Speaker 1: Get back to some college football with Spencer Hall on
Speaker 1: the show today, one of my favorites, talk college football
Speaker 1: with I'm gonna bring in Andy Larson today from the
Speaker 1: salt Lake Tribune to talk little jazz back on the
Speaker 1: ground in salt Lake after Thanksgiving weekend in Fairfield County.
Speaker 1: Our next guest a proud Fairfield County boy, Tom Haverstraw
Speaker 1: on a Monday, Tom, Happy Monday.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 3: How was the two oh three? Uh?
Speaker 2: You know the deal?
Speaker 1: You know, it's intense, brought back a lot of PTSD
Speaker 1: when you're a rose risen from concrete and you're raised
Speaker 1: in such a dangerous part of the country.
Speaker 2: Tom, it's just, you know, you do what you can
Speaker 2: to get by.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all we can really do. The hard scrabble
Speaker 3: of wasn't there a WWE group the main streets of
Speaker 3: Greenwich or something like that?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, indeed, good, good memory. Did you You didn't
Speaker 1: get home to the Motherland for the holiday, did you?
Speaker 3: I didn't know, so unfortunately I didn't make it back,
Speaker 3: but I'm glad you did so you could represent the
Speaker 3: NBA and all the smart basketball folks quite well back home.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, yes, indeed, it was fun.
Speaker 1: Always good to take some time off to sharpen the sword,
Speaker 1: as they say. But now back on the ground, there
Speaker 1: is a report Tom. There's not a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: jazz stuff, but there's a report already that trade discussions
Speaker 1: are being had involving Jordan Clarkson, Colin Sexton, John Collins
Speaker 1: as well. I still don't believe anybody wants to pay
Speaker 1: John Collins twenty six million.
Speaker 2: But are you expecting?
Speaker 1: And look, this is different than years past, because they
Speaker 1: might be in a perfect spot.
Speaker 2: They're horrible.
Speaker 1: They do not need to break it down like they
Speaker 1: have over the past couple of years when they've kind
Speaker 1: of surprised some people. But are you expecting and potentially
Speaker 1: an active Danny Ainge justin Zanik with his jazz roster
Speaker 1: prior to the trade deadline.
Speaker 3: I suspect. So, I mean, the fact that they're still
Speaker 3: on the roster is surprising to me, given that, you know,
Speaker 3: over the past year or two or three when I've
Speaker 3: been on this show, it seems like the direction of
Speaker 3: the franchise from the top on down. It seems like
Speaker 3: they're going for a rebuild, or that they should be
Speaker 3: in position for a rebuild, and those players don't exactly
Speaker 3: fit that timeline very well. Now keep in mind, John
Speaker 3: Collins is not like an old veteran. He's still twenty seven.
Speaker 3: He's in his prime, and so for anyone acquiring him,
Speaker 3: it's not just that you know, this is a guy
Speaker 3: over the hill. He's not Jordan Clarkson's age. Clarkson is almost,
Speaker 3: you know, turning thirty three this summer, So they are
Speaker 3: a little bit different points in their career. Colin Sexton
Speaker 3: and John Collins I think would be more appealing to
Speaker 3: a contender. But certainly Jordan Clarkson has been in that
Speaker 3: kind of that kind of playoff atmosphere with Lebron and
Speaker 3: trying to do that at a high level. So I
Speaker 3: suspect that there will be interest come the deadline. Maybe
Speaker 3: not right now, but you know, I even say, think
Speaker 3: that team in LA that they just lost to in
Speaker 3: horrible fashion, just a horrible circumstance there at the end.
Speaker 3: I do think that those are the types of teams
Speaker 3: that will come knocking, because when you have a superstar
Speaker 3: like Kevin Durant or Lebron James or Stephen Curry, the
Speaker 3: colck is ticket and they will need a veteran bodies
Speaker 3: that they can trust down the stretch, and a lot
Speaker 3: of those teams have young players in the rotation that
Speaker 3: maybe they could get some veterans like Colin Saxon and
Speaker 3: John Collins who have been around the block a few times.
