Speaker 1: All right, let's get a drive time Friday afternoon, eight
Speaker 1: minutes past the hour, two o'clock. It is a beautiful,
Speaker 1: picturesque day outside here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 1: We're looking at about seventy eight degrees, clear and sunny.
Speaker 1: Temperatures will warm throughout the course of the weekend, and
Speaker 1: as it is every single day, it's going to have
Speaker 1: you along for the ride. Spence checket's behind the mike
Speaker 1: porta Larson behind the glass producing the program today and
Speaker 1: booking the program today. We've got a good guest list
Speaker 1: man excited for this. Happy Friday to you. Congratulations, you
Speaker 1: made it. It is weekend time. Take a big, old
Speaker 1: deep breath and enjoy the fact that you made it
Speaker 1: through the week. Hope you have some fun weekend plans
Speaker 1: with this beautiful weather here in Salt Lake City, Utah
Speaker 1: and the surrounding areas. Maybe get out, do a little hiking,
Speaker 1: little biking, walk the dog, swing a golf club. We've
Speaker 1: got some NBA Finals action to talk about. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what, never been one to do radio with the
Speaker 1: whole like put my feet in the cement on a
Speaker 1: hot take and be upset if I'm wrong. I like
Speaker 1: the rest of the free world that picked the Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City Thunder to win the NBA Championship. I picked them
Speaker 1: in five, which means they've got to win four straight.
Speaker 1: But I'll say right off the top, i hate the
Speaker 1: Indiana Pacers and I'll always hate the Indiana Pacers. Little
Speaker 1: PTSD working on it, therapy, reiki, healing, ayahuasca, just kidding,
Speaker 1: whatever I need to do to get over my childhood
Speaker 1: trauma of watching Reggie Miller torture my New York Knicks.
Speaker 1: Although that's not an entirely accurate narrative. While I will
Speaker 1: never cheer for this basketball team, I am so wildly
Speaker 1: impressed with them. Rick Carlisle is doing a masterful job.
Speaker 1: Tyree Saliburton, you know, was interesting watching the game last night.
Speaker 1: We'll get to it on the program, the first three
Speaker 1: and a half quarters. And I said this yesterday. I
Speaker 1: think it was during Crosstock with Sean when he asked me,
Speaker 1: you know, this whole debate about whether or not Tyree
Speaker 1: Saliburton is a legitimate superstar. There are so many long
Speaker 1: stretches where he just looks like one of the dudes
Speaker 1: in their rotation, and then ultimately he just has this
Speaker 1: ability to find a way to get it done when
Speaker 1: the moment calls for it. And if that's not the
Speaker 1: definition of a superstar player in pro basketball, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what is. Oklahoma City had them in a stranglehold
Speaker 1: and just remarkable resilience from this group of players that
Speaker 1: are very good and talented. Let's be clear, I mean
Speaker 1: this narrative that they don't have talented players is incorrect.
Speaker 1: But my goodness, Indiana once again snatches victory from the
Speaker 1: jaws of defeat and they go up one zero in
Speaker 1: the NBA Finals after beating OKC last night one to
Speaker 1: eleven to one to ten. They did not have the
Speaker 1: lead until point three seconds left in the game. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with the bio rhythms of NBA
Speaker 1: schedule makers, now we wait and we wait, and we
Speaker 1: wait and we wait two days between games. No reason
Speaker 1: for that. In my opinion, Sunday will be game two.
Speaker 1: That back at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. That
Speaker 1: crowd was awesome. The OKC crowd reminds me a little
Speaker 1: bit of the Salt Lake crowd when the Jazz are good.
Speaker 1: I know, kids, it's been a while. Hopefully it happens
Speaker 1: again before we all die. But that building loud and
Speaker 1: proud and crazy, but credit the Indiana Pacers. Sunday's game
Speaker 1: will be a six o'clock mountain time tip on ABC
Speaker 1: and then we go from there. The battle for Lord
Speaker 1: Stanley's Cup resumes tonight. If you miss game one, holy smokes,
Speaker 1: it was awesome, and tonight we'll see if we can
Speaker 1: get the same type of feel, the same type of
Speaker 1: intensity and passion, and hopefully overtime because over time the
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup Playoffs rules Panthers Oilers tonight, six o'clock mountain
Speaker 1: time drop of the Pucket Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.
Speaker 1: You can hear that game here on this radio station.
Speaker 1: We are your home of both the Stanley Cup Finals
Speaker 1: and the NBA Finals in the market, so keep that
Speaker 1: in mind. Oilers up one zero rematch of last year's
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup, which was awesome in and of itself. So
Speaker 1: there we go. A lot to do on the program
Speaker 1: today with the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals top
Speaker 1: of mind, awareness little off season NBA news already the
Speaker 1: proposed dramatic off season that people have discussed has already
Speaker 1: begun and apparently the New York Knicks are looking to
Speaker 1: speak with Jason Kidd, who currently is the head coach
Speaker 1: of the Dallas Mavericks, who have the number one overall
Speaker 1: pick in the NBA Draft. We'll talk about this. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that I see how this goes down. If
Speaker 1: you're Dallas, you're asking for a lot. The Knicks do
Speaker 1: not have draft compensation because they essentially utilized all of
Speaker 1: it in the mckel Bridges trade. Only a few weeks
Speaker 1: away from the NBA Draft, where Utah Jazz find themselves
Speaker 1: with the number five and the number twenty one overall
Speaker 1: pick in the first round, a couple second rounders to boot.
Speaker 1: We'll see what the Jazz end up doing prior to
Speaker 1: draft night, or if they stay at five and twenty
Speaker 1: one and they look to just add a couple of
Speaker 1: young pieces and hopefully have better talent evaluation at their disposal.
Speaker 1: So far, the draft results over the past three off
Speaker 1: seasons have been mixed at best. So we'll do some
Speaker 1: Jazz offseason on the show today. RSL is idle this weekend,
Speaker 1: which is probably a good thing because they don't seem
Speaker 1: to be very good at soccer right now. Their next
Speaker 1: game will be the fourteenth June the fourteenth, as rslill
Speaker 1: take on DC United and then they only have one
Speaker 1: other game this month. Diego Luna has made his way
Speaker 1: to the US men's national team. With a little Cold
Speaker 1: Cup action for Diego and RSL unable to add talent
Speaker 1: until the summer transfer window, which opens I believe mid
Speaker 1: July ish. How about Yankees Red Sox tonight she do
Speaker 1: some more baseball as the summer kind of warms up.
Speaker 1: We have the French Open going on. Carlos Akaraz is
Speaker 1: in the final. That dude is just different, of course,
Speaker 1: and we have a little French Open tennis as well.
Speaker 1: The world of professional golf has their eye on the
Speaker 1: RBC Canadian Open, and my guy Nick Taylor, proud Canadian,
Speaker 1: has made a little move here. He is ten under.
Speaker 1: He's right behind Cameron Champ who won a corn ferry
Speaker 1: event in our market. We'll do a little golf on
Speaker 1: the show today too. Off season college football news Utah
Speaker 1: BYU style kind of idle right now. Most of the
Speaker 1: off season college football storylines are surrounding the house of
Speaker 1: the NCAA settlement, the proposed expansion of the CFP conferences,
Speaker 1: fighting with each other NFL off season news. Good riddance.
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers is a Steeler who gives a rip. So
Speaker 1: there you go. A lot to do on the show,
Speaker 1: good guest. Let's we'll start things off today with Christopher
Speaker 1: mad Dog Russo. Mike and the mad Dog was the
Speaker 1: first sports talk radio program I consumed as a youngster
Speaker 1: growing up in the Northeast footprint, where it really was
Speaker 1: the first kind of two man radio show format, where
Speaker 1: that radio station took a risk to believe that people
Speaker 1: would actually listen to two people talk about sports for
Speaker 1: hours on end every day, and people did, and it
Speaker 1: was a massive success. Chris is now on First Take
Speaker 1: with Stephen A. Smith. I believe those are Wednesdays when
Speaker 1: you see Chris Ru's daily show on Sirius XM does
Speaker 1: major League baseball stuff. He's still doing it at very
Speaker 1: high level. So we will bring in Chris Russo right
Speaker 1: off the top today. We'll talk some NBA playoffs. I
Speaker 1: know we have strong feelings on the NBA lottery where
Speaker 1: the Jazz found themselves. I guess I'll say falling a fifth,
Speaker 1: even though that was the most likely outcome with the
Speaker 1: way the lottery is set up these days, we'll bring
Speaker 1: in mad Dog right off the top today. Howard Back,
Speaker 1: one of our favorites, talk some NBA on the program,
Speaker 1: Zach Harper more NBA, NBA Daily CYS Style. My old
Speaker 1: radio partner, Gordon Monson stops by longtime sports columnists from
Speaker 1: the Salt Lake Tribune. I'm going to try to be
Speaker 1: really nice to Gordon today. His daughter got married and
Speaker 1: they went over to Hawaii for the ceremony, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure Gordon did not appreciate this, but his wife, Lisa,
Speaker 1: who I love. They're an awesome family, They're great people,
Speaker 1: was sending out a bunch of videos and Gordon was
Speaker 1: wearing a Foedora throughout the course of the ceremony. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try not to only talk about Monton in a
Speaker 1: fedora today, but honestly, it's kind of the only thing
Speaker 1: I want to ask him about, because my guess is
Speaker 1: that was not his choice, that was probably handed to him.
Speaker 1: He has five daughters who are all very beautiful and
Speaker 1: very fashionable, and his wife looks like she's twenty years
Speaker 1: younger than he is, and she's gorgeous. So my guess
Speaker 1: is they were like, what do we do with dad? Well,
Speaker 1: let's just hand him a Fedora and let's see if
Speaker 1: he's able to pull that off. So when I saw
Speaker 1: the video, I actually texted Porter, I'm like, dude, you
Speaker 1: gotta get Gordon on the show so I can mock
Speaker 1: him for his Fedora. Chris Russo, Howard Beck, Zach Harper,
Speaker 1: Gordon Mont and me Spence check ats all of you
Speaker 1: the great listeners that guy, Porter Larson. Have you ever
Speaker 1: in your life warn of Fedora unironically or not for
Speaker 1: a Halloween costs you?
Speaker 2: No, not unironically, but I like to throw one on
Speaker 2: for a bit. You don't strike me as a Fedora guy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm also not one who could pull it off if
Speaker 2: it were, if it were a thing. So yeah, no,
Speaker 2: no Fedora is in this house. All right, tell me this.
Speaker 1: So last night I'm watching the game, watching the game,
Speaker 1: and a couple buddies like, all right, Shay hits the layup.
Speaker 1: I think they go up seven with about ninety seconds left,
Speaker 1: and one of my buddies he's like, all right, that's done,
Speaker 1: it's over. Not enough time. I said, Oh, you didn't
Speaker 1: watch the next series. You didn't watch the Cavs series
Speaker 1: or the Bucks series, Like I will own my pick,
Speaker 1: and I still believe okay Se finds a way to
Speaker 1: do this. But I am so wildly impressed with the
Speaker 1: Indiana Pacers, even though I cannot stand team.
Speaker 2: It's pretty it's pretty remarkable. I mean, the way that
Speaker 2: they're winning games and the way that they're staying in
Speaker 2: games until you just give Tyrese Haliburton the ball on
Speaker 2: the last possession. It's it's fun to watch. It's probably
Speaker 2: unprecedented as far as the amount we're seeing it in
Speaker 2: the postseason. And he did it a bunch of the
Speaker 2: regular season two where the Pacers just stay close and
Speaker 2: then Tyrese Haliburton hit a last second shot. Now it
Speaker 2: wasn't all Tyree's. He had a you know, a kind
Speaker 2: of run of the mill game for him. Andrew Nemhard, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, good pick and role player, fine defender, although
Speaker 2: a little undersized, but there are moments in big games
Speaker 2: where he turns into Alan Iverson at the end of
Speaker 2: a possession. And man, it's a lot of fun to
Speaker 2: watch because they are going to turn this into a
Speaker 2: series that I don't think a lot of us expected
Speaker 2: coming in.
Speaker 1: I said yesterday, I'll take OKC in five. But the
Speaker 1: basketball fan and me just wants good basketball in a
Speaker 1: long series. So if game won's any indicator, maybe we'll
Speaker 1: get that, all right, Chris mad Dog Russo our first
Speaker 1: guest on this beautiful Friday afternoon. But before we get
Speaker 1: to mad Dog, courtesy about our good friends. Your good
Speaker 1: friends said Prize Picks. It is time now for your
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Speaker 3: Welcome to the Drive with Spence check its on Utah's
Speaker 3: number one sports talk now into the studios of ESPN
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Speaker 1: seven under sports dot com. Last Night, Game one NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: Don't forget mad Dog Russo of First Take Fame and
Speaker 1: Mike and the Mad Dog Fame will be our first
Speaker 1: guest on this Friday Game one NBA Finals Oklahoma City,
Speaker 1: and it really, in a lot of ways was kind
Speaker 1: of fitting the script that most people thought it would.
Speaker 1: Early on, we talked about the potential of certainly Indiana
Speaker 1: looking nervy and playing a little bit loose for a
Speaker 1: young roster that's never been to the NBA Finals. Now
Speaker 1: OKC certainly as a young roster that's also been never
Speaker 1: been this far together, and they play a lot of
Speaker 1: young players, and Mark Dagnold decided to sit Isaiah Hartenstein
Speaker 1: and start Case and Wallace. I don't think he's gonna
Speaker 1: do that again. I'll tell you why later on. And
Speaker 1: Indiana certainly looked like the nervous team, a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of turnovers and ugly turnovers too. Now, remember, as we
Speaker 1: talked about yesterday, Oklahoma City does a lot of things
Speaker 1: really well, but one of the main reasons they have
Speaker 1: been historic in their performance this year, already winning eighty
Speaker 1: plus games, a net that, ultimately, when you look at
Speaker 1: the way Oklahoma City beat teams all year long, their
Speaker 1: net quite literally was historic. Every one of the metrics
Speaker 1: that Oklahoma City has, both on offense and defense, indicated
Speaker 1: historic team. Their average margin of victory this year, which
Speaker 1: is what net is and differential, is plus twelve point nine.
Speaker 1: Just to give you some perspective, the second highest NET
Speaker 1: in the West this year was Minnesota plus five. Okay,
Speaker 1: the highest net in the East was Cleveland plus nine
Speaker 1: point five, which is really good, but plus twelve point
Speaker 1: nine when you are beating teams on an average of
Speaker 1: thirteen points to night, you are historically good. Top five offense,
Speaker 1: top five defense. All the metrics and the data, sorry
Speaker 1: people don't want data, whatever it is ultimately indicate that
Speaker 1: this is a historically special team that should win the
Speaker 1: World Championship. And I still believe they're going to. But
Speaker 1: the thing that they really do that makes them stand
Speaker 1: out among their peers, it's two tiered. They force you
Speaker 1: to turn the ball over and they take care of
Speaker 1: the basketball themselves. And then typically what they do is
Speaker 1: they capitalize on your turnovers to get points off of them.
Speaker 1: They did not do that last night. Okay, So Indiana
Speaker 1: they did finish with twenty four turnovers. I believe that
Speaker 1: was the number, twenty four turnovers, but twenty of them
Speaker 1: came in the first half, so they really really had
Speaker 1: a loose start to the game. Then they settled in
Speaker 1: and the second half and started taking care of the basketball.
Speaker 1: The problem is if you're Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City turned
Speaker 1: their twenty four turnovers into eleven points. Eleven points off
Speaker 1: at twenty four turnovers. It feels like that's a fake
Speaker 1: stat because if you get twenty four extra possessions, and
Speaker 1: if you just times that by two, and you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get a bucket off of every possession but forty
Speaker 1: eight points, you know, at least you want to get
Speaker 1: twenty five to thirty points off of twenty four turnovers.
Speaker 1: And that's at least they got eleven points off of
Speaker 1: Indiana's turnovers. So I'm watching the game last night, and
Speaker 1: it ultimately existed in this space where Oklahoma City was
Speaker 1: up between like eight and thirteen for like forty minutes
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, and that's where the game existed,
Speaker 1: but every time, the turnovers continue to pile up, and
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City was unable to capitalize on those turnovers. And
Speaker 1: Rick Carlisle said this himself at halftime. It's like, look,
Speaker 1: the bad news is we can't take care of the basketball.
Speaker 1: The good news is we're still within shouting distance because
Speaker 1: quite honestly, they should have been down twenty to twenty
Speaker 1: five at halftime and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City should have
Speaker 1: won that game by twenty points last night. There's no
Speaker 1: other way to put it. If Indiana is going to
Speaker 1: be that loose with the basketball, you have to turn
Speaker 1: those turnovers into points. Now. Remember the other thing we
Speaker 1: talked about is when Mark Dagnault go small, he relies
Speaker 1: on his wings to go get rebounds, and he has
Speaker 1: good rebounding wings. You know, uh Lou Dort last night,
Speaker 1: you know a couple of big time offensive rebounds in
Speaker 1: the first quarter. Shay can rebound well for a guard.
Speaker 1: Jalen's a big bodied guard. Cason Wallace is not. I'll
Speaker 1: get back to this, Like I said, I don't think
Speaker 1: the Cason Wallace thing and the starting lineup is going
Speaker 1: to work for Mark dagnol We'll see what he does
Speaker 1: you're bringing Caruso off the bench. He's a good rebounding guard.
Speaker 1: But last night Indiana out rebounds Oklahoma City fifty six
Speaker 1: to thirty nine. Because Mark Dadnold decided he was going small,
Speaker 1: he was going to be stubborn, and Rick Carlisle, to
Speaker 1: his credit, did not do that. And actually Indiana got
Speaker 1: the rebounding from their guards in a way that Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City did not. Aaron Ne Smith had twelve rebounds last night,
Speaker 1: Tyrese Halliburton had ten rebounds last night, and Pascal Siakam
Speaker 1: had ten as well. Miles Turner, their starting center, was
Speaker 1: their third or excuse me, their fourth leading rebounder with nine.
Speaker 1: Because the guards rebounded so well, that allows Indiana to
Speaker 1: play small. And if Oklahoma City's going to be stubborn
Speaker 1: and do that, they need more energy on the glass
Speaker 1: from Chet, who only had six rebounds. It was a
Speaker 1: bad check game last night. He only played twenty four
Speaker 1: minutes because they were staggering minutes between Hart and Stein
Speaker 1: and Chet. I think that's going to change. Caruso was
Speaker 1: solid off the bench because he always is. This comes
Speaker 1: down to one thing, though, and this is not something
Speaker 1: you can measure. If you're an analytical guy who measures
Speaker 1: basketball with your calculator, and this is more of a
Speaker 1: ancillary and tangible. This is just a group that will
Speaker 1: not stop until there are zeros on the clock. And
Speaker 1: that sounds pining the sky kind of corny. There are
Speaker 1: plenty of teams in pro basketball that when the rubber
Speaker 1: meets the road, they feel like they're beaten, they're done.
Speaker 1: It's one, two, three, cancun and for Rick Carlile to
Speaker 1: be able to instill the belief in his players, and
Speaker 1: it is based off of results. Because Tyree Saliburton talked
Speaker 1: about this after the game, It's not just what they
Speaker 1: did last night. It's not just what they did to
Speaker 1: the Knicks. It's not just what they did to the
Speaker 1: Cavs or the Bucks. I mean, they've sent Giannis home,
Speaker 1: Donovan home, Jalen Brunson home, and I don't think they're
Speaker 1: gonna send SGA home. But they have the one zero elite.
