Speaker 1: All right, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Drivetime Friday afternoon, seven minutes past the hour of two o'clock.
Speaker 1: Pretty temperate, pretty warm.
Speaker 2: It's about thirty eight thirty nine degrees, little cloudy here
Speaker 2: in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. Might have some snow
Speaker 2: up in the mountains this weekend, maybe early next week
Speaker 2: as we are preparing to turn our calendars to February. Gratulations,
Speaker 2: good work everybody, you made it. And it's weekend time. Congratulations,
Speaker 2: Happy Friday. A good sports weekend ahead, a lot of
Speaker 2: pro basketball, a lot of college basketball. We have the
Speaker 2: Utah women in action tonight. It's against Arizona just after
Speaker 2: six o'clock. That game can be seen on FS one
Speaker 2: and of course you can hear it right here on
Speaker 2: ESPN seven hundred. The Utah Hockey Club is back in
Speaker 2: action at home. It's been a busy week for the
Speaker 2: staff over at the Delta Center. Shout out to the
Speaker 2: staff at the Delta Center. After a Jazz game last
Speaker 2: night against Minnesota, quick turnaround to make sure the ice
Speaker 2: is ready to roll for the Utah Hockey Club taking
Speaker 2: on Columbus. Utah Men back in action tomorrow again. So
Speaker 2: Oklhomba State on the road three the next four games
Speaker 2: on the road for the youth. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: to Utah basketball on the program today, Bring them young
Speaker 2: back at action tomorrow on the road at UCF. The
Speaker 2: Jazz will host Orlando tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock Mountain time.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 2: So a lot of basketball, a lot of pro basketball,
Speaker 2: a lot of college basketball on the program today. NBA
Speaker 2: Trade deadline, ride around the corner, Caitlin Clark says no
Speaker 2: to the NBA's infight to participate in the three point contest.
Speaker 2: And a fun night last night, welcoming back some old
Speaker 2: friends from the Utah Jazz past iteration Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles,
Speaker 2: Mike Codley who did not play, Nikhil, Alexander Walker and
Speaker 2: the likes. So a lot of former Jazz players in
Speaker 2: the building last night. And here's a tease. I'm ready
Speaker 2: to tell you about a Jazz player who I like. Yep,
Speaker 2: that's right, and it's not Lowry. I'm ready to say
Speaker 2: today that one of the draft picks that have been
Speaker 2: made over the past two years is starting to show
Speaker 2: some signs of maybe a long term fit, long term player.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to do it today. I know, I know.
Speaker 1: It's been a.
Speaker 2: Tough year, tough, well, tough three years almost to cover
Speaker 2: this Jazz team, unseerious about winning. But a couple of
Speaker 2: interesting storylines I think are starting to emerge, So we'll
Speaker 2: get to it on the show today. Minnesota started running
Speaker 2: away from the Jazz after Julius Randall got hurt.
Speaker 1: You're next fan.
Speaker 2: One of the five Nick fans in the market, two
Speaker 2: are actually on the show, which is weird.
Speaker 1: You understand why that actually hits.
Speaker 2: Minnesota was not playing very well, Julius Randall got hurt,
Speaker 2: and then they ran away from the Jazz. So we'll
Speaker 2: talk some Jazz basketball, We'll talk some NBA basketball. Latest
Speaker 2: on the NBA trade deadline, the All Star reserves were released,
Speaker 2: and of course, as it happens every single year, the
Speaker 2: ringing of hands, the wailing and gnashing of teeth for
Speaker 2: the snubs. Gotta love the snubs, So we'll get to
Speaker 2: the with that. Of course, we are inching closer and
Speaker 2: closer to the final football game of the year, Super
Speaker 2: Bowl fifty nine, which, by the way, you can hear
Speaker 2: on our radio station we are your home of the
Speaker 2: biggest and best football events, both college and pro and
Speaker 2: the market. So right around the corner now a week
Speaker 2: from Sunday, February ninth, Super Bowl fifty nine between.
Speaker 1: The Chiefs and the Eagles.
Speaker 2: And it's always interesting to listen and watch to some
Speaker 2: of the coverage between the conference championship and the Super
Speaker 2: Bowl to see how people kind of make this interesting.
Speaker 2: The only real storylines of pro football right now are
Speaker 2: coaching staffs that are being filled, and of course some
Speaker 2: coaching staffs they still have holes. NFL free agency begins
Speaker 2: in March twelfth, if you want to dig into that.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of conversations going around as far
Speaker 2: as what can be next in pro football. So Happy
Speaker 2: Friday to you. Congratulations you made it. It is weekend time.
Speaker 2: We'll start things off on this Friday show with an
Speaker 2: old friend of mine played his college ball Utah State,
Speaker 2: played a little pro ball, did some jazz summer league
Speaker 2: stuff for a minute, and then went overseas and had
Speaker 2: a really good career and one of the nicest guys
Speaker 2: you're gonna meet, really good on the college basketball breakdowns
Speaker 2: at Spencer Nelson Oil Partner on Jazz pref and postgame
Speaker 2: shows once upon a time on the old station.
Speaker 1: We'll start things off today.
Speaker 2: One of the best to ever do it for the
Speaker 2: Utes and a Super Bowl champion himself to help Burgess
Speaker 2: stops by in the three o'clock hour. The head coach
Speaker 2: of the Utah men's basketball team, Craig Smith, will be
Speaker 2: our guest at three thirty.
Speaker 1: And then it is the triumph in return.
Speaker 2: After spending weeks and weeks and weeks in a skimpy
Speaker 2: bathing suit under the sun, well, I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's true, but Richard Smith has been gone traveling the
Speaker 2: world enjoying the sunshine. He is now back in studio.
Speaker 2: Started at four o'clock today. It's good day to ask
Speaker 2: Smitty on because we're gonna do a little a little
Speaker 2: content on the game last night with players that Smitty knows,
Speaker 2: with Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles to Kill Alex Alexander Walker
Speaker 2: and Mike Comley back in town, and then gets Smitty's
Speaker 2: take on the current situation with Utah Jazz.
Speaker 1: The trade deadline right around the corner.
Speaker 2: Our guys spent forty years in the Utah Jazz front off,
Speaker 2: so what's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: What are the conversations sound like.
Speaker 2: And I'll ask Smitty about the jazz player who I
Speaker 2: am ready to say I am on board with.
Speaker 1: I have been waiting and we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: that player today.
Speaker 2: So Spencer Nelson, Terrell Burgess, Craig Smith, Richard Smith, Me, Spence,
Speaker 2: check ITTs, all of you, the great listeners, Happy Friday,
Speaker 2: and that.
Speaker 1: Guy Utah outlaw expert.
Speaker 2: As we learned during the five o'clock hour yesterday Porter
Speaker 2: Larson on a Friday, how many sports talk radio shows
Speaker 2: can do twenty minutes on outlaws from the state of
Speaker 2: Utah dating back to the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: Probably not very many. Probably not very many. We could
Speaker 3: and we could do more. I got like another several hours,
Speaker 3: but we'll talk sports today. Well we'll leave that for
Speaker 3: like a podcast or something.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, ultimately it was topical because the Utah
Speaker 2: Hockey Club announced that the utahle Laws were going to
Speaker 2: be an option for the name, and we had to
Speaker 2: educate the peeps. I'll tell you what on why that
Speaker 2: actually works.
Speaker 1: If they name the team.
Speaker 3: If that gets the name, I'll do like a full,
Speaker 3: a full deep dive and I'll like tell some stories
Speaker 3: that I've heard some cool stuff.
Speaker 2: What we'll do if Okay, So here's the deal. Here
Speaker 2: is our commitment and our pledge to you, the listeners.
Speaker 2: If the Utah Hockey Club becomes utile laws during one show,
Speaker 2: we will book zero guests and for four hours I
Speaker 2: will just ask porter questions about utile laws from the seventeen.
Speaker 1: Or eighteen hundreds. That is our pledge to you. That
Speaker 1: works for you, I'm on board. Ok maybe a couple guests.
Speaker 3: We'll do it for like half the shows, maybe like
Speaker 3: an hour segment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see, you don't want to do four hours where
Speaker 2: you're the one talking. M m yeah, how's it feel?
Speaker 3: But my concern is that if we do it on
Speaker 3: this space, we got to take commercial breaks.
Speaker 1: Oh you want four hours?
Speaker 3: No commercials, We'll do like a separate thing. Okay, no video,
Speaker 3: all right, just the informative deep dive.
Speaker 1: Fair enough.
Speaker 2: So if you missed that segment yesterday, I actually learned
Speaker 2: a lot from that dude in there. Whose third cousin
Speaker 2: is Billy the Kid or is it Jesse James.
Speaker 1: I don't remember Cassidy Buch Cassidy, well one of them.
Speaker 2: So utile Laws we'll see with the High Hockey Club
Speaker 2: is named after you all go through the motions of
Speaker 2: having your votes not counted but your emails captured by
Speaker 2: a qual tricks and then they're just gonna do whatever
Speaker 2: they want anyway. First guest today will be Spencer Nelson.
Speaker 2: But the ESPN seven hundred Cash Kickoff is here. It's
Speaker 2: time for your shot to win one thousand dollars in
Speaker 2: cash to pay your bills. That's dollar to five oh
Speaker 2: eight seven seven seven one thousand. That's dollar to five
Speaker 2: oh eight seven seven seven one thousand for a chance
Speaker 2: to win one thousand dollars in cash in this nation
Speaker 2: wide contest. Good luck from all of us at ESPN
Speaker 2: seven hundred. All right before we bring on my guy,
Speaker 2: Spencer Nelson, courtesy of our good friends and you're good
Speaker 2: friends too at Standard Restaurants Supply.
Speaker 1: It's your one stop shop for.
Speaker 2: All your tailgating needs online at Standard Restaurants Supply dot
Speaker 2: Com or they're convenient location here in downtown salig City, Utah.
Speaker 1: It's time now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check it's on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one sports talk. Now into the studio of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
Speaker 4: opening tip of the drive is brought to you by
Speaker 4: Standard Restaurants Supply, your one stop shop to build the
Speaker 4: best tailgate in town. Standard Restaurant Supply thirty five hundred
Speaker 4: Southwest Temple.
Speaker 2: Utah Jazz welcomed in some old friends last night to
Speaker 2: the building. The Minnesota Timberwolves rolling in in town. Minnesota,
Speaker 2: of course, a team that is interesting for us to
Speaker 2: cover here for a few reasons in the market, namely,
Speaker 2: the jazzone a lot of their draft capital, including that
Speaker 2: draft pick this year. And you know, Minnesota, unlike Cleveland,
Speaker 2: is a team that's been a little bit up and down.
Speaker 1: They've been a lot better as of late.
Speaker 2: And you know, that pick at one point looked like
Speaker 2: it may be a lottery pick. I never believed that
Speaker 2: that was going to be the case, but Minnesota was
Speaker 2: really up and down.
Speaker 1: They had some injury issues.
Speaker 2: Our guy Mike Conley did not play last night, and Mike,
Speaker 2: when he has played this year, simply looks like a
Speaker 2: point guard that is, his age doesn't look like it's
Speaker 2: really working for him much anymore.
Speaker 1: Joe Ingles barely plays for them.
Speaker 2: But covering Minnesota is always fun because of all the
Speaker 2: former Jazz players on that roster, and then the potential
Speaker 2: of the Jazz me maybe in a sneaky way, grabbing
Speaker 2: some good draft picks from Minnesota as a result of
Speaker 2: the Gobaar deal over the next four or five, six,
Speaker 2: seven years. So last night a couple of fun storylines
Speaker 2: to see the crowd chant for Joe Ingalls near the
Speaker 2: end of the game. I mean, Joe was one of
Speaker 2: the most beloved jazz men here. The narrative of him
Speaker 2: being like the voice of reason in that locker room
Speaker 2: actually is not very accurate. I could go into story
Speaker 2: time and details, but I'll leave most of that off air.
Speaker 2: But as far as endearing himself to the fans, he
Speaker 2: certainly did that because, as we've often said out on
Speaker 2: the show, even though he looks like he lives in
Speaker 2: his car, he turned out to be a very very
Speaker 2: good basketball player and started to evolve in a way
Speaker 2: that really changed that group. Because after Hayward left and
Speaker 2: Mitchell kind of elevated his game and Rudy was Rudy,
Speaker 2: the question was, well, who's going to be that other
Speaker 2: wing alongside Donovan, Because it would have been awesome if
Speaker 2: it was Gordon.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one of the things you always look
Speaker 1: back on with that group.
Speaker 2: If Hayward would have stayed and everything else fell into place,
Speaker 2: that's a team that throws punches with any team in
Speaker 2: pro basketball. But while he never became p kward, you
Speaker 2: know the OKC series where he really took Paul George
Speaker 2: out of it, got in Paul George's head, evolved into
Speaker 2: a really dangerous outside shooter, broke Jazz records for three
Speaker 2: point shots made, and was a capable defense of a
Speaker 2: player because of his length and because.
Speaker 1: Of his intelligence.
Speaker 2: Certainly not an athlete doesn't move laterally and he's not
Speaker 2: gonna dunk on you. But I thought that was a
Speaker 2: really cool moment. Sounded like the fans gave Rudy Gobert
Speaker 2: a lot of love, and Rudy deserves it. His nine
Speaker 2: years here, I don't think he'll ever fully give the
Speaker 2: credit for the type of guy he was in the
Speaker 2: community and the type of impact he had on winning
Speaker 2: for Quinn's group. So nine years here, I don't think
Speaker 2: he sold his home. I think he still comes here
Speaker 2: quite a bit. I could be wrong about that. At
Speaker 2: one point he still sold us home and they had
Speaker 2: to had minutes between Gobert and Walker last night for
Speaker 2: all of you, you know media lackeys that at times
Speaker 2: like to say, well, Walker is all I could not
Speaker 2: get over well considering the sources. But Walker's rookie year
Speaker 2: after that trade went down, when you heard like mostly
Speaker 2: media members who worked for the team like Walker might
Speaker 2: be better than Rudy already.
Speaker 1: Now, like, give me a break with that.
Speaker 2: Walker still has a marathon in front of him to
Speaker 2: even be in Rudy's cul de sac.
Speaker 1: Rudy is a four time Defensive Player of the Year.
Speaker 2: He is a Hall of Famer, and last night Walker
Speaker 2: had a really rough game. Walker's had a really good year,
Speaker 2: but head to head against Gobert, it didn't even look
Speaker 2: like a fair fight.
Speaker 1: Rudy goes for sixteen points.
Speaker 2: He had nine boards, He had five assists and four blocks,
Speaker 2: six of eight from the floor, four of six from
Speaker 2: the line. Walker one of six from the floor. He
Speaker 2: did not shoot a free throw. He did have eight boards,
Speaker 2: couple of steals, zero block. Shots didn't really affect the
Speaker 2: game much. I don't know how much of it is
Speaker 2: knowing that you were traded for that player and you're
Speaker 2: going to try to prove people wrong head to head,
Speaker 2: but Rudy dominated that matchup. Anthony Edwards in the second
Speaker 2: half showed wid Minnesota does have a potential franchise piece.
Speaker 2: I mean, a lot of people believe Ant at the
Speaker 2: age of twenty three could be that, I'll say, domestic
Speaker 2: star that the league latches onto, because you know, there's
Speaker 2: no Michael Jordan, Lebron's is on his way out, Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant's on his way out, and a lot of the well,
Speaker 2: certainly a lot of the better players, if not the
Speaker 2: bigger stars in pro basketball right now are international players
Speaker 2: with Giannis and Jokic and Luca, and so a lot
Speaker 2: of conversation around pro around pro basketball. Who's the next
Speaker 2: domestic star that can kind of be the face of
Speaker 2: this league. It might be that kid you saw last
Speaker 2: night had a little bit of a rough first half,
Speaker 2: second half dominated.
Speaker 1: The flow of play.
Speaker 2: He's a two way player, He's a big kid that
Speaker 2: can really guard. And he took eighteen shots to score
Speaker 2: thirty six points. That's a rare thing in pro basketball.
Speaker 2: Six of nine from three, six of seven from the line,
Speaker 2: thirty six points, eleven assists, six sports three block shots
Speaker 2: for Anthony Edwards, who dominated the flow of play in
Speaker 2: the second half. Now, if you are a fan of
Speaker 2: the NBA, and if you follow the New York Knicks,
Speaker 2: you will not be surprised when I say to you,
Speaker 2: Minnesota flew when Julius Randall left the game.
Speaker 1: Okay, the Jazz.
Speaker 2: Actually we're up twenty five to ten, marking it hitting
Speaker 2: some shots and we'll get to Keyonte and but ultimately
Speaker 2: Minnesota looked a little bit disjointed. And it's not funny
Speaker 2: that Julius real got hurt, but it's kind of there.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of irony that after Julius went
Speaker 2: out with the injury after ten minutes, Minnesota went on
Speaker 2: this eighteen or two run. You know, they brought in
Speaker 2: Naz Reid, who knocked down a couple of threes. Rob Dillingham,
Speaker 2: the rookie, had a really, really nice night, and ultimately
Speaker 2: Minnesota flies by the Jazz one thirty eight to one thirteen.
Speaker 2: The Jazz have now lost eight straight basketball games. We
Speaker 2: did see John Collins play, We saw Lowry Market and play.
Speaker 1: We saw for the most part, for the first.
Speaker 2: Time in a long long time, almost a first choice
Speaker 2: group for Will to pick from to play in that game,
Speaker 2: and so starting lineup John Collins, Lowry Markin and Walker Kestler,
Speaker 2: Colin Sexton, Isaiah Collier was that was the starting five.
Speaker 2: Drew Yu Banks, Kyle Philipowski, Bryce sense About, Jordan Clarkson,
Speaker 2: Kiante George all got more than double digit minutes off
Speaker 2: the bench.
Speaker 1: So Will went with ten players.
Speaker 2: Clarkson and Keyante went for twenty five and twenty seven minutes.
Speaker 2: The rotation is going to be interesting. The Jazz have
Speaker 2: the third most starting lineups in pro basketball. A lot
Speaker 2: of that is tanking, a lot of that is Hey, Larry,
Speaker 2: how's your ankle. He's like, Oh, it's fine. He's like, no,
Speaker 2: it's not, Sorry it hurts. You're not playing tonight. But
Speaker 2: last night was kind of a first choice group. So
Speaker 2: I was interested to see a how they would play
Speaker 2: against a really good team in the West and be
Speaker 2: how Will would go about as rotations. But Porter, I
Speaker 2: am ready, okay, I'm ready on a Friday to tell
Speaker 2: you that I think the Jazz have found something. Now
Speaker 2: we've talked a lot about the go Bear trades, the
Speaker 2: Mitchell trades. Everybody's saying, wow, what a great trade by
Speaker 2: the Jazz. Well, right, now the Mitchell excuse me, the
Speaker 2: go Bear trade with Minnesota is Walker Caster and Keyante
Speaker 2: George in exchange for Rudy.
Speaker 1: They have other picks.
Speaker 2: We'll see what they turn into, but right now, that's
Speaker 2: not a trade that's lopsided on the Jazz side of things.
Speaker 2: And then the Mitchell trade brings a bunch of different pieces,
Speaker 2: including Larry Marketing. And I've said throughout the course of
Speaker 2: this rebuild, i feel like the Jazz have found one thing,
Speaker 2: and that one thing is Loarry Marketing.
Speaker 1: And I'm ready to tell you that I think they
Speaker 1: found another thing. Okay, are you ready? I am. Do
Speaker 1: you have any guesses on what you're confident about?
Speaker 2: What you're There's a there's another player that I think
Speaker 2: the Jazz have found that actually is starting to show
Speaker 2: some things that I think are real in pro basketball.
Speaker 2: I've always said, right, so far it's Lowry, and I
Speaker 2: have questions about everybody else.
Speaker 1: And I'm ready to say I think they found another guy.
Speaker 2: It is not Bryce Sensible, it is who I think
Speaker 2: is there not only their new starting point guard now,
Speaker 2: but potentially an answer to that position moving forward, in
Speaker 2: Isaiah Callier. So Isaiah has thirteen starts on the year.
Speaker 2: Will Hardy over the past three four four games now
Speaker 2: has brought Keyante George off the bench, and to start
Speaker 2: the season, the preferred backcourt was Keyanty George and Colin Sexton. Okay,
Speaker 2: as Will talked about during some media availability, he needs
Speaker 2: more from Keyante George and they have to figure out
Speaker 2: who Keyante George is as a legitimate player in pro
Speaker 2: basketball for a team that's actually trying to win. And
Speaker 2: I can promise you what he's not. He's not a
Speaker 2: starting point guard for a good team in pro basketball.
Speaker 1: He just isn't.
Speaker 2: Never played point guard. We've already talked about this. He
Speaker 2: doesn't have league guard tendencies. Who I think Keyante is
Speaker 2: when he's fully baked and everything is kind of you know,
Speaker 2: it turned out the best possible scenario for him is
Speaker 2: a dynamic, combo scoring guard off the bench, and that's
Speaker 2: I think what Will's is starting to see as well.
Speaker 2: And so they're trying to figure out if that's kind
Speaker 2: of a role for Keyante and look, to be fair,
Speaker 2: Keyante was tasked with a lot last year as a
Speaker 2: rookie player, like okay, you're going to be our starting
Speaker 2: point guard. They decided that early on, and there were
Speaker 2: moments where it looked really good, really exciting. I don't
Speaker 2: think it ever looked good from a decision making standpoint.
Speaker 2: I don't think it ever looked good from a defensive standpoint.
Speaker 2: He might be the worst defensive player on one of
Speaker 2: the worst defensive teams in basketball. But as we've seen
Speaker 2: from Donovan now in Cleveland, when he says out loud, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to play defense now, and all of us
Speaker 2: are like, sweet, pal, thanks, you can eventually learn how
Speaker 2: to go about your business of becoming at least a
Speaker 2: good team defender, even if you're not a great point
Speaker 2: of attack defender. And the point of attack defense for
Speaker 2: the Jazz is atrocious, whether it's Clarkson, whether it's Keyante.
Speaker 2: You know, most of their perimeter players colin section are
Speaker 2: not great defensive players. Some of them are undersize, some
Speaker 2: of them don't try. I do see a lot of
Speaker 2: don't try in this team, which at times can be frustrating.
Speaker 2: But I think Danny ings Justin'sannik as the evaluators, and
Speaker 2: Will Hardy as the head coach. I think they have
Speaker 2: something an Isaiah Callier something that I'm not sure I
Speaker 2: saw initially coming out of high school, Isaiah was potentially
Speaker 2: the top recruit out of high school. He went to
Speaker 2: Southern cal for one year under Andy Enfield. BRODDI James
Speaker 2: was on that team, and the more that you heard
Speaker 2: about how kind of chaotic that was behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: the more you kind of understand, like, maybe it's not
Speaker 2: fair to analyze any of these players from that one year,
Speaker 2: but I think Justin and Danny did their due diligence
Speaker 2: and when he was available, they decided to go grab him.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: He ultimately was the twenty ninth pain in the first round,
Speaker 2: second to last pick, and I think, you know, the
Speaker 2: Jazz were seriously considering not even making it, you know,
Speaker 2: not even getting involved. But when Isaiah fell, much like
Speaker 2: bry sense about the year before, I think they did
Speaker 2: their calculation and feel like there was enough there to
Speaker 2: take a shot on them. And really, since he's been
Speaker 2: in the starting lineup, I mean, when you look at
Speaker 2: some of these splits last night, eleven point seven assists
Speaker 2: did have four turnovers five to seven from the floor.
Speaker 1: He has to improve his outside shot.
Speaker 2: He's about a twenty seven percent three point shooter, but
Speaker 2: these numbers are just solid twelve points nine assists, six
Speaker 2: boards against Golden State twelve points, eight assists, only one turnover.
