
Speaker 1: see two Jordan ones.
Speaker 2: How many?
Speaker 1: How many pairs of shoes are you bringing for this
Speaker 1: NBA Finals trip of yours?
Speaker 7: Yeah, you are looking at ten pairs. There there will
Speaker 7: be a pair of my feet, then there'll be a
Speaker 7: pair of running shoes, and there will be some Sabrina one.
Speaker 7: That's what I'm hooping in these days. I can't wear
Speaker 7: I can't wear NBA signature shoes, So I got some Sabrinas.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, best Jordan's.
Speaker 1: I did not know you were a sneaker head, and
Speaker 1: I am a sneaker head in recovery. I have a decent,
Speaker 1: not great collection, but I don't like to spend six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars on shoes anymore. So best Jordan's in your opinion, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't spend six hundreds.
Speaker 7: I like the threes best.
Speaker 2: Yes, I am an old school guy.
Speaker 7: You know. You see a lot of one stories. I
Speaker 7: do have some twos lows in there. I like the
Speaker 7: fours five. Yeah, I'm old school. I'm like back to
Speaker 7: the childhood type stuff. The threeses are my favorites.
Speaker 2: Threes is the correct answer. All right.
Speaker 1: I already buried the lead, Tim, because we actually have
Speaker 1: a big piece of jazz news to talk about. Austin
Speaker 1: Inge was announced yesterday as the Jazz President of basketball Operations,
Speaker 1: and his father, Danny, the CEO of the Jazz, will
Speaker 1: report to him. Justin Zenich, the general manager of the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz, will report to him. So there there was
Speaker 1: a lot of clarity in the presser yesterday in a
Speaker 1: way that, quite frankly, Tim, we have not heard even
Speaker 1: when Danny was hired. It was kind of like he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do anything day to day, so he's
Speaker 1: just gonna kind of hang out.
Speaker 2: Xanik is going to do.
Speaker 1: Most of the groundwork, so we actually have a little
Speaker 1: bit more clarity with the hierarchy of this front office,
Speaker 1: more so than we've had in a few years.
Speaker 2: What's your reaction.
Speaker 7: I believe that Danny Ainge is reporting to his son
Speaker 7: when I see it. But listen, Danny, like, he's not
Speaker 7: like you said, he's not a day to day guy.
Speaker 7: He wasn't handling the trade calls and you know down
Speaker 7: in admitted gritty to deal with the agents and you
Speaker 7: know at a GMS and whatnots been justin Xana's job.
Speaker 7: I think Danny's more of kind of like the senior advisor,
Speaker 7: almost to Brian Smith. But you know, obviously people are
Speaker 7: going to look at this, and I think that there
Speaker 7: will obviously be the initial reaction of mechanism of work.
Speaker 7: The one thing I would say is there is not
Speaker 7: a single executive in the NBA who considers often Age
Speaker 7: anything but immensely qualified for a position like this, Like
Speaker 7: he was going to be a candidate for other teams.
Speaker 7: You know, he's obviously been in Boston for a while
Speaker 7: been a significant part of building that Celtics championship team. So,
Speaker 7: you know, I do think that this is the addition
Speaker 7: of a you know, strong executive mind to the Jazz's
Speaker 7: front office, and he will be leading the front office.
Speaker 7: He ultimately is going to be the top basketball uh
Speaker 7: you know, executive, you know, the probably the last boy.
Speaker 7: And Ryan Smith's here, So I don't know exactly how.
Speaker 7: I don't want to speculate on how Justin Zanik feels
Speaker 7: about this. This is the second time somebody's been hired
Speaker 7: over his head by Ryan Smith, but he dealt with
Speaker 7: it just fine under Danny Ainge. And you know, I
Speaker 7: don't know how they'll divvy things up in terms of
Speaker 7: like trade talks and dealings with agents, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 7: I thought the most interesting from the press conference was
Speaker 7: his answer on the tanking question, and I thought it
Speaker 7: was a pretty direct answer that still managed to leave
Speaker 7: some wiggle room, if that makes sense. But you know,
Speaker 7: there was, as you might expect, a lot of reaction
Speaker 7: within the Jazz organization when the worst case scenario and
Speaker 7: also the most likely scenario is what happened in the lottery,
Speaker 7: and it's not just about the lottery odds, discouraging tanking
Speaker 7: and those kind of coming into play and you know,
Speaker 7: getting after that reality, but the damage that you're doing
Speaker 7: to player development if you have another season where they
Speaker 7: take the approach that they did last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and your point about Danny is a really good one.
Speaker 1: And look, I've known the ages of my entire life,
Speaker 1: and you know, Danny doesn't need me to stand up
Speaker 1: for him, and quite frankly, neither does Austin. Austin does
Speaker 1: have a track record as a basketball decision maker for
Speaker 1: an organization that's really been the class of the league,
Speaker 1: among the class of the league for a long time,
Speaker 1: including the fourteen slash seventeen years he's been involved there.
Speaker 1: So their acumen and pedigree speaks for itself, it really does.
Speaker 2: But the Danny point is.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Tim, because I've honestly just wondered how invested he's
Speaker 1: been in this entire thing at all. And look, he's around,
Speaker 1: he's at games, and he's at workouts and such. But
Speaker 1: I also know he likes those riverside tea times, and
Speaker 1: I also know that he likes spending time with his grandkids.
Speaker 1: He's not one of those guys that just gives you
Speaker 1: a face value. Hey, I want to spend time with
Speaker 1: my family. Answer then goes and travels to Europe for
Speaker 1: six months out of the year. He's a father and
Speaker 1: a grandfather, and he is living his life in his
Speaker 1: later stages in the way that he wants to do it.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you think Austin's addition could indicate that
Speaker 1: Danny will even be a little bit more removed than
Speaker 1: he has been, you know.
Speaker 7: And look, it's not like Danny Ainge wanted to go
Speaker 7: work for the Utah Jazz exactly. He was recruited by
Speaker 7: Ryan Smith. And again, I don't necessarily know that this
Speaker 7: is going to change a lot for Danny because he
Speaker 7: wasn't doing the day to day stuff. You know, he
Speaker 7: wasn't grinding on the trade goals, and he wasn't you know,
Speaker 7: worrying about who they're going to sign to a two
Speaker 7: way contract. He wasn't dealing with the agents. That's all
Speaker 7: been Justin Zanik's job. So I don't I don't know
Speaker 7: that this changes a lot for Danny. Again, I'm more
Speaker 7: curious to know how much will it change for Justin Zannik.
Speaker 7: But you know, this is a by NBA standards, they've
Speaker 7: had a relatively lean funnel. You know that they've also
Speaker 7: let a couple other people in that front office go
Speaker 7: this off season, so you know, there still could be
Speaker 7: some hires to come well. You know, and the other
Speaker 7: thing I think that we should point out is, you know,
Speaker 7: while Will Hardy wasn't like part of the hiring process
Speaker 7: for ust the names, they do have a relationship. You know,
Speaker 7: they did work together for a year in Boston. You know,
Speaker 7: I do know there's a lot of mutual respect there
Speaker 7: and you know, I would certainly anticipate that it would
Speaker 7: be a productive, harmonious head coach lead executive relationship between
Speaker 7: those two.
Speaker 1: So the xantig portion tim Okay, so let's let's be
Speaker 1: very clear. If you are able to traverse your way
Speaker 1: into an NBA general manager job, you simply want to
Speaker 1: keep that job. And it is one of the best
Speaker 1: jobs that Justin probably ever thought he could get. H
Speaker 1: He was a finalist in Milwaukee, and the fact I
Speaker 1: think he actually on took the job.
Speaker 7: No, he was, and then they he was like next
Speaker 7: in line, and I forgot the exact circumstances, but he
Speaker 7: kind of got Shank and that deal.
Speaker 1: Right, and they gave it to Horst and then Dennis
Speaker 1: Lindsay moved on and jay Z was elevated to general manager.
Speaker 1: And Tim, I know that you said that you don't
Speaker 1: want to speculate on where his head is that with this,
Speaker 1: But where's his head out with this?
Speaker 7: I haven't talked to him, and I'm not going to
Speaker 7: put words in a guy's mouth, you know. I mean
Speaker 7: jay Z has always been a very faithful, hardworking employee
Speaker 7: of the Utah Jazz. I don't know anything that would
Speaker 7: indicate that that would change. Yeah. The other thing is
Speaker 7: he's he's had some extremely serious health issues, you know,
Speaker 7: how to get a life stating transplant. You know, maybe
Speaker 7: taking a little bit off his plate would be beneficial.
Speaker 7: Dam But again that's that's me getting into speculation that
Speaker 7: I really don't want to do because I have not
Speaker 7: had a discussion with him.
Speaker 2: So let's go back to what you reference.
Speaker 1: And that was Austin's answer as a result of the
Speaker 1: question asked by our very own Sean O'Connell about the
Speaker 1: philosophy on tanking, and it was a great SoundBite. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of people send it to me like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess things are changing, but I don't believe it
Speaker 1: to be true. And it's pretty simple, tim like, there
Speaker 1: is this top eight protected first round pick next year
Speaker 1: that if the Jazz aren't in the top eight, it
Speaker 1: goes to the team that's probably about to win the
Speaker 1: World championship, and then the year after I believe it
Speaker 1: conveys to two second rounders.
Speaker 2: I think something like that.
Speaker 1: So next okay, So next year is the final time
Speaker 1: that the bill could come do And when you are
Speaker 1: a team that is in such bad need of a
Speaker 1: talent infusion, you cannot afford to lose a first round
Speaker 1: pick that could be, you know, a player that ultimately
Speaker 1: does hit, because they need players that are going to hit.
Speaker 1: So I understand what Austin said. I don't believe that
Speaker 1: that's going to be the approach. How do you think
Speaker 1: they do approach this season based off of the need
Speaker 1: to hang on to an asset I believe they badly
Speaker 1: need to hang on to.
Speaker 7: Can you read the exact quote to me? Do you
Speaker 7: have that in front of you?
Speaker 1: It was simply if John asked him his philosophy on tanking,
Speaker 1: manipulating minutes, you know, in the name of better draft odds,
Speaker 1: and Austin simply said, you will not see that this year.
Speaker 7: So you might see and you don't have to call
Speaker 7: it tank, and you might see long term transactions that
Speaker 7: make it even more difficult for the Jazz to put
Speaker 7: a winning product on the floor next year. Is that
Speaker 7: tanking or is that doing what's in the best long
Speaker 7: term interest of your franchise. I think, you know, if
Speaker 7: you take his statement at face value, they're not going
Speaker 7: to tank by coming up with mythical injuries. Okay, they're
Speaker 7: not going to tank by sitting there better players during
Speaker 7: the fourth quarters. They're not going to be you know,
Speaker 7: I mean, I think a fair word is dishonest about
Speaker 7: trying to on a night to night basis win basketball games.
Speaker 7: That doesn't mean that they're going to win a lot
Speaker 7: of games next year. Now, Will has proven that if
Speaker 7: if you know, if you give him NBA caliber talent,
Speaker 7: that he's probably gonna the Jazz will probably win more
Speaker 7: games under his coaching. Then you would think just looking
Speaker 7: at it on paper, Uh, you know, if they're if
Speaker 7: they're not doing you know, egregious tanking measures, but like
Speaker 7: look at the Western Conference, tell me which team you
Speaker 7: realistically think the Jazz are going to be better than
Speaker 7: next year.
Speaker 2: There is a one.
Speaker 7: Okay, I was gonna wait. So look, they they they
Speaker 7: went all out to get the worst record in the
Speaker 7: league last year. They ended up with the fifth pick,
Speaker 7: which again was the worst scenario in that situation and
Speaker 7: by far the most likely. It's like forty seven point
Speaker 7: nine percent chance that if you have the worst record
Speaker 7: the league, that's where you're gonna land. So it's not
Speaker 7: a shock that's where they landed. Now, what did they
Speaker 7: pay in terms of player development? Maybe bad habits kicking in,
Speaker 7: you know that sort of thing. How much they did
Speaker 7: they stunt the growth of you know, recent draft picks
Speaker 7: that are on that roster that we're in that rotation.
Speaker 7: You know, those are all questions that need to be
Speaker 7: discussed internally much less you know, on radio.
Speaker 11: Shows, you what not.
Speaker 7: But I think realistically, you know, they're not going to
Speaker 7: make win now grades this summer. I mean that just
Speaker 7: be silly. I think realistically, like we're looking at a
Speaker 7: team that's probably going to still land pretty high in
Speaker 7: the lottery. Now if you land fifth or sixth, you know,
Speaker 7: I'm not looking at the table right in front of me.
Speaker 7: But to get to your point, the fear isn't necessarily
Speaker 7: oh my gosh, we might have fifth or six pick
Speaker 7: in the drafting in it so we might get leapfrogged
Speaker 7: a couple of times. And you know, if you're if
Speaker 7: you're seventh especially, might get leap fogged a couple times.
Speaker 7: Land ninth. That would be a disaster. It would be
Speaker 7: a total disaster. Obviously, it's in the ninth overall pick
Speaker 7: to the Oklahoma City Thunder, So there's a there's a
Speaker 7: lot of gray here, a lot of nuance here. But
Speaker 7: to just repeat the approach that they took last year,
Speaker 7: I mean, I think you're kind of giving up on
Speaker 7: the young guys on the roster if you want to
Speaker 7: do that.