Speaker 1: But it's not just what they've done in the postseason.
Speaker 1: This is who they've been since January. Since the start
Speaker 1: of January, the two best teams in Pro basketball Number
Speaker 1: one Oklahoma City Thunder, Number two the Indiana Pacers. These
Speaker 1: are the two best teams in the NBA since January.
Speaker 1: I just don't know how many teams, how many people
Speaker 1: are paying attention. This is who they've been, it's who
Speaker 1: they are now. A couple things last night that I
Speaker 1: completely completely whipped on. Porter referenced Andrew Nemhard's play in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter. Now, aaron Ne Smith clearly has a
Speaker 1: little bit of an ankle thing still, even though he
Speaker 1: was a dog last night as well. But Rick Carlisle
Speaker 1: threw Andrew Nemhard on Tyree's or excuse me on Shae
Speaker 1: Gilgess Alexander in the fourth quarter to give aaron Ne
Speaker 1: Smith a bit of a break and nemhar get up
Speaker 1: about five inches de Sga. But that dude is a
Speaker 1: pit bull. I mean, I love the way he plays.
Speaker 1: He just gets up in you and he lets you
Speaker 1: know I'm gonna be here all night. So for all
Speaker 1: the conversation about the Tyres Saliburton game winner, and Tyrese
Speaker 1: deserves it, five either game winning or game tying shots
Speaker 1: with less than five seconds less than the playoffs. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you go back to nineteen ninety seven, since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven, now this is a convenient way to frame
Speaker 1: it because nineteen ninety seven was the last year of
Speaker 1: Peake Michael Jordan, as Jazz fans know. But since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven, Lebron James has eight game tying or game
Speaker 1: you know, giving your team the lead shots are in
Speaker 1: the final five seconds of a playoff game. Lebron has eight.
Speaker 1: In second place is Reggie Miller with five and Tyrese
Speaker 1: Saliburton with five, and Tyrese hasn't played near the amount
Speaker 1: of playoff games that those two have played, let alone.
Speaker 1: All the other people in that conversation, namely Kobe being Bryant,
Speaker 1: was surprised that he wasn't on the list. So certainly
Speaker 1: Halliburton came up clutch last night, but prior to Halliburton's
Speaker 1: game winning shot, he was a wallflower. This is why
Speaker 1: this debate about Halliburton is interesting. And I guess when
Speaker 1: it comes to your definition of a superstar, we can
Speaker 1: reasonable minds can disagree. But one of the reasons why,
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm still in this space where
Speaker 1: I don't view Halliburton on the level of Jokic or
Speaker 1: Jannis or Luca or Sga, like he is not one
Speaker 1: of those players. Okay, if you ask any roster constructor
Speaker 1: in pro basketball name the players that you would most
Speaker 1: want to start your franchise with, Tyrese would not be
Speaker 1: listed alongside other than some of the other names I
Speaker 1: just mentioned. And last night was an indicator. As I'm
Speaker 1: watching the game, I'm like, where is he? You're too
Speaker 1: good to be a wallflower. He was rebounding and he's
Speaker 1: not a great defender. He was doing his best to
Speaker 1: keep up because Oklahoma City was doing everything they could
Speaker 1: to put Halliburton in their primary ball screen action to
Speaker 1: make sure that A it's a better matchup for Shay
Speaker 1: and b you make sure that Tyrese is tired down
Speaker 1: the stretch. But he didn't score his first points until
Speaker 1: like three minutes left in the first I don't even
Speaker 1: think he got a shot off. And certainly, being a
Speaker 1: star player, and if you're a league guard, it's much
Speaker 1: more than scoring. And like I said, he had ten
Speaker 1: boards and six assists, only three turnovers in thirty nine
Speaker 1: minutes against that defense as a lead guard is a
Speaker 1: good number. But I'm watching all game, I'm like, where
Speaker 1: is he? You know, we're seeing Miles Turner in a
Speaker 1: lot of action, We're seeing Pascal Siakum and once again
Speaker 1: was really good and Siakam is a great player. But
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for Haliburton to kind of show up, and
Speaker 1: sure enough down the stretch, as this eight to twelve
Speaker 1: point lead starts to dwindle and Oklahoma City goes more
Speaker 1: or less ISO for either Sha or Jalen, and they
Speaker 1: start missing some of the mid range shots and Nemhard
Speaker 1: hits his step back three against Shay when he shakes him,
Speaker 1: and it was really nice. I'm going, all right, this
Speaker 1: is kind of setting itself up one again for a
Speaker 1: tyresse Halliburton moment which lead us, which leads us to
Speaker 1: the final stanza where Shay was being guarded by Nemhard.
Speaker 1: He gets some separation and it's a great look. And
Speaker 1: for all the love Indiana deserves about their never say
Speaker 1: die attitude, the luck that they have been receiving, I
Speaker 1: mean the Halliburton game winner against the Knicks that went
Speaker 1: off the back iron, It bounced up like thirty feet.
Speaker 1: The TV camera lost it, and Shay gilgess Alexander when
Speaker 1: he gets to that spot free throw line extended about
Speaker 1: fourteen to fifteen feet away from the bucket. That is cash.
Speaker 1: That's the look you want, but he misses it. He
Speaker 1: goes along. Halliburton gets the rebound, and I said, right
Speaker 1: away when I saw that, it was Cason Wallace who
Speaker 1: picked him up. And look, Cason Wallace is a good
Speaker 1: defensive player. I'm not saying he's not. But if Rick
Speaker 1: Carlyle calls a time out, they get the rebound with
Speaker 1: ten seconds left, they instantly find Tyrese. He dribbles it
Speaker 1: up and Cason picks him up. And when I'm sure
Speaker 1: Rick Carlisle thought this, when Rick saw that it was
Speaker 1: Casein and not Lou Dort, who fights over screens, by
Speaker 1: the way, like he's a defensive end evading offensive lineman.
Speaker 1: It's amazing watching this dude guard and Tyreese couldn't do
Speaker 1: anything if Dort was the primary defender. But when Rick
Speaker 1: saw that it was Casin, no timeout, go ahead, guard
Speaker 1: Tyree Saliburton with Cason Wallace, who again is a good
Speaker 1: on ball defender. But Tyres is bigger than he is.
Speaker 1: And if you go back and watch the replay, it
Speaker 1: was bad defense from Cason. That's too much space to
Speaker 1: give tyre Saliburton. Now give Tyree's credit for shaking him
Speaker 1: and getting a couple of feet, but right when I
Speaker 1: saw that, because when Tyres has space, he's dangerous. He
Speaker 1: just has this weird little hitch push a set shot
Speaker 1: where it's tough for him to get space unless he
Speaker 1: they go one four flat and he's able to get
Speaker 1: some penetration with a step back. There was a cut
Speaker 1: from the right side that essentially drug Caruso close to
Speaker 1: the baseline, so Caruso didn't hedge out and help the
Speaker 1: case in, gave him too much space, and boom knocks
Speaker 1: down the mid range jumper point three seconds left. For
Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, game over. That building was stunned,
Speaker 1: and it was remarkable to watch Indiana do it again,
Speaker 1: five comebacks while being down fifteen points in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: like they're breaking every single record prior to last night,
Speaker 1: when teams were down nine in the final three minutes
Speaker 1: of an NBA Finals game since nineteen seventy one oh
Speaker 1: and one eighty two. Every single time Indiana does this,
Speaker 1: the stats and Info department comes up with a stat
Speaker 1: where you're kind of like, wait, no one has ever
Speaker 1: done what they've done before. This is a historic run,
Speaker 1: even if it doesn't end in a championship. But you
Speaker 1: know what, it just might it might be their year.
Speaker 1: All right, Briday's show rolled along here in downtown Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City, Utah. Our next guest, I like to call
Speaker 1: him a friend, but a mentor. First and foremost best
Speaker 1: known I don't know these days Chris Russo, Mad Dog
Speaker 1: of course, mister Russo best known for me with my
Speaker 1: the Mad Dog. My question out of the gates these days,
Speaker 1: what do you get recognized for the most first take?
Speaker 4: Okay, no question about it's ben Soir first take. You know,
Speaker 4: if I'm in New York, little Mike and the Mad
Speaker 4: Dog too, because you just said as a nineteen year show.
Speaker 4: But as far as the overall thing, if I'm bouncing
Speaker 4: around a little first take, that would be the one
Speaker 4: in the power of television see today, that would definitely
Speaker 4: be the one. Serious is a little different because it's
Speaker 4: you know, sort of a it's a it's a little nischy.
Speaker 4: So if am mass standpoint now, everybody kind of puts
Speaker 4: everything together right away, takes.
Speaker 5: Some a minute or two.
Speaker 4: The riders, Oh yeah, that's the guy. Mike and the
Speaker 4: Mad Dogs saw me plenty of times. It's different, and
Speaker 4: of course the first take you're on there constantly, so
Speaker 4: those the first take one is by far the best.
Speaker 1: Okay, then, yeah, that makes sense. And I certainly tune
Speaker 1: in when you're on that show, and I'm glad you
Speaker 1: brought that up. And I should lead with thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your time. You're very kind of do this.
Speaker 1: It's been too long. Every time I watch you on
Speaker 1: first Take, I have this thought like, is it is
Speaker 1: it different or is it similar to the way you
Speaker 1: and Mike approached the show back in the day, Because
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't necessarily remember, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: you guys were the origin of what the modern day
Speaker 1: debate shows have become. So this is not a new
Speaker 1: thing for you. Is doing first take different or is
Speaker 1: it similar to what you did with Mike and the
Speaker 1: Mad Dog back in the day.
Speaker 5: No, it's similar.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's you know, it's a little bit more specific
Speaker 4: on a topic. It's not as you know, the Mike
Speaker 4: and the Mad Dog thing would do anything. It's it's
Speaker 4: a little bit more NBA NFL dominated. But and you
Speaker 4: got more than just two people in there, because it's
Speaker 4: very rarely just Steve and I. You know, sometimes it's
Speaker 4: you know, it could be football season. You got two
Speaker 4: or three different guys in their base a basketball season,
Speaker 4: you got two three different guys in there, so it's
Speaker 4: it's very rarely just at two of us. It's more
Speaker 4: of a trilogy per se. So I from that standpoint,
Speaker 4: it is a little different. But the from that from
Speaker 4: the amount of people. But I mean, the idea is
Speaker 4: the same. The idea is to move the needle. The
Speaker 4: idea is to give obviously your opponent a chance to talk.
Speaker 4: Your idea is to you know, give your opinion and
Speaker 4: hopefully it's organic enough and hopefully it's a situation where
Speaker 4: it's spurs debate, and hopefully it's opposite with your opponent.
Speaker 6: In this case, Steve passed.
Speaker 4: In other words, I might have one opinion, and if
Speaker 4: it really works properly, it would be nice if Steve
Speaker 4: had the other opinion and Mike and I the same
Speaker 4: scenario too. So I think there's you know, listen, debate
Speaker 4: shows on TV came from duet shows on radio, so
Speaker 4: it's the same theme. There are some intricacies that are a
Speaker 4: little different. You want to talk a little quicker on TV,
Speaker 4: you want to be eating out a little quicker. Radio
Speaker 4: is a little bit more of a filibuster element to it.
Speaker 4: But I mean it's the same idea holds both ways,
Speaker 4: same idea holds both ways.
Speaker 1: Chris Russo, I'm sorry, you're good and finish good.
Speaker 4: No, just have an opinion. I've that's the most important thing,
Speaker 4: to go out there and have an opinion and be
Speaker 4: you know, part of being good on radio or TV.
Speaker 6: Is being a salesman.
Speaker 4: You want to be able to sell your opinion even
Speaker 4: if you think or even if people don't think it's right.
Speaker 4: You want to make a good case for it. And
Speaker 4: for the most part, you try to do that a
Speaker 4: little more so on TV than you do on radio,
Speaker 4: but youre trying to make a good case.
Speaker 1: For it, for sure. Chris Russo, better known as the
Speaker 1: Mad Dog, as our guests here on ESPN seven hundred
Speaker 1: out of a Friday afternoon. You know, mister Russo, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call you that all interview long. Probably you were one
Speaker 1: of the first people I thought about when the news
Speaker 1: came down that the New York Knicks had fired Tom Thibodeau.
Speaker 1: And it just has been so long since they've been
Speaker 1: relevant at all. And you know, four Playoffs appearances in
Speaker 1: five years back to back fifty win seasons for the
Speaker 1: first time since ninety four ninety five, first Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: appearance since two thousand and It's been so fun for
Speaker 1: me to watch this team rise to relevance again and
Speaker 1: reconnect with a lot of my friends that I grew
Speaker 1: up up with back Eastern Southern Connecticut and the surrounding area.
Speaker 1: And no part of me thought that he was in
Speaker 1: danger of losing his job. And I will allow and
Speaker 1: concede that I think he was probably up coach in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference Finals by one of the best coaches
Speaker 1: in pro basketball who's now in the NBA Finals. That
Speaker 1: we'll get to the finals in a moment. But what
Speaker 1: was your reaction when you heard the news that Tom
Speaker 1: had lost his job? And now that's been a few days.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it happened, and who do you
Speaker 1: think was behind the decision?
Speaker 4: Well, I listen, I never trust the owner, so I
Speaker 4: was you know, you never know of him, that's of course,
Speaker 4: Jim Dolan, you know, But I'm with you. After they
Speaker 4: beat Detroit, you figured they'd be in good shape. He
Speaker 4: would have actually been better off if they lost at
Speaker 4: Game seven of Boston in a classic series. Tatan doesn't
Speaker 4: get hurt, then beating the Celtics, wetting everybody's appetite, and
Speaker 4: then losing to Indiana the whole series and maybe this
Speaker 4: next one will be that way as well with Oka. See,
Speaker 4: but the whole series obviously turned on the whole situation
Speaker 4: with the with the with Game one with the fourteenth
Speaker 4: point lead, and the Natesmith making all those threes there
Speaker 4: and the you know, in the last thirty to fifty
Speaker 4: eight seconds of that game, and then of course the
Speaker 4: two miss vetos and the shot that Halburton took that
Speaker 4: bounced high and went in, and then overtime. The whole
Speaker 4: series changed with that.
Speaker 5: If the Knicks had won.
Speaker 4: That game, they would have been a minimum seventh game,
Speaker 4: and I think they would have probably won the series
Speaker 4: because I don't know if they would have lost the
Speaker 4: back to back game seven at home. So but once
Speaker 4: he beat the Pistons, I thought he was okay. Once
Speaker 4: he beat the Celtics, whoever thought he'd be And remember
Speaker 4: the Tatum injury had nothing to do with it, because
Speaker 4: you're up three one when he got hurt. Once they
Speaker 4: beat Boston, I thought that he was in great shape.
Speaker 4: I thought they beat Indiana, I thought it would be a.
Speaker 5: Very close series.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I thought
Speaker 4: that they would not lose back to back game sevens
Speaker 4: at home to the Pacers, So I thought they'd win
Speaker 4: that series. But you know, listen, I think it's a
Speaker 4: it's a group thing.
Speaker 5: First off, Dolan.
Speaker 4: Nobody makes a decision regarding the knicks of the Rangers
Speaker 4: of the head coach without going through Dolan.
Speaker 7: First.
Speaker 4: He's, hey, you got to write a check for thirty
Speaker 4: million dollars and because you got to pay him off,
Speaker 4: And you know, you can make the argument that Dolan
Speaker 4: made this form more than anybody else. A lot of
Speaker 4: people tell me that worldwide, wess who what?
Speaker 6: Who the hell is?
Speaker 8: See?
Speaker 5: Who knows? He's sort of an influencer.
Speaker 4: Brought Kenny Payne to Louisville, had that workout. A lot
Speaker 4: of people think he had something to do with it,
Speaker 4: because it was no secret that he and Thibodeau couldn't
Speaker 4: stand each other. And then he had Leon Rose, who
Speaker 4: you know, listens, got a lot on the line here.
Speaker 4: You know, made a band, say with Bridges, but he
Speaker 4: was the former agent for Thibodeaux, you know, I mean know,
Speaker 4: maybe he has I don't.
Speaker 5: It's really kind of hard to figure why.
Speaker 4: First off, it's a stupid decision, and Leon Rose has
Speaker 4: made good decisions. Dolan has stayed out of it for
Speaker 4: the most part. It appears in the last couple of years,
Speaker 4: so why would he get involved now? And Worldwide messages
Speaker 4: Worldwide Wes is not really in that decisive decision making,
Speaker 4: so it is tricky to pin it on anybody, but
Speaker 4: his is it. I would said if Jim Dolan wanted
Speaker 4: Tom Thibodeau to be his head coach, he would have
Speaker 4: told Rose and Worldwide West guys, nice guys, just as
Speaker 4: you said Spence back to back Eastern back to back
Speaker 4: fifty one years, I mean Eastern Conference final. I mean
Speaker 4: there's only two teams in the NBA who had better
Speaker 4: years that we did.
Speaker 5: Why not fire him?
Speaker 4: And he did not say that, So he's culpable too.
Speaker 4: And I think the fact that the Knicks are going
Speaker 4: to try to convince somehow, some way Jason Kidd in
Speaker 4: Dallas to come to New York tells you that they
Speaker 4: don't really have a plan B. I mean, their number
Speaker 4: one guy to replace Thibodeaux is an existing head coach
Speaker 4: signed to a big contract. I mean, that's their number
Speaker 4: one guy. That's a little lot who's going to coach
Speaker 4: Cooper Flagg and you're gonna have to give him compensation
Speaker 4: to get them. That is a little odd.
Speaker 5: So the next look terrible.
Speaker 4: Here they did a bad job. The whole world knows
Speaker 4: it was stupid. Thiberdeau's did a.
Speaker 7: Hell of a job.
Speaker 4: You want to say Carl out was a little better,
Speaker 4: all right, Well, then he was also better than Atkinson.
Speaker 4: He was also better than Doc Rivers, and now he
Speaker 4: might be better than dyk No, so let's keep that
Speaker 4: in mind too. But nobody in New York can quite
Speaker 4: figure it out. Everybody realizes this is a decision that
Speaker 4: was kind of difficult to stomach. So I feel badforit. Tiboto,
Speaker 4: he's out of a coach or see if he runs
Speaker 4: out of it again down the road. And I heard
Speaker 4: he's very down on what happened here. I think he
Speaker 4: was definitely surprised. I don't think he saw this coming,
Speaker 4: and nor did anybody else. By the way, here in
Speaker 4: New York City.
Speaker 1: It's almost like, don't look a gift horse in the
Speaker 1: mouth like this for the first time, mister Rousseau, the
Speaker 1: Knicks seemed to have played the long game and built
Speaker 1: up a team that had something to say about things
Speaker 1: in the Eastern Conference for a while, if they just
Speaker 1: allowed this process to continue, and what essentially made them
Speaker 1: more or less irrelevant in the landscape of pro basketball
Speaker 1: for nearly two decades, if not a little more, was
Speaker 1: impulsive emotion decision making from an owner that doesn't know
Speaker 1: his elbow from as you know what. And I thought,
Speaker 1: to your point, go build your sphere, go play your kazoo,
Speaker 1: go be in your band, stay out of it. Let
Speaker 1: the grown ups run the team. And this, to me
Speaker 1: is a couple of steps in the wrong direction. And
Speaker 1: it just reeks of Isaiah Thomas, Mike D'Antoni, Derek Fisher,
Speaker 1: Kurt Rambus, Jeff horniseack like and all of those people
Speaker 1: are you know, solid guys, and some are good coaches.