Speaker 1: So Cody Williams, who is the highest pick the Jazz
Speaker 1: made in the draft a year ago, it hasn't looked
Speaker 1: good at all. I mean, he's still so young, he
Speaker 1: has to gain weight, you know, he just gets pushed
Speaker 1: off the ball both sides of the floor, and he's
Speaker 1: going to spend some time in the G League. So
Speaker 1: for me, I'll just say, Tom, I have no issue
Speaker 1: with any of this at all. But there are two
Speaker 1: sides to the equation, Like, if you're gonna if you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a top ten pick on your roster, you
Speaker 1: want some signs that show that you made the right pick,
Speaker 1: and there haven't been those signs. But on the other
Speaker 1: side of it, the G League is there for this
Speaker 1: very thing. Go Bear spent a ton of time in
Speaker 1: the G League his rookie year. So the dynamic of
Speaker 1: having a top ten pick that just hasn't looked good
Speaker 1: at all, spending time in the G league. What what's
Speaker 1: the Tom habersher What would you say to the fan
Speaker 1: base about that that dynamic that they're dealing with here
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not fun to have to deal with this
Speaker 3: and the growing pains of a twenty year old trying
Speaker 3: to play in a man's league. And you know, I
Speaker 3: cover on a nightly basis the Portland Trailblazers doing their
Speaker 3: broadcast as their analytics insider. And one thing that I've
Speaker 3: had to remind myself is that Scoot Henderson is twenty
Speaker 3: years old. It is really hard to remind yourself that
Speaker 3: when you're watching this league. It's not like these guys
Speaker 3: have a number on their back that says how old
Speaker 3: they are. But we do have to remember that at
Speaker 3: his first year. It was rough for Kevin Durant. His
Speaker 3: first year is rough for Russell Westbrook. You know, Chris
Speaker 3: Middleton wasn't even in the NBA as a twenty year old.
Speaker 3: You know, he was trying to make it in the
Speaker 3: G League and trying to come up through there, and
Speaker 3: he was a nobody. You look at Grady dick over
Speaker 3: in in Toronto, who's looked excellent this year, who looked
Speaker 3: one of the worst NBA players last year statistically and
Speaker 3: just with the eye test, he was pretty bad last year.
Speaker 3: And what he's done this year has been a totally
Speaker 3: different player. And you know, you look at the numbers,
Speaker 3: Cody Williams is not, you know, performing at a high level.
Speaker 3: But remember, you know, his older brother was a bit
Speaker 3: of a project too, wasn't necessarily putting up these kind
Speaker 3: of numbers. Similarly, at Colorado, it wasn't like Cody Williams
Speaker 3: was you know, All Pac twelve or whatever at that
Speaker 3: at that level, so he was all freshman team, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't necessarily he was a no, no doubt number
Speaker 3: ten picks. So it was a bit of a project
Speaker 3: to begin with. And this is what it looks like
Speaker 3: when you're a twenty year old. Not everybody's Lebron Not ever,
Speaker 3: everybody is Victor Wemanyata. And so unfortunately, when you do
Speaker 3: have Cody Williams, you're gonna have to press the pause
Speaker 3: button on your expectations and wait until he's about twenty
Speaker 3: two to twenty three before you can make some real
Speaker 3: evaluations on whether he's gonna be worth the prospect investment.
Speaker 1: At that point, when last we spoke Tom, the Jazz
Speaker 1: had actually, even though they weren't winning games, the offense
Speaker 1: really took a big jump and improved quite a bit
Speaker 1: over about a ten game sample size. Again, they weren't winning,
Speaker 1: but they started making shots. Marketing came back well. Since
Speaker 1: you and I last spoke, the offense has come really
Speaker 1: crashing back down over the past three games. One oh
Speaker 1: three against Denver, one oh six against the MAVs, one
Speaker 1: oh five last night against the Lakers. What do you attribute?
Speaker 1: And maybe it's just youth, Maybe it's just inconsistency, inconsistency.
Speaker 1: Maybe Tom, they're just supposed to be really, really bad.
Speaker 1: But what have they stopped doing according to the analytics
Speaker 1: or the numbers that they were doing so well when
Speaker 1: their offense actually look pretty decent.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the NBA it's it is unfortunately a
Speaker 3: make or miss league, and that goes for the downtown.