Speaker 2: The turnovers are problematic for every guard that the Jazz have,
Speaker 2: including this young point guard. He just has lead guard
Speaker 2: tendencies that nobody else has outside of Patty Mills, and
Speaker 2: that would have been awesome ten years ago, but it
Speaker 2: does nothing for us now against New Orleans overtime twenty
Speaker 2: points eleven assists. Obviously, the overtime situation inflates the numbers.
Speaker 2: Double double against Charlotte eleven points, ten assists, twenty three
Speaker 2: point seven assists against Brooklyn. Since he has been inserted
Speaker 2: in the starting lineup and Will has been given him
Speaker 2: big minutes, there's a lot to like about Isaiah Collier,
Speaker 2: and I think there's more to like about his potential than,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, maybe every other young player on the roster,
Speaker 2: because as I talked about, they have something in Lowry.
Speaker 1: Certainly they have something in Lowry.
Speaker 2: That's why they maxed him out, and ultimately, if they
Speaker 2: can surround him with some help before his prime is over,
Speaker 2: then we'll actually see what it looks like. I think
Speaker 2: it's safe to say Walker Castler has played himself into
Speaker 2: the future of this franchise, and I think it's time.
Speaker 1: To say Isaiah Isaiah Callier has.
Speaker 2: A chance to be something in pro basketball that I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I saw early on. He is a big
Speaker 2: body kid that can really get downhill, finishes well at
Speaker 2: the rim, and at least he's big and strong enough
Speaker 2: physically on the defensive side where he provides some pushback
Speaker 2: at the at the point of attack.
Speaker 1: It's much better than Keyante, much better.
Speaker 2: So I'm ready to say today and we're gonna get
Speaker 2: some thoughts from our guests that I think Isaiah Qullier
Speaker 2: may have played himself into a situation where we have
Speaker 2: to analyze him as part of the future. Improve on
Speaker 2: that outside shot, improve on the decision making. He averages
Speaker 2: about three and a half turnovers a game, that's way
Speaker 2: too high, but over the past thirteen fourteen games, ten points,
Speaker 2: eight assists, again, four turnovers, but about four boards, and
Speaker 2: really a guy who I think has played himself into
Speaker 2: consideration for potentially the future of the Utah Jazz. All Right,
Speaker 2: we're gonna bring in Terrell Burgess coming up in just
Speaker 2: a little bit, former youthe Super Bowl champ on the
Speaker 2: program today and then we're gonna bring in Craig Smith,
Speaker 2: head coach of the Utes. He'll stop by as well,
Speaker 2: Richard Smith live in studio. So a busy, busy show
Speaker 2: on the program today, But got my rundown put me
Speaker 2: in a good mood on a Friday, not just because
Speaker 2: it's Friday, but my man, my friend, my guy who
Speaker 2: hasn't joined us in a long time. But we'll do
Speaker 2: some college basketball whatever else comes our way with the
Speaker 2: legend Utah State pro Hooper overseas and my former part
Speaker 2: on Utah pre effing Post Spencer Nelson on a Friday.
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, my friend, how we been.
Speaker 5: H Spence check. It's so good to be talking to you.
Speaker 5: It has been a long time.
Speaker 6: Hey.
Speaker 5: Of all the introductory things you said, the one I'm
Speaker 5: most proud of is being your partner on the pre
Speaker 5: half in post that was it? The overseas YadA, YadA,
Speaker 5: YadA YadA, Britton Johnson's friend. That doesn't matter as sent
Speaker 5: to me. But the fact that you said I was
Speaker 5: your partner on the pre half and post touches my heart.
Speaker 2: Well, that means a lot. You're lying, but thank you
Speaker 2: for saying that. But I need to start here because
Speaker 2: I don't know. Man, I just want to let you
Speaker 2: know that I'm reading this book about anti gravity, okay,
Speaker 2: and it's impossible.
Speaker 1: To put down. It's not funny. It's not funny. It's
Speaker 1: not funny.
Speaker 6: It is funny.
Speaker 7: Hey, all of your listeners, Okay, they're shaking their head
Speaker 7: and laughing at this same time, they're like speds, How
Speaker 7: could you say that joke on their But yet they
Speaker 7: love it. Everyone loves a good dad joke. I love
Speaker 7: that joke. Great, great material we like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to we need to give our listeners context.
Speaker 2: You know, when you do late night postgame radio, you
Speaker 2: get a little slap happy, and so our guy Spencer
Speaker 2: and Nelson would entertain us with dad jokes that did
Speaker 2: not land oftentimes with Britton Johnson, but I always appreciated them.
Speaker 5: I appreciate that. Thank you will. I mean there is
Speaker 5: a certain amount of intellectual horsepower required to truly appreciate
Speaker 5: it dad joke you and I have that. Britt is
Speaker 5: just different. He's just built differently. Don't they have T
Speaker 5: shirts hashtag built different?
Speaker 1: They do.
Speaker 2: I love Internet or intellectual horsepower. Every time we do,
Speaker 2: every time we talk, you drop something that I steal
Speaker 2: from you.
Speaker 1: So I'm stealing that.
Speaker 5: I like that. Yeah, great, great phrase. Intellectual horsepower is
Speaker 5: a good one.
Speaker 1: How's your world, man, what's going on with you? What's
Speaker 1: what's the deal these days?
Speaker 8: Man?
Speaker 5: Life is good, working and family and I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: the Drill kids are getting older, which I'm grateful for.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, I don't want them to
Speaker 5: leave the house, which when they were kids, I would
Speaker 5: little I would have thought that was that wouldn't be
Speaker 5: the case. But now they're teenagers in their blast to
Speaker 5: hang out with, so that's really good. And then the
Speaker 5: Aggies are rolling, So still doing radio for the Aggis
Speaker 5: and that's been a lot of fun. And man, living
Speaker 5: the dream.
Speaker 1: It's been good, very nice. So let's do We'll do
Speaker 1: some local college hoops.
Speaker 2: I want to jump around a little bit, and we'll
Speaker 2: start with Utah State, but we'll start with their question
Speaker 2: from a thirty thousand foot view before we get into
Speaker 2: topics in a vacuum? What is it about the basketball
Speaker 2: culture up there where it's almost like like my next gig, Spencer,
Speaker 2: I want to coach Utah State for one year and
Speaker 2: then cash in on a big on a big contract
Speaker 2: and then screw that job up and just retire. Like
Speaker 2: what's the deal about the culture up there that just
Speaker 2: breeds basketball and has for like twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 5: I am more than happy to put a good word
Speaker 5: in to you. I don't know if it goes any far,
Speaker 5: but here's the reality. The spectrum is magical. US has
Speaker 5: a great tradition. I mean, we go back to Stu.
Speaker 5: But you know Craig, Ryan, Danny and now Jared. But
Speaker 5: I will say we've got to give the administration a
Speaker 5: lot of credit over the last four hires. Like Craig's
Speaker 5: a great basketball coach, and I know you toass how
Speaker 5: it struggles and that kind of stuff, but he is
Speaker 5: a he is a good ball coach. And let's give
Speaker 5: Tim Durry some props because he had a lot of
Speaker 5: good pieces. And then Craig brought Nemi in and he
Speaker 5: was and he did a great job of coaching those guys.
Speaker 5: Ryan Otam, you see what he's doing at VCU. But
Speaker 5: before then, you know he's a good basketball coach. Daddy
Speaker 5: sprinkle Man, good basketball coach, very different than the previous two,
Speaker 5: but a good coach. And I got to tell you,
Speaker 5: I don't know how much interaction you've been able to
Speaker 5: have with Jared Calhoun. But man, he's a good coach.
Speaker 5: I really like him. He's a Bobby Huggin. He's from
Speaker 5: the Bobby Huggins tree, and I mean he speaks truth.
Speaker 5: He's tough, but he has a good relationship with the kids,
Speaker 5: and I think he's a really good coach. And so honestly,
Speaker 5: I think coaching does deserve a lot of credit. That
Speaker 5: the narrative is, man, you can plug anyone in, but
Speaker 5: these guys are are good basketball coaches. So administration has
Speaker 5: done a good job. And then the pieces that have
Speaker 5: stuck around. Now, Danny's amazing thing was no one stuck
Speaker 5: around and he was able to do it. I guess
Speaker 5: Mace was here, so that's not completely true Mason and Fish,
Speaker 5: but from the other ones, I mean it's huge that
Speaker 5: Jared got Ian and Mason and Fish and Carson templan
Speaker 5: to stick around and those guys are playing well. And
Speaker 5: then inter brought in some great transfers. So Utah State
Speaker 5: does have a great tradition, a lot of winning. I
Speaker 5: mean going back to Stu, but Larry and Rod and
Speaker 5: those guys. But these guys are good coaches and you
Speaker 5: got to give them credit for what they're doing.
Speaker 2: No, one hundred percent, And obviously I was being a
Speaker 2: bit facetious, but just seems like coach takes over and boom,
Speaker 2: everyone has questions, and more often than not, the teams
Speaker 2: near the top of the conference, they're either qualifying for
Speaker 2: or threatening to be an NCAA tournament team. And it's
Speaker 2: just wildly impressive because the basketball culture in Saul Lake
Speaker 2: is rich with history, but it's been a rough stretch
Speaker 2: for not just Craig but other coaches too. We'll get
Speaker 2: there in a moment, but I wanted to follow up
Speaker 2: about Jared Calhoun, who I don't know outside of just listening.
Speaker 2: I love listening to coaches post game because the ones
Speaker 2: that don't want to get pithy and sarcastic actually do
Speaker 2: teach you. And you know, I think he has been impressive.
Speaker 2: He seems a little bit more mentally balanced than his.
Speaker 1: Mentor.
Speaker 2: Bob Huggins a great coach, but you never knew if
Speaker 2: you didn't know what Huggy Bear was gonna do night
Speaker 2: in and night out. Jared doesn't strike me as that
Speaker 2: type of guy, but as you've been able to get
Speaker 2: to know him, both on and off the floor. What
Speaker 2: makes him who he is as a coach and a person,
Speaker 2: and schematically, how does he like basketball to be played?
Speaker 5: So I think, you know, as a person, he comes
Speaker 5: off and everything I know. I mean a family man.
Speaker 5: He's got a wonderful family. He's got daughters who are
Speaker 5: involved in sports and getting involved in the community, and
Speaker 5: just really good people. Zero ego. Like that's probably the
Speaker 5: first thing the first time I met him, he just
Speaker 5: came across as extremely down to earth and zero ego,
Speaker 5: which I really appreciated. And then from the standpoint, I
Speaker 5: think that carries over to the players when I see
Speaker 5: him interact with the player with the players, same thing,
Speaker 5: zero ego. Just really straight of who he is and
Speaker 5: comfortable with that. And I think in a world of
Speaker 5: a lot of facade and things that aren't real because
Speaker 5: of social media and that kind of stuff, I think
Speaker 5: people and appreciate someone that hey, this is who I am,
Speaker 5: and I'm comfortable with who I am, And so the
Speaker 5: players see that and I think they respect it. From
Speaker 5: the way he coaches schematically, you know, the big thing
Speaker 5: at the beginning of the season was the matchup zone.
Speaker 5: It's a very unique matchup zone that he runs, and
Speaker 5: he's got a couple different zones and kind of hybrid
Speaker 5: versions of it. But the thought was, Okay, not a
Speaker 5: lot of teams are going to be able to be
Speaker 5: prepared for this because it's a one off compared to
Speaker 5: the other twenty nine games they're playing this season, and
Speaker 5: so we're going to be able to kind of throw
Speaker 5: teams off with that. Early on, they were I think
Speaker 5: conference team. At least the guys that I've seen are
Speaker 5: more and more comfortable. UNLV was very comfortable with their
Speaker 5: matchup zone. And one thing that I love is that
Speaker 5: he's not so stubborn that he won't adapt and he
Speaker 5: has gone demand at different points in times, which I
Speaker 5: don't think that's his default of where he wants to go.
Speaker 5: But this team is actually a good man, de man
Speaker 5: defense team. Now they're only playing at a few minutes
Speaker 5: a game at times, but yet they are able to
Speaker 5: switch that up and that has given them some flexibility
Speaker 5: to throw other teams out of rhythm and not get
Speaker 5: used to just playing against the zone offensively. And every
Speaker 5: coach in the country says this, we want to run, run, run, run, run,
Speaker 5: but literally that he does, I mean you ONLB plays
Speaker 5: a slow pace. Every time that rebound is coming, Calhoun
Speaker 5: is swinging his arms and telling the guards to push it,
Speaker 5: push it, push it, which opens up easy opportunities for
Speaker 5: buckets in the paint, layups, dugs. This team actually has
Speaker 5: a lot more athleticism than you would think, and they've
Speaker 5: taken advantage of that, and so it's fast paced. And
Speaker 5: then I would say, just quick hitters. It's get out
Speaker 5: and transition and if you got to play in the
Speaker 5: half court, then it's going to be motioned. But a
Speaker 5: ton of quick hitting sets to get ian and I
Speaker 5: think there's a little bit of a pro mentality from
Speaker 5: there that I like, Like he is specifically targeting guys
Speaker 5: that he wants to get the ball in certain positions
Speaker 5: and then let them make a play. And Ian Martinez
Speaker 5: has done a good job throughout the season. He struggled
Speaker 5: against UNLV Mason has done a good job, and teams
Speaker 5: are adapting to that. But get the ball in the
Speaker 5: guy's hands, which is a very pro mentality, and then hey,
Speaker 5: do what you do. And I think the players have
Speaker 5: really liked the freedom and flexibility to play that way
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 2: And also their shot profile appears to be a modern
Speaker 2: day shot profile as far as what the numbers tell
Speaker 2: you need to do to win basketball games. Of the
Speaker 2: ten or eleven guy Spencer, he plays, you know, more
Speaker 2: than ten minutes a night. Seven of them seem like
Speaker 2: they can shoot it from the outside. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's not like they hunt it in the way that
Speaker 2: the Celtics do, but it does seem like offensively, the
Speaker 2: shot profile is a modern day approach to analytically winning
Speaker 2: basketball games.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of driving with what you're seeing?
Speaker 6: Totally?
Speaker 5: Yep. They got a bunch of shooters, now, some of
Speaker 5: them better than others. Absolutely. Carson Templan went on a
Speaker 5: streak and he struggled. Maybe who they thought was going
Speaker 5: to be the best shooter in the year. Tucker Anderson
Speaker 5: has really struggled. He's a conundrum in the sense he's
Speaker 5: shooting like I don't quote me on this, it was
Speaker 5: like seventeen percent from the three point line at home
Speaker 5: and then like thirty six on the road. And last
Speaker 5: year he shot high thirties coming from Arkansas. So he's
Speaker 5: really struggled. But Ian man Ian Martinez takes and makes
Speaker 5: really tough shots. Mason Falslove has shot it better. Drake
Speaker 5: Allen struggled a little early on but has really got
Speaker 5: a swag. And then the guy who's been the most
Speaker 5: consistent shooter is their sixth man, dexter Ocano transfer from
Speaker 5: Oregon State. That's been I mean, he's been huge for
Speaker 5: him and really consistent providing a boost off the bench.
Speaker 5: But he shot it at a really high level. So
Speaker 5: your analysis is exactly.
Speaker 6: Right, Spence.
Speaker 5: They shoot, They don't hunt it crazily, but they they
Speaker 5: got the guys to be able to shoot it if
Speaker 5: it's open, and they move the ball so well that
Speaker 5: it's open often enough that they're putting up a good
Speaker 5: number of threes.
Speaker 2: All right, let's move over to uts now in Craig Smith, who,
Speaker 2: as you referenced once upon a time, was up in
Speaker 2: Logan did a.
Speaker 1: Really good job.
Speaker 2: Craig as won wherever he's been and this is year
Speaker 2: four for Craig, and I think it's a five year contract,
Speaker 2: so look, the pressure is real and he knows this.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have Craig on the show in just on
Speaker 2: an hour from right now. And you know, there are
Speaker 2: pieces on this roster that individually at times I really
Speaker 2: really like, and you know, I'm gonna ask Craig about
Speaker 2: his rotation. He's tinkered quite a bit with a bunch
Speaker 2: of different starting lineups, a bunch of different rotations. Gabe
Speaker 2: Matts in their leading scorer. I mean, teams just sell
Speaker 2: out on him and he has no space at all.
Speaker 2: So you look at the numbers, is thirty one percent
Speaker 2: from three? It's like, what gives? It's like, well, everybody's
Speaker 2: gapping them and blitzing them off screens, ball screens, and
Speaker 2: he's got to find a way to be smarter with
Speaker 2: his decisions. He's been better as of late. They were finited,
Speaker 2: they were picked to finish last the Big Twelve. They're
Speaker 2: four and five right now. They had a nice win
Speaker 2: here at home over Brigham Young. They're gonna be on
Speaker 2: the road to Oklahoma State. The Houston game didn't even
Speaker 2: it was not even.
Speaker 1: A fair fight, like it was just rough.
Speaker 2: And so look, it's a tough conference obviously, But what
Speaker 2: do you make of I'll say, what you know whether
Speaker 2: or not you feel like there's progress being made down here,
Speaker 2: and what you know about Craig, do you feel like
Speaker 2: still this is the guy to get this thing back
Speaker 2: to where it needs to be.
Speaker 5: Great question. So just a couple thoughts. When I saw
Speaker 5: Utah was finished last pick to finish last in the
Speaker 5: Big Twelve, I laughed, No, Craig Smith is going to
Speaker 5: finish last. Team is going to finish last. He's just
Speaker 5: too good of a coach. And I know people will
Speaker 5: be like, well, they're not winning a lot. You may
Speaker 5: not have the guys or the horses to finish in
Speaker 5: the top three, and they don't. They obviously don't. But
Speaker 5: his guys are going to play hard and are going
Speaker 5: to be well coached, and they're just not going to
Speaker 5: finish last in the league. I laugh at that, just
Speaker 5: because a well coached team and if they play hard
Speaker 5: for you, and I know those guys aren't gonna quit,
Speaker 5: they're not going to finish last. However, it is it's
Speaker 5: a matter of and you know this, in the Big
Speaker 5: Twelve or in any of the power conferences, it's it's pros.
Speaker 5: It's it's how can you get one NBA guy on
Speaker 5: your team? Can you get two? If you If you
Speaker 5: can get one, you're going to finish in the top
Speaker 5: half of the league for sure. If you can get
Speaker 5: two NBA guys on your team, are pros legitimate pros.
Speaker 5: Then you're going to compete for a conference championship in
Speaker 5: the Big Twelve. But if you don't have two pros
Speaker 5: on your team, you're not. And you look at Houston,
Speaker 5: you look at Kansas, you look at Iowa State. I
Speaker 5: mean that it just plays out that way and then
Speaker 5: a really good supporting cast and you know, you talk
Speaker 5: about gage match, and you're right, guys are selling out,
Speaker 5: Teams are selling out and taking away. That thirty one
Speaker 5: percent is the threes he's taking. I mean, ninety percent
Speaker 5: of them are really hard threes to be taking. He'll
Speaker 5: get some open looks occasionally, but they're very different looks
Speaker 5: than some of the other dudes on the team are taking.
Speaker 5: I think the BYU win at home was huge in
Speaker 5: terms of excitement and you know, I'm not saving your job,
Speaker 5: That's not the right way to say it, but just
Speaker 5: reinforcing hey, I'm the guy to do this. I can
Speaker 5: be here and I can be successful here. And then
Speaker 5: they have some good wins against you know, the middle
Speaker 5: and the bottom half of the Big Twelve, and that's
Speaker 5: where I think Craig has to continue to win those games,
Speaker 5: and I think that he will, and they ultimately where
Speaker 5: they finished, They finished like ninth in the Big Twelve
Speaker 5: which has sixteen teams, right, and so they're finishing middle, top,
Speaker 5: top of the bottom type of thing just because they
Speaker 5: don't have the guys. And it's a whole different world
Speaker 5: now to go get the guys, right. I mean, everyone's
Speaker 5: talking about what's going down in Utah County byus paying
Speaker 5: this amount of money for their for their team. It's
Speaker 5: professional sports now, and I think the other challenge for
Speaker 5: Craig is just allocating the right money to the right
Speaker 5: guys who can produce. And that's a challenge in and
Speaker 5: of itself. And so guys that are getting paid money
Speaker 5: on Utah's team, they're not producing, So what happens to them?
Speaker 5: And how do you take care of the guys that
Speaker 5: are producing next year to keep them around. It's a
Speaker 5: huge challenge. But I think he's a good ball coach.
Speaker 5: I time will tell I don't have a strong opinion
Speaker 5: if he's going to be able to turn the ship around,
Speaker 5: because there's a lot of Utah that's got to be
Speaker 5: turned around in just momentum and excitement from where it
Speaker 5: was when you and I were around, you know, playing
Speaker 5: and growing up. It's just a very different environment up
Speaker 5: there right now.
Speaker 2: And you know he is going to get a chance
Speaker 2: to see this thing through next season because, according to
Speaker 2: Cassel reported today, the Utah Athletics reported a seventeen million
Speaker 2: dollar deficit this past year. Now, you dig into the
Speaker 2: numbers what they receive from the state and it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily like, hey, we only lost seventeen mil and the
Speaker 2: football team and the basketball team are still profitable. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: I don't think they're going to pay Craig to not
Speaker 2: coach next year. So I do think he is going
Speaker 2: to get one more year.
Speaker 1: But let me.
Speaker 2: Follow up with something you kind of alluded to, because, look,
Speaker 2: the bottom line is, in the modern day and age
Speaker 2: of college athletics, whether it's football or basketball or even
Speaker 2: other sports, you have to have your collective in order
Speaker 2: to be able to attract talent and be able to
Speaker 2: pay the players that you need to get here. So
Speaker 2: you have the horses, and from my vantage points, Betzer,
Speaker 2: almost every single night, almost every single night in this conference,
Speaker 2: Craig is going to have a coach on the other
Speaker 2: side that simply has more talent.
Speaker 1: That's my opinion. Give me your thoughts on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm with you most every night. Maybe not every night,
Speaker 5: but most every night in the big twelve given right now. Now,
Speaker 5: when I heard the numbers, and I don't want to
Speaker 5: say publicly because I don't have anything verified, I was
Speaker 5: actually pleasantly prize at the number that I heard that
Speaker 5: Utah had for their collective. I was like, Wow, that's more.
Speaker 5: Now it's a matter of just allocating it to the
Speaker 5: right guys and being able to go get them. Is
Speaker 5: it less than, you know, the number that you hear
Speaker 5: from the valley or from Utah County?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 5: Is it more than the number that you hear up
Speaker 5: in logan yes? Type of things. So it's the collective matters.
Speaker 5: What you're paying dudes matters. And that's a whole nother conversation.
Speaker 5: But you're right, you have to go get it. And
Speaker 5: I may have said this to you before, but it's interesting.
Speaker 5: I had this kind of epiphany moment where in Europe.
Speaker 5: It's funny I played with a bunch of different guys
Speaker 5: in Europe and the same is true now. Is I
Speaker 5: still stay decently connected to it? There are not a
Speaker 5: ton of dudes. There are some, but there are not
Speaker 5: a ton of dudes that played at the blue bloods
Speaker 5: that are playing in Europe. A few. I mean I
Speaker 5: played with John Shire and the Deuhan was over there
Speaker 5: for a little bit. I mean, there are a few,
Speaker 5: but what it kind of opened my eyes to. The
Speaker 5: elite teams in college basketball are one of two things,
Speaker 5: and most of it is the latter. Either really old
Speaker 5: and really experienced, or they've got a couple pros on
Speaker 5: their team surrounded by good college basketball players but not
Speaker 5: great college players that are going to go play professional
Speaker 5: and the impact of having I mean, you look at
Speaker 5: what Craig did at Utah State. Great coach, but he
Speaker 5: had two pros, right, He had Nimi and he had
Speaker 5: Sam Marrow. Of course he's going to win a conference
Speaker 5: championship in the Mountain West. And San Diego State, by
Speaker 5: the way, had one NBA dude and then a couple
Speaker 5: of European pros on their team, so they were really
Speaker 5: stacked as well. But in the Big twelve, that's what
Speaker 5: it comes down to is how many pros do you have?