Speaker 1: And Mike Woodson did a good job for a minute
Speaker 1: there in New York. But it's almost like they reverted
Speaker 1: back to the emotional decision making that made them irrelevant
Speaker 1: for two decades after you finally built something up. And
Speaker 1: we'll see what happens moving forward, because the roster is
Speaker 1: still solid and they have a lot of good players.
Speaker 1: But these types of decisions are exactly why they were
Speaker 1: basically irrelevant for nearly twenty five years, you know.
Speaker 4: A hundred percent. And I actually think Indiana was better
Speaker 4: than the Knicks a player for player. I think the
Speaker 4: Knicks may have had, you know, the you know, with
Speaker 4: Brunson in Towns, you could say they had the two
Speaker 4: of the three best players. But I think if you
Speaker 4: look at the whole lobster bench, of course included, although
Speaker 4: in the Indiana's a little better. But yeah, this is
Speaker 4: a very puzzling decision. And Leon Rose doesn't make a
Speaker 4: lot of bad ones, so that he hasn't at least
Speaker 4: and he hasn't been impetuous, as.
Speaker 7: You just said.
Speaker 4: So that makes me think that somebody must have told
Speaker 4: him here something was going on, because he hasn't made
Speaker 4: these bad decisions with his coaches. He hired the right
Speaker 4: guy and he let a coach for five years and
Speaker 4: they were successful. So all of a sudden Leon gets
Speaker 4: over it. I mean, it is a little shan he's
Speaker 4: his former agent. It is very strange. I do know
Speaker 4: that that Thibodeau and Worldwide West did not like each other.
Speaker 4: Worldwide West has done nothing in his career, no rings,
Speaker 4: he hasn't won any college championships, He's never built a team,
Speaker 4: so the fact that but he's you know, he works
Speaker 4: for Rose so you wouldn't think he'd go over Roses
Speaker 4: head go right to Dolan. So that's why it's very puzzling.
Speaker 4: It's a very very strange decision. Nobody here can quite
Speaker 4: figure it out. You know, where they go now for
Speaker 4: a head coach? I mean again, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: think they want Mike Brown. I don't think they want
Speaker 4: Mike Malone. You know, I thought maybe Billy Donovan because
Speaker 4: he would be maybe easier to get. We'll see what kid.
Speaker 4: They know they're not getting the Houston coach.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, why would Dallas allow the Knicks to have
Speaker 4: kid without compensation? Knicks have no draft picks to give them. Now,
Speaker 4: why would kid want to leave Dallas anyway? I mean,
Speaker 4: they got Cooper Flanner coming there for crying out loud.
Speaker 4: He got to me seventeen years old. I mean, the
Speaker 4: guy might be an old timer, so why would you
Speaker 4: leave coaching him? I know the Eastern Conference is a
Speaker 4: little easier at least next year, but why would you
Speaker 4: leave that to come to work for Dolean.
Speaker 5: I would never do it, so we'll see where they go.
Speaker 4: But everybody puzzled, and it was a decision that reverberates
Speaker 4: that it makes the Knicks look bad. Just as you said,
Speaker 4: they haven't made a lot of bad decisions, and here
Speaker 4: they made a bad so one hundred percent right.
Speaker 1: One more thing here, And I do want to talk
Speaker 1: NBA Finals with your mad dog before I said loose,
Speaker 1: because I do think you know. The messaging as far
Speaker 1: as the statement goes. And then other sources that have
Speaker 1: leaked information across the landscape of the past few days
Speaker 1: is well, we want to take the next step, we
Speaker 1: want to win a championship. I could make the argument
Speaker 1: that this Nick team was ahead of schedule by beating Boston.
Speaker 1: I feel like they were put together with the idea
Speaker 1: of Boston maybe having one or two more years and
Speaker 1: then they're going to have to break their roster down
Speaker 1: because the new ownership group probably doesn't want to ride
Speaker 1: a luxury tax check of five hundred million dollars just
Speaker 1: to have the team. And so when the Celtics are
Speaker 1: broken down that I felt like this Nick team was
Speaker 1: ready to take that step. So I really think Tom
Speaker 1: actually brought them ahead of schedule this year going to
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference Finals. But I think if they want
Speaker 1: to win a championship, they have a roster construction issue
Speaker 1: they have to figure out, and I think it comes
Speaker 1: down to Cat. Now, Kat just played some of the
Speaker 1: best basketball that I've ever seen him play in the spring. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I want to give him credit for that. But defensively,
Speaker 1: I mean, we talk a lot about Nie Smith making
Speaker 1: his threes in Game one. Those were walking practice threes
Speaker 1: with not a lot of defensive pushback, and more often
Speaker 1: than not, the only time I thought the Knicks had
Speaker 1: a chance in the series is when they were actually guarding. Now,
Speaker 1: this is not a team in the ILK of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five. Charles Oakley's not walking through that door, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But I think if they want to take
Speaker 1: the next step, they've got a roster issue, and I
Speaker 1: think it comes down to Cat. Do you think they
Speaker 1: look at a deal for a Durant or a deal
Speaker 1: for a Giannis? I mean, even Lowry markin out here
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake is available. I'm not saying that makes sense,
Speaker 1: But if they want to take the next step, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if their coaches Tom Thibodeau, Jason Kidd, whoever.
Speaker 1: I think they have a roster construction issue. Do you
Speaker 1: think they adjust and pivot with their personnel this offseason?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think Giannis is coming here, so that's
Speaker 4: number one. I think if the Bucks, the Bucks won't
Speaker 4: call Anthony Towns. I mean, I wouldn't want call Anthony
Speaker 4: Towns to build my franchise around. That is not what
Speaker 4: I would want. So from that standpoint, I think if
Speaker 4: he goes anywhere, it might be Dispersed or Toronto. So
Speaker 4: I'm not in love with getting that. And You're right,
Speaker 4: the roster is where it is. I don't know exactly
Speaker 4: what they can. They have no draft picks. Based on
Speaker 4: that Bridger's trade, they only got a five I don't
Speaker 4: pay too much attention to this capologist nonsense, but they
Speaker 4: only got a five and a half million dollar mid
Speaker 4: level exception. And the other thing you got to remember
Speaker 4: with the next what would they bring in here?
Speaker 3: Ever?
Speaker 4: Bring ever they bring in here? Next year they go
Speaker 4: they're gonna get to the finals. I mean, you can't
Speaker 4: bring somebody here to lose in the conference final. What's
Speaker 4: the point of doing that and next year the East
Speaker 4: is gonna be very easy. And so as a result,
Speaker 4: if you somehow don't get to the final next year,
Speaker 4: you did, I mean, the Celtics don't have Tatum, Lillard's
Speaker 4: not playing for Milwaukee and beide, who knows. Uh, you know,
Speaker 4: you got Cleveland, We'll see how they respond, and you
Speaker 4: got Indiana. I mean, there's nobody else East thinks. So
Speaker 4: that puts an awful lot of pressure on a coach
Speaker 4: coming in here knowing that he'd better get to an
Speaker 4: NBA final if he doesn't want to hear from the fans. So,
Speaker 4: I mean, I think they're in a little bit of
Speaker 4: a tough spot. I completely agree, and I think they
Speaker 4: put more pressure on themselves with this decision, which I
Speaker 4: think is it puts It's gonna make everybody say, well,
Speaker 4: now you fire Thibodau and he even gets to the final,
Speaker 4: how come the next guy loses in the second round,
Speaker 4: how does he stay? So I think that plays into two.
Speaker 4: Remember before Thibodeau, they had twelve coaches.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, they won one playoff.
Speaker 4: I think it was twelve. In the last twenty five years,
Speaker 4: they've had twelve coaches. They won one playoff series. You know,
Speaker 4: Larry Brown and Derek Fisher and David Fizdale and you know,
Speaker 4: go on No.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 5: One playoff series with Thibodeau. They won five.
Speaker 4: So I mean, the next guy next year is gonna
Speaker 4: have to win three. I don't know what the knickt
Speaker 4: solution is. I think they're a good team. I think
Speaker 4: they're a tough team, but I don't think necessarily they
Speaker 4: are a championship team. And let's as we swing to
Speaker 4: Indiana quickly, let's remember this too. Maybe Indiana and losing
Speaker 4: to them is not gonna be such a big deal.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe they beat Oklahoma City, and maybe they
Speaker 4: beat oklahomas and easier than they beat the Knicks after
Speaker 4: what we saw in Game one, where they continually do
Speaker 4: these miracle pullbacks and win these crazy games. And you know,
Speaker 4: I wasn't not impressed in Olahoma City last night. Who
Speaker 4: gave up, by the way, sixty something points in the
Speaker 4: second half. I'm allowed Indiana to shoot fifty two percent.
Speaker 4: So the idea that no.
Speaker 5: Listen, Okay, see constuc mback and win.
Speaker 4: But that was an awful, awful loss. So who knows,
Speaker 4: Maybe Indiana wins the whole thing makes the nick loss
Speaker 4: look a little better, So very issue. A lot of
Speaker 4: interesting issues with the nickobocracy here in New York, right,
Speaker 4: A lot of issues.
Speaker 1: One question about our local basketball team as we find
Speaker 1: ourselves in unchartered territory, you know, in the Miller's forty
Speaker 1: year stewardship of the Utah Jazz. More or less every year,
Speaker 1: while we've never won a championship out here, we've always
Speaker 1: had really good teams, and the rebuilds have only taken
Speaker 1: one or two years. And they were able to bridge
Speaker 1: the gap between stocked him alone to Darren Williamson Carlos Boozer,
Speaker 1: and then it was Gordon Hayward and then Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Rudy Gobert. Were about to enter our fourth year
Speaker 1: of a rebuild after Ryan Smith bought the team from
Speaker 1: the Millers and Danny Ainge left the Celtics for the
Speaker 1: Jazz Austin as Danny Sun was just hired to run
Speaker 1: basketball operations. But I wanted to get your take, mister
Speaker 1: Russo on the lottery situation.
Speaker 5: Joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Joe, Okay, yeah, good.
Speaker 5: I mean it.
Speaker 4: There's no way that Dallas and San Antonio should be
Speaker 4: wont to in a lottery and Utah would the fourth.
Speaker 6: Fit whatever dy be them all, Yeah, we're fifth with Wizards.
Speaker 5: I mean it's a joke.
Speaker 4: I mean the idea that the NBA has got to
Speaker 4: do this because these teams lose on purpose to get
Speaker 4: these picks the last fifteen twenty games of the year
Speaker 4: is an absolute disgrace. But I know they waited, we
Speaker 4: all know that, and it's ping pun balls and all that.
Speaker 4: But Dallas getso has a one point seven percent chance
Speaker 4: to win the lottery and they and they went Flag.
Speaker 4: I mean, that is a little lough. I don't know
Speaker 4: what the solution is, but it's it's a disaster. I mean,
Speaker 4: a jazz you're crazy and I don't like it. And
Speaker 4: if you're a Utah fan, you know Flag's the one
Speaker 4: guy you want to get. He's the one, at least
Speaker 4: on paper, the one guy there that is the transformational player.
Speaker 4: And he goes to a team that you know, traded
Speaker 4: Luca and they end up getting another kid now the
Speaker 4: next year, seventeen years of age. That's why I don't
Speaker 4: know why kid would have to leave when he's got
Speaker 4: this guy for the next fifteen years.
Speaker 5: I know it's the Western Conference.
Speaker 4: But I feel bad for you ton, I feel bad
Speaker 4: for the Wizards, and I feel bad for Charlotte. Those
Speaker 4: three teams had the worst records and they theoretically she
Speaker 4: get the three top players. Now, I don't know. You know,
Speaker 4: I understand these teams will lose. They give themselves the
Speaker 4: better chance to get that worst player. But uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what the solution is.
Speaker 5: But I've had enough with a lottery. They know Atlanta had.
Speaker 4: A three percent chance last year to win the lottery.
Speaker 7: They won it.
Speaker 4: I don't like it at all. It's a grand bag,
Speaker 4: it's a TV show, and I think something needs to
Speaker 4: be done. Your solution is better than mine. I don't
Speaker 4: know what exactly you could do.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you could just do in verse order
Speaker 1: the way pro football does. Right, You just reward the
Speaker 1: top pick to the worst team. Now, that doesn't de
Speaker 1: incentivize tanking, which Commissioner Silver has gone on record saying
Speaker 1: he very much wants to do. But I think the
Speaker 1: tough thing for us out here in Salt Lake is
Speaker 1: we're looking at an NBA finals with Oklahoma City in Indianapolis,
Speaker 1: and over the past five or six years, teams in
Speaker 1: Milwaukee and Denver have been able to win championships in
Speaker 1: Minnesota has a good team, and Denver still will have
Speaker 1: something to say about it as long as they have
Speaker 1: Nicola Jokic. We've entered mad dog, this era of parody
Speaker 1: where teams in smaller cities have been able to build
Speaker 1: up really, really competitive and championship level teams. And I
Speaker 1: think I'm just afraid that, you know, the Jazz are
Speaker 1: going to miss out on this opportunity to build a
Speaker 1: championship team during this era where teams in smaller markets
Speaker 1: have been able to do just that.
Speaker 4: Boy, you got to be you have to be lucky.
Speaker 4: You got to be terrible when that big player comes out,
Speaker 4: is what it comes down to. You know, san Antonio
Speaker 4: was terrible, There's Wemba yema uh and I got the
Speaker 4: top pick Dallas terrible to get flagged.
Speaker 5: He's going to be great. You would think top pick.
Speaker 4: You know, you need to be out of what Giannis
Speaker 4: pick was. I don't think he was the top pick.
Speaker 4: But the bottom line is you need to be an
Speaker 4: awful basketball team and then at the right time that
Speaker 4: the right player comes out of college is what it
Speaker 4: comes down to. And Utah hasn't had that advantage. Yet
Speaker 4: Noah's Charlotte, nor is Washington. Know those kind of teams,
Speaker 4: and you know, the NBA is about the great player.
Speaker 4: You got to get one to win one, and there's
Speaker 4: only about ten or twelve out there. You know, Giannis
Speaker 4: is one of them, indeed, healthy as one of them.
Speaker 4: We all know about Jokic, he's certainly one of them,
Speaker 4: Luca probably one of them.
Speaker 5: Lebron was one of them.
Speaker 4: You need one of those guys to build your team
Speaker 4: and have a chance to win. I'll let you want
Speaker 4: to get lucky with a guy like Curry who turns
Speaker 4: out to be an old timer when he was the
Speaker 4: seventh ticket the draft. So tricky start for the Jazz.
Speaker 4: They've been a great franchise, run properly, but sometimes luck
Speaker 4: is involved here too. They great there for those years
Speaker 4: in the nineties, and they got to sit there and
Speaker 4: I got to deal with Jordan so and they lose
Speaker 4: a couple of tough series. So it's it's tricky. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's it's very, very hard to win these championships.
Speaker 5: You know, there's a.
Speaker 4: Reason why the Celtics and the Lakers or they got
Speaker 4: about thirty two of the seventy championships. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: that's the very few. You know, Jordan's got six, but
Speaker 4: Bron's got a half of whatever. He's got four or five.
Speaker 5: Let's see what he's got.
Speaker 4: Four, right, the woman, the Lakers two with Miami woman, Cleveland,
Speaker 4: you know, the Curries got four. You know, the one
Speaker 4: great player dominates and wins a lot of these rings.
Speaker 4: And Utah hasn't had that great player yet. So obviously
Speaker 4: stocked in great and Malone great, but they ran into Jordan.
Speaker 4: For the most part, they haven't had those great players yet,
Speaker 4: that one transformational player.
Speaker 1: All right, before I set you loose, you referenced it earlier,
Speaker 1: and like everybody else, I picked Oklahoma City. I actually
Speaker 1: picked them in five. And it's funny, dog. I was
Speaker 1: watching the game with some buddies last night, and after
Speaker 1: Shay hit the layup to put them up seven with
Speaker 1: about I don't know, ninety seconds left or so, one
Speaker 1: of my buddies said, well, Okay, that's it, that's over.
Speaker 1: I said, no, it's not. You didn't watch any of
Speaker 1: the nick and yeah, the series said tight, let's see
Speaker 1: how this ends. I am so impressed with them, and
Speaker 1: I'm so impressed with Rick Carlisle. No part of me
Speaker 1: will ever be able to cheer for the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 1: But last night made things really interesting. I think I'm
Speaker 1: still leaning okay see, but after last night, what say
Speaker 1: you about these NBA Finals?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, listen, you can begin to
Speaker 4: start to think it just happens to be Indiana's year.
Speaker 4: I mean, it went four games like they've won in
Speaker 4: this postseason is miraculous. Last time may have been the
Speaker 4: biggest one. Well, I guess the nick game was in
Speaker 4: Game one, they were down five more points, but you
Speaker 4: know the fact that they only led for three tenths
Speaker 4: of a second, I mean, geez, and then it was
Speaker 4: the last basket of the game. You know, I thought,
Speaker 4: okay see, in six, I did think Indiana would be
Speaker 4: very competitive in this series.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I know, Okac recovered against Denver and had a great
Speaker 4: game two after they lost kind of a similar game
Speaker 4: in that first game. But this team right now is
Speaker 4: more dangerous than Denver was. They're a younger team, They're
Speaker 4: a hungrier team. They got more of a you know,
Speaker 4: this year, they got more of a foundation under him,
Speaker 4: They got a bigger belief than Denver had. I think
Speaker 4: you know, Denver a coaching change and you know, only
Speaker 4: won the fifty games anything else. And I think okay
Speaker 4: See was very familiar with Denver. They're not as familiar
Speaker 4: with Indiana, so this would be And I think Indiana
Speaker 4: in game two, well they got doing game two. Don't
Speaker 4: get blown out, you know, don't throw away that first
Speaker 4: game by getting killed in game two. I think Denver
Speaker 4: kind of did that in that second game where they
Speaker 4: got destroyed and never competitive. Don't let Oklahoma City have
Speaker 4: an easy game. Put stress on them. Make that game
Speaker 4: anybody's game with eight minutes to go, and if you lose,
Speaker 4: you lose, but you make Oklahoma City get little nervous.
Speaker 4: And I think that would be interesting to see how
Speaker 4: okay See handles that.
Speaker 5: Now. They did handle that.
Speaker 4: Denver game four well, when they were down you know,
Speaker 4: eight nine points in the fourth quarter and they came
Speaker 4: back to win. And they did handle game five well,
Speaker 4: don't get me wrong, because they were in trouble.
Speaker 5: They were at to to two.
Speaker 4: But Indiana's got loose something going on right now. I
Speaker 4: would agree with you, Spence. I still think the okay
Speaker 4: See probably will win. Uh, but you know, and Indiana's
Speaker 4: a goodbye. It's worth a shot because of that calma
Speaker 4: and that belief. And remember, okay, see now I said
Speaker 4: this is the deep end of the pool here. This
Speaker 4: is not the second round. This is deep end of
Speaker 4: the pool against a team that has been around a
Speaker 4: lot with a big coach. So we shall see. But
Speaker 4: it's got a chance to be a good series. Now,
Speaker 4: how's a chance?
