Speaker 1: All right, let's get it.
Speaker 2: Drivetime Thursday afternoon, nine minutes past the hour of two o'clock.
Speaker 2: Our spring like week of weather continues today. Sunny, beautiful,
Speaker 2: fifty degrees here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, as
Speaker 2: we are preparing to say goodbye to February and good
Speaker 2: riddance in my humble opinion on the program Thursday afternoon,
Speaker 2: a lot to do, jam packed evening of basketball last night,
Speaker 2: both in the college ranks and.
Speaker 1: In the professional ranks.
Speaker 2: University of Utah took an l it's against Arizona down
Speaker 2: to McHale BYU was able to get it done against
Speaker 2: Arizona State. Tough loss for the Utah State Aggies and
Speaker 2: the Utah Jazz with a loss, but a historic night
Speaker 2: from one Walker Kessler. Get into it on the program today,
Speaker 2: talk some college basketball, talk, some NBA basketball, as we
Speaker 2: are high speed ahead to March and the madness is
Speaker 2: right around the corner. Utah Hockey Club is back in
Speaker 2: action tonight. Minnesota's in town, minnsot's a good team. Utah
Speaker 2: Hockey Club in n of points down the stretch and
Speaker 2: we are about one week away from the trade deadline
Speaker 2: in the National Hockey League. Bill Armstrong now friend of
Speaker 2: the program. We had Bill on this week. I asked
Speaker 2: him about the potential of making a move or a
Speaker 2: couple of moves potentially prior to that March seventh deadline,
Speaker 2: and Bill was very honest about how they are making
Speaker 2: their assessments and whether or not they need to do
Speaker 2: something prior to the trade deadline.
Speaker 1: It's a littify this roster for the stretch run.
Speaker 2: Utah Hockey Club finds themselves right in the mix for
Speaker 2: a wild card playoff spot, and all year long, that's
Speaker 2: what we've been talking about as far as the expectation
Speaker 2: for this team. Will they be able to finish it off,
Speaker 2: make the wildcard round, make the playoffs, and tell you what, man,
Speaker 2: if you've ever experienced Stanley Cup hockey hockey in the
Speaker 2: pro ranks, it's a lot of fun. Right now, the
Speaker 2: Utah Hockey Club finds themselves four points behind Vancouver. Colorado's
Speaker 2: been really good as of late. They're a full nine
Speaker 2: points behind the Avs, three points beyond the Calgary Flames,
Speaker 2: one point ahead of the Saint Louis Blue. So we'll
Speaker 2: do some hockey on the program, do a little NBA basketball,
Speaker 2: college basketball, in the program as well, and of course
Speaker 2: the Combine rolls on prior to the NFL Draft.
Speaker 1: We'll give you some storylines and the combine.
Speaker 2: A lot of players both locally and nationally participating in
Speaker 2: drills today and a lot of rumors about what could
Speaker 2: happen at the top of the draft. Junior Tafuna, Brandt
Speaker 2: Keithy and karn A Reeder are three University of Utah
Speaker 2: local reps. So we'll do some basketball on the program
Speaker 2: today as excuse me, some football on the program today
Speaker 2: in addition to the basketball stuff, of course the hockey stuff.
Speaker 1: Do a little RSL.
Speaker 2: RSL did RSL things last night and was ousted in
Speaker 2: the Cockycat champions Tournaments after making that tournament, making that
Speaker 2: kind of that situation for the first time in basically
Speaker 2: a decade or so. That run was very short lived
Speaker 2: as Aradiana from Costa Rica rolled into town and was
Speaker 2: able to get a couple of goals and beat RSL
Speaker 2: two to one. There is a striker on the way,
Speaker 2: so hopefully reinforcements. So three games for oursel this year
Speaker 2: in one goal so far, and that's what happens when
Speaker 2: you decide to move on from the majority of the
Speaker 2: players that were good and your attacking third.
Speaker 1: So we'll do a little soccer as well.
Speaker 2: We're jam packed on this Thursday afternoon here in downtown
Speaker 2: Salt Lake City, Utah. The hooligans are back outside. Wow,
Speaker 2: the skateboarding hooligans have return once again. It's becoming a
Speaker 2: theme here in downtown Salt Lake right outside of our
Speaker 2: Broadway Media studios. All right, Our first guest right out
Speaker 2: of the gates, Neil Smith from the NHL Wrap Around podcast,
Speaker 2: former general manager of the New York Rangers, high level
Speaker 2: scout for the Detroit Red Wings. Also Randy Islanders for
Speaker 2: a while. Neil's gonna stop by right out of the
Speaker 2: gates today. We'll do some basketball and some soccer with
Speaker 2: Andy Larson, some jazz and tomorrosl with Andy Larson from
Speaker 2: the Salt Lake Tribune. Tim McMahon stops by for your
Speaker 2: NBA daily assists, latest on the Utah Jazz, big picture
Speaker 2: NBA stuff. We'll get a little sports card in as
Speaker 2: well with our friends from Handy and Handy on this
Speaker 2: Thursday afternoon. Neil Smith, Andy Larson, Tim McMahon little sports
Speaker 2: court on a Thursday and me Spence Check. It's all
Speaker 2: of you, the great listeners Happy Thursday almost to that
Speaker 2: weekend right around the corner, and that guy Porter Larson
Speaker 2: on a Thursday afternoon, I might need you to run interference.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to ask you to maybe play a
Speaker 2: little security guard if we keep having these hooligans skateboarding
Speaker 2: outside of our studio.
Speaker 3: I'll do that, will, really, I'll go handle business.
Speaker 1: Will you pull a Karen un So you will?
Speaker 3: I mean, if I'm getting express written consent from my employer,
Speaker 3: I think we're I think we're good. I think we're covered.
Speaker 3: I'll kick some skaters.
Speaker 2: Asked, Well, I'm not the guy to give you the
Speaker 2: express written consent, so we're gonna have to run that
Speaker 2: up the pipeline, all right, James. But it's a new thing,
Speaker 2: you know, James or Steve can sign off and you
Speaker 2: can go take care of it outside.
Speaker 1: It's a new thing.
Speaker 2: Looks like they're creating content for potentially a YouTube channel.
Speaker 3: Because I'll give you some content.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the deal.
Speaker 2: You could go viral if you go out and start complaining,
Speaker 2: maybe go viral.
Speaker 1: Change your life, get hit with a skateboard.
Speaker 2: Maybe how much NFL combine do you find yourself consuming.
Speaker 3: I don't consume much of it. I follow a lot
Speaker 3: of it obviously, the numbers, the you know, checking in
Speaker 3: on results and whatnot. But having been there, done that,
Speaker 3: seen that stuff in, you know personally it's it's the
Speaker 3: same thing, and you're you're just there for the results,
Speaker 3: or you're there to get an interview, to get a
Speaker 3: talk one on one with a player where you can
Speaker 3: find something out about him that none of us are
Speaker 3: going to see on the cameras. And that's really what
Speaker 3: the NFL Combine is about. So well, I don't really
Speaker 3: follow it live too much, but I'll usually check in
Speaker 3: every few days and make sure we're up to date
Speaker 3: on the numbers.
Speaker 2: So as numbers kind of spill in, as it pertains
Speaker 2: to what our local guys are doing to the combine,
Speaker 2: will kind of give you it update, even though most
Speaker 2: of these things I don't know. Kind of silly, but
Speaker 2: a lot to do. On a Thursday, Neil Smith's gonna
Speaker 2: be our first guest. But on this Thursday afternoon, Curtis
Speaker 2: Art good for a prize picks. It is time now
Speaker 2: for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence. Check its on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one Sports Talk Now into the studios 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: Prize Picks. Use the code ESPN seven hundred and run
Speaker 4: your game with prize Picks.
Speaker 2: All right, sorry, jam pack night last night in the
Speaker 2: world of both local and college or excuse me, local
Speaker 2: and national college basketball, in addition to what's going on
Speaker 2: in the world of pro basketball with Utah Jazz and
Speaker 2: the NBA. So let's run down a couple of storylines
Speaker 2: last night. So, the Sacramento Kings were in town. They
Speaker 2: swept the Jazz this year. They won all four games
Speaker 2: against the Jazz this year, and ultimately it's not really
Speaker 2: germane to anything that's real. So it doesn't matter if
Speaker 2: the Jazz winner lose these games, or excuse me, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if the Jazz are losing all these games.
Speaker 1: We know what time it is, we know what the
Speaker 1: Jazz are trying to do.
Speaker 2: But when something happens that is of note hashtag take
Speaker 2: note see what I did that is actually real, it's
Speaker 2: important to kind of dig into what it could mean
Speaker 2: for the future of this basketball team. As the theme
Speaker 2: on our show when we cover the Utah Jazz is
Speaker 2: more of an eye to the future about what it
Speaker 2: will look like when they're actually good again, and it's
Speaker 2: more interesting to watch a team that's actually trying to win.
Speaker 2: This is a tough deal when it comes to the
Speaker 2: ecosystem of pro basketball. It's a really odd thing that
Speaker 2: there's a good portion of the league every single year
Speaker 2: where the fan base is encouraged to cheer for them
Speaker 2: to lose. Now, nobody says that out loud, right, but
Speaker 2: that is the business of basketball. That's the way the
Speaker 2: NBA ecosystem has kind of manifested itself over the years
Speaker 2: as the game has changed, as the players have grown.
Speaker 2: You could, I was gonna say evolved, but I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if that's the right term. It's a different day
Speaker 2: and age that we're not necessarily all that used to
Speaker 2: here in the market when it comes to the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 2: For a number of different years, we are used to
Speaker 2: having very good competitive teams, and the way that those
Speaker 2: teams were built by savvy roster constructors. It's kind of
Speaker 2: hard to do it that way anymore. With players' ability
Speaker 2: and willingness and desire to leave more often than we're
Speaker 2: accustomed to here in the market, right and we've experienced
Speaker 2: it a ton really, John and Carl kind of spoiled
Speaker 2: everybody for the better part of two decades. But you
Speaker 2: know the stuff with Darren got loose, he was traded,
Speaker 2: We know the deal with Hayward Donovan. In addition to
Speaker 2: go Bear like, a lot of these teams are really
Speaker 2: really good, were broken down or players just decided to bounce,
Speaker 2: and so it's a tough thing. And I keep drawing
Speaker 2: the parallel of this essentially being a project like building
Speaker 2: a home, where this is only the foundation. You can
Speaker 2: barely see anything above ground. Right now, yeahs are fourteen
Speaker 2: and forty four. They're the worst team of the Western Conference.
Speaker 2: They're the second worst team in Pro basketball. The Washington
Speaker 2: Wizards have that honor right now. And there's not going
Speaker 2: to be a lot of winning down the stretch, and
Speaker 2: there is going to be a lot of minutes available
Speaker 2: for young players. But what happened last night at the
Speaker 2: Delta Center, with the game that Walker Kessler had is
Speaker 2: important to kind of acknowledge as far as how historically
Speaker 2: special it was. There are two players in NBA history
Speaker 2: who did what Walker did last night. Those players in
Speaker 2: Nicola jokicch and Wilt Chamberlain. Walker Kestler in thirty four
Speaker 2: minutes was ten of ten from the floor. He made
Speaker 2: every single shot, mostly layups and dunks. He had fourteen boards,
Speaker 2: He had twenty five points. He had five assists, two steals,
Speaker 2: no block shots, which was odd, but two players in
Speaker 2: NBA history have had games where it had gone for
Speaker 2: at least twenty five points, at least fourteen rebounds, They've
Speaker 2: had at least five assists while making every shot they
Speaker 2: took from the floor with at least ten field goal attempts,
Speaker 2: and now Walker is on that list with Wil Chamberlain
Speaker 2: and Nicola Jokicch. He was five of seven from the line,
Speaker 2: so you'd love to see the improvement from the line.
Speaker 2: Didn't have any block shots officially, but changed a ton
Speaker 2: and was a menace in the paint. But my favorite
Speaker 2: part about what happened last night is that it was
Speaker 2: against Demo Sabonis. Okay, so Sabonis is is a three
Speaker 2: time All Star. You could have made the argument that
Speaker 2: he should have been an All Star this year, and
Speaker 2: oftentimes when Walker's had really good games this year, if
Speaker 2: we're honest, it's a bit. It's been against teams that
Speaker 2: don't have great bigs, and Walker should be out playing
Speaker 2: some of these bigs that he's going up against. But
Speaker 2: Demanas Sabonis has owned the Utah Jazz over the past
Speaker 2: four or five years, and Walker outplayed him by every
Speaker 2: measurable metric. And if you watch the game, soa Bonus
Speaker 2: looked frustrated because Walker was doing everything that Will has
Speaker 2: asked him to do. It was kind of a rows
Speaker 2: on top of this thing, right, because Walker's been good
Speaker 2: all year long, and last night, I think was a
Speaker 2: game that got Walker a lot of national attention as
Speaker 2: a result of it being historic and a lot of
Speaker 2: people talking about it as far as what Walker was
Speaker 2: able to do. Now, of course it came in a
Speaker 2: losing effort, but if you guys listen to this show,
Speaker 2: you know that I'm on board with this endeavor to
Speaker 2: lose because that's the necessity. Even though it's really weird
Speaker 2: to ask your fan base to cheer for losses. It's
Speaker 2: counterintuitive to what we do and who we are as
Speaker 2: sports fans.
Speaker 1: Actually want your team to lose.
Speaker 2: I hope at some point the NBA finds their way
Speaker 2: out of this where, like I said, every single year,
Speaker 2: like a third of the league isn't even trying because
Speaker 2: what it does is it dilutes some of the greatness
Speaker 2: at the top. So Cleveland and Oklahoma City are both
Speaker 2: on pace to win more than seventy games this year.
Speaker 2: That's never happened in pro basketball. But when you look
Speaker 2: at the landscape of the league, we have elite teams
Speaker 2: at the top, but it's hard to tell just how
Speaker 2: elite they are because the Jazz, the Pelicans, now the
Speaker 2: Spurs they've joined in. Speaking of the Spurs, they've lost
Speaker 2: four straight games. Greg Popovich addressed his team last night
Speaker 2: and said he is not coming back. The Blazers have
Speaker 2: actually put some things together. But in the West, you
Speaker 2: at least have three or four teams that are completely
Speaker 2: unserious about winning. And in the East it's kind of
Speaker 2: the same deal, and you have other teams that have
Speaker 2: joined the fray. Like, what does Philly do at this point?
Speaker 2: My guess is they probably just allow mb to have surgery.
Speaker 2: They've lost nine straight games. Paul George cannot look less
Speaker 2: interested in playing basketball. But Washington unserious, Charlotte unserious, Toronto unserious,
Speaker 2: Philly now has joined that mix, and Brooklyn is also
Speaker 2: in the same spot where they're just simply not trying
Speaker 2: to win. Now, occasionally teams will rise up and start
Speaker 2: playing a little bit better here or there. I don't
Speaker 2: know what to make of the heat. What are they doing?
Speaker 2: Are they trying to get in the lottery sweepstakes? But
Speaker 2: you have basically a third of the league unseious about winning,
Speaker 2: and what it does is it makes it really hard
Speaker 2: to analyze just how good the top of the league is,
Speaker 2: Like is Oklahoma City, is the Cleveland Cavaliers? Are they
Speaker 2: really historically special or are they just essentially capitalizing on
Speaker 2: the modern landscape of pro basketball where a lot of
Speaker 2: teams aren't even trying to win, right? And so when
Speaker 2: it comes to what the Jazz are trying to do,
Speaker 2: the only way to kind of cover this thing that
Speaker 2: makes sense in my mind is to analyze who could
Speaker 2: be around when they're good again, and then talk about
Speaker 2: when certain moments manifests that are pretty exciting with the
Speaker 2: young players. Moment that manifested for Walker Kesher last night
Speaker 2: at the Delta Center was really cool, really happy for
Speaker 2: him because he's had a great year and he's answered
Speaker 2: a lot of questions after a down year when it
Speaker 2: comes to what he did during his sophomore campaign. All Right,
Speaker 2: So University of Utah was at McHale last night, and
Speaker 2: you know, this is a tough place to play. It's
Speaker 2: a really difficult, difficult venue. But it's also a really,
Speaker 2: really good basketball team. And of course, the storyline surrounding
Speaker 2: Utah basketball isn't one game against Arizona. It's the situation
Speaker 2: with Craig Smith, who has been let go from his
Speaker 2: job as the head coach of the University of Utah
Speaker 2: men's basketball team. So this was the first team, first
Speaker 2: time we saw that team without Craig, and you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of drew the parallel yesterday. This feels a
Speaker 2: little bit like the Mike Bajakian stuff when Mike Baijakian
Speaker 2: took over for coach Lud and Mike was very honest
Speaker 2: during his first media availability, essentially said, look, this is
Speaker 2: this is Andy system, this is coach Luedwig system. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to come in and try to change everything.
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, what exactly was Mike supposed to
Speaker 2: find the coach lud could not find? And it feels
Speaker 2: kind of the same thing with coach Eiler right now
Speaker 2: as the interim head coach, and of course he's hearing
Speaker 2: all the rumors about Alex Jensen and whether or not
Speaker 2: ultimately he even has a chance to get this job.
