Speaker 1: Alright, what is going on drivetime Thursday afternoon? Look at
Speaker 1: it about thirteen minutes past the hour at two o'clock.
Speaker 2: It is another really warm.
Speaker 1: Mild December Salt Lake City day outside, and as it
Speaker 1: is every single day, it's good.
Speaker 2: Have you along for the rides, Bence check.
Speaker 1: It's behind the Maya coasting the program today, as I
Speaker 1: do most every day.
Speaker 2: It's the name of the show, after all.
Speaker 1: Porter Larson out and about on vacation, Olivia filling in,
Speaker 1: doing a great job as always, and we got a
Speaker 1: jam packed, busy Thursday show for you guys today live
Speaker 1: from the road Home. Okay, So we do this every year,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about this morning, going over some
Speaker 1: notes and going over just some you know, some of
Speaker 1: the memories I.
Speaker 2: Have of being here.
Speaker 1: This is year nineteen for me here at the road
Speaker 1: Home doing radio both here at ESPN seven hundred in
Speaker 1: my old radio station as well, and it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things, if not my favorite thing I get
Speaker 1: to do with this job all year long. So we're
Speaker 1: asking for your donations today. Okay, so here's the number.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit you guys with this pretty much all
Speaker 1: show long, both today and tomorrow.
Speaker 2: We will be back here tomorrow as well, so keep
Speaker 2: that in mind.
Speaker 1: Phone number to make a donation is eight oh one
Speaker 1: eight one nine seventy three hundred. Website is the roadhome
Speaker 1: dot org slash donate. You can always come in person.
Speaker 1: I always encourage that because you can actually see the faces.
Speaker 1: You can see the desperation, you can see the need,
Speaker 1: you can see the sadness, you can see the weight,
Speaker 1: and we're asking you to help out here at the
Speaker 1: Connie Crosby Family Resource Center. It's five twenty nine ninth Aves,
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred south of Midvale. It's right off the
Speaker 1: exit seventy two hundred south exit. It's really really easy
Speaker 1: to find, so I'll hit you with that address again.
Speaker 2: Come on bye. We'd love to shake your hand, meets
Speaker 2: you and.
Speaker 1: Say hello, and you can do some good this holiday
Speaker 1: season and donate to people experiencing homelessness at the Connie
Speaker 1: Crosby Family Resource Center, which is five twenty nine ninth Aves,
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred south here in Midvale.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So also, if you are in need of shelter tonight,
Speaker 1: you can dial eight oh one nine nine zero nine
Speaker 1: nine ninety nine and the team will direct you to
Speaker 1: where you can get out of the cold tonight. So
Speaker 1: come on buy and do some good, or give us
Speaker 1: a call today and donate at one nine seventy three hundred.
Speaker 2: That's eight oh one eight one nine seventy three hundred.
Speaker 1: All right, busy show on this Thursday afternoon live at
Speaker 1: the Road Home.
Speaker 2: We have a lot to get to on the program today.
Speaker 1: Of course, we're one day away from the beginning of
Speaker 1: the CFP Okay, so the college football playoff bracket will
Speaker 1: start to unveil itself. Coming up tomorrow, it's an in
Speaker 1: state game between Notre Dame in Indiana. The Fighting Irish
Speaker 1: are seven point favorite as of now. Inclement weather seems
Speaker 1: to be the common theme among all of these games,
Speaker 1: well most of them, if not all of them. The
Speaker 1: exception is probably Texas Clemson down in Austin because you know,
Speaker 1: but twenty seven degrees to kicktime Notre Dame in Indiana
Speaker 1: in South Bend, it is supposed to be freezing in
Speaker 1: State College where Penn State will welcome in SMU. SMU's
Speaker 1: average weather at kickoff all year has been sixty two
Speaker 1: degree and looking like twenty six degrees at kickoff coming
Speaker 1: up on Saturday triple header Penn State at eight point
Speaker 1: five point favorite aforementioned Clemson Texas game down at dk
Speaker 1: R Texas Memorial Stadium. If you're hearing people yell in
Speaker 1: the background, some DJs get very very aggressive and they
Speaker 1: wanted to just sha all the entire time. There's nothing
Speaker 1: we can do about it. Texas is a twelve point
Speaker 1: favorite in that game. It's Clemson Texas two o'clock.
Speaker 2: By the way, keep this.
Speaker 1: In mind, SMU Penn State on TNT, Clemson Texas on
Speaker 1: TNT and MAX, and then Tennessee Ohio State on ABC
Speaker 1: and ESPN. So it is the modern day and age
Speaker 1: of consumption of both pro and college sports, where you
Speaker 1: need to have streaming options, you need to have linear options,
Speaker 1: and you need to kind of stay frosty.
Speaker 2: But a fun triple header of college football ahead.
Speaker 1: Bullseason has already begun and will continue, namely for Brigham
Speaker 1: Young coming up against Colorado in the Alamo Bowl.
Speaker 2: Should be a really, really fun one.
Speaker 1: Both by U and Colorado seem have indicated that their
Speaker 1: best players are gonna play now. Colorado is a four
Speaker 1: point five point favor. That line has swung the way
Speaker 1: the Buffs a couple of different times. The over runder
Speaker 1: is a very healthy fifty four point five, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna get to some BYU on the program today, Chase Roberts,
Speaker 1: will he stay, will he go?
Speaker 2: Some comments from Chase today and that.
Speaker 1: Chase Roberts Travis Travis Hunter matchup should be a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. So college football in the program today, the
Speaker 1: latest on the transfer portal for the University of Utah.
Speaker 1: Nothing really all that news worthy and noteworthy has happened
Speaker 1: since we saig good night last night at six o'clock,
Speaker 1: but of course we'll update you on that Pro Football
Speaker 1: Week sixteen gets rolling tonight Thursday Night Football. Don't forget
Speaker 1: we are your home of the NFL here in this market.
Speaker 1: It is the Broncos and it is the Chargers. The
Speaker 1: Chargers are two point five point favor the over unders
Speaker 1: forty one point five, which is pretty low.
Speaker 2: Two really good.
Speaker 1: Defensive teams with decent quarterback play, and if Denver wins,
Speaker 1: they lock in a.
Speaker 2: Playoff spot for the first time in a number of
Speaker 2: different years.
Speaker 1: So we'll get to a bunch of pro football, bunch
Speaker 1: of college football on the show today. The Jazz are
Speaker 1: back in action. They're gonna take on the Pistons tonight.
Speaker 1: Utah Hockey Club picked up a dramatic home.
Speaker 2: Win last night.
Speaker 1: They're on the road on Friday taking on a really
Speaker 1: good team in Minnesota BYU Basketball and Action on Friday
Speaker 1: against FAMU, but apparently Yegor Demon and Richie Saunders are
Speaker 1: hurt and will not play. Utes Back in Action Saturday
Speaker 1: four o'clock on the Big Ten Network against Iowa. So
Speaker 1: a very good early preseason test for Utah men. Women
Speaker 1: will welcome in Asu to Salt Lake City coming up
Speaker 1: Saturday at four, so a lot to do on the
Speaker 1: show today. Gordon Monson bat's lead off my old buddy from.
Speaker 2: The Old Show. Gordon will be here.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I'm cracking up a little bit of
Speaker 1: a inside baseball behind the curtains. Every time I'm here,
Speaker 1: I just I always get a kick out of the DJs.
Speaker 1: They want to yell, so they're on your show instead
Speaker 1: of their So that's gonna happen all day's day.
Speaker 2: So Gordon Monson will stop by today.
Speaker 1: Craig Bowler, Jack TV Voice of the Utah Jazz rolls
Speaker 1: by as well.
Speaker 2: Richard Smith live on site here at the Road Home.
Speaker 1: For an entire hour, do a little sports court on
Speaker 1: the program today. Then Dennis hay Spurt's gonna join us.
Speaker 1: You might not know who Dennis is, We'll tell you
Speaker 1: who he is, what he is doing.
Speaker 2: Here in town.
Speaker 1: Very famous guy, very famous guy. So we're gonna interview
Speaker 1: him later on as well. So Thursday, Live from the
Speaker 1: Road Home, our first guest will be none other than
Speaker 1: Gordon Monson.
Speaker 2: But before we get to Gordon.
Speaker 1: Courtesy of our good friends and you're good friends too,
Speaker 1: over at Standard Restaurant Supply. It is your one stop
Speaker 1: shop for all of your tailgating needs. Visit them online
Speaker 1: or check out their great location right downtown Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2: It's time now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check it's on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one sports talk. Now into the studio of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
Speaker 4: opening tip of the Drive is brought to you by
Speaker 4: Standard Restaurants Supply, your one stop shop to build the
Speaker 4: best tailgate in town. Stand Restaurants Supply thirty five hundred
Speaker 4: Southwest Temple.
Speaker 1: So gonna set that's seen for a topic that I
Speaker 1: want to talk to all my guests about today, and
Speaker 1: it is culture building, and.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a kind of rints and
Speaker 2: repeat topic.
Speaker 1: Pretty much any sports soccer radio host, or quite frankly,
Speaker 1: anybody who's in media talks about culture building in pro
Speaker 1: and college sports.
Speaker 2: It's no longer just pro sports. It's college sports.
Speaker 1: It's always been college sports, but it's different now, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about why.
Speaker 2: All right, So we're live today at the road Home.
Speaker 1: I want to remind you give us a call at
Speaker 1: eight o one to eight one nine to seventy three hundred,
Speaker 1: or check out the roadhome dot org slash donate to
Speaker 1: give us a donation five dollars, ten dollars, whatever you
Speaker 1: can afford. You will do a lot of good here
Speaker 1: at the road Home. But there's an article today from
Speaker 1: The Athletic about my New York Football Jets. Okay, according
Speaker 1: to what the Athletic wrote, Woody Johnson, the owner of
Speaker 1: the New York Jets, is relying on the feedback of
Speaker 1: his teenage sons who play Madden for personnel decisions.
Speaker 2: This is a real thing.
Speaker 1: Apparently there was a trade on the table for Jerry
Speaker 1: Judy because Denver was gonna move off of Jerry Judy, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, has killed it in Cleveland despite having
Speaker 1: to deal with a couple of different quarterbacks. Woody Johnson
Speaker 1: did not like the Madden rating of Jerry Judy, according
Speaker 1: to what his sons told him. So therefore they did
Speaker 1: not make the trade. Okay, And so this is not
Speaker 1: a Jets topic, Okay. It just made me think about,
Speaker 1: as a Jets fan, how this culture has bred pathetic
Speaker 1: football for so long.
Speaker 2: They haven't been to the playoffs in thirteen years.
Speaker 1: Every time they have somebody who appears to have some potential,
Speaker 1: they just blow it up and they screw it up.
Speaker 1: Sam Darnold, who's killing it this year in Minnesota, even
Speaker 1: Gino Smith who's had a good.
Speaker 2: Year in Seattle.
Speaker 1: And I guarantee BYU fans forever and ever and ever
Speaker 1: will talk about what Zach Wilson's career could have looked
Speaker 1: like if he did not land with And I say,
Speaker 1: this is a fan the most dysfunctional franchise pro football,
Speaker 1: and it's been that way.
Speaker 2: For a long long time.
Speaker 1: And so unfortunately when the owner is just the guy
Speaker 1: in charge, because we follow the Golden rule here on
Speaker 1: the drive, here on the show, you guys know the
Speaker 1: golden rules, say with me out loud, the man with
Speaker 1: the gold makes the rules. Ultimately, it's been Woody for
Speaker 1: a long long time. People that know Woody Johnson say
Speaker 1: he's a sweet man, and that's great. He's a horrible
Speaker 1: football owner, a horrible football owner. And you know, there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of different examples of this, and namely,
Speaker 1: you know, marrying himself to Aaron Rodgers. Because at this
Speaker 1: point with the Jets, you have Garrett Wilson, who apparently
Speaker 1: wants out. You have Woody Johnson, who's listening to his
Speaker 1: sons when they played Madden affect personnel decisions. And you're
Speaker 1: married to a quarterback who just released a four part
Speaker 1: documentary on Netflix where he's just crushing shrooms and revealing
Speaker 1: himself to be a total ass.
Speaker 2: And that's what it is.
Speaker 1: By the way, teenage sons of Woody Johnson their names
Speaker 1: are Brick and Jack.
Speaker 2: It sounds like an FM rock show, kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to kind of spread this out topically,
Speaker 1: do a couple of different things here locally, because right
Speaker 1: now I find ourselves to be a really interesting.
Speaker 2: Crossroads with the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if you're a longtime Jazz fan, you know
Speaker 1: that for years and years and years, the Jazz had.
Speaker 2: One of the more enviable cultures in the entire NBA.
Speaker 2: That's not hyperbolic, Okay.
Speaker 1: When Greg Popovich was inducted to the Pro Basketball Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, he talked about when he took the job
Speaker 1: with the Spurs, he wanted to build the Spurs the
Speaker 1: way Jerry Sloan built the Jazz and Greg Popovitch built
Speaker 1: a dynasty over the course of six seven, eight years
Speaker 1: with Duncan, Jenobli and Parker, multiple titles, multiple NBA Finals runs,
Speaker 1: And because of that era of Spurs basketball, I've never
Speaker 1: bought it in the whole. Like, it's not possible here
Speaker 1: in Utah because San Antonio comparable market.
Speaker 2: To Salt Lake. And honestly speaking, if you've ever been
Speaker 2: to San Antonio, Salt Lake's a better city.
Speaker 1: I'll live here all day, every day, but market size
Speaker 1: is pretty similar.
Speaker 2: The ownership stuff.
Speaker 1: Was pretty similar between the San Antonio ownership and the
Speaker 1: way the Millers kind of approached everything. And yes, the
Speaker 1: Jazz never won a title, but for the better part
Speaker 1: of two decades, this was one of the best cultures coaching,
Speaker 1: playing front office in the entire league.
Speaker 2: You can ask anybody around Pro basketball back then.
Speaker 1: David Stern as the commissioner, I referenced the Spurs the
Speaker 1: Synergy's there. Charles Barkley often talked about coach Sloan and
Speaker 1: really we should stop here and give a lot of
Speaker 1: the credit to the culture that was basically built and
Speaker 1: the foundation that was laid from by the Leyden family,
Speaker 1: Frank and Scott Laden and then Frank giving it over
Speaker 1: to Jerry, and then Jerry took it to places that
Speaker 1: a lot of people never thought it could be taken to.
Speaker 2: Here in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: The precipice of Pro basketball championships on a number of
Speaker 1: different levels for a number of different years, not just
Speaker 1: ninety seven ninety eight. Those teams the nineties had four
Speaker 1: or five championship level teams. Michael Jordan ripped rings off
Speaker 1: a lot of people's fingers, including Patrick Ewing, including Charles Barkley,
Speaker 1: including John Carl and Jerry, including my father. That was
Speaker 1: just kind of the deal in the nineties. If you
Speaker 1: ran into Mike at that time, he was going to
Speaker 1: kill you, slit your throat and watch you bleed out.
Speaker 2: Sorry, if that's graphic, but it's undeniable that the.
Speaker 1: Stewardship of the Millers for two plus decades built one
Speaker 1: of the most incredible cultures and enviable cultures and all
Speaker 1: of pro basketball. It also led to winning. It also
Speaker 1: led to winning at a very high level. It never
Speaker 1: led to a championship, but it led to a lot
Speaker 1: of long playoff runs, some NBA Finals appearances, Western Conference championships,
Speaker 1: Division championships, fifty plus win season, sixty plus win seasons,
Speaker 1: and some of the most precise, precision based basketball that
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in my entire life, which leads me
Speaker 1: into where we're at now with the new era of
Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz, new ownership group led by Ryan Smith
Speaker 1: and his investors, a new front office led by Danny
Speaker 1: Ainge and his staff, a new coaching staff led by
Speaker 1: Will Hardy and his staff, a new group of players
Speaker 1: I guess led by Lowry market In, maybe Walker Kessler,
Speaker 1: and who knows. And it's just undeniable that for three
Speaker 1: and a half years now, as we look back on
Speaker 1: Ryan's early tenure, that the results aren't great and we
Speaker 1: don't really have a clear direction. I'm not just talking
Speaker 1: about wins and losses because there are several layers to
Speaker 1: this conversation, and I want to be clear, we're gonna
Speaker 1: explore all those levels today. We're gonna talk about exactly
Speaker 1: what you have to do to roster construct in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. That's different than it was in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: I want to be fair here. I never want to
Speaker 1: take shots. I want to be fair here. The way
Speaker 1: that Danny and Justin and this front office has to
Speaker 1: go about roster construction is a little bit different than
Speaker 1: you have to in the day, But there are also
Speaker 1: a number of similarities. And again, in the name of fairness,
Speaker 1: you gotta get lucky.
Speaker 2: You gotta get lucky.
Speaker 1: I don't even think Frank Laydon would tell you he
Speaker 1: thought Carl was gonna be Carl, John was gonna be John.
Speaker 1: I don't think Dennis Lindsay will tell you in an
Speaker 1: honest moment he thought Donovan would be Donovan and Rudy
Speaker 1: would be Rudy.
Speaker 2: But we had those players, right.
Speaker 1: Maybe Kevin O'Connor saw something Darren that allowed Darren to
Speaker 1: be one of the best league guards in pro basketball
Speaker 1: here for about four years. But you do have to
Speaker 1: have a little luck. But as of right now, if
Speaker 1: you analyze who these draft picks have been over the
Speaker 1: first couple of years, Walker feels like a win. And
Speaker 1: that's about it where you at on Keyante, Poor Taylor
Speaker 1: goes down for an injury, Cody Geelee, Isaiah Geelee, Kyle
Speaker 1: Philipowski moments here or there.
Speaker 2: But there are no success.
Speaker 1: Stories as of yet on this roster as it pertains
Speaker 1: to the town that's been drafted. And hopefully it changes because,
Speaker 1: like I said, this is three and a half years
Speaker 1: in and we have what twenty five years issh of
Speaker 1: the Miller stewardship, and so they needed time and space. Larry,
Speaker 1: as a young owner needed to learn how to do it,
Speaker 1: and he did and he was great at it. And
Speaker 1: we miss leaders like Larry in this market who at
Speaker 1: least was front facing, transparent and honest as opposed to
Speaker 1: clandestine and trying to do things behind the scenes and
Speaker 1: then sending you a message publicly that really doesn't tell
Speaker 1: you exactly what's going on, leading to a lot of questions.
Speaker 2: All we can analyze is the product on the floor.
Speaker 1: And before we catch a break in the Jazz fifty
Speaker 1: Year documentary, Will Hardy turned the camera and said, these
Speaker 1: aren't your grandfather's Utah Jazz. My question to you, willis
Speaker 1: who are you? Who are the Utah Jazz? Then you're
Speaker 1: not winning. You don't have exciting young talent. There are
Speaker 1: a ton of questions. So if you tell us that
Speaker 1: you're changing things, we're gonna watch to see if you
Speaker 1: change it for the better, because the results so far
Speaker 1: have just not been good. Gordon Monsel would be good
Speaker 1: on this. Today We're gonna be Gordon and today.
Speaker 2: Right off the top.
Speaker 1: Want to remind you that we're live today at the
Speaker 1: road Home, Okay, doing some good this holiday season, asking
Speaker 1: for your donations. A couple of different ways you can
Speaker 1: do it is dial eight oh one eight one nine
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred. That's eight oh one eighty one nine
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred. You can also go to the website
Speaker 1: which is the roadhome dot org. Slash donates come on
Speaker 1: buy in person to the Connie Crosby Family Resource Center
Speaker 1: at five twenty nine nine Fabs seventy three hundred South
Speaker 1: in Midvale.
Speaker 2: Just put that in your GPS now.
Speaker 1: If you are in need of shelter tonight, you can
Speaker 1: also call and they'll direct you to where you can
Speaker 1: get out of the cold.
Speaker 2: Give them a call it eight oh.
Speaker 1: One nine nine zero nine nine nine nine. That's eight
Speaker 1: oh one nine nine zero nine nine nine nine. All right,
Speaker 1: Gordon Monts and our first guest right out.
Speaker 2: Of the gates on a Thursday, and keep it right
Speaker 2: here on ESPN seven hundred. Hey, dude, don't make it bad.
Speaker 5: Take a side side then make it Batner Leaman the
Speaker 5: du Letter deal Home.
Speaker 6: Then you can.
Speaker 2: Start do make it.
Speaker 1: Ban Hage broadcasting live today nineteenth year out here at
Speaker 1: the road Homes, thinking about that. This morning, we are
Speaker 1: asking for your donations to help families in need. The
Speaker 1: road Home operates eighty percent of our communities year round
Speaker 1: shelter beds. Tell you more about the spot out here.
Speaker 1: The Connie Crosby Family Resource Center serves up to three
Speaker 1: hundred individuals with families nightly. So here's how you donate
Speaker 1: five bucks, ten bucks, whatever you can do, no amount
Speaker 1: too small. Eighth one, eight one nine seventy three hundred.
Speaker 1: That's eight O one seventy three hundred. You can also
Speaker 1: go to the road Home dot org slash donate. Our
Speaker 1: next guest used to come out here with me every year.
Speaker 2: It's been a minute.
Speaker 1: Gordon Monson back on the drive on a Thursday. Gordon,
Speaker 1: Happy Thursday, sir.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 7: I'm doing fine, thanks, Vince say. The road home is
Speaker 7: always close close to the heart, you know. I mean,
Speaker 7: anybody who goes out there and sees the work that's gone,
Speaker 7: I think would be happy to open.
Speaker 2: The wallet, no doubt.
Speaker 1: And I always have these memories because back in the day,
Speaker 1: they don't do this anymore. But back in the day
Speaker 1: they used to have like a competition among the stations
Speaker 1: as far as who could get the most donations, and
Speaker 1: I think they saw that that was probably a little
Speaker 1: bit cringey to do, so we don't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: But back in the day we used to be neck
Speaker 1: and neck with some of the bigger stations, and because
Speaker 1: your buddy Spence Equals would roll in last minute and
Speaker 1: write a big check and give us credit, we always
Speaker 1: shot to the top of the list.