Speaker 3: You know, when that that's an offense that if they're
Speaker 3: shooting well from downtown, they're going to look a whole
Speaker 3: lot better. And when against Dallas they're shooting twenty three
Speaker 3: percent from downtown, that's going to be a problem. And
Speaker 3: so when the offense is just they can't buy a bucket. Uh,
Speaker 3: that's it's tough. It's tough sletting. And when you're playing
Speaker 3: the Lakers, right, even when you shoot well from beyond
Speaker 3: the arc and from the floor, you still have to
Speaker 3: stop turning the ball over and you still have to
Speaker 3: get stops in order to win those games. And they
Speaker 3: just didn't get enough of both, you know, like like
Speaker 3: the idea that the Jazz, with their injuries in and
Speaker 3: out of the lineup, are going to be consistent from
Speaker 3: night tonight, it's really tough. But when their best player,
Speaker 3: Larry Markinen has had a couple of scuffles there in
Speaker 3: terms of his shooting, you're not going to get great
Speaker 3: performances offensively because there's so much that is dependent on him.
Speaker 3: And you know, he didn't shoot well against San Antonio
Speaker 3: and certainly not against Dallas, and that when you're the
Speaker 3: head of the snake is not shooting well, it's a
Speaker 3: lot harder for the rest of the guys to play
Speaker 3: off of them. And so look, it really is. I
Speaker 3: did this story for Yahoo Sports about the lack of
Speaker 3: dunks in the NBA and whether that's attributable to the
Speaker 3: three point you know, obsession these days, and it's still
Speaker 3: true that this year Jordan Clarkson and Colin Sexon have
Speaker 3: not had a single dunk in any game this season.
Speaker 3: Last year, Colin Sexton had twenty three dunks and Jordan
Speaker 3: Clarkson had thirteen. So they've had thirty six donks last
Speaker 3: year and we're a quarter the way through the season
Speaker 3: and they have zero. Why is that, Well, the best
Speaker 3: way to get dunks on the other end is to
Speaker 3: get stops defensively, get out in transition, get out in
Speaker 3: fast breaks, have the ability to have numbers in transition.
Speaker 3: And so how much of this is on the offense
Speaker 3: or some sort of x's and o's that aren't being run,
Speaker 3: or whether it's you know, guys in and out of
Speaker 3: the lineup, and how much of it is just defensively?
Speaker 3: We like to think that offensive defense are in silos,
Speaker 3: but the fact of the matter is the defense. Utah's
Speaker 3: defense is really really tough this year. Right now, they're
Speaker 3: bottom three defensively at one hundred and eighteen points allowed
Speaker 3: every one hundred possessions. And so much of the offense
Speaker 3: in the NBA is about getting out in transition, getting stops,
Speaker 3: and they just haven't been able to do that. And
Speaker 3: so I think part of the reason why you aren't
Speaker 3: seeing those dunks, and part of the reason why you
Speaker 3: haven't seen those easy buckets on the offensive end is
Speaker 3: because a lot of times they're making it hard for
Speaker 3: themselves to get out in transition without getting stops.
Speaker 1: All right, last thing about the Jazz then we'll move on,
Speaker 1: because you know, Tom and I try not to be
Speaker 1: super redundant in our interviews, but I do believe they
Speaker 1: like Keyante a lot, and I do believe you know whenever,
Speaker 1: like I did this podcast, this Knicks podcast prior to
Speaker 1: the Jazz Knicks game a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: their lead question was who's going to be around when
Speaker 1: they're actually good?
Speaker 2: And honestly, the answer is marketing.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, But I do think there's room
Speaker 1: for Keyante because in spurts he does show some things,
Speaker 1: but he still is not making shots.
Speaker 2: And over the past five games five.
Speaker 1: Turnover, six turnovers, two turnovers, five turnovers, six turnovers. So
Speaker 1: he's not making shots, he makes horrible decisions with the ball,
Speaker 1: he doesn't guard point of attack. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to make of who he is now and what he
Speaker 1: can be. Is this a result of playing with a
Speaker 1: bunch of other you know, young players, a franchise that's
Speaker 1: unserious about winning this year, or is it time to
Speaker 1: really wonder whether or not the Jazz are long for
Speaker 1: Kiante George.
Speaker 3: I think it's really tough. The NBA is incentive structure.