Speaker 2: I don't think that he does, but that's just me.
Speaker 2: I could be wrong. Arizona won the game eighty three
Speaker 2: to sixty six. A couple of takeaways, it looks like
Speaker 2: maybe coach Eiler, Josh Eiler, is a little bit higher
Speaker 2: on Keana Daz than maybe Craig was. Keana got a
Speaker 2: lot of minutes, and he was the one ut that
Speaker 2: looked like he belonged athletically. He had eighteen points, he
Speaker 2: had ten boards, He was six of eight from the floor,
Speaker 2: hit all five of his three free throws. You know,
Speaker 2: Gabe couldn't really get any space. He was two of ten.
Speaker 2: Ezra just struggles against teams with length because while he
Speaker 2: is very savvy and crafty with great footwork and can
Speaker 2: finish with both hands, he's just not very tall and
Speaker 2: so when you run into players that are just simply
Speaker 2: longer than you, as was going to struggle. That's why
Speaker 2: I don't think he's an NBA guy. But really cool
Speaker 2: scene after the game and we'll play this sound a
Speaker 2: little bit later on before we get out of here.
Speaker 2: If you miss Tommy Lloyd on Craig Smith's sons showing up,
Speaker 2: and if you didn't know, Craig's oldest son, Landon is
Speaker 2: the team director of operations and his middle son, Brady
Speaker 2: is currently a walk on for the Utes. His youngest son, Carson,
Speaker 2: is at North Dakota State. Carson played basketball for Mike
Speaker 2: Maxwell at Bountiful, so got.
Speaker 1: To know him a little bit.
Speaker 2: But it was a really, really cool moment because if
Speaker 2: you have been listening to the show as far as
Speaker 2: how we've handled the news that Craig has been let
Speaker 2: go from his job, I really when it comes to
Speaker 2: stuff like this, I try very hard, even though you
Speaker 2: as the listener and you as a Utah basketball fan,
Speaker 2: you're your interest is simply what's next for the program
Speaker 2: I care about, and who's going to be the coach
Speaker 2: and is it the right hire? And I get that,
Speaker 2: and obviously that'll be the bulk of the coverage, but
Speaker 2: there is a human side of this stuff that we
Speaker 2: just don't do a good enough job covering in the
Speaker 2: media in my opinion, and Craig and his wife you know,
Speaker 2: of course the five million dollars parachute helps out. But
Speaker 2: these are good people, right and their kids, their children
Speaker 2: are going to be affected. But what Tommy Lloyd had
Speaker 2: to say about Craig's kids showing up last night is
Speaker 2: worth your time.
Speaker 1: He got emotional, I mean he was.
Speaker 2: He had to compose himself as after they found out
Speaker 2: their father lost his job. Landon still still have a
Speaker 2: job to do. You're the director of operations, Brady. You
Speaker 2: got to show up. You're a walk on with the utes,
Speaker 2: you know. So they showed up, they did their job
Speaker 2: and I'm sure there you know, there was a lump
Speaker 2: in their throat probably all week long. So that to
Speaker 2: me was the coolest moment last night. What Tommy Lloyd
Speaker 2: had to say about Craig's kids showing up.
Speaker 1: We'll play that sound for you a little bit later on.
Speaker 2: BYU was able to get a win last night against
Speaker 2: Arizona State. Arizona State had five scholarship players available. They
Speaker 2: only had eight players dressed on the bench, and essentially
Speaker 2: they were short handed, but BYU could not miss. They
Speaker 2: had seventeen threes, they had twenty one assists, and Richie
Speaker 2: Saunders continues to play his way into consideration for probably
Speaker 2: first team All Big Twelve. Quite frankly, twenty six points
Speaker 2: for Richie, had six threes, trevennel five of six from three.
Speaker 2: They went seventeen or thirty four as a team from three.
Speaker 2: You're gonna beat everybody if you do that. So BYU
Speaker 2: was able to get the win. They've won five straight
Speaker 2: games now. They've gone three straight games with ninety plus points,
Speaker 2: with more than twelve three point shots, made less than
Speaker 2: twelve turnovers, while shooting fifty percent from the floor. You
Speaker 2: know when the last time that has happened. Not this century,
Speaker 2: It's been that long. So BYU is playing really good basketball.
Speaker 2: Utah stay with a tough loss against Boise State. With
Speaker 2: that loss, according to Joe Lonardi, has to remove Utah
Speaker 2: State from the quote lock line on his bracketology. So
Speaker 2: a lot of basketball last night, fun basketball night last night.
Speaker 2: Jazz are off tonight. We'll get to what's next as
Speaker 2: far as the game's coming up. Of course, we are
Speaker 2: going to do a little hockey on the program because
Speaker 2: the Utah Hockey Club is in action tonight, so we'll
Speaker 2: catch a quick break on this Thursday afternoon. We'll bring
Speaker 2: a Neil Smith come out up on the other side.
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Speaker 2: need to win your bet. After a very busy, busy
Speaker 2: night last night in the world of college and pro basketball,
Speaker 2: locally kind of quiet tonight, but we do have a
Speaker 2: hockey game and it is a big one. Bill Armstrong
Speaker 2: joined the program this week and essentially said, we've got
Speaker 2: twenty three game sevens left. Try to qualify for the postseason.
Speaker 2: The stretch run is on our Next guest joins us
Speaker 2: on a weekly basis to educate us on the world
Speaker 2: of pro hockey, Neil Smith on a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Neil Happy, So Thursday, sir, how are you.
Speaker 5: I'm good things Spence House, things out there.
Speaker 1: Things are good. Things are good. This little hockey club
Speaker 1: is making some noise, you know.
Speaker 2: And by the way I buried the lead, you should
Speaker 2: know that Bill Armstrong just had the kindest things to
Speaker 2: say about you when he joined us this week. When
Speaker 2: I told him that you stopped by on a weekly basis,
Speaker 2: he was very effusive with his praise and said he'd
Speaker 2: looked up to you quite a bit when you were
Speaker 2: doing your thing back in the day.
Speaker 1: I thought you'd like to.
Speaker 5: Know that well, that's very kind of him. I'm not
Speaker 5: sure if we've met personally or you know, everybody in
Speaker 5: hockey knows each other in some way, shape or form,
Speaker 5: but no, I admire that job that he's done with
Speaker 5: Arizona and now with Utah. Soho, it's nice. It's always
Speaker 5: nice to hear something nicely said about you, isn't it?
Speaker 1: For sure? For sure?
Speaker 2: And this club, you know, as of Laid, we've got
Speaker 2: five and two in the last seven, three and one
Speaker 2: in the last four. And Neil, I'll give you the credit, man,
Speaker 2: they're right where you said they would be. But you know,
Speaker 2: as you've kind of watched them and study them, what
Speaker 2: what do you think is clicked as of Laid that's
Speaker 2: allowed them to kind of run off this five wins
Speaker 2: in seven games stretch or is it just kind of
Speaker 2: getting healthy and kind of you know, just jelling at
Speaker 2: the right time.
Speaker 5: Well, the one thing that I think with this team
Speaker 5: is that they've gotten as they've gotten older, as the
Speaker 5: season's gone on, as we all have. But as they've
Speaker 5: matured as a team, they're a lot more disciplined than
Speaker 5: they were at the beginning of the season. Do you
Speaker 5: remember how we talked about early in the year, but
Speaker 5: they were taking undisciplined penalties, and they were blowing leads
Speaker 5: and and things like this. What I think now is
Speaker 5: that they're much more disciplined team coming down the stretch,
Speaker 5: and that's a credit to the coach that's then the
Speaker 5: coaching staff that's gotten them to that point where we
Speaker 5: know they're a young team, but they're staying more disciplined,
Speaker 5: I think than they were earlier.
Speaker 2: So Bill was very honest when I asked him about
Speaker 2: the trade deadline, which is just about a week away,
Speaker 2: and he essentially said that, yes, there are deals out
Speaker 2: there that he's having discussions about, and we don't know
Speaker 2: if they're going to do anything. One thing that he
Speaker 2: certainly said that stood out to me is they will
Speaker 2: not be in the market for a rental, right, So
Speaker 2: meaning even though they're close to the wildcard, they're not
Speaker 2: going to sacrifice this long term plan in the name
Speaker 2: of bringing in a player just to get them into
Speaker 2: the wild card this year. But as a guy that's
Speaker 2: been in the rooms where it happens, right, tell us
Speaker 2: kind of what you believe the conversations are right now
Speaker 2: with Utah Hockey Club. Is they weigh out the pros
Speaker 2: and cons of either making a move or standing pat.
Speaker 5: I think probably the GMS are calling, uh, Bill and saying,
Speaker 5: you know, what are you going to do? Are you
Speaker 5: going to trade some of your older guys or one
Speaker 5: of your older guys and build up some chips for
Speaker 5: later down the road, or are you going to be
Speaker 5: looking to do nothing and just stay pat and see
Speaker 5: what happens, or are you gonna I would doubt very
Speaker 5: much that Bill would want to bring in a player
Speaker 5: at this point. That would be silly because even if
Speaker 5: you can make the playoffs and last one round and
Speaker 5: you've lost the drastick or a young player, it's just
Speaker 5: not worth it. So yeah, I would I would say
Speaker 5: that there's calls coming in for his guys, for his
Speaker 5: you know, for his guys is unrestricted at the end
Speaker 5: of the year.
Speaker 2: We've talked quite a bit about the goalie situation because
Speaker 2: I do find it pretty interesting where Connor Ingram was
Speaker 2: the dude last year, the first choice goalie last year,
Speaker 2: and then started the season as the first choice goalie,
Speaker 2: didn't work out great and then he got hurt. And
Speaker 2: I think I read that Vimalica has now started three
Speaker 2: straight games. That's the first time that either of the
Speaker 2: two have had three straight starts ever since they went
Speaker 2: to the back and forth dynamic. Does it feel like
Speaker 2: Vimeilica is kind of locked in that first choice goalie
Speaker 2: spot at this point?
Speaker 5: I think so. That's what I think that he has,
Speaker 5: and that's credit to him. And unfortunately, you know, he
Speaker 5: has played really well, and his partner there, Connor Ingram,
Speaker 5: who was slated to be number one, as you said,
Speaker 5: hasn't played as well. So now you've got a situation
Speaker 5: where I think that the Milka is the go to
Speaker 5: guy from my advantage point.
Speaker 2: All right, before we get to tonight, because Minnesota is
Speaker 2: in town and that's a good team, I want to
Speaker 2: do a little exercise here where we find ourselves with
Speaker 2: the Utah Hockey Club on sixty one points, three point
Speaker 2: shy of Calgary, four point shy of Vancouver, nine shy
Speaker 2: of Colorado.
Speaker 1: Only one ahead of Saint Louis.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk about the teams that they're
Speaker 2: kind of existing with right now in this ecosystem and
Speaker 2: whether or not you think that the Utah Hockey Club
Speaker 2: can rise up and maybe get enough points to pass them.
Speaker 1: But let's start with a team that's right behind them.
Speaker 2: One point behind Utah is Saint Louis and they've just
Speaker 2: kind of been okay all year. And you look at
Speaker 2: the home record, the road record the last ten and
Speaker 2: if you stretch it back even to the last twenty,
Speaker 2: it's about a five hundred club. But they're on Utah
Speaker 2: Hockey Club's heels. Is this a team you think that
Speaker 2: the hockey club needs to be concerned about when it
Speaker 2: comes to the wildcard race.
Speaker 5: I think they've got to be concerned about everybody, but
Speaker 5: they've got to concentrate mostly on just winning their own
Speaker 5: games and not watching the scoreboard, the other town scoreboard,
Speaker 5: because if you start doing that, you'll throw you off
Speaker 5: of what you're doing from day to day. I think
Speaker 5: Saint Louis is a team that I don't see making it,
Speaker 5: and I know that their plan is Doug Armstrong his
Speaker 5: plan to have a really good team in a couple
Speaker 5: of years from now. So he's not going to do
Speaker 5: anything to try to bolster's team to get into the
Speaker 5: playoffs this year. He's going to be like just like
Speaker 5: Bill Armstrong. I think that he's going to ride it
Speaker 5: out and if they're not able to make it, well,
Speaker 5: they're still they're closer to being what they want to
Speaker 5: be than they were a year ago. So I don't
Speaker 5: think that they're a team. I don't want to say
Speaker 5: they're a team you don't worry about. You got to
Speaker 5: worry about everybody. But it'll take a winning streak and
Speaker 5: a little bit of a collapse for Utah to get in.
Speaker 5: And what I mean by a little bit of a collapse,
Speaker 5: you know, if Calgary's winning right now, Vancouver's you know,
Speaker 5: sort of win one lose one type thing, one of
Speaker 5: those two teams has got to sort of start to fall.
Speaker 5: And at the same time, Utah has got to win,
Speaker 5: win their games, especially especially their games against Vancouver, Calgary,
Speaker 5: Saint Louis Anaheim, those teams that are clumped in there
Speaker 5: with them trying to get into those wild card positions
Speaker 5: of the two.
Speaker 1: I'll ask the question this way.
Speaker 2: So Calgary has a three point lead on Utah Hockey Club,
Speaker 2: but they also have two games in hand. They played
Speaker 2: fifty seven games, Utah has played fifty nine. Vancouver has
Speaker 2: a four point lead with one game in hand. They've
Speaker 2: played fifty eight. Utah's played fifty nine of those two
Speaker 2: Vancouver or Calgary who do you think is more likely
Speaker 2: to kind of fall for the hockey club to take
Speaker 2: advantage of.
Speaker 5: You know, I think I would say Calgary. They weren't
Speaker 5: even thought of to be They were thought of to
Speaker 5: be in a total rebuild this year. But they started
Speaker 5: off the year really well and they've done a cove
Speaker 5: accomplished this year is really good. Vancouver is an anomably
Speaker 5: because they won their division last year. They were supposed
Speaker 5: to be again really better this year. They've had some
Speaker 5: internal problems. They ended up trading JT. Miller away to
Speaker 5: solve their locker room problems. You know, be either one.
Speaker 5: Quinn Hughes's health is in question. He's a He's their
Speaker 5: best defenseman, maybe their best player Norris Trophy last season.
Speaker 5: He just came back into the lineup yesterday. They had
Speaker 5: a big win after being down to nothing. They beat
Speaker 5: Los Angeles Kings and in overtime, So that that's big
Speaker 5: for them. Anytime you know you can get those two
Speaker 5: points and not just get one, you're better off. Let
Speaker 5: me mention one other thing is that when Utah plays
Speaker 5: these teams like Calgary, Light Bank, whover like Saint Louis,
Speaker 5: they got to make sure they win in regulation and
Speaker 5: not let that team even get a point because it's
Speaker 5: a slow slog. If teams around you were always getting
Speaker 5: a point in every game, you want to make it
Speaker 5: so that they don't get anything and you get two.
Speaker 5: And I know that's hard to do, but that's that
Speaker 5: should be the goal.
Speaker 2: I'll ask you about two more teams kind of in
Speaker 2: this area, because both the Avs and the Kings are
Speaker 2: on seventy. Now that's a that's a tough fast because
Speaker 2: that's a nine point gap with about twenty two to
Speaker 2: twenty three games left, depending on who we're talking about.
Speaker 2: But give me your thoughts on where we find ourselves
Speaker 2: with the Avalanche and the Kings, and you think either
Speaker 2: of those two might come back down to earth a
Speaker 2: little bit for any of the teams behind them to
Speaker 2: catch them in either the wild card or in the
Speaker 2: in the divisional race.
Speaker 5: My honest opinion is that the top seven are locked
Speaker 5: in Okay, and that at Colorado is there are just
Speaker 5: a couple of years from a Stanley Cup. LA Kings
Speaker 5: have had a real good season. I don't see them
Speaker 5: slowing down. I really don't see anybody coming back in
Speaker 5: that in this mix, even Minnesota wild who I know
Speaker 5: is there tonight in Utah. The only thing I can
Speaker 5: say is that Utah's got to jump over Calgary and Vancouvery.
Speaker 5: Those are the two that you mentioned, and you're right on.
Speaker 5: They got to They got to jump over those two.
Speaker 5: The one good thing, by the way, is the home
Speaker 5: record is getting better. They you know, they won their
Speaker 5: what was it they won their last home games, which
Speaker 5: was which was really good? Where was I had that
Speaker 5: up there? But anyway, that didn't they just win Yeah,
Speaker 5: their last ye they've.
Speaker 2: They've won three straight. If we go back to the
Speaker 2: Flyers game, they've won three straight.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, which is great because you know, you need
Speaker 5: to get that home record better. Not to say that
Speaker 5: you can afford to lose on the road. You can't.
Speaker 5: It was a huge win against Washington. I listened to
Speaker 5: that game that was on Super Bowl Sunday. They played Washington.
Speaker 5: They ended up winning in a shootout. They should have
Speaker 5: won during regulation. But the Caps are a great team.