Speaker 1: So if they if they, if they want to go
Speaker 1: about their business of losing while being serious about trying
Speaker 1: to compete, I feel like it means they have to
Speaker 1: move off of marketing and probably Kessler, because if if
Speaker 1: Lowry plays seventy five games, if Walker plays seventy seventy
Speaker 1: five games, if Colin Sexton plays seventy seventy seventy five games,
Speaker 1: and John Collins was best, your point about Will is
Speaker 1: absolutely spot on. Okay, with a coach who has shown
Speaker 1: that he can maximize whatever talent he has if you
Speaker 1: allow him to maximize it. I see a team that
Speaker 1: could win thirty thirty five games in the West. I
Speaker 1: don't see a team that's making the playoffs or hanging
Speaker 1: a banner. But I see a team as presley constituted,
Speaker 1: and certainly if they draft a kid at five, they
Speaker 1: can step in and play right away, and they play
Speaker 1: all the vets and they do their best to win games.
Speaker 1: I see a team that can win between thirty and
Speaker 1: thirty five games, which puts you right in that area
Speaker 1: of potentially not being in the top seven or top eight,
Speaker 1: which is the worst possible outcome that we could actually
Speaker 1: come up with. So if they are going to do
Speaker 1: the thing where it's like, no, we are going to
Speaker 1: put our best foot forward and try to compete, I
Speaker 1: think it means they have to move off of Larry
Speaker 1: and probably Walker.
Speaker 7: I would agree that, you know, they if they reach
Speaker 7: the conclusion that hey, we have got an a reasonable
Speaker 7: conclusion we've got to at least be in the top eight,
Speaker 7: that there's you know, they need to address some of
Speaker 7: the uh win probability issues. I had to put it
Speaker 7: lately via the trademarket, And I mean, do you think
Speaker 7: anybody in that roster is untouchable. No, Lowry wasn't untouchable
Speaker 7: last year. Now, their asking price for Lowry was I
Speaker 7: think other teams would say way too high, you know.
Speaker 7: Does that come down this year? I don't know. Again,
Speaker 7: I think those are discussions that need to be had.
Speaker 7: I don't think they asking price for for Sexton, or
Speaker 7: for Collins, or for the Clarkston or is too high.
Speaker 7: You know. Kessler, to me, that's a tough one though,
Speaker 7: because he absolutely is a guy who you could envision
Speaker 7: as the defensive backbone of a good team, you know,
Speaker 7: four or five years down the road. He you know it,
Speaker 7: It's not hard to look at Kessler, not not as
Speaker 7: like your franchise player obviously, but as a piece of
Speaker 7: a foundation that you can build upon. So that one's
Speaker 7: tougher for me.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I love Walker, I love Larri,
Speaker 1: Larry's good man. Like I'm just trying to understand how
Speaker 1: this thing can work with the long term game in mind,
Speaker 1: because to your earlier point him, they're a marathon away
Speaker 1: from the better teams in the Western Conference. I mean,
Speaker 1: Chris Finch after the Minnesota loss, He's like, hey, there
Speaker 1: are thirteen teams in the West. They're going to be
Speaker 1: trying to compete for home court. And it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so it's probably the Jazz and the Blazers that aren't.
Speaker 1: But because they're so far away, part of me believes
Speaker 1: they're probably going to look at some of the stuff
Speaker 1: and keep the you know, the mindset of we are three,
Speaker 1: four or five years away from being able to compete
Speaker 1: with the top teams, and maybe that does make Walker expendable,
Speaker 1: even though I agree with you that's a tough, tough
Speaker 1: decision to make because he's been so good.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and again, like they would listen to him last year,
Speaker 7: but they were asking for at least a couple of
Speaker 7: first round picks, and you know, and and then if
Speaker 7: you get into the discussions around now, what are the
Speaker 7: quality it picks? Blah blah blah. You know, the lottery
Speaker 7: things also interesting to me because honestly, if you're going
Speaker 7: to trade him, was he more or less valuable in
Speaker 7: the trade market before you gave him a full blown
Speaker 7: max contract? You know? And I don't know, and I
Speaker 7: don't know, I don't know what his value would be
Speaker 7: in the trademarket.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 7: I do think it's like Austin Ange has to find
Speaker 7: out doesn't mean he has to trade him, but he
Speaker 7: has to find out what the value is. And I'm
Speaker 7: not sure, you know, And just like you can't really
Speaker 7: evaluate Marketing's performance last year. I mean, it's such a
Speaker 7: weird situation, or they had nothing to play for. They're
Speaker 7: clearly tanking. You know, he's out of the line up
Speaker 7: every couple of games just because they're like, hey, if
Speaker 7: you play, we might actually actually win this one. But
Speaker 7: he had a bad year. I don't know, man, I
Speaker 7: think I think some teams might have trouble figuring out
Speaker 7: what his value would be.
Speaker 1: So with the news today that the New York Knicks
Speaker 1: have moved off of Tom Thibodeau, you know, after going
Speaker 1: to the Eastern Conference finals, after winning fifty games in
Speaker 1: back to back years, making the playoffs for the last
Speaker 1: five the last three years, the most playoff wins belong
Speaker 1: to Boston, Denver, and New York is third. It's another
Speaker 1: example of an impulsive owner who'd rather play the kazoo
Speaker 1: for his dumb band that actually continue to build something
Speaker 1: that means something, and so where where I think and
Speaker 1: look to be fair. Only time will tell if this
Speaker 1: is going to work. But bottom line is you need players.
Speaker 1: Knicks app players. The Jazz don't. But what Ryan has
Speaker 1: elected to do is kind of the anti Dolan approach.
Speaker 1: And Will Hardy, who's he won thirty four percent of
Speaker 1: his games, is under contract and forever and now he's
Speaker 1: locked in his front office guys that you know, I
Speaker 1: believe will be around for a long long time. Only
Speaker 1: time will tell if this is the right approach. And
Speaker 1: the bottom line is you do need players, But Ryan
Speaker 1: has elected to believe in the people he's hired and
Speaker 1: give them stability moving forward and playing the long game
Speaker 1: to try to build this thing.
Speaker 7: You know, I think good ownership is hiring good people
Speaker 7: and trusting them to do their job and supporting them
Speaker 7: without meddling. You know, Jim Dolan is not a good owner.
Speaker 7: It's just not. The next have been good the last
Speaker 7: four years, you know, Leonne Rose, I would say done
Speaker 7: a good job all things considered, But I mean, I
Speaker 7: just I don't understand firing tips here, and there'd been
Speaker 7: noise about his job maybe being in jeopardy for really
Speaker 7: going back months now for a lot of the season,
Speaker 7: but after an Eastern Conference Finals birth and though maybe
Speaker 7: they I would hope they know who their next hire
Speaker 7: is going to be, I don't know that. I've not
Speaker 7: even heard like really informed speculation on that yet. But
Speaker 7: just firing TIBs and then by figuring it out on
Speaker 7: the fly that doesn't seem to be a good plan. Now,
Speaker 7: good luck getting any idea of what their actual plan
Speaker 7: might be, because you know what. You know what the
Speaker 7: Jazz do, and almost every team in the league does it,
Speaker 7: with the exceptional one. When they make a major decision,
Speaker 7: they have the people who made the decision, or a
Speaker 7: press conference where they can be asked about things, where
Speaker 7: they can explain why, where they can explain their vision.
Speaker 7: The Knicks don't do that at all. And I don't
Speaker 7: understand that either. There's a lot of things that don't
Speaker 7: understand about the Knicks, but you just you're in the
Speaker 7: midst of your most successful run in at least a
Speaker 7: quarter of a century, and then you say you need
Speaker 7: to get a new voice. Okay, And honestly, I really
Speaker 7: don't even want to hear from Leon Rose or Jim Dolan.
Speaker 7: What I really want to get is Jalen Bruns's honest
Speaker 7: thoughts on this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 1: He was asked about coach coach Tibbeau after Game six,
Speaker 1: and I thought he gave a really supportive, salient answer.
Speaker 2: I wonder how much of this and this is I
Speaker 2: guess it was.
Speaker 1: Haberstrow hopped on yesterday and pointed out because I asked him.
Speaker 1: I asked Tommy yesterday, what does the offseason look like
Speaker 1: in New York? Because I think they've got a cat problem.
Speaker 1: And the cat conundrum is interesting because there's so much
Speaker 1: to like about his game and then he just he
Speaker 1: doesn't close out, doesn't guard. You can put him in
Speaker 1: pick and roll and he looks like he's never done
Speaker 1: it before. And Tom brought up this whole Leon Rose
Speaker 1: worldwide West Karl Anthony toown CAAA relationship that had gone
Speaker 1: back to Kentucky basically, and there's a case to be
Speaker 1: made that this is the second time. Maybe Kat wasn't
Speaker 1: thrilled we're playing playing for Tom. He played for him
Speaker 1: in Minnesota too. Is there anything there? I mean, you
Speaker 1: bring up the Jalen portion and Jaen is more important
Speaker 1: than Cat is he just is to the Knicks. But
Speaker 1: do you think there's anything with this Cat thing that
Speaker 1: you know, was a theory that's being thrown around.
Speaker 7: The thought cross my mind. Definitely cross my mind. And
Speaker 7: I'll be honest with you. When they traded for Cat,
Speaker 7: one of the first things that I wondered was how
Speaker 7: is that going to work with Tibbs? Because it was
Speaker 7: not pretty in Minnesota. You know, I've reached out to
Speaker 7: some people to try to get some clarity there. I
Speaker 7: don't have that right now, so I don't want to
Speaker 7: get too far out, you know, kind of over my skis.
Speaker 7: But yeah, definitely the thought cross my mind. You know,
Speaker 7: I'll also say this, there are people in Minnesota who
Speaker 7: think that the Knicks traded for Cat is a stepping
Speaker 7: stone to make another trade. So, you know, it'll be
Speaker 7: interesting to see. There's gonna be a whole lot of
Speaker 7: big splashes made this summer. It'll be interesting to see
Speaker 7: if Cat's part of another one or if he's back
Speaker 7: in New York next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, I think they we're ahead of
Speaker 1: schedule by making to the Eastern Conference finals, but I
Speaker 1: think if they have premonitions of going beyond it, they've
Speaker 1: got serious, you know, issues with their roster.
Speaker 2: They don't have depth either.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people are saying, you know,
Speaker 1: and I said this too, because Kat and Jalen and
Speaker 1: everybody they just look gassed in the fourth. So I
Speaker 1: talked to you about can you find ten minutes for
Speaker 1: Delon right or Precious Achuwa?
Speaker 2: But like their bench is bad.
Speaker 1: I understand what Tom looks down his bench and is like,
Speaker 1: I've got to play these guys.
Speaker 2: They're so much better. Do you think they move off
Speaker 2: of Kat?
Speaker 1: I mean, you think that's a realistic thing and try
Speaker 1: to reformulate something different.
Speaker 7: I think he would have to be an awfully big splash,
Speaker 7: an awfully big splash for that to happen. But we
Speaker 7: will see, you know, I will say this. I've talked
Speaker 7: to people in the NIXT front office and kind of
Speaker 7: the joke there is why do we go through all
Speaker 7: this trouble looking for players knowing the TIBs isn't going
Speaker 7: to play but seven anyway? So that's fair, you know,
Speaker 7: you can kind of chicken an egg that all you want.
Speaker 7: But their depth was not have quality depth. And listen,
Speaker 7: I think macal Bridges is a very good player. Certainly
Speaker 7: giving up five picks for him was a questionable move
Speaker 7: what stood.
Speaker 1: Out most and maybe we need to talk about well,
Speaker 1: you know this because you covered him. I mean, Rick
Speaker 1: Carlisle is he's so good, you know, and it's been
Speaker 1: interesting listening to him after both the Knixt series and
Speaker 1: the Cavs series just kind of say we're flying right now,
Speaker 1: Like these teams just ran into a group. That's what
Speaker 1: stood what stood out most about the way the Pacers
Speaker 1: were able to figure it out they started ten and fifteen.
Speaker 1: And your thoughts on the fact that Rick Carlile once
Speaker 1: again is back in the NBA Finals with a roster
Speaker 1: that nobody thought had a chance.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think just what stands out the most to
Speaker 7: me is just how unique their style of play is
Speaker 7: and how good they are at it and how well
Speaker 7: suited their personnel is for it. Like they play fast
Speaker 7: and they it's wide open spaces and it's perfectly tailored
Speaker 7: to Tyrese Halliburton. And you know, I see the roots
Speaker 7: of this whole thing in the Mavericks twenty eleven championship
Speaker 7: season when Kid handed the keys over to Jason Kidd
Speaker 7: and kind of really adapted and changed his offensive philosophy.
Speaker 7: And this is like an extreme version of that where
Speaker 7: it's Rick's not calling plays. He has created a system
Speaker 7: and a scheme and he's trusting a brilliant offensive playmaker
Speaker 7: to run it at extraordinarily fast paced and it's working, wonders.
Speaker 7: And I tell you what, man, You know, I scratched
Speaker 7: my head about Tims getting fired, but it was a
Speaker 7: just appalling how horrible the next transition defense was in
Speaker 7: that series? How many times did the Knicks score and
Speaker 7: three or four seconds later Pascal Siaka just ran a
Speaker 7: go route. He's laying it up on the other end
Speaker 7: for sure, Like how many fast breaks were there? And
Speaker 7: give the Pacers a lot of credit for that too,
Speaker 7: but like, my goodness, how many fast breaks can the
Speaker 7: team have off of a may bucket? But again, that's
Speaker 7: just like the Pacers are relentless and very well constructed
Speaker 7: to run that style of offense from the quarterback you know,
Speaker 7: to all the other guys you know, sack them in particular,
Speaker 7: but the other guys as well, who were spaced in
Speaker 7: the floor and finishing plays.