Speaker 1: Well, mister Russo, always a pleasure. I still listen whenever
Speaker 1: I can. And as I often say when people ask
Speaker 1: me when I wanted to get into this business, it's
Speaker 1: when I used to listen to you and Mike driving
Speaker 1: around town. And so I appreciate your time and know
Speaker 1: you're busy. I'll set you loose and again, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: I stance.
Speaker 4: You do a wonderful, wonderful job.
Speaker 5: You're a good talk for host and your own man's
Speaker 5: a good man. You know that I love you for all.
Speaker 1: No, that's kind of you. Appreciate that.
Speaker 4: Have a great show today, Okay, okay, buddy, appreciate all right.
Speaker 1: The great Chris Russo, mad Dog Mike and the mad
Speaker 1: Dog one of my uh uh really uh, I would say,
Speaker 1: kind of muses or rosebuds, did me me consider doing
Speaker 1: this for a living in a number of different years ago,
Speaker 1: and Chris is still doing it at a very high level.
Speaker 1: You can see him. I think it's Wednesdays with Stephen A.
Speaker 1: Smith on First Take. He has his own show daily
Speaker 1: on Sirius XM special thanks to Chris Russo Mad Dog
Speaker 1: stopping by to start the show off.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: Zach Harper will join us from the Athletic in a bit.
Speaker 1: Gordon Montson, my old radio partner from the old days
Speaker 1: at the old station, longtime columnists from the Salt Lake
Speaker 1: Tribune as our guest later on. A lot of powerhouse
Speaker 1: writers on the show Today. Howard Beck, one of our
Speaker 1: favorites from the Ringer on a Friday, Howard, Happy Friday, sir,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 8: I'm doing well, Happy Friday. Thank you for bringing me
Speaker 8: into war on drugs one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: All I want is the Howard Beck stamp of approval
Speaker 1: on our musical choice. So you've made my Friday. You
Speaker 1: have made my weekend, Howard. We will start with news
Speaker 1: that was made out this way. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know, Austin Ange. I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: been able to meet him or get to know him
Speaker 1: at all. Ultimately, he has been hired as the new
Speaker 1: basketball excuse me, the new president of basketball operations for
Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz, and Ryan Smith himself said during the
Speaker 1: press conference that this is now the loudest voice in
Speaker 1: our front office. This is Austin show. He has final say,
Speaker 1: meaning his dad reports to him, meaning Justin Zanik, the
Speaker 1: general manager, reports to him. So it's not as topical
Speaker 1: as some of the other things we'll get into, but
Speaker 1: we are in Salt Lake City. Howard, what's your reaction
Speaker 1: of the hire that was made this week?
Speaker 8: Honestly, I am barely like dug into it myself, just
Speaker 8: because I'm at the NBA Finals in Oklahoma. I've you know,
Speaker 8: obviously been trying to also dig around on some Nixon
Speaker 8: Tibbs things and everything else, and like everybody else, I
Speaker 8: did not.
Speaker 7: See this coming.
Speaker 8: I did not know they were going to make a hire.
Speaker 8: I did not know that hire would be another member
Speaker 8: of the empire. I kind of just assumed that, you know,
Speaker 8: Danny with whatever his title is CEO, Chief Executive of
Speaker 8: being Danny Ainge, that that he and Justin Zanik kind
Speaker 8: of had this thing pretty well staffed. Those are two
Speaker 8: seasoned hands and two really smart people. So I'm curious
Speaker 8: to understand. And I did not catch the press conference. Again,
Speaker 8: it's just been a bonker's week, so I did not
Speaker 8: see the press conference. I saw a couple of the
Speaker 8: comments from from Austin about not wanting to take anymore,
Speaker 8: but that should be what anybody would say at the stage.
Speaker 8: That's not surprising how this all works, whether it's chain
Speaker 8: of command, whether it's what the philosophy is now why
Speaker 8: they felt they needed another executive in there. I'm honestly,
Speaker 8: you know more than I do right now. I am
Speaker 8: still trying to get a grasp of it, but I'm
Speaker 8: busy running between NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: Games, certainly, and I'm going to stretch to try to
Speaker 1: make this a little more topical and then we'll get
Speaker 1: to the things where your energy has been allocated. But
Speaker 1: you'll be able to handle this just fine, Howard. So
Speaker 1: here we go. If I look at this from a
Speaker 1: positive spin, what ownership out here has done. They've extended
Speaker 1: Will Hardy until twenty thirty. Their front office is now
Speaker 1: solidified and in place, and it's kind of the anti
Speaker 1: Jim Dolan Nick approach Now, of course you need players.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter who your coach is, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who your front office is. But for a team that's
Speaker 1: won thirty three percent of their games for the last
Speaker 1: four years, to extend their coach and extend their belief
Speaker 1: in the front office, I suppose that is an approach
Speaker 1: that does lead to stability in hopefully given time, the
Speaker 1: right choices are made. So again, while the product on
Speaker 1: the court continues to suffer and they've got to find players,
Speaker 1: at least, what Ryan and Ashley have elected to do
Speaker 1: is lock in a coaching staff in a front office
Speaker 1: for a number of years. If we can look at
Speaker 1: that as any sort of a positive, I.
Speaker 8: Think it is the first step in any of these
Speaker 8: situations is hire the right people, empower them, and especially
Speaker 8: if you're a team that's in some semblance of a rebuild,
Speaker 8: you've got to give them the time to do it now.
Speaker 8: It's not in perpetuity, and if they're doing it badly,
Speaker 8: of course you have the right to as the as
Speaker 8: the owner of the team, to reevaluate, reassess, and dismiss
Speaker 8: them if they're not doing it. But you've already hired
Speaker 8: some of the smartest people around like, just you know,
Speaker 8: and you've signed off on the let's blow up the
Speaker 8: team we had with Mitchell and Gobert. Let's go into
Speaker 8: what was I think, frankly kind of a you know,
Speaker 8: a half hearted rebuild slash, well we're going to retool
Speaker 8: on the fly thing that I, as you know, I
Speaker 8: never thought was the right idea that you're either all
Speaker 8: in or all out, and they needed to just be
Speaker 8: all in on the tank from the start. This is
Speaker 8: the first season they really embraced that. I thought they
Speaker 8: should have been doing it the last couple of years,
Speaker 8: and then at backfires to the extent that they did
Speaker 8: not get the top pick in the draft or even
Speaker 8: a top three pick, And at some point you have
Speaker 8: to kind of, you know, decide what is our way
Speaker 8: out of the morass the unfortunate thing. And Zach Loh
Speaker 8: and I just talked about this on his pod that'll
Speaker 8: be posting later today, so people can go listen to
Speaker 8: us talk about the jazz quite a bit on that.
Speaker 8: But you know the difficulty is whatever you decide to do,
Speaker 8: whether you're trying to augment around lowry marketing, or whether
Speaker 8: you decide the actual path forward is to trade lowery
Speaker 8: market in nothing is getting you back in the mix
Speaker 8: in the near future anyway, because most of the teams
Speaker 8: ahead of them are firmly ahead of them. Then there's
Speaker 8: no obvious teams to just really you know, fall off
Speaker 8: a cliff. So you probably need to be patient anyway.
Speaker 8: And I think back to your premise and your question
Speaker 8: or statement about just the the you know, vote of
Speaker 8: confidence in this group and having continuity. Continuity is good
Speaker 8: when you have the right people, and they have the
Speaker 8: right people. I think they have the right coach. I
Speaker 8: think they have the right front office. Austin Ainge and
Speaker 8: I have only met a couple times over the years.
Speaker 8: I don't know him well, but you know, obviously he
Speaker 8: and Danny both really smart basketball people. I know, justin
Speaker 8: a smart basketball person, you've got the right people in place,
Speaker 8: and then sometimes it just takes a little bit of
Speaker 8: patients planning, a little good luck, a little opportunism. But
Speaker 8: they're in a very difficult spot because they happen to
Speaker 8: be in a Western conference that's absolutely act where even
Speaker 8: the teams that are not contenders are really strong and
Speaker 8: it's just hard to leapfrog anybody. So you do have
Speaker 8: to look at your time horizon and say, where is
Speaker 8: our opportunity to jump back in the mix, because it's
Speaker 8: not tomorrow, it's not this next season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no it's not. And that's why one more thing
Speaker 1: here then we'll move on. I would imagine if you
Speaker 1: and Zach discuss this situation you discussed Austin saying we're
Speaker 1: not tanking anymore, which is all fine and good, But
Speaker 1: the Jazz is on a top eight protected pick that
Speaker 1: goes to Oklahoma City if it falls out of the
Speaker 1: top eight, And look, I don't know your opinion on
Speaker 1: this roster. If they decide to go best foot forward
Speaker 1: and play the Vets seventy seventy five games, Marketing plays, Kessler,
Speaker 1: plays Collins Sexton, all the Vets play seventy seventy five games,
Speaker 1: or whatever the fear I think in the approach of
Speaker 1: simply okay, we are going to try to compete, which
Speaker 1: I think is a good thing when you look at
Speaker 1: the lack of integrity they use to approach the unserious
Speaker 1: competition element of the organization a year ago. I mean,
Speaker 1: you do want to see the team you cheer for
Speaker 1: to try hard every night. But if we're sitting in
Speaker 1: your next spring and they've won thirty five games, and
Speaker 1: Mark Tatum pulls out the number nine envelope and it's
Speaker 1: the Jazz and that goes to Okay. See that's a
Speaker 1: massive step, Howard in the wrong direction.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that would be that would be a blow. I mean,
Speaker 8: and that was, of course, you know a different version
Speaker 8: of this, but that was you know, the sixersphere, you know,
Speaker 8: a couple of weeks ago, when they were in this
Speaker 8: position with a pick. That was of course also with Oklahoma,
Speaker 8: because everybody owes their picks to Oklahoma. I think, listen,
Speaker 8: I think that that mere fact suggests that, yes, they
Speaker 8: should plan on being bad enough again to keep their pick.
Speaker 8: The fine line between that and quote unquote tanking is
Speaker 8: the scenario you just outlined. And it's interesting.
Speaker 7: Play all the vets.
Speaker 8: Zach just said this on the pod that we like
Speaker 8: literally just recorded twenty minutes ago. Zach said, listen, they
Speaker 8: can play all the Vets, all the guys that you
Speaker 8: just named, and there's still probably a lottery team, there's
Speaker 8: still probably the fourteenth team in the West. But at
Speaker 8: least it would be a respectable version of that. Hey,
Speaker 8: we tried and we just lost because we don't have
Speaker 8: the talent, we don't have the guns, but it would
Speaker 8: be I think more palatable to the fans. I would
Speaker 8: think the record wouldn't.
Speaker 7: But the product would be.
Speaker 8: It'll be more palatable to the NBA League office where
Speaker 8: they won't have to find you for playing games in
Speaker 8: shenanigans with injuries and fake injuries and guys just disappearing.
Speaker 8: So and that's why I think the stronger case tanking
Speaker 8: or no tanking the stronger case here. With lowery marketing
Speaker 8: at twenty eight or whatever and firmly in his prime
Speaker 8: and with no sense that this team was going to
Speaker 8: turn it around soon ish, it makes more sense for
Speaker 8: lowry marketing to be somewhere else. And he's got value
Speaker 8: around the league, and there are teams that, you know,
Speaker 8: maybe lowery marketing a way from going from play into
Speaker 8: play or from six seed to four seed or whatever.
Speaker 8: He's a great, complimentary star, but he's not a leading man.
Speaker 8: And you know, I don't know what you'd get if
Speaker 8: you put him on the market tomorrow, but I think
Speaker 8: whatever you got, would you know, put you that much
Speaker 8: further along toward whatever the next era will be, because
Speaker 8: I don't think that he's part of the next winning
Speaker 8: or at least not the next high level winning team.
Speaker 1: Well, and with the final stuff, but you reference the
Speaker 1: New York Knicks electing to move on from Tom Thibodeau,
Speaker 1: which I just still cannot wrap my mind around. I've
Speaker 1: read a lot of takes, I've listened to a lot
Speaker 1: of takes, and there are a lot of people that
Speaker 1: claim they have sources here there about it being player driven,
Speaker 1: the whole CAAA thing, even though Tom was a CAAA
Speaker 1: guy and Leon was his agent. I would venture to
Speaker 1: guess that a guy like Tom Thibodeau probably does not
Speaker 1: like a guy very much who goes by the moniker
Speaker 1: of Worldwide West. I can understand that. And they have
Speaker 1: an owner that has a reputation of making rash decisions
Speaker 1: based off of emotion in the moment, which is why
Speaker 1: they've been irrelevant for twenty five years. I think it's
Speaker 1: so dumb, and we'll see what happens next. But throughout
Speaker 1: the course of your conversations, what were the reasons and
Speaker 1: who ultimately was behind this decision to let go of
Speaker 1: Tom Tibodeau.
Speaker 7: It's a mixed.
Speaker 8: Bag, and in the moment that it happened, and like
Speaker 8: we taped a podcast, We taped The Real Ones podcast
Speaker 8: Logan Murick and I like immediate after this and in
Speaker 8: the in that moment, I was like talking, I'm not
Speaker 8: quite in circles, but I was definitely like I could
Speaker 8: see it this way. But then there's also this, it's
Speaker 8: very it's complicated to me. I don't think it's black
Speaker 8: and white. And I understand like where you're coming from on.
Speaker 5: This, but.
Speaker 8: Yes, this was by far the best era of Knicks
Speaker 8: basketball in a very long time, in a quarter century.
Speaker 8: Five very good seasons, back to back fifty win seasons,
Speaker 8: first conference finals in twenty five years.
Speaker 1: All that.
Speaker 8: Timms deserves a lot of credit for that, but it's
Speaker 8: not just him, Like the most important reason that they're
Speaker 8: respectable again, as Jalen Brunson and Jalen Brunston joined the
Speaker 8: Knixt in part because Jalen Brenson has close ties to
Speaker 8: Leon Rose, to that front office. There was obviously they
Speaker 8: got charged with tampering or they were guilty of tampering
Speaker 8: that leaked, docked them a couple of second round picks
Speaker 8: or whatever it was. Because of the Rick Brunson element here,
Speaker 8: Jalen Brunson is the most important reason. Tims is among
Speaker 8: the important reasons.
Speaker 7: But this is also a team that they've made a lot.
Speaker 8: Of smart moves. I mean, they went out and got
Speaker 8: oh g Anobi, they trade and were willing to pay him.
Speaker 8: They went out and got Josh hart who wasn't exactly
Speaker 8: in high demand at the moment that they plucked him,
Speaker 8: Isaiah Hartenstein, Devencenzo, all the guys they've gotten along the way,
Speaker 8: and Tibbs created a culture and an ethos that I
Speaker 8: think was really important in this re emergence. And they
Speaker 8: got the players who fit him, because that's really important.
Speaker 8: They got players who were grinders and who would respond
Speaker 8: to a Tibb's type of approach where this so he deserves,
Speaker 8: like Timms is all the credit in the world, in
Speaker 8: addition to obviously everybody else I just named.
Speaker 7: They are now.
Speaker 8: But you do have to reassess at a certain point,
Speaker 8: or assess is And it's not just because they lost
Speaker 8: in the conference finals. This isn't oh, they didn't make
Speaker 8: the finals, we're firing the coach. By everything I've been
Speaker 8: able to gather over the last couple of days and
Speaker 8: by no means, there's this definitive I won't say that
Speaker 8: like I have the definitive version of this. You can
Speaker 8: find a lot of different versions as you're calling around.
Speaker 8: But I think that the reservations that the front office had,
Speaker 8: and I'm loathed as much as I've covered the next
Speaker 8: over the last twenty years and been in New York,
Speaker 8: I'm loth ever dismissed the possibility this is just Dolan
Speaker 8: being Dolan, But I don't think that that was what
Speaker 8: was going on in this case. I think this was
Speaker 8: Leon Rose and Leon and Tibbs have been you know,
Speaker 8: tight for a long time too. Obviously Leon's the one
Speaker 8: who hired him. I think there was a consensus conclusion
Speaker 8: in that front office that all the things that you
Speaker 8: and I already know about tips, or that the criticisms
Speaker 8: that we've all heard, that those things were a concern,
Speaker 8: whether it's the minutes for the starters, the lack of
Speaker 8: trust in the bench, the lack of development of the bench,
Speaker 8: and then finally going to the bench kind of a
Speaker 8: too little, too late scenario in the conference finals, which
Speaker 8: just underscored why you should have been playing them sooner,
Speaker 8: because these guys have had very little run and very
Speaker 8: little time to get comfortable with each other or with
Speaker 8: the rest of that lineup. There's also you know, in
Speaker 8: today's NBA we talk a lot about alignment. You want
Speaker 8: the front office and coach to kind of have a
Speaker 8: similar vision. Doesn't always happen. We saw how badly that
Speaker 8: can go in Denver with Michael Malone and Calvin Booth
Speaker 8: basically blowing each other up, and they both got fired.
Speaker 8: And that goes back to again developing the bench. You
Speaker 8: need you know, again Denver and New York both you
Speaker 8: need a coach who's going to trust the front office's
Speaker 8: investment in certain players in the front office needs to
Speaker 8: trust the coach and then develop them. So there's all
Speaker 8: these things, and I think there were moments over the
Speaker 8: last couple of years, pre dating the actual firing, where
Speaker 8: there were conversations about is he the right coach to
Speaker 8: still go forward with. I've also talked to a couple
Speaker 8: of coaches around the league the last couple of days,
Speaker 8: and these are coaches who strongly admire TIBs, other veterans
Speaker 8: who have been around a long time, and who basically
Speaker 8: told me, listen, there are some limits because of the
Speaker 8: way he coaches and because of the style that he
Speaker 8: coaches and like, look at Jalen Brunton and how much
Speaker 8: he dominates the ball and you want to put it
Speaker 8: on brunts and you could say that, but the coaches
Speaker 8: is the one who decides how to what style of play.
Speaker 8: They are very half oriented, but they also like I
Speaker 8: think tops in the league in shots taken in the
Speaker 8: final seconds of the shot clock, and the deeper in
Speaker 8: the shot clock you go, the lower efficiency the shots are,
Speaker 8: so that they need more innovation in that offense. They
Speaker 8: need to empower Mchail Bridges and Karl Anthony townsmore after
Speaker 8: acquiring those guys, and they can both do stuff with
Speaker 8: the ball in their hands. Like there are fair criticisms
Speaker 8: of TIBs and the limitations that came with him. That
Speaker 8: was a very long winded answer.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it was a long winded but good ants.
Speaker 1: And I mean the one area I would offer pushback
Speaker 1: will completely admitting my bias about the way I feel
Speaker 1: about Tom as a person and a coach, is when
Speaker 1: you look at their bench. I mean they've got six
Speaker 1: and a half players, maybe seven. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: going to stretch and play campaign and precious Atua, you
Speaker 1: know Landry Shammitt, Like, I think it's also fair to
Speaker 1: bring up that that's not a very deep roster in
Speaker 1: my opinion, and I think it's hard. The criticisms about
Speaker 1: Tom waiting until the Pacers series to dust some of
Speaker 1: these guys off totally fair because we had Delon right
Speaker 1: out here.
Speaker 7: To you.