Speaker 3: It's tough for coaches, it's tough off front offices, and
Speaker 3: it's tough for guys like Kiante George to learn the
Speaker 3: right way to play basketball because losing is incentivized. The
Speaker 3: NBA sets up a situation in which the teams that
Speaker 3: are the worst get the best chances at the star
Speaker 3: players in the draft. Of course, it's really hard to
Speaker 3: pick which one is the star and which one turns
Speaker 3: out to be, you know, a pumpkin. But the idea
Speaker 3: of hey man, this guy's twenty one years old, he's
Speaker 3: not really figuring things out. Maybe you just throw him
Speaker 3: into the wolves and say, hey, figure it out on
Speaker 3: the fly, and those that experience will give you enough
Speaker 3: repetitions to learn how to play at the NBA level.
Speaker 3: Because the fact of the matter is if the Utah
Speaker 3: Jazz had Chris Paul on the team, or Mike Conley
Speaker 3: on the team, or someone who is a really capable
Speaker 3: point guard. I mean even just take like Tias Jones
Speaker 3: in Phoenix can't say George isn't playing thirty thirty five
Speaker 3: minutes tonight. He's not. And so a lot of this
Speaker 3: is just he is playing out of position, or at
Speaker 3: least he is playing a lot more minutes than he
Speaker 3: would otherwise. If the NBA was set up in a
Speaker 3: structure where you have to bide your time and you
Speaker 3: go to the G League and you go and you
Speaker 3: get those reps and it doesn't have to be at
Speaker 3: the NBA level. But the problem is, you know, some
Speaker 3: of the incentives in this league are so perverse, where
Speaker 3: like you don't even know if this is part part
Speaker 3: of the plan. Is like because of the ping pong balls,
Speaker 3: do you let a guy like Kiance George play through
Speaker 3: these struggles and turn over the ball four or five
Speaker 3: times a game? And you know what, that's okay because
Speaker 3: you know and the last thing you want to be
Speaker 3: is in the middle, and he helps you get into
Speaker 3: the bottom of that in the name of player development.
Speaker 3: And it just thinks I don't like the way that
Speaker 3: the NBA is set up like that. I personally think
Speaker 3: that the way that the draft lottery works, it creates
Speaker 3: a lot of intentional mediocrity. And for Kiance George, I
Speaker 3: don't even know right now if I've changed my opinion
Speaker 3: of him, because so much of the NBA right now
Speaker 3: is just making sure that you're on one path or
Speaker 3: the other, and so for me, it's like, I do
Speaker 3: think that the right path for the Jazz is to
Speaker 3: get another bite at the apple at the top of
Speaker 3: the draft next year. But it makes things really difficult
Speaker 3: to evaluate a guy like Keyance George, who's still can
Speaker 3: hit a shot, and he it's not really the three
Speaker 3: point shooting that bothers me, it's the ability to finish
Speaker 3: in the paint. His two point percentage has fallen from
Speaker 3: forty six percent last season to forty two percent this year,
Speaker 3: and that's really the problem. Is a guy that, yes
Speaker 3: he's young, but he still hasn't been able to be
Speaker 3: a efficient score into the paint or a decision maker
Speaker 3: into the paint. And that's you know, he's a he's
Speaker 3: a bigger guard at six ' four, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like he's figured out the floater game or finishing
Speaker 3: around the rim enough to be, you know, show some
Speaker 3: promise where you can build around him confidently. So I've
Speaker 3: probably moved off Keyante George as a foundation member or
Speaker 3: a pillar for this organization until he can develop further.
Speaker 3: And I have to remind you and and I know
Speaker 3: you know this. He's twenty one and it's really hard,
Speaker 3: but you hope that there's some glimmers of that potential coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said, I mean, the issue, Tom, and we'll
Speaker 1: move off the jazz because there's a lot of other
Speaker 1: things I want to talk to you about today. You know,
Speaker 1: the issue is even you know, I always use Donovan
Speaker 1: as an example that team wasn't supposed to be great.
Speaker 1: It was the post Heyward, Okay, let's see what we
Speaker 1: have here, And even though they weren't winning, there was,
Speaker 1: you know, at a really high level. I Quinn did
Speaker 1: a hell of a job that year. There were so
Speaker 1: many Donovant moments where you're just like, this feels real.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that we've seen enough Keyante moments
Speaker 1: that feel real and sustainable. But to your point, you know,
Speaker 1: it could change when he has better playmates than the sandbox.