Speaker 1: All right, Tim, Before I set you loose, there is
Speaker 1: the finals that's last to be played. We've already launched
Speaker 1: into so many dramatic offseason storylines that we forget. Starting Thursday,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City and Indianapolis will do battle for the right
Speaker 1: to be the NBA champ. It feels hard, almost impossible
Speaker 1: for anybody to slow down this OKC train based off
Speaker 1: of what they've done all year. Quite frankly, twenty nine
Speaker 1: to one against the East. Can Indiana make it interesting?
Speaker 2: Do you think.
Speaker 7: I would have to pull the kind of miracle that
Speaker 7: he did in twenty eleven when he out coached Eric Spolstrom,
Speaker 7: not saying he can't do it, but saying it's going
Speaker 7: to be tough.
Speaker 1: All right, man, Well enjoy the trip. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: have accurate and enough footwear, and I'm glad I've learned
Speaker 1: this information about you today. Good insight on the show
Speaker 1: and we'll chat soon.
Speaker 7: Thanks, Tim, appreciate it, Ada, All right.
Speaker 1: Tim McMahon covers the covers the NBA, for ESPN covers
Speaker 1: the jazz. He's the jazz guy for the Worldwide Leader
Speaker 1: at ESPN Underscore at McMahon is where you find him
Speaker 1: on Twitter. He did write a book about Luka Dotcic
Speaker 1: called Luka Dotcic in the Curse of Greatness, and the
Speaker 1: links are up on his Twitter page at ESPN. Underscore
Speaker 1: McMahon tim stops by today courtesy of our good friends
Speaker 1: at IFA Country Stores. Summer vacations in warmer weather are
Speaker 1: just beyond the horizon. As the days grow longer and
Speaker 1: brightly colored flowers begin making their appearance, It's time to
Speaker 1: start planning and applying Step two of I Phase four
Speaker 1: plus annual long care program designed with a vital blend
Speaker 1: of macro and micro nutrient so IFA is Step two
Speaker 1: fertilizer promotes strong roots and vibrant colors in your yard.
Speaker 1: At IFA and IFA Dot co Op. Big news of
Speaker 1: the day today is the New York Knicks have fired
Speaker 1: Tom Thibodeau after the best run the team has had
Speaker 1: in literally twenty five years.
Speaker 2: So a lot of NBA news.
Speaker 1: Austin Ange's press conference yesterday has been a big topic
Speaker 1: of conversation throughout the course of the news cycle in
Speaker 1: the market. And we have the NBA Finals beginning on
Speaker 1: Thursday night between Oklahoma City and Indiana. Stanley Cup Finals
Speaker 1: tomorrow Edmonton, Florida, a rematch of a barn burner for
Speaker 1: series last year for the right to lift Lord Stanley's Cup.
Speaker 1: Just a few weeks away from the NBA Draft and
Speaker 1: also the NHL draft. Of course, the Utah Hockey Club
Speaker 1: Utah Mammoth, I'll get there receiving better luck in year
Speaker 1: one of their existence in our market than the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz have in basically fifty years. So we'll have some
Speaker 1: good draft coverage for you guys, both NHL and NBA
Speaker 1: style as we kind of wait to see what the
Speaker 1: soft season is going to look like. Some good stuff
Speaker 1: from Sarah Todd today who stopped by earlier. Tim McMahon
Speaker 1: from ESPN was our guest as well as the conversation
Speaker 1: surrounding the Utah Jazz now turns to the offseason. Porter,
Speaker 1: I've not heard from you on this, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pose this to you the.
Speaker 2: Way I posed it to Tim. Okay.
Speaker 1: So if we operate off the premise, then what Austin
Speaker 1: Ams said yesterday in response to Sean's question about his
Speaker 1: philosophy on tanking, when he said that you will not
Speaker 1: see that this year. If that's going to be the approach,
Speaker 1: what do they need to do in order to make
Speaker 1: sure this roster is simply comprised of players that you
Speaker 1: are willing to play when they're healthy. Every night at
Speaker 1: the same time understanding the dynamic and play that if
Speaker 1: you do win thirty to thirty five basketball games and
Speaker 1: coming up next May, We're all in front of our
Speaker 1: couches watching Mark Tatum pull out lottery picks again, and
Speaker 1: he says, with the ninth pick in the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six NBA draft, the selection goes to the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 1: which means it actually goes to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 1: That is worst case scenario with where the Jazz are
Speaker 1: at right now in this project, in this long game rebuild,
Speaker 1: losing a top ten pick to the team in the
Speaker 1: West you are already looking up to on every single
Speaker 1: level would be a catastrophic misstep.
Speaker 2: It just would.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pose it to you the way I post
Speaker 1: it to Tim. If you want to hold onto your
Speaker 1: draft pick and also approach the season with integrity and
Speaker 1: not be unseerious about winning, I think you have to
Speaker 1: move on from Larry and Walker.
Speaker 2: I really do.
Speaker 3: You have to move on from a good share of
Speaker 3: your remaining roster. Now you could talk me into holding
Speaker 3: onto one of those pieces and frankly, Spence moving on
Speaker 3: from some of the younger pieces that you're maybe not
Speaker 3: entirely sold on. You could obviously move on from expiring
Speaker 3: contracts and and uh, the John Collins situation, that's one
Speaker 3: where you got to assume he's gonna he's gonna take
Speaker 3: that player option. So it leaves the Jazz with, you know,
Speaker 3: not all that many options. But yeah, they you know,
Speaker 3: they would have to move on from a good share
Speaker 3: of their rotation players in order to kind of toe
Speaker 3: that line and still avoid the situation that you just
Speaker 3: laid out Spence, which which is worst case scenario there is.
Speaker 3: There is really no circumstance where you can, you know,
Speaker 3: in good faith, give Will Hardy this roster and say hey,
Speaker 3: go do your thing and then win thirty three games
Speaker 3: teams and lose your top ten pick. That's something you
Speaker 3: just you can't let happen. And I don't think the
Speaker 3: Jazz are going to allow that to happen. But you know,
Speaker 3: there does seem to be an mo in the front
Speaker 3: office that changed yesterday. If you take them for what
Speaker 3: they say, face vote.
Speaker 1: So one of the interesting things to watch out for,
Speaker 1: based off of the conversations we've been having is Walker
Speaker 1: Kesseler is extension eligible. Okay, so I keep pointing to
Speaker 1: the summer of twenty twenty six as opposed to this offseason,
Speaker 1: because the Jazz could protection potentially have over seventy million
Speaker 1: dollars in cap space in twenty twenty six. Okay, so
Speaker 1: there's a fourteen point six million dollar free agent cap
Speaker 1: hold for Walker next season, but they could extend him
Speaker 1: this off season. However, do you want to extend him
Speaker 1: if you plan on moving him? It would be a
Speaker 1: lot easier to trade him if you didn't extend him.
Speaker 1: And also, how does that land with Walker?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 1: Remember, and by the way, I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: I've never received information to coroborate what I'm about to say,
Speaker 1: but it is a narrative that's been out there ever
Speaker 1: since Hayward left for Boston that when the Jazz told
Speaker 1: Gordon we are not extending you, you're going to play
Speaker 1: out the final year of your rookie deal and then
Speaker 1: you go bet on yourself and if you can go
Speaker 1: get a max deal, then we'll decide if we want
Speaker 1: to match it, which by the way, is completely within
Speaker 1: the rights of the organization. It's just not really a
Speaker 1: gesture of goodwill for a player that you really want around.
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of people that believe.
Speaker 1: When the Jazz elected not to sign Hayward to the
Speaker 1: extension when he was eligible, that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 2: That was the beginning of.
Speaker 1: The wheels going down the road where Gordon didn't feel appreciated,
Speaker 1: didn't feel like the Jazz wanted him. So he goes
Speaker 1: and gets his offer sheet from Charlotte. The Jazz max
Speaker 1: matched it, which meant Gordon was here for another four years.
Speaker 1: And then, of course Gordon Stay turned into a really
Speaker 1: good player. He was an All Star. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people forget how good Gordon was here during
Speaker 1: his last season playing for Quinn. So the Jazz elect
Speaker 1: not to extend Hayward plays for the team, gets the
Speaker 1: max offer sheet from Charlotte, the Jazz match that offer sheet.
Speaker 2: Gordon is here for another four years.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people that draw straight line
Speaker 1: between the decision not to extend him and Gordon's decision
Speaker 1: to leave.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I believe that, but a lot
Speaker 2: of people do.
Speaker 1: My whole thing with that has always been he wanted
Speaker 1: to go play for his college coach, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to sit at a different lunch table, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to play in a bigger market. He wanted to be
Speaker 1: a guy that was known as a star for a
Speaker 1: team like the Celtics instead of a team like the Jazz.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of his decision to leave
Speaker 1: had to do with the Jazz decision not to extend them,
Speaker 1: but there are people that believe that to be true.
Speaker 1: So this Walker thing is interesting, and I think it
Speaker 1: becomes more interesting based off of Austin Ange's comments yesterday,
Speaker 1: because if you're going to hold on to your draft pick,
Speaker 1: which you have to do in my opinion, as you're
Speaker 1: trying to piece together a team and build a team,
Speaker 1: certainly in a city like Salt Lake, it does have complications.
Speaker 1: No matter what the spin is from the team, it
Speaker 1: does have complications. We have several example of players that
Speaker 1: the Jazz have literally acquired that have been like, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to live there, I don't want to play there.
Speaker 1: Like It's happened multiple times over the years.
Speaker 2: It just has.
Speaker 1: The Jazz have been able to bring in free agents
Speaker 1: in the past that have worked out, so it's not
Speaker 1: like it's never worked.
Speaker 2: Okay, But if the.
Speaker 1: Jazz want to hold on to their pick, a top
Speaker 1: eight protected pick that goes to Oklahoma City. So it's
Speaker 1: very simple if you're listening, like, what is he talking about.
Speaker 1: If the Jazz are not in the top eight next year,
Speaker 1: their draft pick conveys to Oklahoma City. It's the Derek
Speaker 1: Favors trade. It is this build that's always become due.
Speaker 1: But after next year it goes to a situation where
Speaker 1: it would be two second round picks that are conveyed
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma City. And you can stomach that. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly there are several examples, both locally and around the
Speaker 1: NBA of plenty of second round picks that have been awesome.
Speaker 1: The best player in the world right now was a
Speaker 1: second round pick in Nicola Jokic. You would prefer to
Speaker 1: keep your capital, but you certainly could stomach sending a
Speaker 1: couple of second round picks to Oklahoma City as opposed
Speaker 1: to like the ninth or the tenth pick in the
Speaker 1: draft where they took Taylor, where they took Cody. So,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, in this process of trying to build
Speaker 1: a team, you have to do it through the draft,
Speaker 1: and then once you've been able to do it through
Speaker 1: the draft, you can attract other players that might want
Speaker 1: to come play with some of the good young players
Speaker 1: you have. It's why the Cooper flags things does sting
Speaker 1: San Antonio, which is not an appealing market in the NBA.
Speaker 1: Chris Paul signs to play with one but Yamaaron Fox
Speaker 1: the green light to trade.
Speaker 2: You play with Victor Wembanyama.
Speaker 1: Like you get a Victor Wembanyama, you get a Cooper Flag.
Speaker 1: You start to build, and people around the league see
Speaker 1: what you're building, and then agents are more inclined to
Speaker 1: talk about their clients playing for you because you have something.
Speaker 1: Right now, the Jazz have nothing. Nobody's watching Isaiah call.
Speaker 1: You're in calling their agent be like, dude, I want
Speaker 1: to go play with that kid. So, in this process
Speaker 1: where even though the Jazz have a really good head
Speaker 1: coach signed for a long time at a front office
Speaker 1: with a pedigree that speaks for itself, locked in for
Speaker 1: a long time, you gotta have players. You have to
Speaker 1: have horses. It doesn't matter who your coach is if
Speaker 1: you don't have horses. It doesn't matter who your front
Speaker 1: office is. If you don't have players. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who your owner is if your roster is void of talent. So,
Speaker 1: in order to continue to build, the draft pick next
Speaker 1: year to me, has to be basically your first priority.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to dance this dance where Austin
Speaker 1: Ainge says we're no longer tanking, that's off the table.
Speaker 1: And you're going to stay away from holding players out
Speaker 1: when they're healthy, which the Jazz were literally fine for
Speaker 1: last year one hundred grand. And if you're going if
Speaker 1: you're going to stay away from okay, you want us
Speaker 1: to play our guys Will Walker Kessler shooting seven threes
Speaker 1: a night. Now, if you're going to no longer be
Speaker 1: unseerious about competing and actually approach the thing with some
Speaker 1: integrity and hold on your pick. Walker might have to
Speaker 1: go because he's that good, and Lowry might have to
Speaker 1: go because he's that good. Like I see a roster
Speaker 1: right now that you know, and we'll see what happens
Speaker 1: with the draft picks. They have the potential of adding
Speaker 1: four draft picks to the team. They're gonna have some
Speaker 1: decisions to make on some of these players if they're
Speaker 1: going to add four new rookies to the team, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to an interesting dynamic involving some of the
Speaker 1: young players in just a minute. But if if essentially
Speaker 1: you run it back with a top five pick. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's vg Edgecomb, maybe it's tre Johnson and twenty first
Speaker 1: overall pick. And again, first round picks are guaranteed they're
Speaker 1: gonna be on your team. They're already cappled in place
Speaker 1: with the Bobby Marks breakdowns, and then we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens with the second rounders are undrafted guys. And Walker
Speaker 1: Kessler plays seventy seventy five games, and Larry Markinen plays
Speaker 1: seventy seventy five games, and Colin Sexton is playing every night,
Speaker 1: I think it's probably time to say thank you Jordan Clarkson,
Speaker 1: but his best years quite frankly, have been over for
Speaker 1: a while. I'll throw John Collins, who, in stretches, was
Speaker 1: actually the best player on the team last year, who
Speaker 1: had so If Walker Kessler, Larry Markin and John Collins,
Speaker 1: Colin Sexton, if those four will say those four vets.