Speaker 5: How many NBA level guys do you have on their team?
Speaker 5: Because I guess if we're going to play on words,
Speaker 5: all of them are pros now because they're getting played,
Speaker 5: the getting paid to play basketball, so they're not amateurs anymore.
Speaker 5: So I'll articulate it better and say, how many NBA
Speaker 5: level dudes do you have on your team? And right
Speaker 5: now they don't have any, right, that's just the fact
Speaker 5: of the matter. And a decent number of the Big
Speaker 5: twelve does have an NBA guy, or they've got some
Speaker 5: European pros. And there's probably a couple of European prosts.
Speaker 5: He had Brandon Carlson in the last couple of years,
Speaker 5: which was a pro And so can you go get
Speaker 5: those dudes, because you're right right now, you just don't
Speaker 5: have We talked about intellectual horsepower, he doesn't have the
Speaker 5: basketball horsepower to go and finish in the top three
Speaker 5: or top five of the conference.
Speaker 2: Right now, Let's move down to provo here and talk
Speaker 2: about a coach that certainly has the horsepower because the
Speaker 2: collective is stepped up. According to reports, both yeg or
Speaker 2: Demon and Canon Catching's are seven figure players for Kevin
Speaker 2: Young and Cannon had a really nice game against Baylor
Speaker 2: in Provo, but prior to that it didn't look great.
Speaker 1: You can tell why pro scouts love yeg Or.
Speaker 2: I mean he's really long, he's really big, he's got
Speaker 2: a good feel, he can see over the defense, and
Speaker 2: he's averaging six assists a game.
Speaker 1: Three point shot hasn't been great.
Speaker 2: For him, but you can see why scouts love Diegor
Speaker 2: and over the past few games they've started to figure
Speaker 2: some things out. Mostly it's a make or miss team
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, but three straight wins after
Speaker 2: that loss to Utah, they've won four or five. I
Speaker 2: think Ken Palm has them of like thirty eight in
Speaker 2: the net and thinks they're going to be an NCAA
Speaker 2: tournament team. But I mean, talk about a coach that
Speaker 2: does have horses. But when you have the talent on paper, Spencer,
Speaker 2: you got to prove you can coach, right, So what
Speaker 2: are your thoughts on what DYU has done this year
Speaker 2: and what do you think they can do the rest
Speaker 2: of the way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, expectations mean everything.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: Going into the football season, I think people had really
Speaker 5: low expectations and Colonne blew it out of the water.
Speaker 5: Going into the basketball season, extremely high expectations and they've
Speaker 5: done well. But because those expectations are so high and
Speaker 5: the dollar figures you here throwing around, you're like Okay,
Speaker 5: that's going to happen. I think Bill finish Well, I
Speaker 5: think toughness and physicality have been an issue. I'm sure
Speaker 5: they're addressing it and that they've got to address it
Speaker 5: even more. You know, when they went to Providence early
Speaker 5: in the season and just got just beat up, and
Speaker 5: I don't mean from a score standpoint, just physically just outmanned.
Speaker 5: And you've seen that occur. But that's gonna happen when
Speaker 5: you've got a bunch of freshmen, I mean, and you're
Speaker 5: playing those dudes, and they're gonna have to get tougher.
Speaker 5: They're gonna have to get more physical, and especially when
Speaker 5: you get into the second half of conference and you
Speaker 5: get to the conference tournament than the NCAA tournament, toughness,
Speaker 5: I mean, toughness always wins out. And so that's been
Speaker 5: kind of the question mark, is how tough that team is,
Speaker 5: and early on I would say not very tough. I
Speaker 5: think they're getting tougher. I think kind of the the
Speaker 5: bigger picture for BYU, and it's going to be fascinating.
Speaker 5: You know, are they going to continue down the one
Speaker 5: and done NBA almost like John Calipari program strategy and
Speaker 5: just continue to try to go after those dudes or
Speaker 5: are they going to spread that money around a little
Speaker 5: bit more and hit the transfer port of more and
Speaker 5: instead of paying the dude whatever three million, four million,
Speaker 5: five million, I who knows exactly, spread out amongst two
Speaker 5: or three dudes that have played at other Division one
Speaker 5: schools and pay them seven fifty to a million. But
Speaker 5: they've proven that they can do it already, and I
Speaker 5: think that's going to be really interesting to see how
Speaker 5: they play out, not just for this year, but I'm
Speaker 5: talking about from a program level. Are they really going
Speaker 5: to go all in on the one and done model
Speaker 5: or are they going to try to fine tune it?
Speaker 5: And a lot will depend on the success this year
Speaker 5: and next year. If they don't have success, And when
Speaker 5: I when you're paying that kind of money for a team,
Speaker 5: I mean you're winning games in the NCAA tournament. In
Speaker 5: my mind, I mean that's if people are putting seven
Speaker 5: figures into guys. That's the expectation. And if they do that,
Speaker 5: they probably continue to go down the one and done model.
Speaker 5: If they don't, then it'll be interesting to see if
Speaker 5: they pivot and try to spread it more with maybe
Speaker 5: less sexy, less flashy names, but guys that have you know,
Speaker 5: go get three or four dudes that have averaged thirteen
Speaker 5: or fourteen a game at other D one schools and
Speaker 5: showed that they can do it, and then you go that, hey,
Speaker 5: let's get old model and let's compete that way. So
Speaker 5: it'll be interesting, very talented, great coaching staff, a lot
Speaker 5: of money behind it.
Speaker 2: Last thing, your thoughts on the number one prospect not
Speaker 2: just in the class next year, but according to a
Speaker 2: lot of advanced scouts analyzing aj Debanta, he's probably the
Speaker 2: best prospect in three or four classes. And I always
Speaker 2: get a kick out of seeing people learn about BYU
Speaker 2: in real time. So he goes on first tag with
Speaker 2: his dad and announces BYU is the landing spot, and
Speaker 2: Steven A.
Speaker 1: Smith has never looked more confused.
Speaker 2: But they are going to have four or five months
Speaker 2: for the price of seven million dollars a generational prospect
Speaker 2: down in Provo.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that the amount of buzz and the amount of hype.
Speaker 5: I mean I was messaging with birds, you know, leading
Speaker 5: up to that, and they all along thought that they
Speaker 5: were a serious contender, and he felt like it was
Speaker 5: going to come down to them and k State and KU.
Speaker 5: I guess Kansas made a huge run at the end,
Speaker 5: but they felt like they had a legitimate chance and
Speaker 5: sure enough it wasn't delusion whatsoever they did. And huge get.
Speaker 5: I don't know the kid at all personally, only have
Speaker 5: seen him from a basketball perspective, and yeah, extremely talented
Speaker 5: for his size, his athleticism, his skill set is shooting ability.
Speaker 5: I mean, so we talked about pros making the difference.
Speaker 5: He's a pro that can make the difference and he
Speaker 5: will be, I mean more than likely next year the
Speaker 5: most talented dude to step on the floor every time,
Speaker 5: b what you steps on the court. It doesn't necessarily
Speaker 5: mean he's the best player, but for sure the most
Speaker 5: talented guy on the court in this in terms of
Speaker 5: the ceiling and what he's capable of doing. So huge
Speaker 5: get for them, and then it'll be a matter of
Speaker 5: I mean you know this, you were around the NBA.
Speaker 5: When you have that kind of talent, coaching matters for sure.
Speaker 5: That managing egos, managing personalities, managing the locker room become
Speaker 5: equally as important. And so whether it's the pat Riley
Speaker 5: or a Phil Jackson, I mean, Kevin young, and fortunately
Speaker 5: he's from the pros and so he understands and has
Speaker 5: been around the managing of those egos and those personalities
Speaker 5: is just as important to keep the culture and the
Speaker 5: chemistry of a team together. And that'll be really important
Speaker 5: when you start getting that kind of talent in the house.
Speaker 2: You know, Spencer, you're a father, so chances are you
Speaker 2: make breakfast at times for your kids.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 5: I Actually, you'd be proud of me. I'm making smoothies
Speaker 5: for my kids every morning.
Speaker 1: Nice moothie. Nice.
Speaker 5: Well yeah, yeah, but yeah, I make breakfast.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, I'm just saying, like when my son's in town,
Speaker 2: I like to make eggs for breakfast. And I just
Speaker 2: realized something recently, and I just wanted to share with
Speaker 2: you that you really have to watch what you say
Speaker 2: around those egg whites because they just can't take a yolk.
Speaker 1: It's not funny. It's not funny.
Speaker 6: It is hey. And you know what I was gonna
Speaker 6: say to you, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I didn't know.
Speaker 7: I didn't know how to make a banana split.
Speaker 6: But guess where I went.
Speaker 5: Guess where I went to learn how.
Speaker 6: To make a banana split.
Speaker 1: I don't know where'd you go?
Speaker 6: I went to Sunday School.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Okay, now that's good. That's quality. That's quality.
Speaker 1: That's quality stuff.
Speaker 2: That's that's what George Costanza calls leaving out a high note,
Speaker 2: my friends, I'll set you loose.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure to hear your voice.
Speaker 5: Be well, Okay, Bence, you're the man. Appreciate you and
Speaker 5: keep up the great work. It's an awesome show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2: The great Spencer Nelson pro hooper overseas was a great
Speaker 2: player in college at Utah State.
Speaker 1: Always appreciate his time.
Speaker 2: Itching closer and closer to Super Bowl fifty nine between
Speaker 2: the Chiefs and the Eagles, the final football game of
Speaker 2: the year.
Speaker 1: Never a bad time to talk football.
Speaker 2: Friend of the show joining us now one of the
Speaker 2: best to ever do it at the youth Super Bowl champ.
Speaker 2: Great to have Terrell Burgess back on the program. Terrell,
Speaker 2: Happy Friday, man, How are we doing?
Speaker 9: Happy Friday?
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 9: I'm doing well.
Speaker 6: How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm well, I'm well. I appreciate the time. Appreciate the
Speaker 2: time today. So let's obviously, you know, we'll get to
Speaker 2: some ute stuff and we'll do some you know, the
Speaker 2: latest with you, But I wanted to ask you, just
Speaker 2: from your vantage point as somebody who's done this on
Speaker 2: the highest of levels, what stands out most about the
Speaker 2: way the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes specifically has
Speaker 2: been able to kind of change our approach throughout the years,
Speaker 2: to simply figure out a way to win, no matter,
Speaker 2: you know, no matter what the style is. Because back
Speaker 2: in the day, as you know, it just was high powered,
Speaker 2: big plays, Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelsey, and now he just
Speaker 2: he's kind of grown into this cerebral thinker.
Speaker 1: From your vantage point, what impresses you the most?
Speaker 9: I think just their ability to find ways to win,
Speaker 9: just like you said, I think, and I'm not no
Speaker 9: football guru. I'm just you know, a young kid that's
Speaker 9: been playing football most of his life. But I would
Speaker 9: just say, like from my point of view, from the
Speaker 9: teams that have not been able to beat them in
Speaker 9: the playoffs or like been able to stop them from
Speaker 9: getting to the big game, I think it's just everyone
Speaker 9: tries to like beat them at like their game, and
Speaker 9: like trying, in my opinion, like trying to beat them
Speaker 9: at their game is not going to work because they've
Speaker 9: been there, They've been in that situation many times before.
Speaker 9: Whether they have new receivers or not, like new new
Speaker 9: skill players or not, they're still finding ways to win.
Speaker 9: And I mean they're playing well on defense as well.
Speaker 9: That's going to help. And I think when your defense
Speaker 9: is playing well and you know, like you guys could
Speaker 9: have a one or two off drives and your quarterback
Speaker 9: has the ability to go down and score every drive,
Speaker 9: it's just good all around and it just helps the
Speaker 9: team play better at all times.
Speaker 2: So the AFC Championship game, Buffalo gets the ball with
Speaker 2: about three and a half left in three timeouts.
Speaker 1: Did you think they were gonna get it done?
Speaker 2: Did you think it was finally going to be Josh
Speaker 2: a chance to break through or did you feel like
Speaker 2: that was the Chiefs game kind of all along?
Speaker 9: I thought Josh and the boys were going to do it,
Speaker 9: to be honest to you. When I saw the clock
Speaker 9: at when the when the Chiefs had hit their field goal,
Speaker 9: I said, Oh, that's too much time. There's no way
Speaker 9: the Bills don't score here. But because I felt like
Speaker 9: they were driving all game, I felt like they had
Speaker 9: a better command on that game than the Chiefs did.
Speaker 6: It.
Speaker 9: From my point of view. But I guess you know
Speaker 9: I was wrong, and the Chiefs maybe the Super Bowl,
Speaker 9: but yeah, no, I definitely thought Josh and them, we're
Speaker 9: going to score and win the game.
Speaker 2: So the easy thing for lazy media people to say
Speaker 2: is because Josh Allen hasn't broken through, and because Patrick
Speaker 2: Mahomes is only twenty nine, it's gonna be tough for
Speaker 2: Josh to ever get it done. And luck we've seen
Speaker 2: it trelle in Pro football, Peyton Manning. I think it
Speaker 2: was oh to six versus Tom Brady to start his career,
Speaker 2: and he eventually broke through and got a couple you think. See,
Speaker 2: I just feel like Josh is too good to never
Speaker 2: actually get it done.
Speaker 1: And you never know what's going to happen with the
Speaker 1: Chiefs or any other team.
Speaker 2: But what are you willing to say about Josh's chances
Speaker 2: to at some point maybe break through and get a
Speaker 2: Super Bowl or maybe multiple.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, no, I definitely think he's got the ability.
Speaker 5: I think if you.
Speaker 9: See the way he's played this year, in over the
Speaker 9: last few years, just as a whole, he's got the
Speaker 9: capability of breaking through. I think they just I think
Speaker 9: they have the pieces.
Speaker 5: They just got to get.
Speaker 9: Over that hump, whatever that hump is. I'm not the
Speaker 9: person to make that decision, but I think I think
Speaker 9: he'll break through. And it obviously won't be this year,
Speaker 9: it could not be next year, but I'm sure by
Speaker 9: the end of his career. And I'm not saying like
Speaker 9: ten years down the road when he's finishing it's gonna
Speaker 9: be his last year. It could happen in the next
Speaker 9: couple but I definitely think he'll break through. I don't
Speaker 9: know what it'll take, but as long as he keeps
Speaker 9: playing the way he's playing and they keep the right
Speaker 9: guys around them, I'm sure they'll break through.
Speaker 2: I'm also contractually obligated to ask you about Lamar Jackson
Speaker 2: if we're gonna do lazy media narratives Torell, because of
Speaker 2: course it's the same thing with him, right, like, potentially
Speaker 2: could win another MVP, which would be three, and then
Speaker 2: playoff time rolls around it, and look, there's no shame
Speaker 2: in going up the Buffalo and nearly beating.
Speaker 1: An awesome team.
Speaker 2: But got the same question about Lamar as somebody who's
Speaker 2: played against him and is familiar with him, do you
Speaker 2: think he ever breaks through and gets his.
Speaker 9: I do think that he does. I think for some reason,
Speaker 9: I don't know what it is about the Ravens. They've
Speaker 9: they've usually had had a good defense, and now I'm
Speaker 9: not gonna necessarily say it's their offense their defense at
Speaker 9: not making it. But I definitely think, just like Josh,
Speaker 9: I think he's definitely gonna break through. The Ravens will
Speaker 9: break through. It just is I don't know what it's
Speaker 9: gonna take right now, obviously, like I'm sure there will
Speaker 9: be guys that retire from the Chiefs in the next
Speaker 9: couple of years, so that maybe that could help. I
Speaker 9: don't think that the Chiefs are like unbeatable. I just
Speaker 9: think that I guess no one has found a way
Speaker 9: to beat them in the playoffs in the last seven
Speaker 9: years besides Tom Brady, So I don't know. It's a
Speaker 9: tough one.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you about your impressions, because you know,
Speaker 2: Jayden Daniels was out here in the Pac twelve footprint,
Speaker 2: which is dead unfortunately there's no such thing now, but
Speaker 2: you know I'll use at Arizona State before transferring LSU,
Speaker 2: winning the Heisman and then bursting on the scenes. Were
Speaker 2: you surprised to see how poised and mature he was
Speaker 2: all year. What'd you make if you're one in Washington
Speaker 2: With Jayden Daniels.
Speaker 9: I remember when we were recruiting him to come to Utah,
Speaker 9: and I knew that he wanted to play right away,
Speaker 9: but we obviously had Tyler still there and we had
Speaker 9: a couple of quarterbacks in the room, so I knew
Speaker 9: it would be tough for him to play early at Utah.
Speaker 9: But I remember when he was being recruited and I
Speaker 9: was like, Oh, this kid's pretty good. But we played
Speaker 9: him with he was at Arizona State. He was young,
Speaker 9: but needless to say, I wouldn't say I was surprised.
Speaker 9: I would say that a lot of people with his
Speaker 9: last two years at LSU, I think a lot of
Speaker 9: people thought that he was going to come into the
Speaker 9: league and probably just run all the time, like just
Speaker 9: be a running quarterback and not throw very well. But
Speaker 9: I think a lot of people were surprised by his
Speaker 9: ability to throw the ball. He just he played really
Speaker 9: well all around, and I'm looking forward to see how
Speaker 9: he does in the future, because I think he's had
Speaker 9: a great start to his career and it's only up
Speaker 9: from here.
Speaker 2: So I thought Philly would beat them, but I thought
Speaker 2: it would be close, and it was not close.
Speaker 1: Philly overwhelmed them.
Speaker 2: And look, it was a great accomplishment for Washington and
Speaker 2: Jayden Daniels. The Washington organization has not been to a
Speaker 2: conference championship game in thirty three years, So if he
Speaker 2: was able and they were able to get that done,
Speaker 2: they would have been way ahead of schedule.
Speaker 1: So I'm not surprised to see Philly in this spot.
Speaker 2: But what stands out most to you about an Eagles
Speaker 2: team Terrell did a lot of people believe is the
Speaker 2: most talented team in all of pro football.
Speaker 9: I would have to say, well, we could just go
Speaker 9: based off the the NFC championship game. And this is
Speaker 9: something that you know, a good friend of mine, Scout,
Speaker 9: used to always talk about and one of my high
Speaker 9: school coaches just always say this, but like, the line
Speaker 9: of scrimmage is a very important thing in football, and
Speaker 9: I think the Eagles just found a way to win
Speaker 9: the line of scrimmage. They they ran the ball very well.
Speaker 9: I think they had what six rushing touchdowns in that
Speaker 9: game or something like that. And if you can't stop
Speaker 9: the run in football, I think it's it's going to
Speaker 9: be a long day, so I'll start there. Their their
Speaker 9: running beings has been very good from all their running backs,
Speaker 9: especially obviously Saquan Jalen Hurts is running really well, and
Speaker 9: they could they can throw the balls as well. So
Speaker 9: I think all around there playing well. Their their defense
Speaker 9: is playing well, and I think they've got a good
Speaker 9: shot to beat the Chiefs. It'll probably be tough, but
Speaker 9: I mean, that's that's what football is for.
Speaker 8: You don't want anything to be a cakewalk, all right,
Speaker 8: Terrell Bird just the safety Okay, You're you're standing there
Speaker 8: in a running back is broken free from the line
Speaker 8: and you have to tackle either Sae Kwon Barkley or
Speaker 8: Derrick Henry.
Speaker 1: Who are you choosing who's tougher to deal with?
Speaker 6: I don't really.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't say that I fear either of them, but
Speaker 9: I mean.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 9: I mean, they're both really good running backs. I'd probably
Speaker 9: take I would take either of them, whichever.
Speaker 10: One there you go.
Speaker 9: I mean, like, if I'm being honest. One thing, this
Speaker 9: is another thing Sky used to always say, was limit
Speaker 9: the damage, So I would They haven't made a man
Speaker 9: to run with that leg, So that's where I'm shooting,
Speaker 9: and I would just do my best to not get
Speaker 9: hurtled at the same time.
Speaker 1: I like that, all right.
Speaker 2: Chiefs Eagles super Bowl fifty nine, Kansas City is a
Speaker 2: one point five point favorite.
Speaker 1: The line hasn't moved. I thought there would be money
Speaker 1: one way or the other.
Speaker 2: But it opened up at one point five and that
Speaker 2: was five days ago and it stayed a one point five.
Speaker 2: Here's how I'll pose the question. I'll start here, the
Speaker 2: Eagles win super Bowl fifty nine.
Speaker 1: If what.
Speaker 9: The Eagles win super Bowl fifty nine, if they can
Speaker 9: if they can run the ball the way they've been running,
Speaker 9: the Eagles win super Bowl fifty nine, and not saying
Speaker 9: that they can't pass the ball win. They definitely can
Speaker 9: pass the ball win. But if they run the ball
Speaker 9: and they find a way to get let's say, one
Speaker 9: hundred and fifty to two hundred yards rushing, I don't know, collectively,
Speaker 9: not just by one person. I think I think it'd
Speaker 9: be pretty tough for the Chiefs to win the game
Speaker 9: in my opinion.
Speaker 2: And the Chiefs win Super Bowl fifty nine, and we
Speaker 2: see a three pat.
Speaker 9: If what the Chiefs win super Bowl fifty nine, if
Speaker 9: they can, like on contrary to what I just said,
Speaker 9: contain the Eagles in their rushing game and play the
Speaker 9: way they've been playing in the Super Bowl in the
Speaker 9: fourth quarter of the last few years. I think their
Speaker 9: ability to play well late in their games in the
Speaker 9: last couple of years and the last three Super Bowls
Speaker 9: they won in the last five years, their ability to
Speaker 9: play late in the game and play well has really
Speaker 9: helped them hoist that trophy three times. So I think
Speaker 9: if they can do that again towards the end of
Speaker 9: the game, you know, the last second half of the game,
Speaker 9: I think that'll make sure that they win the game.
Speaker 2: What are you doing these days, Torell Let's I'm sure
Speaker 2: you fans would love to hear an update. I know
Speaker 2: you were with the Bills and you were placed on
Speaker 2: injured reserves, So what's what's what's life like for you
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: And what are you hoping comes next?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm still in California's still training.
Speaker 5: I'm healthy.
Speaker 9: I had a few workouts this season, but there's nothing nothing,
Speaker 9: nothing stuck through, still playing, you know. So I've had
Speaker 9: a little bit of communication with a couple of teams,
Speaker 9: but you know, until until things are set and stone,
Speaker 9: nothing really happened. So just training them in California right now,
Speaker 9: looking to to find a place to live outside of California,
Speaker 9: because I love this place. It'll always be home, but
Speaker 9: just just looking to to find something new. Probably we'll
Speaker 9: make a trip or two out to Utah this this offseason.
Speaker 9: That would be pretty nice to come back and see
Speaker 9: my see my favorite people, see one of my favorite
Speaker 9: cities in the United States, So that'll be nice.
Speaker 1: Who do you keep in contact out this way?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: Without this way?
Speaker 2: We have a lot of your former teammates on Zach
Speaker 2: was on not too long ago. Who are your YOUTE
Speaker 2: teammates that you continue to talk to and stay in
Speaker 2: contact with?