Speaker 2: So I was kind of remember that, remember those days,
Speaker 2: back in the day.
Speaker 7: GORDA, I do remember those days. It was kind of
Speaker 7: like it was a friendly competition, and we knew we
Speaker 7: knew Spence was coming in with the big ammer, and
Speaker 7: so that always gave us a big boose. So we
Speaker 7: were grateful to him, and he used to bring like
Speaker 7: his entire family down and I have great respect.
Speaker 2: For him for that, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 1: All Right, Gordon, I want to start with you where
Speaker 1: I started the show today, because I think you'll be
Speaker 1: good with this. And the you know, the sports talk
Speaker 1: radio or the sports columnist topic of culture building is
Speaker 1: not new and sometimes probably hit over the head a
Speaker 1: little bit too much. But there's an article today in
Speaker 1: The Athletic about my hapless, hopeless, pathetic New York Football Jets.
Speaker 1: And if you think it's bad, it's even worse when
Speaker 1: the owner is enlisting the advice of his sons based
Speaker 1: off their Madden video game experience to make personnel decision.
Speaker 1: They have not been to the playoffs in thirteen years.
Speaker 1: They've married themselves to an idiot who wants to go
Speaker 1: on Netflix and just smash mushrooms instead of actually be
Speaker 1: a serious person.
Speaker 2: It is bad.
Speaker 1: And so I was thinking about this today from a
Speaker 1: local standpoint, Gordon, about the culture that the Miller's built in,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five ish years owning and operating the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz and even though it never led to an
Speaker 1: NBA Championship. It was one of the healthiest and most
Speaker 1: enviable cultures in all of pro basketball. When Greg Popovich
Speaker 1: took the job with San Antonio, he said, I want
Speaker 1: to build it the way Jerry built you know, the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz. And look, I'm not saying what Ryan has
Speaker 1: done so far is either good or bad. We don't know,
Speaker 1: but it is different. Over the course of three and
Speaker 1: a half years, Larry, you knew him well, was.
Speaker 2: Front facing, authentic and honest.
Speaker 1: Ryan seems to prefer to do a lot of his
Speaker 1: business behind the scenes and in more of a clandestine way.
Speaker 2: That leads to a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: And then we'll get an occasional puff piece from his
Speaker 1: PR team that they give to ESPN. But we don't
Speaker 1: really know this group the way that we all knew
Speaker 1: the Millers. And again, I want to be clear, it's
Speaker 1: not good or bad, it's just different. But from your seat,
Speaker 1: the way the Millers built this thing up over the
Speaker 1: course of twenty five years, juxtaposed to the way that
Speaker 1: Ryan approaches it and his group over the course of
Speaker 1: about three and a half.
Speaker 7: Well, when it comes to culture and you bring up
Speaker 7: the Jets, I mean it's not who you say you are.
Speaker 2: You are right.
Speaker 7: That's what builds the culture, right. And I had great
Speaker 7: respect for Larry and for his you know, it was
Speaker 7: funny because if you used to talk to him all
Speaker 7: the time, you know, and he would say things that
Speaker 7: you would think, Okay, that's unusual for an owner to say,
Speaker 7: but you knew where it was coming from. It was
Speaker 7: coming from deep inside that vast brain of his. And
Speaker 7: he was honest in what he said. And I think
Speaker 7: there is a great blessing to that kind of transparency,
Speaker 7: even though every once in a while you might hear
Speaker 7: something you don't like Ryan, I still haven't figured out
Speaker 7: to say the truth. When he first came in, I
Speaker 7: sat down with him and we talked for maybe an
Speaker 7: hour and a half or so, and I did a
Speaker 7: big kind of lifetime feature on him. And when I
Speaker 7: do that, I usually feel like, Okay, I have a
Speaker 7: pretty good idea who this guy is. I'm still not
Speaker 7: sure about Ryan Smith. I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 8: Who he is.
Speaker 7: And maybe those who are closest to him know that.
Speaker 7: But based on what we've seen, certainly out of the
Speaker 7: culture that's being built with the jazz, that's a big
Speaker 7: old question mark. Right now. I mean, we've seen what's
Speaker 7: happened with that team. You and I have watched it closely,
Speaker 7: and we have asked questions and we're still asking questions.
Speaker 7: You know they were going to tank. Why didn't they tank?
Speaker 7: I'm a go. It's really your options are limited in
Speaker 7: the NBA, As you know, Svince, when it comes to rebuilding,
Speaker 7: you don't have a lot of choice unless you get
Speaker 7: extremely lucky. And the Jazz have sent mixed messages that way.
Speaker 7: And so if that's what you mean by building a culture,
Speaker 7: I think what Ryan has built is very much in
Speaker 7: question right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also I want to follow up because I want
Speaker 1: to be very fair here, and you bring up a
Speaker 1: really good point because and we're going to discuss this
Speaker 1: rough other the course of the show. There is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a different approach with the modern day
Speaker 1: and age of roster construction. What Danny and and Justin
Speaker 1: are tasked with is a little bit different than what
Speaker 1: Scotty Layden was tasked with, or Kevin O'Connor or Dennis Lindsay.
Speaker 1: But you bring up the luck portion, and not even
Speaker 1: Frank Laden himself, God Bless the legend, would tell you
Speaker 1: that he knew John was gonna be John and Carl
Speaker 1: was gonna be Carl.
Speaker 2: Kevin O'Connor, I doubt knew that.
Speaker 1: You know, Darren was gonna be well, maybe Darren because
Speaker 1: he was like a top three guy.
Speaker 2: But Dennis Lindsay has said to me and you as.
Speaker 1: Well before, no idea Donovan was gonna be Donovan and
Speaker 1: Rudy was gonna be Rudy. You know, the O'Connor stuff
Speaker 1: is different because he drafts Darren early, he hits on that,
Speaker 1: he signs Booze and o'currance. So that's a great group,
Speaker 1: and Kevin did a hell of a job. But you
Speaker 1: reference to luck portion and as of right now what
Speaker 1: we have as far as the three year sample size
Speaker 1: of talent that has been acquired via draft, I think
Speaker 1: Walker Kesseler is probably the best news. But if you
Speaker 1: go down the list, Taylor Hendricks is hurt, Keyante George
Speaker 1: looks like he's miscast. Bryce Sensibah not unclear if he's
Speaker 1: even a rotational piece. Kyle Philipowski a couple of things
Speaker 1: here there. Isaiah call you're nothing really. Cody Williams is
Speaker 1: in the G League, and all we have as far
Speaker 1: as the data so far is that the team has
Speaker 1: not won anything even close to, you know, a high
Speaker 1: level type situation. They're not close to the postseason and Gordon,
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made that there's like one
Speaker 1: young player on the team that provides consistent hope to
Speaker 1: the point that you think he's a rotational player. So
Speaker 1: the luck or whatever you want to call it, that
Speaker 1: potentially Frank and Scott had with John carl or Dennis
Speaker 1: Haad with Rudy and Donovan has not manifested itself so far.
Speaker 1: But is it only luck or is it a failure
Speaker 1: to do your job as a talent evaluator.
Speaker 7: I think it's a little bit of both. And as
Speaker 7: was the case when I did the show with you
Speaker 7: for all those years, I can't say it any better
Speaker 7: than you just did. I think you put a rap
Speaker 7: on it perfectly, and I think that that is an issue.
Speaker 7: It's funny you bring up Frank for Frank saying, hey,
Speaker 7: if we knew, if we knew these guys Stockton Malone
Speaker 7: was going to be as good as they ended up,
Speaker 7: I mean we would have moved up to draft them.
Speaker 7: You know, they did not know, but they did get
Speaker 7: lucky and When I talked to Phil Johnson about this,
Speaker 7: I'll never forget what he said. He said he hit
Speaker 7: the luckword hard, and I do believe there is a
Speaker 7: part of that. But in a market like ours here,
Speaker 7: and this may or may not be fair, it isn't fair.
Speaker 7: Let's come right out and say it. You've got to
Speaker 7: be smarter than the rest of the guys. You've got
Speaker 7: to be smarter in order because you can't make up
Speaker 7: for your mistakes by being a destination team. And so
Speaker 7: these guys have to get their picks right there are
Speaker 7: there is talent available later in the draft, as mister
Speaker 7: as the Joker himself in Denver has proved that there
Speaker 7: is talent out there, it's just hard to get. And
Speaker 7: the Jazz have to be smarter. They have to be
Speaker 7: smarter than they've been, both from a philosophical standpoint and
Speaker 7: from a selection standpoint. Everybody praised them when they got
Speaker 7: all the draft picks for Rudy and all this stuff,
Speaker 7: and okay, but what are the draft picks turning into Spence?
Speaker 7: Not so great so far as you point it out.
Speaker 7: So I mean, I know there are those on the
Speaker 7: inside who say that what the Jazz were with the
Speaker 7: enovated Rudy it wasn't gonna work moving forward, well, it
Speaker 7: would have been a whole lot better, whole.
Speaker 1: Hell of a lot beer for people that are listening
Speaker 1: that may be work over at the old spot.
Speaker 2: I love the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 1: In this job, you have to be agnostic, and Gordon,
Speaker 1: you taught me as much as anybody did about that.
Speaker 2: I care about the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 1: I want nothing more than in five years from now
Speaker 1: to and again, I want to be clear about today.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's good or bad, it's just different.
Speaker 1: But I want to be proven wrong, you know. And
Speaker 1: if the starting front court Gordon in three years is
Speaker 1: Lowry Market and Cooper Flag and aj Debantza all eat
Speaker 1: some crow, okay, happily.
Speaker 2: So right, absolutely absolutely all right.
Speaker 1: Away from that for a moment, over to some college football.
Speaker 1: Since since you and I last spoke, Isaac Wilson, who
Speaker 1: hit the transfer portal to potentially look at playing at
Speaker 1: other places, ends up back where he started. And I
Speaker 1: gotta say, Gordon, I give him a lot of credit
Speaker 1: for wanting to compete. I got to be clear, I
Speaker 1: do not know what the status is of his knee.
Speaker 1: We got to remember that he hurt his knee, and
Speaker 1: so will he be ready to compete come springball. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. And it does feel like Devin Danpierre is
Speaker 1: going to be the starting quarterback no matter what. But
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on Isaac entering the transfer portal
Speaker 1: and essentially decided to come back to play for the Utes.
Speaker 7: Well, let me start a little broader than that, and
Speaker 7: I'll get to that specifically. But what did Kyle say
Speaker 7: at the end of the season. He said, essentially, Hey man,
Speaker 7: we're going to go out and we're going to sign
Speaker 7: a bunch of guys. We're going to get a bunch
Speaker 7: of guys. What didn't he say? I think he said
Speaker 7: they were looking at to get forty some guys and
Speaker 7: half of those would come through the transfer. What are
Speaker 7: they at now about pen you know? And so they
Speaker 7: are changing it up because Kyle sees the need to
Speaker 7: do that. You compare that with like, BYU, what is
Speaker 7: BYU gotten so far in the transfer one? I think
Speaker 7: they've gotten one new guy, you know, and it came
Speaker 7: from Utah Ryan to tight End yep. So, so the
Speaker 7: youths are going about their business exactly the way. I
Speaker 7: don't forget everybody they wanted to. But they're doing what
Speaker 7: Kyle said they would do. As far as Isaac Wilson goes.
Speaker 7: You know, Isaac is a really interesting case. I'm not sure.
Speaker 7: You know, Zach Wilson was crazy for football, and I
Speaker 7: hope I'm not misstating this, but I'm not sure that
Speaker 7: Isaac Wilson is crazy for football so his brother was.
Speaker 7: That's just the way it seems to being with the
Speaker 7: whispers I've heard around him. Does he have talent, Yeah,
Speaker 7: he has talent, has a live arm, and yeah, I'd
Speaker 7: like guys who are willing to compete for their job.
Speaker 7: Everyone's making a big deal over this, damnperia and Kyle
Speaker 7: has always talked about the usefulness of a dual threat quarterback.
Speaker 7: But can Isaac Wilson be that? I don't know. I
Speaker 7: don't know. I don't think he's as good as Zach was,
Speaker 7: but I think he's got a live arm and I
Speaker 7: think he's a piece of the athlete. Is his care
Speaker 7: factor crazy for football? I'm not sure of that. I'm
Speaker 7: not convinced of that either. But what we saw this
Speaker 7: last season isn't really fair to him. I don't think
Speaker 7: you don't just throw a kid in like that right
Speaker 7: near the beginning of a season and expect him to
Speaker 7: be completely polished. So you wait to see. I wouldn't
Speaker 7: be surprised if we see a whole lot more of
Speaker 7: Isaac Wilson at Utah.
Speaker 1: So, according to the dad I have in front of me,
Speaker 1: ten additions to the transfer portal from the youth so far.
Speaker 1: Cameron Calhoun announced that he's had to di Alabama, which
Speaker 1: is a big time gut punch, And there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of other players still in the transfer portal that
Speaker 1: have not landed in a spot. You reference Carson Ryan
Speaker 1: and who's headed to Brigham Young And then we'll get
Speaker 1: to the BYU side of this in just a moment.
Speaker 2: But Gordon, I haven't talked to you about the dynamic.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a statement and a testament to the
Speaker 1: power of the game of college football, in the product
Speaker 1: of college football that a business that is run by
Speaker 1: a confederacy of dunces continues to bring in the consumer.
Speaker 2: Numbers that it does.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that the transfer portal is open when
Speaker 1: coaches are trying to win national championships. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: if the NFL playoffs are about to start. Lamar Jackson
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I'm out, just so you know, Like
Speaker 1: it's so it's beyond stupid, and it's even dumber that
Speaker 1: the idiots in the room haven't done anything about this.
Speaker 1: And every time I hear like, I feel horrible for
Speaker 1: these coaches that are in the twelve team CFP or
Speaker 1: even in the Alamo Bowl like Brigham Young that have
Speaker 1: to run a practice and then finish practice and go
Speaker 1: to damage control to make sure their players are gonna
Speaker 1: actually play for them.
Speaker 2: Like, what's your.
Speaker 1: Thought on this dynamic of essentially having free agency during
Speaker 1: the season.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's chaotic. They need to do something about that.
Speaker 7: And at least the teams that are in the College
Speaker 7: Football playoff have something to play for, you know. I
Speaker 7: mean when Deon Sanders said that his stars were going
Speaker 7: to play against BYU and the Alamo Bowl, I mean
Speaker 7: a lot of people were shocked by that. That's what
Speaker 7: he said. We'll see if it actually happens that way,
Speaker 7: but with these bowl games, be I don't want to
Speaker 7: call it a meaningless but it seems like that's what
Speaker 7: they've turned into. Unless you're in the playoffs. I mean,
Speaker 7: if I'm a player I may be looking at for
Speaker 7: my best interests in front of the team's interests if
Speaker 7: they're playing and you know, the tidy Bowl down in
Speaker 7: some small town in the South somewhere. But I agree
Speaker 7: with you. I mean, look, you could find some way
Speaker 7: to organize this. And there's a whole lot of organizing
Speaker 7: that needs to take place in college football and college
Speaker 7: basketball for that matter these days. Maybe revenue sharing will
Speaker 7: help that, but it's not going to solve it. There's
Speaker 7: going and with all the things that are out there
Speaker 7: that are about to be added to the college game,
Speaker 7: with more money pouring in and pouring in, it's like
Speaker 7: you said, it's like the fools are getting richer and
Speaker 7: richer because there's more and more money being invested all
Speaker 7: right over.
Speaker 1: To the BYU side of things. According to the data
Speaker 1: have in front of me. Maybe I should just ask Crittle.
Speaker 1: Here is Chase Roberts coming back? Okay, okay, I've got
Speaker 1: a BYU host next to me. I should just tap
Speaker 1: into his knowledge. Eleven BYU players in the portal as
Speaker 1: of now. The one player they picked up was Carson Ryan.
Speaker 1: But Chase Roberts did some media after practice and it
Speaker 1: said he's going to announce his intention via social.
Speaker 2: Media this week.
Speaker 1: You know, we have this really fun matchup with Chase
Speaker 1: against Travis Hunter coming up in the Alima Bowl that
Speaker 1: we all kind of want to watch. And Chase I
Speaker 1: love what he said this week. He said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: find him and follow him, so he has to cover me.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of.
Speaker 2: The white whale out there right now.
Speaker 1: BYU again one edition eleven players have left and we're
Speaker 1: waiting on Chase Roberts. But you know, Klonie, well, how
Speaker 1: do you think he's traversing because they're not in the CFP.
Speaker 1: But it's an awesome ball game. They're gonna get like
Speaker 1: six mil I think is a payout and Kilanie's got
Speaker 1: to deal with the same stuff with the game coming
Speaker 1: up on Saturday.
Speaker 7: Yeah, a lot of people are wondering where are all
Speaker 7: the transfers for BYU Yu had a pretty good year.
Speaker 7: I don't know if the need is as great for
Speaker 7: them as it is for some other teams to make
Speaker 7: a whole lot of moves. But Chase Roberts is a
Speaker 7: guy you've got to hold on to. If this guy
Speaker 7: sticks around, he's going to be in a very strong
Speaker 7: receiving Core. He's going to be the star.
Speaker 2: Yep, the star.
Speaker 7: They will utilize him in a way that they utilize
Speaker 7: him a lot this last year, nothing compared to what
Speaker 7: he'll be next season if he stays at BYU. And
Speaker 7: if I'm Jake Ritz laugh, I'm talking to him aag.
Speaker 7: I'll give you the ball every other down. Come on
Speaker 7: back because I need you to come back. And I
Speaker 7: I kind of agree with Ben. I think he will
Speaker 7: come back. But we've all been shocked before. But he's
Speaker 7: a clutch receiver, he's got great size. He's a guy
Speaker 7: that I think can improve his drafstock if he stinks around.
Speaker 2: So it was announced.
Speaker 1: I don't think I talked to you about this, and
Speaker 1: of course it's BYU, so we don't know all the details.
Speaker 1: Kolonie given his extension, and you know I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this, and because you know him well, I want
Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on it. The one job I
Speaker 1: think Kilanie might leave BYU fours USC and Lincoln Riley's
Speaker 1: buyout is like seventy million dollars or something like that,
Speaker 1: which is just insane. That's the nature of college football coaching.
Speaker 1: And again, Colonie just got extended. But do you think
Speaker 1: if that job came open and the powers to be
Speaker 1: at Southern cal decided to call down to provo, Colonie
Speaker 1: answers the phone.
Speaker 7: Yes, he answers the phone. I'll say it this way,
Speaker 7: and I'm not going to quote Kilane in any way here,
Speaker 7: but I do know him well, and I think he's
Speaker 7: been somewhat pissed off about the amount that he's gotten
Speaker 7: in the past. I do not know the details of
Speaker 7: this particular extension. My guess would be that it was
Speaker 7: enhanced substantially. But I'll go back and quote what gorbe
Speaker 7: Chow said many years ago when I was talking to him,
Speaker 7: and of course he was the offensive coordinator down at Troy.
Speaker 7: He said, quote, USC gets what USC wants, and yeah,
Speaker 7: so I think Klowane would pick up the phone and
Speaker 7: see what that is all about. Although I see right now,
Speaker 7: I mean that's not the USC that I remember it.
Speaker 7: They seem to be in some what of a pile
Speaker 7: of turmoil right now. They have players who are abandoned
Speaker 7: that program. And so if i'm if I'm the powers
Speaker 7: that be a USC, I would be very interested in
Speaker 7: a guy like Klannie Sataki. They need to do something
Speaker 7: because so what they're doing right now is very much
Speaker 7: hanging in the air.
Speaker 2: Gordo.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I got your family Christmas card in
Speaker 1: the mail last night, so thank you so much. Everybody
Speaker 1: looks like they're thriving and doing well, so I'll set
Speaker 1: you loose, but happy holidays to you and Lis and
Speaker 1: the girls.
Speaker 2: And you know, only love from this direction to you guys, Hope.
Speaker 7: You know that well what they do, know that there's
Speaker 7: nothing but the admiration in our family for you. And
Speaker 7: I'll say that on a professional level. On a personal level,
Speaker 7: nothing belove in this direction too, Spett, thanks for having
Speaker 7: me on.
Speaker 1: Okay, Gordo, Happy holidays, my man Gordon Monson from the
Speaker 1: Solid Tribune, my long time radio partner. We're live today
Speaker 1: at the road Home. Hope I say this correctly, Keegan Kalchman, right, Hey, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna try that again. I usually have
Speaker 1: an engineer, but I'm doing all this myself and I'm
Speaker 1: the wrong guy to do so let's try that again.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Hey, there we go, Keegan. How are I man?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well.
Speaker 2: How are you? I'm well?
Speaker 1: Thanks again for having us out. I was referencing earlier.
Speaker 1: This is my nineteenth year doing this and a couple
Speaker 1: of different by sixth here back at this station. So
Speaker 1: I love what we do here. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite projects. You know that the station allows us to do.
Speaker 1: What do you want our listeners to know? Right out
Speaker 1: of the gates?
Speaker 9: Oh gosh, you guys just donate, donate, donate, We need.
Speaker 2: It and that's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What do you do here, Kegan? What's your role?
Speaker 9: I'm the support of services manager here, so I oversee
Speaker 9: all of our case managers who are working with our
Speaker 9: families to get people into housing out of their homeless situation.
Speaker 1: So here's what you do you dal eight oh one
Speaker 1: eight one nine seventy three hundred. You can go to
Speaker 1: the roadhome dot org slash donate. So, I guess I'll
Speaker 1: ask you this, Kegan. What we're our listeners' donations. What
Speaker 1: do you guys do with the money?