Speaker 1: I mean, he is somebody who has more capabilities as
Speaker 1: a ball in hand guy than he is shown. They
Speaker 1: basically only used him as a defensive stopper, but he's
Speaker 1: not a horrible offensive option. But he no confidence because
Speaker 1: he hadn't played in so long. But the one pushback
Speaker 1: I would offer to your answer is I don't see
Speaker 1: a ross or the Tom was handed with very much depth.
Speaker 8: In my opinion, I wasn't real fond of that bench either.
Speaker 8: But what we did see, and this is where it backfires, right,
Speaker 8: you put in deln Wright and Landry Shammitt and suddenly
Speaker 8: they actually got some good minutes out of them, and
Speaker 8: those that was like he Tom got credited as he
Speaker 8: should for making that adjustment in the series and it
Speaker 8: helped them in those games, which then makes you question, well,
Speaker 8: then why weren't they good enough to play in the
Speaker 8: regular season.
Speaker 10: The other piece of.
Speaker 8: That is guys do like players are creatures of habit.
Speaker 8: They need the rhythm and the familiarity and also the
Speaker 8: confidence of the coaching staff and of their teammates. And
Speaker 8: if you haven't been playing them for months and then
Speaker 8: you're dusting them off at a key moment, you're probably
Speaker 8: not going to get the best out of them. But
Speaker 8: I think there's a case to be made. And yeah,
Speaker 8: these are fringe rotation players to be sure, but would
Speaker 8: they have been better rotation players if you had played
Speaker 8: them a little in the regular season. And the thing
Speaker 8: with Tips has always been he plays every single game
Speaker 8: and you could spin this positive, spin this negative, but
Speaker 8: he plays every single game like the fate of the
Speaker 8: universe depends on it. He wants to win every single game.
Speaker 8: And I think that was really beneficial to the Knicks
Speaker 8: at a time when they were just trying to become
Speaker 8: respectable again, competitive again. But it backfires potentially when you're
Speaker 8: at a stage like this where you need guys a
Speaker 8: little fresher for the playoffs. Other teams are really you know,
Speaker 8: their their depth is not just because they got better players,
Speaker 8: but because they invested in those players and played them
Speaker 8: a lot. And now your guys are gassed when their
Speaker 8: guys are fresh, because they're going ten deep and you're
Speaker 8: going seven. And so I you know, there's always a
Speaker 8: little bit of blame to go around on something like this.
Speaker 8: I do think their bench could be better, should be better.
Speaker 8: But I also think that TIB's waited too long. And
Speaker 8: you know that's again, that's only one piece of this.
Speaker 8: When I when I was there, was a coach I
Speaker 8: was talking to the other day, again, somebody's been around
Speaker 8: a long time. Assistant coach, has been in a lot
Speaker 8: of different stats, coached under a lot of different coaches,
Speaker 8: and he said that Tom was coaching like it was
Speaker 8: still the nineties. And I said, whoa like? You mean offensively,
Speaker 8: he goes both sides And that was a little surprising
Speaker 8: to me.
Speaker 1: So who, ultimately do you think they land on, because honestly,
Speaker 1: no matter who it is, I don't know that they
Speaker 1: get back to the Eastern Conference finals. Now there's a
Speaker 1: case to be made that Boston has some decisions to make,
Speaker 1: and there'll be without Tatum. Indiana's probably already put themselves
Speaker 1: in the mix to be the favorite right out of
Speaker 1: the gates, and there are so many questions with Giannis.
Speaker 1: Can any of these younger teams take steps up like Detroit,
Speaker 1: Orlando or whatever, so they'll be in the mix. But
Speaker 1: based off of what I perceived to be a roster
Speaker 1: that needs a lot of work, If a coach takes
Speaker 1: over for Tom and goes back to the Eastern Conference Finals,
Speaker 1: I'd be widely impressed because I think Tom really did
Speaker 1: something that nobody saw coming even a little bit of
Speaker 1: a head of schedule, that they actually got to the
Speaker 1: Eastern Conference Finals. And I think we've all heard a
Speaker 1: lot of the names out there. Who do you think
Speaker 1: ultimately they land on Howard and why?
Speaker 8: I have no guess as to who they land on.
Speaker 8: My buddy mark Stein has been reporting today that Jason
Speaker 8: Kidd is not just on their radar, but that they've
Speaker 8: actually asked for permission from the Mavericks to speak with him,
Speaker 8: and it's not clear whether the Mavericks are going to
Speaker 8: grant that permission or not. And then it would be
Speaker 8: a question of can you figure out a compensation package?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 8: Like, we haven't seen this in a long time. We
Speaker 8: refer to it as a trade. It's not really a trade,
Speaker 8: it's more just compensation. But you know, Doc Rivers going
Speaker 8: from Boston to the Clippers, and the Clippers gave the
Speaker 8: Celtics a first round pick as compensation from letting him
Speaker 8: out of his deal. The Knicks don't have a lot
Speaker 8: of first round picks to spare after sending all those
Speaker 8: picks to the nets for mkhail Bridges, so giving up
Speaker 8: draft capital doesn't seem like a wise move to go
Speaker 8: get a coach who I don't know if Jason Kids
Speaker 8: an upgrade over Tom like he's different. Whoever they get
Speaker 8: may not be necessarily quote unquote demonstrably better, but just different, right,
Speaker 8: And I think different as what they're looking for right now,
Speaker 8: just a hunch on my part, I think Taylor Jenkins
Speaker 8: makes a lot of sense for them. I wouldn't be
Speaker 8: surprised if they went that direct. I don't think it'll
Speaker 8: be Michael Malone for reasons that I've already kind of
Speaker 8: alluded to. And I just think that what they're looking
Speaker 8: for now is somebody who one is more of a
Speaker 8: relationships guy. That's not Tibbs's repid reputed strength. So relationships,
Speaker 8: whether it's you know, the front office, players, whatever, somebody
Speaker 8: who's a little bit more of a relationships guy. A communicator,
Speaker 8: and then to somebody who might be a little bit
Speaker 8: more innovative, I would say not more than maybe, but
Speaker 8: is more innovative on the offensive end and is going
Speaker 8: to do more to make this less brunts and centric,
Speaker 8: and assuming that Bridges and Towns are still on the roster,
Speaker 8: utilize those guys because you know, they put a lot
Speaker 8: in to get those guys and to diversify the offense.
Speaker 8: This is one of the most expensive starting fives in
Speaker 8: the NBA and for good reason. Yeah, the bench, you know,
Speaker 8: we we've talked about, but like it's because they're top
Speaker 8: heavy and there's more I think ability to exploit that talent.
Speaker 8: Then we saw this.
Speaker 1: Season all right, moving over to you know, teams that
Speaker 1: are still playing basketball. Since you were present for the
Speaker 1: events that last night, you know, I was talking about
Speaker 1: this earlier. I was watching the game with a few
Speaker 1: buddies and Shay was able to hit that layup. I
Speaker 1: think it put him up seven with like ninety seconds
Speaker 1: left or whatever, and one of my friends said, all right, well,
Speaker 1: that's probably it, and I said, oh, you haven't been
Speaker 1: watching the playoffs, because let's sit tight here and see
Speaker 1: how this goes down. There are so many Bull's eyes.
Speaker 1: We could aim at Howard, but I'll give you the space.
Speaker 1: What were your takeaways from watching yet another Indiana comeback
Speaker 1: and then being up one zero in the NBA Finals?
Speaker 8: Just stunning. I mean I was at the garden for
Speaker 8: a couple of those Haliburton moments, and of course we've
Speaker 8: all watched, you know, the other moments he's had against
Speaker 8: Cleveland and Milwaukee. It's almost just almost expected at this point,
Speaker 8: like he pulls it for that shot, He's like, of
Speaker 8: course he's gonna make it. This is just what he
Speaker 8: does now, Tyres Haliburton has become one of the best
Speaker 8: postseason clutch shooters of all time in the space of
Speaker 8: about a month, like these were all like iconic, incredible
Speaker 8: shots and stretches of shots, and it's it's it's remarkable.
Speaker 8: The guys just cold blooded and what a fun moment.
Speaker 8: Unless you're a thunder fan, this is one of the
Speaker 8: loudest I think it might be deloud us to read
Speaker 8: in the NBA. I hadn't been here a long time.
Speaker 8: I'd forgotten, and just last night it was a rude
Speaker 8: reminder of just like how much it hurts your ears,
Speaker 8: and you know, to be able to silence that place
Speaker 8: is a feat into itself. I don't know there's anything
Speaker 8: to drop in that game basketball wise, only because like,
Speaker 8: not because it's fluky, but it's because like you can
Speaker 8: talk about all the adjustments and schemes and everything in
Speaker 8: the world, and yes, there are there are, you know,
Speaker 8: things that that the thunder could have done better here
Speaker 8: or there where you know, one basket would have made
Speaker 8: a difference and they don't lose.
Speaker 7: But sometimes it's.
Speaker 8: Just the the you know, the talent of one guy
Speaker 8: being able to hit a shot like that in a
Speaker 8: moment like that.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, this conversation about who Halliburton is is a
Speaker 1: little bit exhausting because ultimately, I suppose a superstar player
Speaker 1: is left to the definition of the individual who's having
Speaker 1: the conversation. I'll ask you, though, because you were really
Speaker 1: high on him a long long time ago, is is
Speaker 1: he better than you ever thought he could be based
Speaker 1: off of how he's evolved.
Speaker 8: I thought early on in Sacramento. And that's funny because
Speaker 8: at the time, Kings folks were talking about, like we
Speaker 8: we think he's really going to be a really good
Speaker 8: defender across three positions and everything else. And it's funny
Speaker 8: because the defensive part of it has kind of faded
Speaker 8: or receded over time as he's emerged more as a
Speaker 8: as a playmaker and scorer. He's not your prototypical high
Speaker 8: usage guard in the mold of like a Harden or
Speaker 8: Westbrook or anybody you know in this in this age
Speaker 8: who you know everything revolves around me. Gayalen Brunson would
Speaker 8: be another one, or you know certain versions of Trey Young,
Speaker 8: like Halliburton part he's more like Steve Nash where he's
Speaker 8: gonna like get the ball up court quickly. He's gonna
Speaker 8: make those hit ahead passes. He's gonna pass it early
Speaker 8: in the shot clock and then maybe it'll come back
Speaker 8: to him and maybe it won't, but it sets the
Speaker 8: tone for the whole team. And so his selflessness is
Speaker 8: part of the the allure there where he can do
Speaker 8: some things with the ball in his hands, but he's
Speaker 8: not the classic I'm just gonna like, you know, back
Speaker 8: you down, or like beat you off the dribble or
Speaker 8: you know, iso at the elbow, and like it's not
Speaker 8: revolving around him. He's not gonna dominate the ball and
Speaker 8: dominate the offense and then he's got this funky, unconventional shot,
Speaker 8: but he's he's such a embrace the moment kind of player.
Speaker 8: There are guys who can average twenty five thirty but
Speaker 8: aren't necessarily that great in the clutch and maybe don't
Speaker 8: necessarily want those moments again, James Harden comes to mind,
Speaker 8: and then Halliburton's the inverse where he's not high usage.
Speaker 8: He's not gonna necessarily dominate the ball or drop thirty
Speaker 8: five every night, though he's capable of doing it on occasion,
Speaker 8: but he's gonna play a really efficient game. He's going
Speaker 8: to keep the ball moving, he empowers his teammates, and
Speaker 8: then when it's showtime and it's crunch time, there's no
Speaker 8: shot that's too big for him or.
Speaker 7: A moment that's too big.
Speaker 8: For a minute, it's incredible, Like that's an uncanny thing
Speaker 8: that you cannot properly quantify.
Speaker 7: You just watch a.
Speaker 8: Guy do that over and over and you go like, Yeah,
Speaker 8: that dude is clutched by definition, and he's got something
Speaker 8: special and it's harder to find. You just know it
Speaker 8: when you see it.
Speaker 1: I know you're not big on predictions, but before I
Speaker 1: say you lose, I'll ask you like this, like the
Speaker 1: rest of the free world. I picked Oklahoma City to
Speaker 1: win the series. I said five games. They'll have to
Speaker 1: win four straight to do that. I still lean that way.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I feel like it's five. And
Speaker 1: I also I will put the disclaimer that as a
Speaker 1: basketball fan, I just want to see really good games,
Speaker 1: and I would love to see seven really good games.
Speaker 1: If that was the case, it would be awesome or
Speaker 1: one for one. Oklahoma City has already been installed as
Speaker 1: a ten point five point favorite on Sunday night, So
Speaker 1: I know you're not big on prediction, but as far
Speaker 1: as what you saw last night, do you do you
Speaker 1: feel like you know there's still a genuine possibility that
Speaker 1: OKAC makes this a short series. Does it feel like
Speaker 1: it's gonna be long with a lot of really close,
Speaker 1: fun games.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I picked Oklahoma in five as well. Before the series started,
Speaker 8: so I was present for and covering Lakers six Ers
Speaker 8: back in the day when the Sixers stunned them in
Speaker 8: Game one yep, first first postseason loss of that postseason
Speaker 8: for the Lakers, and then the Lakers just stomped them
Speaker 8: for the next four games. That's a little different when
Speaker 8: you you know you got Shack. Shay is awesome, but
Speaker 8: he's not Shack, and I don't expect we're going to
Speaker 8: see that play out. So probably the thunder and five
Speaker 8: that you and I both picked is probably not the case.
Speaker 8: But thunder and six certainly feels like a possibility. But
Speaker 8: like I mean, there's a certain point where, no matter
Speaker 8: how many times we see it, we're still a little
Speaker 8: not just skeptical the Pacers. It's not disrespect just like, yeah,
Speaker 8: the thunder just have more there's more reasons to believe
Speaker 8: in them than the Pacers at this stage. But when
Speaker 8: the Pacers have done what they've done over and over
Speaker 8: again to find expectations so many times, taken down all
Speaker 8: these teams that were higher ranked and with better records,
Speaker 8: at a certain point, maybe we should just sit back
Speaker 8: and say this series is not as clear cut as
Speaker 8: we thought it was, and maybe the Pacers can win
Speaker 8: this thing. And look, they stole home court advantage, hit
Speaker 8: they won in one of the toughest buildings in the NBA.
Speaker 8: I'm done predicting.
Speaker 7: How about that?
Speaker 1: What does a hip Brooklyn NBA rider do with two
Speaker 1: free days on his hands in Oklahoma City?
Speaker 7: I'm I'm working man like this.
Speaker 8: It's not like days off, like there was no practices today.
Speaker 8: That's how they always build the schedule. There's there's no
Speaker 8: availability after game one, but they have practice tomorrow and
Speaker 8: then we'll have game two on Sunday. There's some downtime,
Speaker 8: but like you know, listen, I'm making calls and trying
Speaker 8: to find out what the dicks we're doing with tips
Speaker 8: and trying to figure out, you know, working on some
Speaker 8: other stories along the way.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 8: I did hit my favorite breakfast spot here that I had.
Speaker 8: They do like an old day breakfast that I had
Speaker 8: not been there in years. Kitchen three, two four, absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 8: Ran into multiple NBA types over there, so clearly the
Speaker 8: secret's out. There's no secret actually there. It was like
Speaker 8: a forty five minute wait, but that's it. Like I'm going,
Speaker 8: I'm just looking for good food, spence and trying not
Speaker 8: to melt in the humidity out there.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I like the positive attitude. Howard, Thanks for the time,
Speaker 1: have a great weekend and we'll chat soon.
Speaker 7: Thanks buddy, all right, man Ticre.
Speaker 1: Howard Beck covers the NBA for The Ringer. He has
Speaker 1: been at Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, the La Times.
Speaker 1: He's been one of my favorite NBA riders for probably
Speaker 1: twenty five years now. I always appreciate Howard's time when
Speaker 1: he stops by at Howard beck Is where you find
Speaker 1: him on your preferred social media platform. His preferred social
Speaker 1: media platform is not the one owned by the ex
Speaker 1: best friend of the President of the United States. I'll
Speaker 1: just leave that there. Stops bot today. Curtis about friends
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Speaker 1: dot co Op. This is our guy? Is this the
Speaker 1: guy I introduced you to while back?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this is our guy. Right, A little culter
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 1: Is it Culture Wall?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That's great.
Speaker 1: I was recently. I think you referenced that you liked
Speaker 1: his music a few years back. Don't you go to
Speaker 1: his shows every time he comes to the.
Speaker 2: Market, so I know his manager, that's why. So there's
Speaker 2: a help book some of his stuff actually booked his
Speaker 2: first show in Salt Lake, which was for like a
Speaker 2: few hundred people at the Urban Lounge. He's now playing
Speaker 2: like stadiums, huge, huge festivals. So his first show was
Speaker 2: like I think we had two hundred and seventy people
Speaker 2: there at the Urban Lene.
Speaker 1: He's playing stadiums now.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's been like a full stadium,
Speaker 2: but big, big, big venues, like I think the last
Speaker 2: one here was even just Redbute as a much bigger venue.
Speaker 2: But he is, uh, he's doing much bigger shows. I
Speaker 2: don't know if he would do a stadium, like if
Speaker 2: you if you asked him, it might not be his
Speaker 2: his scene.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that the paycheck was right. You do
Speaker 1: a stadium, wouldn't he?
Speaker 2: That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I don't know. Maybe, like a month month
Speaker 1: and a half ago, buddy of mine whose musical taste
Speaker 1: I respect, was like, hey, have you heard of this
Speaker 1: culture wild guy? I'm like, yeah, my producer likes him.
Speaker 1: He's like, he's great. So I've been listening a little bit. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's uh, how what is it? How'd you
Speaker 1: characterize it?
Speaker 3: This?
Speaker 2: This and culture perfectly encapsulates why our view of country
Speaker 2: music is so different. I would say his is almost
Speaker 2: more like country western, where country music that folks who
Speaker 2: listened to Dave Matthews respectfully think of is like Alan Jackson,
Speaker 2: it's like nineties. It's like, uh, it's Tim McGraw. It's
Speaker 2: guys that, respect fully I don't even listen to and
Speaker 2: consider like a completely different form of country music. They're fine,
Speaker 2: they have their their their lane. But yeah, that that
Speaker 2: kind of uh says, the kind of shows the delineation there.
Speaker 1: So Culter's like, uh, he's like Luke Bryan, right, He's
Speaker 1: like Luke's very much more so on the you know,
Speaker 1: beer and jeans and all those guys have whiskey issues.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, Like Morgan Wallen, you know Morgan Wallen.
Speaker 2: Is I know who he is?
Speaker 1: Is he He's what is he?
Speaker 2: He's more new pop country pop country?
Speaker 6: Is that the term?
Speaker 1: So like Morgan Wallan's kind of like Zach Brian or
Speaker 1: I'm just glad that the Ulter.
Speaker 2: Wall plays music they would hear seventy years ago.
Speaker 1: But I'm also glad that Coulter's name is Coulter and
Speaker 1: not Luke or Zach or Brian because that's like all
Speaker 1: the hybrids. But Morgan Wallen was on snl uh so
Speaker 1: I heard a song. All it seems like all these
Speaker 1: guys have this, like Zach Brian uh, Morgan wall And
Speaker 1: they all have the same song where it's like they
Speaker 1: meet a girl, they like the girl, they drink whiskey,
Speaker 1: they lose the girl, so they're singing about how they
Speaker 1: shouldn't drink whiskey and get the girl back.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's kind of like it just an overplayed
Speaker 2: out version. It's like an overplayed out It sounds like
Speaker 2: it was maybe written by Chad GBT version of a
Speaker 2: song you've heard how many times?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's kind of why I don't really go
Speaker 1: down that line. Do you like Do you like cold
Speaker 1: as much as you like land Law? Is that the
Speaker 1: same type of feel? How are our guys doing, dude?