Speaker 5: But that was a big win and a big shot
Speaker 5: of confidence for those young guys to beat the best
Speaker 5: team in the league, Winnipeg and Washington. As we've talked about,
Speaker 5: best in the East. Is Washington best in the West
Speaker 5: is Winnipeg. That that was that was big. And they
Speaker 5: didn't embarrass themselves in l A either. The following you know,
Speaker 5: the following Saturday, they played pretty well, and you know,
Speaker 5: they won two games that they had to win. They
Speaker 5: beat Vancouver, they beat Chicago. If they can win tonight,
Speaker 5: it's great. They just got to keep it going. And
Speaker 5: Minnesota's banged up, so this may be an opportunity.
Speaker 2: So that's where I wanted to go next. You referenced
Speaker 2: Minnesota coming in with some injuries. They're on seventy two points,
Speaker 2: and as you reference, and you're probably right if you
Speaker 2: just do simple math, it feels like the top seven
Speaker 2: locked in. But tell us about this wild team. What
Speaker 2: is the U Talkie Club up against tonight.
Speaker 5: Well, they're very good defensive team and they can shut
Speaker 5: you down and they've got some great offensive weapons. But
Speaker 5: they have had injuries, and Capriso is injured. He's not
Speaker 5: he hasn't been playing for a while now. He was
Speaker 5: an MVP candidate, So that's that's a tough break for Minnesota,
Speaker 5: who's so good defensively, and then had that sniper as
Speaker 5: well to use in the games and was really playing
Speaker 5: well this season. Minnesota, as I said, is if they're
Speaker 5: well coached, there they've got they can shut you down. Now,
Speaker 5: it's going to be hard because Utah's a pretty good
Speaker 5: scoring team. They've got a lot of weapons at their disposal.
Speaker 5: But as I said, they've got Caprice off is out
Speaker 5: and Joel ericson Eck is also out, and Brian Hartman
Speaker 5: is suspended from something he did a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 5: So you know what, Utah's got an opportunity here and
Speaker 5: they got to take advantage of it.
Speaker 2: All right, So let's just talk big picture now, trade
Speaker 2: deadline stuff. On January the thirty first, the league and
Speaker 2: the NHLPA announced an agreement to create what's called increased predictability.
Speaker 2: I've never heard that before about the salary cap over
Speaker 2: the next three seasons. They're looking for a new collective
Speaker 2: bargaining agreement, which expires after twenty five to twenty six.
Speaker 1: So the CAP's going up. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: of this has.
Speaker 2: To do with the recent buzz created by four nations,
Speaker 2: but ninety five point five next year, then it's one
Speaker 2: oh four and then one thirteen point five. These are predictions,
Speaker 2: not set in Stone. So do you think the new
Speaker 2: numbers are going to motivate you know, executives, guys that
Speaker 2: did the job you did once upon a time to
Speaker 2: make more moves prior to the March seventh deadline. And
Speaker 2: if so, which teams and players do you think could
Speaker 2: be involved.
Speaker 5: I don't know that that that uh predicting that the
Speaker 5: cap going up is going to unpact the trade deadline.
Speaker 5: I think that that's going to impact the free agency
Speaker 5: that they in the summer when they depend upon the
Speaker 5: cap going up so they can give a longer term
Speaker 5: deal or a deal with more money in it than
Speaker 5: perhaps is reasonable if the cap doesn't go up. But
Speaker 5: I would say for Utah, I would I would look
Speaker 5: at these guys to perhaps be moved because they're unrestricted.
Speaker 5: And that's Alex Kerfoot, Nick Bukstad who's been around a while.
Speaker 5: He's thirty two, but he's he would be a good,
Speaker 5: you know, centerment on any playoff team. Car Cone is,
Speaker 5: you know, maybe a fourth line center. He's a he's
Speaker 5: a total free agent. And then a couple of guys
Speaker 5: that have been around a while, Ian Cole who's also
Speaker 5: one of Stanley Cup and Oly Matta. Both of these
Speaker 5: guys are free agents. So what's gonna happen is Bill
Speaker 5: Armstrong's going to say at the trade deadline, if I
Speaker 5: can get something for Cole or Mada or Bukestat or
Speaker 5: somebody else, that I got to do it, because I
Speaker 5: may get nothing for them as they walk away in
Speaker 5: the summer. So if he doesn't feel that he can sign,
Speaker 5: for example, Kerfoot, he doesn't feel that's going the right way,
Speaker 5: you might see him move Kerfoot to get something so
Speaker 5: that he doesn't lose him for nothing when the summer comes.
Speaker 2: So as far as the teams you would consider like
Speaker 2: fringe contenders, and I've got the odds up the current
Speaker 2: odds to win the Stanley Cobb. And when it comes
Speaker 2: to teams that are like right on the outside looking in,
Speaker 2: it looks like at this point Edmonton is your favorite,
Speaker 2: Carolina is right behind them. Then it's the Panthers, the Stars,
Speaker 2: the Capitals, and the Jets in that order.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the group.
Speaker 2: Like among the favorites or fringe favorites, who do you
Speaker 2: think potentially could make a deal and are there big
Speaker 2: names out there available to be had?
Speaker 5: You know, I think you'll see Florida do something going
Speaker 5: into the playoffs because they're you know, they're primed to
Speaker 5: try to win it again and they and they certainly
Speaker 5: do have that opportunity. I think Vegas is always they're
Speaker 5: always making deals, and they seem to be making the
Speaker 5: right ones at the right times. Kevin Chevalteoff is a
Speaker 5: conservative guy in Winnipeg, you know, the general manager, and
Speaker 5: he's sitting pretty right now. I don't know how much
Speaker 5: you'll want to change. You might want to just fortify
Speaker 5: what he's already got. And Washington Dallas has already done
Speaker 5: their job when they got when they made the trade
Speaker 5: with San Jose to get Grenlin and they get see
Speaker 5: the defenseman. So they're fortified right now. But you know,
Speaker 5: anything is possible that guys could still make moves just
Speaker 5: to give themselves some fortification going forward. Don't count Carolina
Speaker 5: out either of making another deal, even though they made
Speaker 5: the biggest deal in a couple of years. They've already
Speaker 5: made during the season. Caroline is always going for it,
Speaker 5: and I wouldn't be surprised to see them do something.
Speaker 2: Tell me, let's do a couple more big picture things
Speaker 2: for us, all youlerse give me the most surprising team,
Speaker 2: the Neil Smith, most surprising team in the NHL this year,
Speaker 2: and the most disappointing team in pro hockey this year.
Speaker 5: I think that's an easy question. I got to tell you.
Speaker 5: The Washington Capitals have gone from getting into the playoffs
Speaker 5: by the skin and their teeth last year and then
Speaker 5: losing four straight to the Rangers in the first round
Speaker 5: to now being, you know, right up there as we've
Speaker 5: talked about with Winnipeg and a chance to win the
Speaker 5: President's Trophy first of the thirty two teams. So that
Speaker 5: team has been absolutely amazing, the turnaround that they've done
Speaker 5: from last year this year and set coming in second,
Speaker 5: of course is Winnipeg because they've had as tremendous year,
Speaker 5: but they're not as unexpected as Washington. On the other
Speaker 5: end of the scale is the Nashville Predators, who everybody
Speaker 5: thought had fortified their team. They'd spent a ton of
Speaker 5: money in the summer, they got people like Steven Stamcos
Speaker 5: and Brady Shay and Marciusso and this, and they have
Speaker 5: fallen on their face and they're not going to make
Speaker 5: the playoffs. They're just a huge disappointment as far as
Speaker 5: what the experts would have expected that they were going
Speaker 5: to do after the summer they had.
Speaker 2: We oftentimes talk about and I started the show off
Speaker 2: with this today. You know, we have a situation currently
Speaker 2: with our basketball team where they're not trying to win,
Speaker 2: and they're not alone. About a third of the NBA
Speaker 2: every single year, neil as a result of just the
Speaker 2: structure of the league and how it's built and you know,
Speaker 2: the ability to find talent via the draft, about a
Speaker 2: third of the teams in pro basketball when you look
Speaker 2: at kind of the landscape of the league, roughly a
Speaker 2: third of the teams just not even trying to win
Speaker 2: and not even you know, hiding it. Quite frankly, Nobody
Speaker 2: comes out and says we're tanking. Nobody says that he
Speaker 2: comes out and says we're trying to lose. Instead, they
Speaker 2: say things like we're leaning into development and we're playing
Speaker 2: young players. Is that as commonplace in pro hockey? Like
Speaker 2: when there's an elite prospect available in the draft, do
Speaker 2: you see a good portion of the league. Because NHL
Speaker 2: players are wired different than NBA players And we've talked
Speaker 2: about it a bunch after the Four Nation stuff, but
Speaker 2: is that a thing in hockey the way it is
Speaker 2: in basketball, where teams try to position themselves to lose
Speaker 2: on purpose to draft a high level prospect.
Speaker 5: Well, that doesn't go by individual game in the NHL,
Speaker 5: for sure, because you can't control the players. The players
Speaker 5: are always going to try to win. The coach is
Speaker 5: always going to try to win. That they're that's inbred
Speaker 5: into them, and you wouldn't want it players that didn't
Speaker 5: have that in them. But organizations will start to do
Speaker 5: things like San Jose this year traded Michael Granlin and
Speaker 5: Cody cec As. I said to Dallas, those are two
Speaker 5: of their top players. While they're doing that for their
Speaker 5: future and they're they're down in the bottom of the league,
Speaker 5: and they're happy to be down in the bottom of
Speaker 5: the league as a management, as an executive level, because
Speaker 5: they want to build up towards something very special down
Speaker 5: the road. Chicago is sort of in the same boat.
Speaker 5: Those two teams, I would say, are the two that
Speaker 5: really they're not trying to lose, but they're They're game
Speaker 5: plan was tear it down and then build it back
Speaker 5: up with young players through the draft. But in the NHL,
Speaker 5: i'd say they're the only two this year that you
Speaker 5: can point to. Anaheim is is down there a little bit,
Speaker 5: but they you know, they've they're they've been respectable. But
Speaker 5: you've got some other teams. I should have mentioned, by
Speaker 5: the way, the Pittsburgh Penguins, to put them in with
Speaker 5: Nashville as the most disappointing team in the league. Here's
Speaker 5: a team that has Sydney Crosby, Malcolm Lettang, and Eric
Speaker 5: Carlson for future Hall of famers. You can bet on
Speaker 5: that they are all going into the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 5: And yet Pittsburgh's in last in the Eastern Conference and
Speaker 5: just had some horrible performances this season. So they are
Speaker 5: another big disappointment in the league. But as far as
Speaker 5: your question about tanking or not trying to win, that
Speaker 5: doesn't go on a night to night basis, but it
Speaker 5: can be the game plan of the management, as you said,
Speaker 5: to play young players, trade away their veteran players. You're
Speaker 5: not going to win a lot of games if you
Speaker 5: don't have guys that have been around for a while.
Speaker 5: So that does happen in the league, but not a
Speaker 5: lot of teams. So not like you're talking about I asked.
Speaker 2: If I asked you to pick right now, your favorite
Speaker 2: to come out of both conferences, the East and the West.
Speaker 5: I'm still gonna lean. I'm going to glean with Florida still.
Speaker 5: I just think there's such a playoff team and I
Speaker 5: think Winnipeg. And I know it's crazy, maybe because Winnipeg's
Speaker 5: never been in the final, but boy, I watched them
Speaker 5: again last night and they are really really good there.
Speaker 5: You and I have talked about it many times. They're
Speaker 5: a great team. So I'll just call those two Florida
Speaker 5: and Winnipeg. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean they've won eleven straight. They're differentials plus seventy three.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's got to mean something. It's wild nil, it.
Speaker 5: Does, it does. The problem. The problem is that it
Speaker 5: went out in the first round last year to Colorado,
Speaker 5: and so now everybody's going, well, that's great, you're having
Speaker 5: a great regular season, but let's see what you can
Speaker 5: do in the playoffs. Come you know, they've got that
Speaker 5: sort of hanging around their neck right now, so we'll see.
Speaker 5: I hope for them for Scott Arneil, the coach has
Speaker 5: done a great job and the Mark seife Lee and
Speaker 5: his crew there that that they are able to do
Speaker 5: something and they got the best goalie in the world
Speaker 5: and Connor Hellibuck, the US goalie in the Four Nations,
Speaker 5: and I hope for their sake they're able to really
Speaker 5: put together a good playoff run.
Speaker 2: Where can our new hockey fans in the market go
Speaker 2: find that good podcast to yours, Neil.
Speaker 5: It's called NHL Wrap Around, and I'm called wrap Around
Speaker 5: because we wrap around the entire league and talk about
Speaker 5: all the teams in the league and what's going on
Speaker 5: and player injuries, player movements, anything NHL we're talking about,
Speaker 5: plus a little bit of history built in you. But
Speaker 5: get it on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you go
Speaker 5: to get a podcast, you can find it there. Give
Speaker 5: us a chance, give us a subscribe if you will,
Speaker 5: and you know what, We're going to keep going with it.
Speaker 5: We're having a lot of fun and hopefully a lot
Speaker 5: of people are having fun listening to it.
Speaker 2: Neil, thank you for the time, sir, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Have a great week and weekend. We'll chat too.
Speaker 5: I look forward to talking to you next week.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: The great Neil Smith general manager for the New York
Speaker 2: Rangers in nineteen ninety four when they lifted Lord Stanley's Cup.
Speaker 2: He was a high level scout for the Red Wings
Speaker 2: and I always appreciate his time on this Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2: All right, time now for your PGA Tour leaderboard update,
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Speaker 1: The new pro V.
Speaker 2: One and Nope and new pro v one X brings
Speaker 2: you more speed and control than ever now available. You
Speaker 2: went to golf shops by world Wide Golf. I got
Speaker 2: Vam McMahon on the show today, Tim mcmantal stop by
Speaker 2: later on. Busy night at basketball, both in the pros
Speaker 2: and in college last night locally quiet tonight, but the
Speaker 2: hockey club is in action. Let's welcome in our guy
Speaker 2: from the Salt Lake Tribune. Do little jazz and we'll
Speaker 2: do a little rsl T. Here's falling down the cheek,
Speaker 2: Andy Larson on a Thursday. Andy, Happy Thursday, buddy, how
Speaker 2: we doing good? I'm good, I'm good. So we all
Speaker 2: know what time it is for the Jazz. We all
Speaker 2: know the deal. Okay, but when cool things happen, let's
Speaker 2: go ahead and lean into cool things when they happen.
Speaker 2: And let's lean into what happened last night with Walker Kessler.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's not just the numbers, it's not
Speaker 2: just the history. I mean, historically speaking, that is a
Speaker 2: very special stat line. It's also andy that he did
Speaker 2: it against Elmo Sabanis right, like Sabonus excuse me, like
Speaker 2: Sabonas has eaten the Jazz up. And he's a really,
Speaker 2: really good player. And so the Jazz lost, which you
Speaker 2: and I have talked about. Let's go on board. But
Speaker 2: when cool things happen, let's talk about the cool thing.
Speaker 2: And what happened with Walker last night was a cool thing.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, And look.
Speaker 6: I mean I think what's really great about Walker as
Speaker 6: an offensive player right now is that he's taking advantage
Speaker 6: of what the defense gives them. And you know, we've seen, uh,
Speaker 6: there have been a couple of matchups. I think most
Speaker 6: of teams against the Jazz is ye are kind of
Speaker 6: protecting the paint most of all because most of the
Speaker 6: Jazz shooters aren't you know, aren't efficient ones, but Walker.
Speaker 6: You know that the Kings protected the perimeter and allowed
Speaker 6: Walker to get dunks and lay ups inside. And so yeah,
Speaker 6: to go to you know, a perfect one hundred percent
Speaker 6: go ten for ten, do something that only two guys
Speaker 6: in an NBA history have done, Nikola Jokic and Wil
Speaker 6: Chamberlain before is pretty cool. And look, he's you know,
Speaker 6: he's not Wilt, he's not Jokic, but he is a
Speaker 6: really you know, useful and good player that I think
Speaker 6: is a real building block for this Jazz team and
Speaker 6: maybe one of the only building blocks for this Jazz
Speaker 6: team is like again they look to put together at
Speaker 6: their next good contending team, you know, like I think
Speaker 6: to have someone who brings the level of m protection
Speaker 6: that he does and you know, is a responsible offensive
Speaker 6: player at that center spot. You know, certainly not wildly talented,
Speaker 6: but his ads, you know, is is more of an
Speaker 6: is adding more than he takes away. I think is
Speaker 6: a great thing. So, you know, props to Walker for
Speaker 6: kind of figuring out how to get better after that,
Speaker 6: you know, rough second season and do what he's done
Speaker 6: this year because it's been really good.