Speaker 9: So the money, it goes to the nonprofit as a whole,
Speaker 9: and from there we distribute it out to all of
Speaker 9: our different programs. Our physical donations they go to all
Speaker 9: of our different warehouses at our different shelters. But ultimately,
Speaker 9: at the end of the day, all of these donations
Speaker 9: they make their way to the clients and they make
Speaker 9: their way to the people who need it.
Speaker 2: Most physical donations. What are you guys looking for this year?
Speaker 9: Oh gosh, I mean I work at the Family Shelter,
Speaker 9: so we're always looking for diapers, We're looking for kids clothes,
Speaker 9: We're looking for uh, we're looking for coats, especially this
Speaker 9: time of year. We're looking for that sort of thing.
Speaker 9: In addition to that, you know, we also always need
Speaker 9: socks and underwear. Those are the things that seem to
Speaker 9: run out the fastest and are the things that people
Speaker 9: need most.
Speaker 1: Right on and give me a quick I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a list or wherever. If people want to
Speaker 1: physically donate the items instead of call, where's the best
Speaker 1: place to drop them off?
Speaker 9: The best place to drop them off is here at
Speaker 9: five twenty nine West ninth Avenue, Midvale, Utah. That's where
Speaker 9: we're doing a donation drive right now. We're taking donations
Speaker 9: today until seven pm.
Speaker 1: Keigen, great to meet you man, Thanks for stopping by.
Speaker 1: All right, Keegan Colkman here at.
Speaker 2: The road home.
Speaker 1: Come on buy in person at five twenty nine ninth
Speaker 1: Aves seventy three hundred South in Midvale. You can also
Speaker 1: call if you're not able to get out here at
Speaker 1: eighth one, eight one nine seventy three hundred. The website
Speaker 1: is the road Home Org slash donate. Also, if you're
Speaker 1: in need of shelter tonight, good news for you. They've
Speaker 1: got a spot for you. All you have to do
Speaker 1: is call eight oh one nine nine zero nine nine
Speaker 1: nine nine, and that's eight o one nine nine zero
Speaker 1: ninety nine ninety nine.
Speaker 2: All right, One hour down, three hours to go.
Speaker 1: The Big Hour, the Big Show, Big Hour on the
Speaker 1: Drive continues next with a great Craig Bowler Jack. So
Speaker 1: keep it right here on ESPN seven hundred. All right,
Speaker 1: I got Spitty live on site coming up from three
Speaker 1: thirty to four thirty today, So we'll call that about
Speaker 1: twenty minutes from right now or so. And we are
Speaker 1: live today at the road Home asking for donations at
Speaker 1: eight one eight one nine seventy three hundred.
Speaker 2: Donate a little cash that way.
Speaker 1: If you want to donate some gently used goods itams
Speaker 1: like coats and and uh beanies as well as socks
Speaker 1: and gloves. Come on by the Connie Crosby Family Resource
Speaker 1: Center at five nine nine seventy three hundred south in
Speaker 1: Midvale Utah. Our next guest, you know him, you love him,
Speaker 1: is the TV voice of the Utah Jazz Live in
Speaker 1: the Motor City, Craig Bowler. Jack I believe is where
Speaker 1: we find you, sir.
Speaker 10: How are you, hey, Spath. I'm doing well.
Speaker 11: Actually, you just caught me in the media press room
Speaker 11: at Little Caesars Arena, so big T just went back
Speaker 11: for his third helping. So that's kind of the night
Speaker 11: we're having.
Speaker 1: There you go, there, you go, and you know what
Speaker 1: you get, you got. You gotta at least enjoy the food, Craig,
Speaker 1: because the basketball is probably not gonna be awesome.
Speaker 2: Let me say that.
Speaker 11: We'll let me just say this. I'm filling up and
Speaker 11: getting an extra dish of soft serve. If you know what,
Speaker 11: it gets me through the day.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it all right.
Speaker 1: I want to start with you today on a topic
Speaker 1: that we've talked about throughout the show. I started the
Speaker 1: show with it. I brought Gordon in with it last segment.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's the oft talked about written about
Speaker 1: culture building in professional and now college sports. It's different
Speaker 1: in college than it used to be. But there's an
Speaker 1: art today in the New York Times Slash the Athletic
Speaker 1: about Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets, my hapless, hopeless,
Speaker 1: pathetic New York Jets, who apparently has been utilizing feedback
Speaker 1: from his teenage sons who played Madden to make personnel
Speaker 1: decisions right. And so this is not a Jets topic,
Speaker 1: but the Jets culture has been sour for like thirteen years.
Speaker 2: They haven't made the playoffs forever.
Speaker 1: And I was just thinking about our local products here,
Speaker 1: And you've had a front row seats to what the
Speaker 1: Miller's built over basically twenty five years of a ownership
Speaker 1: stewardship type situation with the Jazz and now a front
Speaker 1: row seat on three and a half years of Ryan
Speaker 1: Smith and his group owning the Jazz.
Speaker 2: And these things take time, right, and.
Speaker 1: The Miller's built what was one of the most enviable
Speaker 1: cultures in all of professional basketball. From a front office
Speaker 1: standpoint with the Leyden's Kevin O'Connor Dennis Lindsay, from a
Speaker 1: coaching standpoint with Frank and Jerry and I could keep
Speaker 1: going personnel, broadcasters, everything, and the team won a lot
Speaker 1: of games. They never won a championship, but they won
Speaker 1: a lot of games. Are there similarities between what the
Speaker 1: Miller's built and what Ryan is trying to build. It
Speaker 1: feels like he's doing his own thing. And I want
Speaker 1: to be clear, it's not either good or bad because
Speaker 1: it's early, but the early returns are a little bit
Speaker 1: different than what the Miller's built. You have been and
Speaker 1: still are behind the scenes for both iterations of jazz ownership.
Speaker 2: Similarities difference is Craig, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's a great question, Spence.
Speaker 11: I was here in eighty five, the same summer they
Speaker 11: drafted Karl Malone, and all of a sudden things changed, right,
Speaker 11: and you have to you got to hit They already
Speaker 11: had Stockton, they had my partner, Big T in eighty three,
Speaker 11: stock in.
Speaker 10: Eighty four, Karl Malone in eighty five.
Speaker 11: So you know, what you hope is that the similarities continue,
Speaker 11: that the draft picks Danny and Justin have made develop
Speaker 11: and blossom quickly, and so far we have not seen that,
Speaker 11: but you hope in a very short period of time
Speaker 11: that it will. I think Walker's made improvement this year.
Speaker 11: Hendricks now is behind this proverbial eight ball. Just because
Speaker 11: of the injury and his status fence. We may not
Speaker 11: see him until January of twenty twenty six, depending on
Speaker 11: his outcome and his rehabs. So he's the hind schedule
Speaker 11: and Deontae is just trying to make his way through
Speaker 11: every game as he matures. And you know what, again,
Speaker 11: is the are the question marks out? Absolutely? You lose
Speaker 11: by thirty seven on the road in LA against kind
Speaker 11: of an aging team and they didn't even have Kawhi
Speaker 11: by the way, and Paul George has moved on and
Speaker 11: Harden lit up the Jasper twenty four in the first
Speaker 11: quarter Spence, So I get it. There's concern, absolutely, and
Speaker 11: you have to think that year three is where you
Speaker 11: start to see some of this stuff again to blots him.
Speaker 11: As I say players, I think Will Hardy's all in.
Speaker 11: I don't have any question with Will at this particular
Speaker 11: point in time. But again, I think defense still is
Speaker 11: where you talked a lot about and what we've discussed
Speaker 11: on previous shows. When does this team finally get it
Speaker 11: on how to play team defense? Transition defense and a
Speaker 11: shoot around this morning? Again, that was the common the
Speaker 11: commonality of the entire hour and fifteen minutes was defense, defense,
Speaker 11: And I'm just waiting for the light to go on
Speaker 11: to see these guys play as one. We've seen some
Speaker 11: I think, you know, we've seen some trickles in the
Speaker 11: five wins they've had in the first twenty five. There's
Speaker 11: been a couple of nights you go, wow, this is
Speaker 11: how it could be, or these guys maturing and finally,
Speaker 11: you know, finding their way and it's like the proverbial
Speaker 11: one step forward, two steps back. And I think that's
Speaker 11: the biggest issue for fans, you know, is that it
Speaker 11: got hockey to look at and they're playing pretty well.
Speaker 10: Got an OT win again last night.
Speaker 11: But Spence, you know, the Jazz used to be the
Speaker 11: dominating of the dominant pro team in Salt Lake City,
Speaker 11: and that included college football basketball, even when Majeris was
Speaker 11: up on the hill. But yeah, it's it's kind of
Speaker 11: a time where you wonder where this team's going and
Speaker 11: I'm along for the ride as his big tea and
Speaker 11: our new sideline reporter Lauren Green, you know, we talked
Speaker 11: about it a lot, and I think defense is going
Speaker 11: to have to be the most for me. I think
Speaker 11: that's the biggest focus that has to be looked at
Speaker 11: right now. Can this team play defense? Is one, and
Speaker 11: do you have anyone that can really be a shutdown
Speaker 11: wing defender. You know, development continues, but sometimes people get
Speaker 11: a little anxious. Absolutely, and you.
Speaker 1: Know, ultimately, as you referenced the moments that we see
Speaker 1: with his roster, the difference between hope and consistency is
Speaker 1: showing up every night and doing the things that we
Speaker 1: see occasionally all the time. Right when when the consistency
Speaker 1: seems in, that's when a promising young team turns into
Speaker 1: a team that actually.
Speaker 2: Can win at a high level.
Speaker 1: And consistency in pro basketball comes with age for ninety nine.
Speaker 2: Percent of players that enter the league.
Speaker 1: It's like, I have Dennis appointment this week and it
Speaker 1: was my six month checkup, went in, had the X rays,
Speaker 1: did the cleaning.
Speaker 2: Dennis, You're good to go. I'll see you in six months.
Speaker 1: I'm like, sweet, don't have to come back in And
Speaker 1: he said, you know, as you age, you just.
Speaker 2: Develop better habits.
Speaker 1: And it's just like basketball, as you age, you just
Speaker 1: developed better habits. So right now, the moments we're seeing somehow,
Speaker 1: some way, whether it's will or talent acquisition and addition
Speaker 1: have to become consistent night in and night out, or
Speaker 1: the teams keep getting their heads kicked in because they're
Speaker 1: playing against men that have better habits because they've been
Speaker 1: doing it longer.
Speaker 2: It might be as simple as that.
Speaker 10: No, I like the analogy.
Speaker 11: I mean, congratulations on the there no check up man,
Speaker 11: Thank you sir. You know what when you when you
Speaker 11: but when you check up on the jazz, you know
Speaker 11: you do see some work that needs to be done,
Speaker 11: whether it's a cavity, a crown or whatever, or six extractions,
Speaker 11: take six extractions. But you know this is where the
Speaker 11: data points that Danny and Justin Zanik are using to determine.
Speaker 11: And I go back to this comment that Will said
Speaker 11: earlier this season that this lead is tough damn tough
Speaker 11: to play in and also to stick in that means
Speaker 11: a long career. Some players come in, they stick, and
Speaker 11: they find their way as a starter as an All star.
Speaker 11: Others are role players and bench players. Who are the jazz?
Speaker 10: Who are the.
Speaker 11: Players that stick? Who are the ones that depart, who
Speaker 11: are part of trade?
Speaker 10: And who just falls down to the league?
Speaker 11: Right Spence, We've seen it for years. That's just the
Speaker 11: way this business works, and it's it's a big business,
Speaker 11: billion dollar business, and you have to play at a
Speaker 11: high level to make rosters each and every year.
Speaker 10: And so these data points I speak of, you know, the.
Speaker 11: Jazz are very analytical and the way that they progress,
Speaker 11: how they proceed, I should say, and I think you
Speaker 11: know all this and all these numbers are beginning to
Speaker 11: kind of show you know, who these guys are, what
Speaker 11: they hope they can become.
Speaker 10: But you make a good point.
Speaker 11: Look, it's disappointing, absolutely, but you know in that three
Speaker 11: year window we see Walker Tester make strides. It is
Speaker 11: kean They've gotten better than he did his rookie year. Yes,
Speaker 11: can he get better? That for Danny and Justin Xanti
Speaker 11: to his side and look at the statistical numbers, but
Speaker 11: also who is he? I mean how bad does he
Speaker 11: want to get to that next level? And that's about
Speaker 11: work during the season and off season as well. It's
Speaker 11: the same for Senza Baw, same for Flip Filipowski. And
Speaker 11: you know Colin Section I think is an improvement then
Speaker 11: the day that we got him. I think he's figured
Speaker 11: some things out too. And John Collins seems to have
Speaker 11: progressed this year. But I'm talking about Vets the Jazz
Speaker 11: looking more long term. Spence to your earlier question, is
Speaker 11: the Jazz. From what I understand, they want a larger
Speaker 11: window of opportunity to be in the postseason and become
Speaker 11: what stocked Him alone we're able to do in their
Speaker 11: latter years. Now, the Jazz are lucky to keep those
Speaker 11: two guys side by side for such a long time.
Speaker 11: That's going to be a real key for this Jazz
Speaker 11: franchise moving forward.
Speaker 10: Who develops and who's moves on.
Speaker 11: Heyward moved on, Donovan moved on. They traded Gobert as well,
Speaker 11: So you know that to me are hard questions that
Speaker 11: they're going to have to answer and the money they
Speaker 11: spend and how much effort they put into the development
Speaker 11: into these guys, and how keen of an eye does
Speaker 11: Danny Ainge and Justin have on those draft picks and
Speaker 11: the one they covet this year so much.
Speaker 1: So before I say you loose, I know you got
Speaker 1: to catch a bus to your thing for the game tonight.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get a college football thought from you,
Speaker 1: because when I was prepping for the show kind of
Speaker 1: unwrapping this topic of I was found it interesting.
Speaker 2: In the pros, your culture is set by your owner.
Speaker 2: It just is.
Speaker 1: Now it is executed by several people from top to bottom,
Speaker 1: but it's set by the tone that is established by
Speaker 1: the ownership group or the singular family or figurehead. In college,
Speaker 1: it's the coaches, Craig. Isn't it like the celebrities in
Speaker 1: college football and basketball are not the players.
Speaker 2: They're the coaches.
Speaker 1: It's the Tom Izzo's, Mike Krzyzewski's, Kyle Whittingham's, Nick Saban's
Speaker 1: Like It's It's an interesting difference, isn't it. In the pros,
Speaker 1: your culture is from the top to bottom, started by
Speaker 1: the ownership. But in college it does seem like hiring
Speaker 1: the red coach is the best way to build a
Speaker 1: better culture.
Speaker 11: Oh, Spence, it's everything because recruiting comes down to, hey,
Speaker 11: I'm playing for this guy.
Speaker 10: Now look, I'm not foolish.
Speaker 11: I know that's changed some because nil money is going
Speaker 11: to do a lot of talking as well. Right, So
Speaker 11: that's that's going to be the most interesting part moving
Speaker 11: forward is how much does the money speak instead of
Speaker 11: who's coaching me?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 11: And the transfer portal. I'm upset I didn't get the
Speaker 11: reps I was promised or I thought I was going
Speaker 11: to get, So I'm going to transfer out man Spence
Speaker 11: things have changed since you and I were in college, man,
Speaker 11: because really the coaches were keen, and you make a
Speaker 11: great point, Showsky, even even during the days up on
Speaker 11: the hill man Majeris. You know, he wielded a big
Speaker 11: hammer and it was able to do a lot of
Speaker 11: great things because of who he was and the success
Speaker 11: he had. But I'm concerned that it may change because
Speaker 11: money speaks, and I just am I right? Did I
Speaker 11: hear the Sacramento State is the new home of CAM.
Speaker 1: So all I've seen is an online rumor, Craig. I,
Speaker 1: So maybe here's the problem, like who online is credible
Speaker 1: these days?
Speaker 2: Like you know, So I'm not.
Speaker 1: Sure as far as the person who sent that out
Speaker 1: that I am familiar with their work. So I've been
Speaker 1: trying to verify that and nothing as of now.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I did the same, looked up the source, and
Speaker 11: I wasn't sure who that source would be. I don't
Speaker 11: know if that's just to float it out to get
Speaker 11: a rise out of Utah fans with Spence. You and
Speaker 11: I are in a business now where what used to
Speaker 11: be fact is sometimes fiction. Or you have to make
Speaker 11: sure befo you report that's a responsible way and you're
Speaker 11: talking about a young man's future. Whether he decides to
Speaker 11: go go try his luck in the NFL or if
Speaker 11: he's just gonna say it to you, who knows. But
Speaker 11: you know that's the craziness though, that we're out there
Speaker 11: all these rumors, the portal and coaches time tracts. Some
Speaker 11: are giving money back because they don't succeed. I read
Speaker 11: that yesterday in USA Today.
Speaker 10: I find that.
Speaker 11: Intriguing that they're well paid to represent, but also they
Speaker 11: realize they keep their job, they may have to funnel
Speaker 11: some of their cash, their salary back into the NIL
Speaker 11: or back into just the athletic program. It's an interesting time.
Speaker 11: It's a crazy time.
Speaker 1: It is, for sure. And let me just say this.
Speaker 1: This person who sent it out. His Twitter handle is
Speaker 1: at byu fan A and I just think this is
Speaker 1: a dude that is trying to stroll Utah fans. So
Speaker 1: if we get anything efficient on CAM, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: brought it up because I should at least address it.
Speaker 1: If we get anything efficient on CAM, we'll bring it
Speaker 1: to you. But Bawler, thanks for the time. Men have
Speaker 1: a great call. Ton I best of luck to travel safe,
Speaker 1: happy holidays, Okay.
Speaker 10: I appreciate you. Felle have a great holiday. We'll talk soon, thanks, buddy.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're live today here at the road Home.
Speaker 3: Jake, Hey, Jake, can we go?
Speaker 2: So we're live today here at the road Home.
Speaker 1: We're gonna bring on a guest to kind of tell
Speaker 1: you what we have going on here.
Speaker 2: Don't forget. Richard Smith's gonna.
Speaker 1: Be live on site for an entire hour. I usually
Speaker 1: have a tech out here to help, but nobody's here,
Speaker 1: so I am trying to operate our com rex book
Speaker 1: guests all by myself.
Speaker 2: It's no big deal.
Speaker 1: I'm a grown up. I can handle it. Let's see
Speaker 1: if somebody stops by, they may not. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I'll just remind you where we're at today. We're at
Speaker 1: the road Home.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So, family homelessness in the US rose dramatically from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two to twenty twenty three, and families now represent
Speaker 1: more than twenty eight percent all the country's homeless population.
Speaker 2: So we're asking you to donate today.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the number. It's eight oh one, eight one
Speaker 1: nine seventy three hundred. That's eighth one, eight one, nine
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred online at the Roadhome dot org. You
Speaker 1: can come by in person to the Connie Crosby Family
Speaker 1: Resource Center at five twenty nine ninth Thaves seventy three
Speaker 1: hundred South in Midvale.
Speaker 2: You tah come on by and say hello.
Speaker 1: Richard Smith is gonna be live on site in just
Speaker 1: a little bit and we're joined here. Actually, you know
Speaker 1: what I've got to do this one, I promise. Usually
Speaker 1: I have a tech but I don't have anybody today.
Speaker 1: Is that Pauline?
Speaker 2: Is that the name that is? How are you, Pauline?
Speaker 3: I'm doing great?
Speaker 12: How about you?
Speaker 2: Well, so what do you do out here at the
Speaker 2: road Home?
Speaker 12: I am the president of the boards.
Speaker 1: Jake, you brought me the boss. Okay, I've got to
Speaker 1: behave myself. Well that's excellent. You know I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this earlier. Pauline.
Speaker 2: I there's my nineteenth year.
Speaker 12: Congratulations.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: Certainly not about me at all, but it's truly one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things that we do every year at Broadway.
Speaker 2: At the station of my old station as well.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, what has always struck me is how many families
Speaker 1: you guys help, you know what I mean? It's not
Speaker 1: just and you also help single people that are homeless,
Speaker 1: But there are so many families, mom and dad, children
Speaker 1: that roll through here.
Speaker 2: Here's what I want to ask you.
Speaker 1: What is in place to help mom and dad get
Speaker 1: back on their feet and kind of help.
Speaker 2: These families get whole again here at the Road Home.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, they're the one that need the most forward, right,
Speaker 12: because you've got to handle kids and jobs and so forth.
Speaker 12: So the biggest thing I feel we do. Of course,
Speaker 12: we provide shelter, we provide a roof over their head
Speaker 12: and safety. But the second thing is case managers to
Speaker 12: help them reintegrate, get support, get additional governments will support,
Speaker 12: make sure that the kids are going to school, etcetera right,
Speaker 12: et ceter and eventually get into a permanent home. It's
Speaker 12: always the goal. And that is so much safer, so
Speaker 12: much more stable family for kids to be in their
Speaker 12: own home.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I've learned about the Road Home
Speaker 1: in all my years doing this, people can be skeptical
Speaker 1: about nonprofits and if I donate, is the money really
Speaker 1: going to where you say that it will? And here
Speaker 1: the money goes to where you say that it's going.
Speaker 2: People don't need to worry about that.
Speaker 12: Yeah, absolutely, we get four star rating every time for
Speaker 12: our management of our finance. Essentially every time goes towards
Speaker 12: what we call programming, which is support of our client
Speaker 12: for sure.
Speaker 1: Now we're asking, of course five dollars, ten dollars whatever
Speaker 1: people can give.
Speaker 2: What about physical donations this season? What are you guys
Speaker 2: looking for.
Speaker 1: In that realm coats and such.
Speaker 12: Coats, socks always welcome, brand new, much better gently used
Speaker 12: as fine but warm backpacks. We're always looking for kids
Speaker 12: to go back home when they enter into their home
Speaker 12: they have nothing, so those kind of things. The best
Speaker 12: ways to go on our website to get the full
Speaker 12: list of items that we need.