Speaker 2: So we'll have to see. But I want to move
Speaker 2: over to the rockets.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, emy Udoka after everything got loose
Speaker 1: in Boston.
Speaker 2: You knew that he was going to land on his
Speaker 2: feed because he's.
Speaker 1: So highly thought of, And I don't know how real
Speaker 1: it is, but at this point they have to be
Speaker 1: talked about as a team that is a very pleasant
Speaker 1: early season surprise after beating OKC and they sit second
Speaker 1: in the West, only half a game behind the Thunder.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people saw this coming. What's
Speaker 1: your take on the Rockets so far?
Speaker 3: Subscribers to the Finder would tell you I saw coming Spence.
Speaker 3: I had great preseason. I thought that they were a
Speaker 3: title contender. I thought that this team with Alprin shanegun
Speaker 3: who I thought was the best player coming out in
Speaker 3: that class, I thought you should have been the number
Speaker 3: one pick. The way that he dominated the Adriatic League
Speaker 3: on the Turkish team where he's eighteen years old and
Speaker 3: dominating a grown men in that league. You gotta take
Speaker 3: him at least in the top five. And he fell
Speaker 3: all the way to sixteen, and I thought, okay, see
Speaker 3: for sure would have picked him, and they didn't. They
Speaker 3: moved off the pick. The Houston Rockets are monsters. Defensively,
Speaker 3: Tarry eathen Amen Thompson, Dylan Brooks. These guys are vicious
Speaker 3: on the perimeter. And so when you have a guy
Speaker 3: like Alpera and Shangun who isn't a classic rim protector,
Speaker 3: you surround him with Fred van Vliet and then just
Speaker 3: dogs Doberman's defensively that are going to be vicious. And
Speaker 3: I thought, this is a team that's going on my
Speaker 3: title tiers right away. You know they're young, They're still young.
Speaker 3: These guys are twenty twenty one, twenty two years old.
Speaker 3: But I'm a huge believer in Alpera and Shangoon. I
Speaker 3: also think at the second level of this. One reason
Speaker 3: why I was a believer and put them on my
Speaker 3: title tiers before the season even started is because of
Speaker 3: their ability to upgrade and swing for the fences in
Speaker 3: a trade. So this team has picks the Phoenix picks
Speaker 3: that they traded for. They're basically shorting the Phoenix Suns. Ironically,
Speaker 3: they want to get Kevin Durant or a type of
Speaker 3: player like Kevin Durant, and I think they have the
Speaker 3: amo to do that. It's just whether the contenders are
Speaker 3: going to play ball. Giannis ended a coop of Damian Lillard,
Speaker 3: Kevin Durant. They are ready to go pouncing on a
Speaker 3: talent like that. The question is whether they do it.
Speaker 3: And for me, the Houston Rockets with Fred van Vliet,
Speaker 3: Albera and Shangun. I'm not a huge fan of Jalen Green,
Speaker 3: but those's defenders are so fun to watch. The Terror
Speaker 3: twins on Men Thompson and Tari Easton, They're perfect and
Speaker 3: they're great fits next to Alburn, Shangun and Fred Van Vliet.
Speaker 3: I love the way that they play. I still think
Speaker 3: they need another star to make the Elite, but that
Speaker 3: might happen this offseason when Jalen Green's contract becomes a
Speaker 3: little bit more palatable and the poison pill provision is
Speaker 3: pulled away. I think the Houston Rockets are going to
Speaker 3: go big game hunting this summer, and it may even
Speaker 3: be at the deadline if the Western Conference is there
Speaker 3: for the taking, and I think it is. I think
Speaker 3: the Western Conference at the top, you know, the Dallas Mavericks,
Speaker 3: Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets, they haven't gotten off to a
Speaker 3: great start this year, and the Houston Rockets, they can
Speaker 3: absolutely win the win the West and come out of
Speaker 3: the West if they do upgrade and I think they
Speaker 3: got the assets to do it too.