Speaker 2: Let's stay in the space and your answer to this
Speaker 2: question might include a portion of how you just answered
Speaker 2: my original question. But if we remove the in a
Speaker 2: vacuum against the Kings and panned back to all year
Speaker 2: long with Walker Kessler, forty five games played, forty five starts,
Speaker 2: and you know, you know the numbers, it's about twelve points,
Speaker 2: it's about twelve boards, it's over two blocks. What growth
Speaker 2: have you seen specifically, not just against the Kings last night,
Speaker 2: but all year long from Walker? Is it more of
Speaker 2: a approach off the court? Is it adding strength? Is
Speaker 2: it just growing as an NBA player? What do you
Speaker 2: attribute this growth to year three for Walker Kessler?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think mentally, honestly is a big for him.
Speaker 6: I mean, there were a lot of people who were
Speaker 6: really kind of down on him mentally even within the
Speaker 6: organization last year, right, Like found that whenever something would
Speaker 6: go wrong for Walker, that would compound itself into not
Speaker 6: only kind of the next play, but the next quarter,
Speaker 6: the next half, the next game, and kind of things
Speaker 6: spiraled a little bit, right And I think the rough
Speaker 6: team in the USA performance led to a bad season, And
Speaker 6: I give him a lot of credit kind of for
Speaker 6: kind of working on that game mentally and you know
Speaker 6: where if he has a bad first half against the
Speaker 6: Lakers like he did three weeks ago, then he comes
Speaker 6: back with a really good second half. And that's been
Speaker 6: really really different than what he did last year. I
Speaker 6: think the strength is kind of the biggest physical and
Speaker 6: on court thing that you can actually see where he
Speaker 6: just is getting. You know, again, where last year loose
Speaker 6: balls were kind of fifty to fifty, well, you know,
Speaker 6: he kind of tip them and honestly lose them in
Speaker 6: a lot of cases, He's ending up using his size
Speaker 6: and strength to really protect.
Speaker 7: That ball and to get more of those rebounds.
Speaker 6: He is the leading offensive rebounder in the NBA from
Speaker 6: an offensive rebounding percentage point of view, right, Like for
Speaker 6: him to be number one in the league in that
Speaker 6: category on a bad team, uh, And you know in
Speaker 6: a way that he's tasked with a lot from an
Speaker 6: offensive rebounding responsibility point of view, like I think is
Speaker 6: really really impressive. So, yeah, tremendous season from him. I
Speaker 6: think you can make a legitimate case he's been the
Speaker 6: best Jazz player this year. I'm not sure that I
Speaker 6: would totally go that direction, but there certainly is that case,
Speaker 6: and he you know, again, I think he's a he's
Speaker 6: a building block, and you have to be impressed with
Speaker 6: kind of how he rebounded from that from that really
Speaker 6: pretty ippy year or two.
Speaker 2: So I've had a couple of guests on including McMahon
Speaker 2: who's going to join us later, and then I think
Speaker 2: it was Zach Zach Harper this week that have basically
Speaker 2: echoed my sentiment, which once upon a time it felt
Speaker 2: like there was a lot to like about kJ Martin.
Speaker 2: And look, man, I don't I'm not trying to stretch
Speaker 2: here to make make a topic that's not a topic,
Speaker 2: but based off of some of the underwhelming performances slash
Speaker 2: injuries with some of the younger jazz players, it feels
Speaker 2: like kJ Martin is a player that is worth taking
Speaker 2: a long look at to not just keep around at
Speaker 2: the end of the season, but maybe hold on to
Speaker 2: through the next you know, at the end of next year,
Speaker 2: because he is under contract and at times I feel like,
Speaker 2: as I've watched him as he's grown throughout the course
Speaker 2: of his career, there are some things that feel like
Speaker 2: they're real.
Speaker 1: So he got the start last night.
Speaker 2: I put thirty four minutes in at sixteen points five
Speaker 2: boards for assist knocked down a couple of threes. What
Speaker 2: do you think about this young player and maybe is
Speaker 2: he somebody that we should talk about that they're talking
Speaker 2: about as part of the future.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean he's twenty four, right, so, like he
Speaker 6: is in a different kind of age class than the
Speaker 6: rookies and sophomores. And I think you see that in
Speaker 6: kind of the maturity of his game a little bit, right,
Speaker 6: Like he is he chased in zac Lavine around screens
Speaker 6: or Demarcarro around screens yesterday in a way that none
Speaker 6: of the rookies and sophomores are capable of. But they're
Speaker 6: also twenty and twenty one years old compared to twenty four, right,
Speaker 6: and so I'm kind of curious to see, like kind
Speaker 6: of how their body changes. kJ is probably the most
Speaker 6: athletic player jazz player right now. I mean it's probably
Speaker 6: between him and maybe John Collins, but John has lost
Speaker 6: a lot of athleticism, and then I you know, I
Speaker 6: think that frankly, just like he does play harder than
Speaker 6: I think the rookies and sophomores do right now. So
Speaker 6: I think there's some growth for them in that spot.
Speaker 6: You know, eight million dollars a year, I would be
Speaker 6: I'm interested. You know, you can kind of go either
Speaker 6: way on his contact, right, Like, I think that's not
Speaker 6: a ton I don't think that's like a crazy contact
Speaker 6: for him. The shooting continues to be the actual worry
Speaker 6: of like, hey, can he be a legitimate role player?
Speaker 5: Is he just like connects her? Right?
Speaker 6: But if you have something else to do with that
Speaker 6: eight million dollars, if you can use it to trade,
Speaker 6: you know, trade for a bad contact and get first
Speaker 6: round pick and return, I'd probably go that direction personally.
Speaker 6: But like, I don't think kJ is nothing either, right, Like,
Speaker 6: I think that he can be a role player on
Speaker 6: a decent team. So, you know, I think it's it's
Speaker 6: a good thing that the Jazz have kind of acquired
Speaker 6: this this really flexible contract and can kind of see
Speaker 6: how he develops over the last twenty four games. But yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, I think I do kind of put kJ
Speaker 6: in kind of the just the guy category because he
Speaker 6: has been moved around so much, because the numbers haven't
Speaker 6: been great, and because you know, again it's just hard
Speaker 6: to play around a guy who's struggles with shooting the
Speaker 6: ball when you do get the good players. But again,
Speaker 6: like I don't think like he's overpaid, and I do
Speaker 6: think like there's he can be kind of a connector
Speaker 6: if you do get other good players around him.
Speaker 2: So let's do the latest on your thoughts. We haven't
Speaker 2: done this in a while, but let's just kind of
Speaker 2: talk about, you know, where we find ourselves with the
Speaker 2: young players, the growth, and you know your current assessment
Speaker 2: on what you think they can be as we move forward,
Speaker 2: and whether or not you think they're around when the Jazz.
Speaker 1: Are serious about winning again. Excuse me.
Speaker 2: And the latest player that I'll ask you about is
Speaker 2: Kyle Philipowski who prior to last night and look, Walker
Speaker 2: came back last night, so he had fourteen minutes. But
Speaker 2: prior to last night was getting some starts, was getting
Speaker 2: some minutes, and he was putting up some real nice numbers.
Speaker 2: And I think his game against the Blazers may have
Speaker 2: been one of, if not his best game as a pro.
Speaker 2: So what's your current assessment of where we find ourselves
Speaker 2: with Kyle Philipowski.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's useful. I mean like his ability to be
Speaker 6: seven foot and play center and can kind of hang
Speaker 6: on the glass. He struggled last night on interior defense
Speaker 6: against the Bonus and Yona Salentunas, which makes sense because
Speaker 6: those guys are just a lot stronger and thicker than
Speaker 6: he is. But he can be on the perimeter and
Speaker 6: do a lot of you know, like we I mean,
Speaker 6: he was drafted a lot of Kelly Olynics stuff, right
Speaker 6: like where he can hit threes from outside, where he
Speaker 6: can create offense, where he can you can kind of
Speaker 6: use him as an offensive hub up at the top
Speaker 6: of the key and then have a lot of off
Speaker 6: ball stuff going, some split action, which Will Hardy loves.
Speaker 6: Like if if there's a trademark of a Will Hardy offense,
Speaker 6: it's kind of the off ball split action stuff. Uh,
Speaker 6: and Kyle can deliver those passes on time and non
Speaker 6: target and make great reads, and I think that's a
Speaker 6: really really useful thing in today's NBA. I mean, you see,
Speaker 6: like what Al Horford does for the Boston Celtics offense,
Speaker 6: Like it is an incredibly useful thing to have a
Speaker 6: big man who can kind of create on off ball stuff.
Speaker 6: I mean, Draymond with the Warriors says a lot of
Speaker 6: that same stuff too, right, Like, you know, I think
Speaker 6: there's kind of the the Al Horford kind of upside
Speaker 6: with him, and then I think there's also a lot
Speaker 6: of games where he disappears and isn't useful, and you
Speaker 6: know it is overmatched a little bit, and so like
Speaker 6: I think there's like some Frank k. Minsky downside where
Speaker 6: like in the end, he's probably you know, right now
Speaker 6: too thin to hang on the defensive end. So we'll
Speaker 6: see what happens with him. But I gotta say, like
Speaker 6: a player that you can like really kind of plug
Speaker 6: in a as a someone you know has an identifiable
Speaker 6: role on the offensive end, is is really something that
Speaker 6: a lot of the other young jazz players don't have,
Speaker 6: And it kind of leads me to believe that he's
Speaker 6: going to have a I feel pretty optimistic about him
Speaker 6: having a good NBA career.
Speaker 1: We'll kind of just go down the list here, you know.
Speaker 2: I feel like Keyante wants the sting of going to
Speaker 2: the bench kind of wore off, and then the pressure
Speaker 2: of having to be an initiator when I don't think
Speaker 2: that's who he is. I think we've seen more good
Speaker 2: than bad defensively. It's just going to be a process,
Speaker 2: and you and I have discussed it. But the numbers
Speaker 2: as of late have been better and the splits of
Speaker 2: Bed been a little bit better. Are we seeing Key
Speaker 2: improve in his new role a little bit?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean I think he's taking advantage of lower
Speaker 6: quality defense that's coming off the bench. I mean you
Speaker 6: look at like kind of what's changing not a ton
Speaker 6: man like this minister are exactly the same, The points
Speaker 6: are exactly the same, but he's a little bit more
Speaker 6: efficient because he's getting to the line more often. And
Speaker 6: that makes sense, right, Like if you're playing bigger, smarter defenders,
Speaker 6: they aren't going to, you know, go for your foul
Speaker 6: drawing stuff compared to the bench guys, right, And I
Speaker 6: think we've seen that with Keante, and you know, he's
Speaker 6: he's put up some good performances, he's also put up
Speaker 6: some really bad performances. You know, I still have some
Speaker 6: questions on essentially, like if he's not a point guard,
Speaker 6: then it becomes tough because he is relatively small for
Speaker 6: a two guard. He's not a defender, and he's not
Speaker 6: all that efficient, so like, yeah, you know, like kind
Speaker 6: of he does have to be a sixth man a
Speaker 6: little bit, right, Like in kind of the Jordan Clarkson
Speaker 6: mold and from his like Jordan is a better defender
Speaker 6: than right now, and so you hope that Kiante can
Speaker 6: develop at least to become a Jordan Clarkson defender, which
Speaker 6: is not a good one, but a passable one. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, I think he shows again a lot of
Speaker 6: kind of the same Jordan Clarkson, like can catch on
Speaker 6: fire on stuff, and obviously at certain point, points are
Speaker 6: the name of the game, and that's that's great. He's
Speaker 6: got to tune the efficiency to be up four or
Speaker 6: five percent across the board and then all of a
Speaker 6: sudden he becomes a really viable player as is. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know it it's just is going to need improvement
Speaker 6: because it does get you know, it's so up and
Speaker 6: down some night tonight.
Speaker 2: Can he become a Jordan Clarkson level defender? As a sentence,
Speaker 2: I never thought i'd hear anybody say, Andy.
Speaker 6: Jordan's a little underrated defensively, Like I think he is
Speaker 6: a three out of ten defender, where people think he's
Speaker 6: a one out.
Speaker 5: Of ten defender.
Speaker 6: Maybe even I would even put Jordan clarks in a
Speaker 6: four out of ten defender. Yeah, I know, high praise,
Speaker 6: but yeah, I mean Kanty is a one out of
Speaker 6: ten defender, right, Yeah, right, I think it's moving to
Speaker 6: the bench. Maybe he's been a two out of ten.
Speaker 6: It does need to jump a couple levels.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I haven't asked you about Bryce Senciba in a while,
Speaker 2: and he went he had a rough stretch there. I
Speaker 2: think I saw on the broadcast at one point he
Speaker 2: was like two of his last twenty five from three
Speaker 2: or something. And I don't know, like I've always thought,
Speaker 2: maybe when it's fully baked, he could have like this
Speaker 2: little Dennis Scott role in the league. And there are
Speaker 2: some nights where he's knocking down shots and he looks good.
Speaker 2: Another night's where he just looks completely lost, and you're
Speaker 2: expecting that from a player, certainly who is young at
Speaker 2: twenty one years old. But what's the latest Andy Larson
Speaker 2: take on the progress or lack thereof Bryce Sensible?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, he's got a thinner and stronger body
Speaker 6: than he used to, which means he doesn't look as
Speaker 6: tired as he did in his rookie season, which is
Speaker 6: a good thing. He's still not making an impact on
Speaker 6: the defensive end. He's a better passer and rebounder probably
Speaker 6: than he gets credit for. And then again, like it
Speaker 6: does for so many NBA players, especially role players, especially
Speaker 6: you know, twos and threes. It's about whether or not
Speaker 6: he can shoot. And if he shoots, if he makes
Speaker 6: thirty eight percent of his threes, he's a useful player,
Speaker 6: and if he makes thirty two percent of his threes,
Speaker 6: he's not. And I mean that's where we are in
Speaker 6: the NBA. When fifty percent of the shots are threes
Speaker 6: and so much of your job is providing spacing for
Speaker 6: the stars, it's hard for me to imagine like him, uh,
Speaker 6: finding a role if he's not able to kind of
Speaker 6: consistently keep those shooting percentages high. That being said, like
Speaker 6: I kind of believe in his shot more than any
Speaker 6: of the other young players like it. He showed an
Speaker 6: ability to shoot in college. He shows an ability to
Speaker 6: shoot and practice and warm ups at a really high level.
Speaker 6: I kind of believe in him as a thirty eight
Speaker 6: percent shooter, and so then like, okay, then all of
Speaker 6: a sudden, his makes sense as a eighth, ninth, tenth
Speaker 6: guy off the bench who can can kind of hang around.
Speaker 6: But you know, it actually has to be that way
Speaker 6: an NBA games, and him avoiding those shooting pumps as
Speaker 6: long as possible is huge for his career.
Speaker 2: I go back and forth with Isaiah Callier. I do
Speaker 2: think there's a lot to like, and more than anything else,
Speaker 2: I just didn't expect him to grab the starting job
Speaker 2: and get minutes. So it's been I'll call it a
Speaker 2: pleasant surprise. It's the same stuff though, that you and
Speaker 2: I have talked about for for all the assist numbers
Speaker 2: there are, and he was clean last night, no turnovers
Speaker 2: last night, But if we expand back, there are three
Speaker 2: or four possessions every game. I'm like, what exactly did
Speaker 2: you see there when you decided to make that pass?
Speaker 1: And then it's the shooting stuff. It's nothing new.
Speaker 2: I mean, you cannot be a lead guard or a
Speaker 2: guard period, a wing period, or maybe even a player
Speaker 2: period in the modern day and age NBA if you're
Speaker 2: gonna be a twenty five percent three point shooter. But
Speaker 2: your latest take on the progress of Isaiah and how
Speaker 2: he's responded to getting the nod as the starting lead guard.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I'll give him this. He has made
Speaker 6: this season much more watchable than it was sure to
Speaker 6: have a jazz player who is not looking for his
Speaker 6: own shop but looking up to set up other others
Speaker 6: who is looking to push the pace, who is looking
Speaker 6: to and is capable of making kind of highlight reel
Speaker 6: passes and setting up It's it's just so much better
Speaker 6: to watch than it was earlier in the season. So, uh,
Speaker 6: you know, infinite props and will always remember as a
Speaker 6: collier for at least that. Yeah, and then you know,
Speaker 6: it becomes okay if teams actually do start to scout
Speaker 6: the Jazz, are they going to hang ten feet off
Speaker 6: of Isaiah? And I think at this point they would.
Speaker 6: And then you know, so next year, can he become
Speaker 6: a thirty to thirty two percent three point shooter rather
Speaker 6: than just a twenty five percent one? You mentioned the turnovers,
Speaker 6: Like the turnovers have to improve. I honestly think like
Speaker 6: over the last month, month and a half, the turnovers
Speaker 6: have been largely fine. So that's been really impressive to
Speaker 6: see as a again as a starting point guard. I
Speaker 6: bet you know, I believe in him to be a
Speaker 6: setup man in the NBA, as you know as that
Speaker 6: it's just like, yeah, you know, if you want to
Speaker 6: play in the playoffs, then you have to be able
Speaker 6: to shoot, and we'll see how that goes. But I
Speaker 6: think there's a lot of other stuff to like. I
Speaker 6: think you have to like kind of his demeanor about
Speaker 6: how he's attacked this rookie year, despite being the number
Speaker 6: one overall recruit, to be as kind of selfless as
Speaker 6: he has been is really impressive. There's a lot of
Speaker 6: good stuff there, and so I'm kind of inclined to
Speaker 6: give him the benefit of doubt, the doubt on the shooting,
Speaker 6: or at least give him the chance to see what
Speaker 6: he can do, because the other stuff in his game
Speaker 6: has been really good.