Speaker 2: Very nice.
Speaker 1: And the website, by the way, is the road Home
Speaker 1: dot org slash donate before we set you loose. Pauline,
Speaker 1: how did you get involved? What's your origin story of
Speaker 1: getting involved with the Road Home?
Speaker 12: Yeah, I was working for an ad agency as a
Speaker 12: president of an ad agency, and I was looking about
Speaker 12: and saw people on the street and decided it was
Speaker 12: time for me to donate to my community. And the
Speaker 12: Road Home came to me and I realized it's an
Speaker 12: extreme extremely good organization, a lot of integrity, doing very
Speaker 12: very good work and always coming up with new ways
Speaker 12: to help our clients.
Speaker 2: Wonderful, well, pleasure meeting you. Thanks for stopping by. Okay,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 1: It's Pauline, president of the board. Wow, we've got the
Speaker 1: big boss lady here at the road Home. Come on
Speaker 1: by and say hi. You can give us a call
Speaker 1: if you want to donate that way. The phone number
Speaker 1: is eight oh one eighty one nine.
Speaker 2: Pauline. Good to meet you.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have a good day, seventy three hundred. Their
Speaker 1: website is the Roadhome dot org slash donate. Come by
Speaker 1: in person of the Connie Crosby Family Resource Center at
Speaker 1: five twenty nine nine Thabs, seventy three hundred South in Midvale.
Speaker 2: Richard Smith is standing regally in front of me. He
Speaker 2: joins us.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, we'll talk a little culture building. We'll
Speaker 1: talk a little football. We'll talk a little basketball, maybe
Speaker 1: a little little tennis, maybe a little baseball.
Speaker 2: We'll get weird for an.
Speaker 1: Hour during the holiday season with my guy, Richard Smith,
Speaker 1: coming up next right here at ESPN seven hundred. All right,
Speaker 1: live on side today, both today and tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Keep that in mind. At the road.
Speaker 1: Home, Santa Clause is in the freaking building. What is
Speaker 1: going on. Santa is in the house. Look at that
Speaker 1: Santa is here. So if you guys want to stop
Speaker 1: by it and hang out with Santa, your timing is impeccable.
Speaker 1: The address is five twenty nine nine seventy three hundred South.
Speaker 1: They'll tell you what he's about to do, because I've
Speaker 1: gone and seen it, and he's about to go in and
Speaker 1: see if homeless.
Speaker 2: Shelter full of children.
Speaker 1: It'll tug at your heartstrings if you've never been out
Speaker 1: here before. We're asking for physical donations of coats and
Speaker 1: blankets and anything warm, uh new, gently used. We're also
Speaker 1: asking for financial donations of any kind at eight O
Speaker 1: one eight one nine seventy three hundred eight oh one
Speaker 1: eight one nine seventy three hundred or online at the
Speaker 1: roadhome dot org slash donate.
Speaker 2: So Santa rolls in, Just Richard Smith.
Speaker 3: See that.
Speaker 13: You see what happens. I come as soon as I
Speaker 13: get here, Spence, somebody has to come in and take
Speaker 13: any whatever little thunder I have in my entrance.
Speaker 2: Is that a takeaway?
Speaker 3: Take it all away?
Speaker 13: There's that Richard Smith right over in the corner. Get
Speaker 13: him out of the way. Santa comes rolling through his
Speaker 13: bells are jingling. He's got the perfect Santa suit on,
Speaker 13: and as if you didn't know who it was, he
Speaker 13: had a big wide belt that said Santa across the back.
Speaker 3: Just in case you weren't sure who it was.
Speaker 1: So instead of being excited that Santa's here for the kids,
Speaker 1: you're upset that he's taking attention away from you.
Speaker 13: No, no, I'm just observing that that's that's literally whatever
Speaker 13: happens wherever I go, someone else goes.
Speaker 3: Get him out of here.
Speaker 2: Come on, let's fair enough, fair enough, smitty, good to
Speaker 2: see man.
Speaker 13: How a great same to you, Spencer, and I appreciate
Speaker 13: your invite to come out here and spend a little
Speaker 13: time with you on a Thursday at the road Home
Speaker 13: to The people here do such a great job and
Speaker 13: it's always fun to come out in the years that
Speaker 13: you've invited me to come out during the stealthon to
Speaker 13: try and get some donations here, and I brought a
Speaker 13: couple of things from our home, bags of clothes and stuff.
Speaker 13: And it's just a great, a great work that the
Speaker 13: people here do and it's always fun to be a
Speaker 13: part of it at this time of year.
Speaker 1: So come on by if you want to meet Smitty,
Speaker 1: I would encourage you. If you don't think you have
Speaker 1: items at home, my guess as you do. If you
Speaker 1: clean out your stuff like blankets and socks and gloves
Speaker 1: and hats and coats, you can drop them off in
Speaker 1: person out here at five twenty nine ninth Apps seventy
Speaker 1: three hundred South, or donate anything you can give the
Speaker 1: holiday season at eight o one to eight one nine
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred online at the roadhump dot org slash donate.
Speaker 1: All right, Smitty, let's start with what we were talking
Speaker 1: about off air, where you just came from, and then
Speaker 1: we'll get into some some other topics that are certainly
Speaker 1: less important. And I did not know Cletus Woodbury, well,
Speaker 1: I knew who he was. His father spent a number
Speaker 1: of years at the University of Utah.
Speaker 2: We had his brother at RSL, so I know the family.
Speaker 1: And of course I've heard the story just this time, well,
Speaker 1: any time of year, but this time of year. Three kids,
Speaker 1: just forty six years old. Kleidis gone far too early.
Speaker 1: You'll gut punch for the community. A lot of people
Speaker 1: at the U knew him, loved him, and you were
Speaker 1: at the services today.
Speaker 2: Can you take us kind of inside what that was like.
Speaker 13: Yeah, for our listeners who don't know, Cletus Woodbury, a
Speaker 13: great fixture in the Utah Athletic department, passed away this
Speaker 13: this past week after incurring a seizure and spending time
Speaker 13: and the intensive care at the University of Utah and
Speaker 13: ended up passing away and several days ago. And he
Speaker 13: and he was just a stalwart of the Utah Athletic department.
Speaker 3: You know, he was the guy.
Speaker 13: He was the consummate ticket guy who you know, we
Speaker 13: ran the ticket operations.
Speaker 3: There for for many many years.
Speaker 13: And as people you spoke today at his services, he was, uh,
Speaker 13: you know, they all commented on the fact that that
Speaker 13: Cletus was the guy who always figured out what how
Speaker 13: he could help you and to figure out whatever your
Speaker 13: ticket the deal was, or you were go into the
Speaker 13: Rose Bowl the last couple of years with the Utah
Speaker 13: football team and people who needed tickets and wanted tickets,
Speaker 13: and he was always the guy who figured out how
Speaker 13: to how to get that, get that handled. You went
Speaker 13: on the road somewhere, you were in Florida, you wanted
Speaker 13: to go Miami Dolphins game, called Kletis Cleisa, I got
Speaker 13: a guy in Miami, h let me call you back
Speaker 13: and whatever. But but he was just just a great
Speaker 13: person to know, a great fixture in the Utah Athletic Department.
Speaker 13: Uh passed away this week at age forty six. Leaves
Speaker 13: behind his his lovely wife Lisa and their three kids, and.
Speaker 3: A very sad day in the in the in the
Speaker 3: Utah community.
Speaker 1: So I can send you, guys to a GoFundMe that
Speaker 1: has been created for Cleatis Woodbury.
Speaker 2: You go to GoFundMe dot com and just search for Cletus.
Speaker 1: Woodburry at c l e a d Us Woodburry as
Speaker 1: spelled as you would expect. And then there's picture of Kletis,
Speaker 1: his wife and their three children, and we're asking for
Speaker 1: donations to take care of his family as he leaves
Speaker 1: them behind.
Speaker 2: Just you know, you hate to say the whole cliche.
Speaker 1: You know, a reminder of how precious this trip around
Speaker 1: the globe is or whatever, this trip on this blue marble.
Speaker 2: Whatever I'll call it.
Speaker 1: You hate to say that you need things like this,
Speaker 1: But you know, out here at the road home, you
Speaker 1: see these families walking in with children. They don't know
Speaker 1: where they're going to sleep tonight. Cletus leaves behind a
Speaker 1: family of three kids. It just reminds you how precious.
Speaker 2: This thing is.
Speaker 3: He's about your age, right exactly.
Speaker 13: Yeah, so and you know those of us who are older,
Speaker 13: you know, I turned seventy earlier this year. And you know,
Speaker 13: whether it's your age or or or you're getting closer
Speaker 13: to the end zone, so to speak. You you know,
Speaker 13: these are the things that that you take stock. And
Speaker 13: then you realize someone like came as a young family,
Speaker 13: uh three teenage age kids, and you know he's right
Speaker 13: in the middle of it, just as you are, Spence,
Speaker 13: and you're looking forward to all these things that you
Speaker 13: want to do with your family and friends and all
Speaker 13: the all the plans you make, you're going forward in
Speaker 13: your life, and then all of a sudden, it's uh,
Speaker 13: you get this turn of events and and it's gone
Speaker 13: in the blink of an eye. And and sometimes it
Speaker 13: sounds modeling, and sometimes it sounds cliche. But but as
Speaker 13: someone once taught me, it's cliche because it's actually true.
Speaker 13: It's that's that's the reality of life. And so you try,
Speaker 13: and you try and the take stock and your friends
Speaker 13: and your loved ones as much as you can and
Speaker 13: you know, telling them you love them, and and uh
Speaker 13: and and try and help wherever you can, you know,
Speaker 13: anywhere in the community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well said.
Speaker 1: And obviously the University of Utah community is well known
Speaker 1: for taking care of its own. Uh So, head on
Speaker 1: over to that gofund me page for cletus in support.
Speaker 1: It's funny how people come and go, whether it's death
Speaker 1: or just you changed relationships.
Speaker 2: And you never know. Sometimes it's entirely unexpected.
Speaker 1: But Smiddy, I've been talking about this topic today and
Speaker 1: I was excited.
Speaker 2: To see you on the rundown because I knew you'd
Speaker 2: be good with it.
Speaker 1: And this is not a Jets topic, but there is
Speaker 1: a new piece in The Athletic about Woody Johnson, the
Speaker 1: owner of the Jets, and how he apparently relies on
Speaker 1: the advice of his teenage children who play Madden the
Speaker 1: video game to make some personnel decisions. And according to
Speaker 1: the Athletic, and I like the Athletic, they do a
Speaker 1: good job. There was a trade on the table that
Speaker 1: the Jets would acquire Jerry Judy, who has killed it
Speaker 1: in Cleveland. But what he said, no, because this kid
Speaker 1: didn't like his Madden rating. That in a vacuum is
Speaker 1: pathetic and laughable, but it is a microcosm of a
Speaker 1: horrible culture that has been there for a long time
Speaker 1: BYU fans will always say Zach Wilson could have been
Speaker 1: something different if it wasn't the Jets. Sam Darnold's killing
Speaker 1: it in Minnesota. Gino Smith has had a good run
Speaker 1: in Seattle, like the Jets are a joke and they
Speaker 1: have been for a long time, and it's from a
Speaker 1: top down. You had a front row seat to that
Speaker 1: culture that was built by the Millers over and over
Speaker 1: and over, the foundation that was laid by Frank and
Speaker 1: Scott and continued by Kevin and Dennis and plenty of others,
Speaker 1: namely yourself and others that were on the support staff.
Speaker 1: Over the course of twenty five years, it was built
Speaker 1: into one of the most enviable cultures.
Speaker 2: In pro basketball.
Speaker 1: Greg Popovich talked often about his fondness of Jerry and
Speaker 1: wanting to build the Spurs the way Jerry built the Jazz.
Speaker 1: And I want to be clear, three and a half
Speaker 1: years under Ryan, I'm not saying either good or bad.
Speaker 1: I am saying different. I think we have enough data
Speaker 1: at our disposal and say difference and we'll see if
Speaker 1: it breeds something long term that it hasn't been able
Speaker 1: to breed so far.
Speaker 2: But juxtaposed to the two approaches, you.
Speaker 1: Were under the mill under the Miller umbrella for a
Speaker 1: number of years.
Speaker 2: You saw at front row.
Speaker 1: How did they go about their business of building such
Speaker 1: an enviable culture and what are we hoping that this
Speaker 1: early project of Ryan ultimately ends up looking like?
Speaker 13: Well, the Millers came in remember Spence, in the mid eighties,
Speaker 13: in eighty forty five eighty six, and bought the team
Speaker 13: from Sam Batistone who was who was looking to sell
Speaker 13: the team, and Larry Miller came in and and and
Speaker 13: grabbed them and save them from moving. Really, they were
Speaker 13: about to move to Heathen, Minnesota or Miami at that time.
Speaker 13: And Larry literally came in and the you know, to
Speaker 13: use a baseball axiom with Larry and his baseball affinity,
Speaker 13: you know, came in the bottom of the ninth of
Speaker 13: two outs and pinch hit and hit a home run
Speaker 13: and and uh, you know. But but really the culture
Speaker 13: of the Jazz was the foundation was laid when they
Speaker 13: first moved to Salt Lake City from New Orleans in
Speaker 13: nineteen seventy nine. With the hiring of Frank Laden as
Speaker 13: the general manager. And it was Frank who had to
Speaker 13: build up a team that was not a good team
Speaker 13: in New Orleans.
Speaker 3: They had been there for five years and expansion team.
Speaker 13: The only thing they had to market at that time
Speaker 13: was a one legged Pete Maravich and and they tried
Speaker 13: to do the best they could, but Pete only played
Speaker 13: a handful of games, you know, in Utah and was
Speaker 13: moved to the Boston Celtics, and and and he was
Speaker 13: at the end of his career because of injuries. But
Speaker 13: Frank built the team up in the eighties, block by block,
Speaker 13: you know. It was Daryl Griffith in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 13: draft as a number two pick. It was Thorough Bailey
Speaker 13: as a number six pick. It was Mark Eaton as
Speaker 13: a fourth round pick. It was John Stockton as number sixteen,
Speaker 13: Karl Malone is number thirteen. It was year by year
Speaker 13: and just.
Speaker 2: Pass real quick. That's a phenomenal hit rate.
Speaker 1: Yes, well yeah, historically special hit rate.
Speaker 2: Sorry, yeah, yea yeah, continue, he got done.
Speaker 3: On me, you know. And and and you're throwing Bobby Hanson.
Speaker 13: Who was a four a third round pick, yeah, out
Speaker 13: of Iowa in that mix, and and those are the
Speaker 13: guys that they brought in. But it was, you know,
Speaker 13: a block by block building spens and they came here.
Speaker 3: Seventy nine, Frank took over.
Speaker 13: Then he took over as a coach and general manager
Speaker 13: in eighty two, and then it was eighty four that
Speaker 13: they won their first division tie know, coach and executive
Speaker 13: the year for our guys, the only.
Speaker 3: The only person who's ever done that in the NBA history.
Speaker 13: And then uh, and then a eighty five they draft
Speaker 13: Karme alone and and uh. But but these were all things,
Speaker 13: you know, some of them were things and you say, okay, okay,
Speaker 13: I'm a pretty smart guy. I knew that guy would
Speaker 13: be a good player, okay. And some of it is,
Speaker 13: as I know you talked about earlier, you have to
Speaker 13: be lucky. And other guys have said this, and and
Speaker 13: people don't want to hear that because then it sounds like,
Speaker 13: well then why is why are these guys running the show.
Speaker 3: It sounds like anybody can do.
Speaker 13: It if you're just relying on luck, and anybody can
Speaker 13: go to Vegas and Roll of seven or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 13: but but what you have to have is you have
Speaker 13: to have some kind of a game plan. You have
Speaker 13: to have some kind of consistency and and willingness to
Speaker 13: stick to that and the belief that what we're doing
Speaker 13: we believe makes sense. We think it's gonna work out,
Speaker 13: but we just have to stick to our guns in
Speaker 13: terms of how we're doing it. The Jazz in the
Speaker 13: eighties did it blocked by block. They get John Stockton,
Speaker 13: who they pulled out of the draft at sixteen. Okay,
Speaker 13: they get credit for that. And you know, Frank has
Speaker 13: often said, as I know Gordon Monson said earlier on
Speaker 13: the air, that you know, Frank has often said, Hey,
Speaker 13: if we knew John was gonna be John, we would
Speaker 13: try to move up the top five together. You know,
Speaker 13: that's where we ends up being right. But then Karl
Speaker 13: Malone in that draft in eighty five, everybody in the
Speaker 13: league had Karl Malone slotted five, six, seven in the draft,
Speaker 13: and for whatever the individual reasons are, of all those
Speaker 13: teams between five and twelve, they each passed on him,
Speaker 13: and then he ended up with the Jazz at thirteen.
Speaker 3: And I remember Scott Layden saying, and.
Speaker 13: That was the The John Stockton draft was the first
Speaker 13: one I was involved in directly, and the Karmelone was
Speaker 13: the second. But yeah, I remember Scott saying to his dad, well,
Speaker 13: you know, if Malone is there at thirteen, we just
Speaker 13: have to take him because he's he's the best talent
Speaker 13: that's there, and we just have to roll with that
Speaker 13: and see what that is.
Speaker 3: And then I remember Frank in the post.
Speaker 13: Draft interview saying to the to the press, well, somebody
Speaker 13: asked him, you know, do you hope Malone comes in
Speaker 13: and scores the way he wasn't Louisiana Tech, And Frank
Speaker 13: famously said, well, we have enough scoring.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 13: We have Daryl Griffith, we have Adrian Dantley, we have
Speaker 13: the sixth Man of the Year, John Drew. We have
Speaker 13: Ricky Green as more of a scoring point guard. What
Speaker 13: we need is someone to come in and get rebounds
Speaker 13: because we're the third worst rebounding team in the league. Okay,
Speaker 13: we're becoming competitive, but we need to show up our rebounding.
Speaker 13: So we hope he does that and provides us some
Speaker 13: kind of big physical presence in post defense. If he
Speaker 13: scores ten or twelve points a game, then that's a bonus,
Speaker 13: because you know, we don't really need that, you know,
Speaker 13: And how does it turn out right and then until
Speaker 13: thirty five thousand points later or whatever it was. So
Speaker 13: that's the kind of thing that I know, the current
Speaker 13: iteration of the Jazz and the new ownership group with
Speaker 13: the Ryan Smith and Danny Ainge heading up the basketball operations,
Speaker 13: they're hoping that that type of thing occurs and takes place.
Speaker 13: Some of that you can control. Some of it is
Speaker 13: stuff that you in terms of your evaluation. Some might
Speaker 13: be a move you make. Now I know you referenced
Speaker 13: earlier Walker Kessler. Walker Kessler is an improving young big man.
Speaker 13: He wasn't a draft pick of theirs. He was technically
Speaker 13: a draft pick of Minnesota's correct and then they traded
Speaker 13: him in the Rudy Gobert trade.
Speaker 3: And so the Jazz got him in a trade.
Speaker 13: They got Marking in as part of the Donovan Mitchell trade.
Speaker 13: So they got him in a trade. So those are
Speaker 13: two guys that they like at the moment. Marking and
Speaker 13: shown he's an all star level player. Kessler's getting better
Speaker 13: in his third year. Okay, maybe they got two guys.
Speaker 13: Now they got all the draft picks they've used the
Speaker 13: last two years. You know, smattering of result Alt's good, bad,
Speaker 13: in between something something that's still to be determined. Okay,
Speaker 13: nobody's jumped out, uh, like like Carmelone did. Nobody's jumped
Speaker 13: out like Donovan Mitchell did at the moment.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 13: Darren Williams, you know, was an All star level Olympian
Speaker 13: player for the Jazz for six years. You know, But
Speaker 13: Darren Williams didn't start when he was a rookie. You know,
Speaker 13: he came off the.
Speaker 3: Bench and he didn't like it, and Jerry didn't want
Speaker 3: to start it, and.
Speaker 2: Want heard about that situation.
Speaker 13: Well yeah, but his second year but but I mean, Darren,
Speaker 13: I think personally a better player because Darren realized, well,
Speaker 13: they're not gonna give me anything.
Speaker 3: I gotta go get it right.
Speaker 13: And so his second year he became, you know, a
Speaker 13: bona fide player.
Speaker 3: His third year he was a cornerstone.
Speaker 13: Then with Carlos Boozer and Memeto, core Andre Carolenko and
Speaker 13: Ronnie Brewer and those guys started getting it going. So
Speaker 13: that's what the current Jazz are hoping happens and has
Speaker 13: not yet. Uh, their guys have not s own up yet.
Speaker 13: But as the analogy we've used before, Spence, h you know,
Speaker 13: is like the the prospect of mining for gold in
Speaker 13: the river, and he puts his pan in the water
Speaker 13: and he shakes it and shakes it and gets all
Speaker 13: the sentiment and rocks out and whatever, and he hopes
Speaker 13: there's a nugget of gold and there, and if there's not,
Speaker 13: then he puts his pan in the water again and
Speaker 13: tries it again.
Speaker 3: And that's what they're doing with their players now.
Speaker 13: So that's why you see players coming in, maybe playing
Speaker 13: weird rotations, maybe looking at stuff where guys are out
Speaker 13: of position. You don't like where they're playing, don't like
Speaker 13: how they're playing at that position. But that's what where
Speaker 13: they're at the moment. They're experimenting to see, do we
Speaker 13: have anybody here that we.
Speaker 3: Can use going forward, that we can develop.
Speaker 13: And at some point they'll look at it and they'll say,
Speaker 13: that guy we like some we can keep working with him.
Speaker 3: That guy over there, we don't like him as much.
Speaker 13: It doesn't look like he's making any progress, and we're
Speaker 13: going to try and move on from him and just
Speaker 13: keep trolling in the river and trying to get guys
Speaker 13: in here who we think can help us move forward
Speaker 13: in the process.