Speaker 1: If they play seventy to seventy five games, and Isaiah
Speaker 1: builds on a solid rookie campaign, and Keyante decides he
Speaker 1: wants to watch tape and learn how to play defense,
Speaker 1: and Taylor comes back and he's healthy, and Cody, I
Speaker 1: don't know, shows a Polse and Philipowski shows that last
Speaker 1: year was not an aberration. I see a team that
Speaker 1: can win thirty five games in the NBA next year,
Speaker 1: and that puts you directly in peril of losing your pick.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is it's not possible for them to
Speaker 1: do both with the way the team is constructed now.
Speaker 1: So based off of what Austin said yesterday, I've got
Speaker 1: to imagine they're making phone calls about Larry. I've got
Speaker 1: to imagine they're willing to take phone calls on Walker.
Speaker 1: Walker's a tough one to let go because honestly, between
Speaker 1: the Rudy and Donovan trades, they have.
Speaker 2: Not aged as well as people thought that they would.
Speaker 1: Now, the jury is still out because there are plenty
Speaker 1: of picks that have to convey. The best player you
Speaker 1: got for Donovan Mitchell, who at the time was a
Speaker 1: twenty five year old superstar player just entering his prime,
Speaker 1: was Larry is very good. Obaji played pretty well for Toronto,
Speaker 1: didn't really work here for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: Colin has been solid.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: He's a guy that at least brings energy and plays
Speaker 1: hard every night, and when he gets going offensively, he
Speaker 1: can get some things happening. He's not a great defensive
Speaker 1: player either. The Jazz are so small with the guards
Speaker 1: they elect to play. Like when you watch the finals,
Speaker 1: watch the wing players from Indiana and Oklahoma City. They're
Speaker 1: all like three or four inches taller than any of
Speaker 1: the wing players on the Jazz roster. They need length
Speaker 1: and athleticism on the perimeter to provide some defensive pushback. Remember,
Speaker 1: the Jazz have not just been the worst defensive team
Speaker 1: in pro basketball for the past two years, they've been
Speaker 1: like historically bad, and they've got a great rim protector.
Speaker 1: What does that tell you the guards, it's the perimeter players.
Speaker 1: It's the guys on the wings that are bad at
Speaker 1: point of attack. They're not big enough to bother other
Speaker 1: opposing players. That's got to change. So the Walker thing
Speaker 1: is tough. But again, he's too good, and so is
Speaker 1: Marketing and Collins at times and Sexton at times. These
Speaker 1: guys are good NBA veteran players that if you let
Speaker 1: them play seventy to seventy five games, you will not
Speaker 1: be in a position to have a top eight draft pick,
Speaker 1: which you badly need next year. More so than anything else,
Speaker 1: that has to be your priority because if you give
Speaker 1: yourself another bite of the apple. Maybe the Dallas Maverick
Speaker 1: luck or the San Antonio Spurs luck finally shines on
Speaker 1: you and the aj Debanci kid.
Speaker 2: You guys are gonna watch a.
Speaker 1: BYU is generationally special, and if the Jazz are able
Speaker 1: to make that happen, then we have a different conversation
Speaker 1: about all of it. If they were able to move
Speaker 1: up to one this year, we have a different conversation
Speaker 1: about all of it.
Speaker 2: That's all. You need.
Speaker 1: One bolt of lightning, one ping pong ball bouncing your
Speaker 1: way changes the entire direction of your project. So you
Speaker 1: have to put yourself in a position to capitalize on
Speaker 1: where you are in the process to make sure you
Speaker 1: keep the assets you need to keep building. And that
Speaker 1: has to mean marketing is on the table. It has
Speaker 1: to mean Walker's on the table. It has to mean,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, everyone's on the table. And then you kind
Speaker 1: of see where you go. One more thing before we
Speaker 1: catch a break, because this is interesting. Bobby Mark sent
Speaker 1: out his offseason guide today for the Jazz, and he
Speaker 1: outlined where the Jazz are at with their economic model
Speaker 1: currently in a spreadsheet.
Speaker 2: Next year.
Speaker 1: Could be I'm not saying it is, but next year
Speaker 1: the Jazz have So next year the following players technically
Speaker 1: are on the clock, and I'll tell you why. So
Speaker 1: next year, Taylor Hendrix has a six point one million
Speaker 1: dollar number. He's that's his money, and it's guaranteed. It's
Speaker 1: fully guaranteed all year. The year after next, So twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, twenty twenty seven, the Jazz have a team
Speaker 1: option on Taylor for seven point eight million dollars. Next year,
Speaker 1: Cody Williams five point seven million dollars, the Jazz have
Speaker 1: a team option the year after that Cody for six million.
Speaker 1: Walker is under contract with a guarantee. I've referenced his
Speaker 1: cap hold earlier, so is cap hold in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty seven is fourteen point six. As I referenced earlier.
Speaker 1: They could extend him this offseason, but part of me
Speaker 1: feels like they're not going to do that because if
Speaker 1: you extend him and pay him what he deserves, quite frankly,
Speaker 1: it'll make him harder to trade.
Speaker 2: It'll make him harder to move.
Speaker 1: They might just do what they did with Heyward and
Speaker 1: say you're playing out the final year of the deal
Speaker 1: and then take calls to try to move him. Heyantay
Speaker 1: George on the books for four point two mill next
Speaker 1: year the year after you guessed it, team option six
Speaker 1: point four mil. Bryce Sensiba on the books two point
Speaker 1: six mil. Next year, team option year after four point eight,
Speaker 1: Isaiah Callier on the books two point six team option
Speaker 1: two point seven the year after that, meaning this Taylor, Cody, Keyante, Bryce,
Speaker 1: and Isaiah are on the clock. Next year's the massive
Speaker 1: year for all five of those players. Because the year
Speaker 1: after or if the Jazz have team options and they
Speaker 1: own the decision as to whether or not these guys
Speaker 1: continue to develop in this ecosystem or they go play
Speaker 1: somewhere else, some of them might not not even the
Speaker 1: NBA guys. Some of them might be G League guys
Speaker 1: or overseekers. These guys, honestly, there's a world that exists
Speaker 1: where Isaiah Collier and Keyante George, the two young guards
Speaker 1: that Jazz fans seem to be somewhat excited about, do
Speaker 1: not even make Oklahoma Cities roster. I'm serious, go look
Speaker 1: at it. First of all, tell me who they play
Speaker 1: in front of. Cason Wallace is like the eighth man
Speaker 1: on okc's roster. He's light years ahead of both those players.
Speaker 1: So bottom line is this, there are miles to go
Speaker 1: with talent additions on the roster that are badly.
Speaker 2: Needed to make this thing relevant.
Speaker 1: And if you're going to go all in on being
Speaker 1: serious about competition next year and maintain the ability to
Speaker 1: keep your draft capital, we could see a roster sure
Speaker 1: that is stripped down by Austin Ainge this offseason. Vegas
Speaker 1: has already released odds for the next head coach of
Speaker 1: the New York Knicks. This is so wild, it says
Speaker 1: Mike Malone. It's supposed to be Michael Malone. We're not
Speaker 1: supposed to call him Mike Malone. Michael Malone your favorite.
Speaker 1: One to one, then it's Jay Wright, Jeff Van Gundhy.
Speaker 1: I wonder if Jeff would even take that phone call. Uh,
Speaker 1: then some others including Rick bruntson Jalen's dad. I wonder
Speaker 1: if he's gonna be able to hang on to that
Speaker 1: job he got.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: We'll get back to some NBA. But time now for
Speaker 1: some soccer. Been excited for this all day when I
Speaker 1: saw his name on the rundown. Let's welcome in the
Speaker 1: head coach over Al Salt Lake Pablo Mastruetti on a
Speaker 1: Tuesday afternoon. Pob's my guy, so good to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Happy tuesdaypoint. Oh no, oh no, is it?
Speaker 2: Is it Trey? We got traded at it? Oh?
Speaker 8: Yeah, sorry, Pablo sends his regrets.
Speaker 2: Is he dodging me?
Speaker 8: No, he says he'd be He'd be happy to get
Speaker 8: on with you another time this week. But he's a
Speaker 8: he's literally been in a three hour meeting trying to
Speaker 8: obviously get some things moving ahead, moving forward, getting things done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and some things have to move forward real quick.
Speaker 1: Do you feel better about your Denver Nuggets since it's
Speaker 1: been the only team in the West that made okay
Speaker 1: see even kind of uncomfortable.
Speaker 8: No moral victories? I mean, am I proud of how
Speaker 8: they withstood the onslaught that is, the OKAC Thunder and
Speaker 8: Shay Gilles Alexander sometimes known as Shameless Grifter Alexander. Yeah,
Speaker 8: but the Nuggets just have so many problems and issues
Speaker 8: of their own. It's kind of a hollow victory.
Speaker 7: I guess.
Speaker 1: Let me follow up real quick. You said no moral victories, right,
Speaker 1: I did say that, all right? Moving over to our
Speaker 1: local soccer club that has gone seven matches.
Speaker 2: Now, without a win. Look, man, you know I love
Speaker 2: you guys.
Speaker 1: You know I want to give you space here and
Speaker 1: try to support the endeavor and try to spin things
Speaker 1: as positive as possibly can. Trey, I think this is
Speaker 1: as bad as it's been in a number of years.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of a sentiment over there with the club?
Speaker 8: Certainly from a results perspective. Yeah, the last seven game
Speaker 8: winless run was in twenty sixteen, at the tail end
Speaker 8: of the Jeff Gasar era. For those who participated in
Speaker 8: Pablo's postgame media zoom on Saturday, you could sense the frustration.
Speaker 8: But you know, Pablo has been very consistent for the
Speaker 8: last I don't know, man, a couple months, and I
Speaker 8: think he does, honestly feel like the performances have been there,
Speaker 8: But it is moments, like he always says, and whether
Speaker 8: it's a mistake in the back, an unlucky bounce, a
Speaker 8: bad refereeing decision, or just a lack of quality in
Speaker 8: the attacking third where you know, box the box, He's please.
Speaker 8: But that game the other night, I know it was
Speaker 8: a rough watch and there's no glad and no a
Speaker 8: Mecca and no Diogo, and you can make excuses and
Speaker 8: you got a lot of kids out there, and you know,
Speaker 8: Noel Kaliskin had been left on an island with Joseph
Speaker 8: Painhill all night, and you know, on one particular occurrence,
Speaker 8: he makes a play on the ball and the ball
Speaker 8: scorts back to Joseph's feet and he's a world class
Speaker 8: player and he gets the goal. So it's frustrating, but
Speaker 8: I think the encouraging thing for somebody like me that's
Speaker 8: been through this a million times it feels like, is
Speaker 8: that we have seventeen games left. You have twenty games
Speaker 8: left if you count League's Cup, maybe a few more,
Speaker 8: and the guys are still together. But clearly the summer
Speaker 8: window that opens July twenty fourth, and you know, we
Speaker 8: don't have a lot of games in June, so there
Speaker 8: is some time that LAFC game on June twenty fifth
Speaker 8: is going to get moved, likely to September because of
Speaker 8: their participation World Cup. So things are kind of going
Speaker 8: to be backloaded, and they're going to be homeloaded basically
Speaker 8: from July first on. So I think there's an opportunity,
Speaker 8: but there's just no margin for error either.
Speaker 2: Does that mean you guys will have two games in
Speaker 2: the month of June.
Speaker 8: That is correct June fourteenth at home, when we honor
Speaker 8: Nick Romondo in June twenty eighth in Kansas City, and
Speaker 8: that is because the league is taking some international breaks
Speaker 8: for both the Club World Cup and.
Speaker 11: The Gold Cup.
Speaker 1: Jeez, well, that gives you a lot of time to reflect,
Speaker 1: a lot of time to train.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Bill Simmons has this theory that started in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: He calls it the Patrick Ewing theory and it's predicated
Speaker 1: on the nineteen ninety nine New York Knicks where Patrick
Speaker 1: Ewing got hurt and then somehow, some way Marcus can
Speaker 1: be figured out how to play center at a high level.
Speaker 1: Larry Johnson, Spree, Allen Houston. That group went to the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals even though Ewing was hurt. So he has
Speaker 1: this Patrick Ewing theory where at times your best player
Speaker 1: gets hurt or is unavailable and the group just finds
Speaker 1: a way to kind of come together, and the collective
Speaker 1: effort of the group without the star player is something
Speaker 1: at times that can manifest results that nobody sees coming.
Speaker 2: Our guy ZK.
Speaker 1: Chris Camaronnie on the program has had this walking line
Speaker 1: this year when I ask him, what does RSL do well,
Speaker 1: he says, they Diego Luna well, and that's about it.
Speaker 1: So Diego makes his way to the US men's national
Speaker 1: team for the World Cup. How long is he going
Speaker 1: to be gone, Trey, He's.
Speaker 8: Going to be gone, depending how the US does. I
Speaker 8: could see him being gone until June or sorry, July tenth.