Speaker 2: I will ask you about Taylor, but only what you're
Speaker 2: hearing Taylor Hendrix about the recovery and how he's attacked.
Speaker 2: It's impossible to analyze his game because he hasn't played
Speaker 2: in forever and he's heard. But what are you hearing
Speaker 2: about the progress off the floor the Taylor Hendrix is
Speaker 2: making in his recovery.
Speaker 6: Yeah, talk to Justin Vanik actually about him today at
Speaker 6: jazz practice. Sounds like he is really attacking the weight
Speaker 6: room and growing his body in a significant way. So
Speaker 6: I believe before the season or maybe lastly and I
Speaker 6: think he was at tuner seventeen pounds and then I
Speaker 6: heard today that he was at two forty five or thereabouts.
Speaker 6: So you know, that's a significant gain, and you know,
Speaker 6: I think maybe some of that's because he hasn't playing,
Speaker 6: but from what I hear, it's because he's changed his
Speaker 6: body and become much more muscular. I mean, I think
Speaker 6: we saw that even in the first three games, he
Speaker 6: had gained I think he said seventeen pounds and so
Speaker 6: now we're up to twenty seven to twenty eight or so.
Speaker 6: Like that's that's a that's a big jump, and I
Speaker 6: think that kind of weight gain, that strength is is
Speaker 6: really good for him. But yeah, you know, then the
Speaker 6: rest of the game is a question mark, right, Like,
Speaker 6: so I think I feel pretty good about him being
Speaker 6: a good NBA defender, you know, like from what I
Speaker 6: saw early in the season, Like, I feel good about
Speaker 6: him being a we're using that one to ten scale
Speaker 6: of seven or eight out of ten NBA defender, and
Speaker 6: maybe he can get even better than that. The offense
Speaker 6: has to come along, right, Like he's either got to
Speaker 6: be able to shoot the ball really well at that
Speaker 6: point or do a little bit more off the dribble
Speaker 6: to take advantage of closeouts and things like that. So
Speaker 6: we'll see how that happens. You know, he hasn't been
Speaker 6: able to practice any of that. He just barely got
Speaker 6: out of a walking boot. But yeah, well we'll see.
Speaker 6: You know, he's probably not going to play in summer League.
Speaker 6: It's going to be a waiting process. And then obviously
Speaker 6: I think there's gonna be kind of a recovery, you know,
Speaker 6: knocking out the RUSS process at the beginning of next year,
Speaker 6: of year three. It does remind me a little bit
Speaker 6: of the Dantex some situation a decade ago.
Speaker 2: So just out of respect, I will ask you about
Speaker 2: jus Ay and Svie. They do not have any guaranteed money,
Speaker 2: so technically their contracts do go through next year and
Speaker 2: even beyond that, but no guaranteed money. Do you think
Speaker 2: either of those two are around for more than another
Speaker 2: year or even if that.
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't see any reason why you would
Speaker 6: necessarily keep them. I mean, Johnny, I think you would probably,
Speaker 6: I don't know. Johnny's younger, and you may keep oversee
Speaker 6: as a just again, maybe you can convince some team
Speaker 6: of his upside v as an okay role player, but
Speaker 6: like it is getting dmpcds on the team when they
Speaker 6: have four regular starters out, Like I my personal preference
Speaker 6: would be probably to rotate through other end of the
Speaker 6: bench NBA guys and see if you can get someone
Speaker 6: who pops more than those two guys.
Speaker 2: Happen, all right, final one, I'll ask you about Cody.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, he's twenty, so I don't know that
Speaker 2: it's fairer just to completely dismiss, but man, Andy like
Speaker 2: just waiting for something for these fans to latch onto,
Speaker 2: to indicate that a pick that you made in the
Speaker 2: top ten might pay dividends at some point. Like I said,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to be overly critical. I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to say he's never going to evolve in anything because
Speaker 2: he's a kid. But at this point, is there anything
Speaker 2: that has excited you about the play of Cody Williams
Speaker 2: this year?
Speaker 6: He had two good games after the All Star break
Speaker 6: where and again good in an extremely low expectation zone,
Speaker 6: but where he attacked the basket a little bit more,
Speaker 6: and then was good defensively, where he stayed in front
Speaker 6: defensively and forced his player his matchup to pass the ball.
Speaker 6: And you know, he's so far away from a body
Speaker 6: point of view, he's so far away from a skill
Speaker 6: level point of view. Right like, he is shooting twelve
Speaker 6: percent from ten feet to the three point line this year.
Speaker 6: Twelve percent to make twelve percent of your shots as
Speaker 6: an NBA player in any zone is insane, right Like,
Speaker 6: it's it's been really bad. I think the lack of
Speaker 6: kind of star flashes I think is really concerning, right Like,
Speaker 6: he just has not shown even kind of the high
Speaker 6: end of things. And so to me right now, like
Speaker 6: my kind of hope is Okay, if you developed from
Speaker 6: a body point of view, then all of a sudden
Speaker 6: kind of makes sense where you can defend and maybe
Speaker 6: developed the shot as well, and you can be kind
Speaker 6: of a three and D guy, kind of a connector guy.
Speaker 6: I think he is a smart player. I think he
Speaker 6: makes the right read most of the time. I think
Speaker 6: he's in the right place on defense. Well at the time,
Speaker 6: he just doesn't do.
Speaker 7: Anything with it.
Speaker 6: And I think a lot of that might be the body,
Speaker 6: but I think a lot of that might be who
Speaker 6: he is as a player a little bit. And so yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm certainly definitely worried about Cody. You know, you don't
Speaker 6: want to write him off after you're one. He is
Speaker 6: still young again, he's so skinny, but you know, if
Speaker 6: you had the tenth pick back at this point, you
Speaker 6: probably would like to make a different slunch.
Speaker 2: All right, before we get to RSL, And we do
Speaker 2: need to get your thoughts on the lads.
Speaker 1: It has not been great.
Speaker 2: I have your Twitter pulled up and there is a
Speaker 2: report from Mike Florio Pro Football Talk that Jordan Schultz
Speaker 2: of Fox Sports verbally Acosta I in rapaport of the
Speaker 2: NFL media at Indianapolis, ironically, and off at a Starbucks.
Speaker 1: And Jordan's dad owned Starbucks, at least he used to.
Speaker 2: And you say, you quote, and you say, I've been
Speaker 2: witnessed to a few reporter on reporter yelling matches during
Speaker 2: my career, and I'll tell you what, every single one
Speaker 2: of them has been extremely funny. Because of that tweet,
Speaker 2: I've been like scratching my brain a little bit to
Speaker 2: try to figure out what you're talking about. And if
Speaker 2: any of that has happened locally. Do you have any
Speaker 2: good stories that you can share on air about any
Speaker 2: of this stuff?
Speaker 7: Some of them have.
Speaker 6: Happened locally, I am going to you can guess certainly
Speaker 6: the members involved in some of the local ones. I
Speaker 6: will send you even video of one of them. Oh,
Speaker 6: hell yeah, and I will decline comment further for a
Speaker 6: public audioce.
Speaker 2: What did did any of these happen like out in
Speaker 2: public or was this like in the media media room
Speaker 2: type thing?
Speaker 6: I'm trying to think. I don't think I've seen any screaming,
Speaker 6: yelling or well, no, that one happened on a street, yeah,
Speaker 6: walking from the Delta Center back to the Tribune office.
Speaker 6: That that's the greatest detail I'll give again, and I'm
Speaker 6: happy to send you video of of more.
Speaker 1: Do any of them involve Gordon?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 6: Actually I don't, I can't. I you know, Gordon got
Speaker 6: a disagreement with our guy Eric Walden once, but I
Speaker 6: wouldn't even call it a verbal altercation of yelling or
Speaker 6: you know, it was a back in the day, Eric
Speaker 6: Walden used to be Gordon's editor at the Trips and
Speaker 6: they got into a disagreement over a column. But even
Speaker 6: that wasn't a yelling match. That was you know, of
Speaker 6: of reporter disagreements that I'm tweeting about, that certainly wasn't
Speaker 6: one of them. That was That was the point, pretty tame.
Speaker 1: Do any of them involve me?
Speaker 6: No? I don't. I don't think have you have you
Speaker 6: yelled at another reporter before.
Speaker 1: That's none your business, Andy, Do any of them involve you?
Speaker 6: I'll say this, I don't think I've ever yelled at
Speaker 6: another reporter before, but I have gotten into a disagreement
Speaker 6: to at one point, so I slammed my beverage down
Speaker 6: in the Jazz press room and it kind of it
Speaker 6: was it was it was its kind of spilled over
Speaker 6: the top, you know, and then got all over Tony,
Speaker 6: And so I feel bad about that.
Speaker 2: Is there one member of the local media you would
Speaker 2: like to verbally accost Ooh, that's a good question.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: The answers, Yes, I know the answers, Yes.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: Right now, Sunshining, I'm such, I'm in a great place mentally, Okay,
Speaker 6: I'm I'm great right now.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, let's ruin your great place mentally and talk
Speaker 2: about our local soccer club. Look man, like, it's it's
Speaker 2: a very fair point to make that. And I've seen
Speaker 2: some people make this point, like they raised season ticket
Speaker 2: prices this year, and they sold off half their team,
Speaker 2: and they got rid of half their team, and they
Speaker 2: got rid of most to their great attacking players and
Speaker 2: Elias or Leis Manuel whatever, however you pronounce his name,
Speaker 2: maybe he was going to be the guy to step
Speaker 2: in and make a little bit of a difference trade
Speaker 2: compared him to like a young Anderson Julio.
Speaker 1: That's not going to move the needle.
Speaker 2: So it's very fair at this point to look over
Speaker 2: and say, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: We got one goal through three games.
Speaker 2: And they lose to Aradiano and COCKACAFF Champions round one
Speaker 2: after making the tournament for the first time ELEC a decade.
Speaker 2: And look, it is a really fun tournament if you
Speaker 2: could advance. I remember that team in twenty ten nearly
Speaker 2: winning the whole thing. So I'll just ask you for
Speaker 2: your take the Andy Larson take three games in two
Speaker 2: CONCACAFF one mls on where we stand with RSL and
Speaker 2: what you think needs to happen next.
Speaker 6: I don't get how you acquire Elias Manoel and don't
Speaker 6: ask him if he wants to play for rself.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Like that'sin.
Speaker 6: That's bad management, right, Like if you're not asking that guy,
Speaker 6: you know a if before you make that trade, that
Speaker 6: if he's willing to play for RSEL, Like what do
Speaker 6: you you know? Again, that's just a step you have
Speaker 6: to check off the list, right, Like you got to
Speaker 6: talk to his agent man, and maybe they did. I
Speaker 6: don't know what exactly happened there, but from what has
Speaker 6: been said publicly and frankly privately, like it sounds like he,
Speaker 6: you know, wanted to play in New York but didn't
Speaker 6: want to play in Salt Lake, which I understand as
Speaker 6: a young Brazilian human being. But like you got to
Speaker 6: find that out first before you trade as. That's for him,
Speaker 6: come on now and then look, the bigger issue is
Speaker 6: you sold Gomez for eleven million dollars, You sold Codel
Speaker 6: for AHAs for four million dollars. You sold Chicho for
Speaker 6: one point five and gam which is more more than
Speaker 6: that in cash in kind of the MLS trade world. Uh,
Speaker 6: And you've bought a three million dollar player and a
Speaker 6: one point five million dollar player in return, right, and
Speaker 6: you have just so far pocketed that twelve million dollars
Speaker 6: at the same time the rest of MLSS is spending
Speaker 6: eight figures, you know, over ten million dollars on the
Speaker 6: likes of Wilfrid Zaha and Latte laugh and Marco Royce
Speaker 6: and obviously Lionel Messi. And like it's just you can't
Speaker 6: compete in this league if you're not going to spend money.
Speaker 6: And I was really supportive of the Gomez and Chico
Speaker 6: and Baja sales because I figured you would use that
Speaker 6: money to improve the club. And in the end they haven't.
Speaker 6: So far they have pocketed it. And even their outgoing
Speaker 6: kind of pr on this has been, Hey, we would
Speaker 6: like to sign a striker if it is cheap. What
Speaker 6: they told Tom Bogert yesterday, Hey we want Duncan McGuire
Speaker 6: or Brian White or Olio fam Like those guys are
Speaker 6: like four million dollar strikers.
Speaker 5: Pony up and pay.
Speaker 6: For a ten million dollar striker already, right. Like in
Speaker 6: the end, if you want to compete in current MLF,
Speaker 6: you can't be cheap. If you want to be at
Speaker 6: the bottom of here of MLS. If you want to
Speaker 6: just sneak into the playoffs every year, cool, If you
Speaker 6: want to lose in the first round of Conker Cash
Speaker 6: Champions Cup every year, then by all means spend nothing
Speaker 6: on your team. But in the meantime you're letting a
Speaker 6: lot of fans down and then to then go around
Speaker 6: and ask those fans to pay for higher season ticket
Speaker 6: prices and a eighteen dollars years, Like, it just is
Speaker 6: pretty bad management. It's not cool, and I think it's
Speaker 6: fair for them to get an a ton of criticism.
Speaker 7: So, look, the.
Speaker 6: RSL season ticket member found town Hall is tonight. I'm
Speaker 6: not going to be there. I know a lot of
Speaker 6: angry season ticket fans are, and I hope that ownership
Speaker 6: is going to be there as well. And I hope
Speaker 6: they hear those complaints from fans because, quite frankly, like
Speaker 6: what they've done to the club over the last nine
Speaker 6: months isn't right, isn't fair, isn't good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, typically I'll try to provide context
Speaker 2: and push back, but I'm not sure that I can
Speaker 2: in this scenario. You know, you kind of just alluded
Speaker 2: to the fan base. I wonder before I say you loose,
Speaker 2: I will ask you this, because you have a poltse
Speaker 2: on these fans in a way that I don't. Is
Speaker 2: the good will of you know, the early returns of
Speaker 2: this ownership group willing to invest and spend money and
Speaker 2: all that is, do you feel like it's starting to
Speaker 2: wear off? And now there's more questions about this club
Speaker 2: than there was, you know, prior to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I don't know that it's more questions about
Speaker 6: them than prior to right, Deloitte sucks. I do think
Speaker 6: that the you know, the fans are cognizant of what's
Speaker 6: going on, and you know, I don't want to use
Speaker 6: the word fickle, but I want to use the word
Speaker 6: like attentive. And while the team had investment and while
Speaker 6: the team was playing well, yes, the fans are going
Speaker 6: to be on board. And when the team is being
Speaker 6: thought of as a third priority in an ownership group,
Speaker 6: or while the team is not being invested in, and
Speaker 6: while the team is at the very bottom of MLS
Speaker 6: standings and when they lose to a Costa Rican team,
Speaker 6: then yeah, the fans are going to be up set
Speaker 6: about it. Like you know, I think sometimes sports managers
Speaker 6: see the fans as like these completely unfair people who
Speaker 6: don't understand the realities of the business. But like I
Speaker 6: disagree with that. I think Salt Lake fans and Utah
Speaker 6: fans in general are actually pretty smart about what they're
Speaker 6: seeing on with their sports teams and on RFL field especially,
Speaker 6: And uh, it just has not been anywhere close stup
Speaker 6: to stuff so far, so you know, I certainly hope
Speaker 6: that changes and again, I'm I'm someone who has supported
Speaker 6: their moves in the past with the understanding that the
Speaker 6: investment would continue to be there. Given that it hasn't
Speaker 6: been uh that that has been you know, then my
Speaker 6: my understanding and my support of them is dependent on
Speaker 6: them continuing to make good decisions.
Speaker 2: Will you be there Saturday, will you be on your feet,
Speaker 2: and will you shout it out on Saturday?
Speaker 6: I absolutely will, right like And and yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 6: in like, I'm not going to do a uh, you know,
Speaker 6: boycott or anything like that. This club means a lot
Speaker 6: to me and I get a lot of enjoyment out
Speaker 6: of these games still. And you know, look, if it's
Speaker 6: if that's all RSL wants from me is my money,
Speaker 6: I'm going to continue to give them my money. If
Speaker 6: they want my support. And you know, I think I
Speaker 6: think for a lot of fans in this way then
Speaker 6: uh and you know, and there in my positivity, then
Speaker 6: it's gonna have to be better in terms of results,
Speaker 6: in terms of what we see in the transfer market.
Speaker 1: It's hard to argue with that.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 1: It's been a rough start, right Andy, Thanks for.
Speaker 2: The time, brother, I have a good weekend, all right,
Speaker 2: Hey man, thanks all right, Andy Larson, Salt Lake Tribune.
Speaker 2: All right, we got Tim McMahon rolling by Little NBA
Speaker 2: today will NBA Daily assist on the program.