Speaker 1: Does Frank get enough credit for being a talent talent
Speaker 1: evaluator because the list you just and I talk about
Speaker 1: this all the time, because Danny Ainge has a really
Speaker 1: solid draft track record that includes a lot of big
Speaker 1: time hits and a lot of big time misses, some
Speaker 1: who didn't play in the league.
Speaker 2: With everybody, that's where I was going.
Speaker 1: And there's no exception at Dennis, who I think we
Speaker 1: all liked and respected, hit two massive Grand slams, some
Speaker 1: other singles, and some guys that didn't work out.
Speaker 2: It's part of the deal.
Speaker 1: But the list you just ran off. We think of
Speaker 1: Frank as a great coach. We think of Frank as
Speaker 1: a great communicator. We think Frank has a great leader
Speaker 1: of men. We think of him as an entertaining, funny personality.
Speaker 1: Does he get enough credit for the way he evaluated
Speaker 1: talent for those early days.
Speaker 2: I all that he does.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 13: I think part of it, Spence, is that he tried
Speaker 13: to deflect how bad the team was in the early
Speaker 13: years by using his personality, you know, and his affability
Speaker 13: with the press and with the public to kind of
Speaker 13: deflect some of that stuff. He was a tough basketball master.
Speaker 13: You ask any of the players who played for him,
Speaker 13: in terms of day to day in practice, demanding how
Speaker 13: they do certain things. That's why he brought in Jerry
Speaker 13: Sloan as an assistant coach.
Speaker 3: That's why he turned it over.
Speaker 13: To Jerry Sloan in eighty nine because he felt like, hey,
Speaker 13: Jerry can do this better than I can. But Frank
Speaker 13: was very good at getting the most he could out
Speaker 13: of the players by understanding who.
Speaker 3: They were and then playing to their strengths.
Speaker 13: But also the guy who doesn't get enough credit in
Speaker 13: my opinion during that time was a young Scott Lade.
Speaker 3: Because Scott was.
Speaker 13: In charge of the personnel, He's in charge of scouting spends.
Speaker 13: This is an age in the eighties when an assistant
Speaker 13: coach on the bench like Scott Laden also had like
Speaker 13: five other jobs in the organization of them for him
Speaker 13: was scouting and and and running the draft.
Speaker 3: When when each time when.
Speaker 13: The spring, when spring came around, and so Scott was
Speaker 13: coaching and helping in practice, devising a game plan and
Speaker 13: practice and then if they had an off date, getting
Speaker 13: on a plane at three o'clock and flying to Vegas
Speaker 13: or flying to l A or wherever it was to
Speaker 13: see a college game that night, to do college scouting,
Speaker 13: because that's just how thin the staff was at that time.
Speaker 3: That's how I got involved initially, was to.
Speaker 13: Come in and try and help in terms of doing
Speaker 13: some of the college scouting and and uh the personnel
Speaker 13: stuff in that regard and and uh. But but Frank
Speaker 13: and Scott built the foundation, and they built that culture
Speaker 13: with the idea, with the Miller's consent, and and and
Speaker 13: with with the UH, with the foresight of saying, we're
Speaker 13: gonna do this the the right the way we think
Speaker 13: is right, and we're gonna do it step by step.
Speaker 13: We're not gonna we're gonna not gonna skip any steps
Speaker 13: in the process, and we're just gonna to see how
Speaker 13: we can do it. Now, you have that in place,
Speaker 13: and you follow that game plan, but you have to
Speaker 13: have in this example, some other teams in the process
Speaker 13: that where things you get we're talking about getting lucky.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 13: We thought Carllone in that draft was gonna go five
Speaker 13: to sixt seven, right, There's no way he.
Speaker 3: Was falling past Dallas at seven.
Speaker 13: That was our that that was our feeling, our evaluation
Speaker 13: and talking to other teams around the league as you
Speaker 13: always do in draft preparation. So Carl alone gets drafted
Speaker 13: by Dallas. He has the career that he had here
Speaker 13: in Dallas. He's Novitski right in Dallas. But they don't
Speaker 13: they take They take the Garnet kid for Wyoming. Then
Speaker 13: the team is picking eight, the team was picking nine
Speaker 13: picking twelve was Washington who took Kenny Green out of
Speaker 13: wake Forest instead of Carl, and so we the Jazz
Speaker 13: end up with Carl at thirteen. There's a lot of
Speaker 13: those stories spence around the league where a team said,
Speaker 13: I got this guy. If we can get that guy,
Speaker 13: you know, we're gonna grab him and he's gonna be
Speaker 13: good for us. And oh, they don't get that guy because.
Speaker 3: A team three picks in front of them took him.
Speaker 13: And so you never hear about, oh, those guys had
Speaker 13: it wired.
Speaker 3: It's just that they didn't.
Speaker 13: Get to that guy to be able to exercise that
Speaker 13: pick and to show that they that they had done
Speaker 13: their homework and were on target.
Speaker 3: And so the Jazz were fortunate in those years.
Speaker 13: And the other part of that equation that people have
Speaker 13: heard before is that now you've got two Hall of
Speaker 13: Fame players, they play together for eighteen years, and thirteen
Speaker 13: of those eighteen years neither guy misses a game. So
Speaker 13: they play eight preseason games, they play eighty two regular
Speaker 13: season games, they play in the playoffs every year, so
Speaker 13: you're talking about the neighborhood of one hundred games a year.
Speaker 13: This year, both your best players play every game. Next year,
Speaker 13: both your best players play every game the next year,
Speaker 13: both you But that's you know, so that's part of
Speaker 13: that luck process, like, oh we got him? Who who's
Speaker 13: the example that Kevin Durant Phoenix is Like I can't
Speaker 13: remember if I a nine and two or something this
Speaker 13: year with Kevin Durant in the lineup. But when he's
Speaker 13: not in the lineup, they're like two and ten or
Speaker 13: whatever it is. But he's in, he's out, he's hurt,
Speaker 13: he's got a dang, he's you know, whenever it is.
Speaker 13: And that's you know, with a lot of guys are
Speaker 13: like in and out of the line Bradley Beal, you know,
Speaker 13: they're hanging a lot of money on him, and he's
Speaker 13: been in and out, you know, because of injuries. And
Speaker 13: so those are the kind of things you have to
Speaker 13: have fall your way that.
Speaker 3: Beyond your control.
Speaker 13: And anybody on the jazz who says, oh yeah, well
Speaker 13: we we had special medicine, and we had special medical
Speaker 13: knowledge and foresight to know that that John Stockton was
Speaker 13: going to play every game every year, and Carl alone
Speaker 13: was gonna miss twelve games in his eighteen year Jazz career.
Speaker 3: And you'd go, come on, man, come on, you know
Speaker 3: that you can't plan for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's let me ask you this and we'll
Speaker 1: move on to some other things. But I think this
Speaker 1: is fascinating topically, and I just want to reset, you know,
Speaker 1: because I really am. My goal is to never be unfair.
Speaker 1: I never want to be unfair. I want to be honest, authentic,
Speaker 1: call the way I see it, and then just ask
Speaker 1: questions about the process. That's the role of the fourth
Speaker 1: of state media, you know, to do that. And so
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about John Carl in the early years,
Speaker 1: and I've got the list of Jazz draft.
Speaker 2: Picks pulled up.
Speaker 1: You guys didn't hit everything out of the park, as
Speaker 1: we already talked about, because no front office does. But oftentimes,
Speaker 1: whether it was Kevin drafting Hayward or you guys taking
Speaker 1: care Linko in the second round, it felt like more
Speaker 1: often than not, whether it was in the draft or
Speaker 1: via trade or whatever. Scottie, Kevin Dennis able to make
Speaker 1: acquisitions that felt like they were your guys. I think
Speaker 1: the jazz DNA Dennis. You talk about jazz DNA and
Speaker 1: so you guys would go about your business. Paul Millsap's
Speaker 1: another example. In the second round, you found a dude
Speaker 1: that just fits what you want to do. So far
Speaker 1: in three and a half years, is it just this
Speaker 1: is going to take time for the new ownership group
Speaker 1: to establish what their culture looks like, because as you reference,
Speaker 1: you know three years ago, no first round picks, make
Speaker 1: a couple of trades that bringing out child Bogie didn't
Speaker 1: work out. Walker Kessler has been the prize of that
Speaker 1: deal with Gobert. So far in your three he's evolving,
Speaker 1: but last year Taylor hendricks on the shelf sadly broken leg. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I still think he has a shot, but left the
Speaker 1: sea's out for a while. Kyante mixed results. You know
Speaker 1: some night like okay, you got some other night you're like,
Speaker 1: is he a pro? I don't even know? Sense of Bob,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, maybe rotational at some point. Then
Speaker 1: this year it's Kyle Philipowski at times has shown a
Speaker 1: few things as a a Collier who's actually a guy
Speaker 1: on the roster that's played lead guard before.
Speaker 2: But Cody Williams ge league. To your point, none of the.
Speaker 1: Six players they've drafted over the course of Danny justin.
Speaker 2: Doing their thing have popped so far. And I don't
Speaker 2: want to be unfair, but is it just gonna take some.
Speaker 1: Time to build the culture so we kind of get
Speaker 1: the same feeling we used to get when you guys
Speaker 1: would draft a Paul Millsaff or Gordon Hayward where it
Speaker 1: felt like, Okay, yeah, that's a Jazz guy.
Speaker 13: Well, again, the current the current group that's making those
Speaker 13: decisions for the Jazz, Uh, they have, whatever their their
Speaker 13: game plan, that blueprint is, you know, the kind of
Speaker 13: guys they want to get.
Speaker 3: I'm not privy to what that is.
Speaker 13: The you know, when I was with the Jazz all
Speaker 13: the years that we had, whether it was Scott Laden
Speaker 13: or Kevin O'Connor, Dennis Lindsay, we had a specific blueprint
Speaker 13: in mind of the type of guys that we wanted
Speaker 13: to get right, not just skill wise, not just basketball
Speaker 13: ability and talent, but the type of people off the
Speaker 13: floor and not not just being a goodie two shoes guy,
Speaker 13: and that sometimes I got blown up in the in
Speaker 13: the in the local.
Speaker 3: Media because well with Salt Lake.
Speaker 13: Or you know, we're conservative communities, so we need all
Speaker 13: these you know, angels, you know, on the team or whatever.
Speaker 3: It wasn't it wasn't anything like that.
Speaker 13: It was about guys we thought were good people who
Speaker 13: would come and work hard, who really had some kind
Speaker 13: of intestinal fortitude where they had pride in being as
Speaker 13: good of a professional basketball player as they could, so
Speaker 13: they would come to work every day and and lay
Speaker 13: it out there and and and try and get better
Speaker 13: and had the pride in doing that.
Speaker 3: I'm sure the current group of the.
Speaker 13: Jazz has some you know, some measure of what they're
Speaker 13: trying the kind of player they're trying to get. Maybe
Speaker 13: they haven't gotten him at time. Maybe there's some guys
Speaker 13: who are terrific young players in the league who the
Speaker 13: Jazz would say, well, we had that guy, that's what
Speaker 13: we wanted, but so and so took him two picks
Speaker 13: before us, or whatever it is, and so and those
Speaker 13: things happen all the time to your point. To this point,
Speaker 13: the one thing I would say, just in looking at
Speaker 13: the view from thirty thousand feet. You know, the Jazz
Speaker 13: had a very competitive team in place when Ryan Smith
Speaker 13: took over the organization. They had a top five team
Speaker 13: both record wise, statistically, analytically, all that stuff. They had
Speaker 13: three All stars if you count Mike Conley, but two
Speaker 13: main all stars who were young guys coming into their
Speaker 13: prime and signed to long term deals, multi year deals
Speaker 13: at that time. So that ship was ready to go.
Speaker 13: That was that was moving out of the harbor into
Speaker 13: open waters.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's see what we got.
Speaker 13: And for whatever their reason, which which I don't know,
Speaker 13: they decided in quick order and within really like an
Speaker 13: eighteen month period, that they didn't think that was gonna
Speaker 13: be good enough to compete year in and year out,
Speaker 13: and so they got rid of everybody and they started
Speaker 13: over from scratch.
Speaker 3: And so that was a decision they made to do that.
Speaker 3: They've got put the.
Speaker 13: Team in the position they're in now, which is struggling,
Speaker 13: which is trying to find young guys they can do.
Speaker 13: You know, what's interesting to me is that they not
Speaker 13: only have young guys that they're trying to develop, but
Speaker 13: they also have young coaches that they're.
Speaker 3: Trying to develop.
Speaker 13: Will Hardy obviously is a young, the second youngest coach
Speaker 13: in the league is hadn't been a head coach before,
Speaker 13: and it looks like he.
Speaker 3: Knows what he's doing. A really good guy, a.
Speaker 13: Really solid guy, a hard nosed basketball mind, if you will.
Speaker 13: But they also have all of their coaching staff for
Speaker 13: young guys. They don't have any veterans who have been
Speaker 13: through the NBA wars. They don't have any guys who
Speaker 13: who who have been through the ups and downs and
Speaker 13: can kind of, you know, leverage things a certain way.
Speaker 13: So they have young players and they have young coaches,
Speaker 13: and so sometimes that mix is gonna have difficulty getting
Speaker 13: any traction and get anything going forward on any consistent
Speaker 13: level because you just don't have those veterans, either on
Speaker 13: the court or on the bench that can help you
Speaker 13: through those tough times like they're dealing with now.
Speaker 3: So that's the part that's interesting to me.
Speaker 13: It's gonna be interesting to see if that's the game
Speaker 13: plan they hold to going forward.
Speaker 1: We'll switch gears coming up. Smitty is live on side
Speaker 1: for another thirty minutes. I want to let you know
Speaker 1: we're live today at the road home. All this squealing
Speaker 1: and yelling you here in the background are children excited
Speaker 1: to see Santa who rolled into town and apparently took
Speaker 1: Richard Smith shine.
Speaker 3: I thought they were I thought that was for me.
Speaker 3: I'm suck Oh, I.
Speaker 1: Know this was This was a peek into the psyche
Speaker 1: that I did not know was real.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just a bruised ego. It's kind of.
Speaker 13: Saturn that well, you know, screaming and kids yelling and
Speaker 13: running around. Usually it somehow follows me. But okay, Sana Smitty.
Speaker 1: Is jealous, jealous of Santa today, So stop by in
Speaker 1: person at five twenty nine ninth As seventy three hundred
Speaker 1: south in Middale. Website is the roadhome dot org slash donate.
Speaker 1: You can also call us at eight oh one eight
Speaker 1: one nine seventy three hundred. This Hour of the Drive
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Big OD Tires. Tis the
Speaker 1: season for savings at Big O Tires. The team you
Speaker 1: trust save up to two hundred dollars after mailing rebates
Speaker 1: on select sets and tires. You get up to one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars instantly on select set at Tires Now through
Speaker 1: December of the thirty first brand new Tip Top Healthy
Speaker 1: Car Special for ninety nine to ninety five, which includes
Speaker 1: a full synthetic oil change, wiper blade replacements, and more.
Speaker 1: You can stop inter schedule appointment online to see how
Speaker 1: we can help you with your tire and service needs.
Speaker 1: Visit big O Tires dot com to find a location
Speaker 1: near you. All right, I was down two hours to go.
Speaker 1: Morris Smithy coming up next right here on ESPN seven.
Speaker 7: Hundred unmarry Little Christmas, Let.
Speaker 3: Your hor.
Speaker 2: Live from no.
Speaker 1: I suppose we could say in honor of Frank and
Speaker 1: honor of Frank lad and we decided to do a
Speaker 1: little Frank Sinatra Christmas album.
Speaker 2: You'll be with Frank tonight. Yeah, You're gonna be hanging
Speaker 2: out with with Coach tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna we go to on Saturday.
Speaker 13: We go to the holidays Robagan down brab O' Hall
Speaker 13: on Saturday Saturday night.
Speaker 3: Yes, with he and Barbara. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Very nice. So happy Holidays to everybody.
Speaker 1: Richard Smith is live on site for another big segments.
Speaker 2: Live on Site today is Live at the Road Home.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: We get to do, is employees of Broadway Media and
Speaker 1: folks on the radio side of things. To help those
Speaker 1: in need this holiday season, we're asking for your donations
Speaker 1: at nine seventy three hundred. You can also visit if
Speaker 1: you're at work in front of your laptop or computer,
Speaker 1: the roadhome dot org slash donates looking for in person donations,
Speaker 1: physical donations, newer gently used coats and hats and gloves,
Speaker 1: long John's underwear, socks. You know what keeps you warm
Speaker 1: this time of year. And if you're looking for a
Speaker 1: place to sleep tonight, if you need a shelter, you
Speaker 1: can call eight oh one nine nine zero nine nine
Speaker 1: nine nine and then the team will.
Speaker 2: Direct you where you can get out of cold.
Speaker 1: So Smitty, We were talking last segment about culture building
Speaker 1: in pro basketball as a result of this article that
Speaker 1: came out about the Jets today, and I've always found
Speaker 1: this interesting. We were talking a bowler about this earlier.
Speaker 1: In professional sports, your culture is set by your ownership
Speaker 1: group from the top down, and then you rely on
Speaker 1: people you hire to execute the vision of the culture.
Speaker 1: In college on both the or jieus I said it
Speaker 1: almost said pro in college on both the football and
Speaker 1: the basketball side, it feels like it's the head coach,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. They're of like the CEO, the face the
Speaker 1: celebrities really because players come and.
Speaker 2: Go so much.
Speaker 13: Well, well that's who players go to play for college.
Speaker 13: They go to play for for for Roy Williams, or
Speaker 13: they go to play for Mike Krzyzewski, or they go
Speaker 13: to play for Rick Nageralis.
Speaker 3: Or whoever it is.
Speaker 13: And uh if and when that coach leaves for whatever
Speaker 13: the reason would be a lot of times he used
Speaker 13: to see the players would also leave because they they
Speaker 13: really didn't have that you know, affinity, if you will,
Speaker 13: for the for the school as much as they had
Speaker 13: for the coach they were they had that relationship with
Speaker 13: and and and also in college Spence. When you see
Speaker 13: the big time games on TV, you see Kentucky Duke,
Speaker 13: you know, play half the time, the cameras seem to.
Speaker 3: Be on the head coach, the celebrity on the sideline.
Speaker 13: And so even maybe more so than the than the players,
Speaker 13: because as you say, if you're one of those guys
Speaker 13: and you have longevity at a at a highly competitive program,
Speaker 13: you become the guy because the players just rotated in
Speaker 13: and out. Used to be three or four years, now
Speaker 13: it's three or four months, you know, and the guys
Speaker 13: are just coming in.
Speaker 3: I mean, the.
Speaker 13: Demansa kid uh, last week, you know, and they they
Speaker 13: they announced he's coming, but but there's already it's no
Speaker 13: you know, they make very publicly known that he's only
Speaker 13: going to be here for one year and then he's
Speaker 13: leaving for the NBA. And so you know, that's already
Speaker 13: part of the plan, which the plan was never used
Speaker 13: to be. That the plan was we hope we get him,
Speaker 13: he develops, and we have him for three or four years,
Speaker 13: and you know, and I know, like for example, I know,
Speaker 13: you know that Randy Ray, the longtime coach of Weaver
Speaker 13: Stay highly successful and and got and groomed and and
Speaker 13: and uh developed Damian Lillard over over a four year
Speaker 13: period with him before he became an NBA All Star.
Speaker 13: You know, he left earlier than he wanted to in
Speaker 13: the college game simply because he felt like, well, if
Speaker 13: I get Damian Lillard now as a freshman, and I
Speaker 13: and he looks like he had some promise. He's not
Speaker 13: staying at Weaver State his sophomore year. You know, he's
Speaker 13: going to Texas or he's going to Arizona, he's going
Speaker 13: to Kentucky or whatever it is because of the new
Speaker 13: NIL stuff. So that's that, that's what makes it tricky
Speaker 13: at the college level as well.
Speaker 1: Side note, non Secretary, how is Frank not in the
Speaker 1: Naysmith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Speaker 13: Yeah, you'd have to ask the people who both. I'm
Speaker 13: not sure that the overall record, you know, don't at that.
Speaker 13: And and also he didn't have that longevity at least
Speaker 13: as a coach, you know, in the the NBA level.
Speaker 3: He coached from eighty eighty two to.
Speaker 13: Eighty nine, so that's seven years, seven plus years where
Speaker 13: he had obviously success and and turned the team from
Speaker 13: a perennial loser to a perennial winner and competitive team,
Speaker 13: you know, But he he turned it over to Jerry
Speaker 13: Sloan at a time where he felt it was best
Speaker 13: for him and for the team, you know. And obviously
Speaker 13: Jerry had the success that he had over a two
Speaker 13: decade period, and and and then with Frank Constrant and
Speaker 13: the front office stuff. That's how the Jazz culture got
Speaker 13: to be what it was, and how other other teams
Speaker 13: or and organizations around the NBA emulated how the Jazz
Speaker 13: did things.
Speaker 3: And then most of it was because of, you.
Speaker 13: Know, somewhat of a family atmosphere, and everybody preaches that
Speaker 13: that's you hear that from all corners, you know, which
Speaker 13: which is kind of kind of silly really. You know,
Speaker 13: it's a business, and if you don't produce in the business,
Speaker 13: then they move on to the next guy. And you know,
Speaker 13: but the Jazz had that atmosphere. But they also had
Speaker 13: a no nonsense atmosphere from whether it was Frank Layden
Speaker 13: and him setting the foundation or whether it was Jerry Sloan,
Speaker 13: you know who, the way he coached and uh, day
Speaker 13: in and day out with the team, the players knew, well,
Speaker 13: this is you know, this is the way it's going
Speaker 13: to be.