Speaker 1: I haven't checked in our guys landlaw for a while.
Speaker 1: Good dude, I'm telling you this is I often mock
Speaker 1: social media because I really think it's a cesspool and
Speaker 1: arguing on the internet with strangers. It's a sign of
Speaker 1: mental illness in my opinion, and it really does turn
Speaker 1: into you know, mentally ild people throwing their feces at
Speaker 1: each other. But if you get in a rabbit hole,
Speaker 1: I can fall down as much as anybody else. And
Speaker 1: when I first heard our guys land law A, I
Speaker 1: thought it was fake b respectfully, I thought there was
Speaker 1: something wrong with them, right, But see I couldn't stop
Speaker 1: watching videos, like they would send out videos of their
Speaker 1: live performance just stoked that they got like booked into
Speaker 1: some bar and the lead singer would turn the fun around.
Speaker 1: There's like seven people in the venue that probably didn't
Speaker 1: know that this fake country band was there to play music.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite slash least favorite things about
Speaker 2: the Internet and about social media is that it can
Speaker 2: turn and listen. I'm not speaking down on them. Folks
Speaker 2: who don't necessarily have the talent to or historically would
Speaker 2: have had the talent to make it big. Well, they
Speaker 2: can still be famous, but it might be because people
Speaker 2: are making fun or because there's you know, there's some
Speaker 2: ironic tie into it. And yeah, the folks you were
Speaker 2: talking about are are two brothers I believe somewhere in
Speaker 2: the South who are just the corniest, silliest.
Speaker 1: Dudes, and that they're so bad, but.
Speaker 2: Oh they're awful. But there's like something endearing about it,
Speaker 2: so that they're getting like this weird weird uh I
Speaker 2: guess response of like supportive critique slash ironic support. It's
Speaker 2: it's been fun to watch see but.
Speaker 1: You can't support that. Here's the problem. Like, but before
Speaker 1: social media, you didn't hear a band or see it
Speaker 1: banned until they had honed their craft and they're actually
Speaker 1: worth watching or listening to. But now you can make
Speaker 1: money off of the clicks you get just for being bad,
Speaker 1: which is so wild. And you know I'm guilty because
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. One night I watched every video those
Speaker 1: guys have posted, and every single one is so bad.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of them, dude, there are there are.
Speaker 2: If you like accidentally get your Instagram algorithm down that
Speaker 2: rabbit hole, you'll see a lot of bad music.
Speaker 1: You sent me one of a young lady and bless
Speaker 1: her heart, keep making music like that? Was that that
Speaker 1: actually put me in a bad mood her her videos
Speaker 1: because she's walking towards the camera, you know, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, do you remember her name? She would give
Speaker 1: her a little love since we're mocking her in let's
Speaker 1: get a little Landla on the show before we say
Speaker 1: good night that one song they have, I think it's
Speaker 1: only one song, all right. University of Utah has a
Speaker 1: new basketball commit. He is a point guard. His name
Speaker 1: is Ela Marie Abby. He is a finish point guard.
Speaker 1: So Elamrie Abby becomes the ninth edition to the new
Speaker 1: running Utes roster. So, of course Alex Jensen the new staff.
Speaker 1: A lot of attention is down south right now, with
Speaker 1: Kevin Young receiving a contract extension and aj Debons on
Speaker 1: his way as the number one recruit in the country.
Speaker 1: They've got a team. If I had guess pre season
Speaker 1: by U was gonna be scratching in the top five.
Speaker 1: Like that's how talented that roster is. And when it
Speaker 1: comes to the University of Utah with his new project
Speaker 1: Project under Al, it's gonna take time. It's gonna take time,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take patience. I'm sure you basketball fans are
Speaker 1: sick of that. I'm certainly not gonna sit here and
Speaker 1: be the radio host that tells you I watch finish
Speaker 1: basketball when I'm done with the show, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about this kid, but we'll just
Speaker 1: kind of go over some of the pieces of information.
Speaker 1: So he comes to the University of Utah from Finland's
Speaker 1: top basketball league, and they have some good basketball in Finland, obviously,
Speaker 1: Larry Marketing six foot, one hundred and eighty pounds, twenty
Speaker 1: seven games average, twenty point six boards, five assists, and
Speaker 1: twenty seven minutes of action. Those are really good numbers. Uh,
Speaker 1: forty eight point five percent from the floor, twenty seven
Speaker 1: percent from three, not good fifty seven percent from two.
Speaker 1: So if you look at some of these highlights, he's
Speaker 1: pretty crafty around the rim.
Speaker 2: Not a big dude.
Speaker 1: But again, the ninth commit so Baba kar Faye, ton McHenry,
Speaker 1: s Do Treiori, Jakari Howard, Elijah Moore, James Konkoo, Kendall Sanders,
Speaker 1: Terrence Brown. So Utah's roster now is at twelve players
Speaker 1: with three roster spots open, and we'll see. I mean,
Speaker 1: ultimately the staff is in place and the foundation is
Speaker 1: in place. This is going to be a long game.
Speaker 1: And I believe Alex received a five year contract to
Speaker 1: be the head coach of the University of Utah, so
Speaker 1: I would give him all five of those years. This
Speaker 1: is going to take some time, and of course, when
Speaker 1: you juxtaposted to what BYU's been able to do and
Speaker 1: only one year under Kevin Young. If that's how you view,
Speaker 1: if that's your prism, you know, whatever Utah does, what's
Speaker 1: by you doing, It's going to take a long long
Speaker 1: time before al has a situation where Kevin Young was
Speaker 1: able to, you know, cultivate things pretty quickly in one year.
Speaker 1: So there you go a little bit of University of
Speaker 1: Utah basketball news. As a finished point guard named Ella
Speaker 1: Murrie Abbey is committed to play for Alex Jensen the
Speaker 1: University of Utah. All right, The updates their top one
Speaker 1: hundred players in pro basketball rather often. They updated it
Speaker 1: today and clearly they updated it to put Tyree Saliburton
Speaker 1: in their top ten. So, according to the Ringer, as
Speaker 1: of today, their top ten basketball players in pro basketball
Speaker 1: number one, Nikola Jokich, number two, Shay Gilgess, Alexander number three,
Speaker 1: Giannis number four, Luca number five, Steph number six, ant
Speaker 1: Tyree Saliburton at seven, now Donovan Mitchell at eight, Top
Speaker 1: ten player Jazz traded when he was twenty five, Jalen
Speaker 1: Brunton at nine, Jason Tatum is a ten, Victor Wambayamo eleven.
Speaker 1: Lebron's at twelve, ad at thirteen kevindurand fourteen that it
Speaker 1: goes Kawhi caid Evan Mobley, Karl Anthony Towns, Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: Jalen Williams. There's your Top twenty. The Utah Jazz are
Speaker 1: the only team in pro basketball, according to the Ringer,
Speaker 1: with a single player in the top one hundred. They're
Speaker 1: the only team in the NBA that does not have
Speaker 1: a player in the top fifty. Lowry Marketing is the
Speaker 1: only Jazz player in the Ringers Top one hundred. He
Speaker 1: comes in at fifty three. That feels low in my opinion.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they ultimately update this rather consistently, and I
Speaker 1: was surprised to see. I thought Lowry would be somewhere
Speaker 1: in the early thirties. Maybe Walker sneaks in the top
Speaker 1: one hundred, but this is coming off a season where
Speaker 1: neither of those two played every game they should have,
Speaker 1: and their minutes were limited, and Walker was encouraged to
Speaker 1: shoot a bunch of threes down the stretch when the
Speaker 1: Jazz got fined for sitting their players, so they had
Speaker 1: to find another way to be unserious about competing. But
Speaker 1: that dropped not too long ago. The Ringers Top one
Speaker 1: hundred players in the NBA. All right, time now for
Speaker 1: our U went to Golf PGA Tour update as far
Speaker 1: as the leaderboard goes, and the world of the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour has their eyes on the RBC Canadian Open, TPC
Speaker 1: Toronto at Ospbrey Valley is their north course. Cameron, who
Speaker 1: want a corn ferry events here in our market? Is
Speaker 1: your leader through two rounds at twelve hundred par, Andrew
Speaker 1: Putnam at ten under par. Then a couple of Canucks,
Speaker 1: a couple of Canadians Richard Lee and Nick Taylor at
Speaker 1: nine under. Let's see Shane Lowry might be the biggest name.
Speaker 1: He's at eight hunderd par. Bill sam Burns is up
Speaker 1: there as well. So it is the RBC Canadian Open,
Speaker 1: and that is your You went to Golf PGA Tour
Speaker 1: Leaderboard update. Check him out at Worldwide Golf Shops dot com.
Speaker 1: Five U Tadler. You went to locations. They've got the
Speaker 1: best deals on callaway titleist Taylor Taylor made and Ping
Speaker 1: Bushnell as well for the range fighter stuff. All right,
Speaker 1: let's welcome in Colton now head brewer at Roosters on
Speaker 1: a Friday, Colton, Happy Friday Man, how are you.
Speaker 2: Hello, Colton?
Speaker 10: Hello, can you hear me?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I got you. How you doing, man?
Speaker 10: I'm doing really good?
Speaker 5: How much?
Speaker 9: So?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time. So Roosters Brewing Company, you guys
Speaker 1: are celebrating thirty years this summer. What do you want
Speaker 1: our listeners to know?
Speaker 10: Well, let's see, so we're doing our well three your
Speaker 10: anniversary party the end of the month around oh what
Speaker 10: is it, June twenty second on a or sorry, June
Speaker 10: twenty first, on that Saturday, I'm gonna be doing noon
Speaker 10: to four with at our twenty fifth Street location out
Speaker 10: in Ogden. And we've got some old goodies coming back,
Speaker 10: like our We've got our two bit of Amber beer
Speaker 10: out in cams. You can find them around, have them
Speaker 10: on draft all the locations. And yeah, we're going to
Speaker 10: be having an old food favorites up on special all
Speaker 10: summer and all that. So I'll get this some stop
Speaker 10: in check stuff out.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your High Desert, hazy ipa.
Speaker 10: So, our High Desert is probably one of our best
Speaker 10: sellers in all of the all austy. It's it's good.
Speaker 10: It's a nice and tropical, light refreshing, good for a
Speaker 10: nice hot Summer.
Speaker 1: Day two locations as well as the twenty one plus
Speaker 1: tap room in Ogden. Tell me about that tap room.
Speaker 1: I've never been up there. What's alike?
Speaker 10: So that's actually our production facility that's got our tap
Speaker 10: room attached to it.
Speaker 7: So twenty one year older.
Speaker 1: So it is a bar.
Speaker 10: Leave the kiddos at home and it's it's just a
Speaker 10: it's a really cool spot. We've got a really nice
Speaker 10: statio right there, well pretty close to the Ogden or
Speaker 10: the Weaver River. It's it's just nice. It's a it's
Speaker 10: a great place to have a beer in the afternoon
Speaker 10: on the thatio.
Speaker 1: All right, since you are the head brewer, I've got
Speaker 1: to ask you, what is the one beer you've created
Speaker 1: you're most proud of?
Speaker 10: Golden Ooh, that's that's that's a difficult one. I'd say
Speaker 10: my most one of my most recent ones that I've
Speaker 10: came up with. It's a chili line goza that came
Speaker 10: out just absolutely phenomenal, trying to go after the taheen
Speaker 10: flavor and accomplished it. So very unique, different style type
Speaker 10: of beer, but it was it was really fun to make.
Speaker 1: All right, man, Well, congrats on the thirty years appreciate
Speaker 1: the time, have a good weekend.
Speaker 2: Okay is well?
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Rooster's Brewing Company celebrating thirty years this summer, throwing it
Speaker 1: back to nineteen ninety five and historic twenty fifth Street
Speaker 1: where it all began. Two locations as well as a
Speaker 1: twenty one plus tap room in Ogden for either summer
Speaker 1: seasonals including the High Desert Hazy Ipa or one of
Speaker 1: the originals Two Bit Amber, or on a special anniversary
Speaker 1: run this summer. They've got fresh food pairings and throwbacks
Speaker 1: to the original menu, and they're being featured all summer long.
Speaker 1: Cheers to thirty years our good friends at Rooster's Brewing.
Speaker 3: I'm on loan from The Athletic and host of the
Speaker 3: Cinephobe podcast ESPN seven hundred. Welcome Zach Harper with the
Speaker 3: NBA Daily Assist.
Speaker 1: What if I just leaned into it? What if I
Speaker 1: started like digging pit Bull? Would you still play pit Bull?
Speaker 1: If I actually because you only do this to ruin
Speaker 1: my friday? If I leaned into it and pretended I
Speaker 1: enjoy it, could we stop it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: No, if you lean in, we're gonna We're gonna lean
Speaker 2: in as well.
Speaker 1: We're married to it. Well, you know what that means. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: when pit Bull is played on this radio show, it
Speaker 1: means it's time for the regular appearance of one Zach
Speaker 1: Harper on a Friday afternoon. Mister Harper, Happy Friday. Where
Speaker 1: do we find you.
Speaker 7: In Los Angeles?
Speaker 2: How'd you get out of going Oklahoma City?
Speaker 7: I'm doing the live streams for the NBA for the
Speaker 7: pregame show on their app, so you know it's better
Speaker 7: if I'm in a stable internet connection.
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations to you, sir, Thank you. Is this the
Speaker 1: first time? Is this the first year you've done that?
Speaker 1: And I noticed I saw some of your social posts?
Speaker 1: Is this the first year you've done that?
Speaker 7: No, I did it. I did it last year.
Speaker 2: It's just it was such a quick finals.
Speaker 7: We didn't hard to notice.
Speaker 1: Tell everybody where they can go find it, Zach.
Speaker 7: You just go straight to the NBA app or a
Speaker 7: belief on any of their socials, Instagram, ticktok, any of
Speaker 7: that stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, Well let's start with the finals and we'll
Speaker 1: move in some other directions, including a hire that was
Speaker 1: made out this way. But I'll tell you what man like,
Speaker 1: I feel like you. I mean, I'm not sure who
Speaker 1: you picked. My guess is, like everybody else, you probably
Speaker 1: picked OKC. I picked OKC in five. They'd have to
Speaker 1: win four straight now, and maybe that's still on the table.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what else to say about this
Speaker 1: Pacers team. And I just hate the Pacers, but I'm
Speaker 1: just so impressed that they just don't quit until the
Speaker 1: Zeros are on that clock you take away from Game one.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I had the Pacers to win last night,
Speaker 7: but I had Thunder and six. I mean, this team's
Speaker 7: just good. You know, they're really good, and they don't
Speaker 7: give up like you said, and you know it's funny, like, yo,
Speaker 7: this is what their fifth comeback in this postseason down
Speaker 7: fifteen or more. It's just absurd. And and there's a
Speaker 7: point where I have to think that even a team
Speaker 7: like the Thunder, you know, there's a point where you're
Speaker 7: up double digits and it's getting late into the fourth quarter,
Speaker 7: and then once they get into that single digit territory,
Speaker 7: You've got to know what's possible here, right, not just
Speaker 7: because it's an NBA game, because it's this Pacers team.
Speaker 7: And it wasn't just Tyre's Haliverton going nuts, it was
Speaker 7: obi top and hit some threes, and Miles Turner hit
Speaker 7: some threes, and Nemhart hit a shot and Pascal Siaskon
Speaker 7: got to rebound it. It's just it's everybody, you know,
Speaker 7: no one had a good game. Everyone just had solid
Speaker 7: games last night. And for you to force them into
Speaker 7: twenty five turnovers and only get eleven points off those
Speaker 7: turnovers is ridiculous. I mean, that is just incredible, you know,
Speaker 7: incredible basketball by the Pacers. It's rare. It's almost incomprehensible
Speaker 7: to say a team played great basketball after turning the
Speaker 7: ball over twenty five times. But they reacted well to
Speaker 7: those moments. Because we've seen so many teams, i mean
Speaker 7: throughout this playoffs, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Denver Nuggets, the
Speaker 7: Minnesota Timberwolves, they get those turnovers and they just let
Speaker 7: it defeat them. And the Pacers they're just not built
Speaker 7: that way.
Speaker 1: Was there any point last night that you thought Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City had a wrapped up I've been talking to our
Speaker 1: guest today, so watching the game last night with a
Speaker 1: few buddies, and when Sga hit that layup that I
Speaker 1: think put them up seven with like ninety seconds left
Speaker 1: or whatever, one of my buddies is like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that should probably do it. I'm like, okay, you haven't
Speaker 1: watched all.
Speaker 7: And I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I are basketball sickos. But it's
Speaker 1: you know, the Knick series was interesting because there's an
Speaker 1: emotional thing and I just know as a Nick fan,
Speaker 1: if it can go round, it probably will. But at
Speaker 1: no point did I think Oklahoma City had that wrapped up,
Speaker 1: even when they're up fifteen and the fourth, when they're
Speaker 1: up seven with ninety, At any point did you think, okay,
Speaker 1: o case, he's got this.
Speaker 7: I when when Sga went up for that jumper on
Speaker 7: that final possession that would have put it up three.
Speaker 7: As he goes up for that jumper, I thought he
Speaker 7: was going to hit it, and if he hits that,
Speaker 7: I thought, okay, they're probably good, even though it only
Speaker 7: pushes it to three. And obviously you can easily tie
Speaker 7: the game on the next possession, but we know that
Speaker 7: the thunder are then going to foul and we're going
Speaker 7: to get into that whole nonsense of intentional fouls there, right,
Speaker 7: So as he goes up for I'm thinking, all right,
Speaker 7: he's he's got this. They've got this. Once that goes
Speaker 7: in once that missed and they got the ball to
Speaker 7: Halliburn and I saw they weren't calling time out. That's
Speaker 7: when I thought, oh no, this is going to happen again.
Speaker 7: And then they didn't throw a double at Hallie, they
Speaker 7: didn't rush him at all. They let him just walk
Speaker 7: into a pull up jumper. And as soon as he
Speaker 7: let that thing go, you just knew. You just knew,
Speaker 7: because he's done it for you know, four times now
Speaker 7: in this postseason. I mean, that guy is just as
Speaker 7: clutch as it gets. He is.
Speaker 1: And you know, while I do not do first take radio,
Speaker 1: I do want to ask your opinion, just don't kind
Speaker 1: of where he exists, like the whole moniker of like
Speaker 1: is he a superstar?
Speaker 7: Is he not?
Speaker 1: I suppose that's either the beholder stuff and other people
Speaker 1: can debate it back and forth. And I certainly wouldn't
Speaker 1: put him up there with Jokic or Luca or whoever.
Speaker 1: But you know, as he continues to silence people, and look,
Speaker 1: if we're honest, for about thirty minutes, our guy was
Speaker 1: a wallflower last night and I'm watching the game, I'm like,
Speaker 1: where is he?
Speaker 2: Where are you?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 1: Put your stamp on this game, but ultimately winning games
Speaker 1: the way he has And he is a lead guard,
Speaker 1: so if he's not scoring, he is doing other things.