Speaker 9: Honestly a lot of them, Okay, I keep it. I
Speaker 9: still talk to Zach. I talked to Julian for two
Speaker 9: I guess two big names. I talked to Soup here
Speaker 9: and there a lot of TJ. Green, Philipia, There's there's
Speaker 9: a lot Sampson, Nakula, There's a lot of guys that
Speaker 9: I still talk to from from Utah.
Speaker 5: CLC.
Speaker 9: Mariner, I don't know's there's a lot. I'd say that
Speaker 9: I stay in contact with a lot of guys just
Speaker 9: because we we had a close knit bond at Utah
Speaker 9: and it'll probably continue for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1: What are your what are your thoughts on?
Speaker 2: Since you and I last spoke, there was a lot
Speaker 2: of conversation about what would happen with coach with after
Speaker 2: a rough year, and he's announced that he's coming back
Speaker 2: for your twenty one. What's your reaction to your former
Speaker 2: ball coach on the sidelines for another year for these Utah.
Speaker 9: I'm happy for him. I didn't think, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 9: before last season, I thought that would probably be his
Speaker 9: last season, not that I knew anything under the table
Speaker 9: or anything. I just was thinking like that'd be his
Speaker 9: last season. But once we fell short to BYU, I
Speaker 9: think I don't think in my opinion, from my point
Speaker 9: of view, I don't think he would have allowed himself
Speaker 9: to leave with that bad taste in his mouth. So
Speaker 9: I think he's gonna come back with a vengeance this
Speaker 9: year and do pretty well, and in my opinion, maybe
Speaker 9: this will be his last year. But who knows. He's
Speaker 9: a strong man. He probably is still working out like
Speaker 9: crazy now, so I'm sure he's still in good health
Speaker 9: and still able to keep going.
Speaker 2: Since you and I last spoke as well. It's been
Speaker 2: a minute. A coach you know very very well. In
Speaker 2: Morgan Scalley, it was announced that he is the contingency
Speaker 2: plan once Kyle decides that he wants to do something
Speaker 2: else with his time.
Speaker 1: That job is Morgan's.
Speaker 2: I would imagine you have some thoughts on that, Troe,
Speaker 2: what do you think about the plan here?
Speaker 9: And so I'm happy for him, I have. I have
Speaker 9: a lot of respects for him. He's not only a
Speaker 9: great coach, but a but a great person as well.
Speaker 9: And I feel like I learned. I learned a lot
Speaker 9: from college. I think, I don't know. I couldn't say
Speaker 9: enough good good things about him, And I'm excited for
Speaker 9: his future and his family and when he gets a
Speaker 9: chance to take, uh take the reins as the head
Speaker 9: coach at Utah, I'm sure I'll be there, just like
Speaker 9: I am there now, you know, still supporting them and
Speaker 9: seeing them do well.
Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about media? You're you're you're pretty
Speaker 2: good at this, you know. And I and terrelle I interview.
Speaker 2: I know, I know you're only twenty six and hopefully
Speaker 2: you have a lot of football left to play, But
Speaker 2: I interview a lot of former players, and I'll say
Speaker 2: I've interviewed a lot of your former teammates, and I'll
Speaker 2: just say gently at times, it's hard for me to
Speaker 2: drag answers out of them, but you're really.
Speaker 1: Good at this. Have you ever considered that maybe down.
Speaker 9: The road, I've considered it. I think it's I think
Speaker 9: it's very I have a lot of respects for everybody
Speaker 9: in the media from I think my right after my
Speaker 9: rookie year, I did the spring game, and I worked
Speaker 9: with some of the guys from the PAC twelve and
Speaker 9: calling the spring spring game, so being able to see
Speaker 9: it from that view and talking to you and just
Speaker 9: being on the radio and things. It's like, I don't know.
Speaker 9: I think I just have a lot of respects for
Speaker 9: the profession. I think it's really cool. It's not something
Speaker 9: I would ever count out. I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 9: I just haven't thought about it extensively. But I mean,
Speaker 9: I guess if another person tells me that it I
Speaker 9: sound pretty good on the media, I guess I should
Speaker 9: probably really think about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah you're no, you are, and believe me, I can
Speaker 2: tell when players are good at it.
Speaker 1: I can tell when they want to do it.
Speaker 2: And I can tell when they're on the phone and
Speaker 2: they're scrolling through their mentions or they're swiping right or whatever.
Speaker 2: So your present and I appreciate that. I want to
Speaker 2: move over here because, as I reference, we talk to
Speaker 2: a lot of your teammates, and for my money, Torell,
Speaker 2: your twenty nineteen Utah team may have been the most
Speaker 2: talent and I mean this now, I mean seriously, like
Speaker 2: top to bottom, it could have been the most It
Speaker 2: could be the most talented Utah football team in the
Speaker 2: history of the program. And obviously four undefeated, a eight undefeated,
Speaker 2: and those guys have acclaimed the seasons that are very
Speaker 2: very special. But yet do you guys ever talk about
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, how many just awesome players you had and
Speaker 2: what could have been?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think I think the more we talk about it,
Speaker 9: and the more people talk about it, it just makes it
Speaker 9: that much worse that we weren't. We didn't get a
Speaker 9: chance at the to you know, Oh, I guess we
Speaker 9: did get a chance. We just didn't do it, so
Speaker 9: I'll put it that way. But yeah, I think we
Speaker 9: talked about it a lot and we know, but it's
Speaker 9: hard to have no hardware and say that you were
Speaker 9: a good team. So, I mean, if we're being honest,
Speaker 9: everybody plays this game for the love of the game
Speaker 9: and to win, and we won a good amount, but
Speaker 9: just not enough. So I think we were a great team.
Speaker 9: I think I always think that we were a great team,
Speaker 9: and I'm just grateful to be a part of that
Speaker 9: those great four years, and not only just twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Before I set you lose.
Speaker 2: And I do have to apologize to all the former
Speaker 2: players who I asked this question too, and I've asked
Speaker 2: you inmates. We asked Zach a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2: You know Terrell Burgess, you know, good looking, charismatic kid,
Speaker 2: Utah football player, senior year, really really good. I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: two hundred three hundred K or something like that, Like
Speaker 2: do you ever look at this? You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 2: do you ever look at what college football is now?
Speaker 2: And go, man, I was just a few years too late.
Speaker 9: I know, it's crazy because I was just talking about
Speaker 9: this as one of my friends about how like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 9: our parents just had us too early. But yeah, I
Speaker 9: mean it's crazy to even think about it. I'm happy
Speaker 9: for the for the players now. I think I've always
Speaker 9: thought that college football players deserve to get paid, so
Speaker 9: I'm excited that they're doing it. Is I can only
Speaker 9: just hope that they continue to make the right choices
Speaker 9: and micro decisions with the money they're giving at given
Speaker 9: at a young age, and earn, not just given, earned
Speaker 9: at the young age, and continue to do right and
Speaker 9: help the younger generation be able to just keep going.
Speaker 9: But yeah, no, I'm excited for them.
Speaker 5: I think my senior.
Speaker 9: Year maybe I would have made a little bit, but
Speaker 9: you know, hindsight's always twenty twenty and we'll wi ultimately
Speaker 9: never know that. But I'm not bitter about it. I'm
Speaker 9: really happy for them, and I just I hope it
Speaker 9: continues to just grow the sport.
Speaker 2: Where do you keep that Super Bowl ring?
Speaker 9: I don't know if I should be saying that on
Speaker 9: the rag fair. You're in California. It's here, It's in
Speaker 9: a safe space, it's in a lock box here in California,
Speaker 9: something I don't really take out very often. But it's
Speaker 9: something also to whoever asked, so it's a great accomplishment.
Speaker 9: I'm just happy to be a part of that team.
Speaker 1: Good stuff.
Speaker 2: Hey Drell, Thanks for the time. Man, have a great weekend.
Speaker 2: We'll get you back on soon.
Speaker 9: Okay, yes, sir, thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Rel Burgess really really good player for Utah twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: his senior year just completely blew up.
Speaker 1: Drafted by the.
Speaker 2: Rams one hundred and fourth overall, third round twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately broke his ankle, injured reserve.
Speaker 2: But he does have a Super Bowl ring that Super
Speaker 2: Bowl the Rams won when they beat the Bengals. Spent
Speaker 2: some time with the Giants, spend all the time with
Speaker 2: the Commanders, most recently with the Buffalo Bills, and then
Speaker 2: he was way We've a little bit into the season.
Speaker 2: So now he's back in California training and trying to
Speaker 2: get in shape.
Speaker 1: Hopefully gets a chance.
Speaker 2: He's only twenty six years old and obviously a really
Speaker 2: good player and an excellent player for Utah back in
Speaker 2: the day. Appreciate Threll Burgess the time on the program.
Speaker 1: All right, roll along on the program today.
Speaker 2: Time to talk some Utah men's basketball. The Utes have
Speaker 2: been able to grab a couple of wins in Big
Speaker 2: twelve Play, three straight wins and a couple of els
Speaker 2: to Houston and Baylor. Been a nice home win against
Speaker 2: a really good defensive team in Cincinnati, hitting the road
Speaker 2: at Okay State. Our next guest good enough to give
Speaker 2: us some time. It's rare for us in the afternoons
Speaker 2: because they practice. The head coach of the Utes, Craig Smith,
Speaker 2: on the program, Craig, how are you, sir?
Speaker 6: I'm doing great, Spence, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. Appreciate the time.
Speaker 2: It's pretty rare for us in the afternoons to get
Speaker 2: your time, so we appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So let's start just big picture.
Speaker 2: Now, you guys are twenty games in over all, your
Speaker 2: nine games in in the Big Twelve.
Speaker 1: What do you like? What are you working on? Thought
Speaker 1: with your team through twenty games?
Speaker 6: Greig, And it's hard to believe we're already at this point,
Speaker 6: you know, play Oklahoma State, like you said, two o'clock
Speaker 6: on Saturday, and we'll be halfway through conference playoff already.
Speaker 6: So you know, it's gone really fast. There's been some
Speaker 6: really like any season, there's you know, there's been some
Speaker 6: really good moments and some hard moments. It's been a
Speaker 6: you know, preseason, we're gonna pick sixteen out of sixteen,
Speaker 6: so obviously you don't want to be picked in last place,
Speaker 6: but there's nowhere to go but up, I guess from
Speaker 6: that respective. But you know, we had a great summer
Speaker 6: this year. It was really unfortunate lost all three of
Speaker 6: our centers within eight days of our first game. We
Speaker 6: had to really reinvent ourselves and we were playing a
Speaker 6: way different brand of basketball than we've been we had been,
Speaker 6: and you know, it just it's not really how I
Speaker 6: like to play, certainly now being new to the Big
Speaker 6: twelve and being into it, it's really hard, I think,
Speaker 6: to sustain success that way. And we went back to
Speaker 6: the way we were playing all summer and most of
Speaker 6: the fall. And that's big, right. Our teams, no matter
Speaker 6: where I've been, whether it's Utah State, South Dakota, Mayville State,
Speaker 6: we've always been an elite rebounding team. It's just what
Speaker 6: we've done. And now that we've played, you know, inserted
Speaker 6: Jake Wallen into the starting lineup, you know, legit six nine,
Speaker 6: six ten with Ezra and User was a very powerful
Speaker 6: foreman and then lost and lovering at seven to one,
Speaker 6: you know, and then Keanu Dods is really impacting our
Speaker 6: program in a great way. Six y nine and really
Speaker 6: long I'm happy with how we're playing. You know, one
Speaker 6: four the last six, I had a tough loss at
Speaker 6: Houston and had a tough loss at home to Baylor,
Speaker 6: where we just had a ton of open shots. We
Speaker 6: just couldn't make a shot that night, and that happens
Speaker 6: in basketball. But I feel like we're rounding in the
Speaker 6: forum and we're doing some good things. And now we're
Speaker 6: going to continue continue at this weekend because winning on
Speaker 6: the road in the Big Twelve is very, very difficult,
Speaker 6: and so we're gonna have to be ready to really
Speaker 6: compete on Saturday.
Speaker 2: You mentioned something there that that kind of peaked my interest.
Speaker 2: My ears perked up, my intendants went off when you said,
Speaker 2: you know, we're not necessarily playing the way.
Speaker 1: I want to play or I want to coach.
Speaker 2: And I always find it interesting when I am watching
Speaker 2: a team that's coached by a guy who I like
Speaker 2: and respect, like you. And I can remember when Quinn
Speaker 2: Snyder was here coaching those Jazz teams when Rudy Gobert
Speaker 2: kind of evolved into this defensive stopper and they started
Speaker 2: him next to Derek Favors and they didn't have a
Speaker 2: great offense, but Dennis Lindsay used to say, look, if
Speaker 2: they score seventy were fine scoring seventy two, and they
Speaker 2: took the air out of the basketball. And I always wondered, like,
Speaker 2: and I asked Quinn. I was like, is this the
Speaker 2: way you want to coach? Is this the way you
Speaker 2: want to play? Said no, it's the way we have
Speaker 2: to play based on our personnel, right, and then ultimately,
Speaker 2: you know, Donovan's drafted, he takes off and then you
Speaker 2: know they acquire a bunch of good offensive pieces, and
Speaker 2: Quinn changed the way they played and it was the
Speaker 2: way he wanted to coach, and it was the way
Speaker 2: he wanted them to play. But how much of your approach, Craig,
Speaker 2: is catered to the personnel and how much of it is, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is the way I believe basketball should be played.
Speaker 6: Well, it certainly as a head coach. You know, it's
Speaker 6: really interesting. You've got to be who you are. There's
Speaker 6: so many ways to win in basketball or football or
Speaker 6: volleyball or whatever it might be. But I think as
Speaker 6: a head coach, you've got to really have the security
Speaker 6: there of who you are, what you believe in, try
Speaker 6: to recruit to that. At the same time, you know,
Speaker 6: it's like for me, I've always had to be at
Speaker 6: you know, situations when I've gotten hired that maybe weren't
Speaker 6: that quote unquote sexiest jobs, or there are harder jobs,
Speaker 6: or certainly you know, I've always been hired in their
Speaker 6: place where they've been struggling. Unfortunately we've been able to
Speaker 6: flip it around. So like I've always had to kind
Speaker 6: of adapt and adjust based off your personnel, right, based
Speaker 6: off your best players. Who's got talent. So you got
Speaker 6: to be able to fine tune some things offensively, certainly
Speaker 6: defensively as well. And you know, Paul, you know the
Speaker 6: great obviously he's passed away for the legendary football coach
Speaker 6: Paul bear Bryant. You know, I can't always tell you
Speaker 6: what a great player looks like, but I can certainly
Speaker 6: see it. And the first thing you got to do
Speaker 6: is get those guys in the game and and and
Speaker 6: so you know, I've always remembered that quote and thought
Speaker 6: about it, and you just got to find the talented
Speaker 6: guys that are all about the team, that create toughness,
Speaker 6: things that you value, and then you figure it out.
Speaker 6: And I really value defending and rebounding, and I just
Speaker 6: think it's a mentality thing. It's a toughness thing, it's
Speaker 6: an edge thing. It's a way of life. You can't
Speaker 6: do it somedays and that other days and showing up,
Speaker 6: you know, go to work when you don't feel like it,
Speaker 6: like you got to put the time in, you got
Speaker 6: to work hard. I just believe in those things. And so,
Speaker 6: you know, we had had some success or that we
Speaker 6: were shooting a ton of threes, too many for my liking.
Speaker 6: Not that I don't like making threes, right, but but
Speaker 6: it's just you know, the Iowa game, I got a
Speaker 6: little Baylor at Baylor, and it was like, all right,
Speaker 6: we're going back to what I believe in, who we are,
Speaker 6: about what we got to do. And then you know,
Speaker 6: being what's easy to forget, like this is our first
Speaker 6: year in the Big twelve, and every league is a
Speaker 6: little bit different, and so the Big twelve is certainly
Speaker 6: different than the Pac twelve. You know, I had two
Speaker 6: years in the Big ten, right, the Big ten was
Speaker 6: more like the Big twelve, you know, back then, and
Speaker 6: so you learn what do you got to have? What
Speaker 6: are things you need to have? You know, where are
Speaker 6: we strong? Where we got to get better at and
Speaker 6: then what scheme do you have to have because there's
Speaker 6: just so much playmaking in this league. But it's awesome.
Speaker 6: I'm so glad we're a part of it. So anyway,
Speaker 6: going back to your question, you have to adjust your personnel.
Speaker 6: But if it's not necessarily who you are, that could
Speaker 6: be a difficult thing. And so every coach is a
Speaker 6: little bit different style of what they believe in it.
Speaker 6: You got to be confident with it and roll with it.
Speaker 6: And I like what we're doing at this moment in time.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk conceptually for a minutes to
Speaker 2: some of the concepts surrounding Gabe.
Speaker 1: And you know, I.
Speaker 2: Talked about this on air last week and I got
Speaker 2: a little pushback. I'm not saying that Gabe is Stephan Curry. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is Steve
Speaker 2: Kerr oftentimes talks about, Hey, I want Steph to shoot
Speaker 2: five to seven quote unquote bad shots a game, right, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't mind him forcing up some shots because every
Speaker 2: night every team, he is the first page on the
Speaker 2: scouting report and Greg, as you know, everybody sells out
Speaker 2: to make sure Gabe doesn't have space and when he
Speaker 2: is open. If he misses an open three, I feel
Speaker 2: like this. It's the same feeling when another player misses
Speaker 2: an open layup right, because you finally get him open
Speaker 2: and Gabe doesn't knock it down. He's like, oh man,
Speaker 2: that was a chance. But what are you trying to
Speaker 2: do just to get him some space? Because the shooting
Speaker 2: percentages are down? But if you're not watching, you can
Speaker 2: look at the numbers and say, what's wrong with it?
Speaker 1: Well, what's wrong with them is everybody's gapping them. Everybody's
Speaker 1: blitzing them.
Speaker 2: Theyre running two and three at them, right, So just conceptually,
Speaker 2: how are you trying to get Gable little space so
Speaker 2: he can you know, knock down the shots?
Speaker 1: So you need him knocked down?
Speaker 6: Well, sense, how much time do you, guys?
Speaker 2: As much time as you have, Craig, there's a four
Speaker 2: hour radio show, my friend.
Speaker 6: That is a it's a very it's a great question
Speaker 6: and very insightful. Quite frankly, you know, as a coach, right,
Speaker 6: I've always been I want our guys on on both
Speaker 6: sides of the ball, but on offense, really playing aggressive
Speaker 6: in attack mode. I don't ever want our guys where
Speaker 6: they feel paralyzed, where they're looking.
Speaker 5: Over their shoulder constantly.
Speaker 6: You know what I mean? Is this a good play?
Speaker 6: Is it not? Because then I think, I just think
Speaker 6: I've just been around guys like that, and I know
Speaker 6: what happens, and so I'd rather have to have rain
Speaker 6: them back a little bit than you know, go the
Speaker 6: other way. And so listen, I've coached game for three years.
Speaker 6: This is my fourth year. I know he is. I
Speaker 6: know who he is. He's certainly the alpha, so to speak,
Speaker 6: or option one A whenever the one's getting ready to playoffs.
Speaker 6: Even now, whether his numbers are you know what they are,
Speaker 6: they're still putting their best defender on him. They're still saying, nope,
Speaker 6: we're not letting you get those you know, points or whatever.
Speaker 6: So he's had to adjust to that. Now. He's always
Speaker 6: been that guy last while should for the most part,
Speaker 6: he's been that guy for the last three years on
Speaker 6: the on the perimeter. But we've been able to play
Speaker 6: a little bit differently in the last few years. So listen,
Speaker 6: do I want him firing terrible shots? No, not necessarily. However,
Speaker 6: I want him aggressive. So if he's going to take
Speaker 6: you know, he's going to take a couple of bad
Speaker 6: shots here and there, like it's just what it is.
Speaker 6: I when I first got hired at Utah State, I
Speaker 6: used to have to tell Sam merrill Sam because he
Speaker 6: was so I got to make the right play. I
Speaker 6: got to make the right play, and his mind, the
Speaker 6: right play was always you know if I'm boom, And
Speaker 6: I was like, Sam, look around, this team needs you
Speaker 6: to be super assertive and super aggressive. And so every
Speaker 6: now and then, a bad shot, what you would deem
Speaker 6: a bad shot is probably better than you know, a
Speaker 6: cleaner look by somebody else. And what I was telling
Speaker 6: him that is he was so engrossed in making the
Speaker 6: right play all the time, and I just wanted his
Speaker 6: mentality being a little more assertive or aggressive. And certainly
Speaker 6: after that I didn't have to tell him too many
Speaker 6: times right in a lot of ways. And look, what's
Speaker 6: you know happened that way? So you got to know
Speaker 6: your guys, You got to know your team. But I
Speaker 6: want our guys aggressive, not looking over their shoulder. Now.
Speaker 6: At the same time, with our team, I did have
Speaker 6: to really address that specifically after the Texas Tech game
Speaker 6: at home, I just felt like we were having too
Speaker 6: many guys just shucking up shots and our shot selection
Speaker 6: was I would deem below average, right, and we just
Speaker 6: had to pull the reins back because we just were
Speaker 6: just you know, he's gonna have to defend us. It
Speaker 6: was two and three guys getting all the shot, and
Speaker 6: I just felt like our team wasn't built like that.
Speaker 6: Into our guys credit, we've done a way better job
Speaker 6: with our shot selection. Gab including Gabe and what he's done,
Speaker 6: and he's still going to peel out, which I want.
Speaker 6: He needs to get shot. It's just a matter of
Speaker 6: time before he gets out of this slump.
Speaker 9: I just know it.
Speaker 6: And the other night he showed some real signs, went
Speaker 6: to the free throw line eight times seventh grade, made
Speaker 6: a month or shot with under two minutes ago to
Speaker 6: put us up to it's just a matter of time
Speaker 6: with Gabe. And then he just looked like, you know,
Speaker 6: sometimes when you got a you know, a fifth year senior,
Speaker 6: they feel like they got the weight of the world
Speaker 6: on him. Like one of the Gabe's superpowers is he
Speaker 6: can just let things roll right off his shoulders and
Speaker 6: just go play basketball, just go hoop, and just we
Speaker 6: had a really good talk about that last week and
Speaker 6: and he just looked more himself where he's just going
Speaker 6: to play basketball and not playing with the weight of
Speaker 6: the world on his shoulders. So you know, you need
Speaker 6: scores to be aggressive and not overthinking, and it's just
Speaker 6: a matter of time for him.
Speaker 2: So on the other side, and you kind of alluded to,
Speaker 2: my follow up is obviously and we'll just stick with
Speaker 2: the Warriors parallel, even though people online are going to
Speaker 2: yell at me saying I'm comparing Gabe to Seth Curry.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, you know, it's not just about a shooter
Speaker 2: like Gabe and the attention that he mandates. It's also
Speaker 2: the space that that allows your other players because of
Speaker 2: that gravity.
Speaker 1: So how do you take advantage of that?
Speaker 2: Because you referenced that times maybe the shot selection has
Speaker 2: been great. You know Hunter in the BYU game took
Speaker 2: advantage of some space to knock down some big time shots.
Speaker 2: So when Gabe is mandating all this attention and there's
Speaker 2: all this space due to that gravity, how does that
Speaker 2: benefit your team and how do you take advantage of it?
Speaker 6: Oh, it's huge. I mean obviously he is the respect
Speaker 6: of all of our opponents and they're going to put
Speaker 6: their best defender on him every game. Best tournamentter defender
Speaker 6: is on him every game when he comes off of
Speaker 6: ball screen, they're almost always blitzing them or trapping him.
Speaker 6: And so now that creates the scene because on offense,
Speaker 6: when you can get two guys to the ball, you're
Speaker 6: creating an advantage. It's all about advantage disadvantage, and you're
Speaker 6: creating an advantage for your team. And so now you
Speaker 6: got two guys to him, you're playing four against three.