Speaker 1: Good stuff for Neil Smith to start things off.
Speaker 2: The Utah hockey club is back in action tonight against Minnesota,
Speaker 2: and then Andy Larson stopped by as well.
Speaker 1: So a lot to do on the program.
Speaker 2: Last night, University of Utah men's basketball team at Michale
Speaker 2: Center against Arizona, and they got worked, they got smoked,
Speaker 2: thought that they would. Arizona's really good and obviously the
Speaker 2: youth turnflux. But Tommy Lloyd, the head coach of Arizona,
Speaker 2: after the game, had some really cool comments because as
Speaker 2: we talked about, the news came down the Craig had
Speaker 2: lost his job at the University of Utah has decided
Speaker 2: to fire Craig Smith, no longer the head coach of
Speaker 2: the men's basketball program the National Search. According to for
Speaker 2: the releases on and coach Tyler the interim head coach,
Speaker 2: his first task was to take on Arizona mchel, which
Speaker 2: is just impossible. So Arizona won the game, no surprise there.
Speaker 2: But we've tried to cover this to the Prism of
Speaker 2: the human element of it, because the media oftentimes ignores that,
Speaker 2: and consumers and fans kind of want want to know, like, hey,
Speaker 2: what happened, why did he get fired?
Speaker 1: And then what's next?
Speaker 2: And I thought Tommy Lloyd did a great job of
Speaker 2: putting some context and color around the conversation. So if
Speaker 2: you missed Tommy Lloyd post game last night, here's that sound.
Speaker 8: Brady and Landon Smith are Craig's kids, and one's the
Speaker 8: director of operations, the other's a walk on and both
Speaker 8: those kids showed up today and which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 8: I mean, I know, you guys, this is a business,
Speaker 8: and it's a hard business, and I get all those things,
Speaker 8: but like we all have families, we all have kids,
Speaker 8: And for his kids to show up today, and you know,
Speaker 8: and and Craig I talked to him today and had
Speaker 8: not didn't have one bad word to say, straight class.
Speaker 8: For his boys to show up today, inmates, it says something.
Speaker 8: This stuff's hard, what we go through, even.
Speaker 1: When it's going good, it's hard.
Speaker 8: And and and I know you guys have opinions and
Speaker 8: this and this isn't against the media. This is the
Speaker 8: society in general and in US guys that decided to coach.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of.
Speaker 8: Really cool things that come with it, but there's a
Speaker 8: lot of tough stuff. There's a lot of tough days,
Speaker 8: and you know what, there's a lot of times your
Speaker 8: family gets neglected because what we're doing to try to,
Speaker 8: you know, to prove our work as a coach, to
Speaker 8: prove our value, to prove that that we belong at
Speaker 8: this level. And and so I got a lot of
Speaker 8: respect for those two young men.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the video of that, he's emotional, he's trying to
Speaker 2: hold back tears as he's describing this. And look, when
Speaker 2: it comes to coaches, certainly in pro sports, but college
Speaker 2: sports too, a lot of people, you know, they see
Speaker 2: buyouts and after you know, you, Jimbo Fisher lost his
Speaker 2: job at Texas A and M, and he got paid
Speaker 2: a cool like ninety million just to go find something
Speaker 2: else to do. I understand that the way this stuff works,
Speaker 2: these guys are hired to be fired. And because of that,
Speaker 2: the ecosystem of coaching in college athletics and in the
Speaker 2: pros is if you are fired, there's a nice golden
Speaker 2: parachute to take you into your next phase of life.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of what everybody focuses on. But I
Speaker 2: can tell you there are a lot of people I
Speaker 2: know that I have a lot of money that aren't
Speaker 2: very happy, right. And so when it comes to Craig
Speaker 2: and his family, there's a human element here with his
Speaker 2: wife and I think they have four children. So Lance
Speaker 2: is the oldest and this is his first year is
Speaker 2: the Utah men's basketball director of Administration and Operations. And
Speaker 2: his other boys a walk on Brady played at Sali
Speaker 2: Community College.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was a really cool thing for.
Speaker 2: Tommy Lloyd to do, you know, ultimately, to kind of
Speaker 2: point out that because I'm sure it's hard on on
Speaker 2: those young men. Can you imagine if your father was
Speaker 2: fired and you're asked to just go to work the
Speaker 2: next day at the place who fired him.
Speaker 1: Probably would be a tough thing.
Speaker 2: So men's basketball, they take the l against Arizona last
Speaker 2: night at Michale. Arizona's probably the second best team in
Speaker 2: the conference. BYU might have something to say about that.
Speaker 2: The youths will have Arizona State and West Virginia at
Speaker 2: home before they close the season in Provo on March
Speaker 2: the eighth, a BYU all Right special guest live in studio.
Speaker 2: I've been telling you guys about my friends at Ogden
Speaker 2: Clinic Hadley Dermatology.
Speaker 1: They've got a bunch of deals for you going on
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: So just to review the deals that they have currently,
Speaker 2: then we'll kind of get to our guests and see
Speaker 2: what we have to say about the latest. You can
Speaker 2: get twenty percent off of botox. You also have twenty
Speaker 2: five percent off of laser treatments. They have injectables in
Speaker 2: addition to the free consultation to check out your entire
Speaker 2: body to see where you're at. If you're like me
Speaker 2: and the sun is about to shine consistently, you're going
Speaker 2: to be outside all the time, golfing or hiking. And
Speaker 2: we lead the nation in skin cancer diagnosis per capita,
Speaker 2: which I didn't know that. So get checked out and
Speaker 2: make sure you're good. Give them a call. It eight
Speaker 2: O one sixty five seven five sixty sixty four. It's
Speaker 2: eight oh one sixty five seven five six for and
Speaker 2: our guest in studios. My favorite of all the ones
Speaker 2: they send CP Christine.
Speaker 1: How are you.
Speaker 9: I'm good? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Let's turn your mic up just a little bit. Thanks
Speaker 2: for coming in live in studio. I always appreciate it,
Speaker 2: and like I said, I prefer you over certainly Jason
Speaker 2: or Michael.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 2: So it's great to see it, all right, So I'm
Speaker 2: going to give you the floor here. Last time you
Speaker 2: were here we talked about the deal on Boatox or
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day, yep, And today you've got something else in mind, Christine,
Speaker 2: So let's.
Speaker 1: Here about it.
Speaker 10: Well, this is something I see a lot of patients
Speaker 10: for this time of year, especially, is dry itchy skin.
Speaker 9: We're in Utah, we have a dry climate.
Speaker 10: It's cold, low humidity, and a lot of people will
Speaker 10: come in with just a lot of itching. And there's
Speaker 10: a few tips and tricks that you can do to
Speaker 10: avoid this. But then there are some things that you
Speaker 10: probably should know that if those aren't working, maybe there's
Speaker 10: an underlying problem that should be worked up. So one
Speaker 10: of the easiest things is to take shorter, cooler showers.
Speaker 10: And this is a tough one because long, hot showers
Speaker 10: just feel so good right now, but it actually pulls
Speaker 10: a lot of moisture out of your skin and it
Speaker 10: tends to make you feel really itchy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to hear that. I like my
Speaker 1: long hot showers, I know.
Speaker 10: And the second that's really easy is put on moisturizer, okay,
Speaker 10: and doing that right when you get out of the
Speaker 10: shower is the easiest time. It helps to seal in
Speaker 10: some of that moisture that you've lost.
Speaker 2: So shorter, cooler showers and then as soon as you
Speaker 2: get out of the shower, moisturize, moisturize. Do you have
Speaker 2: a moisturizer you would recommend.
Speaker 10: We typically all recommend fragrance and die free products see
Speaker 10: to fill seravey userine have been some of my go to's,
Speaker 10: but I'll take whatever people will apply.
Speaker 2: Okay, but the best are fragrance free, diy free, and
Speaker 2: die free. All right, So let's say somebody's listening that
Speaker 2: is experience and the symptoms that you're describing, and they've
Speaker 2: tried things to prevent it and it's not working. How
Speaker 2: can you guys help them in the clinic?
Speaker 10: Well, seeing what they have on their skin is also helpful.
Speaker 10: So if they're doing these and it's not getting better,
Speaker 10: or if they're so itchy that they're causing either cracks
Speaker 10: or bleeding, it puts them at risk for an infection.
Speaker 10: There may be an underlying problem like exzema or psoriasis
Speaker 10: that they don't maybe know about yet. So it's good
Speaker 10: to see that because then there are prescriptions we can
Speaker 10: do that will help them through that.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got dry skin, all right, So if
Speaker 2: you guys are dealing with that, definitely check out Hadley
Speaker 2: Ogden Clinic Athley Dermatology. Let's reset some of the other
Speaker 2: deals that we've already kind of outlined so you can
Speaker 2: kind of help us as the expert here. And as
Speaker 2: I said, when Mike was in and he dropped the
Speaker 2: whole like we are the leading state in the country
Speaker 2: in skin cancer diagnosis per capita, it blew me away.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: So if you know, for our listeners, I keep talking
Speaker 2: about this if they're like me and you right, like
Speaker 2: you get outside all the time when the sun is
Speaker 2: about to shine consistently, it's been a beautiful week. If
Speaker 2: there are listeners out there that have been golfing, hiking, biking,
Speaker 2: whatever for years and haven't been checked out, why should
Speaker 2: they get checked out?
Speaker 1: And what is that process?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 10: Well, typically it's the exposure you get when you're younger
Speaker 10: that will show up later in life. So as you
Speaker 10: get older, these things might start showing up and it
Speaker 10: may not be something that's on your radar yet. So
Speaker 10: just even getting a baseline to see, are there any
Speaker 10: spots that are maybe starting to change or maybe not
Speaker 10: healing and going away, it's much easier to treat those
Speaker 10: before they progress.
Speaker 2: And that is just something where people come into the
Speaker 2: clinic and they see someone like you or someone like Jay,
Speaker 2: and you go into a room and you check about
Speaker 2: and then you go from there.
Speaker 10: Pretty much, Yeah, we look at whatever skin you want
Speaker 10: us to look at.
Speaker 2: Is there anything people can do themselves to Like, let's
Speaker 2: say somebody's listening and they are curious about a mole. Now,
Speaker 2: this is not my world, so I'm just guessing, is
Speaker 2: there anything that you could tell them, like, if your
Speaker 2: mole looks like this, or if there's a spot on
Speaker 2: your stomach that looks like that, you need to get in.
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
Speaker 10: Absolutely, Anything that looks different from what you have is
Speaker 10: always kind of something we want you to come in for.
Speaker 9: The ugly duckling is not something we want to see.
Speaker 10: So if you get a new spot but it looks
Speaker 10: like another spot that you already have, that's probably okay. Okay,
Speaker 10: But if you get a new spot and you're like, well, gosh,
Speaker 10: this looks different than anything else, we probably want to
Speaker 10: see that. Or if a spot has been the same
Speaker 10: forever and it starts changing, especially in an asymmetric way
Speaker 10: with either shape or color, interesting to look at those two.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me reset.
Speaker 2: Last time you're going, we talked botox, and you know,
Speaker 2: if any of our listeners, if your wife, your girlfriends,
Speaker 2: or men get it too. But you know, if you've
Speaker 2: got a birthday comet up and your wife has always
Speaker 2: talked about wanting botox, let's talk about what that process
Speaker 2: entails and what sort of benefits it has.
Speaker 10: Botox helps with fine lines and wrinkles. It can actually
Speaker 10: be a preventative for resting wrinkles. So if there's just
Speaker 10: an area a lot of times around the eyes, in
Speaker 10: between the eyes and the eyebrows, forehead, these are all
Speaker 10: really common areas that people like to have done. It
Speaker 10: prevents the muscles from moving in those areas.
Speaker 9: You don't get a wrinkle created by motion.
Speaker 2: Then, Okay, you were laughing when I said men come
Speaker 2: into they do.
Speaker 9: It's not funny, but they do well.
Speaker 1: What was funny? No, not funny? Okay, I was just
Speaker 1: genuinely curious.
Speaker 2: So men or women, botox is on the table, all right,
Speaker 2: final one laser treatments probably is exactly what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: If you have hair and you don't want hair there,
Speaker 2: you can laser the hair off.
Speaker 1: Correct, it can be removed. Yes, is it that simple.
Speaker 9: It can be a process.
Speaker 10: But even after a few treatments you notice a big
Speaker 10: reduction in hair.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, there you go.
Speaker 2: So we've got a we've got a menu for people
Speaker 2: to choose if you want the deal on the free
Speaker 2: consultation to check you out to make sure that your
Speaker 2: spots are good. That's that's good. We've got twenty five
Speaker 2: percent off of laser treatment. We've got a discount on botox,
Speaker 2: and you now have the tips that you need to
Speaker 2: make sure that that dry skin will go away. Short
Speaker 2: colder showers, moisturizer after the shower, easy stuff, sunscreen before
Speaker 2: you go outside. Absolutely, and you guys have a deal
Speaker 2: on your sunscreen at the at the clinic as well.
Speaker 2: All right, so there you go, give them a call
Speaker 2: right now at eight oh one six five seven five
Speaker 2: sixty six four.
Speaker 4: Next on the Drive, Tim McMahon dropping dimes for your
Speaker 4: NBA Daily Assists.
Speaker 5: Van McMahon, Vanman batted old Land, Texas flood as tickets,
Speaker 5: Muddy's and Manvan McMahon, Van mcman the man.
Speaker 2: You got jazz are off tonight. Welcomed in the Sacramento
Speaker 2: Kings last night. They lost, but Walker was really good. Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Rigobert old Buddy back in town tomorrow night, speaking of
Speaker 2: our old buddy signed out for the NBA Daily Assists.
Speaker 2: Thursday afternoon, I got Dan McMahon, Tim McMahon, Tim Happy Thursday, Sir, how.
Speaker 7: Are you, preddy partner? How you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm well.
Speaker 2: I have to say, uh, I thought about you today
Speaker 2: when news broke that Ian Rappaport and Jordan Schultz had
Speaker 2: a heated exchange at a Starbucks.
Speaker 1: I've got it. I've got a note. Tim. At some
Speaker 1: point you got a little fire in you.
Speaker 2: Dan McMahon, have you ever had a intense back and
Speaker 2: forth with a fellow reporter throughout your career?
Speaker 7: Oh, I've had. I've had a handful. To say the
Speaker 7: least I had. There's one, and I'll protect I won't
Speaker 7: say the name to protect you not so innocent. But
Speaker 7: there's one particular gentleman who we got into a confrontation
Speaker 7: that termed mildly physical, but just mildly and uh, things
Speaker 7: blew over until he got a rough performance review and
Speaker 7: he brought it up his performance review and his boss
Speaker 7: called my boss. And that won't get a little bit sticky.
Speaker 7: But it's been a while, I like to think kept
Speaker 7: growing to Maturd.
Speaker 2: You have calmed. You're even kind of nice to me.
Speaker 2: Not entirely nice to me, but kind of nice to me.
Speaker 2: Wait this this actually got a little like are we
Speaker 2: talking pushing, pushing and shoving, you know.
Speaker 7: A little pin against the wall type of thing, Wow,
Speaker 7: against the wall type of thing.
Speaker 5: You know, no, no.
Speaker 7: Harm, no foul, Probably a foul, but I think it
Speaker 7: was not the flavor one.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, fair enough, So Tim, you know, the
Speaker 2: jazz stuff has been tough all year, as we talked about,
Speaker 2: but when cool things happened, let's talk about cool things.
Speaker 2: And you know, Walker last night was he was special.
Speaker 2: It was historic. I mean, two players in the history
Speaker 2: of pro basketball put up the stat line have put
Speaker 2: up the stat line Walker put up last night, and
Speaker 2: it was against a really good big and demot the bonus.
Speaker 2: Who's just eaten the jazz launch over the past few years.
Speaker 2: Walker ten of ten from the floor, twenty five points,
Speaker 2: fourteen boards, five assists, steals. Only Nicola Jokic and Will
Speaker 2: Chamberlain have done that in an NBA game. So again
Speaker 2: they lost, we know the deal, but a really cool
Speaker 2: night as it pertains to Walker Kessler.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and honestly, I think Walker Kessler has been the
Speaker 7: best thing about the Jazz season this year. You know,
Speaker 7: you can say it's damning him with faint praise, but
Speaker 7: you know, a great rookie year last year, I think,
Speaker 7: you know, he was even qualified as disappointing, and then
Speaker 7: you know, this year has been able to re establish
Speaker 7: himself as he's a quality starting big and you for
Speaker 7: a team that is searching for long term foundation pieces,
Speaker 7: long term core pieces, I think he's the one guy
Speaker 7: from the last three drafts that you can say, hey,
Speaker 7: he absolutely fits that bill. There's no question that Walker
Speaker 7: Kessler can be a quality started big man in the
Speaker 7: NBA for you know, a decade or so to come.
Speaker 7: So this was a highlight of what's really been a
Speaker 7: very good season for him individually. You know, despite the
Speaker 7: fact that obviously overall is a team they have not
Speaker 7: won much and are not trying to win that much.