Speaker 7: Let's say, all.
Speaker 1: Right, so you're going to play at least four maybe
Speaker 1: five matches without Diego, and even if it's not Diego scoring,
Speaker 1: he creates most of the chances.
Speaker 2: Our guy, Big Willie goals.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Big Willie got his first goal, but
Speaker 1: it was due to the service of da Go.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 1: He has been everything and sometimes the only thing in
Speaker 1: the attack for this club.
Speaker 2: How do you make up for his absence.
Speaker 8: It's gonna be hard. Obviously, you're gonna be missing Dominic
Speaker 8: Martuk during this month of June, as well as Diego, Luna,
Speaker 8: Gozo and Ripel. They are in international duty right now,
Speaker 8: but they'll be back for the fourteenth. Diogo Gonsalvez, who
Speaker 8: you know has been hurt and out, he will be
Speaker 8: back on the fourteenth. So you're gonna have to find
Speaker 8: a way to do something without the gravity and quality
Speaker 8: that Diego Luna provides and could it be Willie, could
Speaker 8: it be Ari? Could it be young Aiden has Arkani
Speaker 8: who made his debut seventeen year old, Like, you know,
Speaker 8: our best three, our best two players this year have
Speaker 8: been probably Gozo and Luna and you know, eighteen and
Speaker 8: a twenty one year old. So you do need some
Speaker 8: veterans to step up. Johnny Russell presumably will be fit
Speaker 8: and able to contribute more minutes. He and his longest
Speaker 8: hint of his brief tenures so far on Saturday night
Speaker 8: in La. So it is going to take a committee
Speaker 8: because you know, nobody's walking through that door for at
Speaker 8: least another, you know, six weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm down, Rick Patino, all right, let me because your
Speaker 1: reference Diogo and Jason on the show last week broke
Speaker 1: the news that Diogo was left off the road trip
Speaker 1: that included Austin in LA. But it was not because
Speaker 1: of health, it was because of disciplinary reasons. You guys
Speaker 1: don't think of announced anything official. Can you shed some
Speaker 1: light on what happened?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Basically, in his first training session back, I think
Speaker 8: Pablo was kind of disappointed with how let's say, maybe
Speaker 8: a lack of vigor that Diogo was taking his rehab
Speaker 8: and his approach to healing and getting back into the mix,
Speaker 8: and Pablo made the decision to leave them home. So
Speaker 8: disciplinary may have been a strong word. It was kind
Speaker 8: of internal, I guess, if you want to look at
Speaker 8: it that way, And it was really just Pablo's disappointment.
Speaker 8: And Diego trained last week with the Monarchs. By all accounts,
Speaker 8: he had a great attitude and he fought through it well,
Speaker 8: and he was back with RSL today and he'll train
Speaker 8: with RSL obviously like the next two weeks and get
Speaker 8: ready for the fourteen.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, let's stay in this space for a moment,
Speaker 1: because to me, in my opinion, track the next few matches,
Speaker 1: we'll say a lot about Diogo, and my hope is
Speaker 1: he looks at the current situation, understands that he is
Speaker 1: literally the only designated player on the roster, and realizes
Speaker 1: that Diego's gone for a minute and the other pieces
Speaker 1: you reference are gone for a minute. This could be
Speaker 1: his time to actually finally step up and say, no,
Speaker 1: I am not this disappointment that everybody believes that I
Speaker 1: am right now, And let's be clear, everybody believes that
Speaker 1: he is right now I mean, I'm sure there's quote
Speaker 1: unquote internal belief in what he could be. But at
Speaker 1: some point, man, you just roll your eyes at that
Speaker 1: stuff and say, show me during a game, please, that
Speaker 1: you want to earn your paycheck, like this could be
Speaker 1: an opportunity for.
Speaker 2: Him, you know what I mean?
Speaker 8: Yep, I think you're absolutely right, Spence, and I think
Speaker 8: you know we're gonna find out what he's made of,
Speaker 8: right is he does he want to come back with
Speaker 8: a chip on his shoulder and diego gone like you said,
Speaker 8: and be like, hey, guys, I'm the man, I'm the
Speaker 8: number ten, follow me, And that's what I think everybody
Speaker 8: wants to see. I do think the locker room still
Speaker 8: believes in him as a human and as a well
Speaker 8: abandoned him in that locker room. So hopefully, hopefully we
Speaker 8: see the man infestation of that obviously on the fourteenth
Speaker 8: right beyond.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1: And look, if he is as bright as Pablo says
Speaker 1: he is, and as you say he is, and Kurt
Speaker 1: and everybody else, if he really has that that that
Speaker 1: skill set, maybe it just maybe it does just take
Speaker 1: one or two matches where finally something clicks and he's
Speaker 1: been over in MLS for over a year now, and
Speaker 1: he gets what it's like to play in this league.
Speaker 1: Like if he does have the skill set you guys
Speaker 1: claim that he has, maybe it is a scenario where
Speaker 1: one or two games where things are going through him
Speaker 1: and it actually works, could be a conduit to the
Speaker 1: rest of the year. I guess that's an optimistic way
Speaker 1: of looking at it. But it's not nothing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think you're right, and I think everybody from Pablo,
Speaker 8: Kurt Jason, you know, the assistant coaches, the staff in
Speaker 8: the locker room, I think everybody does have that belief.
Speaker 8: Clearly nobody is more disappointed. And maybe let's call it
Speaker 8: a lack of production. What is he He's probably played
Speaker 8: twenty four games since arriving. I think he scored three goals,
Speaker 8: and it's been it's been a tough go and not
Speaker 8: just for him, for the whole club. And you know,
Speaker 8: I think the great thing about the culture under Pablo
Speaker 8: is the lack of internal finger pointing. Right, people don't
Speaker 8: blame each other. And this was the discussion inside the
Speaker 8: locker room Saturday night after a very disappointing loss to
Speaker 8: the Galaxy, and it started with Pablo delivering the message,
Speaker 8: and it was other guys stepping up and talking, but
Speaker 8: everybody was like, look, we just got to look in
Speaker 8: the mirror and figure out how to give one percent
Speaker 8: more because I think, you know, Saturday was maybe a
Speaker 8: drop off in quality as a viewer and as a
Speaker 8: fan from the Wednesday game against Austin, which clearly ended
Speaker 8: with a little bit of a ninetieth minute heartbreak with
Speaker 8: that goal conceded, but Saturday's Galaxy game as probably a
Speaker 8: rough watch that it was for the for the fans.
Speaker 8: The sports performance coach or whatever, he put out a
Speaker 8: note to the group yesterday saying that the outputs so
Speaker 8: the brown covered, the sprints, just the physical exertion was
Speaker 8: the highest of the year, and I think there's positives
Speaker 8: in that. It's not the be all end all, obviously,
Speaker 8: but you know, we had guys come in and fill
Speaker 8: in for Glad and a Mecca and other guys that
Speaker 8: were missing, and they work their pales off, and so
Speaker 8: that's got to be, I guess, the foundation to kind
Speaker 8: of build on as you you turn the page into
Speaker 8: the second half of the MLS season, and even though
Speaker 8: it's been ugly, there's a glut of teams in the
Speaker 8: in the Western Conference that are all right there within
Speaker 8: a couple of games, and if we can put a
Speaker 8: run together eight out of ten at home. I understand
Speaker 8: we've not been great at home previously this year, but
Speaker 8: you know, over the long haul has been home cooking
Speaker 8: has been healing for us. And so I think that's
Speaker 8: really going to be the focus for the group as
Speaker 8: we go from June fourteenth to August sixth, playing eight
Speaker 8: out of game, eight out of ten games at home,
Speaker 8: adding hopefully another DP and maybe another high level player
Speaker 8: depending on how the roster construct goes during the summer window.
Speaker 8: And yeah, I think there's a lot of I don't
Speaker 8: think the optimism or the hope is false, I guess,
Speaker 8: is what I'm trying to say. I mean, everybody's dealing
Speaker 8: in reality. Everybody understands that the results have not been
Speaker 8: good enough. But I think Pablo is very good about
Speaker 8: trying to figure out how to not throw the baby
Speaker 8: out with the bathwater, if you.
Speaker 1: Will, All right, So I've asked Pablo, Jason, and Kurt
Speaker 1: the following question, and I'm going to pose it to you.
Speaker 1: Chicho Wrongo seventeen goals, twelve assists, last year, Andres Gooms
Speaker 1: thirty goals, nine assists, and Oh Anderson Julio nine goals,
Speaker 1: three assists, Matt Crooks three goals, five assists.
Speaker 2: So what is fair?
Speaker 1: Because you've heard the criticism yours online as anybody, including
Speaker 1: my fourteen year old teenage nephew. You know, you hear
Speaker 1: from fans, you probably hear from media, you probably hear
Speaker 1: on this show that I view it as a failure
Speaker 1: of whatever.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly where to aim here.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to put out an instaple on my
Speaker 1: Twitter to have people vote on whose fault this is.
Speaker 1: But it has been a failure to not bring in
Speaker 1: reinforcements juxtaposed to all of the talented attacking players. You
Speaker 1: guys either sold or traded. Why what happened? Who's I'm
Speaker 1: not a who's to blame?
Speaker 7: Guy?
Speaker 2: So I'll ask you the same way I asked Jason.
Speaker 1: What's fair to say about the inability of ownership the
Speaker 1: front office talent evaluators? What have you to replace potentially
Speaker 1: the most exciting attacking group, honestly, that we may have
Speaker 1: ever had here last year?
Speaker 8: Yeah? No, Look, it's a fair question, right, And I
Speaker 8: think you start by saying for the eighty eighth time
Speaker 8: right like, there was no way to not do the
Speaker 8: Andres Gomez deal. Clearly, the chiecho situation, nobody anticipated the
Speaker 8: lack of production in the second half last season. I
Speaker 8: think you can say that when the reinforcements were brought
Speaker 8: in last August, and that's Dominic Marchuk, Lachlan Brook, Diogo,
Speaker 8: Gonsolvis and Javane Brown. And Javane clearly not an attacker,
Speaker 8: but the other three are that the anticipated assimilation and
Speaker 8: goal and assist production from those players in place of
Speaker 8: Andres that did not have not come to fruition. I
Speaker 8: think there's other you know, Gozo might be a bonus,
Speaker 8: but there were people that wanted Pablo to play Gozo
Speaker 8: a year ago, and Gozo wasn't ready. Gozo was running
Speaker 8: between Academy Monarchs US youth national team, so he had
Speaker 8: a very frazzled kind of twenty twenty four. But clearly
Speaker 8: we're seeing the benefit.
Speaker 7: Of that now.
Speaker 8: I think, you know, there's no one silver bullet that
Speaker 8: could have fixed all that goal production and all that
Speaker 8: productivity that you just outlined, not just Chico and Andres,
Speaker 8: but Crooks for sure. Anderson Julio. Clearly the Elias Manuel
Speaker 8: trade with New York did not work out as anticipated,
Speaker 8: the timing of Elias saying I object to being traded
Speaker 8: from New York to anywhere else in MLS. You know,
Speaker 8: that came at a time that was very difficult for
Speaker 8: us to find suitable replacement to go into Conca Calf.
Speaker 8: Then you had the Bosonic deal, thal Are on deadline
Speaker 8: day and you end up with Williegatta and Johnny Russell
Speaker 8: that week. So again I don't know that Kurt or
Speaker 8: Jason or Pablo, and they've talked about this publicly where
Speaker 8: the guys that have come in none of them are
Speaker 8: a like for like chi Cho replacement. Many of them
Speaker 8: and still be very much a Julio replacement. And so
Speaker 8: that really pushes our chips towards the summer window which
Speaker 8: opens July twenty fourth. Hopefully some guys get done and
Speaker 8: they're here and they're training for a full month before
Speaker 8: they are eligible to play on the twenty sixth, I think,
Speaker 8: which is Chicho's homecoming to America, first field in Sandy,
Speaker 8: and they're ready to hit the ground running. That I
Speaker 8: think is what Kurt and Pablo and Jason and Tony
Speaker 8: and the group are trying to get done right now
Speaker 8: for the summer.
Speaker 1: So if and I've talked about this on a couple
Speaker 1: of different occasions, So if the information that was out
Speaker 1: there as you guys were close to getting other players
Speaker 1: across the line during the primary transfer window. So if
Speaker 1: that's the case, it should be realistic to expect players
Speaker 1: across the line quickly when the summer window opens. And
Speaker 1: I believe that gives you thirteen matches, and some of
Speaker 1: that is League's Cup, right, So that's enough time to
Speaker 1: salvage something. But in the meantime you've got to tread
Speaker 1: water and start getting some points so you don't have
Speaker 1: to win your final seven matches, which you won't do anyway.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like this season has already lost, Tray,
Speaker 1: Does it feel like this season is already lost?
Speaker 8: I've heard you say that, I've heard Cameronie say that.
Speaker 8: I disagree with you, guys. I mean, there's seventeen regular
Speaker 8: season games left in a row.
Speaker 7: You shoot right up.
Speaker 8: The standings, so well, I look again, not lost a
Speaker 8: ton of margin for errors. I guess how I would
Speaker 8: put it. I'm very optimistic in the talent in the
Speaker 8: locker room the cohesion and maybe adding a couple of
Speaker 8: difference makers, you know, hopefully a Mechaanelli is back in
Speaker 8: four weeks and twelve, which is kind of prest reaction
Speaker 8: and trying to avoid a stress fracture back there, you know,
Speaker 8: in his fifth metatarsal on his right foot. So look,
Speaker 8: I'm not going to say it's lost. I think there's
Speaker 8: a lot of motivation in that group to try to
Speaker 8: try to reclaim some consistency and and not just be
Speaker 8: quality box to box, but be quality on the defensive end.