Speaker 6: Once he delivers that ball, whether he pitches it head
Speaker 6: to the next perimeter player or whether he hits the
Speaker 6: short role. Right with the short role is the guy
Speaker 6: that right sets the ball screen and Lovering is an
Speaker 6: elite passer. So when we can get him the ball
Speaker 6: in the short role, that creates a real advantage for
Speaker 6: our offense. Or he throws it back and now we
Speaker 6: can look inside or skip opposite and play. So it
Speaker 6: just creates a real advantage for our team on offense.
Speaker 6: Now he's got to tighten up with the ball, but
Speaker 6: he's become a much better playmaker slash decision maker. Even
Speaker 6: specifically the first half the other night, oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: every time he touched it, they were sending two guys
Speaker 6: to him. Essentially, and he was able to make a
Speaker 6: lot of the right play that led to a lot
Speaker 6: of easy dunks and wide open threes for us. So
Speaker 6: just a threat for him, and it creates spacing, right, uh,
Speaker 6: spacing his offensive spacing and spacing his offense. And if
Speaker 6: you don't have good spacing on the floor, or if
Speaker 6: you can pick a guy or two out there that
Speaker 6: maybe can't stretch the floor, now you don't really have
Speaker 6: to card that guy, and you can really plug up
Speaker 6: the paint. And so he creates advantages just by simply
Speaker 6: being out on the floor. And then the last thing
Speaker 6: I'll say about Gabe, he's such a selfless guy. Two things.
Speaker 6: He's such a selfless guy. All the dude cares about
Speaker 6: his winning. He just wants to win, doesn't care of it.
Speaker 6: You know, he could. He had a lot of opportunities
Speaker 6: to go other places for more money over the summer.
Speaker 6: And he's like, coach, I am a runningue. This is
Speaker 6: where I want to be right this He's changed my life.
Speaker 6: I love being here, I love living here, I love
Speaker 6: playing in this program, I love playing for you, on
Speaker 6: and on and on, and I think it says a
Speaker 6: lot about the guy. All the guys on our team
Speaker 6: respect him. It's such detail, but he impacts winning just
Speaker 6: by being out on the floor. And he's such a
Speaker 6: good mover without the ball constantly moving, which frees up
Speaker 6: everybody else on the floor.
Speaker 2: So I referenced the BYU game. I was there with
Speaker 2: some family. It was just man. You know, I was
Speaker 2: a student at the U, And I told you, Craig,
Speaker 2: the first time I interviewed you after you took the job,
Speaker 2: I was not going to bring up Rick Majerius every
Speaker 2: time you came on the show.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 6: You did tell me that, but you can't get I'm
Speaker 6: used to it.
Speaker 1: But I'll just say this.
Speaker 2: I mean, when I was a student in the late nineties,
Speaker 2: we planned our weeks around basketball games, and the BYU
Speaker 2: crowd for the first time, in my opinion, felt like
Speaker 2: I was back in school, you know, twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: years ago. And you said after the game, fans impact winning,
Speaker 2: and you are absolutely correct. So give me your thoughts
Speaker 2: on what it was like that night in the building
Speaker 2: to feel it like that, and what it would mean
Speaker 2: your program if we could get that going more often
Speaker 2: than not.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean a ton and like, listen, we all
Speaker 6: have responsibility. I have a responsibility as head coach. Like
Speaker 6: I think we have a very exciting brand of basketball
Speaker 6: to watch. I think we have a lot of just
Speaker 6: great people in our program. But also no fans want
Speaker 6: like sustained success and to win. And you know that
Speaker 6: night and there's and there's been some of those nights.
Speaker 6: I mean, of course last year with Uyu as well,
Speaker 6: and they were ranked when we played by forget top ten,
Speaker 6: top fifteen, when we beat Arizona, Arizona's ranked number four
Speaker 6: in the country a couple of years ago. That was
Speaker 6: a really good crowd. And that was I think the
Speaker 6: night before our football team played in the Bowl Championship
Speaker 6: in Las Vegas. But fans impact winning. I don't care
Speaker 6: what anyone says. Like players got to go make the plays,
Speaker 6: coaches got to put guys in the right position, recruit
Speaker 6: you know, championship level players. Right, there's a lot of
Speaker 6: facets that go into everybody impacts winning and so but
Speaker 6: when you come into an arena and I remember I
Speaker 6: was in a in the Big ten, the Big Ten.
Speaker 6: I'll never forget this stat the Big Ten at that time,
Speaker 6: I don't know where this is like ten years ago,
Speaker 6: for I think it was twenty six straight years led
Speaker 6: the country in attendance. And guess what they also for
Speaker 6: like twenty five of those twenty six years had the
Speaker 6: best home winning percentage within league play, within league play
Speaker 6: in the country. So, like, what's Big ten country, Well,
Speaker 6: it's cold, it's born in the north, right, there's not
Speaker 6: a lot of crazy, you know, things to do because
Speaker 6: people want to be inside. So what they do they
Speaker 6: go to sporting events, like guys, so they do. And
Speaker 6: so this those road environments and now being in the
Speaker 6: Big twelve and it's early for us. But we started
Speaker 6: at Baylor, right, and they did a promotion they give
Speaker 6: up five thousand free tickets and it was packed because
Speaker 6: their football team was playing their bowl game that day
Speaker 6: December thirty. First, then we played at Iowa State. Oh
Speaker 6: my gosh, that place is electric, right, And then it
Speaker 6: was that TFU not quite you know, but it was
Speaker 6: still a good home court and we played well that night,
Speaker 6: and one at Houston electric. Right. So we've played some
Speaker 6: very tough conference road games and that night specifically when
Speaker 6: we played when we be BYU, Oh my gosh, Like
Speaker 6: those are our guys who remember that the rest of
Speaker 6: the life. That was the sixth biggest crowd in the
Speaker 6: history of the Huntsmon Center, and so it was awesome.
Speaker 6: Your players feel it. They feel the energy, they feel
Speaker 6: the passion, they feel the caring, like there's a lot
Speaker 6: that goes into it. And so you know, we got
Speaker 6: to do our part. It helps to win, there's no
Speaker 6: doubt about that. But we do have an excellent brand
Speaker 6: of basketball. You know, we're top for most of the season,
Speaker 6: we've been one or two and assists. We really share
Speaker 6: the ball, I think now number six or number seven
Speaker 6: in the country. So we have players that are willing
Speaker 6: to sacrifice and play shared basketball and connected basketball. And
Speaker 6: we all know this state is an amazing basketball state.
Speaker 6: The fans are passionate and you can look up and down,
Speaker 6: whether it's you know Utah State, Utah v YU, go
Speaker 6: all the way like it's like people love basketball in
Speaker 6: this state. And so, but they impact winning in a
Speaker 6: great way. It becomes a huge home court advantage and
Speaker 6: it can be daunting. It can be very daunting when
Speaker 6: you're an opponent coming in because they see the games,
Speaker 6: whether they're watching them lit or through the coaches clips
Speaker 6: that they show. It can be a very daunting experience
Speaker 6: and it really tests your metal, your discipline, your toughness,
Speaker 6: and so you know, that's what we envision, that's what
Speaker 6: we'd like to do. There's a lot of things that
Speaker 6: go into it, but fans impact winning without questions.
Speaker 2: I know you got to go. So if you want
Speaker 2: to be super quick with this question, be super quick.
Speaker 2: But it was the one I wanted to. I want
Speaker 2: it to end with because there are pieces Craig on
Speaker 2: this roster, and it seems like every night I watch
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, Keanu just showed me something I hadn't
Speaker 2: seen before, or maybe myro little needs to get more run,
Speaker 2: or while Lean's down the starting like and then Ezra
Speaker 2: has really evolved. I mean that BYU performance was incredible.
Speaker 2: Are you close to landing on your preferred rotation or
Speaker 2: just is it going to continue to be just like
Speaker 2: whatever the night needs and you're going to continue to
Speaker 2: kind of tinker and and just kind of go from there.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's a great question, very fair. I
Speaker 6: feel like we're very very sound on our top seven guys.
Speaker 6: You know, since we won four out of six for
Speaker 6: the most we've been pretty steady with who we're playing now,
Speaker 6: there's certainly been you know, the Houston game, guys got
Speaker 6: out of kind of got out of hand. After a while.
Speaker 6: We had a couple of one guy specifically i'd heard,
Speaker 6: so we kind of rotated some things and and and
Speaker 6: then it got to a point where it's like, you know,
Speaker 6: you're playing some guys that just like Katie's young, Jake's young.
Speaker 6: It's easy forget those guys are early sophomore. Yeah, so
Speaker 6: especially Jake doesn't have a crazy amount of game experience.
Speaker 6: You know, Miro little doesn't have a crazy amount of
Speaker 6: game experience. So you know, Ezra is really starting to
Speaker 6: grow into his own and figure some things out. And
Speaker 6: so I feel very good about you know, where we're
Speaker 6: at with our uh. I guess you could say top seven.
Speaker 6: You know. The other night we played a little bit different.
Speaker 6: Lovering has been in some foul trouble here last you know,
Speaker 6: a few games, so we've had to kind of negotiate
Speaker 6: that a little bit. The other night, Ezra had an
Speaker 6: amazing first half, had some constantly turnovers, and then he
Speaker 6: got his fourth file with about ten minutes to play,
Speaker 6: so we took him out. But then, you know, Keanu
Speaker 6: was playing so great and Jake was playing really well,
Speaker 6: so it's kind of like, hey, you got to ride
Speaker 6: those guys, you know, and those guys are good players.
Speaker 6: So I'm excited. I think we're finally kind of getting
Speaker 6: our footing, so to speak, with our role definition, who's
Speaker 6: doing what what what pieces seem to gel better with
Speaker 6: each other, who plays well off one another, and then
Speaker 6: and then there's some things we still got to figure
Speaker 6: out with a couple of spots, so to speak, and
Speaker 6: find consistency so we know exactly what we're going to get,
Speaker 6: you know, on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2: Sounds good. Well, thanks so much for the time. Best
Speaker 2: of luck in league play. I think it's been a
Speaker 2: pleasant surprise for a lot of people to see you
Speaker 2: get the wins you've been getting, and you got some
Speaker 2: winnable ones coming out, Craig, So save travels and we'll
Speaker 2: chat toom.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me on, Spance. I always appreciate your time.
Speaker 4: He's the pride of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son
Speaker 4: of Salt Lake City. After forty years with the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 4: there's no one better to talk some hoops. Richard Smitty
Speaker 4: Smith is back on the Drive on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 2: Well, he lives, he lives. It's been way too long.
Speaker 2: I thought he'd ditched us. I thought he decided that
Speaker 2: he was done with the media portion of his long
Speaker 2: and prosperous, well decorated career. But after weeks and weeks
Speaker 2: and weeks broad with a little sunshine on the Ocean,
Speaker 2: Richard Smith has triumphantly returned live in studio for the
Speaker 2: next hour. You look tanned, you look rested, You look
Speaker 2: twenty five years younger.
Speaker 1: Really, where you been, man?
Speaker 10: Really?
Speaker 1: Where you've been?
Speaker 11: First of First of all, I don't know what Porter
Speaker 11: is doing with this with this intro.
Speaker 10: Is that Johnny Cash? Is that old old Johnny Cash?
Speaker 3: That was uh there was you two with Johnny Cash?
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, the Wanderer.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 1: Appropriate, It's it's appropriated.
Speaker 5: It was a reach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think it was perfect. Where are you doing, man?
Speaker 1: Where you been? What's going on? Man?
Speaker 11: No, I've been out of out of town spends. We
Speaker 11: had a great, uh great cruise in the in the
Speaker 11: Caribbean for a few weeks. I had a terrific time
Speaker 11: and it was nice to see sunshine in eighty degrees
Speaker 11: and and you know, One of the best parts of
Speaker 11: having a trip like that is, uh, is every now
Speaker 11: and then you're you're sitting near the pool, You're sitting
Speaker 11: up in the sunshine. You look at your phone and
Speaker 11: you get on the weather app and says Salt Lake
Speaker 11: snowing and twenty three.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now you just rubbing it in and you're not endearing
Speaker 2: yourself to anyone around here.
Speaker 10: This is why I'm doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Now, Now the flip side is you get off the
Speaker 11: ship to go to the airport to come home, and
Speaker 11: you said, what am I doing? Why am I? Why
Speaker 11: am I going back to do this? I don't know,
Speaker 11: but for me it was because I missed the Spence
Speaker 11: check Its show on the Drive with Porter Larson, and
Speaker 11: and my I was I had to get back here
Speaker 11: because I was getting a little anxious. I was starting
Speaker 11: to twitch a little bit. And uh, but here I
Speaker 11: am here, I am back with you. So everything's normal,
Speaker 11: everything's calm and and and we're back to it.
Speaker 2: So you expect me to believe the only reason you
Speaker 2: left the Caribbean the warm weather so you could come,
Speaker 2: you know, slepping on air with me.
Speaker 11: I have no other reason to do it but to
Speaker 11: come back and talk to you. So this is it,
Speaker 11: and we can talk about the jazz and the trade
Speaker 11: deadline and all the other and and and maybe even
Speaker 11: get in a vote to vote for what the name
Speaker 11: of the hockey team is supposed to, because I'm so I'm.
Speaker 10: So engrossed in that, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: Do you have? Okay, let's start there.
Speaker 2: Porter and I educated the people yesterday, mostly Porter because
Speaker 2: he loves the genealogy on the fact that Utah actually
Speaker 2: does have a very rich history when it comes to Outlaws.
Speaker 2: Of course, Order's third cousin is Jesse James or Butch
Speaker 2: Cassidy or who is it again, it's but Cassidy. There
Speaker 2: you go, Yeah, no, I do. Now it's turning into
Speaker 2: a bit so. Butch Cassidy is literally Porter's third cousin.
Speaker 2: He has tremendous knowledge of Outlaws in the past. So
Speaker 2: we have the Outlaws, we have the Mammoth, and we
Speaker 2: have my preferred name, which is the name they already have,
Speaker 2: which is the Utah Hockey Club. I think it's classy.
Speaker 2: I think it's clean. I don't think it's corny. I
Speaker 2: don't need an abominable snowman as a mascot. So I
Speaker 2: like the current version, but I'm kind of out an island.
Speaker 11: What do you think? Well, first of all, I'm wondering
Speaker 11: any any other hockey fan around the country, anybody who's
Speaker 11: involved in the NHL, would they accept a team that's
Speaker 11: called the Utah Outlaws relative to what most people's view
Speaker 11: of the state of Utah is around conservatism and the LDS,
Speaker 11: church and and whatever whatever, clean cut people and.
Speaker 10: All that kind of stuff.
Speaker 11: And then they're sitting there in North Carolina or Florida
Speaker 11: or wherever, and they're going now they name their team
Speaker 11: the Outlaws. The Utah oh am, I supposed to believe
Speaker 11: that the Utah Outlaws.
Speaker 2: Well, we have a team named the Jazz, and we
Speaker 2: don't have any jazz music in the city.
Speaker 10: You got that.
Speaker 2: There's nowhere you can go to listen to jazz and
Speaker 2: saut lake. Yet our basketball team is the Jazz, I know,
Speaker 2: or you know.
Speaker 11: The one that's the most egregious to me, Spencer never
Speaker 11: gets mentioned is the Los Angeles Lakers.
Speaker 1: Sure exactly, you know and so but you.
Speaker 11: Know obviously, But having said all that, I I'm with you.
Speaker 11: I'm in your camp one hundred percent. I said this
Speaker 11: back back when whenever, and I still I'm still in
Speaker 11: that camp that if I had a vote, which obviously
Speaker 11: I don't, I would be voting for Utah Hockey Club.
Speaker 11: I love it that it's it's nice and clean, and
Speaker 11: I like the logos they've gotten, the color scheme and everything.
Speaker 11: And I don't know, I've heard you say this before,
Speaker 11: and I'm and I'm in complete agreement with you for
Speaker 11: for once in a while, that makes me feel good
Speaker 11: that the that they seem to me to be overthinking
Speaker 11: the whole process, you know.
Speaker 1: So no, I'm with you.
Speaker 2: And if you go to the next two home games
Speaker 2: for the Utah Hockey Club starting to not against Columbus,
Speaker 2: you can go through the exercise where you can pretend
Speaker 2: to vote on this situation and simply give your data
Speaker 2: to qual Tricks. And they're gonna do whatever they want
Speaker 2: behind the scenes anyway. But they are presenting the facade
Speaker 2: of a fan vote. It's not a real thing. But
Speaker 2: we'll see, we'll see. It's been fun to have the
Speaker 2: hockey team said, the kid was in town the other
Speaker 2: night scoring a game winning overtime goal.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're not gonna do a lot of hockey.
Speaker 2: But I do find myself, you know, could she kind
Speaker 2: of laugh and shake in my head when the Rangers
Speaker 2: coming to town, or the Blues coming to town, or
Speaker 2: Alex Ovechkin is here, Sidney Crosby is here, Like, it
Speaker 2: is pretty remarkable that they were able to get this
Speaker 2: thing done with only a few months turn around.
Speaker 11: Well, that's that's the miracle. Spence and and Ryan Smith
Speaker 11: and his group at SEG like how they came to
Speaker 11: an agreement with the NHL from from March, putting in
Speaker 11: a a letter of intent that they wanted to try
Speaker 11: and purchase an expansion team at some point to the
Speaker 11: next month in April, with Gary Bettman coming to Ryan
Speaker 11: Smith saying, hey, can you uh do you want to
Speaker 11: get involved like next Tuesday? And they go, what what
Speaker 11: are you talking about? And the Arizona team comes here
Speaker 11: and bing bang boom, they're they're in the middle of
Speaker 11: a season this year with with all of that, that
Speaker 11: to me is is nothing short of a miracle of
Speaker 11: just getting it off the ground and getting it going
Speaker 11: and all the stuff they've had to do, all the
Speaker 11: people who I know behind the scenes over there at
Speaker 11: the Delta Center who have scrambled and done the very
Speaker 11: best they can to get this thing going, and the
Speaker 11: fans are responding, and the team is competitive and all
Speaker 11: this kind of stuff.
Speaker 10: It's just it really is a marvel that they've gotten.
Speaker 11: It to this point so quickly, and you have to
Speaker 11: give them a lot of kudos for that.
Speaker 1: No doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2: All Right, since you and I last spoke, several interesting
Speaker 2: scenarios haven't folded, not just in Jazz Land, but in
Speaker 2: the world of pro basketball. You know, you were one
Speaker 2: of the first people I thought of when the alert
Speaker 2: came down on my phone that the Jazz had made
Speaker 2: a trade. Now players are not involved, but it's an
Speaker 2: interesting thing to consider. There are six teams smitty in
Speaker 2: pro basketball that own a tremendous amount of draft capital
Speaker 2: moving forward over the next five to six to seven drafts.
Speaker 2: Ok See, Oklahoma City's at the top, San Antonio, It's Utah,
Speaker 2: It's Brooklyn, and.
Speaker 1: I think it's Detroit.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's one other team that has So there are
Speaker 2: six teams total. They control multiple picks throughout the course
Speaker 2: of the next five to six to seven drafts.
Speaker 1: So let's dig into the deal.
Speaker 2: Then let's talk about whether or not you think this
Speaker 2: is going to become commonplace. So Utah sends three picks,
Speaker 2: three first round picks to Phoenix. All three picks are
Speaker 2: the least favorable of their picks, Minnesota's pick and Cleveland's picks.
Speaker 2: So they obviously have done their calculation on the Cavs certainly,
Speaker 2: and they've said this year that's going to be twenty
Speaker 2: nine to thirty. Two years from now, they're probably going
Speaker 2: to be really good. Then four years from now, nobody
Speaker 2: really knows, but the least favorable of all three might
Speaker 2: be in the twenties as well. So they're saying, like, okay,
Speaker 2: we're sending three picks to Phoenix that we think are
Speaker 2: going to be, you know, not necessarily great value in
Speaker 2: the late twenties. On the off chance that in twenty
Speaker 2: thirty one, Bookers in his thirties, Durant's probably in a
Speaker 2: retirement home, Beal's done anyway, in the off chance that
Speaker 2: Phoenix is pivoting and rebuilding in twenty thirty one, we'll
Speaker 2: take that chance. So we'll trade you three assets for
Speaker 2: one that we perceive to be as worth the risk,
Speaker 2: I guess I'll say, so break this down for us,
Speaker 2: and do you think this is something we're going to
Speaker 2: see in pro basketball moving forward with all these teams
Speaker 2: with so many picks.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and and and you're exactly right. And the reason
Speaker 11: you do that, the reason you have, you know, this
Speaker 11: famous phrase of assets accumulation is because you're trying to
Speaker 11: get as many many chips in the pile if you will,
Speaker 11: uh that you can. And then when something like this
Speaker 11: comes up, and we've talked about this before on the show,
Speaker 11: you never know. You can control some things within your
Speaker 11: your purview of how you want to do things, who
Speaker 11: you want to take in the draft, how you want
Speaker 11: if you want to move up in the draft and
Speaker 11: move down, whatever it.
Speaker 10: Is, sign a free agent, those kind of things.
Speaker 11: But then there are other things that that affect your
Speaker 11: organization along the way that you have no control of
Speaker 11: that just come at you and you have to be
Speaker 11: ready to be able to react in a way that
Speaker 11: you feel can benefit your organization. And this is one
Speaker 11: of those times. So the Jazz accumulated a bunch of
Speaker 11: draft picks over a bunch of years. You know, when
Speaker 11: are they going to use them, How are they going
Speaker 11: to use them? Who are those picks gonna be? You know,
Speaker 11: some people look at it. Go boy, we got like
Speaker 11: three draft picks in the first round in a year,
Speaker 11: you know, five years from now, where the kid we're
Speaker 11: gonna pick right now is in seventh grade or whatever,
Speaker 11: you know. And it's so it's like that part of
Speaker 11: it is goofy, But you have those in place in
Speaker 11: case something like this comes about.
Speaker 10: So what happens.
Speaker 11: Phoenix is desperately trying to figure out a way to
Speaker 11: get Jimmy Butler from Miami. The big roadblock is because
Speaker 11: of Bradley Beal, who is the most tradeable ASCID or
Speaker 11: at least the one that they would like to be
Speaker 11: able to move, who has no trade clause, which is
Speaker 11: very unusual in the NBA. Very few players get that
Speaker 11: in their contract. But that was something he negotiated when
Speaker 11: he was in Washington. Why they would do that, who knows,
Speaker 11: but that was a decision they made. Now Phoenix has
Speaker 11: it and they have to deal with it. So they're
Speaker 11: trying to figure out a way to move Bradley Beal. Well,
Speaker 11: they have to have some other assets because Phoenix has
Speaker 11: backed themselves into a corner so deep with their roster construction.
Speaker 11: They have no draft picks to speak of. They have
Speaker 11: nowhere to move. This is what they built. They went
Speaker 11: all in on this group, and this group showed last
Speaker 11: year they get beaten the first round by Minnesota.
Speaker 10: This year, they're struggling to just.
Speaker 11: Hopefully get out of the playing thing if they can
Speaker 11: get in the top six.
Speaker 10: But that's not what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 11: They believe they're supposed to be one of the top two,
Speaker 11: three four teams in the West. It's not working out
Speaker 11: to this point in time. So they're struggling like, Okay,
Speaker 11: now what do we do? So they the only thing
Speaker 11: they can figure out at that moment is can we
Speaker 11: use an asset way in the future, meaning the twenty
Speaker 11: thirty one unprotected first round pick, and get multiple assets
Speaker 11: for that. The Jazz are waiting in the weeds. They
Speaker 11: come up, they raise their hand in the classroom. Yeah,
Speaker 11: we have three draft picks. We'll trade you, and Phoenix goes, okay,
Speaker 11: three for one. Okay, we'll do that. So the Jazz figure, Okay,
Speaker 11: we've got all these picks, that's why we have them,
Speaker 11: so we can roll it into something else so we
Speaker 11: think might.