Speaker 2: And I don't know Tim, that they're going to try
Speaker 2: to win even next year. So your guy Jonathan Gavoni,
Speaker 2: Jeremy Woo as well, piece today really good in depth,
Speaker 2: Well wasn't today, but a couple of days ago really
Speaker 2: an in depth piece about the class next year. Nate Emmett,
Speaker 2: Cameron Boozer, AJ Debansadarren Peterson. AJ is going to be
Speaker 2: playing his college ball here, But after reading what Cavoni
Speaker 2: had to write about, like he thinks Peterson's the number
Speaker 2: one prospect in AJ's two, then it's the Boozer board.
Speaker 2: Cambe will be three and then Nate amm at four.
Speaker 2: But based off of what Caavoni's saying about these top
Speaker 2: four players, I don't know if this fan base will
Speaker 2: see a serious approach next year. And who knows what
Speaker 2: will you know the offseason will bring. But it feels
Speaker 2: to me, Tim that we're in for another year of
Speaker 2: what we just experienced. Is that kind of what your
Speaker 2: gut's telling you.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think the best way to put it
Speaker 7: is the Jazz are early and rebuild, and that's typically
Speaker 7: not like a you know, QUICKI type of process We'll
Speaker 7: see what kind of lottery luck they have, you know,
Speaker 7: we'll see if they are able to get a guy
Speaker 7: like you know, let's say they win lottery, they get
Speaker 7: Cooper Flag. You know, does Coop of Flag come in
Speaker 7: and drive winning immediately? I think the fasking an awful
Speaker 7: lot of a guy who, you know, if he didn't
Speaker 7: skip a great, if he didn't reclassify, would be a
Speaker 7: senior in high school right now. So I think it's
Speaker 7: just kind of part of the natural process. But yeah,
Speaker 7: I if I'm a Jazz Dan, I'm not expecting like
Speaker 7: some jump and wins next year for sure.
Speaker 2: All Right, so let's move let's move off it, and
Speaker 2: let's talk about the things that are a little bit
Speaker 2: more exciting and a little more pertinent to the world
Speaker 2: of pro basketball. First of all, from a macro standpoint, Tim,
Speaker 2: don't look now, but the past week I've watched NBA
Speaker 2: games and I'm seeing NBA players playing really, really hard.
Speaker 2: And maybe that's just this time of year. It is
Speaker 2: a reminder of how great this game is when the
Speaker 2: best players take it seriously. I think the narrative of
Speaker 2: you know, lacka days ago play is starting to go
Speaker 2: away here with some pretty intense high level basketball since
Speaker 2: the All Star Break.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well yeah, and then look, there's teams like you
Speaker 7: don't have to worry about whether the Detroit Pistons are
Speaker 7: playing hard. You know that that's a franchise and a
Speaker 7: bunch of guys, young guys on the roster who have
Speaker 7: a bunch.
Speaker 5: To prove and you know, it's a pretty cool story.
Speaker 7: The Detroit Pistons have one more games so far of
Speaker 7: the season than they did the last two years combined.
Speaker 7: The Detroit Pistons woke up a year ago today with
Speaker 7: eight wins on the season. They are on an eight
Speaker 7: game winning streak right now. So and look, you know,
Speaker 7: if you're again you're in Salt Lake City, it's a
Speaker 7: it's a rebuild. You know, there's obviously pain that comes
Speaker 7: along with that. This is a team that's been through
Speaker 7: the pain and has been able to make that jump
Speaker 7: this season. You've got to find the guy to build around,
Speaker 7: and they've got that with Cad Cunningham, and then it's
Speaker 7: about surrounding him with the right pieces. So, you know,
Speaker 7: they got to a point where they had a guy
Speaker 7: they wanted to build around. They brought in some vets
Speaker 7: to fit and gave him just some room to breathe.
Speaker 7: And you know, the Pistons, like, I don't know if
Speaker 7: they're going to win a playoff series this year, but
Speaker 7: the fact that they're going to be in one and
Speaker 7: that they're going to be a tough matchup for somebody
Speaker 7: is pretty amazing progress considering they won fourteen games last
Speaker 7: year and set of them being erected for the longest
Speaker 7: losing streak.
Speaker 2: Former Jazz DM Dennis Lindsay helping out over there, which
Speaker 2: is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Happy for him. And you know, when we.
Speaker 2: Always try to draw parallels between teams that are further
Speaker 2: along in advanced rebuilds, I try to bring it topically
Speaker 2: as far as what the Jazz are doing here, But
Speaker 2: you referenced it right, like they have Kate and Orlando
Speaker 2: has has Bankara, Like it's it is just the one
Speaker 2: thing that somehow, some way the Jazz need to find.
Speaker 2: As good as Lowry is, I just don't know that
Speaker 2: he is the guy to build around when it comes
Speaker 2: to eventually being back into contention. It is the one
Speaker 2: outlier that all of these advanced rebuild teams seem to
Speaker 2: have that the Jazz just right now have not been
Speaker 2: able to find.
Speaker 7: And that's why you tank to be honest with you
Speaker 7: because where picked right? Where was Kid Cunningham picked right?
Speaker 7: That the easiest way to get that level of talent
Speaker 7: is to pick very very early in the draft. You know,
Speaker 7: it's hard to do. It's hard to trade for those
Speaker 7: kind of guys as a rebuilding team especially, and let's
Speaker 7: just be blunt, like in a market like Salt Lake
Speaker 7: City where you're in rebuild, it's impossible to sign that
Speaker 7: kind of guy in free agency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the bottom line, all right.
Speaker 2: We were all gathered around our television sets on Tuesday night,
Speaker 2: and obviously is the guy that wrote the book on Luca,
Speaker 2: You're the guy to talk about this. And I feel like,
Speaker 2: at least through the television tim it felt like there
Speaker 2: was a lot of buzzs in that arena. Of course,
Speaker 2: with Luca taking on the mats for the first time,
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure if Nico was going to show up.
Speaker 2: He did the over under I said on the show
Speaker 2: for Luca points was forty. He didn't touch that, but
Speaker 2: he did get a triple double. I'm really curious is
Speaker 2: to see what it looks like when they go down
Speaker 2: to Dallas. But what was it like to be in
Speaker 2: the building and what was your takeaway as we saw
Speaker 2: Luca play his former team for the first time.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and you know, I thought Luca played well. With
Speaker 7: the exception of shooting the ball. I thought he played
Speaker 7: a very kind of poised and focused games. The Matters
Speaker 7: were determined not to let him go off. They're they're
Speaker 7: obviously trapping and double him a lot to you know,
Speaker 7: to make sure he even had that forty point type
Speaker 7: of performance. And he doesn't have his legs right now.
Speaker 7: He had He's had one good offensive performance, one good
Speaker 7: scoring performance, I should say, uh for the Lakers. You know,
Speaker 7: since the trade. You know, he doesn't have his legs.
Speaker 7: You can tell when when you know, when he's not
Speaker 7: making threes. The thing that I think surprised me was
Speaker 7: I thought this would be a full Luca Rage type
Speaker 7: of performance, and he saw a little glimpse of that.
Speaker 7: Like midway through the fourth quarter, he knocks in that
Speaker 7: three of the time out, he looks at the mass dance,
Speaker 7: he's glaring and he's yelling all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 7: But there wasn't a whole lot of back and forth.
Speaker 7: You know, he made a point like he pretended, oh
Speaker 7: I didn't know, I didn't see me, Okay, Like he
Speaker 7: made a point not to have any level of interaction
Speaker 7: with Niko Harrison or with Jason Kidd, which tells you that,
Speaker 7: you know, Luca didn't quite by because j Kid wasn't
Speaker 7: aware of anything until the eleven dour stuff, and that
Speaker 7: would put myself in that same boat. But the prevailing
Speaker 7: emotion from Luca in terms of the Matticks, I don't
Speaker 7: think his anger right now. I think it's more sadness,
Speaker 7: and you know he's I think he will find joy
Speaker 7: with the Lakers. I think he's he's searching for it
Speaker 7: right now, and it's not feel like, Look, they're gonna
Speaker 7: win games. He's got a good relationship with JJ Reddick,
Speaker 7: you know, looked up to Lebron his entire childhood, loves
Speaker 7: doing Phinney Smith at timmdy Hand Dallas. Like, I think
Speaker 7: Luke is going to be just fine, is gonna, you know,
Speaker 7: have a great run here with the Lakers. Well, he's
Speaker 7: still getting over basically getting dumped publicly and shamed out
Speaker 7: his way up the door.
Speaker 2: You reference the Jason Kidd element here, the Jason kidds
Speaker 2: side of this and look, you know far more about
Speaker 2: this situation than probably any medium member, let alone me.
Speaker 2: I just thought, as a head coach, it would be
Speaker 2: really hard to see a player like that traded away
Speaker 2: because if you have Luca, you got a shot, and
Speaker 2: these guys are wired to win. And Jason Kidd, once
Speaker 2: upon a time was as fierce a competitor as a
Speaker 2: player as anybody as you know. So now that a
Speaker 2: few weeks have passed, have you been able to kind
Speaker 2: of uncover exactly what he knew when he knew it
Speaker 2: in the hand he played in this decision, if any
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 7: I can't tell you what he knew in terms of
Speaker 7: like the trade discussions and all that. I can just
Speaker 7: tell you he was absolutely as frustrated with Luca as
Speaker 7: Nico Harrison was in terms of the diet, the conditioning that,
Speaker 7: you know, all the stuff that I've talked about I've
Speaker 7: report has been reported by other people. Nico was not
Speaker 7: on an island with that. Jay Kidd was right there
Speaker 7: with him on that. And I can also tell you
Speaker 7: that Jason Kidd was right there with Nico in terms
Speaker 7: of his fondness for Anthony Davis. Nico obviously had a
Speaker 7: you know, decade long relationship with Ad. You know, from
Speaker 7: Nico's time at Nike, aside from Cobe Bryant, he was
Speaker 7: probably closer to a d than any other player that
Speaker 7: he worked with there. But Jason Kidd also has a
Speaker 7: really good relationship with Ad. Remember j Kidd, it's been
Speaker 7: a couple of years as an assistant coach in LA
Speaker 7: before getting hired as a head coach in Dallas. And
Speaker 7: one of those years they won a championship in the bubble.
Speaker 7: You know, Ad was his guy. So again, I I
Speaker 7: don't I'll put it like this. I don't think Jason
Speaker 7: Kidd was disappointed by this trade. I'm very confident in
Speaker 7: saying that.
Speaker 2: So you know, I always hesitate to, you know, bring
Speaker 2: things on the internet into real life because I don't
Speaker 2: know how real it is. It just seems like there
Speaker 2: is a bit of a smear campaign going on from
Speaker 2: the Mavericks because every time I fire up NBA Twitter,
Speaker 2: it's smoking a hookah and drinking beers, and then there's
Speaker 2: pictures of Luca and you know a lot of people
Speaker 2: are It's just it's a different era in a lot
Speaker 2: of different ways, not just in basketball, but society. Like
Speaker 2: you know, we could talk about back in the day,
Speaker 2: the party habits of a Michael Jordan, the party and
Speaker 2: habits of a lot of players back then.
Speaker 1: Certainly I saw it, you know, I was around a
Speaker 1: lot of it.
Speaker 2: And the younger generation just doesn't seem to They seem
Speaker 2: to have a different relationship and the fundamental understanding of
Speaker 2: the DERs of maybe alcohol and drug use and such.
Speaker 2: So maybe it's a different mindset just overall. But is
Speaker 2: this Dallas behind the scenes trying to because I don't look,
Speaker 2: I'm just have the opinion you can't spin this.
Speaker 1: It's a bad trade. You don't make no matter what.
Speaker 2: But is this Dallas behind the scenes trying to spin
Speaker 2: it to help people understand that maybe this is something
Speaker 2: they needed to do.
Speaker 7: And you know, I don't know if it's so much
Speaker 7: even trying to spin it, but just like what that
Speaker 7: what were you thinking? Well, this is why they made
Speaker 7: the trade. And look, it is not breaking news that
Speaker 7: Luka Dontch likes to have a Bruce ski or two scheme, right, Like,
Speaker 7: did you know that before he was traded?
Speaker 1: I was aware of I was aware.
Speaker 7: Of course, you knew that before he is traded. It
Speaker 7: is not breaking news that the man's got a voracious
Speaker 7: appetite and sometimes can get pretty pudgy. Like you knew that.
Speaker 7: You've watched him throughout his career. You know you've seen
Speaker 7: him like I reported going back to Jay Kids first year,
Speaker 7: Rick Carlisle's last year, Luca was tipping the scales over
Speaker 7: two sixty back then. And of those seasons, this has
Speaker 7: been something that's been, you know, a constant issue. It's
Speaker 7: just for all those concerns, you say, well, okay, he
Speaker 7: also made five straight first team All NBA squads. He
Speaker 7: also led the league in scoring last year, almost averaged
Speaker 7: a triple double, and you know, took your team to
Speaker 7: the finals. So I don't necessarily think I don't think
Speaker 7: it's like a whole lot of Hey, here's new stuff,
Speaker 7: here's new stuff, because dude, the hookah stuff. The hookah.
Speaker 7: At first, I honestly, the hookah thing I don't think
Speaker 7: was a big concern, like did he have hook on vacation, Sure, okay, whatever.
Speaker 7: The beer drinking and all that stuff, that's much more
Speaker 7: of a concern simply because it gets to the weight
Speaker 7: and it gets to you know, all those all those uh,
Speaker 7: the concerns about his body breaking down but it's not
Speaker 7: like people just realize that that Luca likes to drink
Speaker 7: a beer.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like it's weird, because I guess there's
Speaker 2: no way of fully no. I mean, I can tell
Speaker 2: you that I saw firsthand myself the past iteration of
Speaker 2: the jazz with Donovan and some of those guys. They
Speaker 2: like to have a good time in certain areas here
Speaker 2: in Salt Lake City and certain places where Donovan lived,
Speaker 2: there were a lot of parties that were being thrown.
Speaker 2: But is there a different approach with the younger generation
Speaker 2: juxtaposed to kind of the old guard. Look, I know,
Speaker 2: nobody's smoking heaters at halftime like lott I was, But
Speaker 2: is there right, is there like a different like cultural
Speaker 2: approach in pro basketball to taking care of their bodies
Speaker 2: in a way that maybe it wasn't a thing back.
Speaker 1: In the day.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's obviously a lot more science involved in it,
Speaker 7: and you know, I think it's a much higher priority
Speaker 7: for teams, so it becomes a higher priority for players.
Speaker 7: But like, if you think Luke is the only guy
Speaker 7: in the league that enjoys having a drinker six, then
Speaker 7: I don't know what to tell you. You know, and like
Speaker 7: you know there's a big wine culture in the NBA. Like, Okay,
Speaker 7: I don't know, man, I just again, I get like
Speaker 7: the fact that he gained weight during the season last
Speaker 7: year while leading the league and usage rate and playing
Speaker 7: thirty eight minutes per game, is you know, with a
Speaker 7: full time quote unquote body team. Like, I get it,
Speaker 7: that's pretty alarming. But I just, you know, I don't.
Speaker 7: I don't think the guy's like waking up and pouring
Speaker 7: beerd his cheerios or anything. Okay, Like I you know,
Speaker 7: I'm like, I understand the concerns with the beer drinking
Speaker 7: because it's it becomes a conditioning thing. I I would
Speaker 7: be cautious on portraying this guy as having like a
Speaker 7: serious alcohol problem. I just I just think that Luca's
Speaker 7: postgame routine is very similar to mine.
Speaker 1: Right, And I've experienced that routine.
Speaker 7: It's a fun routine, yeah, you know, and and unfortunately
Speaker 7: a lot of times I think his off seasonta overt
Speaker 7: of mine too. Certainly the all Star break routine at times.
Speaker 2: For sure, And there's nothing wrong with it. You know,
Speaker 2: you work hard, you should enjoy life, you know. I'm
Speaker 2: not a lived to work guy. I'm a work to
Speaker 2: live guy, and I think people should approach you that way.
Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with it at all, especially when he went
Speaker 2: to the finals a year ago, Like it couldn't be
Speaker 2: that big of a deal. So Dallas obviously tim right
Speaker 2: now with her grip of injury issues with their bigs.
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting, Kyrie is kind of coming out
Speaker 2: on the other side of this is like this hero
Speaker 2: right for Dallas fans. And this is a guy that
Speaker 2: was a lightning rod for criticism not that long ago.
Speaker 2: A lot of people didn't even want to touch him,
Speaker 2: someone as far as to say he shouldn't play pro
Speaker 2: basketball anymore.
Speaker 1: But what do you make of like the Kyrie side
Speaker 1: of this?
Speaker 2: And whenever he locks in the way he did against
Speaker 2: the Lakers, I'm reminded that once upon a time I
Speaker 2: did enjoy watching him, maybe as much, if not more
Speaker 2: than any player in the league.
Speaker 1: But you cover the team, what do.
Speaker 2: You make of like the Kyrie kind of coming out
Speaker 2: looking like maybe a hero for Dallas and this whole thing.