Speaker 1: And he rebounded well last night and he only had
Speaker 1: returnovers in thirty nine minutes. Is the main ball handler
Speaker 1: against one of the best defenses we've seen in a generation.
Speaker 1: And I don't I'm not saying like is he top five,
Speaker 1: six or seven, whatever, but like generally speaking, where is
Speaker 1: his cul de sac in pro basketball right now? Where
Speaker 1: does he live?
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's a superstar. I mean, this dude's been doing
Speaker 7: it for two years now. And Okay, he's not Steph
Speaker 7: and he's not SGA and okay, but we've seen him
Speaker 7: prove himself time and time again. He's a big shot
Speaker 7: maker like I and he's a guy that's leading a
Speaker 7: really good team.
Speaker 2: Just led them to the finals.
Speaker 7: And look, we can't do the thing this year of
Speaker 7: what we did last year with them. Last year's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 7: they got to the conference finals because of injuries? Yeah,
Speaker 7: probably right, Like, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker 7: You know, New York got really injured in that series,
Speaker 7: and I think if New York stays relatively healthy, they
Speaker 7: end up winning that game seven this year. You can't
Speaker 7: say that, I'm not having that with the Bucks. They
Speaker 7: were beating the Bucks in that series, no matter what.
Speaker 7: I'm not having that with the Calves. They're beating the
Speaker 7: Calves no matter what. Like that Caves team is weak.
Speaker 7: And then and then you know, that Knick series was
Speaker 7: really good. I think it could have gone either way
Speaker 7: in a lot of those games, and they ended up
Speaker 7: pulling it out because he was great. And this is
Speaker 7: a guy that is an elite leader on the court.
Speaker 7: He's an elite clutch player. He's one of the best
Speaker 7: point guards in the world, and you trust him with
Speaker 7: the ball, and I'm with you, Like there's points where
Speaker 7: you're like, man, is he going to put his stamp
Speaker 7: on this game? You know, as that game's going on,
Speaker 7: And I'm not putting him in this category, but he's
Speaker 7: you know, we see that with Steph Curry at times too, right,
Speaker 7: Like Steph will kind of just kind of buy his
Speaker 7: time by this time. By this time, I think Tyree's
Speaker 7: kind of lets the game come to him until a
Speaker 7: certain point. And a big part of that is while
Speaker 7: Steph is creating gravity, you know through his movement and everything,
Speaker 7: Tyreese is just he's slinging that thing around the court,
Speaker 7: and he played good defense and as you mentioned, he
Speaker 7: rebounded really well. You know, he's someone that is still
Speaker 7: contributing to winning basketball, and I think he is a
Speaker 7: big part of the reason why they don't give up.
Speaker 7: Even if he's not one hitting the shots, he's leading
Speaker 7: that whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the stat you referenced is the stat that
Speaker 1: stands out led the show with it, like Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: is a lead at forcing turnovers and scoring off of turnovers.
Speaker 1: But if you're turning twenty four turnovers into eleven points,
Speaker 1: like there's a world Zach. At halftime, Indiana should have
Speaker 1: been out twenty five, you know. And we heard Rick
Speaker 1: Carlisle in the locker room like, it's not good news.
Speaker 1: We're turning over like this, but it's a miracle. We're
Speaker 1: still We're still in the game. And for about man,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe forty minutes of the forty eight,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City seemed to be in this like we're up
Speaker 1: between seven and thirteen and we can't extend it beyond that.
Speaker 1: But every time they kind of creep closer, you know,
Speaker 1: we're able to find an answer but because of their
Speaker 1: inability to turn those turnovers into points. I'm watching the
Speaker 1: score and I'm thinking, like, this is so far from over.
Speaker 1: So if you're Indiana, you could feel really good about
Speaker 1: the fact that you're up one zero and you turned
Speaker 1: it over that much. But do you believe that Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City will continue to have a problem converting turnovers into
Speaker 1: points because they've been so elde at it all year long?
Speaker 7: No, but you also can't think that you're going to
Speaker 7: turn over twenty five times, sure, right, Like this is
Speaker 7: the tenth game counting the playoffs this year where they've
Speaker 7: turned it over twenty or more times. And this, I mean,
Speaker 7: this is one of the best teams in the league
Speaker 7: at not turning the ball over. And even Hallibert, you know,
Speaker 7: you mentioned the three turnovers. That's a lot for him.
Speaker 7: He doesn't turn the ball over three times in a game.
Speaker 7: And all those came in the first half. So he
Speaker 7: corrected that at halftime, like he didn't have one in
Speaker 7: the second half, I believe, And so you know, like
Speaker 7: Obi Toping looked like he was he was so scared
Speaker 7: in the first half, and then he settles down hits
Speaker 7: a bunch of three from the second half, like you know,
Speaker 7: Nee Smith looks scared in the first half, Miles Turner
Speaker 7: looks scared in the first like they look like, oh
Speaker 7: you know, it hit them, like, oh man, we're in
Speaker 7: the finals. And then they settled down. I think that's coaching.
Speaker 7: I think that's leadership, and I think that's the team
Speaker 7: that is confident that, hey, we can keep coming back.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 7: I don't think it's good to get down double digits
Speaker 7: every time. I know they're five and three this year
Speaker 7: or this postseason, when they get down fifteen points or
Speaker 7: more in a game, which is a ridiculous stat and
Speaker 7: so you don't want to keep doing that, especially not
Speaker 7: against a team like the Thunder, but the fact that
Speaker 7: they are so comfortable down and I gotta think like
Speaker 7: even a team like the Thunder, they could be up
Speaker 7: double digits in the fourth quarter in Game two at home,
Speaker 7: and if that thing gets to single digits, I don't
Speaker 7: care how good and confident that team is. That thing
Speaker 7: starts getting the single digits and they miss a shot
Speaker 7: here and there, you know that they're thinking, oh no,
Speaker 7: here it goes again. Because we just saw that with Cleveland,
Speaker 7: we saw it with New York. We're you know we
Speaker 7: saw it with Okay, see last night, you have to
Speaker 7: start thinking that.
Speaker 1: So the final possession, I thought this was interesting, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean Rick Carlisle's put on a masterclass all all postseason.
Speaker 1: So they get the rebound you reference. So when Shae
Speaker 1: went up for that shot, first of all, that's the
Speaker 1: shot he wants, right, he gets the shot he wants,
Speaker 1: gets a little space, and like you, he elevates him
Speaker 1: like that's cash miss, is it? They get the board
Speaker 1: ten seconds left, so they get it to Halliburton, and look,
Speaker 1: Cason Wallace is a dog and he's a good on
Speaker 1: ball defender, but you want dort On Halliburton in that moment,
Speaker 1: you just do. And so I wonder because my thought
Speaker 1: in the moment was Rick saw that Cason picks up
Speaker 1: Halliburton and likes that matchup because Cason sixty three and
Speaker 1: Halliburton sixty five. And it's not dort it's not Jalen,
Speaker 1: it is Case and so let's let him do his thing.
Speaker 1: Is that how you read that final possession as well?
Speaker 7: I think it was simply we can't let this team
Speaker 7: get his defense. Yeah, you know, I think it could
Speaker 7: have been anybody on Halliburton, but you're getting single coverage there.
Speaker 7: They had a time out to burn if things got
Speaker 7: in trouble, And I think I think Rick Carlisle is
Speaker 7: just one of those guys he trusted, He especially trusts
Speaker 7: Halliburton to to do what he needs to do and
Speaker 7: get a good shot. And look, you're right, like Kase
Speaker 7: Wallas is. I mean, I think if he got more
Speaker 7: menaces here, he's probab or all defense, right, he's probably
Speaker 7: all defense second team, like he is that good defensively.
Speaker 7: The problem is Halliburton going to his right, like that's
Speaker 7: where his sweet spot is, right, He's not one of
Speaker 7: those guys that takes that jumper going to his left.
Speaker 7: I think Kaylan Cooper does an amazing job covering the Pacers.
Speaker 7: I think she wrote it something like like a five
Speaker 7: to one ratio in terms of him going to his
Speaker 7: right and taking jump shots, some ridiculous stat like that.
Speaker 7: And so that's where he wants to go. He didn't
Speaker 7: really have to do a step back or anything like
Speaker 7: he just kind of he just kind of dribbles into
Speaker 7: that thing. The question I have for Mark Dagno, like
Speaker 7: where is the double? Where is the swarm? Like you
Speaker 7: can't help from the from the corner there as he's
Speaker 7: going towards the right, I would send anybody else at him.
Speaker 7: You can't, like anyone else on that team, you get
Speaker 7: to have the game winning shot. I am not giving
Speaker 7: that to Halliburton. Anyone Nee Smith, Turner, Siakam, anyone else
Speaker 7: gets to have that shot. Halliburton doesn't get to get
Speaker 7: a shot off there. And I think I think we
Speaker 7: saw both with the change in the starting lineup for
Speaker 7: literally no reason. I mean, I thought that was a
Speaker 7: huge mistake to start off by Mark Daignold, and then
Speaker 7: some of that coaching down the stretch, especially that final
Speaker 7: defensive possession. I think you just saw a little bit
Speaker 7: of that inexperience there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the lineup change. That's where
Speaker 1: I want to go next. So it was not a
Speaker 1: good check game, and Dagnold decided to stagger Chet and Hartenstein.
Speaker 1: Hartenstein excuse me, And I thought Hartenstein Hartenstein was actually
Speaker 1: better in his seventeen minutes than Chet was in his
Speaker 1: twenty four. I don't know if it's Chet's inability to
Speaker 1: handle physicality, that's always been his thing. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's too big for the moment, at least for
Speaker 1: Game one case and starts Isaiah comes off the bench.
Speaker 1: Do you think we'll see that in Game two? Or
Speaker 1: does he go back to the two bigs together.
Speaker 7: I don't know why you went away from him the
Speaker 7: first place. I mean, Hartenstein can't handle Myles Turner. No
Speaker 7: offense to Miles Turner, But like, what's the issue there?
Speaker 5: I don't get it.
Speaker 7: And you've got out rebound by seventeen I think that's
Speaker 7: what it was. Seventeen hartstn wrap nine rebounds in seventeen minutes,
Speaker 7: like they completely abandon what was good for them. I
Speaker 7: get it. You're like, oh, that team's fast. We you know,
Speaker 7: we want to make sure we have some speed and
Speaker 7: some more defense on the floor. You're the best defense
Speaker 7: in the league when Hartstein's out there too. I just
Speaker 7: I don't get it, Like you shouldn't. You're the favorite,
Speaker 7: You're the most dominant team regular season NBA history, sixty
Speaker 7: eight wins. No one can touch you in any of
Speaker 7: these things. You've got, you know, four different thirty point
Speaker 7: wins in these in this postseason. Why are you adjusting
Speaker 7: to the Indiana Pacers before the series even starts? I
Speaker 7: just I didn't understand that at all. I think you
Speaker 7: go out there and by putting Chet at the four
Speaker 7: and using your regular starting lineup, Yeah, Chet's probably gonna
Speaker 7: struggle a little bit, Garden Siakam, but you've got help,
Speaker 7: and you've got big help, and they've got a great,
Speaker 7: you know, big to big thing going on offense too,
Speaker 7: where you know that's that's gonna be really tough for
Speaker 7: Indiana to guard. I just I thought that was a
Speaker 7: massive mistake on so many levels on both ends of
Speaker 7: the floor. And then even in their in their rotations,
Speaker 7: I couldn't believe how how staggered those rotations were with
Speaker 7: those two because I think, you know, against Indiana, you
Speaker 7: kind of got to be bullies there. I mean we
Speaker 7: saw with New York when it was when it was
Speaker 7: cad Mitchell Rompson, like, yes, they lost that series, but
Speaker 7: when those two were on the floor together, it kind
Speaker 7: of works at times. And with Chet and Hartnsteint, I
Speaker 7: think you have to believe that that's going to work
Speaker 7: against Indiana.
Speaker 1: So we've already talked about why if you're Indiana, you
Speaker 1: of course feel good, A you have the lead. B.
Speaker 1: You don't believe you're gonna turn it over twenty four
Speaker 1: times in a game, or certainly nineteen times and a
Speaker 1: half or whatever. But Indiana shot eighteen of thirty nine
Speaker 1: from three forty six percent. Okay, see eleven of thirty
Speaker 1: from three. That's not who they are anyway. Of the
Speaker 1: sixteen teams in the playoffs, Indiana or excuse me, okay,
Speaker 1: see is thirteenth and three point percentage. But if so,
Speaker 1: we've talked about why Indiana feels good today, because of
Speaker 1: course they should tell me, if anything, why you think
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City should still feel good about their chance to
Speaker 1: answer to win the series based off of what happened
Speaker 1: last night.
Speaker 7: I mean you you they took Mike Worganoff had had
Speaker 7: a stat something like they took fifteen more shots within
Speaker 7: four feet of the rim, you know, like it like, so,
Speaker 7: you've got a lot of shots inside. You shot more
Speaker 7: free throws, you committed fewer fouls. You know, you did
Speaker 7: force a ton of turnovers, and a lot of those
Speaker 7: were live ball turnovers. I think you have to think
Speaker 7: that you're gonna even if you force ten fewer turnovers
Speaker 7: next game. I think you have to believe you're going
Speaker 7: to create more points off those turnovers, because I think
Speaker 7: the stat I saw going into last night's game is
Speaker 7: they were scoring like one point three six points per
Speaker 7: possession on steals during the postseason, which is a ridiculous number.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's like it's like scoring one hundred and
Speaker 7: thirty six points per one hundred possessions, which would which
Speaker 7: would be an insane level of offensive efficiency. So like
Speaker 7: you have to think that as as you're creating live
Speaker 7: ball turnovers, you are going to convert those. Shay had
Speaker 7: a good game, Chet was miserable. Jaalen Williams shot the
Speaker 7: ball really poorly. No one else really stepped up outside
Speaker 7: of lou Dort, you know, hitting those threes. So I
Speaker 7: think you have to think, I believe, like you didn't
Speaker 7: play that good of a game and you still should
Speaker 7: have won, and you missed on essentially a last second shot.
Speaker 7: You missed that opportunity. So they can play a lot better,
Speaker 7: and they and they typically do play a lot better,
Speaker 7: and we've seen how they bounce back. I mean they
Speaker 7: lost Game one to Denver at home and then came
Speaker 7: back and won by like forty three points, so we
Speaker 7: know that they'll respond. You just have to I just
Speaker 7: do not think that they can keep up with this
Speaker 7: altered lineup. I think they have to go back to
Speaker 7: what works for them.
Speaker 1: As your opinion, I know you said you chose Indiana
Speaker 1: to win Game one in Oklahoma City to win the series.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna be five games, but I
Speaker 1: still kind of lean towards OKC. As your opinion on
Speaker 1: how this thing's gonna play out changed after Game one.
Speaker 7: I'm still sticking with thunder in six, but I feel,
Speaker 7: you know, less confident in it for sure. Like I
Speaker 7: mean Indiana, it's not so much of what Indiana showed
Speaker 7: because I think they did what they do right. They
Speaker 7: shot well, and they've shot well all postseason. You know,
Speaker 7: they're almost like fifty forty eighty as a team for
Speaker 7: the for the postseason during this run, so you know,
Speaker 7: they did what they're supposed to on offense outside of
Speaker 7: the turnovers, which they rarely rarely do. I'm I'm more
Speaker 7: uneasy with the changes that Okay See made and not
Speaker 7: to keep like you know, hammering that point home. But
Speaker 7: I need to see how they adjust in Game two
Speaker 7: and if they go back to their regular style, because
Speaker 7: I just I really don't like when the team changes
Speaker 7: up that kind of strategy. It reminds me a little bit.
Speaker 7: This is gonna be, you know, kind of extreme. But
Speaker 7: remember when when the Mavericks, you know, back in two
Speaker 7: thousand and seven, just all of a sudden started changing
Speaker 7: everything they did against that Warriors team that we believe
Speaker 7: Warriors team. You know, they got what they got away
Speaker 7: from their identity pretty quickly in that series. And Don
Speaker 7: Nelson knew at that point. He's like, oh, we you know,
Speaker 7: we got this. And so I think that I think
Speaker 7: that that that's a little bit of a reminder here
Speaker 7: of if the Thunder keep adjusting to what Indiana is
Speaker 7: doing rather than adjusting what they do, which I think
Speaker 7: there's a big difference. I do think the Thunder might
Speaker 7: be in trouble.
Speaker 1: All right, let's switch Gears game two Sunday night, six
Speaker 1: o'clock Mountain time. You can hear it right here on
Speaker 1: a ESPN seven hundred. Since you since you and I
Speaker 1: last spoke, Tom Thibodeau has lost his job and now
Speaker 1: the New York Knicks are looking for a new coach.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, you're well plugged in. Why
Speaker 1: do you think this decision was made? Who do you
Speaker 1: think was behind it.
Speaker 7: I do think it was enough of the front office,
Speaker 7: you know. You know, at first I thought it was
Speaker 7: dul and then as I've talked to some people, I
Speaker 7: do think some of the front office was leaning this way.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: I kind of heard throughout the year, especially leading up
Speaker 7: to the playoffs, of hey, if he didn't get to
Speaker 7: the conference finals, like he's out right, like he's just
Speaker 7: out if they don't get to a conference finals. And
Speaker 7: then once the lay of the land changed with like
Speaker 7: oh Cleveland, Cleveland got knocked out, and then you obviously
Speaker 7: they beat Boston, I think it became a thing of like,
Speaker 7: I can't believe we lost to the Pacers, and it's
Speaker 7: underestimating that Pacers team. And I think that's I think
Speaker 7: it kind of set back that that kind of feeling
Speaker 7: of hey, we got to get to the conference finals
Speaker 7: or or better in order for him to keep his job.
Speaker 7: I don't really know what this thing is. I don't
Speaker 7: think that he had. I know, everyone's like, you gotta
Speaker 7: play your bench. You got to play your bench. What bench?
Speaker 7: The one with Cameron Paynt and Landry Shammon on it,
Speaker 7: Like I know Landry Shammon had an okay series against Indiana.
Speaker 7: He's not good, right like they like you're you were
Speaker 7: relying on Delon Wright to kind of turn back the
Speaker 7: clock a little bit, and he did, and he played well,
Speaker 7: but he doesn't have much of a bench to utilize there.
Speaker 7: And it's not to make excuses. I still think he
Speaker 7: needs to coach better, and I think he needs to,
Speaker 7: you know, rely on the depths, you know, of what
Speaker 7: he's given a lot more because we're just talking about
Speaker 7: a couple of minutes here and there. But this seemed
Speaker 7: to be decided no matter what, short of a finals run.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 7: I think it's fine to do if you have that
Speaker 7: person that you know you're going to replace them with.
Speaker 7: It doesn't seem like they have that. And if the
Speaker 7: answer is Mike Malone, no offense of Mike Malone, I'm
Speaker 7: not certain he's a better coach than Tom Sibodeau. Like, Okay,
Speaker 7: he's got a ring, show me where he's gonna run
Speaker 7: the throat to Yokic offense with the Knicks, Like, I
Speaker 7: don't know what kind of coach he is without Jokis.
Speaker 7: And I'm not trying to diminish what he can do.