Speaker 10: Be more valuable way down the road. Will it be?
Speaker 11: We have no idea, is it something we might use
Speaker 11: two years from now in another move, we might do that,
Speaker 11: but we've got something we feel is a little more
Speaker 11: valuable than what we have right now. Phoenix is in
Speaker 11: a position where they need multiple assets to try and
Speaker 11: get someone else in their trade scenario with Butler and
Speaker 11: Beal and so they want to make that more So
Speaker 11: you take advantage of that, and you take that pick
Speaker 11: and you put it to the side, and then you
Speaker 11: move on if you're the Jazz, and you wait in
Speaker 11: the wings and you see what happens with those other
Speaker 11: teams in their potential trade scenarios.
Speaker 2: So there are constant rumors surrounding the Jazz, as there
Speaker 2: are this time of year with a lot of teams.
Speaker 2: But I referenced, oh, by the way, the team I
Speaker 2: forgot with additional draft capitals Houston. Then it's Charlotte. So
Speaker 2: there are sixteen. Charlotte has eight, first, Houston has nine.
Speaker 2: The Jazz still have eleven even after the trade. Then
Speaker 2: you're looking at Brooklyn that has fifteen, You're looking at
Speaker 2: San Antonio that has twelve, and Oklahoma City has ten
Speaker 2: thirteen incoming picks, ten that are tradeable and they're awesome.
Speaker 1: So that's difficult. Sam Presty's done a hell of a job.
Speaker 2: But every time somebody talks about this trade deadline, they
Speaker 2: talk about John Collins potentially to Sacramento.
Speaker 1: They talk about Colin Sexton.
Speaker 2: You know, the Lakers are the worst because every player
Speaker 2: that's available that might fit Ins, like, hey, Lakers in
Speaker 2: on Collin Sexon, I don't know, no idea. And then
Speaker 2: obviously Jordan Clarkson's another name. What are the conversations behind
Speaker 2: closed doors Jazz front office right now, Wanne, what to
Speaker 2: do with some of these pieces with twenty seven million
Speaker 2: in cap space and a bunch of draft capital too, Like,
Speaker 2: what do you think they're discussing prior to February sixth.
Speaker 11: Well, first of all, they've gone in this season right
Speaker 11: with the idea that they're going to try and develop.
Speaker 10: All these young players.
Speaker 11: And whether you believe they're doing that or not, whether
Speaker 11: they're making progress or not, you know, everybody has an
Speaker 11: opinion about that. The bottom line is they're not winning,
Speaker 11: and they're not going to win this year. So they
Speaker 11: recognize that. So they're going to try and do anything
Speaker 11: that either helps them moving forward in terms of a
Speaker 11: draft asset or maybe a good young player if one
Speaker 11: comes available, or to try and shed some more money.
Speaker 10: So they don't.
Speaker 11: Care if they have John Collins the roster a week
Speaker 11: from now. They don't care if they have Jordan Clarkson
Speaker 11: on the roster a week from now.
Speaker 10: It doesn't matter to what they're doing now.
Speaker 11: So if they can find a place, a landing spot
Speaker 11: for any of those kind of guys, I've become I
Speaker 11: was partially, but now I'm all in spence on being
Speaker 11: a Colin Sexton guy. He's the most efficient player the
Speaker 11: Jazz have this year to this point. He's played the best,
Speaker 11: he's played the most consistent. He plays with force, he
Speaker 11: plays with energy. I like the way he carries himself
Speaker 11: on the floor. He's one of the few guys who
Speaker 11: brings energy and some level of toughness to the to
Speaker 11: the roster. So for me, you take market In, you
Speaker 11: take Kessler, you take Sexton, You put those three guys
Speaker 11: to the side. Okay, anybody else is fair game. Anybody else,
Speaker 11: especially if you can make a move to get rid
Speaker 11: of some money, whether that's Clarkson who's making fourteen this
Speaker 11: year and fourteen next year, or whether that's Collins who's
Speaker 11: making twenty six if you can move those guys to
Speaker 11: some team that wants them to values them in a
Speaker 11: way that they think they could help them somewhere in
Speaker 11: some kind of a playoff drive, then you look to
Speaker 11: do that kind of thing to get some kind of
Speaker 11: an asset, a future draft pick or another young guy
Speaker 11: or something that's making less whatever it is, you do
Speaker 11: that kind of a move to set yourself up for
Speaker 11: the kind of stuff that you want to do this
Speaker 11: coming summer and beyond, because this year you're not going anywhere,
Speaker 11: so it doesn't matter. So you're trying to figure out
Speaker 11: something that makes sense to add to what you're trying
Speaker 11: to build in terms of opportunities going down the road.
Speaker 2: Let me follow up, since you reference Colin Colin Sex
Speaker 2: and you like what he's bringing. He's twenty seven years old,
Speaker 2: or excuse me, twenty six years old. And I always
Speaker 2: kind of chuckle because we talk about Colin and John
Speaker 2: as if they're in their late thirties, because they're not
Speaker 2: Keyanta or Isaiah or whatever.
Speaker 5: Like.
Speaker 2: He's still very much a young player that's entering his prime.
Speaker 2: His splits on the year about eighteen and a half
Speaker 2: points three boards for assists, and when you look at
Speaker 2: the shooting percentage. He shoots forty eight percent from the floor,
Speaker 2: he shoots forty two percent from three, and takes almost
Speaker 2: four to threes a game, which I never thought it
Speaker 2: would be his deal. So he's put in the work,
Speaker 2: he's improved a lot, and we always have this debate.
Speaker 2: And I have a couple of other names. I want
Speaker 2: to kick the tires with you on. But like the debate.
Speaker 2: Anytime I go on another show, another podcast and they
Speaker 2: want to talk jazz, they all ask me the same question,
Speaker 2: who's around when they're good? And I've always said, well,
Speaker 2: market in for sure, if you know, if they can
Speaker 2: surround it with Lowry's part of the future.
Speaker 1: I think Walker is too.
Speaker 2: Is there a debate in that front office room, like, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe Colin is part of this too, based off of
Speaker 2: what you've seen.
Speaker 11: Sure, I would say definitely, because what he's done, He's
Speaker 11: always been a tough guy.
Speaker 10: He's always brought energy.
Speaker 11: His issue early on in his career was his turnover
Speaker 11: rate and also his susceptible shooting. Now you look this year,
Speaker 11: and again it's half a year, so we see how
Speaker 11: the rest of the year plays out. But on a
Speaker 11: team that's struggling, a team that's having trouble with winning games,
Speaker 11: a team that's having trouble finishing games when they're in
Speaker 11: the fourth quarter and it's still, you know, in the balance,
Speaker 11: and they have trouble doing those things. Sexton is the
Speaker 11: one guy who has shown during this year so far
Speaker 11: that he can be counted on to make good decisions.
Speaker 10: He can be galunted on to make a play when
Speaker 10: you need to make it. He's one of.
Speaker 11: Those guys who just plays hard every night and has
Speaker 11: improved his shooting to the point where you say, well,
Speaker 11: now that's serviceable, meaning he can help a good team
Speaker 11: in terms of how he plays. He's not going to
Speaker 11: be the main guy, but he can be a third
Speaker 11: or fourth or fifth guy on a team that is
Speaker 11: trying to uh, trying to have some level of sustainability
Speaker 11: of winning.
Speaker 10: So you might be able to move him. Maybe you do,
Speaker 10: but at his.
Speaker 11: Age, the way he's improved, he looks to me like
Speaker 11: a guy that's the kind of guy I would want
Speaker 11: to have around, not only because he's shown that he
Speaker 11: can get better, but because of the energy he brings.
Speaker 11: Jazz don't have a lot of guys on their roster
Speaker 11: who when they come on the floor, you go, Okay, Now,
Speaker 11: now we're gonna see something that's for sure. We're gonna
Speaker 11: get it up into a guy. We're gonna run a
Speaker 11: guy down from behind. We're gonna step in and try
Speaker 11: and take a charge. We're gonna push the ball down
Speaker 11: the floor from end to end, a full blast. They
Speaker 11: don't have many of those guys, and Sexton is one
Speaker 11: of those guys, and he's always been that. Now you
Speaker 11: put in this component that if he's shooting, if that's
Speaker 11: if that's a real thing, and he can keep it
Speaker 11: around that forty mare from three, he's an excellent free
Speaker 11: throw shooter, and he's making better decisions, then he's a
Speaker 11: guy who's who's increased his value and has increased his
Speaker 11: ability to be able to help you in a winning effort.
Speaker 10: See, that's what they're trying to see.
Speaker 11: About all these other young guys they've drafted last two years,
Speaker 11: or any of those guys, whether it's a Kiante George
Speaker 11: or a Sensaba or a Collier, they're all young guys.
Speaker 11: Can any of them show that they can make those
Speaker 11: incremental steps of improvement like Sexton has here in the
Speaker 11: first part of his career to show that they can
Speaker 11: contribute to winning. That's what they're trying to find, you know,
Speaker 11: with this younger group of guys. But to me, they've
Speaker 11: got a guy they've found who has shown he can
Speaker 11: do that in Sexton, and I would be surprised if
Speaker 11: that's someone that they didn't want to keep around.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me kick the tires with you on
Speaker 2: a rotational decision Will has made that I think actually
Speaker 2: means something. I mean oftentimes, like maybe Drew Eubanks gets
Speaker 2: another ten, I don't give a rip. It doesn't really
Speaker 2: matter if like Walker's out, is it going to be
Speaker 2: Philip Philapowski is going to be? You bet like you
Speaker 2: know Sphie makay Luke against Johnny Jus saying all right whatever.
Speaker 2: But over the past four games, Kyante is coming in
Speaker 2: off the bench and Isaiah Collier has started now thirteen times.
Speaker 2: So I want to break this down on a couple
Speaker 2: of different angles than give you the space, because I
Speaker 2: do believe if you're Will Hardy, if you're the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 2: you have to figure out who Kyante George is really
Speaker 2: as a rotational piece in this league.
Speaker 1: If he's going to be around when you're trying to win.
Speaker 2: And I believe Keiante's role in pro basketball is it
Speaker 2: going to be a lot like Jordan Clarkson's has been.
Speaker 2: Colin Sexton is in this, you know, kind of same
Speaker 2: type or of role for a good team, a guard
Speaker 2: you can bring it off the bench that can score.
Speaker 2: Kyante is one of the worst defensive players on the
Speaker 2: team and their second worst in defense at all of
Speaker 2: pro basketball, and Will has been very front facing about
Speaker 2: we need more from Keyonty on defense. He's just not
Speaker 2: a lead guard. He just isn't. He doesn't make great decisions.
Speaker 2: His shots profile isn't great as percentages are down, but
Speaker 2: we do have a bit of a sample size. So
Speaker 2: in four games as a reserve, Kyante is at about
Speaker 2: fourteen point five points, about four boards, five assists.
Speaker 1: The shooting splits are.
Speaker 2: Just not good, no matter if he's started coming off
Speaker 2: the bench, about forty percent from the floor, twenty three
Speaker 2: percent from three. And on the other side, I'm starting
Speaker 2: to like what I'm seeing from Isaiah in a way
Speaker 2: that I don't think I was expecting. So thirteen games
Speaker 2: as a starter now for Isaiah Callier, he's at eleven points,
Speaker 2: eight assists, three and a half turnovers, which was way
Speaker 2: too many turnovers twenty three percent from three. He's got
Speaker 2: to improve the outside shot forty three percent from the floor.
Speaker 2: But you like eight assists, you like eleven points and
Speaker 2: almost five boards. He's a big kid that can get
Speaker 2: downhill and makes better decisions I think than Kyante does.
Speaker 1: So attack this from both angles.
Speaker 2: What we've seen now from Isaiah as a starting lead
Speaker 2: guard and what Will is trying to do by bringing
Speaker 2: Kiante out bench.
Speaker 11: Yeah, well I think that first of all, the Collier kid,
Speaker 11: he's a young kid, but he's always been a point guard,
Speaker 11: so he's always had the ball in his hands.
Speaker 10: He's always been making decisions. Now. When he was.
Speaker 11: Sixteen seventeen eighteen, he was the bully on the block.
Speaker 11: He was bigger than the other kids, so he could
Speaker 11: blow by guys, he could overpower guys, he could get
Speaker 11: in the lane, he could get to the rim, and
Speaker 11: he's always had a decent feel for finding guys on
Speaker 11: the move. Early on in this year, he's been very
Speaker 11: turnover prone. He makes wild passes. Sometimes seen him make
Speaker 11: numerous passes to go right over guys heads into the
Speaker 11: fourth row of the stands literally, and he makes some
Speaker 11: questionable decisions when he gets some traffic, trying to get
Speaker 11: a bounce pass in a pocket pass that's not going
Speaker 11: anywhere because there's three sets of legs there and it's
Speaker 11: not going to get through. But he has a feel
Speaker 11: for trying to move the ball. He's not a shooter
Speaker 11: at the moment. Can he can he improve that? Can
Speaker 11: he get to a Colin Sexton scenario. You know, he's
Speaker 11: only twenty years old. Can he improve that by the
Speaker 11: time he's twenty three, twenty four and be something that's
Speaker 11: serviceable in that in that area because he's a big guy.
Speaker 11: He can hold his own. I don't like the way
Speaker 11: he is postured on defense. He needs to get more
Speaker 11: impose himself more defensively. I don't know if that's his mindset.
Speaker 11: That's one of the things that I'm sure that they're
Speaker 11: trying to flush out is whether they can get him
Speaker 11: up to that that kind of level. He's he's learning
Speaker 11: on the fly. He's got the size, he's got a feel.
Speaker 11: Cante George, I agree with you. He feels to me
Speaker 11: like he's, you know, his his role in the NBA.
Speaker 11: If he sticks in the NBA long term is going
Speaker 11: to be as an off the bed scorer, Jordan Clarkson,
Speaker 11: the Vinnie Johnson Jamal Crawford type guy who can get
Speaker 11: a shot, who isn't gonna defend for you, And so
Speaker 11: that's gonna be a problem. If he's not gonna do
Speaker 11: that part, then the other part, the offensive part, he
Speaker 11: has to do really well in order to make up
Speaker 11: for that. So I don't think he's a point guard.
Speaker 11: I think they're they're they're giving Collier some run because
Speaker 11: that's what they're trying to do right now. They're in
Speaker 11: the developmental stages of their team. So the only way
Speaker 11: we find out is if we throw him out there
Speaker 11: to the Wolves and we see what they got. And
Speaker 11: so far, Calier looks like he's improving some. I still
Speaker 11: don't like some of the decisions he makes, but he
Speaker 11: has a little bit better feel than George does at
Speaker 11: the point, and that's one of the things that Jazz
Speaker 11: are in the process of trying to feel.
Speaker 1: Out quick follow up for catch a break.
Speaker 2: Is it possible to be either a league guard or
Speaker 2: a complimentary wing and play big minutes for a team
Speaker 2: that's trying to win.
Speaker 1: If you can't shoot it from three in the modern
Speaker 1: day and age of the NBA.
Speaker 11: No, that's a that's a good point, and and that
Speaker 11: and that's one of the things that he's, uh, he's
Speaker 11: gonna have to improve on. He's gonna have to show
Speaker 11: because the teams are gonna sag off. The teams are
Speaker 11: gonna go under on that pick and roll. They're gonna
Speaker 11: flatten it out at the line. They're gonna say, hey,
Speaker 11: you make that eighteen footer, you make that twenty three footer,
Speaker 11: you know, you put it up over the top and
Speaker 11: show us he can do it.
Speaker 10: So far he's unable to do that.
Speaker 11: That's one of the things he's gonna have to get
Speaker 11: better on if he's gonna get any kind of sustained run,
Speaker 11: you know, as as a lead point guard in this league.
Speaker 2: All Right, we will catch you quick breaks Mandy's liven
Speaker 2: Studio coming up next. Some old friends were in town
Speaker 2: last night, Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles, Mike Conley, Nikhil, Alexander Walker.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about the Jazz t Wolves game, look at
Speaker 2: to the schedule that lies ahead, and maybe do some
Speaker 2: other NBA trade deadline stuff. But sat out for the
Speaker 2: ESPN seven hundred, one thous thousand dollars cash giveaway. Get
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Speaker 2: us at ESPN seven hundred. All right, Porter, I want
Speaker 2: you to I want you to get Trey on the
Speaker 2: phone and just just tell him that he's dead to me.
Speaker 2: That's all I just you can you can text him
Speaker 2: just say hey, you're dead, dispense.
Speaker 1: Can you do that real quick? I'll give him you
Speaker 1: a pick.
Speaker 2: So some breaking news that should have come through us here,
Speaker 2: but RSL will add Nick Romando's name to the stadium
Speaker 2: Ring of Honor at America First Field against DC United
Speaker 2: on June the fourteenth.
Speaker 1: Nick he started his career. I think no, he just
Speaker 1: played for DC.
Speaker 2: Then RSL traded for Nick Romando after their starting keeper
Speaker 2: Scott Garlic retired to take a real estate job.
Speaker 3: I'll just say it wasn't the story. Yeah, he got
Speaker 3: a real estate gig, Scott Garlic.
Speaker 2: Yes, No, I'll never forget it. This was kind of
Speaker 2: my intro to MLS. We're in a staff meeting and
Speaker 2: the general manager of the time gets a tax.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, you're starting keeper.
Speaker 2: Scott Garlic has decided to retire because he got a
Speaker 2: job in real estate.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what, m well's come a long way.
Speaker 2: It has, but we had to pivot trade for Nick Romando,
Speaker 2: who became the wall of the Wahsatch and so he'll
Speaker 2: have his name on the Ring of honor.
Speaker 1: So excited for Nicky. You got a hot Nick Romono tech.
Speaker 10: He says that that is so well deserved.
Speaker 11: He was such a stable force for ourself for over
Speaker 11: a decade and you know what a great guy and
Speaker 11: still in the community, active in the community.
Speaker 10: And that's a great and deserving honor for Nick.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine sitting in a meeting with Scott Laden
Speaker 2: and the brain trust back in the day and suddenly
Speaker 2: you get a message that Antoine Carr is retiring because
Speaker 2: he got a good job selling homes.
Speaker 11: Hey now, but the question would be, well he got
Speaker 11: into a Scott got into real estate? Was that making
Speaker 11: more money than he was making for RSL?
Speaker 1: And this was MLS in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: I mean absolutely, and I believe it's worked out very
Speaker 2: well for Scott, who's a very smart, very nice guy.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, so, you know, hey, that's all. That's
Speaker 11: all part of the real world stuff. And you know
Speaker 11: it was another generation ago, of course. But you know,
Speaker 11: back in Jerry Sloan's day when he was playing in
Speaker 11: the sixties and seventies, most of the star players in
Speaker 11: the NBA had other jobs in the off season that
Speaker 11: they did to supplement their income because they didn't make
Speaker 11: that much money at that time. You know, it's weird
Speaker 11: to think of guys like Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain and
Speaker 11: Jerry West and what those guys would be making now
Speaker 11: and what the NBA is paying is.
Speaker 10: A whole nother world.
Speaker 1: It sure is.
Speaker 2: I mean, can you imagine getting a phone call and
Speaker 2: it's like, hey, would you like to buy some car
Speaker 2: life insurance? This is Larry Marketing from the Utah. So
Speaker 2: I'm trying to supplement my income.
Speaker 11: Hey, hey, hot Rod. Hot Rod left the Lakers and
Speaker 11: retired in order to go work full time for Converse
Speaker 11: in the mid sixties because he could make more money
Speaker 11: working for convert.
Speaker 2: That's wild man. That's wild all right, we won't do
Speaker 2: anything on the All start. Let me just ask you
Speaker 2: this the new All Star Game format where it's gonna
Speaker 2: be these All Star players from either conference broken up
Speaker 2: into three teams and they're gonna have a little mini
Speaker 2: tournament and the fourth team will be the winner of
Speaker 2: the Rising Stars Challenge.
Speaker 1: Does this do anything at all? Do you think it
Speaker 1: raises the interest?
Speaker 2: I only bring it up because for NBA fans at
Speaker 2: a certain age, all Star Weekend, once upon a time
Speaker 2: was awesome.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 2: You had Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins going up against each
Speaker 2: other and slam dunk contest. You had Larry Bird winning
Speaker 2: three point shoo shooting contest. You had two All Star
Speaker 2: teams that played hard. And when the greatest basketball players
Speaker 2: on Earth show up and play hard, I am of
Speaker 2: the opinion that it's the greatest game. We just don't
Speaker 2: see it like we used to.
Speaker 11: Yeah, well, it's I don't know what this new format
Speaker 11: is going to do. I don't know if any you know.
Speaker 11: One of the things is when when I was younger
Speaker 11: and you'd watch the All Star Game, there there was
Speaker 11: some affinity for the guys in the West or the
Speaker 11: guys in the East, and you actually rooted for them.
Speaker 11: Now it's just a mishmash of guys. It's in uh,
Speaker 11: you know some you know, level of exhibition that's not
Speaker 11: you know, really compelling. I don't think to the average
Speaker 11: basketball fan, you know, I think you know, more attention
Speaker 11: is probably going to be made, you know, at the
Speaker 11: current moment right now about who didn't make the All
Speaker 11: Star team, right whether you whether you want to argue
Speaker 11: for Trey Young, you know, who should be on the
Speaker 11: All Star team, or you want to argue for Demonta Bonus,
Speaker 11: who's for the second year in a row, has been
Speaker 11: the biggest snub to me like that. That's just unconscionable
Speaker 11: by the coaches, you know, not to put somebody like
Speaker 11: him on the All Star team for the way he
Speaker 11: works and the kind of guy he is.
Speaker 10: And all that kind of stuff. You know.
Speaker 11: But but it's that, you know, a few of those
Speaker 11: guys will get in any way, because some of the
Speaker 11: guys who got voted in.
Speaker 10: Has always happened.
Speaker 11: Somebody has an injury, somebody decides at the last minute,
Speaker 11: I'm not going to play because I got a rest
Speaker 11: for the second half.
Speaker 10: Or whatever.
Speaker 11: So a few of those guys will probably get in
Speaker 11: any way at the last minute, but it's always an
Speaker 11: interesting argument at this moment in time, several days after
Speaker 11: it's announced all the reserves, like who didn't make it
Speaker 11: and who should be in.
Speaker 2: So the Minnesota Timberwolves rolling to town last night, whenever
Speaker 2: one of our former players comes into town, it's fun
Speaker 2: to kind of talk about in reminists or six former
Speaker 2: players or several former players, certainly, but let's kind of
Speaker 2: go down the list here. And you know, when the
Speaker 2: Rudy Gobert trade went down, the narrative around the NBA
Speaker 2: was like, wait, the Jazz got what for? Go Beart,
Speaker 2: And I felt like I was the only voice pushing
Speaker 2: back saying, well, hold on a second, let's just let's
Speaker 2: wait and see, because you know better than anybody the
Speaker 2: way Rudy impacts winning when he's healthy, when he's right,
Speaker 2: Minnesota over the past couple of years has had a
Speaker 2: team that's like right there, kind of like you guys
Speaker 2: did with Gilbert and Mitchell, but not necessarily a team
Speaker 2: that's broken through.
Speaker 1: They've been better as of late.
Speaker 2: Rudy when you look at the numbers more or less
Speaker 2: has been the same player for them as he was
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: A little bit of a.