Speaker 7: Well, I don't think that is something that's a sudden development.
Speaker 7: I think that was the case last year too. Now
Speaker 7: since his you know, he's he's like it's kind of
Speaker 7: his team now, right, And he's the guy who's probably
Speaker 7: handled this the best in terms of like empathetic towards Luca,
Speaker 7: and you know, like, you know, they still have a relationship,
Speaker 7: they still got a brotherhood. But and hey, like you
Speaker 7: can find in private, Luca's not coming back. Kyrie's got
Speaker 7: a team to lead, he's got games to try to win,
Speaker 7: and you know, he's been handling his business as far
Speaker 7: as that goes. But you know, I don't think there's
Speaker 7: been a sudden shift in the Kyrie storingline. I think
Speaker 7: he kind of earned his way into the hearts of
Speaker 7: the Mavericks fans, certainly last year and especially during the
Speaker 7: playoff run, but even before that. And you know, the
Speaker 7: simple fact is Kyrie has been the leader of this team.
Speaker 7: He wasn't their best player last year, but he was
Speaker 7: absolutely the leader. He was the the primary voice in
Speaker 7: the locker room. And you know, despite his track record
Speaker 7: of chaos and his previous stops, he has been a
Speaker 7: constant source of like calm for the Mavericks and that's
Speaker 7: something they obviously really really needed after the NBA much
Speaker 7: less the franchise was rocked by this shocking trade.
Speaker 1: Well, my take remains, do not make that trade.
Speaker 2: There actually is a lot to like about the Mavericks
Speaker 2: roster if they can get right Lively, Gaffer and obviously
Speaker 2: a D.
Speaker 1: So where we at with those three?
Speaker 2: Do you think they can get back in time to
Speaker 2: be in shape for the playoffs? And if so, what's
Speaker 2: the ceiling for this Mavericks team this year?
Speaker 7: And you know, talking to my people with the Mavericks,
Speaker 7: the hope is that they're going to get two or
Speaker 7: three weeks of AD and liveing together at the end
Speaker 7: of the regular season. You know, how much rhythm and
Speaker 7: rapport and you know, kind of chemistry can you establish.
Speaker 7: And I don't know if it's going to be eight games,
Speaker 7: ten games, whatever it may be, I don't know, But
Speaker 7: that's the reality of the situation. That's what they're going
Speaker 7: to have. There's not as much optimism the Gaffer is
Speaker 7: going to be able to get back and be a
Speaker 7: significant part of this. He you know, grade three spraying
Speaker 7: of the MTL basically means he towards MCL so he
Speaker 7: definitely has the toughest injury of the three to deal with.
Speaker 7: But so Gafford and I'm sorry, live L and AD
Speaker 7: is supposed to be reevaluated next week. They're not returning
Speaker 7: next week, but they will if things continue progressing as
Speaker 7: they are, get back at some point in March.
Speaker 2: Are you buying the optimism in Golden State? I think
Speaker 2: they're seven and one with Jimmy Butler and a lot
Speaker 2: of people. And look, Jimmy has shown us that he
Speaker 2: come playoff time. He's one of those dudes you just
Speaker 2: have to admit that he is. So I'll ask you
Speaker 2: the same question, are you buying that optimism? And what's
Speaker 2: best case scenario for Golden State this year?
Speaker 7: Splash and crash splashes, Steph crashes Jimmy, you like that?
Speaker 1: I like that's really good.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Uh, They're definitely better than they were before the trade.
Speaker 7: And obviously it looks Stephon. I mean, they've got some
Speaker 7: guys who are big time champions that you have to respect.
Speaker 7: Jimmy Butler's you know, really had two overachieving heat teams
Speaker 7: make the finals in large part because he is one
Speaker 7: of those dudes who can just absolutely dominate playoff series. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I don't think they were gonna win the West, Like,
Speaker 7: is it within the realm of possibility? Sure, but I
Speaker 7: don't think they have like even a double figure percentage
Speaker 7: chance of putting the Western Conference.
Speaker 2: Who keeps Mark dagnalld up at night? Is it Denver
Speaker 2: more than anyone else?
Speaker 7: Uh? Yeah, I think I think Denver, And honestly, yes,
Speaker 7: Denver is the one who's the who's the biggest challenge.
Speaker 7: I don't think there's any question about that. But you know,
Speaker 7: I don't think anybody's like just super excited about seeing
Speaker 7: a Luca Lebron tandem in a playoff series. The Lakers
Speaker 7: have a hole in the roster. I mean, clearly they
Speaker 7: thought they needed a starting rim running center, and you know,
Speaker 7: they flunk Mark Williams on a physical so that didn't happen.
Speaker 7: But the Lakers, they've been playing, they've been playing good
Speaker 7: basketball even before the Luca trade, you know, even without
Speaker 7: a d and Luca's not himself quite yet, but we've
Speaker 7: seen what that guy can do in the playoffs for sure.
Speaker 2: A reminder of how fleeting this stuff is. Since you
Speaker 2: and I last spoke, Victor wemen Yama shutdown for the year.
Speaker 2: In Greg Popovich will not coach the Spurs this season.
Speaker 2: I'm anticipating them losing the rest of their games and
Speaker 2: drafting Cooper flag to play an extra Victor wemen Yama.
Speaker 2: But what are your thoughts him on the latest happenings
Speaker 2: in San Antonio.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I was there and often the day the
Speaker 7: Wimby stuff came out, so you know, I was able
Speaker 7: to talk to people with the Spurs. They are very
Speaker 7: optimistic that he's going to be fine long term, that
Speaker 7: he's going to be able to be back to start
Speaker 7: the next season. It's not going to be an issue
Speaker 7: throughout the course of his career. So that obviously is
Speaker 7: you know, it's it sucks that he's not playing the
Speaker 7: rest of the season, but you know, it's good news
Speaker 7: that they don't think this is something that's going to
Speaker 7: be a lingering issue or you know Chris Bosh type
Speaker 7: of saying, where it ruins a guy's career, in some
Speaker 7: guy's career. I thought the news today with Pop and
Speaker 7: that he's not going to coach to us the season.
Speaker 7: We knew that it's that he plans to coach next season,
Speaker 7: you know, and we'll see how his recovery goes and
Speaker 7: how things progress. But you know, the short statement that
Speaker 7: he that he left or that he sent out, you know,
Speaker 7: it ended with you know, the hope to return to coaching,
Speaker 7: and you know, that's making it very clear that Pop
Speaker 7: is not is not limping off in the sunset all right.
Speaker 2: Before I said, you lose some very inspirational news that
Speaker 2: Paul George is putting his podcast on pause to focus
Speaker 2: on the rest of the season for Philadelphia. What they do, man, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you get out of this? What happens next
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia?
Speaker 7: The Philadelphia top sixers? You know, can they keep that
Speaker 7: top six protected pick? That's the big quest, that's I mean,
Speaker 7: and be it's about to get shut down. We know that,
Speaker 7: so that that's the first big question. The second big
Speaker 7: question is, you know, does Inbeid try to get out
Speaker 7: of there? And then if he does, what kind of
Speaker 7: market is there for him? With almost yeah, I guess
Speaker 7: after this year will be like with almost two hundred
Speaker 7: fifty million O to them over the next four years.
Speaker 7: You know, I don't know the answers those, but clearly
Speaker 7: a team that thought they won the summer. You know,
Speaker 7: they had a little free agency parade, but it's a
Speaker 7: complete mess up there in Philadelphia. And the the big
Speaker 7: question is who's gonna who's gonna lose their jobs? Who
Speaker 7: is going to pay for this mess by losing their jobs.
Speaker 7: Is Darryl Moore going to get a chance to clean
Speaker 7: this up?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 7: Is Nick Nurse a proven championship coach? Is he going
Speaker 7: to be the fall guy? It's it's not going to
Speaker 7: be a celebratory summer in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: The media member that you got physical with, was it mcminnimon.
Speaker 2: That's my best guess.
Speaker 7: No, it wasn't. It wasn't davel though. Listen, I am
Speaker 7: here in La right now. Let's go over on a
Speaker 7: little while here to the arena for Little Wolves Lakers,
Speaker 7: and you know, we'll see what happens tonight. I'm not
Speaker 7: gonna rule it out, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Get after him. I want to beaf between McMahon and mcminnimon.
Speaker 2: Did our one of our two of our favorites on
Speaker 2: the show, all right? Tim enjoyed the game man, Thanks
Speaker 2: for the.
Speaker 7: Time, all right, all right, appreciate it. Broth.
Speaker 2: Andy Larson claims he has a video of two local
Speaker 2: media members going at it.
Speaker 1: I need to see that it wasn't me, by the way,
Speaker 1: it wasn't me.
Speaker 2: Uh, to quote Shaggy great song. I'm going to think
Speaker 2: about my best guess now, don't sing it. I'm going
Speaker 2: to think about my best guess and I'll give it
Speaker 2: to you before the end of the show. Two Salt
Speaker 2: Lake Media members on video going at it outside.
Speaker 1: Oh you know what. One of them is Tony.
Speaker 3: It might be Tony.
Speaker 1: My one guest is TJ.
Speaker 2: All Right, wrapping up the program here on a Thursday afternoon,
Speaker 2: some breaking news. I guess Travis Kelcey is gonna play
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five. So shout out to all the
Speaker 2: Swifties who love football. Now I know who Travis kelsey is.
Speaker 2: He announced it earlier today on the Pad McAfee show.
Speaker 2: Because that's the deal, I guess. So Travis kelce back
Speaker 2: with the Kansas City Chiefs next year. Light Night of
Speaker 2: local action. The Utah Hockey Club is in action tonight
Speaker 2: against Minnesota. So good NBA games, Warriors and the Magic
Speaker 2: are going on right now. We've got Nuggets and Bucks.
Speaker 2: That's your early game on Turner and then the Timberwolves
Speaker 2: and the Lakers from Crypto dot Com Arena and the
Speaker 2: t Wolves will be in town tomorrow. Rudy Gobert and Nikhil,
Speaker 2: Alexander Walker, Mike Conley back in action in town for
Speaker 2: the team well against the team they played here, played
Speaker 2: for here once lot of time. They're all jazzmn At
Speaker 2: some point the Hornets and the Mavericks are also in
Speaker 2: action Pelicans suns as well. So yeah, light night on
Speaker 2: the local hoop side after a jam pack night last night.
Speaker 1: So there you go.
Speaker 2: The hooligans have cleared the area. So no skateboarding going on.
Speaker 2: Good outside, which again is a little bit nerve racking
Speaker 2: when you're leaving and there's a bunch of young people
Speaker 2: skating with cameras obviously creating content for YouTube. We live
Speaker 2: in a society. There are rules here. Can we just
Speaker 2: respect the rules? Is that too much to ask?
Speaker 3: Are saying no skateboarding? Is that your rule?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: Not no skateboarding, but not like right outside in traffic
Speaker 2: that's obnoxious.
Speaker 1: That's fair. They're stopping cars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have a fair point, all right.
Speaker 2: Before we say good night, news broke today that Jordan Schultz,
Speaker 2: two NFL insiders got to fight in Starbucks verbal altercation.
Speaker 3: Also just some context here. One of them is an
Speaker 3: heir to Starbucks.
Speaker 1: Jordan Schultz father Howard Schultz. Does he still own Starbucks
Speaker 1: or do you sell? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Wow, at least I mean I don't know how much
Speaker 3: equity he's got in it at the moment, or ownership,
Speaker 3: whatever it is. But there's a let's just say there's
Speaker 3: some there's some pennies.
Speaker 2: Leanter, I'm sure he's doing just fine. Jordan Schultz is pop,
Speaker 2: Howard Schultz owned Starbucks.
Speaker 1: Maybe this was intentional.
Speaker 2: And then Ian Rapaport from the NFL Network reportedly got
Speaker 2: into it at a Starbucks as a result of conflicting
Speaker 2: reports of a story that Tom Brady took Matt Stafford's scheme.
Speaker 2: So yeah, very mature behavior from these two. And so
Speaker 2: Andy Larson said that he has video evidence of two
Speaker 2: reporters from our market getting into it after a jazz
Speaker 2: game physically. Well did he say physically.
Speaker 3: It was Tony and Sarah?
Speaker 1: Oh wow? Oh wow wow.
Speaker 2: He didn't say physically, right. I think he said they
Speaker 2: were just kind of nosed and nose yelling at each other.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: So, I'm ready to give you my guests.
Speaker 2: Ready, I'm ready, Tony Jones, Eric Waldon, Okay, that's a
Speaker 2: that's my guests.
Speaker 3: That might be actually it And it's funny because we
Speaker 3: are just kissing. I have I have seen Tony like
Speaker 3: in those press rooms get I'll say bothered. Uh, So
Speaker 3: we'll see maybe that's maybe that's the one. Maybe we'll
Speaker 3: bring Tony on grilling.
Speaker 2: I know Tony was mad at me once. I came
Speaker 2: in here, and Tony was mad at me once. I
Speaker 2: don't know what I could just tell. Do you know
Speaker 2: why he was mad.
Speaker 1: At me that one day?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 3: In here?
Speaker 1: No, he was doing I don't know if he was
Speaker 1: filling in for Bill.
Speaker 3: It was me and Tony for Bill.
Speaker 1: I think that's what it was.
Speaker 2: And I don't know because sometimes I will call Tony
Speaker 2: out for what I perceive to be lack of entire transparency,
Speaker 2: if that's fair to say, Like when he tweets out
Speaker 2: that he's five eleven or whatever, I'm like, dude, if
Speaker 2: you're five eleven, I'm six four. Our guys like five six,
Speaker 2: five seven. So I know Tony can get a little emotional.
Speaker 2: He's my guy, love him. But and then I think
Speaker 2: at some point Tony and Eric outside. So my guess
Speaker 2: is it is Tony Jones and it is Eric Walden
Speaker 2: as the two media members that got into it.
Speaker 3: I I can't disagree there. I don't have any like
Speaker 3: guesses off the top of my mind, but It wouldn't
Speaker 3: put me past it, put it past them. I do
Speaker 3: know that. Like, if that is the case, Tony and
Speaker 3: Eric are like buds, they'll, you know, they'll make up,
Speaker 3: they'll be buddies afterwards. But I could see them getting
Speaker 3: after it as well.
Speaker 2: Is there one media member you'd like to verbally accost
Speaker 2: in our market?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 1: One, that's my of course, there's one. I've got a
Speaker 1: nice list.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a list.
Speaker 2: You said that with like a vindictive tone. Is there
Speaker 2: is there something you want to talk about air out
Speaker 2: on live radio right now?
Speaker 3: I don't know if on air is the place to
Speaker 3: air it out. Okay enough, but.
Speaker 2: Before we saying, can you imagine being junior tafoonis size
Speaker 2: and running a five zero three forty?
Speaker 1: No, that's impressive.
Speaker 3: No, uh yeah, if you can get anywhere near the
Speaker 3: fives right when you work with those guys there, they
Speaker 3: would love to see a four pop up on that screen.
Speaker 3: But that is really rare for any sort of defensive
Speaker 3: lineman offensive, especially the interior guys. That's a good number
Speaker 3: for junior, it will at least, and the little inside
Speaker 3: baseball here is that the scouts aren't gonna look at
Speaker 3: that number. They're gonna go in and say, oh, he
Speaker 3: ran the forty. Now let's go look at his first
Speaker 3: ten yard split. That's the number they want to look at.
Speaker 3: And for Junior it's it's a pretty good one. So
Speaker 3: they'll at least get some attention, some eyes on his film.
Speaker 3: And that's that's the goal. A combine week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good stuff for Junior to foo today. Karanny Reid
Speaker 2: as well as Bran Keithy Tyler Batty is there for
Speaker 2: bringing me young. So the combine rolls along for u
Speaker 2: NFL fans that are just starving for NFL contents. All right,
Speaker 2: time to Sagan I Porter what comes our way? On
Speaker 2: a Friday edition of the radio show, we'll.
Speaker 3: Finish off the week with a little bit of everything.
Speaker 3: Howard Beck stops by for your NBA Daily Assists. We'll
Speaker 3: talk some golf, of course with our friend Paul Pugmyer
Speaker 3: of Utah Golf Radio, some RSL with one Pablo Mastro
Speaker 3: any the gap for Gordon Monson might stop by, and
Speaker 3: then I'll probably shoot a text at Jordan Schultz please
Speaker 3: do we'll go in that direction.
Speaker 2: I've had Jordan on the show before. We'd love to
Speaker 2: have Jordan on the show or Ian rap Aport either one.
Speaker 2: So stay tuned for a Friday edition of the program.
Speaker 2: We'll get that weekend started out the right way, But
Speaker 2: for now we'll say goodnight and a special thank it
Speaker 2: to Neil Smith, Andy Larson and Tim McMahon for to
Speaker 2: the sound. You may have missed from the show today.
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Speaker 1: night and enjoy your Thursday evening.
Speaker 2: Talk to you on a Friday Drive as well as
Speaker 2: you can catch it right here AUDESPN seven hundred