Speaker 1: Want to get your thoughts on the San Antonio Spurs
Speaker 1: now who didn't have a three game winning streak until
Speaker 1: March of last year. Chris Paul, Harrison Barnes obviously veterans
Speaker 1: that have won at a very high level in this league,
Speaker 1: and you know they've won four straight. I believe they're
Speaker 1: seven and three in their last ten. Wemban Yama gets
Speaker 1: another triple double. And this is a franchise that I
Speaker 1: think is going to be fascinating to watch as far
Speaker 1: as how they handle this next generation Special player progress
Speaker 1: report from Tom habershow on Victor Wembayama and the San
Speaker 1: Antonio Spurs.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it, Chris Paul coming to
Speaker 3: this team, Stephen Castle, I love that. Rookie from Yukon
Speaker 3: Donovan Klingen and Stephen Castle have been outstanding so far
Speaker 3: this season. Really nice draft. Victor Webbin Yama is the
Speaker 3: real deal again. I'm gonna plug at tomdfinder dot com.
Speaker 3: I put the San Antonio Spurs as a title contender
Speaker 3: before the season, one of my fifteen teams to watch,
Speaker 3: and I feel vindicated on that front because they've made
Speaker 3: strides this season, not just offensively, but I think with
Speaker 3: Harrison Barnes and Chris Paul, there's an organization and a
Speaker 3: professionalism to their offense that they didn't have last year.
Speaker 3: And I think the Sohn Jeremy Sohen point guard experiment,
Speaker 3: I think was a real problem last year and really
Speaker 3: set them back in their development. And as soon as
Speaker 3: they handed the keys to Wemby at center and unleashed him,
Speaker 3: and now he's shooting you know, nine to threes a
Speaker 3: game at thirty five percent, but much higher as of late,
Speaker 3: where he's shooting you know, fourteen thirteen threes in a game.
Speaker 3: He just looks like, you know, he's just scratching the surface,
Speaker 3: which is super scary because he's already leading the league
Speaker 3: in block shots. He's already getting you know, in uh
Speaker 3: these triple double categories doing things that we would expect,
Speaker 3: you know, someone at twenty five years old. He's twenty one.
Speaker 3: Chris Paul is who he is at this point. We
Speaker 3: know that he's a guy who's gonna be an organizer. Offensively,
Speaker 3: he's as as smart of a point guard as anybody,
Speaker 3: and you pair him with the IQ the basketball que
Speaker 3: Vic Victor Webbinyama. It's gonna be really, really good. I
Speaker 3: just wish they had, you know, another guy there, Devin
Speaker 3: vessel Uh. He's he's trying to make his way back
Speaker 3: after having a really nice start at his career, getting
Speaker 3: that extension with the team. I love the San Antonio Spurs,
Speaker 3: and I think if Damian Lillard, if Trey Young, if
Speaker 3: Kevin Durant, if these types of names become available at
Speaker 3: some point, I would absolutely try to make a move.
Speaker 3: If you're Greg Popovich and that organization trying to figure
Speaker 3: out a way to maximize Victor Webbin Yama, I think
Speaker 3: he's surrounding himself with veterans. I think they'll be pleasantly
Speaker 3: surprised to learn that he's ready to go now. He's
Speaker 3: ready to win right now, and I would love to
Speaker 3: see them upgrade as well. Question is you know, same
Speaker 3: thing with Houston, same thing with Utah, Same thing with
Speaker 3: San Antonio. Like who is that star, who is that
Speaker 3: disgruntled star that will become available at the trade deadline?
Speaker 3: I don't know who that is right now. Maybe it's
Speaker 3: in Minnesota. I don't know who it's going to be.
Speaker 3: But at this point, those two teams Houston and San Antonio.
Speaker 3: If they really want to make a big jump, they can.
Speaker 3: I've been believers from day one with these teams, and
Speaker 3: I think they're going about it the right way.
Speaker 1: All right, before I say you loose, you just referenced
Speaker 1: the Tea Wolves, and this year the returns from the
Speaker 1: Gobart and Mitchell deal starts coming the Jazz way. My
Speaker 1: guess is the Cavs pick isn't going to be great.