Speaker 2: Dip, but you know, as somebody that was there when
Speaker 2: you drafted him and got to know him and watched
Speaker 2: him evolve from this gangly kid who could barely run
Speaker 2: up and down the floor to the best defensive player
Speaker 2: of this generation.
Speaker 1: How should we look back on the nine years when
Speaker 1: we had Rudy here?
Speaker 11: Well, you know that was a team that that that
Speaker 11: grew together. You know, Rudy came in, he spent two
Speaker 11: different stints in in the G League, like you a
Speaker 11: little known Trivia Spence his first G League coach when
Speaker 11: when and one of my jobs at that time was
Speaker 11: with the Jazz was to go with our players if
Speaker 11: they got assigned to a G League team, to make
Speaker 11: sure they assimilated okay, and they were the team was
Speaker 11: going to use them the way the Jazz wanted to
Speaker 11: see improvement and blah blah blah and all that stuff.
Speaker 11: But he with the Bakersfield and his coach there was
Speaker 11: Will Voight, who is now the lead assistant for b
Speaker 11: YU men's basketball with Kevin Young, and he was the
Speaker 11: guy who who helped Rudy a lot in some of
Speaker 11: his footwork and post work and stuff UH at Bakersfield
Speaker 11: at that time. But Rudy, you know, Rudy worked his
Speaker 11: way up the ladder. We've talked about that before and
Speaker 11: and earned his place in the NBA that he has
Speaker 11: now his standing, and that was through a lot of
Speaker 11: his own determination and and hard work and and UH
Speaker 11: and wanting to be as good as he could be.
Speaker 11: And that team grew together. Dennis Lindsay did a great
Speaker 11: job of piecemealing, putting one one guy after another, whether
Speaker 11: it was Rudy, whether it was Uh drafting Donovan was
Speaker 11: bringing in Joe Ingles who had just gotten cut from
Speaker 11: from the Clippers, whether it was getting boy On Bogdanovich.
Speaker 11: You know, all these guys, you know, piecing together into
Speaker 11: a team that for a stretch over five year period,
Speaker 11: had the best, had the most wins of any team
Speaker 11: in the Western Conference, won two division titles, and one
Speaker 11: year I had the best wreck in the NBA. Okay
Speaker 11: stumbled in the playoffs, but I had a team that
Speaker 11: was built to win at that time, and Rudy was
Speaker 11: a centerpiece of that. And then when Ryan Smith and
Speaker 11: his group came in, they decided that you know, in
Speaker 11: their way that that they didn't think it was good enough,
Speaker 11: and so they traded everybody and broke it all down
Speaker 11: and got all these draft picks and assets that they're
Speaker 11: now trying to work through and trying to figure out
Speaker 11: how to rebuild the team. But those got you know,
Speaker 11: Rudy and that group, that was a great group to
Speaker 11: work with. They were all great guys, and they all
Speaker 11: grew together into a unit that was really one of
Speaker 11: the top top five teams in the NBA at one
Speaker 11: point in time.
Speaker 1: All right, let's keep going down the list.
Speaker 2: And I thought one of the really fun moments last
Speaker 2: night was at the end of the game because Joe
Speaker 2: Ingles at the age of thirty seven with a surgically
Speaker 2: repaired knee. I even said postgame last night, after four minutes,
Speaker 2: my knee hurt. Like he is probably at the end
Speaker 2: of his career, and you know, he really will go
Speaker 2: down in history as one of the more beloved, kind
Speaker 2: of like cult figure players we've ever had here. As
Speaker 2: I often say, he looks like he lives in his car,
Speaker 2: But he turned into a really good basketball player, broke
Speaker 2: the Jazz record for three point shots made, and really
Speaker 2: endeared himself to the fan base because you know, I
Speaker 2: remember when that team started to evolve and people would say, hey,
Speaker 2: what do they need And I'd be like, you know,
Speaker 2: they need a player like Gordon Hayward. When he's out,
Speaker 2: like the small Ford spot, I'll always look back.
Speaker 1: You know, we can't do it.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean anything, but you needed somebody to fill
Speaker 2: that spot. And Joey, I think, became a better player
Speaker 2: than I ever thought he could be. And the OKC
Speaker 2: series where he's messing with Paul George and shutting him
Speaker 2: down a little bit. So he rolls back into town
Speaker 2: last night as he probably exits stage left after this
Speaker 2: year to go down his life and kids when they
Speaker 2: and the kids are in Orlando, they stayed there as
Speaker 2: as he's as he is in Minnesota. Can I ask
Speaker 2: you the same question as you watched Joe go from
Speaker 2: who I called on air Dante Exem's babysitter, when you
Speaker 2: signed it to a legitimate starting, very good small forward
Speaker 2: for you guys, what was that process like?
Speaker 10: No, he was Joe, Joe came in. He was a
Speaker 10: very good player.
Speaker 11: You know, one of the main stays of the Australian
Speaker 11: national Olympic team. UH for a lot of years played
Speaker 11: over in Europe. Was you know, had had a few
Speaker 11: good years over in Europe. Played actually with one of
Speaker 11: the Jazz front office guys, Uh now Sean James. They
Speaker 11: played together over and over in Tel Aviv and and
Speaker 11: Uh had a couple of great years and they're great friends.
Speaker 11: And Joe came over, tried to get in the NBA,
Speaker 11: got cut by the Clippers. Dennis liked him, brought him in,
Speaker 11: knew he shoot, knew that he was a good passer,
Speaker 11: but he had to get his body in better shape.
Speaker 11: And Joe's credit, he looked at him self and realize, Okay,
Speaker 11: this is my shot. I gotta take advantage of this.
Speaker 11: And he took full advantage of it, got in better shape,
Speaker 11: got himself able to move better, and because of his
Speaker 11: length and his size at six ' eight, could pass
Speaker 11: from the wing, could make open shots. And he did
Speaker 11: that for a number of years for the Jazz.
Speaker 10: The other thing about.
Speaker 11: Joe is that he brought an unusual mixture of toughness
Speaker 11: on the floor and getting into guys heads on the floor,
Speaker 11: but then coming off and getting on the bench and joking,
Speaker 11: having fun and making light of situations on the bench
Speaker 11: with his teammates to keep everything loose and fun for them,
Speaker 11: and and he was that way in the locker room,
Speaker 11: on the road, what have you. But it's an unusual
Speaker 11: mixture when you have both of those things that one
Speaker 11: guy can do and do effectively for your team, and
Speaker 11: then be a guy who's willing and the smart enough
Speaker 11: to understand I have a certain role. I'm going to
Speaker 11: fit into this slot here, and I'm just gonna do that,
Speaker 11: and I'm gonna let the other guys do what they
Speaker 11: do to help us to affect winning. And that's that's
Speaker 11: one of his great characteristics was recognizing that and be
Speaker 11: able to put that into effect on the floor for
Speaker 11: a team that was a constant winner while he was here.
Speaker 2: Let me ask a follow off about Joe because and
Speaker 2: I'll tell you off air where this came down. But
Speaker 2: somebody with the organization heard me on air talk about
Speaker 2: what a locker room leader he seemed to be, what
Speaker 2: kind of like a glue guy he seemed to be.
Speaker 2: And I can remember somebody asked Gordon Heyward who his
Speaker 2: best friend was on the team, and he said Joe,
Speaker 2: which I found kind of interesting. And then during the
Speaker 2: whole Rudy Donovan thing. It felt like Joe was kind
Speaker 2: of the only one that was kind of like, dude,
Speaker 2: can we not do this please? What's real about the
Speaker 2: type of locker room guy Joe was?
Speaker 11: Yeah, no, well Joe, Joe remember people forget that that
Speaker 11: in the Gordon Hayward summer when he left, Joe was
Speaker 11: also a free agent, right, and Joe went to Joe
Speaker 11: was in l A and uh Dennis and a couple
Speaker 11: of guys went to l A met with Joe and said, hey,
Speaker 11: we have a meeting with Gordon uh In in a
Speaker 11: couple of days, you know, but we want you to
Speaker 11: come back. We want you to make sure you know, uh,
Speaker 11: you know what what we're trying to figure out here,
Speaker 11: what we're trying to keep together. And Joe told them, hey,
Speaker 11: don't worry about me, Okay, you got to go worry
Speaker 11: about Gordon, get him figured out, make sure he's okay whatever,
Speaker 11: and my my thing, you know, will will be good,
Speaker 11: you know, don't worry about it. And he was that
Speaker 11: kind of guy who's you know, who was always a
Speaker 11: team guy. He was always in on what's going to
Speaker 11: help us as a group, to help us to be
Speaker 11: able to sustain winning you know, on a regular basis.
Speaker 11: And whatever that's gonna be, is that me starting and
Speaker 11: playing thirty six minutes, Is it me coming off the
Speaker 11: bench and playing eighteen minutes, Is it me coming in
Speaker 11: the second quarter and just trying to rattle the other
Speaker 11: team's leading score defensively and then come down on offense
Speaker 11: and make a play here, whatever it's gonna be, I'm
Speaker 11: gonna be that guy who's gonna try and do that
Speaker 11: for our group, not only for the benefit of the whole,
Speaker 11: but also because he felt that that showed some leadership
Speaker 11: to the other guys, that that's how they should be playing.
Speaker 11: That that was part of Joe's value to the group
Speaker 11: that sometimes I think goes unrecognized and that he doesn't
Speaker 11: get enough credit for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I've always just kind of wondered exactly what's
Speaker 2: real and what's not because I know at times maybe
Speaker 2: he could great on people with the ability I suppose
Speaker 2: to be very witty and sometimes very sharp, and we
Speaker 2: live in a state where some passive aggressive tendencies exist
Speaker 2: and sometimes people get their feelings hurt.
Speaker 1: Was Is there anything there?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 11: But but Joe was great. Joe was you know what
Speaker 11: you saw out there? On the floor. That's who Joe was,
Speaker 11: in the locker room, on the plane, you know, at
Speaker 11: the hotel, on the road whatever. You know, Joe is
Speaker 11: a genuine guy and that's why everybody, everybody on the
Speaker 11: team liked him. The coaches loved him, they loved working
Speaker 11: with him. He understood and he was a good connector
Speaker 11: between the coaching staff and the players. If there was
Speaker 11: ever anything going on, the coaches, you know, Quinn Snyder,
Speaker 11: his staff, Alice Jnson, they could go, you know to
Speaker 11: Joe and go, hey, Joe, you know, we think it's
Speaker 11: such and such as a vibe.
Speaker 10: So no, I got it. I got it.
Speaker 11: And Joe would go and Joe would you know, would
Speaker 11: wait to day or later in the day or whatever,
Speaker 11: would be on the plane and and and he was
Speaker 11: a guy who could talk to the other players and
Speaker 11: and and uh rationalize with them about what was happening
Speaker 11: and and you know what they needed to address as
Speaker 11: a group. But he had that status, right, he had
Speaker 11: that standing. You know, people people know him as a
Speaker 11: guy from Australia and you know, a good player for
Speaker 11: the just but he's a big time guy and a
Speaker 11: big time name in Australia. And uh, you know he's
Speaker 11: he's one of those guys in Australian basketball lore. And
Speaker 11: for him to be able to come here and assimilate
Speaker 11: himself into this culture.
Speaker 10: Meaning the NBA, and then be able.
Speaker 11: To have that kind of a standing within a team
Speaker 11: and within a team that was good and a team
Speaker 11: that was competitive every night, and to be able to
Speaker 11: find that niche where he he created value for himself
Speaker 11: both as a player on the floor in the middle
Speaker 11: of a game and also off the floor as a
Speaker 11: team leader, recognized you know, by by his peers as such,
Speaker 11: you know, was it was a big deal for us
Speaker 11: at that time.
Speaker 2: One more player, with all due respect to Nikhil Alexander Walker,
Speaker 2: who's actually played well in Minnesota, really could not get
Speaker 2: off the bench while I was here very much on
Speaker 2: a Quinn. Let's talk about Mike by Conley, who did
Speaker 2: not play last night and who sadly this is the
Speaker 2: first year I've watched him, and I've thought, okay, all right,
Speaker 2: it might be time. But you know, as I always say,
Speaker 2: play till somebody tells you can't. If somebody wants to
Speaker 2: sign you and page, just keep playing. And I can
Speaker 2: remember Dennis because Dennis used to come on the radio
Speaker 2: show every week. It's hard to believe in this day
Speaker 2: and age of NBA teams being so clandestine that we
Speaker 2: had that access. And I can remember Dennis always he
Speaker 2: used to say one line he said, at some point,
Speaker 2: we'll want to expedide the process with the right vetro right.
Speaker 2: And Mike was the guy you guys decided to go get.
Speaker 2: And I loved it because I love him. Who doesn't,
Speaker 2: not just as a guy, but he when he was
Speaker 2: at his peak, he was among the elite decision makers
Speaker 2: with the ball in his hands.
Speaker 1: Pick and roll.
Speaker 2: Since you got you, you know the deal you guys
Speaker 2: made the trade. Take us through that when you realize, like, okay,
Speaker 2: we've got something. If we can find the right vet expat,
Speaker 2: the process will do it. And then how you landed
Speaker 2: on him.
Speaker 11: That's right and and and Mike was a was a
Speaker 11: very good player obviously in Memphis for over a decade. Uh,
Speaker 11: there was an opportunity to to to go ahead and
Speaker 11: get him. The price was we thought at the time
Speaker 11: it was a little high, uh for what it was.
Speaker 11: But but we had to we had to look at everything.
Speaker 11: We had to put everything on the table. And we
Speaker 11: had to recognize that we had a unique opportunity at
Speaker 11: that moment in time to add a top level point
Speaker 11: guard and a veteran who had been through some wars
Speaker 11: UH to our group that we thought was the one
Speaker 11: piece that was missing.
Speaker 10: He came in, Oh, our group made that move.
Speaker 11: He became He became an All Star his only All
Speaker 11: Star appearance. While while he was with the Jazz UH,
Speaker 11: he instantly became a leader. You know, we we we
Speaker 11: knew his reputation around the league. We knew that he
Speaker 11: was one of the all time great guys UH that
Speaker 11: that other players just rallied around. And he just had
Speaker 11: that certain low spoken, kind of low energy charisma, if
Speaker 11: that makes any sense, that people gravitated to and and
Speaker 11: and he was just one of those guys that fit
Speaker 11: right in seamlessly. And it was a great move by Dennis.
Speaker 11: It was. We gave up quite a bit to get
Speaker 11: him and probably overpaid uh for what you would would
Speaker 11: say was what you were getting in return, but not
Speaker 11: in our judgment at that time. What he brought to
Speaker 11: the group and finished a piece of that puzzle that
Speaker 11: we had been working on for years to try and
Speaker 11: get us, you know, over the hump, and we believed
Speaker 11: at that time and and and stuck by our guns
Speaker 11: that he that was the move to make. And uh
Speaker 11: and Dennis was able to pull it off, and and
Speaker 11: he had an all star year for the Jazz, and
Speaker 11: then we were right there. And I had a couple
Speaker 11: of stumbles in the playoffs. Okay, you don't like that. Okay,
Speaker 11: that's why you didn't like to, you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 11: But you know, to me, I've always felt that you
Speaker 11: can't discount what a team or a group did over
Speaker 11: an eighty two game, six month season relative to what
Speaker 11: happened in three games in one week in the spring.
Speaker 10: It just, you know, you can't do that. Some teams
Speaker 10: get hot.
Speaker 11: Okay, Miami got hot a few years ago out of
Speaker 11: the eighth spot and had a couple of things fall
Speaker 11: their way, and all of a sudden, they're in the
Speaker 11: NBA Finals.
Speaker 10: Okay, they did that.
Speaker 11: The Jazz had had better teams, had winning teams, had
Speaker 11: best reckon in the league, blah blah blah whatever, and
Speaker 11: they stumbled a few times in the playoffs, and and
Speaker 11: then other decisions were made from there about that. But
Speaker 11: Mike Conley played such an important role and stabilizing that
Speaker 11: team at a time when that's.
Speaker 10: What that group needed. And he was really good for
Speaker 10: us in that period of time that he was here.
Speaker 2: You know, to your point, and I discussed this all
Speaker 2: the time. And it's not just an NBA thing. It's
Speaker 2: an NFL thing, it's a Major League Baseball thing, it's
Speaker 2: a hockey thing, it's a soccer thing.
Speaker 1: Like winning is fleeting, success is fleeting.
Speaker 2: And you have to enjoy when you have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to just get Like in the NBA that always say
Speaker 2: do you have a shot?
Speaker 1: You have a shot this year?
Speaker 2: In the years that you can answer that question clear eyed,
Speaker 2: yes are the years that are really fun. But when
Speaker 2: they're gone and you're in this space where jazz fans
Speaker 2: are driving to the stadium most every night, at the
Speaker 2: arena most every night saying we have no shots and
Speaker 2: we know we don't have a shot, and we know
Speaker 2: the deal, we know why they're doing this, it just
Speaker 2: makes you look back on years like you guys had
Speaker 2: with Gobert and Mitchell and Quinn and obviously all the
Speaker 2: way back to John and Carl and some Darren and
Speaker 2: booz year's too. Is really funny that you probably didn't
Speaker 2: appreciate as much because we can be spoiled around here, you.
Speaker 11: Know, well we you know, and I can tell you Spence,
Speaker 11: the those of us who are privileged enough and lucky
Speaker 11: enough to be on the inside and be part of
Speaker 11: those things as they were happening, our group never took
Speaker 11: those things for granted, and we never we never thought
Speaker 11: that we were smarter than the next guy.
Speaker 10: Or knew more than somebody else. You know.
Speaker 11: We recognize that it was all about getting the right players,
Speaker 11: in getting the players to work together, getting the right
Speaker 11: coaching group, whether it was Jerry Sloan or whether it
Speaker 11: was Ty Corbyn, whether it was Quinn Snyder, getting the
Speaker 11: right guys and with a group to work together to
Speaker 11: try and work in the same direction. That is a
Speaker 11: difficult thing to do in pro sports, and one of
Speaker 11: our our responsibilities, going all the way back to when
Speaker 11: Frank Laden was both the general manager and the head
Speaker 11: coach in the eighties, was was the notion that we
Speaker 11: have to get the right kind of guys in the
Speaker 11: spots and they have to have talent, they have to
Speaker 11: have skill, but they have to be the right have
Speaker 11: the right mindset to want to work together as a group,
Speaker 11: and if you can piece that together and do those things,
Speaker 11: then you're gonna have a better chance at some level
Speaker 11: of sustained success. And we had a lot of that
Speaker 11: over those years, and a lot of it was because
Speaker 11: of all the work that was done uh in the background,
Speaker 11: behind the scenes to try and get the right kind
Speaker 11: of guy, whether it was a Jeff Horni sec to
Speaker 11: plug In, or whether it was Carlos Boozer or Memento
Speaker 11: core to plug In and their their skill sets and
Speaker 11: what they brought to the group with their personalities, or
Speaker 11: whether it was you know, a young Gordon Hayward or
Speaker 11: later of Mike Conley guys, Joe Ingles, guys who brought
Speaker 11: other things to the table that helped you as a
Speaker 11: group to be able to have a chance every night.
Speaker 11: And that's what the Jazz are looking for now with
Speaker 11: the young guys. They're trying to figure out and we've
Speaker 11: used this analogy before, Spence, but it's just like the
Speaker 11: old guy mining for gold in the river and you
Speaker 11: put a bunch of you put the big pan in
Speaker 11: the water and you sift it and you sift it
Speaker 11: and all the rocks and the sand and everything comes
Speaker 11: through and you hope that at some point you get
Speaker 11: a couple of gold nuggets that end up in the
Speaker 11: pan and you can use going forward. And that's the
Speaker 11: process that the Jazz currently find themselves in.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do have a couple of recent examples of
Speaker 2: smaller markets being your cousin who drove up to Idaho
Speaker 2: and bought a lottery ticket, came back and won the
Speaker 2: thing with Jokicchen Denver and Giannis and Milwaukee, and we'll
Speaker 2: see what Luca does in Dallas, and we'll end with this.
Speaker 1: You know, Lowry is not.
Speaker 2: Any of those players, but he's the best player on
Speaker 2: this roster. And we've topped about this over the past
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. And Tom Haberstrow, who joins ushow every Monday,
Speaker 2: has some data on this. When teams and okase he
Speaker 2: did this with Shay and Lowry's not Shay. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that, but when teams ask legitimate star players to
Speaker 2: be part of this process, which part of it is
Speaker 2: you're not playing every night, And part of it is, hey,
Speaker 2: Lowry has your back. Oh it's great, No, it's not sorry,
Speaker 2: it hurts, you know, And what's undeniable is Lowry's numbers
Speaker 2: are down across the board. They just are shooting percentages splitch.
Speaker 2: You can get into the weeds on Basketball Reference. He's
Speaker 2: doing nothing better this year than he did last year
Speaker 2: or certainly the year before when he was an All Star.
Speaker 2: What's the danger of asking a twenty seven year old
Speaker 2: franchise pillar to be part of this? And is there
Speaker 2: a danger that you're wasting part of his prime before
Speaker 2: I set you loose lender.
Speaker 11: Yeah, but it's the danger is if you have a
Speaker 11: guy who's not buying into what's going on right right
Speaker 11: and with lowry market, and all signs point to the
Speaker 11: fact that he understands, you know, he was here, he
Speaker 11: had a chance to play out as a as a
Speaker 11: free agent and uh and choose where he would want
Speaker 11: to go the second half of his career. That's how
Speaker 11: the collective bar agreement works in the NBA. He chose
Speaker 11: to sign the long term extension because he likes playing
Speaker 11: in Salt Lake, he likes the community, he likes living here.
Speaker 10: It's a lot of it has to do with his background.
Speaker 11: And his upbringing, you know, in Finland, and and some
Speaker 11: of the similarities of living in Salt Lake and outside
Speaker 11: of Helsinki and all those kinds of things which are
Speaker 11: real life things, but his family likes being here. He
Speaker 11: knew what the deal was when he signed the extension.
Speaker 11: He knew that it was going to be some growing pains,
Speaker 11: and he bought into that. And that's what you need.
Speaker 11: You need a guy who who understands the landscape and
Speaker 11: is willing to be part of that with you. Yeah,
Speaker 11: his numbers are down this year. I attribute that just
Speaker 11: to being the fact that he doesn't have as much
Speaker 11: help and the other teams are playing are now gearing
Speaker 11: on him, and they know, hey, if we slow marketing,
Speaker 11: then those guys aren't gonna have much of a chance
Speaker 11: to win because of the limited help he has. And
Speaker 11: so part of that is on uh is on that
Speaker 11: cause for other teams targeting him and and him not
Speaker 11: trying to do too much. He's just playing, playing his
Speaker 11: game and and and he'll be fine. He'll be fine,
Speaker 11: And if they can get him some help, then he'll
Speaker 11: be able to also go along with that and hopefully
Speaker 11: be able to see a light down somewhere at the
Speaker 11: end of that long tunnel.
Speaker 1: Smitty, great to see, my friend.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the real world where it's not a
Speaker 2: greas and sunny every day and you don't have little
Speaker 2: drinks with umbrellas and all you can eat food. So
Speaker 2: welcome back to Islamita with the rest of us.
Speaker 11: It feels like that spence whenever I'm with you. That's
Speaker 11: that's the vision I get, the.
Speaker 1: Great Richard Smith. Before we catch a break.
Speaker 2: It's time now for our you went to golf PGA
Speaker 2: Tour updates, and that's brought to you by our good
Speaker 2: friends of course, that you went to golf for. They've
Speaker 2: got a bunch of deals right now prior to the season,
Speaker 2: which we'll get going here pretty quick.
Speaker 1: Out to Ping.