Speaker 3: So we just have to we just have to figure
Speaker 3: that out.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 13: It seems like nowadays coaches a little bit too sometimes
Speaker 13: too concerned in my opinion, and appeasing the players because
Speaker 13: they're afraid otherwise the player is gonna run to the
Speaker 13: owner and it's gonna complain, or they're gonna make a
Speaker 13: public statement about wanting to be traded or what have you.
Speaker 13: And so it seems like the players have more control
Speaker 13: over those kinds of day to day things than they
Speaker 13: used to.
Speaker 1: All right, moving over to some some big picture topics
Speaker 1: here league wide, you know, one of the interesting conversations
Speaker 1: in NBA media over the past couple of weeks has
Speaker 1: been about the lack of ratings for pro basketball and
Speaker 1: how linear numbers are down.
Speaker 2: Now. Sports Media Watch.
Speaker 1: Did a really good piece on this they released this
Speaker 1: week to provide some context. Fifty two percent of folks
Speaker 1: have cut the cord from cable over the past five years,
Speaker 1: so every product is down on linear numbers, even the NFL.
Speaker 2: Now, the NFL is only four percent. Pro basketball is down.
Speaker 1: Forty eight percent year over year, the opening night down
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent for last year. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: your take on one dynamic that I've heard people talk about,
Speaker 1: and that is every team plays the same way, trying
Speaker 1: to hunt threes.
Speaker 2: Doing everything they can to hunt three point shots.
Speaker 1: Now, I think teams go about that differently, and teams
Speaker 1: have different personnel, But is the game that much different
Speaker 1: than it was? Where if you hear somebody say to you, smitty,
Speaker 1: it seems like every time I'm watching basketball and every
Speaker 1: team plays the same way, What's what's your response to that?
Speaker 13: Well, every team, it seems now nobody goes through the post,
Speaker 13: nobody goes goes down will nobody uses high tunament. Now
Speaker 13: everything is athletic is run and jumping. Everything's five out,
Speaker 13: everything's drawing kick.
Speaker 3: I'd say that that.
Speaker 13: You know, a lot of teams try and play screen
Speaker 13: and roll with screen and pop, but most players don't
Speaker 13: set screens. Most players, you know, slip screens is what
Speaker 13: we call it, where they go to fake like they're
Speaker 13: gonna screen you, and then when you get a step
Speaker 13: away from them.
Speaker 3: They they bail out.
Speaker 13: A because they don't want to get hit, first of all,
Speaker 13: but b because they they're either concentrating.
Speaker 3: On trying to get the ball from the ball handler.
Speaker 13: Either on a roll to the basket or on a
Speaker 13: pop to try and shoot a jump shot.
Speaker 3: And so you see everybody is playing that way. Now.
Speaker 13: The interesting thing is that the players who seem to
Speaker 13: play at the best really from my perspective, are the
Speaker 13: guys who have learned that outside of the United States.
Speaker 13: In other words, a lot of the European players and
Speaker 13: some of the Australian players, they learn how to pass
Speaker 13: the ball, they had to learn how to move the ball.
Speaker 3: They really know how to execute.
Speaker 13: In the US, young players in the AAU system or
Speaker 13: you know, even high school systems, the eyb L in
Speaker 13: the summertimes uh, these these under leaves. The travel teams
Speaker 13: that the kids are on, if they're that talented, they
Speaker 13: don't they don't teach them how to play, how to
Speaker 13: set a screen, how to move the ball, how to
Speaker 13: space out properly, and and they and they also don't
Speaker 13: teach them how to shoot.
Speaker 3: Everybody just wants to run and dunk the ball.
Speaker 13: And so that's why when somebody shoots thirty eight percent
Speaker 13: from three, everybody says, Wow, he's a really good shooter,
Speaker 13: you know, But he's not a really good shooter. You know,
Speaker 13: it's just because nobody else can shoot thirty eight percent comparative,
Speaker 13: you know. So it's it's it's interesting that that our
Speaker 13: game has gotten to that point at the NBA level.
Speaker 13: It's really to me is most of it's a sloppy game.
Speaker 13: I think a lot of it's a lazy game because
Speaker 13: I don't think players want to play that hard. I
Speaker 13: think part of it is because that's all players do
Speaker 13: from the time they're twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and if they're
Speaker 13: identified as a teenage kid, who boy, he might have
Speaker 13: a chance to be a pro someday, which is, you know,
Speaker 13: which is a silly projection. But some kids get that
Speaker 13: tag on them, and so they stop playing soccer, they
Speaker 13: stop playing baseball, they stopped playing tennis, whatever it was
Speaker 13: they were doing as a young kid growing up, and
Speaker 13: all they do is play basketball twelve months a year.
Speaker 3: And so a lot of the research now.
Speaker 13: Is coming out in the Nordic countries who have been
Speaker 13: looking at the skiers, the winter sports, or whether it's
Speaker 13: downhill skiing or ski jumping or skating and ice hockey
Speaker 13: and those kinds of things. They don't allow they're not
Speaker 13: allowing their young kids to train in any of those
Speaker 13: sports for longer than.
Speaker 3: A particular period of time.
Speaker 13: I think it's like three months, or it might be
Speaker 13: like sixteen weeks or something like that. And then they're
Speaker 13: forced to take a break from that because their research
Speaker 13: is showing that their their muscles, their bones, their joints
Speaker 13: are starting to uh disintegrate, are starting to break down
Speaker 13: more frequently because when they keep doing the same thing
Speaker 13: over and over and over and over again, it just
Speaker 13: is just starting to wear your body out. You didn't
Speaker 13: have that, you know when uh, you know John Stockton
Speaker 13: and you know was playing because he played baseball in
Speaker 13: the spring and he played football or ran cross country
Speaker 13: and the winter in the fall or whatever it was,
Speaker 13: and so they it was really a form of cross training,
Speaker 13: but we didn't know it was cross training at that time.
Speaker 13: You were just playing different sports because you're interested in them. Now,
Speaker 13: the young kids are are told by their youth coaches, well,
Speaker 13: you can't play baseball and soccer. You have to choose
Speaker 13: one or the other because we practice year round and
Speaker 13: we go on travel teams and we have a group
Speaker 13: that we're trying, you know, and it's spence to me.
Speaker 3: The sad part about.
Speaker 13: That is that it's not about the kid, the fourteen
Speaker 13: year old kid that they're trying to develop into the
Speaker 13: next Lebron. It's really about the coach who's got an ego,
Speaker 13: who thinks, you know, this is I don't coach in
Speaker 13: the NBA, So I'm going to coach the little junior
Speaker 13: high team and I'm going to coach them into the
Speaker 13: ground because I'm gonna show people I know what I'm doing,
Speaker 13: and you know, and it's just I.
Speaker 3: Think it's terrible.
Speaker 13: And that's why you see players in the NBA mid
Speaker 13: twenties starting to break down, having more You think they
Speaker 13: would have fewer injuries because of all the training techniques
Speaker 13: and all the the the progression of medicine and of
Speaker 13: research and that kind of thing, but they seem to
Speaker 13: have more right. I mean, back in the day, Bob
Speaker 13: Gibson used to throw one hundred and twenty one hundred
Speaker 13: and thirty pitches in a complete game for the Cardinals,
Speaker 13: and then three or four days later he'd do it again.
Speaker 13: Now nobody pitches a complete game because they get they're
Speaker 13: afraid they're getting worn out, and they're not. They're not
Speaker 13: having that cross training experience as young kids like they
Speaker 13: used to.
Speaker 1: So a lot there, But the main thing that and
Speaker 1: my takeaway continues to be this, and ultimately, if you
Speaker 1: want to understand issues in commerce, you follow the money.
Speaker 2: In business, you follow the money.
Speaker 1: And whether it's AAU coaches, they feel like they get
Speaker 1: they get paid more, so they want better kids on
Speaker 1: their team there in bed with high school coaches. So
Speaker 1: if you're not on the AAU team as a ten
Speaker 1: year old, you're not gonna be on the high school team.
Speaker 2: Then you can't go to college.
Speaker 1: Like It's all a system in place that was just
Speaker 1: really coming into its own when I was playing AAU
Speaker 1: in high school basketball. But you said something that I
Speaker 1: believe to be. And we all come at this on
Speaker 1: our own prism, our own unique prism, our own echo chamber.
Speaker 1: And the way you watch basketball probably has something to
Speaker 1: do with the way you were raised watching basketball. I
Speaker 1: was raised watching the Jazz and then the Knicks of
Speaker 1: the nineties. Teams have played with precision and teams have
Speaker 1: played hard every night. And so for me and my
Speaker 1: basketball experience of how I consume the teams that I
Speaker 1: loved when I was younger. If I turn on a
Speaker 1: game and you don't care, I don't care. Right, So,
Speaker 1: the biggest issue in my opinion, Smitty, outside of everything else,
Speaker 1: is players who don't play hard every night, and that
Speaker 1: probably has something to do with the fact that guaranteed
Speaker 1: contracts now our generational wealth for ninety percent of these guys,
Speaker 1: whereas back then it was maybe ten to fifteen percent.
Speaker 1: Players actually needed to play for paychecks once upon a time,
Speaker 1: and if you need to play to pay your to
Speaker 1: feed your family, guess what you're gonna do. You're gonna
Speaker 1: show up in your play hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 13: And what happens is a large part of it is
Speaker 13: the guaranteed.
Speaker 3: The guaranteed deal.
Speaker 13: The NFL has a small percentage of guys who get
Speaker 13: guaranteed contracts, right. The larger percentage of guys in the
Speaker 13: NFL are really independent contractors who are playing week to week.
Speaker 13: And you see that played out more so in football
Speaker 13: with the kickers, right, Some teams change kickers two, three,
Speaker 13: four times a season. If the kickers don't get the
Speaker 13: job done on Sunday on Tuesday, they cut him in
Speaker 13: on Wednesday, they're holding tryouts for another kicker. But also
Speaker 13: part of that is that those guys, when you're talking
Speaker 13: about care factor again, going back to the point about
Speaker 13: playing year round, since they were twelve, thirteen, fourteen, these
Speaker 13: guys have been playing every week, every month, every year, basketball, basketball, basketball.
Speaker 13: So by the time they get to be twenty four,
Speaker 13: twenty five, twenty six, that's all they've been doing for ten, eleven,
Speaker 13: twelve years, NonStop. And so maybe they're not as excited
Speaker 13: to be playing tonight on a Tuesday night or Thursday
Speaker 13: night in.
Speaker 2: Detroit and some of them don't even show up SPA.
Speaker 13: Yeah, but I mean that's you know, and sometimes you know,
Speaker 13: but you're exactly right. If you were playing like the
Speaker 13: guys were the other night, right in Vegas for the
Speaker 13: NBA up. They're playing for five hundred thousand dollars. You know,
Speaker 13: And I, in fact I told I told Coach Layden
Speaker 13: I was with us earlier today. I said that he
Speaker 13: was not aware of that. He said, Oh, I thought
Speaker 13: I thought they got like like an extra fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: I said, coach happened.
Speaker 13: Oh no, the guys who won the game the other night,
Speaker 13: they were playing for half a million.
Speaker 3: He goes, half a million dollars. I said, that's that's
Speaker 3: what they're doing now.
Speaker 8: Now.
Speaker 13: You can argue all day whether that makes sense, whether
Speaker 13: it doesn't matter because you've got sponsors who are paying
Speaker 13: the money, or you know, or billionaire owners who are
Speaker 13: paying that doesn't you know they don't care. But that
Speaker 13: part of that, there's some kind of feeling in there
Speaker 13: that that it's a little distasteful to me that that
Speaker 13: that's where you're at. Do you have to get the
Speaker 13: guys as you're referencing, to care and to show that
Speaker 13: they want to play hard by saying, Hey, Spence, you
Speaker 13: go out and get this game, and we're going to
Speaker 13: give you an extra half a million dollars.
Speaker 3: That's where it takes. I don't know. I don't know well.
Speaker 1: And I know that younger NBA fans are probably laughing
Speaker 1: at the conversation because they've been a part of.
Speaker 2: This NBA reality for a long time.
Speaker 1: And these are the This is the generation of fans
Speaker 1: that pulls up their phone and watches House of Highlights
Speaker 1: on Instagram as opposed to watching a game. And I
Speaker 1: just grew up watching games just what we did. You know,
Speaker 1: even if we weren't at games, I would be home.
Speaker 1: I'd watched games. And I come from this job through
Speaker 1: the prism of very much preferring to talk about games
Speaker 1: and talk about teams and growth and how the process
Speaker 1: is going. The problem is, when you have a team
Speaker 1: that is unseerious about winning, it's hard to make them
Speaker 1: topically interesting. But I did want to ask you this
Speaker 1: because I've been trying. I've been looking at the league,
Speaker 1: the landscape of the league, and the Oklahoma cities of
Speaker 1: the world, and they're so fun and they're so good,
Speaker 1: and the Orlando magics of the world who have been
Speaker 1: able to kind of rebuild after a little bit, to
Speaker 1: see if there's anything we can learn about what the
Speaker 1: Jazz are.
Speaker 2: Trying to do now.
Speaker 1: The easiest thing about those two examples is to say, well,
Speaker 1: OKC has Shay and Orlando has Apollo, and those.
Speaker 2: Are both a level guys.
Speaker 1: Houston doesn't really have a level guy. They've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of nice players, and Udoka has done a really
Speaker 1: good job. Jalen Green's are leading scorer. A lot of
Speaker 1: people love the Shngoon kid, who's eighteen ten, five and two,
Speaker 1: So they have some good young players. But from a
Speaker 1: roster construction standpoint, the Jazz are where these three teams
Speaker 1: were three four years ago. Sam Presty might be in
Speaker 1: a category of his on right now with.
Speaker 2: What he's done with OKAC.
Speaker 1: But is there anything that we can learn here in
Speaker 1: the market about what the Jazz are trying to do
Speaker 1: juxtaposed to what these teams now have done.
Speaker 13: Yeah, well what they're the Jazz are trying to do
Speaker 13: what they've done but also spent.
Speaker 3: It's not anything new.
Speaker 13: They're not reinventing the wheel, and it's not any big secret.
Speaker 3: Look. OKC is a good, good, solid team.
Speaker 13: They've got a very good coaching by a young coach
Speaker 13: who's insisted that they play defense, and they're one of
Speaker 13: the top defensive teams in the league.
Speaker 3: They got, you know, some smarts.
Speaker 13: Okay, you got to give him some credit and some
Speaker 13: luck in the Paul George trade because they get Shake
Speaker 13: Gildess Alexander who is just coming off his rookie year.
Speaker 13: Nice player, Okay, yeah, we'll take him in the in
Speaker 13: the trade, and you know, okay, yeah whatever, you know.
Speaker 13: I think Sam pressI would be the first one to
Speaker 13: step and go, well, we didn't know he was going.
Speaker 3: To be down this, okay, So so you got him.
Speaker 13: You got Memphis who's in second place currently with a healthy,
Speaker 13: mostly healthy John Morant. They got John Moran in the
Speaker 13: draft because they evaluated that correctly and they knew that
Speaker 13: he had an NBA type game. Houston got Jalen Green,
Speaker 13: who I think is going to be a very good play.
Speaker 13: They've got Jabari Smith, who is a young player who
Speaker 13: I think is also going to be pretty good in
Speaker 13: a few years. They've got shng Goon, who is probably
Speaker 13: better than they thought he would be. Really isn't what
Speaker 13: you consider an undersized center at six ' ten, but
Speaker 13: he has enough skill level to play the NBA game
Speaker 13: inside outside, Yeah yeah, and he's fun. So then and
Speaker 13: then you got Dallas, you know, with Doncic, who's who's
Speaker 13: a generational talent, right, So you got those kind of guys,
Speaker 13: and then you go, you know, you go with the
Speaker 13: Cleveland which has Donovan Mitchell paired with several young guys
Speaker 13: that they went and got because they were bad, right,
Speaker 13: So they got Mobiley, they got Garland, they got they
Speaker 13: got these guys who can fit in and are starting
Speaker 13: to grow, and got a bonafide all star in Donovan Mitchell,
Speaker 13: who's who's leading them.
Speaker 3: You got the Celtics, who you know, built their team the.
Speaker 13: Way they have, you know, entirely on the idea of
Speaker 13: we're gonna outshoot everybody from the three point line. And
Speaker 13: they've got you know, highly skilled guys and it's working
Speaker 13: for them. You know, Orlando was bad for a number
Speaker 13: of years and they were waddling around and they weren't
Speaker 13: getting much traction. And then they hit on a couple
Speaker 13: of picks. But they hit on a couple of picks.
Speaker 13: Why because they were bad enough to get top picks, ye, Right,
Speaker 13: So they had Jalen Suggs, and then they got Ben
Speaker 13: Carrow and then they made a good pick with vanz
Speaker 13: Wagner and so so now they're on and up tick
Speaker 13: with those guys Milwaukee, uh uh, generational talent and and
Speaker 13: and Giannis who no one would knew Giannis was gonna
Speaker 13: be Giannis when they.
Speaker 3: Drafted him on and up.
Speaker 13: So the point being that the Jazz are just doing
Speaker 13: the same thing other teams have done. They're in that process.
Speaker 13: Is it gonna flesh out? Are they gonna get those
Speaker 13: guys to get better? Are they going to improve? Are
Speaker 13: they gonna stay the course that they've set and and
Speaker 13: and do they have the confidence that.
Speaker 3: This is actually gonna work eventually?
Speaker 13: Is anybody gonna gonna get short circuited, whether it's the owner,
Speaker 13: whether it's the front office guys, whether they get tired
Speaker 13: that they're not winning so they blame on the coach
Speaker 13: or whatever it is. Or can they stick to their
Speaker 13: game plan and believe that we're going.
Speaker 3: To get there.
Speaker 13: But we just have to we just have to stay
Speaker 13: the course. And that's the part that's going to be
Speaker 13: difficult for fans.
Speaker 1: Got to end it there. But man, great to see you. Okay,
Speaker 1: Hi Man, it's welcome in to you as well. Let's
Speaker 1: welcome in Ryan from the Dish professionals. More affordable options
Speaker 1: for your wireless internet, for your cable television in addition
Speaker 1: to your cell phone bill. So give them a call
Speaker 1: at eight oh one, four to two four Dish. Eight
Speaker 1: oh one four to two four Dish.
Speaker 3: What's going on right, Spence?
Speaker 7: Thanks so much.
Speaker 6: As always, you know, this is just a great time
Speaker 6: of year to be in the dish business for us
Speaker 6: because every single provider I swear has just been slapping
Speaker 6: up these rate increases, and we've seen pretty significant with
Speaker 6: Direct TV in October and the cable company, and then
Speaker 6: also you've got a pretty amazing increase with Fiber and
Speaker 6: also with YouTube TV guys. This is something that I
Speaker 6: fully anticipate. This rate increase is just one of many
Speaker 6: that you're gonna see, especially if YouTube TV guys listen.
Speaker 6: You can get it cheaper. Call Dish, We'll get you
Speaker 6: the BESTDVR. I have compared these things side by side.
Speaker 6: There is nothing that is faster than the hopper at
Speaker 6: auto hops. At auto Records, you have the ability to
Speaker 6: pause instant replay. It's truly awesome for watching sports. Plus
Speaker 6: it'll auto record your team's games for you. Call us
Speaker 6: up and take the upgrade. We'll throw in the movie channels.
Speaker 6: Get you credits for the next two years, and we'll
Speaker 6: guarantee that price and so on. It's twenty twenty four,
Speaker 6: so twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, so just about
Speaker 6: twenty twenty seven is when this promotion would end for you.
Speaker 6: That is a huge difference in your pocketbook. I'll save
Speaker 6: you money. Plus about we throw in Netflix free for
Speaker 6: the next two years, because that's an awesome additional offer,
Speaker 6: and it's built in like a channel, so it's easy.
Speaker 6: And if you're not interested in the Netflix offer, I'll
Speaker 6: tell you what I'll you about two or a do
Speaker 6: our gift card. This is such a good time, guys,
Speaker 6: free money, free stuff. Call us up, let us hook
Speaker 6: you up. Ask also about the Internet offers. We can
Speaker 6: lower your internet Internet bill guys. I have a half
Speaker 6: a dozen different Internet book providers available on my fingertips
Speaker 6: and awesome promotions. One of them is Gonna you can
Speaker 6: get a free fifty inch TV and it's like fifty
Speaker 6: bucks a month for the Internet. This is the same
Speaker 6: product I've had for the last couple of years at
Speaker 6: my house works fantastic. Don't be trapped by your cable
Speaker 6: company in the bundle where they're like Oh, if you
Speaker 6: cancel this, you're builds going to go up. Call us,
Speaker 6: We'll make it go down. We'll upgrade you. Plus I'll
Speaker 6: throw on dinner at Jcw's four two four dish eight
Speaker 6: oh one four two four three four seven four.
Speaker 1: All right there, he is Ryan from the Dish Pros
Speaker 1: live at the road Home and we have Nick from Modelic.
Speaker 2: Stop you by, Nick? How are you man?
Speaker 10: How's it going?
Speaker 2: Tell me about Modelic? What's Modelic?
Speaker 14: We're web design and development agency here in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 14: We designed and built the road Home website and the
Speaker 14: media thon tracker of Santa's telling me I'm naughty right now.
Speaker 2: Now Santa's rolling by, so that.
Speaker 14: This is one of the best things I've done all year.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really cool. So how did you come to
Speaker 1: be involved with the road Home out here?
Speaker 14: Yeah, so we've built their website years ago and their
Speaker 14: media thon tracker. So when you make those donations to ESPN,
Speaker 14: you can hop on over to the roadhome dot org
Speaker 14: slash media Thon and track the progress and the little
Speaker 14: horse race that we've got going there. We've got a
Speaker 14: team of developers working around the clock to field all
Speaker 14: those donations and make sure everyone is tracked and you
Speaker 14: know where the standings are. We need to update the
Speaker 14: zoom on the chart or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Very nice.
Speaker 1: See people like you fascinating me because I do not
Speaker 1: have that skill set at all, So I think it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating thing. So what would you say to our
Speaker 1: listeners about what you need this time of year?