Speaker 8: In front of Cabral who's been amazing this year. Brian
Speaker 8: Vera is back, he looks to be full strength again.
Speaker 8: And then in the attacking end, we got to score goals.
Speaker 8: We've been shut out too many times, and that's where
Speaker 8: the frustration clearly has a contrast to where we were
Speaker 8: a year ago through seventeen games with Chico on fire
Speaker 8: and andres earning the transfer to France.
Speaker 2: All right, before I set you loose.
Speaker 1: Another interesting dynamic of multiple, multiple different interviews I've done
Speaker 1: is Pablo joining the show and saying that he's been
Speaker 1: informed by ownership that this whole ethos of developing and
Speaker 1: selling players is no longer the thing. They do not
Speaker 1: want to necessarily sell a young player who has a
Speaker 1: bright future that could make a difference here, and namely
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Diego.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Then Kurt joins the show the next week, and he
Speaker 1: was a little bit more noncommittal. Hey, look, this is
Speaker 1: a contextualized conversation where if you get the right nobody
Speaker 1: is untradeable, Babe, Ruth Will Chamberlain. We could keep going
Speaker 1: like nobody's untouchable, that doesn't exist, and if the rite
Speaker 1: offer comes along that makes sense for the club, I'd
Speaker 1: imagine you'd still do it. And then Jason joined the
Speaker 1: show and basically says what Pablo was alluding to was a.
Speaker 2: Little bit overstated, is how I'll put that. She had
Speaker 2: some light here on.
Speaker 1: What some people believe as a new approach and other
Speaker 1: people believe is not necessarily the deal.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think both are right, right, Like I think
Speaker 8: Pablo has been communicated to that, Hey, we're not just
Speaker 8: going to keep running young guys out there and try
Speaker 8: to flip them. Obviously we did well last year with
Speaker 8: Barajas and then Andre Spilmes, Right, but particular to Diego, Luna,
Speaker 8: it's it's you have it right, Like.
Speaker 7: There's a number.
Speaker 8: I don't know what the number is, but at some
Speaker 8: point somebody's an to us with a number that's going
Speaker 8: to make us think long and hard. Now that being said,
Speaker 8: I do believe that these Starts and others at the
Speaker 8: Miller Group are like, Okay, as we're learning how this
Speaker 8: league works and how this sport works around the world,
Speaker 8: what needs to happen for us to keep Diego Luna
Speaker 8: here for a long time and a Mecca and Nelly
Speaker 8: and Justin Glad And how do we build a core
Speaker 8: that we can then add around that will compete for
Speaker 8: trophies and win titles or win championships. That's their stated desire.
Speaker 8: So does it mean that we won't sell young players, No,
Speaker 8: of course, not like we cannot participate in the world
Speaker 8: marketplace if we don't eventually sell I don't know man
Speaker 8: Down or Gozo or Aiden or Owen Anderson or you know,
Speaker 8: we've got a million great young goalkeepers like those guys
Speaker 8: are going to kind of dictate their path. Not everybody
Speaker 8: is going to want to stay in Salt Lake for
Speaker 8: another fi fifteen years or ten years even, but there
Speaker 8: may be some guys that really do say you know what,
Speaker 8: I want you to build this club around me. I
Speaker 8: want to be the leader, and I want to bring
Speaker 8: hardware back to Salt Lake City, which clearly hasn't happened
Speaker 8: in fifteen years. So I think it's going to be
Speaker 8: maybe a little more of a hybrid approach than than
Speaker 8: what Kurt and Jason and Pablo were kind of tasked
Speaker 8: with over the last three years. We're clearly having the
Speaker 8: Blitzer relationship and the family of clubs that they either
Speaker 8: have majority or minority interest in, where there may be
Speaker 8: is more of an opportunity for volatile, more volatile roster
Speaker 8: construction and having players go in and out. But we're
Speaker 8: not going to sell Diego just to sell them like
Speaker 8: it's got to hit a number that makes sense. And
Speaker 8: again that's something Diego and his agent will very much
Speaker 8: participate in that conversation as well as Andres and his did,
Speaker 8: as Gavin Beavers and his did, as Fidel Barajas and
Speaker 8: his did. So it's a collaborative process still. So that
Speaker 8: is very much the consistent factor going forward in the
Speaker 8: world marketplace for what we believe will be several emerging
Speaker 8: classes that are fifteen years old, seventeen year old now
Speaker 8: that will have an opportunity to either play long term
Speaker 8: in MLS or maybe go chase a dream in South
Speaker 8: America or Europe or somewhere else overseas. It's very much
Speaker 8: a customized, I think, opportunity for each player at different stages.
Speaker 2: Sound grumpy man, all right, Well.
Speaker 8: Nikola Jokic is untradable. If you want to go in
Speaker 8: that direction.
Speaker 1: He's going to look so good in a Nick jersey.
Speaker 1: Good luck with Kat and Denver.
Speaker 8: Him and Michael Malone are reunited in MSG. I'll become
Speaker 8: a Knicks fan.
Speaker 2: Love it.
Speaker 1: Hi, buddy, thanks for the talent yatsoo, Thank you, pleasure, Ailes.
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Speaker 2: What's going on, Ry.
Speaker 7: Benk's thanks so much.
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Speaker 1: Joining me live in studio a fourteen year old teenage girl.
Speaker 2: Uh, what what is this?
Speaker 1: Porter?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 2: What did he make you play? What is this?
Speaker 8: So?
Speaker 2: Madison beer? Madison beer? Also, what are we familiar? What
Speaker 2: do we watch it on television? I don't know. It
Speaker 2: was John Cena hosting wipe Out a minute ago.
Speaker 1: Which was no better than what we're watching now. It's
Speaker 1: some TNT movie. Dave Fox, you okay with headphones. With
Speaker 1: the headphones, but I'm making it work. You think this
Speaker 1: place could afford?
Speaker 2: Okay, did you say I got half an ear in
Speaker 2: Madison beer? Madison Beer.
Speaker 12: Yeah, fifteen minutes was the name of that song, all right,
Speaker 12: which is about how long I'm Gonna lie?
Speaker 1: That sounded like, uh like Sabrina Carpenter like pop?
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 12: Well, it's I mean, it's it's basically E d M.
Speaker 12: But she's yeah, she's a pop artist. It's still got
Speaker 12: a couple of really good songs.
Speaker 2: When did you get into EDM music?
Speaker 12: I've been in my entire life really, it's so weird.
Speaker 12: Was new it was called new wave.
Speaker 2: They didn't have d M. Well, but it was disguise
Speaker 2: as a different name.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's funny. That's that's a good point. Now, so
Speaker 1: you've you've always been in like house music?
Speaker 12: Yeah, I like house music when you were DJ Dave Fox,
Speaker 12: and I also like, like, you know, eclectic, like ny.
Speaker 2: That kind of thing. Let's rock a little before you
Speaker 2: get out of it.
Speaker 12: I don't ever give you that you know, or or
Speaker 12: I'm a big enigma. Yeah, I'm a big enigma guy too.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you just run the spectrum. Yeah, Moby Moby.
Speaker 2: He does a little bit of everything.
Speaker 1: And and to be clear, you're not constantly taking molly
Speaker 1: and listening to d M house music.
Speaker 2: You are drug free?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, I'm just making sure because
Speaker 1: most people love DM they like the glow sticks and
Speaker 1: you know all that stuff.
Speaker 12: I just like I like the beat. I like the
Speaker 12: sound of it. You know, That's what I'm rocking when
Speaker 12: I'm driving down the screen.
Speaker 2: Well, you're an upbeat, positive guy.
Speaker 12: I've always been a glass half full always have you?
Speaker 2: Sure? All right? So are you? I'm always looking forward?
Speaker 1: Are you full about the Utah Jazz offseason project with
Speaker 1: a new basketball decision maker in charge?
Speaker 12: Well, if you're asking me about the higher I think
Speaker 12: it's good. I think it's too You know what, We
Speaker 12: spent hours after this announcement trying to figure out exactly
Speaker 12: what the hierarchy was, and Ryan Smith made it very
Speaker 12: clear that Austin Ange is the guy. He an Ange
Speaker 12: even you know, mentions that he did, you know, wisely
Speaker 12: mention that everything runs through Ryan. Ultimately he is, you know,
Speaker 12: after all, the governor of the team. So I and
Speaker 12: you know, it's not like anybody wants to throw out
Speaker 12: the old nepotism thing. Maybe he got a little help
Speaker 12: to this kicking off his career, but he's made a
Speaker 12: name for himself. We know that, and he's done a
Speaker 12: very good job of that. And if he hadn't gotten
Speaker 12: this job, he was sooner or later he's going to
Speaker 12: be a team president somewhere.
Speaker 2: It was just going to happen. That's the trajectory he's on.
Speaker 12: And I think Ryan even mentioned that that he thought
Speaker 12: that might have happened last year and that he missed
Speaker 12: his opportunities.
Speaker 2: So I think it's a good hire.
Speaker 12: It gives the organization even more voices, which they probably need.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much.
Speaker 12: I think we all know Danny doesn't want to, you know,
Speaker 12: kill himself working, and he shouldn't. He's earned, you know,
Speaker 12: whatever semi retirement you want to call it. Xani's been
Speaker 12: through some health things, so there's a lot of I mean,
Speaker 12: this is good, this is really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the nepotism thing.
Speaker 1: In fact, Porter, since Dave brought it up, I want
Speaker 1: you to take the opportunity to remind Dave and our
Speaker 1: audience what the official stance is of the drive as
Speaker 1: it pertains to nepotism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, officially from this show. They tell your sounden this too, Dave. No,
Speaker 3: nepotism can't win with him. Don't like it?
Speaker 2: Are we are anti nepotism on the show?
Speaker 12: Okay, but that's fine. But that's what I just said.
Speaker 12: By the way, my son's an attorney. He's not even
Speaker 12: in the media, so that's never.
Speaker 2: Going to choosing you of nepotism.
Speaker 12: I don't think your son's Walton in here anytime. So No,
Speaker 12: I've seen Andrew on the sideline before.
Speaker 2: With some Sibeliers, Fox not a box.
Speaker 1: I just want to be clear that the audience knows
Speaker 1: the official stance of the drive as we are anti neputible.
Speaker 12: Well, then I'm guessing you agree with me that there
Speaker 12: isn't a blatant piece of nepotism on this or do
Speaker 12: you not agree with me?
Speaker 2: No, Dave, it's a bit.
Speaker 1: It's a bit because our textures don't really understand that
Speaker 1: I'm being facetious because I have a famous father.
Speaker 2: It's a bit that we do on the show.
Speaker 1: But no, here's the deal, like in my case I
Speaker 1: am the famous, you are, No, here's the deal, like
Speaker 1: Danny's pedigree speaks for itself. He doesn't need me to
Speaker 1: stand up for him, And Austin's pedigree speaks for itself.
Speaker 1: He worked for the Boston Celtics for seventeen years. The
Speaker 1: Boston Celtics have been the pre eminent franchise in pro basketball,
Speaker 1: along with the Lakers, well really forever, but certainly the
Speaker 1: modern day edition of the Boston Celtics. After they made
Speaker 1: it out of that weird like an Swan Walker phase
Speaker 1: and started winning championships, Austin's had a front row seat
Speaker 1: for all of it. Brad Stevens is one of the
Speaker 1: most respected basketball people period, and Danny's been out of
Speaker 1: Boston now for I think four and a half almost
Speaker 1: five years. If Austin wasn't good at his job, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have let him stick around just because he was
Speaker 1: Danny's kidd.
Speaker 2: He left.
Speaker 1: He he has a resume that indicates he has qualified
Speaker 1: for the job he's been hired for. I find it
Speaker 1: interesting that apparently Danny and Justin are reporting to Austin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that part's interesting. What if he just fires his
Speaker 2: dad that dad, you're playing too much golf.
Speaker 12: Here's the part I don't get is how And I
Speaker 12: don't know that much about how companies, you know, break
Speaker 12: down their levels of leadership. But is it the CEO
Speaker 12: generally the top guy? Yeah, I ahead of the president.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But look, here's here's the deal. Like get that.
Speaker 2: And Porter brought this up earlier.
Speaker 1: You know, Danny technically retired when he left the Celtics.
Speaker 2: That's true, he did.
Speaker 1: He wanted to move out here. So I've known the
Speaker 1: ages of my entire life. Okay, So the deal with
Speaker 1: Danny is he's not one of these guys that just says,
Speaker 1: you know, I I want time to spend with my
Speaker 1: family and then goes and travels to Eup for six
Speaker 1: months out of the year. Danny is a committed father
Speaker 1: and grandfather and wanted to move out to Utah because
Speaker 1: the majority of his kids are here.
Speaker 2: So he retires from Boston.
Speaker 1: And also remember he definitely had one heart attack, and
Speaker 1: I think he may have had two. He had heart
Speaker 1: issues at the end of his time with Boston, so
Speaker 1: he left to retire to take care of himself, to
Speaker 1: move out here to be with his family. And he
Speaker 1: did not move out here with a plan of working
Speaker 1: for Ryan. Ryan recruited Danny for months before this transaction
Speaker 1: actually became official, because Danny made it very clear. I
Speaker 1: want freedom to see my grandkids. I like my tea
Speaker 1: times at Riverside. I'm going to play golf, Okay, so
Speaker 1: if you want me involved.
Speaker 2: It really has.