Speaker 2: The new G four to four zero driver delivers faster
Speaker 2: ball speeds along with Ping's game changing forgiveness. The G
Speaker 2: four to forty irons are designed for more distance and
Speaker 2: control it you went to golf. It's five sixty East,
Speaker 2: twenty one hundred south. Happy Friday to you. Congratulations, you
Speaker 2: made a weekend time, big old deep breath. You got
Speaker 2: out of bed every day right, probably didn't feel like
Speaker 2: it some days, but you did it. And now it
Speaker 2: is weekend time on this Friday afternoon, in the five
Speaker 2: o'clock hour, we've had a really really fun show, really
Speaker 2: busy show with a lot of good guests. It's in
Speaker 2: college basketball right out of the gates today with Spencer
Speaker 2: and Nelson, former Utah State Aggie Talked Utah State, talked
Speaker 2: to Utah and Talk BYU all three of our local teams.
Speaker 2: Utahs day with a big one tomorrow against New Mexico
Speaker 2: up at the spectrum. Utah States won three straight games.
Speaker 2: They are nineteen and two and they're atop the table
Speaker 2: at the Mountain West Conference standing side of things with
Speaker 2: the basketball situation concerning New Mexico and Utah State at
Speaker 2: nine and one, and those two teams meet tomorrow at
Speaker 2: the same spectrum. That was a really weird way to
Speaker 2: articulate that It's Friday, five o'clock hour, a little tired,
Speaker 2: So big game tomorrow for Utah State. Jared Calhoun, another
Speaker 2: Utah State coach, getting a lot of great results early on.
Speaker 1: BYU will travel do UCEF three.
Speaker 2: Their next four games are on the road, so they'll
Speaker 2: see UCF tomorrow and then they're back home against Arizona
Speaker 2: next week on the road against Cincinnati and West Virginia.
Speaker 2: BYU with their recent run of play after that lost
Speaker 2: to Utah. They've shot up to thirty eight in the
Speaker 2: net according to ken Pom, and they're five and four
Speaker 2: in conference fourteen and six overall.
Speaker 1: That's good for tie with Baylor.
Speaker 2: Right beyond Houston, who has not lost a conference game,
Speaker 2: Arizona eight and one, Iowa State, Texas Tech seven and two,
Speaker 2: Kansas six and three. Then it's BYU and Baylor at
Speaker 2: five and four. The Utah crag Smith will join us
Speaker 2: coming up at about fifteen minutes right now, hit the
Speaker 2: road to take on Oklahoma State after beating Cincinnati at home.
Speaker 2: Utah actually has a really interesting opportunity in front of them,
Speaker 2: but they're gonna have to play well on the road,
Speaker 2: you know, in college basketball, certainly in a conference like
Speaker 2: the Big twelve, second probably only to the SEC this year.
Speaker 2: If you want to find you know, eight, nine to
Speaker 2: ten conference wins, you've got to play well at home
Speaker 2: first of all.
Speaker 1: Then you've got to go steal a couple on the road.
Speaker 2: Utah did get one on the road early at TCU,
Speaker 2: but three of their next four games are on the road,
Speaker 2: just like BYU. But their only home again Colorado, was
Speaker 2: very winnable, so at Oklahoma State winnable basketball game home
Speaker 2: against Colorado. Colorado might be the worst team in a conference.
Speaker 2: Oklahoma State two and three in conference play. Then they're
Speaker 2: at West Virginia and at Cincinnati. They've already beat Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: Cincinnati's two and seven in conference. West Virginia is good.
Speaker 2: They're solid at four and five, which is where Utah
Speaker 2: is at thirteen and seven, So that's not going to
Speaker 2: be an easy game. But you come home to take
Speaker 2: on Kansas and Kansas State. Then it's at UCF at Arizona.
Speaker 2: The schedule after the next four games really gets difficult.
Speaker 2: So if Utah has any premon issue of being an
Speaker 2: NCAA tournament team, right now is the time for them
Speaker 2: to get some results. Certainly with games there are some
Speaker 2: It's not really breaking news out of the NBA, but
Speaker 2: with the NBA trade deadline right around the corner, sham
Speaker 2: Shararnia from ESPN is reporting both Golden State and the
Speaker 2: Phoenix Suns are aggressively pursuing Jimmy Butler.
Speaker 1: Now is that a true report?
Speaker 2: Is that Miami planting that story to leverage the situation
Speaker 2: to get a better deal. Who knows, but Jimmy Butler
Speaker 2: and de Aaron Fox now dearon Fox is a really
Speaker 2: really talented point guard from Sacramento, and ultimately they've decided
Speaker 2: to move all along from him, according to reports. But
Speaker 2: nothing nothing new as of now when it comes to news,
Speaker 2: tangible news on the NBA trade deadline.
Speaker 1: Of course, we are just.
Speaker 2: About ten days away, nine ten days away from Super
Speaker 2: Bowl fifty nine. We had Terrell Burgess on earlier. Terrell's
Speaker 2: really really good at the media stuff. He was with
Speaker 2: Buffalo earlier this year. He was part of that great
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen Utah football team and he suffered an injury
Speaker 2: was released. He is now out back in California, trying
Speaker 2: to stay healthy to get potentially another shot to play
Speaker 2: some pro football before he decides what's next. He is
Speaker 2: only twenty six years old, so hopefully ultimately he'll be
Speaker 2: able to get another opportunity to play some football before
Speaker 2: he gets into the next phase of his life.
Speaker 1: But we talked some youute.
Speaker 2: Football, we talked some college football, we talked some Super Bowl,
Speaker 2: some pro football with Terrell Burgess earlier, and then we
Speaker 2: just did an hour in studio with Richard Smith, who
Speaker 2: is now back in town after a number of weeks
Speaker 2: on vacation. So I always appreciate Smitty stopping buy to
Speaker 2: do little Jazz. Jazz were in action last night against Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Some old friends in town and we kind of discussed
Speaker 2: with Smitty the dynamics of watching the Rudy Goberts of
Speaker 2: the world, the Joe Ingles of the world, Mike Conley,
Speaker 2: as well the three main cogs on the team. The
Speaker 2: kil Alexander Walker is also a Timberwolf. But I thought
Speaker 2: Smitty had some really interesting perspective on just how that
Speaker 2: group was able to grow together, what it was like
Speaker 2: to watch Rudy grow together. You know, it's an exercise
Speaker 2: in futility, but I'll always want what the Jazz could
Speaker 2: have looked like if they just decided to do the
Speaker 2: Mitchell deal and then hang out, then hung on to
Speaker 2: go beart, because the Donovan deal did bring you lowry marketing, right,
Speaker 2: and so you know, if you kept Mike Coley, And
Speaker 2: obviously Mike is now in the phase of his career
Speaker 2: where he's in the December of his pro basketball career
Speaker 2: and he's ready to probably step aside. Didn't play last night,
Speaker 2: but when Mike has played this year, he just looks
Speaker 2: like a point guard that's aged, but you know, a
Speaker 2: couple of years, maybe left with Mike Conley.
Speaker 1: If if you hold on to.
Speaker 2: Everybody outside of Mitchell, what does that team look like?
Speaker 2: A lowry marketing Rudy Gobert front court. You know you
Speaker 2: had Boyan Bogdanovitch. You don't move on from him. You
Speaker 2: keep Royce O'Neil, you keep Mike Conley, even Joe. I
Speaker 2: guess Joe was heart of the time. But you know,
Speaker 2: whenever these players roll back into town, it's kind of
Speaker 2: interesting to do some of these exercises to see what
Speaker 2: it would have been like if you decided to do
Speaker 2: things a little bit differently. Does Quinn stay if they
Speaker 2: just move on from Donovan and not go Beart. I mean,
Speaker 2: Quinn obviously didn't want to work for this new ownership group,
Speaker 2: neither did Dennis Lindsay, and then Quinn himself said during
Speaker 2: his postgame press or he just didn't see any traction forward.
Speaker 2: But would there have been more traction forward with this
Speaker 2: team if you just do the Mitchell deal and keep
Speaker 2: go Bear. Who knows rumors out there that John Collins
Speaker 2: is being shocked potentially to the Sacramento Kings.
Speaker 1: Not sure what that would look like.
Speaker 2: I thought somebody made some good points about Colin Sexton,
Speaker 2: because we ultimately talk about Colin oftentimes as a much
Speaker 2: older player, because he's not as young as sense of
Speaker 2: Ba or Kyante or Philipowski or call youer or whatever.
Speaker 2: He's twenty six years old and he's in the midst
Speaker 2: of yet another pretty efficient year. He has become a
Speaker 2: forty two percent three point shooter, and he does bring
Speaker 2: energy in a way that really no one else on
Speaker 2: the roster does.
Speaker 1: Sorry, that's just kind of how it is, I will say.
Speaker 2: And we talked about this a little bit earlier that
Speaker 2: Isaac Callier he's got some juice in them that I'm
Speaker 2: not sure that I thought that he did. When you
Speaker 2: look at his splits over his thirteen starts, he's about
Speaker 2: eleven points. He's about eight assists. You love the eight assists.
Speaker 2: His turnovers are problematic, just like Kantes are. But he
Speaker 2: has league guard tendancies and vision and feel that Kiante
Speaker 2: just doesn't. So Kyante now has been coming off the
Speaker 2: bench for four games, and I thought Kiante was really
Speaker 2: good last night, the best game he's had since coming
Speaker 2: off the bench. Knocked down all seven of shots I
Speaker 2: only turned the ball over once in.
Speaker 1: Twenty seven minutes to play.
Speaker 2: I had twenty three points on seven shots, which is
Speaker 2: ludicris and I played twenty seven minutes, So that's kind
Speaker 2: of a rotational change that I do think actually means something.
Speaker 1: Go Beart eight Walkers Lunch.
Speaker 2: Last night, the head to head matchup between Walker Kestler
Speaker 2: and Rudy Gobert was very one sided. Rudy kind of
Speaker 2: did last night, when Rudy does more often than not
Speaker 2: every single night. Was sixteen points, nine boards, four blocks,
Speaker 2: but he did add five assists. I don't even I
Speaker 2: wonder how many times Rudy Gobert had five assists in
Speaker 2: a jazz uniform. My guess is you could count on
Speaker 2: one hand without looking it up. Walker in twenty seven
Speaker 2: minutes one of six from the floor, go bear, blocked
Speaker 2: him a couple of times, didn't shoot a free throw,
Speaker 2: only had eight rebounds, did not block a shot.
Speaker 1: That was a pretty one sided matchup.
Speaker 2: For the media brigade out here that believes Walker Castler
Speaker 2: is in Rudy Gobert's.
Speaker 1: Category, just stop it. Maybe one day he gets there.
Speaker 2: But I know there are a lot of people that
Speaker 2: cover the jazz right actual things on paper for outlets
Speaker 2: to cover. The Jazz that made the point that Rudy
Speaker 2: and Walker were similar, Walker was far ahead of him
Speaker 2: in certain areas, like that's a silly thing to say. Gobert,
Speaker 2: four time Defensive Player of the Year. He is a
Speaker 2: Hall of Famer no matter how you swing it. So
Speaker 2: Jazz welcomed in some old friends last night. They've lost
Speaker 2: now eight straight games. That is a season high. Jazz
Speaker 2: are ten and thirty six on the year, and they
Speaker 2: are now jockeying with Washington for the title of the
Speaker 2: worst team in pro basketball. Busy night in the NBA tonight,
Speaker 2: a couple of games already going on. Clippers and the
Speaker 2: Hornets are early on, so are the Mavericks and the Pistons.
Speaker 2: ESPN will have the Nuggets in the seventy six ers.
Speaker 2: Will Joe l Embiid actually show up to play against
Speaker 2: Nicola Jokic. He tends to dodge him from time to time.
Speaker 2: That game's about to tip off at about ten minutes.
Speaker 2: We got Bulls Raptors tonight, We've got Celtics, Pelicans, Buck Spurs,
Speaker 2: and the late night ESPN game is interesting only because
Speaker 2: the reports are both these two teams are currently actively
Speaker 2: aggressively pursuing Jimmy Butler, the Sons, and the Warriors from
Speaker 2: Chase Center in San Francisco. Phoenix is a one point
Speaker 2: five point favorite. There kind of a light news day locally.
Speaker 2: The Utah Hockey Club is in action tonight. They are
Speaker 2: at home, which means for the second straight game, you
Speaker 2: get to go through a fake exercise where you're pretending
Speaker 2: to vote for the team name and then you just
Speaker 2: give your information a qual tricks and go from there,
Speaker 2: and then they're just going to do whatever they want.
Speaker 2: The Utah Outlaws yesterday was implemented as a choice in
Speaker 2: lieu of made rest in peace, the Utah Lossatche. Then
Speaker 2: the Utah Mammoth is option number two. Then the Utah
Speaker 2: Hockey Club, which is my preferred choice, and the name
Speaker 2: of the team.
Speaker 1: Now is option number three. Porter.
Speaker 2: If I had to ask you two guests right now,
Speaker 2: when the dust settles and they just decide to do
Speaker 2: whatever they want to do anyway, the name of the
Speaker 2: hockey club here locally will be on I.
Speaker 3: Think if you ask me right now, I believe they
Speaker 3: are moving in the direction of the mammoths. The mammoth,
Speaker 3: sorry no plural. There I think mammoths would be better,
Speaker 3: to be honest, that's another conversation about how this whole
Speaker 3: process has gone. But I think they're inching in that direction.
Speaker 3: But like I said yesterday, the process, I don't like
Speaker 3: how they've done it. I don't like how they've been
Speaker 3: a little I think not transparent in what they're doing
Speaker 3: with the process. Despite all that, they have landed on
Speaker 3: three options, all of which I think move in a
Speaker 3: pretty good direction, pretty good branding, merch all of the above.
Speaker 3: So for that reason, I think they're in a good
Speaker 3: spot despite what I think the process has been.
Speaker 2: Utah Women welcome in Arizona's and I to the Huntsman
Speaker 2: Center here in Salt Lake City. If you're looking for
Speaker 2: something to do, head on up and support the lady
Speaker 2: who are fifteen and five on the year Arizona fourteen
Speaker 2: and eight. That game is on TV on FS one,
Speaker 2: and of course you can hear the game on our
Speaker 2: radio station. Right after we say good night at about
Speaker 2: six o'clock tonight, it's time now for our PGA Tour Leaderboard,
Speaker 2: brought to you by friends that you went to golf
Speaker 2: check out. You went to golf at five sixty East
Speaker 2: twenty one hundred south. The locations as well in Sandy
Speaker 2: Riverdale and Orum go to Worldwide golf Shops shops dot
Speaker 2: com right now. The new tailor made QI thirty five
Speaker 2: woods are the fourth generation of carbon wood technology. This
Speaker 2: driver unlocks a new level of distance that you went
Speaker 2: to golf five sixties twenty one hundred south. Moving day
Speaker 2: technically it's tomorrow, but a moving day for our guy,
Speaker 2: Tony Fenow, Local Project Local West Tye boy Tony Fenw
Speaker 2: jumped eleven spots today. Carting is sixty seven, good for
Speaker 2: five hundred par on the day, now ten under par
Speaker 2: for the tournament and he is tied for fourth. Also
Speaker 2: tied for fourth, Tom Kim, Justin Rose Stepstraca has had
Speaker 2: two sixty fives and he is fourteen under. That's good
Speaker 2: for a three stroke lead over Cam Davis and Russell Henley,
Speaker 2: who are at eleven under. A couple notables for you today,
Speaker 2: Lucas Glover Victor Hovlin are both at nine under par.
Speaker 2: Colin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Shane Lowry, Rory McElroy and Justin
Speaker 2: Thomas are at.
Speaker 1: Eight under par. This is a jam pack leaderboard.
Speaker 2: Sam Burns, Ricky Fowler, Scottie Scheffler, they find themselves at
Speaker 2: seven under par so right in the mix. Jason Day,
Speaker 2: Hedeki Matsuam at five under man. A lot of big
Speaker 2: time players out there today. Ludvig Aber by the way,
Speaker 2: after a rough day with Drew and Wyndham Clark at
Speaker 2: three over is third to last. So some of the
Speaker 2: better players also struggling. So should be a fun weekend
Speaker 2: at the AT and T Pebble Beach pro Am at
Speaker 2: Spyglass Golf Club in Pebble Beach. So there you go, Stepstrawks,
Speaker 2: your leader at fourteen under park. All right, I had
Speaker 2: a little old Utah women's basketball coming your way. Coming
Speaker 2: up next the lady Utes, welcome in Arizona. That game
Speaker 2: is on television on FS one, but of course it
Speaker 2: is on this ratio. Is your home of the Ute
Speaker 2: CESPN seven hundred coming up? Is it our guy Tyson,
Speaker 2: my guy Tyson?
Speaker 1: And then Miley?
Speaker 10: Is it?
Speaker 1: Do I have the broadcasters corrector yes? Tyson?
Speaker 3: Miley Tyson ewing on the call and uh kicking tipping off,
Speaker 3: uh right about six thirty. But we'll we'll hand it
Speaker 3: over to him at six fifteen or so for a
Speaker 3: little pregame.
Speaker 2: All right, there you go, there you go, so happy
Speaker 2: Friday weekend time. Little Utah women's basketball coming up. The
Speaker 2: men are back in action. We caught up with Craig
Speaker 2: Smith today, which we don't get to do all that often.
Speaker 2: But a little road trip to Oklahoma State count up tomorrow.
Speaker 2: That is a one o'clock tip time, and then BYU
Speaker 2: will play an hour later on the road at UCF.
Speaker 2: Then Utah the Utah Jazz play an hour after that. Wow,
Speaker 2: three o'clock start for the Jazz and the Magic coming
Speaker 2: up tomorrow. Give me your So I teased it a
Speaker 2: little bit earlier. I said, I'm ready to talk about
Speaker 2: one player on the Jazz that I like more than
Speaker 2: I thought I would. And the player that I landed
Speaker 2: on was Isaiah Isaiah Callier. There's just there's something about physicality,
Speaker 2: There's something about his feel, there's something about his decision making,
Speaker 2: which is not always great. The turnover numbers for all
Speaker 2: these young guards through the roof, but you kind of
Speaker 2: expect that. My one concern is, and I talked to
Speaker 2: Smitty about this, can you really play thirty thirty five
Speaker 2: plus minutes a night as either a lead guard or
Speaker 2: a complimentary off the ball guard in pro basketball in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. If you can't shoot it from three,
Speaker 2: and I don't know the answer.
Speaker 3: To that, that's the main question. But I'm with you
Speaker 3: on on the call your stuff. I think there is
Speaker 3: some promise there. I don't know if I've heard heard
Speaker 3: Deer Smithy mention it, but he plays with such a
Speaker 3: good pace right now, not all the time. There are
Speaker 3: certain units that he works well with, there are certain
Speaker 3: units that he doesn't. But he plays with a feel
Speaker 3: of the game in the half court that sometimes it's
Speaker 3: tough to replicate. It's tough for young NBA guards to
Speaker 3: have that at all. So I'm with you there. I
Speaker 3: think he has shown some positives in that direction. But
Speaker 3: like you said, when you when you can't shoot it
Speaker 3: at a you know, a plus. It doesn't even have
Speaker 3: to be a forty percent three point shooter, but you
Speaker 3: can't shoot it at a thirty five thirty percent clip
Speaker 3: from range. That's going to be an issue at the
Speaker 3: NBA level. But hey, the Jazz have been pretty successful
Speaker 3: about getting guys who don't have great jumpers and turning
Speaker 3: them into two guys that do. Now, I know there's
Speaker 3: different fellas in the training staff and it's not as
Speaker 3: you know, not maybe the same folks there, but.
Speaker 1: There's promise there.
Speaker 5: I'm with you.
Speaker 1: So the Jazz are back in action tomorrow. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what.
Speaker 2: Every time I fire up one of these Senior Bowl
Speaker 2: media members accounts, they're talking about Karane Reid and Junior Tafuna.
Speaker 2: So a couple of you shown out pretty well. Fun
Speaker 2: to visit with Terrell Burgess early on in the show,
Speaker 2: kind of revisit that twenty nineteen team. The Porter and
Speaker 2: I both think is among the most talented teams, maybe
Speaker 2: the most talented team that I've ever seen here in
Speaker 2: the state of Utah, just on paper. Not a lot
Speaker 2: of news right now in the world of college footballs
Speaker 2: you would expect.
Speaker 1: There's recruiting lists.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are the way too early projections with
Speaker 2: a twelve team CFP in the top twenty five that
Speaker 2: we kind of have some fun with on the program.
Speaker 2: We'll do a lot with the Super Bowl coming up
Speaker 2: next week, super Bowl fifty nine, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: we'll be on this radio station. We are the home
Speaker 2: of the biggest and best college and pro football games
Speaker 2: right here in the market. Kansas City is still a
Speaker 2: one point five point favorite, and the over under hasn't
Speaker 2: moved either. I'm stunned with the amount of money that's
Speaker 2: been on this game every year. I don't really love
Speaker 2: the current climate of where we find ourselves with the
Speaker 2: ability to gamble on sports, but I'm stunned that line
Speaker 2: has not moved. So I'll have a bunch of Super
Speaker 2: Bowl content for you coming up. The NFL free agency
Speaker 2: is right around the corner as well, but we'll get
Speaker 2: out of here for a Friday edition of the show
Speaker 2: and make some space for Tyson and Miley. Coming up next,
Speaker 2: Utah women's basketball taking on Arizona should be a good one.
Speaker 2: Porter what comes our way. On a Monday edition of
Speaker 2: this radio program.
Speaker 3: A Monday edition of The Drive, we'll talks men daily
Speaker 3: assist with our guy Tom Haberstrow, some utes with our
Speaker 3: guy Josh Furlong. We'll talk about that Utah Hockey club.
Speaker 3: The latest in mascot world. They're doing more voting this weekend,
Speaker 3: so who knows what we'll know on Monday with Belle Frazier,
Speaker 3: and then I believe maybe on Monday, maybe during the
Speaker 3: week later on, but Bill Riley going to have the
Speaker 3: Voice of the Utes, Onto Talk Utes for sure, but
Speaker 3: also the Super Bowl week in which his chiefs play
Speaker 3: for the Big One.
Speaker 2: And I got to ask Bill about the upcoming match
Speaker 2: up between the Utes and the Jayhawks. My man's gonna
Speaker 2: be calling a Jayhawks game. I'm not sure every thought
Speaker 2: he'd be doing that, So we'll get to that with
Speaker 2: Bill as well. Congrats to Nick Romando Is announced today
Speaker 2: the Knick's name will be in the Ring of Honor
Speaker 2: at America First Field with the other legends for RSL,
Speaker 2: and we will say good night special thank you today
Speaker 2: Spencer Nelson, Trell Burgess, Craig Smith and Richard Smith. For
Speaker 2: any of this sound you may have missed from the
Speaker 2: show today, you can go to the website, which is
Speaker 2: ESPN's seven hundred Sports dot com. Make sure to download
Speaker 2: our mobile app this weekend take us on the go.
Speaker 2: It's free, it's easy to do. It's the ESPN seven
Speaker 2: hundred app, available in the App Store the Google play Store. Then, finally,
Speaker 2: for what we do every afternoon for four hours support
Speaker 2: and check out our podcast page twenty twenty five. You
Speaker 2: probably listen to pods. Wherever you get your pods ours
Speaker 2: is there so search the Drive with Spence check Its.
Speaker 2: Please subscribe to rate and review, say nice things in
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Speaker 2: If you're a fan of ours, we would appreciate it.
Speaker 2: This weekend, reporter, I'm spent saying and I have a
Speaker 2: great weekend. Begin to yourself, begin to each other. We'll
Speaker 2: talk to you on a Monday Drive and as always,
Speaker 2: you can find that right here on ESPN seven hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety two ONEFM. Proud to be part of Utah's
Speaker 2: ESPN Radio Network.