Speaker 2: Don't nations financially physically otherwise? Oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 14: I mean the Road Home is great at allocating resources.
Speaker 14: So if they just get enough money, I mean they're
Speaker 14: looking at raising you know, quite a bit, and they
Speaker 14: have that the total track too about how much they need,
Speaker 14: and then they are so good at getting people what
Speaker 14: they need, be at food, clothing, access to shelter, warming centers,
Speaker 14: anything like that.
Speaker 2: Right on, Well, Nick, thanks for stopping by. Man, really
Speaker 2: good to meet you.
Speaker 1: Come on by you You can donate in person. If
Speaker 1: you're looking to donate something physical. We are looking for hats, coats,
Speaker 1: new preferly gently used as well, gloves, socks, underwear, anything
Speaker 1: that will keep people warm this time of year at
Speaker 1: the Connie Crosby Family Resource Center, which is five twenty
Speaker 1: nine ninth seventy three hundred South in Midvale.
Speaker 2: Really easy to find. It's right off the exit. Put
Speaker 2: that address in your GPS.
Speaker 1: If you can't make it out, you can always call
Speaker 1: at eight oh one eight one nine seventy three hundred
Speaker 1: or online at the Road Home. All right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do a little sports court with our friends Handy and Handy.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do college football in the five o'clock hour.
Speaker 1: Dennis Hayespurt stops by very famous person who's in town
Speaker 1: for an event that we're gonna tell you about as
Speaker 1: we broadcast live from the Road Home on a Thursday
Speaker 1: edition of The Drive. Don't go anywhere, Happy Holidays, Keep
Speaker 1: it right here on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 15: All rus, it's time to check in with Preston Handy
Speaker 15: and Garrett Handy of Handy and Handy for sports courts.
Speaker 15: Handy and Handy are your accident and personal injury attorneys
Speaker 15: ready to assist with any related questions you may have.
Speaker 15: Visit them online at Handy Law Utah dot com. Big
Speaker 15: firm Experience, Small firm Attention. Now, let's get out to
Speaker 15: sports court on the Drive with Spence. Check its on
Speaker 15: Utah's number one sports Talk, ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 2: It is sports court time.
Speaker 1: We do it every Thursday right about now. We're the
Speaker 1: good friends Garrett and Pressed Handy from the law firm
Speaker 1: of Handy and Handy Gentlemen.
Speaker 2: Happy Thursday, Happy holidays.
Speaker 8: How we doing, Hey Spence, happy holidays.
Speaker 1: Great to spend time with you as we always do
Speaker 1: on this Thursday. And this story certainly caught my attention
Speaker 1: after it came out a lot of attention back in
Speaker 1: the day eighteen years ago on the Duke University lacrosse
Speaker 1: player scandal, and Crystal Mangum, who was the alleged victim
Speaker 1: back then, has come out eighteen years later admitted that
Speaker 1: she basically made the whole thing up.
Speaker 2: The time is yours. What should we know about this one?
Speaker 8: Yes, Spence.
Speaker 16: When this story hit this week, we thought, hey, this
Speaker 16: might be interesting to talk about more of not what's
Speaker 16: going on now, but more of a review of the
Speaker 16: legal issues of this. And as we know, this was
Speaker 16: a highly publicized case. It grows out of a incident
Speaker 16: where some Duke lacrosse players had a party shall we
Speaker 16: call it get together among the players and Crystal Mangum
Speaker 16: she was invited to come. She's an entertaining entertainer of sorts.
Speaker 16: Well after it, Ms Mangum went to the police and
Speaker 16: alleged that she had been assaulted and raped. Well, so
Speaker 16: what we have here as we have a situation of
Speaker 16: privileged white lacrosse players a African American woman at involved
Speaker 16: Duke University, which is one of the paragons of the
Speaker 16: privilege seen by a lot of people. It involved a
Speaker 16: politically motivated district attorney. The media caught wind of this
Speaker 16: was a firestorm. This is kind of a seminal case
Speaker 16: of where the medium media.
Speaker 8: Jumped on this.
Speaker 16: Duke University took action and these three players, who were
Speaker 16: captains of the team were all arrested and charged with rape,
Speaker 16: sexual assault, and kidnapping. Well, what happened after that was
Speaker 16: a firestorm. It ended up getting to the Attorney General
Speaker 16: of about a year later, gets the Attorney General of
Speaker 16: North Carolina and they come out with a statement that says, hey,
Speaker 16: there was insufficient evidence. I mean, there was no physical evidence.
Speaker 8: There was inconsistent.
Speaker 16: Statements across the board of what happened, a lot of testimony,
Speaker 16: no physical.
Speaker 8: Evidence, DNA evidence. And he came out and he said.
Speaker 16: We believe these cases were the result of.
Speaker 8: A tragic rush to accuse and a.
Speaker 16: Failure to verify serious allegations. And he says, based on this,
Speaker 16: we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges. Well,
Speaker 16: in the meantime, what these individuals did, these three guys, well,
Speaker 16: they lawyered up and they filed lawsuits against the County
Speaker 16: Attorney's office against Duke University, and it resulted in a
Speaker 16: settlement that was a confidential settlement.
Speaker 17: And as you.
Speaker 16: Mentioned, Spence, here we are what eighteen years later, and
Speaker 16: Crystal Mangam she comes out as a statement this week
Speaker 16: and it's all reported interviewed that she.
Speaker 8: In fact lied about these allegations.
Speaker 16: And so is there any legal thing going on now?
Speaker 16: I assume that if someone wanted to, they could. She
Speaker 16: probably falls into the category where she lied, and they
Speaker 16: could be charged with some type of providing false information.
Speaker 16: But guess what, Crystal Mangham, she's in prison right now
Speaker 16: for murder.
Speaker 1: Garrett, let's move it over to you. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget watching the press conference. You know, my little
Speaker 1: brother went to Duke, had a high school teammate who
Speaker 1: went to Duke, and the captain of the Duke lacrosse team,
Speaker 1: stepping up and saying, you've all been told some fantastic lies,
Speaker 1: and Garrett, eighteen years later, it appears that was the case.
Speaker 2: Your shot. You're turning to take a shot at this one.
Speaker 18: Yeah, absolutely, and we kind of knew that, right. But
Speaker 18: I think Crystal Mingham coming out now and making this
Speaker 18: statement really puts it to rest right what happened. But
Speaker 18: on that issue of her being charged with anything, I
Speaker 18: don't think it's going to happen. There's I think like
Speaker 18: a two year statue of limitations on like a perjury
Speaker 18: charge or something like that. So it's way beyond that.
Speaker 18: And like Preston said, already serving time. If you haven't
Speaker 18: seen the thirty for thirty espended on this, pretty good
Speaker 18: in all education, very very interesting, so crazy story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely worth your time. All right, let's move over
Speaker 2: to My.
Speaker 1: Guy Oak the latest Charles Oakley, Madison Square Garden. I
Speaker 1: thought we were done with this, but apparently this holiday
Speaker 1: season it's the gift that keeps on giving.
Speaker 2: What's the latest with my Guy Oak versus MSG.
Speaker 17: Yes.
Speaker 18: Speaking of legal sagas that never end, this is one
Speaker 18: of them. It's been going on. I cannot believe this,
Speaker 18: but it's been going.
Speaker 10: On for nine years.
Speaker 18: It was twenty seventeen when he got removed from his
Speaker 18: seat at Madison Square Garden and it just set off
Speaker 18: this whole case. And we've talked about it quite a
Speaker 18: bit on Sports Court. And part of the reason we're
Speaker 18: still talking about this case and it's still going on
Speaker 18: and why it's been so slow going to get to
Speaker 18: this point is the case has actually been dismissed twice
Speaker 18: and now reinstated twice buy an appeals court. So what's
Speaker 18: happening now and again why it feels like it's just
Speaker 18: barely getting going in reality is there's some motions over
Speaker 18: some discovery and so Bull.
Speaker 10: Sides Madison Square Garden and also Charles Oakley.
Speaker 18: They're trying to get information out of each other. Oakley
Speaker 18: wants he filed the motion. He wanted to take more
Speaker 18: than ten depositions. He wanted to compel Madison Square Garden
Speaker 18: to give up cell phone records of a bunch of employees.
Speaker 18: The judges denied those motions, and I thought it was
Speaker 18: kind of interesting. The judge kind of came out and I,
Speaker 18: you know, appreciate this in cases where the judge said, look,
Speaker 18: the facts are relatively simple we're talking about an assault
Speaker 18: and battery that happened on one night back in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 8: It's a single.
Speaker 18: Instance of this alleged assault. Can't we get this done
Speaker 18: in a more expeditious way? I mean, and it's rich
Speaker 18: coming after nine years, but I you know, it looks
Speaker 18: like the judges trying to push this case along.
Speaker 2: All right, Preston, you're up, buddy.
Speaker 8: Oh just quick.
Speaker 16: I'm glad Garrett unwrapped that. I mean, you know, Oakley,
Speaker 16: what does he want?
Speaker 8: My question?
Speaker 17: What?
Speaker 8: Nine years? What does he want?
Speaker 16: Dismissed twice, appealed it twice, he spent a lot of money.
Speaker 8: What does he want?
Speaker 2: Good question?
Speaker 1: Probably somehow some way either respect, money and combination of
Speaker 1: the two.
Speaker 2: But probably time to get it done. Probably time just
Speaker 2: to let it go away.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move over to a college football storyline.
Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin quote shakedown copyright lawsuit. Looks like Lane came
Speaker 1: out on the right side of this one. Fill us
Speaker 1: in what's going on here?
Speaker 17: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I love this one. And again this is a case
Speaker 8: where I think.
Speaker 16: A judge was very reasonable minded and he went right
Speaker 16: to the issue. Lane Kiffin came out with a post
Speaker 16: kind of a motivational post where he showed a photo
Speaker 16: copy of a guy, mister Bell, who is a motivational guy.
Speaker 16: He had a win passage, and mister Bell has copyrighted
Speaker 16: his win passage, which kind of more or less says
Speaker 16: that winning is highly unusual and requires extraordinary action and
Speaker 16: things that are seen in a lot.
Speaker 8: Of motivational speech. Well, what did he do?
Speaker 16: He sues Lane Kippen, saying, wait a minute, this win
Speaker 16: passage is mine. It's copyrighted, so guess what.
Speaker 8: You can't use it. It is copyright infringement, and you got.
Speaker 16: To pay me money. And the judge he finally came
Speaker 16: out and he said, this is a bunch of crap.
Speaker 8: He dismissed it. And I love some of the things
Speaker 8: the judge says.
Speaker 16: He says, mister Bill Bell, appearing to have exceedingly high
Speaker 16: opinion of his literally literary value of the win passage,
Speaker 16: this extraordinary assertion with which Shakespeare, Tolsoy, and Faulkner might
Speaker 16: take issue. And he says, you know, and you claiming
Speaker 16: that there's economic gain by Lane Kippen coming out, one
Speaker 16: of the things Bell said, he goes, no, Lane kipping,
Speaker 16: he used my win passage. He wanted economic game because
Speaker 16: of players out there saw this and saw how cool
Speaker 16: it was. They don't want to go play for Lane Kippen.
Speaker 16: And you know this guy, he's getting kicked out the
Speaker 16: throat and they mentioned he's had several lossuits. This guy
Speaker 16: is a chronic sewer of things like this and he's
Speaker 16: out on his butt now.
Speaker 2: All right, scare it. You're trying to take a crack
Speaker 2: at this one.
Speaker 18: Well, yeah, I mean and Lane, what Kevin did was
Speaker 18: he retweeted this quote, right, and then get sued for it.
Speaker 18: And that's something that happens all the time on social media, right,
Speaker 18: some inspirational quote or whatever, and this one happened to
Speaker 18: be copyrighted, and like Preston said, he's just sitting there
Speaker 18: on the lookout waiting for somebody to post it and
Speaker 18: then he.
Speaker 10: Files a lawsuit.
Speaker 18: So he's good to see that this case get dismissed.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I was glad to see the next one on the
Speaker 1: rundown because there's some local ties here. Jake Rhetz Laugh
Speaker 1: is a junior college transfer for Brigham Young with one
Speaker 1: year left to play. Maybe because Diego Pavi has been
Speaker 1: granted preliminary injunction against the NCAA, so he may be
Speaker 1: able to come back and play for Vanderbilt, even though
Speaker 1: technically he's out of eligibility. But he played his first
Speaker 1: couple of years in JUCO, and if he's able to
Speaker 1: do this, maybe other junior college's players are able to
Speaker 1: as well. I don't mean to explain all of it
Speaker 1: because you're the experts, but go ahead, what's what's going
Speaker 1: on here?
Speaker 18: No, that's that's exactly right, and I think it's setting
Speaker 18: a precedent for sure, and you have to start to
Speaker 18: wonder whether any n CUAA eligibility.
Speaker 10: Rules are going to have any meaning.
Speaker 18: So what happened with Diego Pavia? I mean, he spent
Speaker 18: two years at two different junior colleges and then was
Speaker 18: it New Mexico State, and then of course Vanderbilt and
Speaker 18: beat Alabama. And you know he'll go down in Vanderbilt
Speaker 18: lore for doing that. And well, he's like another bite
Speaker 18: at the apple. He'd like more eligibility, and all of
Speaker 18: a sudden, now as a rising star, wants to take
Speaker 18: advantage of some nil compensation that would be coming his way.
Speaker 18: And so that's what the lawsuit is about.
Speaker 10: That's been filed.
Speaker 17: But with this.
Speaker 18: Preliminary injunction that's been granted, what's going to happen is
Speaker 18: he's at least going to get it. He's going to
Speaker 18: get up play next year. His attorney said he's going
Speaker 18: to play it Vanderbilt. But yeah, it starts to wonder,
Speaker 18: now right, I mean, and I think it's a great
Speaker 18: point about retslof I mean, does he get additional time?
Speaker 18: And I think it's safe to say that this is
Speaker 18: the case to really keep a close eye on.
Speaker 2: All right, preston your turn, Bud.
Speaker 16: Yeah, you know, additional times important with the nil stuff
Speaker 16: going on, you know, I will throw a little twist
Speaker 16: on it.
Speaker 8: This is just a.
Speaker 16: Preliminary injunction which essentially enjoins the NTA from enforcing this
Speaker 16: rule and not allowing him another year. Too bad, it's
Speaker 16: not being the ruling wasn't made in August where he's playing,
Speaker 16: and he could be in there enjoined and he plays
Speaker 16: this whole season. There's a chance that they appill it
Speaker 16: and in the next eight months there may be.
Speaker 8: A switch with a judge, and who knows what's going
Speaker 8: to happen.
Speaker 16: But as for now, he's going to be a player
Speaker 16: on Vanderbilts team and earning a good chunk of nil money.
Speaker 1: As the steward and author of the sports Court bylaws,
Speaker 1: I am aware we're unable to have this second without
Speaker 1: talking about schools suing the NCAA or conferences. So we
Speaker 1: must move over now to Colorado State and Utah State
Speaker 1: suing the Mountain West over penalties for exiting the league.
Speaker 2: And going to the new PAC twelve. Gentlemen fill us in.
Speaker 16: Yes, Bence nil and conference ree alignment and transfer portal
Speaker 16: have given us a lot of material for sports Court,
Speaker 16: no doubt. And we saw this coming. The Utah State
Speaker 16: and a few other schools left, the left the Mountain West.
Speaker 16: They vowed not to Everyone got together and said we
Speaker 16: won't and when they jumped, what happened? The Mountain West said, well,
Speaker 16: guess what you owe some big transfer fees in the
Speaker 16: range of nineteen million to thirty eight million. So what's
Speaker 16: happened now? Utah State and Colorado State and I don't
Speaker 16: know why Boise State and a few of the other
Speaker 16: schools aren't joining on this, but they're certainly cheering them
Speaker 16: on why they're not playing the legal fees. Basically, what
Speaker 16: they're saying is the Mountain West that this is unforceable.
Speaker 16: They said, hey, you went behind closed doors with the
Speaker 16: other seven other schools and made this decision that these amounts.
Speaker 16: Commanies said, and really there's no legal basis for it,
Speaker 16: and there's no real formula or calculation. While you're coming up,
Speaker 16: it's really to punish us and to compensate the other
Speaker 16: schools who are sticking around. And the other schools, the
Speaker 16: seven schools essentially like UNLB Hawaii and few other schools,
Speaker 16: they've all said, hey, we are sticking around. We've signed
Speaker 16: this thing, wink wink until someone else comes calling for us.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 16: But yeah, they filed this suit because simply they don't
Speaker 16: think they should pay this money. And so we'll see
Speaker 16: what the response from the Mountain West is.
Speaker 2: All right, Garrett, your turn, bud Well.
Speaker 18: These conferences, I mean, they've they've got to have some
Speaker 18: idea of who's going to be in their conference over
Speaker 18: the long term so they can negotiate these TV contracts.
Speaker 18: I mean, we're all pretty familiar with that storyline and
Speaker 18: how that all plays out. I mean, I have to
Speaker 18: think that the Mountain West kind of has the upper
Speaker 18: hand here.
Speaker 10: I mean, these are.
Speaker 18: Super sophisticated institutions, you know, wide eyed entering into these
Speaker 18: contracts with the Mountain West over the long term, and
Speaker 18: of course, you know, things change, and they knew there
Speaker 18: would be consequences for leaving the conference. So I mean, obviously,
Speaker 18: I think at this point they just want to mitigate
Speaker 18: that damages on what's going to happen and see if
Speaker 18: they can cut a deal and save.
Speaker 10: A little money.
Speaker 1: All right, last one for this Thursday, the latest on
Speaker 1: the goat Michael Jordan. Preliminary injunction in the NASCAR case
Speaker 1: and right now his airness is on the right side
Speaker 1: of the early ruling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's going on here?
Speaker 8: Yeah, this is crazy, Spence.
Speaker 16: We talked about it last week as most recently as
Speaker 16: last week, be real quick. This grows out of claims
Speaker 16: of anti trust that Jordan, his two racing teams claim
Speaker 16: that unfair competition with NASCAR and as part of the
Speaker 16: charters that they have these franchises they have, and so
Speaker 16: they sued NASCAR and there's been a lot of back
Speaker 16: and forth. NASCAR tried to dismiss it. And here's the
Speaker 16: really interesting part. Michael Jordan's team they f for a
Speaker 16: preliminary junction which essentially would say, hey, we can keep
Speaker 16: our charter and continue to race in the twenty five
Speaker 16: season here, and you can't because we're in this legal mess.
Speaker 8: Can't stop us from doing it.
Speaker 16: Well, originally it was denied, and lucky to Jordan, guess
Speaker 16: what happened.
Speaker 8: They filed it again.
Speaker 16: And we got a new judge on hand, and the
Speaker 16: new judge decided, you know what, I think you have
Speaker 16: met the burdens showing that you're entitled to an injunction
Speaker 16: because you've shown that there would be irreparable harm.
Speaker 8: And economic damage.
Speaker 16: So right now he's on the right side of it.
Speaker 16: A new judge comes down off so what the other
Speaker 16: judge did, and Jordan's going to be racing this year
Speaker 16: his two teams.
Speaker 1: There you go, Garrett, final word is yours.
Speaker 11: Well, although the you know, as we've talked about, the
Speaker 11: prelimary injunction isn't the end of the case.
Speaker 18: It certainly sends a signal to NASCAR that the judges
Speaker 18: is you know, it looks like on Michael Jordan's side
Speaker 18: on this, and so I think it'll guide probably some
Speaker 18: future settlement negotiations or remediation. I mean, but we'll we'll
Speaker 18: let you know.
Speaker 2: All right, there you go before I say you loose.
Speaker 1: For any of our listeners who have legal questions this
Speaker 1: holiday season, how can they get hold of you over
Speaker 1: at Handy and Handy.
Speaker 16: Yes, Bence, we love coming on here with you and
Speaker 16: talk about these issues.
Speaker 10: But Andre and we'd help love to.
Speaker 16: Help anyone's been involved in an accident, help them through
Speaker 16: the process. Give us a holiday zero one two six
Speaker 16: four six six seven seven, or jump on our website
Speaker 16: at HANDYLAIU dot dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 1: I won't be able to speak to till after the holidays,
Speaker 1: so I just want to let you know how much
Speaker 1: I appreciate you too, your presence on the show, and
Speaker 1: if we can be better let us know.
Speaker 2: Happy holidays, guys, we chat soon.
Speaker 16: Okay, great, Thanks Bence, Happy holidays.
Speaker 1: Thank you all right, Garrett and Preston Handy from the
Speaker 1: law firm of Handy and Handy. It's time now for
Speaker 1: Ryan from the Dish pros save some money the holiday season.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't want to do that? Cable, wireless options, internet too.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is dial eight O one
Speaker 1: four two four Dish.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: It's a great time to take a look at your
Speaker 6: bills and see what you can save. And if you
Speaker 6: didn't notice, there's been.
Speaker 8: Some pretty good rate increases.
Speaker 6: I've seen almost all all the providers have slaps some
Speaker 6: some kind of rate increase, and guys, lots of them
Speaker 6: are you know, well past ten percent, more like twenty
Speaker 6: percent rate increase. And if you want to pay twenty
Speaker 6: percent more for the same old product or you want
Speaker 6: to upgrade, guys, it's not hard, it's easy. And the
Speaker 6: promotions we just throw in and give you a ton
Speaker 6: of stuff, plus you pay less money. This is such
Speaker 6: a cool opportunity. Call us up.
Speaker 10: Listen.
Speaker 6: If you didn't know YouTube TV did a massive rate increase,
Speaker 6: whether they did your cable company, well, that's just a
Speaker 6: constant a couple times a year, that thing just starts
Speaker 6: to bounce up. And also, you know direct TV and
Speaker 6: all the other streaming apps.
Speaker 10: You're just seen it pop up.