Speaker 1: Been more or less a quasi senior advisor role. The
Speaker 1: title is CEO, but Danny's not a Desions Bank basketball
Speaker 1: center your day at seven am. No, he's present for games.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's present for these workouts. I'm sure he's
Speaker 1: present in draft rooms. But I think this is even
Speaker 1: a further indication that Danny might take another step in
Speaker 1: the direction of just living the rest of his life
Speaker 1: the way he wants to live his life. And I
Speaker 1: don't begrudge anybody for paving a pat like if you
Speaker 1: don't know what it's like to be a parent and
Speaker 1: how badly you would do anything to make sure your
Speaker 1: children have a good path in life, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to tell you. I don't have an issue like
Speaker 1: so Ryan said. I didn't tell Danny that I was
Speaker 1: hiring Austin. No part of me believes that. No part
Speaker 1: of me believes that for a second. We'll get to
Speaker 1: the other parts of the stuff I don't believe either.
Speaker 1: But if Danny even had a small part to play
Speaker 1: in this decision, I don't have an issue with it
Speaker 1: at all, because he is going to potentially step away
Speaker 1: at some point entirely, and he knows that his kid's
Speaker 1: got a great opportunity to build a team with a
Speaker 1: job that will take care of he and his family forever.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a great thing altogether.
Speaker 1: But again, the bottom line is Austin has a resume
Speaker 1: that indicates he has qualified for the job.
Speaker 12: Yes, and maybe in Danny's case, we're reading too much
Speaker 12: into the title of CEO. Now They'll take, for instance,
Speaker 12: a lot of guys who owned big companies, big corporations,
Speaker 12: The first thing they.
Speaker 2: Do when they retire is they become what the chairman
Speaker 2: of the board.
Speaker 12: Maybe, well, there isn't a chairman of the board for
Speaker 12: the Jazz, so maybe CEO is that version of chairman
Speaker 12: of the board in the case of you know how
Speaker 12: Ryan sets everything up. But again, getting back to your point,
Speaker 12: Austin's proven himself, and he's proven himself repeatedly this year.
Speaker 12: They stumbled towards the end, but they didn't panic like, oh,
Speaker 12: a certain team in New York did uh?
Speaker 2: Did they did? The Knicks? Did they fire their coach?
Speaker 2: The Knicks and the Jets? They fired my guy? They
Speaker 2: fired my guy? How much did you really like that guy? Though? Tom?
Speaker 2: I love them? Okay? Oh yeah, Tom forever? He was
Speaker 2: just assistant. Why don't they bring back Van Gundy?
Speaker 1: He's on the Vegas list of the Vegas released the
Speaker 1: list I saw, and Jeff is like, but Malone's the highest.
Speaker 2: Malone is one to one. He's a New York guy too.
Speaker 2: I didn't mean to turn right there on that.
Speaker 1: No, no, but but ultimately I just think it was
Speaker 1: a scenario where Danny didn't agree to come work for
Speaker 1: Ryan unless Ryan agreed that Danny was gonna be able
Speaker 1: to have freedom, and and I think that that kind
Speaker 1: of remains in place, and I think Austin's hiring indicates
Speaker 1: that freedom might be something Danny wants. Even more so,
Speaker 1: Austin has a reputation in pro basketball is somebody that
Speaker 1: understands a cap, somebody that's drafted well, somebody that's conducted
Speaker 1: workouts and has been able to find bit pieces to
Speaker 1: surround the star players that Boston had won and won championships.
Speaker 1: Austin Ainge has the championship bring okay, so like his
Speaker 1: pedigree speaks for itself. I do wonder where Xanak is
Speaker 1: with this entire thing, and honestly don't.
Speaker 12: Know, but I think I feel like Xanik after his
Speaker 12: last medical situation kind of referred to well, I didn't
Speaker 12: say he wanted to step back, but he's he's been
Speaker 12: through a lot as well, and maybe maybe this will
Speaker 12: help him.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's such a bad thing too. You know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot that.
Speaker 12: Goes into this when you're looking for players and you're scouting,
Speaker 12: and you're in you're in Europe, and you're all over
Speaker 12: the world, and hey, the more eyeballs you have, the better.
Speaker 2: So but I can't.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 12: I've never neither of us have had a conversation with
Speaker 12: Justin to ask him exactly what he feels about that.
Speaker 12: I thought it was interesting that, well, Danny Ainge was
Speaker 12: at the press conference yesterday, but he was kind of
Speaker 12: just in the back. He wasn't up on the podium,
Speaker 12: and that's the way it should have been. I mean,
Speaker 12: it was, you know, the guy that hired Austin and
Speaker 12: Austin but that's a good question. But I'm not as
Speaker 12: cynical as you to believe that. Maybe Ryan didn't tell
Speaker 12: Danny he had hired his son. Maybe no, wait, wait
Speaker 12: a second, maybe he told him, I'm hey, I'm having
Speaker 12: some conversations with your son, but didn't flat out tell him,
Speaker 12: oh I hired him until after he had hired it,
Speaker 12: or I'm going to hire him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But again it gets back to the glass half full.
Speaker 2: That's me.
Speaker 12: I'm you know, you're more America's guests, and it's you know,
Speaker 12: there's nothing wrong with that. We all have our I
Speaker 12: wish I believe, we all have our suspicion that Disneyland
Speaker 12: was a real place and not a theme park. Dave,
Speaker 12: I wish I believed in children's fairy tales too. I
Speaker 12: just what do you mean it's not a real place.
Speaker 12: I've been going there my whole life. It is a
Speaker 12: real place, and it's a lot of fun. I live
Speaker 12: in the real world.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the other part of me will exist where
Speaker 1: I'm a cynic and you're a glass at full.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think they're not gonna tank next year?
Speaker 12: You know, your buddy asked that question and the answer,
Speaker 12: let me ye, I think Austin's answer was like three words.
Speaker 2: You know, it said, you want to see that, you
Speaker 2: want to see this here? What's he supposed to say?
Speaker 12: He can't literally answer a question that's phrased that way
Speaker 12: with yeah, we're gonna tank again.
Speaker 2: Let's go. They got fined for taking they're not.
Speaker 12: The question that was asked was asked in such a
Speaker 12: way that that's the only possible response he could have gotten.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not as cynical as you to believe that
Speaker 2: he had to say what he had to say. He
Speaker 2: can't say yeah, we're tanking.
Speaker 1: So so, ultimately, just no part of me believes that
Speaker 1: they are going to put their best foot forward to
Speaker 1: try to win as many games as they can next year.
Speaker 2: It would actually be the direct wrong line to take.
Speaker 12: Hey, that part, I agree with you, But I don't
Speaker 12: begrudge Austin's answer.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: First of all, I thought it was an awesome SoundBite.
Speaker 1: I thought it was great. It was like I dropped
Speaker 1: them like you're not going to see that next year,
Speaker 1: and then boom silence.
Speaker 2: Everybody's like, Okay, good a new direction.
Speaker 12: But the fact that he invoked the word tanking into
Speaker 12: the question that made that answer perfectly honest in a way,
Speaker 12: because there are so many different ways to manipulate your record.
Speaker 12: And by the way, didn't we learn this year you
Speaker 12: don't have to finish dead last. Let's be honest. They
Speaker 12: just need to be in the bottom eight, right, Yeah,
Speaker 12: to preserve well.
Speaker 1: And that's the issue, I mean, as much as anything
Speaker 1: else this year, based off of where they're at, based
Speaker 1: off of what they need, and based off of how
Speaker 1: far away they are from not just the top teams
Speaker 1: in the West. I mean, there's not a move they
Speaker 1: could make to move them from like fifteen to eleven,
Speaker 1: let alone fifteen.
Speaker 2: It doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: So based off of how far away they are and
Speaker 1: how much they need, keeping that draft capital for next
Speaker 1: year's draft cycle is as big of a priority as
Speaker 1: anything else that they do this year.
Speaker 2: It just is, I agree, But there's other ways to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 12: First of all, you play every single one of your
Speaker 12: young guys like they have been the one caveat in
Speaker 12: all this is what do you do with market Because
Speaker 12: if marketing is playing every game and these veterans are
Speaker 12: playing every game, it's going to be really hard to
Speaker 12: stay below eight. I'm not saying that they're going to
Speaker 12: be a playoff team, but that's going to be more difficult.
Speaker 2: So they're going to have to kind of massage that
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, that's manipulating minutes, or trade them. That's the only
Speaker 1: So if we're going to say that what Austin Ainge
Speaker 1: said yesterday was truthful and he meant it. And the
Speaker 1: approach now that there's a new boss, okay, because Ryan
Speaker 1: told us all he's the boss, and the edict from
Speaker 1: the boss is we are no longer unseious about competition.
Speaker 1: We are going to approach this with integrity. We're going
Speaker 1: to try our best. This roster is too good to
Speaker 1: be one of the bottom four or five teams. Now,
Speaker 1: if you move off of marketing and you can get
Speaker 1: a lot for Lowry, you can't.
Speaker 2: You can't get you know, a Paul.
Speaker 1: George Donovan Mitchell type hall, but you can get probably
Speaker 1: three to four picks, maybe a couple of young players.
Speaker 12: I don't even know if you want players, you just
Speaker 12: want picks really well, you have to really young players.
Speaker 1: You're right, you have to get you have to acquire
Speaker 1: players because you have to match salaries.
Speaker 12: But it also wave them. They're good at that wave Lowry. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 12: The players that you bring in a giant package of things, players,
Speaker 12: draft picks, other assets, and then you wave the player
Speaker 12: you don't want.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, but he's he's good enough that you can
Speaker 1: get three to four picks and probably two to three
Speaker 1: young players you want to learn about perfect and who
Speaker 1: knows who the young players are. But if the NBA
Speaker 1: finds out that the Jazz are willing to move off
Speaker 1: of lowry marketing, Austin Ainge will receive multiple phone calls
Speaker 1: from other general managers saying, okay, what do you want?
Speaker 1: And if Austin and says okay, let's we'll do four picks,
Speaker 1: we'll do three unprotected in one swhile, and then we
Speaker 1: want these three young players. And all these players are
Speaker 1: between eighteen and twenty two, and they're a lot like
Speaker 1: the other young players the Jazz have. You might have
Speaker 1: to do something with Walker as wow.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any chance they do that. Well.
Speaker 1: Walker's good, Walker's really good. He impacts winning. So if
Speaker 1: you're going to do the thing where we are playing
Speaker 1: our best players every night and we're not making up injuries,
Speaker 1: and we're not after we get fine, we're not saying okay,
Speaker 1: watch this Walker Kesseler shooting ten threes a night. If
Speaker 1: we're not doing any of those corny things anymore and
Speaker 1: you're trying your best to win games based off the
Speaker 1: personnel you have, you have to change your personnel.
Speaker 2: You're too good.
Speaker 1: Because if we are sitting here, Dave, next year at
Speaker 1: this time and the Jazz have won thirty four games,
Speaker 1: they're in trouble. And Mark Tatum gets up to the
Speaker 1: podium and says, and the ninth pick in the NBA
Speaker 1: draft goes to the Utah Jazz, and that goes to
Speaker 1: the team that's about to win the title. Because the
Speaker 1: Jazz decided they wanted to try r I really hard
Speaker 1: this year. It will step, It will take the Jazz
Speaker 1: a couple of steps in the wrong direction.
Speaker 2: That is worst case scenario is what it is. I
Speaker 2: completely agree with you on that.
Speaker 12: And it's and whether we want to call it tanking
Speaker 12: or roster manipulation, that's going to be have to be
Speaker 12: the way they do this because they do not want
Speaker 12: to go through what they had to do last year,
Speaker 12: where we all sat there and looked at Larry Mark
Speaker 12: and looking perfectly healthy and not playing. They have to
Speaker 12: approach this a completely different way. And one way would
Speaker 12: be your right to move him. But it's not just him,
Speaker 12: by the way, I mean, John Collins helps you win games.
Speaker 12: Colin Sexton helps you win games.
Speaker 2: That's my point.
Speaker 12: All these veterans, honestly, they in some respects, a lot
Speaker 12: of these guys got to go.
Speaker 1: I think finally you can move off of Collins and Sexton.
Speaker 1: I don't know about Clarkson just because he's not good anymore.
Speaker 1: I know everyone loves him, show love nice guy painted
Speaker 1: on the locker, throw him in, or just keep him
Speaker 1: on the team for fun. But his best years are
Speaker 1: behind him. But what changes this year? And that's why
Speaker 1: I can continue to look at the summer of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six as far as the off season that makes
Speaker 1: sense for them to actually get in play is this year. Collins,
Speaker 1: Sexton Clarkson are on expiring deals.
Speaker 2: It's the final year their deal.
Speaker 1: So instead like a GM last year is like, wait,
Speaker 1: you want me to trade for John Collins, I have
Speaker 1: to pay him twenty five mil this year and twenty
Speaker 1: five mil next.
Speaker 2: Now they'll pick up an expiring car.
Speaker 1: Now his contract expired, so it actually helps you next
Speaker 1: offseason if you want cap space.
Speaker 2: Same thing with Sexton. Same thing with Clarkson.
Speaker 1: Clarkson's on the books for fourteen point two, Collins on
Speaker 1: the books for nineteen point one. So you can move
Speaker 1: off of those contracts even if the players aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: highly sought after, simply because their money expires.