Speaker 1: We don't have time to talk about them right now,
Speaker 1: but Minnesota as of now nine and ten, they're three
Speaker 1: and eight in their last eleven and you know we're
Speaker 1: getting greedy around here. Maybe we have a couple of
Speaker 1: lottery picks now, not just the Jazz pick, but the
Speaker 1: te Wolves pick. Obviously there's so much time ahead, but
Speaker 1: we are at the twenty game mark, the Thanksgiving mark
Speaker 1: where front offices do look and kind of dive in
Speaker 1: to see what they have, what sort of hand they've
Speaker 1: been dealt. How concerned do you think Timberwolf stand should
Speaker 1: be about their team? And is there a chance the
Speaker 1: Jazz could have Lady Luck shot upon them and this
Speaker 1: could really be a lottery situation.
Speaker 3: I think it's certainly possible. I wasn't a huge fan
Speaker 3: from the Minnesota standpoint the trade for Julius Randall and
Speaker 3: doctor Devincenzo. I wrote about it on my sub stack
Speaker 3: tomafinder dot com this morning about the returns on that
Speaker 3: trade have been abysmal for the Minnesota Timberwolves. You know,
Speaker 3: you look at what Anthony Edwards is saying publicly. We
Speaker 3: just taped Basketball Illuminati that will be coming out on
Speaker 3: Wednesday breaking down the very cryptic but not so cryptic
Speaker 3: postgame press conference from last week after they lost to
Speaker 3: the Sacramento Kings. Anthony Edwards just all but calling out
Speaker 3: Julius Randall, a guy who has one block this season.
Speaker 3: Julius Randall, who's played in every game this season as
Speaker 3: the power starting power forward for a team that is
Speaker 3: thought to be contending, has one block this year. You know,
Speaker 3: when you talk about Anthony Edwards, he says, we're soft.
Speaker 3: We're a bunch of babies who don't talk like it
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be. You know, we don't have to
Speaker 3: look too far to see who he's referring to. And
Speaker 3: Julius Randall is the least efficient ISO player in the
Speaker 3: NBA this season. He has one block to his name.
Speaker 3: Which is one of the lowest rates in NBA history,
Speaker 3: NBA history for a big man. This is a team
Speaker 3: that had a defensive identity, as Aunt said, and now
Speaker 3: they've lost it in a big reason why is because
Speaker 3: they traded for Julius Randall. This guy's a he's in
Speaker 3: a contract year and you're wondering why not everyone's on
Speaker 3: the same page. Anthony Edwards says, Hey, there's guys with
Speaker 3: certain agendas on this team. They don't figure out the
Speaker 3: things quickly. There might be some changes here. And they've
Speaker 3: got Nasried, who I think is the better player than
Speaker 3: Julius Randall. Not a fan of Julius you can probably
Speaker 3: tell it by this segment, but I think Minnesota they've
Speaker 3: got some problems here because we just saw Anthony Edwards
Speaker 3: over in Paris. He was around championship caliber players. He
Speaker 3: knows how to do it, he knows what kind of
Speaker 3: you know, work ethic kind of players you need to
Speaker 3: do that. And is really Julius at Randall that guy?
Speaker 3: I don't think so, and so we'll see. But right
Speaker 3: now they're nine to ten and their defense is not
Speaker 3: elite right now, and I suspect that there's gonna be
Speaker 3: more smoke with it. There's gonna be more fire where
Speaker 3: that smoke that you're seeing the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: Anthony Edwards is not going to be quiet about this situation.
Speaker 3: We know that, all right? Tom?
Speaker 1: Where can people go find all of your work? You
Speaker 1: are a busy, busy boy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The Blazers broadcasts we do every single night, The
Speaker 3: Blazer's Broadcast with Kevin collabor lamar heard Brooke Olton dam
Speaker 3: go check us out on the past. Also, Tom Definder
Speaker 3: dot com is my sub stack and I do Basketball
Speaker 3: Illuminati every week wherever you listen to podcasts as well
Speaker 3: as writing at Yahoo Sports The Kevin O'Connor show. You
Speaker 3: can catch me twice every week over at Yahoo Sports
Speaker 3: podcast with my show The Big Number, which comes out
Speaker 3: every Thursday. So did I miss anything there? Oh? Every
Speaker 3: week on Mondays at around this time, you can catch
Speaker 3: me on your show.
Speaker 2: Spence, Yes, sir, the most important one there.
Speaker 1: At the end, Tom, thanks for your time, man, have
Speaker 1: a great week with chat soon.
Speaker 3: Okay, thanks Bude, you too.