Speaker 17: And Fiber got.
Speaker 6: Twenty percent there all these rate increases. Right, Well, how
Speaker 6: about you call us and let us work our magic.
Speaker 6: I got a great promotion with Dish. It's the biggest
Speaker 6: fastest DVR out there, auto hoops commercials, guys, Dish has
Speaker 6: a ninety nine percent reliable guarantee. The product is fantastic
Speaker 6: because it no longer just relies on the satellite. It
Speaker 6: also you can get your channels through the internet, so
Speaker 6: the redundancy allows you to have access to your content
Speaker 6: no matter what, and that's way better than any other
Speaker 6: provider could offer. Calls up, you get movie channels, two
Speaker 6: years worth of credits. The price is guaranteed for two years,
Speaker 6: and then guys, Dishes updated their equipment. They has all
Speaker 6: the streaming apps available built into the system and we'll
Speaker 6: throw a Netflix free for the next two years. Guys,
Speaker 6: that's worth more than three hundred and seventy plus dollars.
Speaker 6: If you're not ingeted in that offer, I can hook
Speaker 6: you up for the two hundred dollars gift card. This
Speaker 6: is just free stuff money in your pocket. Plus, ask
Speaker 6: about the internet solutions we have out there. Fiber fifty
Speaker 6: bucks a month probably.
Speaker 10: Here's the thing.
Speaker 6: Your fiber bill went up twenty percent. I can lower
Speaker 6: it back down using the same fiber. You just pay
Speaker 6: your bill to a different company. That sounds crazy, but
Speaker 6: it's just that easy. Call us up, take advantage of that,
Speaker 6: or I've got a one off one offer where I
Speaker 6: can setch up with a free fifty inch TV and
Speaker 6: that internet is fifty.
Speaker 17: Bucks a month.
Speaker 6: So call us four to two four Dish upgrade, save money,
Speaker 6: lower your bill and to call it Now's run dinner
Speaker 6: at JCW. So call eight oh one four two four dish.
Speaker 6: That's four two four three four seven four.
Speaker 1: All right there he is Ryan from the Dish Pros.
Speaker 1: Coming up next. We have a celebrity on the show.
Speaker 1: Dennis Haysbert joins us. We're back to some college football
Speaker 1: after that. Second night at six on a Thursday, Live
Speaker 1: at the road Home. Keep it right here on the
Speaker 1: ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 11: Are the herld Angel scene Glory to the new bon King.
Speaker 1: All right, we're lave today out here at the road
Speaker 1: Home the Family Homeless Shelter.
Speaker 2: Come on by and say hi.
Speaker 1: We do it every year. This is my nineteenth year
Speaker 1: out here at the radio Thon. We're asking you to
Speaker 1: make a financial donation to help families in need this
Speaker 1: holiday season. At eight oh one, eight one nine seventy
Speaker 1: three hundred. You can go to the Roadhome dot org
Speaker 1: slash donate. Come on by in person at the Condie
Speaker 1: Crosby Family Resource Center at five twenty nine nine. Thats
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred south in Midvale, Utah.
Speaker 2: All right, really excited for this.
Speaker 1: The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Squarre is holding its annual
Speaker 1: Christmas Conscience this week with a very special guest who
Speaker 1: will serve.
Speaker 2: As the MC of the events.
Speaker 1: It's just a pleasure to have Dennis Haysburg on the
Speaker 1: show on a Thursday.
Speaker 2: Dennis, how are you, sir?
Speaker 17: I'm doing great. How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm well.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time I have to say, Hey, you're
Speaker 1: on a sports talk radio show. I am a sports
Speaker 1: talk radio host and a big sports fan. So I
Speaker 1: first became familiar with you, of course, with your role
Speaker 1: in Major League.
Speaker 2: Way back in the day.
Speaker 1: And I know that sports are a big part of
Speaker 1: your family and also you personally, as your brother Adam
Speaker 1: Haysberg played at Brigham Young a year ago, so excuse
Speaker 1: me back in the day. So I know that you're
Speaker 1: an actor known for a lot of things, but I
Speaker 1: actually want to know how what you know what role
Speaker 1: sport has played in your life?
Speaker 17: Dennis, Well, it is the sports I've always played a
Speaker 17: large role in my life because that's what I do
Speaker 17: to stay in shape. You know, I still play. I
Speaker 17: play a lot of golf. I used to play football, baseball,
Speaker 17: land track. I used to pin a little bit. Now
Speaker 17: my principle exercises of a lot of swimming, golf, and weightlifting.
Speaker 17: So I stay.
Speaker 7: I was stayed pretty busy, very nice.
Speaker 1: How did your brother Adam end up at Brigham Young
Speaker 1: back in the in the late eighties?
Speaker 17: Heany, you know, it's just like any kid, you know.
Speaker 17: You know, we grew up in Santa pel California. And
Speaker 17: then he wanted to get out of the house, and
Speaker 17: so YU came calling, and he thought it would be
Speaker 17: a very interesting challenge, which it was. And there you
Speaker 17: have it. It was there. I remember hearing the Pittsburgh
Speaker 17: game on the radio. I was working at the time.
Speaker 17: I was working on a movie. I can't even tell
Speaker 17: you what the movie was at this moment, how much
Speaker 17: you remember that?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 2: There you go?
Speaker 17: And and I was on set when I heard about
Speaker 17: the touchdown catch, you know, and I said, all right,
Speaker 17: that's it's my little bro. And I had no idea
Speaker 17: they were going to go on and in the National championship.
Speaker 2: That year an amazing year, for sure. I wonder from
Speaker 2: what I read about you.
Speaker 1: You were an athlete, as you referenced, and you had
Speaker 1: opportunities to maybe play sports collegiately, but.
Speaker 2: You elected to go the acting route.
Speaker 1: What kind of motivated you to do that as a
Speaker 1: young person, and did you foresee this unbelievable life you've built,
Speaker 1: you know what?
Speaker 17: In a strange way, Yes, I've always, like I said,
Speaker 17: I've always been an athlete. All my brothers were athletes.
Speaker 17: But I always loved movies and I knew when I
Speaker 17: was ten years old that I was going to be
Speaker 17: an actor. How I knew that, I don't know. God
Speaker 17: only know, but I knew. I felt it very strongly,
Speaker 17: and I knew it was something I was going to
Speaker 17: have to pursue.
Speaker 1: See, I find that so fascinating, And honestly, I'm in
Speaker 1: awe of courage like that and so be already reaps.
Speaker 2: Only God only knows. But did you.
Speaker 1: Always traverse through the space of the early days knowing
Speaker 1: that you were going to see it through to the
Speaker 1: other side to find all of this success because you've
Speaker 1: done so many incredible things.
Speaker 17: Oh, thank you. I really don't know what the question
Speaker 17: was in there.
Speaker 1: So I always find it fascinating because I think most
Speaker 1: people don't ever know what they want to be. And
Speaker 1: when I hear somebody new at the age of ten, like,
Speaker 1: did you always know? Because you chose a field that
Speaker 1: very few people find success in? So did you always
Speaker 1: have that confidence that if you kept going you were
Speaker 1: going to be very successful?
Speaker 2: At this?
Speaker 17: Oh? I knew, really, I mean because I can look
Speaker 17: back in retrospect and say, yeah, of course, But I
Speaker 17: really didn't. I just knew that I loved movies, and
Speaker 17: the movies that I love turned out to be classics,
Speaker 17: so I knew I had taste. How that was going
Speaker 17: to translate into working in film and television, I don't
Speaker 17: I really don't know. All I knew is that that's
Speaker 17: what I wanted to do. And I guess it was
Speaker 17: a kind of a manifestation, if you will, that I
Speaker 17: was able to do it, because I tell you, the
Speaker 17: only person I had that was really supporting what I
Speaker 17: was doing was my mother. And everybody else said, oh, no,
Speaker 17: you're too tall to be an actor, Oh you to this,
Speaker 17: to that, and I said, okay, we'll see.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, and you proved them all wrong.
Speaker 17: Yeah. I just started getting into theater. And I got
Speaker 17: into theater when I was in high school, you know,
Speaker 17: and it was. It was a blast, and all during
Speaker 17: the time I was being made fun of while I
Speaker 17: was playing football and said, what you're in a school play?
Speaker 17: What are you talking about? And then you're a football player.
Speaker 3: We'll see. Yeah.
Speaker 17: I'm also an actor, So if I if I got
Speaker 17: too much heat in practice, I would make sure that
Speaker 17: the whoever was doing all the jawing I remembered them
Speaker 17: in practice and make sure I give them an extra.
Speaker 3: Hit love it.
Speaker 2: I got to ask this question the.
Speaker 17: Reason I say that I was a defensive end.
Speaker 1: Oh, there we go. Well, you're six ' five. You
Speaker 1: certainly have the size for it. When, like I said,
Speaker 1: I first saw you, I probably watched Major Major League
Speaker 1: two hundred times. Did you have to work to learn
Speaker 1: because your swing looked so.
Speaker 2: Natural and you were an athlete?
Speaker 1: What was the process like to learn how to you know,
Speaker 1: you know, look like you were a major league baseball
Speaker 1: hitter in that.
Speaker 17: Movie I was, you know, Steve Jegert helped me a lot,
Speaker 17: But I've always been like I said, I played baseball.
Speaker 17: I played about little league baseball, Babe Ruth baseball. You know,
Speaker 17: I was a pitcher. I played, I played, I think.
Speaker 17: I played first base, right field, left field, and I
Speaker 17: called a little bit as well. So I love the sport.
Speaker 17: I think baseball is the perfect game.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, before I set you loose, I want
Speaker 1: to hear about your role as the narrator for this
Speaker 1: upcoming Christmas special that I've been to with my family
Speaker 1: hundreds of times. I'm excited to see you, But from
Speaker 1: my seat sports talk radio radio host, how do you
Speaker 1: give the voice?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: What do you do? What's the secret? How do you
Speaker 2: get that voice? I got to know.
Speaker 17: I tell you something. I got it from my father.
Speaker 17: My father had a dep voice and he used it
Speaker 17: to be a great disciplinarian. All my brothers have, you know,
Speaker 17: like the same kind of voice. But mine is just mine.
Speaker 17: Was weaned on a thirteen hundred theater. In high school,
Speaker 17: we had the district theater. Everybody in our district graduated from.
Speaker 17: So I got to at that back wall with my
Speaker 17: voice every play I did. So it was developed in
Speaker 17: a theater.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 1: All right, Tabernacle Choir, Temple Square, you will narrate the
Speaker 1: Christmas Concerts nineteenth twenty twenty. First, what would you like
Speaker 1: our listeners to know? And how did you get involved
Speaker 1: with this as well. I'd be curious because it's such
Speaker 1: a perfect fit.
Speaker 17: Well, they have a special guest who's coming in. I
Speaker 17: don't know how much of this is known, you know,
Speaker 17: so I don't know how much I can tell you.
Speaker 17: But I'm not just narrating. I'm actually recounting a real
Speaker 17: life story, and I'm telling the story to the audience,
Speaker 17: which I hope will have a very lasting effect.
Speaker 2: Very cool. Well, look, this has been a pleasure.
Speaker 17: I don't know how much more vague I can be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so, just so you know, Dennis, that's.
Speaker 17: To be a storyteller, and.
Speaker 2: I'm okay, I love it. So I have a press
Speaker 2: release in front of me.
Speaker 1: But because you're pump thinking, I'm pump thinking, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna give any more information out on there. But just
Speaker 1: just a pleasure. I've long been a fan, and I'll
Speaker 1: be there to see you. So best of luck, and
Speaker 1: thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 17: Oh well, what night are you coming? Because you should
Speaker 17: you should stop buying I should you know, at least
Speaker 17: see you and shake your hand.
Speaker 1: I'll be there tomorrow night. I would love to see
Speaker 1: you tomorrow night, for sure. I'd love to do that.
Speaker 17: Excellent, Thank you sir, all righty, thank all right.
Speaker 2: Dennis Haysbert.
Speaker 1: Uh, the press release I have says he is narrating
Speaker 1: the Christmas concerts. According to what he has to say,
Speaker 1: he will be much more involved than that. Uh, they
Speaker 1: start tonight and then it'll be tomorrow night, Saturday night
Speaker 1: at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. If you've
Speaker 1: never been, I mean, obviously, the Mormon Tabernacle choir is insane. No,
Speaker 1: it's just a tabernacle choir, now, my bad. And then
Speaker 1: Dennis Haysbert has one of the most powerful, unique voices out.
Speaker 1: If you don't know who Dennis is, you might know
Speaker 1: him from me league. He was Pedro Serrano. He was
Speaker 1: the dude who was doing all the voodoo and hitting
Speaker 1: a bunch of home runs. Probably most known for twenty
Speaker 1: four would be my guest. And then the All State guy,
Speaker 1: like if you know, when you hear that voice, you're
Speaker 1: think you're about to hear an All State commercial.
Speaker 2: But that was really cool. I've seen a ton of
Speaker 2: his movies.
Speaker 1: He's been in a bunch of things, a lot of
Speaker 1: TV shows as well. Like I said, twenty four may
Speaker 1: have been the television program to kind of put him
Speaker 1: on the map.
Speaker 2: He was on that for seven years.
Speaker 1: Justice League could keep going and then, yeah, the commercial
Speaker 1: stuff is what a lot of people know him for.
Speaker 1: As far as the All State commercials, he was the
Speaker 1: All State insurance guy for what like fifteen years, So
Speaker 1: appreciate his time. He will be in town. Is in
Speaker 1: town to narrate the tabernacle. Require Chris's program down to
Speaker 1: the conference center. All right, we'll catch a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're live today at the road Home asking for your
Speaker 1: financial donations at eight oh one eight one nine to
Speaker 1: seventy three hundred or online at the Roadhome dot org
Speaker 1: slash donate. You can come by in person if you
Speaker 1: want to donate gently used or new coats, hats, gloves, socks,
Speaker 1: anything to keep people warm this holiday season.
Speaker 2: They do a great job out here.
Speaker 1: This is my nineteenth year at the road Home Radio
Speaker 1: thon so number eighth one, eight one nine seventy three
Speaker 1: hundred the Roadhome dot org slash donate or the address
Speaker 1: to come by in person is five twenty nine ninth
Speaker 1: Avenue seventy three hundred south in mid Vale, Utah. All right,
Speaker 1: more coming up on the other side on a Thursday,
Speaker 1: Right here on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 2: All right special thanks to Dennis Haysburts stopping by.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be narrating the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Program in
Speaker 1: the Consent Conference Center. Got off to a rough star
Speaker 1: with that interview. Not gonna lie a little bit nervous.
Speaker 1: I've been watching that dude in movies and on TV
Speaker 1: for a long time and said like three things incorrect
Speaker 1: to start, but it was fun.
Speaker 2: Appreciate his time.
Speaker 1: Check him out at the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Program down
Speaker 1: to the Conference Center. We're live today at the road Home.
Speaker 1: We are asking you to donate if you can this
Speaker 1: time of year. If you're looking for something kind to
Speaker 1: do to the community, this is a great place to
Speaker 1: do it. The money goes where they say it's going
Speaker 1: to go. Some nonprofits can't say that, but helping families
Speaker 1: in need this holiday season. The phone number is eighth one,
Speaker 1: eight one nine seventy three hundred. Come by in person
Speaker 1: to donate new or gently used goods, namely coats and
Speaker 1: hats and gloves and socks and underwear at five twenty
Speaker 1: nine ninth AABS seventy three hundred South and Midvale. So
Speaker 1: come on buy and say hi. If you're in need
Speaker 1: of shelter tonight, you can call eight oh one nine
Speaker 1: nine zero nine nine nine nine and the team will
Speaker 1: direct you where you can get out of the cold.
Speaker 1: Gonna bring in Gordon Monson coming up in just a
Speaker 1: little bit, just to do some local college football in
Speaker 1: addition to some jazz and some NBA jazz. Are in
Speaker 1: action right now and they're actually ahead twelve nine.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned.
Speaker 1: NFL Week sixteen gets rolling with Thursday Night foot ball.
Speaker 1: Don't forget we are your home of the NFL in
Speaker 1: this market. So coming up in just under an hour
Speaker 1: from right now from Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, California, is
Speaker 1: where we'll find the Broncos and the Chargers. You can
Speaker 1: hear that game on this radio station. The Charger are
Speaker 1: a two point five point favorite. Utah Hockey Club picked
Speaker 1: up a win last night. They'll be back in action
Speaker 1: on Friday against Minnesota. So that's tomorrow tomorrow. Also, FAMU,
Speaker 1: the school who was here in Salt Lake, you'd kick
Speaker 1: their heads in a couple of nights ago. They're gonna
Speaker 1: be in pro vo to take on BYU. Utah is
Speaker 1: an action coming up against Iowa Big Ten opponent Saturday
Speaker 1: on the road at four o'clock and the women are
Speaker 1: gonna take on Arizona State. Patrick Mahomes has been cleared
Speaker 1: to start for the Texans, So little injury news if
Speaker 1: you're in your fantasy football playoffs coming up this weekend.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll catch quick Break live at the Road Home.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring in Gordon Monson coming up next right
Speaker 1: here on ESPN seven hundred. All right, final segment of
Speaker 1: the show today Live at the Road Home.
Speaker 2: We're back here tomorrow. Keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: It's always a two day situation and two of my
Speaker 1: favorite days all year.
Speaker 2: So if you did not have a chance to.
Speaker 1: Stop by, I want to give one of my listeners, Lewis,
Speaker 1: a shout out and just stop buy with a huge
Speaker 1: U haul full of gear. I mean, just the coolest
Speaker 1: thing and you always see it out here this time
Speaker 1: of year at the Road Home. So if you're not
Speaker 1: in a spot where you can donate financially, understandable people
Speaker 1: are on a budget, they're asking for physical donations as well,
Speaker 1: So new or gently used coats, hats, gloves, warm socks,
Speaker 1: things like that can be brought to the Connie Crosby
Speaker 1: Family Resource Center at five twenty nine ninth ABS seventy
Speaker 1: three hundred South in Midvale. That's where we're at today
Speaker 1: and we're going to be back here tomorrow. You're in
Speaker 1: a spot where you can donate a couple of bucks,
Speaker 1: five bucks, whatever it is. You can call eight oh
Speaker 1: one eight one nine seventy three hundred and you can
Speaker 1: also visit the roadhome dot org slash donate. So love
Speaker 1: being out here. Appreciate everybody you called, donated and stopped by.
Speaker 1: Before we say good night, I want to tell you
Speaker 1: about my friends at Prize Picks. You can make your
Speaker 1: holidays bigger and brighter with Prize Picks, the best place
Speaker 1: to get real money action while watching your favorite sports.
Speaker 1: With over ten million members and billions of dollars in
Speaker 1: awarded winnings, Prize Picks has made daily fantasy sports accessible
Speaker 1: to all.
Speaker 2: The app is very simple to use.
Speaker 1: You could pick two or more players across any sport
Speaker 1: and then pick more or less on their projection and
Speaker 1: you can win up to one hundred times your money.
Speaker 1: Now you can win up to one thousand times your money.
Speaker 1: Prize Picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app
Speaker 1: and it's available to play in more than forty states,
Speaker 1: including California and Texas, and of course here in Utah.
Speaker 1: Join now because the holiday season, Prize Picks is given
Speaker 1: away two free picks in December and they're giving away
Speaker 1: thirty million plus dollars in rewards during Picksmiths. You can
Speaker 1: download the Prize Picks up today. Use the promo code
Speaker 1: ESPN seven hundred. You get fifty dollars instantly when you
Speaker 1: play five dollars. That's promo code ESPN seven hundred on
Speaker 1: Prize Picks to get fifty dollars instantly. When you play
Speaker 1: five dollars, you don't even need to win and receive
Speaker 1: the fifty dollars bonus.
Speaker 2: It is guaranteed.
Speaker 1: Prize Picks run your game all season long. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up, it is Thursday Night Football. It's the Broncos
Speaker 1: taking on the Chargers at sofar in Inglewood. The Chargers
Speaker 1: are a slight favorite, a two point five point favorite,
Speaker 1: and that will kick off your Week sixteen a Pro
Speaker 1: football action. Don't forget we are your home of the
Speaker 1: NFL here in this market. Now tomorrow on the show,
Speaker 1: Jazz are playing tonight. We'll react to that of course,
Speaker 1: we'll react to Week sixteen, the opening night Thursday Night
Speaker 1: football in the NFL. We'll get you ready for the
Speaker 1: college football brackets. The CFP is now going to start
Speaker 1: to be unveiled with the first playoff game on Friday
Speaker 1: night between Notre Dame in Indiana. We're gonna be joined
Speaker 1: by ute great Eric Weddle, our Friday Staple, Chris com
Speaker 1: Ronnie BYU legend Blaine Fowler, Howard Beck, and Tony Jones
Speaker 1: for some NBA conversation as well, and that will do
Speaker 1: it for this Thursday Drive. We'll say a very special
Speaker 1: thank you to Gordon Monson, Craig Bowler, Jack Richard Smith,
Speaker 1: and the legendary Dennis Haysbert Man.
Speaker 2: That was cool for this sound you may have missed.
Speaker 1: Go to the website. It's ESPN seven hundred Sports dot com.
Speaker 1: Make sure to download our mobile app and take us
Speaker 1: on the go. It's the ESPN seven hundred app, available
Speaker 1: in the App Store or the Google Play Store. And finally,
Speaker 1: for what we do afternoons four hours every day, you
Speaker 1: can check out our podcast page which is called The
Speaker 1: Drive with Spence checkets that's available wherever you get your pots. Subscribe,
Speaker 1: rate review say nice things. Give us all the stars.
Speaker 1: It does help for Olivia, who's filling in for Porter.
Speaker 1: My name is Spence Checket, saying to night Thursday Night,
Speaker 1: football comes away coming up next to we will talk
Speaker 1: to you tomorrow or right here on ESPN seven hundred