Speaker 12: And teams love those kind of deals where they're acquiring
Speaker 12: expired contracts. The Lowry's isn't I mean, they just gave
Speaker 12: him a max deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's good enough because you can find a home
Speaker 1: for him. I mean, he's good enough. You can find
Speaker 1: a home for him. So that's that's kind of got
Speaker 1: to be the play, you know. And then next off
Speaker 1: season is when they could have potentially seventy million dollars
Speaker 1: in cap space unless they decide to do this extend Walker.
Speaker 1: So they have the ability to extend Walker this off season. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to move off of Walker, which is
Speaker 1: a tough ask because he's good and he's still young,
Speaker 1: they won't extend him.
Speaker 2: That makes him harder to trade.
Speaker 1: So they would do what they did with Hayward and say, oh,
Speaker 1: you think you've earned a deal, huh, well, you're going
Speaker 1: to play the last year of your rookie deal. Then
Speaker 1: you have to go bet on yourself, and that's what
Speaker 1: Gordon did. He had a really good year, then got
Speaker 1: a max offer sheet from Charlotte.
Speaker 2: Then they matched the offer sheet.
Speaker 1: Gordon played here for four more years before he gave
Speaker 1: everyone the middle finger and went to Boston so they
Speaker 1: could extend Walker unless they've done their calculation, believing we're
Speaker 1: too good with this group if we want to hold
Speaker 1: onto our draft pick. And also back up what Austin said,
Speaker 1: mean we're going to try hard this year.
Speaker 12: They've got to change their person. I don't know that
Speaker 12: he actually used the phrase try hard this year. But
Speaker 12: if yes, but again circling all the way back to
Speaker 12: where this started. If if the question had been phrased
Speaker 12: in such way that the word tanking wasn't in it,
Speaker 12: maybe he gets a little bit different answer. You can't
Speaker 12: even say roster manipulation because everyone knows that's tanking.
Speaker 2: It was the way yeah ask the question. It was
Speaker 2: the right way to ask the question.
Speaker 12: Well maybe, but you weren't going to get an answer
Speaker 12: with that, So that's just the way he.
Speaker 2: Got an answer. Well, and so if he's telling the truth.
Speaker 12: If you or you weren't going to get a well,
Speaker 12: I don't want to say honest answer because I'm not
Speaker 12: putting words in Austin's mouth, but he he doesn't have
Speaker 12: any other choice to answer that question any other way.
Speaker 2: That's That's what I'm.
Speaker 1: Saying, And what I'm saying is if he's telling the truth,
Speaker 1: they need to change their personnel. Yeah, because right if
Speaker 1: market In, Kessler, Sexton, and Collins all play seventy and
Speaker 1: seventy five games, they win thirty to thirty five games
Speaker 1: this year, I.
Speaker 12: Completely agree with the worst place to be and if
Speaker 12: they had, if they had played them all last year,
Speaker 12: they they probably would have won upwards of thirty. I
Speaker 12: would think the year before they won nearly that they did.
Speaker 12: They went over that. So yeah, I'm one hundred.
Speaker 1: And then you know where they drafted the year before
Speaker 1: tenth Yeah, and you know where that would go this
Speaker 1: year Oklahoma City, who's about to win.
Speaker 12: The championship, and that tenth pick hasn't worked out so well,
Speaker 12: we'll see where that goes. But I mean, frankly, their
Speaker 12: next two picks worked out better. Uh, We're going to
Speaker 12: find out in the next thirty to forty five days.
Speaker 12: We'll see exactly what the new president is made of.
Speaker 12: When he starts shaking things up, it's gonna be a
Speaker 12: lot of fun. I guarantee three words you will not
Speaker 12: hear at his mouth big game hunting.
Speaker 2: No, I think I'll steer clear of that.
Speaker 1: No way, Austin, if you're listening, you should fire your dad.
Speaker 2: Do not say that, all right? You reference the.
Speaker 1: You reference the overly irrational, emotional, ridiculously uh misguided decision
Speaker 1: of the worst owner in pro sports to fire Tom
Speaker 1: Thibbeteau today. It's an example of why the Knicks have
Speaker 1: been irrelevant for twenty five years because they make these
Speaker 1: in the moment, irrational decisions based off of emotion that
Speaker 1: you're feeling right now, instead of having a big picture
Speaker 1: point of view. So juxtapose that to what Ryan's decided
Speaker 1: to do with the current iteration of the Jazz. The
Speaker 1: bottom line is this, Dave, you have to have players,
Speaker 1: you have to have horses.
Speaker 2: Knicks have players the jazz tone.
Speaker 1: But what Ryan has done is locked in a head
Speaker 1: coach through twenty thirty a front office that now is
Speaker 1: locked in as well, and it takes away the ambiguity
Speaker 1: and the unknown nature of who's calling the shots in
Speaker 1: the way that the Knicks have simply just allowed the
Speaker 1: decisions to be to and fro from the win, firing
Speaker 1: good coaches all the time. So there is that while
Speaker 1: you need players, at least the Jazz have a coaching
Speaker 1: staff and a front office that is locked in like that.
Speaker 1: That is a pragmatic, prudent approach that I think, given time,
Speaker 1: will pay dividends. But it's going to take a lot
Speaker 1: of you to understand whether or not it's.
Speaker 2: The right way.
Speaker 12: Well answered, you answered your own question perfectly right there,
Speaker 12: because you look at what here's the difference. You got
Speaker 12: the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals with an opportunity
Speaker 12: to go to the NBA Championship Series, firing a coach,
Speaker 12: and then a team with the absolute worst record in
Speaker 12: the NBA re signing their coach to an extension, and
Speaker 12: it just you're right. It goes to show which organization
Speaker 12: is locked in and which isn't think about Washington Football
Speaker 12: for all those years the commanders, how horrible, I mean,
Speaker 12: what an awful job they did of running that thing.
Speaker 2: So and it also tells you.
Speaker 12: That Ryan is confident in his front office and what
Speaker 12: they're going to do, and that he knows within a
Speaker 12: few years they'll be competitive. They'll start being competitive, and
Speaker 12: he wants to make sure that guy is there running it.
Speaker 12: I don't know what the world the Knicks are doing,
Speaker 12: other than you may end up with an even better coach.
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's just it's an example of a of
Speaker 1: an owner that's an idiot, and that's who Jim Dolan
Speaker 1: is and hopefully Ryan's decision.
Speaker 2: Will Hardy's won thirty four percent of his games. He
Speaker 2: has a nine year runway.
Speaker 1: Tom Thibodeau just won fifty games back to back and
Speaker 1: went to the Eastern Conference finals of the playoffs four
Speaker 1: or five years one coach of the year and he
Speaker 1: got fired.
Speaker 12: Can you imagine if, I mean, if Will Hardy wasn't retained,
Speaker 12: he'd be instantly highable. Yeah, because people understand what he
Speaker 12: really is about. But the Jazz are smarter than that. Yeah,
Speaker 12: they are all right.
Speaker 2: David, are you wearing that on TV tonight? You look change?
Speaker 2: I'll change. I know you should wear that. I mean
Speaker 2: sometimes I can't get away with that like you can.
Speaker 2: I have to look more respectable. It's a little stuffy
Speaker 2: in there with the suits of times, but I'm.
Speaker 12: More a hoodie. A couple months ago in the winter.
Speaker 12: I should have saved that for a night you were
Speaker 12: on with me. Are we hoody with a sport code?
Speaker 1: Are we warm enough to enter the Dave Fox in
Speaker 1: shorts phase on?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 12: I do that quite a bit, but I don't do
Speaker 12: it if it's a show like what you and I
Speaker 12: are doing tonight where you can see my leg.
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to see that.
Speaker 2: What's coming up? On five questions?
Speaker 12: I don't want to reveal all the five questions, but
Speaker 12: I will say we have discussed at least two of them.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 12: We're going to throw in an r SO question, a
Speaker 12: golf question. We had a couple of locals. By the way,
Speaker 12: Zach Blair impressed the summer. He's both qualified for the
Speaker 12: US Open. What about doctor Freestone?
Speaker 2: Congrats? Doctor Freestone's doing good.
Speaker 12: I texted him the other day on an issue and
Speaker 12: he got right back.
Speaker 1: Do you want to share what the issue was on air?
Speaker 1: Or but you're you're healthier?
Speaker 2: Good to go? Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, Dave, I'll see it a little bit. Okay,
Speaker 1: Steve Buddy the Great Day Fox. I'll be on TV
Speaker 1: with Dave tonight at ten thirty five km why you
Speaker 1: five Questions with Spence shout out Dave Fox little Enya.
Speaker 1: On the way out of the show today, I got
Speaker 1: to I'll admit I was not anticipating Dave as he
Speaker 1: was going on his diet tribe about how much he
Speaker 1: loves house music and DM to drop a I also
Speaker 1: like a Enya.
Speaker 2: And I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't expect that from Dave today. Not that a
Speaker 1: little and you have nice and relaxing on a Tuesday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dave's Dave Fox's music taste is very interesting to me.
Speaker 2: That's uh. That guy's one of one. That's for sure.
Speaker 2: He is one of one.
Speaker 1: I'll be on television with Dave tonight at ten thirty
Speaker 1: five on km Y. You we call it five Questions
Speaker 1: with Spence. Of course, the big news of the day
Speaker 1: today Tom Thibodau has been fired by the New York Knicks,
Speaker 1: which has driven a lot of our conversation today Juxtaposed
Speaker 1: to what the Jazz have elected to do while locking
Speaker 1: in their coach in their front office while trying to
Speaker 1: find good players in order to win basketball games. Do
Speaker 1: you have a preference onn who replaced his tips if
Speaker 1: you had to pick as far as the names that
Speaker 1: you've seen.
Speaker 3: It's so hard because, and I mentioned this before, I
Speaker 3: would like you to only make that move if you've
Speaker 3: already got the guy there, right, And the name that
Speaker 3: makes sense is Jay Wright. He's the biggest name in
Speaker 3: coaching that doesn't have a job at the moment. He
Speaker 3: coached like your entire roster to a national championship at
Speaker 3: the college level. But everyone that I know of that
Speaker 3: has been around Jay Wright in the last two years
Speaker 3: says that he's not coming back to coaching, and they
Speaker 3: seem pretty pretty adamant about that fact. So, you know,
Speaker 3: while that's the name that stands out to me, I
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know how likely it is, because
Speaker 3: it does seem like we're moving into the direction where
Speaker 3: it's like a regurgitation of the ten names that you
Speaker 3: hear every NBA coaching search. No shade to your guy
Speaker 3: Van Gundy, right, but it just seems like there is
Speaker 3: such a kind of a cycle of the same five, six,
Speaker 3: seven names that you hear every time.
Speaker 1: I don't think Jeff would want. Well, see, here's the
Speaker 1: hard thing. Like we've been talking the past couple of days,
Speaker 1: I and I do genuinely wonder how Justin Zanik feels
Speaker 1: about everything that's happened, But he's an NBA general manager
Speaker 1: and you want to hold onto that job. So if
Speaker 1: the Knicks called Jeff and they inquired about whether or
Speaker 1: not he'd want to coach, that's you're the head coach
Speaker 1: of the Knicks. But I don't think he's Tom Tibbadauz,
Speaker 1: one of his best friends, was one of Jeff's assistants
Speaker 1: in New York for years, and I just don't think
Speaker 1: he'll ever work for Jim Doling again.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. He's worked for that guy before.
Speaker 3: That's the one where it's it's like, you know, it
Speaker 3: looks good on paper, but he's tried that and you
Speaker 3: probably know as good as anyone. Folks that work with
Speaker 3: James Dolan don't usually leave that building feeling great about
Speaker 3: James Dolan. So the odds of him, you know, being
Speaker 3: stoked to come back to New York is not great.
Speaker 3: And you know, maybe that gives him leverage on the
Speaker 3: other side.
Speaker 2: So we'll see. Michael Malone is the favorite in Vegas
Speaker 2: to get that job. We'll see how this plays out,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: The Stanley Cup Finals begin tomorrow. You can hear the
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup Finals and the NBA Finals on our radio
Speaker 1: station Edmonton, Florida, a rematch of what was just a
Speaker 1: barn Burner seven game series last year. And then of course, okay,
Speaker 1: see an Indiana start on Thursday.
Speaker 2: So there you go. Not a lot of local stuff
Speaker 2: going on right now.
Speaker 1: We're kind of entering that dead period with the summer calendar,
Speaker 1: but we'll do our best account to keep you in
Speaker 1: the loop with everything that we have going on. Porter
Speaker 1: what comes our way on a Wednesday edition of the
Speaker 1: radio show.
Speaker 3: Halfway through the work week. We'll get you ready for
Speaker 3: the rest of the week. Josh Furlong talking some Utah football,
Speaker 3: some college football at large, Neil Smith, the latest on
Speaker 3: the NHL, maybe some Utah Hockey Club as well, and
Speaker 3: then NBA action for the final hour.
Speaker 2: First the NBA Daily Assist with our guys Zach.
Speaker 3: Harper of the Athletic and then we'll go more jazz
Speaker 3: centric with Andy Larson of the Solid Tribute.
Speaker 1: All right, there you go. That'll be a fun Wednesday show.
Speaker 1: Join us for that. We will say good night. Special
Speaker 1: thank you to Sarah Todd, Tim McMahon, Trey Fitzgerald and
Speaker 1: Dave Fox for any of the sound you may miss
Speaker 1: from the show. Website is ESPN seven hundred Sports dot com.
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Speaker 2: We're there. Give us a nice review, say nice things,
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Speaker 1: It actually helps out the show reporter. I'm spent saying
Speaker 1: to night, enjoy your Tuesday evening, talk to you on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Drive as well as you can find it right here
Speaker 1: AUDIESPN seven hundred