Speaker 7: He's obviously a very smart coach, but we don't know
Speaker 7: what that looks like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And look, ultimately, if the whole thing with Tom
Speaker 1: is that he's not a great relationship guy, I've got
Speaker 1: bad news about Michael Malone as well, right, you.
Speaker 7: Know, but he just got fired for the exact same stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And I just have to wonder. And look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sound like the old guy yelling at a
Speaker 1: but you know a lot of the coaches with kind
Speaker 1: of an old school approach have lost their jobs, even
Speaker 1: if they are good at their jobs. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to say, like, hey, the new cuddled NBA player athlete,
Speaker 1: but is that is that approach antiquated? Is it no
Speaker 1: longer possible in a league that is clearly run by
Speaker 1: the players?
Speaker 7: Yeah? I mean probably. And and you know, I like,
Speaker 7: you want to win, right? Do you want to win?
Speaker 7: Or you want to just be coddled and make funey? Like?
Speaker 7: Does does Indiana seem like they're they're upset when Rick
Speaker 7: Carlisle is yelling at him. He's not a guy that
Speaker 7: that coddles. Rick Carlo's hard on his players. He's about accountability.
Speaker 7: And so I just I don't think there's a problem
Speaker 7: with it. I just I don't and and if that's
Speaker 7: if that's the issue within your organization, then I don't
Speaker 7: think you have the right players.
Speaker 1: And I don't think they have the right players. You're
Speaker 1: point about the bench is something I've been harping on.
Speaker 1: We had Howard beck on last last Hour and he
Speaker 1: said he's been told that the front office was mad
Speaker 1: that Tom didn't go deep in his bench. I'm like,
Speaker 1: to who, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm with you there. I think their issue was a
Speaker 1: roster yeah, exactly, Like you know, their issue was a
Speaker 1: roster construction issue with their top heavy with a good
Speaker 1: starting five. But if they're gonna do anything else, I
Speaker 1: think they've got a cat problem. Do you think they
Speaker 1: get involved in the Durant stuff, the honest stuff? Do
Speaker 1: you think they try to tinker make it deeper or
Speaker 1: change things up top as well?
Speaker 7: I mean, they don't have anything to go get Yannest right,
Speaker 7: They barely have anything to go get Durant Like that
Speaker 7: would be a pretty big concession by even the Sun's organization.
Speaker 7: Like I can't imagine that that's that's doing a whole
Speaker 7: lot for them. So, like you depleted your draft pick
Speaker 7: stockpile by by going and getting bridges. So I don't
Speaker 7: I don't know what you can flip. Let's say, let's
Speaker 7: say Phoenix said, hey, you know what, we'll do CAT
Speaker 7: for KD. Straight up? What does that do? No offense
Speaker 7: to KD. He's great, He's better than CAT. I don't
Speaker 7: understand how that fixes their issues. This is a team
Speaker 7: that can't can't defend the paint. This is a team
Speaker 7: that can't defend on the perimeter.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 7: That's not gonna fix it at all. Kad is a
Speaker 7: great weapon and he can do a whole lot, but
Speaker 7: that's not going to solve their cat problem at all.
Speaker 7: That is just going to create different problems as it solves,
Speaker 7: like a little bit of some offensive stuff. But even then,
Speaker 7: like okay, Katie's gonna sit and watch while Jaylen Bronson
Speaker 7: does the clutch stuff, which is fine, Jylen Brunst is
Speaker 7: really good at it. But I'm failing to see how
Speaker 7: that is a that is something that solves anything. If
Speaker 7: they could go get Yannest, sure that's an improvement that
Speaker 7: starts to fill in some of those gaps, but they
Speaker 7: can't go get him.
Speaker 1: All right, before I set you loose. There was a
Speaker 1: piece of news out this way as Austin Inge has
Speaker 1: been hired as the president of basketball operations for the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz. Ryan Smith himself at the press conference said,
Speaker 1: this is now Austin's show. He is the loudest voice
Speaker 1: in the front office. Austin's dad, Danny, will report to him,
Speaker 1: and Justin'sannik will also report to him. Of course, the
Speaker 1: sound by Zach that has been making the rounds is
Speaker 1: Austin saying. His philosophy on tanking is that we will
Speaker 1: not do that here. You will not see it this year.
Speaker 1: All find him good. But when you have a top
Speaker 1: eight protected pick that goes to Oklahoma City, if you
Speaker 1: are below eight, then you've got some interesting roster decisions
Speaker 1: to make. What do you think? So, if we take
Speaker 1: Austin at his word, they're no longer tanking or manipulating minutes,
Speaker 1: I think it's paramount for them to hold on to
Speaker 1: that draft asset next year in that draft class. But
Speaker 1: if he is now the guy calling the shots and
Speaker 1: that is his ethos, what do you think this looks
Speaker 1: like for the Jazz this year.
Speaker 7: Well, here's the thing about that is I covered some
Speaker 7: Timberwolves and some Kings teams for a while that also
Speaker 7: weren't tanking, but they were so bad it didn't matter.
Speaker 7: So this, I mean, this roster is like all right,
Speaker 7: play lowry, play the veterans and stuff. That thing's not winning,
Speaker 7: that theem's not good. They might win thirty games that
Speaker 7: can still keep them their top their top eight protected pick,
Speaker 7: but they technically wouldn't be tanking. I mean, this is
Speaker 7: a team that needs to continue to bottom out to
Speaker 7: go find one of those guys. I just I don't
Speaker 7: I don't think, I mean, I don't know, Like the
Speaker 7: approach just doesn't make sense to me when there are
Speaker 7: those potential stars, and I think this is just a
Speaker 7: product of we thought we were going to put ourselves
Speaker 7: in the position to get one of these guys. We
Speaker 7: ended up with the fifth pick or what yeah, fifth
Speaker 7: pick or whatever they end up with, and and now like,
Speaker 7: oh man, we can't do that again and sell it
Speaker 7: for with good pr Sometimes you got to just be uncomfortable,
Speaker 7: right Like, they just need to be uncomfortable for another
Speaker 7: year and see if it works again, and then if
Speaker 7: it doesn't, okay, then you adjust and you start making
Speaker 7: some deals with some of the draft picks and some
Speaker 7: of the players that you have and you and you
Speaker 7: lean on development. But you know, the whole press conference
Speaker 7: thing is meaningless. You can say all that stuff, and
Speaker 7: you can you can do all this stuff, but the
Speaker 7: roster's the roster. It doesn't matter if you want to
Speaker 7: take or not. If this is basically what it's going
Speaker 7: to be going into next season, you know, save any
Speaker 7: any kind of you know, massive changes to that roster
Speaker 7: like yeah, okay, you're not taking You're not good.
Speaker 1: Yep, well said, as long as they hold on to
Speaker 1: that asset, that's to me, that's number one, prior to
Speaker 1: all year long. Man, All right, Zach, appreciate the time, buddy.
Speaker 1: I have a good weekend, enjoyed the finals. Well chat
Speaker 1: soon you, sir. Zach Harper covers the NBA for the
Speaker 1: Athletic He's doing a live stream for MBA for pre
Speaker 1: affing posts during the NBA Finals. Get the link to
Speaker 1: all of his work on his Twitter page, which is
Speaker 1: at tak hoops. You gonna bring in an old buddy,
Speaker 1: Gordon Monson coming up on the other side of a break,
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Speaker 1: I will give you the five o'clock hour the program tonight.
Speaker 1: We have some hockey on the station. Game two of
Speaker 1: the Stanley Cup Finals comes your way. As we say,
Speaker 1: a night at six o'clock. Busy, busy show today, A
Speaker 1: lot going on. It's been a minute since we caught
Speaker 1: up with our next guest. But when you hear the
Speaker 1: Godfather theme music, it means one thing. The Godfather of
Speaker 1: Utah sports talk radio himself Gordon Monson on a Friday afternoon. Gordo,
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, buddy.
Speaker 2: How are we doing.
Speaker 6: I'm doing just fine. How are you doing, Spence? Some
Speaker 6: things are going well for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, things are great. Things are great. I promise I
Speaker 1: won't do the entire hit about the following topic, but
Speaker 1: I've got to start out with it. Who chose your
Speaker 1: hat that you wore at your daughter's wedding on the
Speaker 1: north shore of a Wahou.
Speaker 6: It was kind of a toss up.
Speaker 7: It was not you. It wasn't you.
Speaker 1: That's all I know. You did not choose that hat.
Speaker 3: Uh bro.
Speaker 6: She was well my wife, and I was enjoined at first.
Speaker 2: There it is there, it is whatever.
Speaker 6: It was sunny and hot, and I had to, you know,
Speaker 6: cool walls.
Speaker 1: A little, Gordon. I have looked at the picture of
Speaker 1: your family seventy five thousand times, with your beautiful daughters,
Speaker 1: your beautiful wife, and then, my man, is that a fedora?
Speaker 2: Is where you?
Speaker 1: Is that a fedora that you were rocking?
Speaker 7: I don't know what you.
Speaker 6: Would consider at all I know is it cost.
Speaker 2: Me more than.
Speaker 1: What I want to know is what the price stag
Speaker 1: of the whole wedding was but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: ask you that on the radio. Hey look, you rocked it, buddy.
Speaker 1: You look good. I mean, I just the thing about
Speaker 1: the picture is all of your daughters and your wife
Speaker 1: are so fashion conscious and they're so dressed up and
Speaker 1: so nice. It looked to me like you walked out
Speaker 1: with your old suit on, and Lisa was like, we've
Speaker 1: got to do something. So you're wearing this damn hat.
Speaker 6: Well, I had a suit, I had a perfect suit
Speaker 6: for the occasion, and I pull it out and my
Speaker 6: wife and my daughter says, you can't wear that suit.
Speaker 6: That's what the groma is wearing. So I had the
Speaker 6: resort to this thing that was like five sizes too
Speaker 6: big for me. By the way, those pictures. Every time
Speaker 6: I look at pictures at a wedding and one that
Speaker 6: includes one of my daughters, I think, okay, it's time
Speaker 6: to drop a few well bes fun. Anyway, it turned
Speaker 6: out really well, so I was happy about that.
Speaker 1: Okay, lastly, the hat just rules so hard. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at it again. It's such a good look.
Speaker 9: Man.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm proud of you. I'm happy for you,
Speaker 1: and you've done it right. All the daughters are now
Speaker 1: betrothed or with their partners. That's a nice accomplishment for
Speaker 1: mom and dad.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all taken care of from that
Speaker 6: same point. But this is my fourth wedding at which
Speaker 6: I was the officiant, and I'm betting five hundred because
Speaker 6: two of them ended up divorced. If you're patt in
Speaker 6: five hundred, that ain't bad, I guess you know that
Speaker 6: would lead the league.
Speaker 1: That's a hall of fame career, Gordo. You know what,
Speaker 1: since you brought that up, I need to ask your advice.
Speaker 1: My little cousin Madison has asked me to officiate her
Speaker 1: wedding in July. I'm not exactly sure what she was thinking,
Speaker 1: but any advice for your boy as I'm set to
Speaker 1: do what you've done multiple times next month.
Speaker 6: This is what I would do if I were you,
Speaker 6: and it's what I've done at most of the weddings
Speaker 6: that I have, you know, been the officiants. I interview
Speaker 6: them beforehand. I find out what they love about each
Speaker 6: other and then express that to those congregated and that
Speaker 6: usually works out pretty well.
Speaker 7: You know. I like doing it that way.
Speaker 6: Since my daughter got married on the beach this time,
Speaker 6: I had the groom and the bride both get a
Speaker 6: container of sand and pour it into the sea glass
Speaker 6: container where they're mixing their sand into one. And then
Speaker 6: I had everybody who was there take a small We
Speaker 6: handed out small shells, and everybody who was there was
Speaker 6: a small gathering added a little shell to the mix.
Speaker 6: So I thought that was kind of a nice idea.
Speaker 1: I'm very impressed. There's no way that was your idea though, Uh.
Speaker 2: I knew it.
Speaker 6: I knew I looked up the saying thing. But my
Speaker 6: wife's idea was for everybody who was there to put
Speaker 6: a little shill in there, So you know, it was
Speaker 6: It was very It was very cool. But this is
Speaker 6: what I found, the sense. You know, every so many
Speaker 6: people go out there and they spend all this money
Speaker 6: on on an elaborate affair and all this stuff, keeping
Speaker 6: it small and quaint. It's kind of nice.
Speaker 1: The pictures looked wonderful, and of course I tease, I
Speaker 1: love your family. Looks like you guys had a great time,
Speaker 1: and uh that just uh that hat just killed me. Man.
Speaker 2: I loved it. But let's we can move on, Cordo.
Speaker 1: We can we can move on because since you and
Speaker 1: I last spoke there have been a lot of news
Speaker 1: locally that I like to discuss with you. Most recently,
Speaker 1: Austin Ainge has been added to the Jazz front office
Speaker 1: as their president of the basketball operations, and Ryan Smith
Speaker 1: himself said during the press conference that this is now
Speaker 1: the guy Aostin show. He's called shots, meaning Danny his
Speaker 1: dad reports to him. Justin Zannik, the GM reports to
Speaker 1: him as well. So your reaction and what you think
Speaker 1: this means for the Utah Jazz is they're going to
Speaker 1: try to continue this rebuild that's into your four without
Speaker 1: a lot of far retraction.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he says the tanking is over. That doesn't mean
Speaker 6: the losing's over. I mean I think it's going to
Speaker 6: go on for a while yet. But us and Names
Speaker 6: seems like a bright guy. You can look at it
Speaker 6: in one of two ways. I mean, either there's nepotism
Speaker 6: going on here or you know this this is a
Speaker 6: person who can come in here and add energy. He
Speaker 6: was with the Celtics all those years. We remember him
Speaker 6: Spencon just being a player down at BYU. You know
Speaker 6: that's the thing. You see these you see these guys
Speaker 6: grow up, you know, and they turn into adults. And
Speaker 6: I think Austin names is a fairly capable guy, so
Speaker 6: we'll see what he can do.
Speaker 1: So let's dig into what he said about the tanking stuff,
Speaker 1: and you're the way you articulated, I think is the
Speaker 1: right way to articulate it, Like, just because the tanking
Speaker 1: is apparently over, doesn't mean the losing is apparently over.
Speaker 1: So what do you think it's going to look like, Gordon?
Speaker 1: Because here's what I perceive to be the number one
Speaker 1: priority for next season. It's very simple. So if the
Speaker 1: Jazz did not owe a top eight protected pick to
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City next year, I feel differently about the approach.
Speaker 1: But because they do, the worst possible thing that could
Speaker 1: happen this year is the Jazz winning like thirty five
Speaker 1: games and we're all sitting here next spring and Mark
Speaker 1: Tatum pulls out the envelope and says, the number nine
Speaker 1: pick in the draft belongs to the Utah Jazz, meaning
Speaker 1: it belongs to the Oklahoma City Thunder. They have to
Speaker 1: maintain that asset. Gordo, that's my opinion. Give me your
Speaker 1: thoughts on it, And if so, what do you think
Speaker 1: this year is going to look like?
Speaker 7: You?
Speaker 6: I'll expenseally bring up a great point there, but I
Speaker 6: think at some juncture the Jazz has to be able
Speaker 6: to go out and let those players play as hard
Speaker 6: as they possibly can and win as many games as
Speaker 6: they possibly can. Because I don't know, it's interesting A
Speaker 6: lot of people look at Okac and they say, oh,
Speaker 6: that's a blueprint for the Jazz to follow. Well, that'd
Speaker 6: be great. I mean, Austin Inge is smart, dude, I
Speaker 6: don't think he's quite at Sam Presty's level. I mean
Speaker 6: what that guy did to build that team, you know,
Speaker 6: trading two all stars and then freeing up some flexibility.
Speaker 6: That sounds familiar Jazz fans. I mean it is sort
Speaker 6: of what the Jazz are looking at now what they did.
Speaker 6: But what's the difference. Okac got an MVP, he's traded
Speaker 6: for an MVP, and whether the Jazz can find that
Speaker 6: kind of leadership, I really don't know. And you have
Speaker 6: to get lucky, but you has to be. Here's the thing.
Speaker 6: Austin Ainge has to be smarter than just about everybody
Speaker 6: else in the league. Is he Is he at that level?
Speaker 2: Spence?
Speaker 6: I don't know whether he is. Is It may sound unfair,
Speaker 6: but that's sort of what quote unquote small market teams
Speaker 6: have to do.
Speaker 7: They have to.
Speaker 6: They have to get lucky in the draft, but they
Speaker 6: have to recognize talent and get it one way or
Speaker 6: the other. They have to figure out what they have
Speaker 6: and unload what they can unload without hurting the building
Speaker 6: process and get guys who others might not think are
Speaker 6: as good as they might be. And that's what us
Speaker 6: names has to do, regardless.
Speaker 7: Of where the picks are that they get.
Speaker 6: I mean, it just it has to happen that way.
Speaker 6: The thing about OKAYC though, is they haven't forfeited many
Speaker 6: of their draft picks that they could still get better
Speaker 6: based on after the smart decisions they've made to build
Speaker 6: that build that roster into what it is. And of
Speaker 6: course SCA, I mean, those guys don't grow on trees.
Speaker 6: And where the Jazz are going to get a player
Speaker 6: like that, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And look a lot of good stuff there.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to understand the narrative of the finals in
Speaker 1: front of us, where there are two teams that parlayed
Speaker 1: Paul George into two star players. If you think about it,
Speaker 1: I mean Indiana had Paul George. They traded Paul George
Speaker 1: Dokase for Victo Ladipo and Domo Sabanas Sabonis. Then they
Speaker 1: traded Domo Sabonis to Sacramento for Tyree Saliburton, and then
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City flips Paul George to the Clippers for Shay Gilgesse,
Speaker 1: Alexander couple of other pieces like Danilo Gallinari and five picks.
Speaker 1: One is turned into Jalen Williams. But the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is, look, I know that when they traded Mitchell.
Speaker 1: When the Jazz traded Mitchell, there was this celebration of
Speaker 1: the hall they got in return. I don't think they
Speaker 1: got enough. I really don't, and I like Lowry. The
Speaker 1: Ringer just released our top one hundred players in the NBA.
Speaker 1: The Jazz have one on the list. It's Lowry who's
Speaker 1: fifty three, and Donovan Mitchell is twenty eight years old
Speaker 1: in his prime. He's the eighth best player in pro
Speaker 1: basketball according to The Ringer. So look, there are still
Speaker 1: draft picks that can be conveyed. They had some other
Speaker 1: pieces in that deal. Colin Saxton has been fine for
Speaker 1: the Jazz. Oh Chiobaji was good in Toronto. Didn't work
Speaker 1: out here, but Sam Presty and the Indiana Front Office
Speaker 1: turned Paul George into cornerstones, and I don't know that
Speaker 1: the Jazz did that with Donovan, who is a top
Speaker 1: ten player in his prime.
Speaker 6: Gordon, Yeah, I agree with you one hundred percent. Bence.
Speaker 6: I know you study this stuff and you're right on
Speaker 6: the money in my opinion. I mean, I mean Sam Presty,
Speaker 6: I have so much respect for that guy. I don't
Speaker 6: know him. Have you talked with him?
Speaker 1: I've met him a couple of times. He was with
Speaker 1: the Spurs for a number of years before the Sonic sired,
Speaker 1: and then obviously okay, see after they left Seattle.
Speaker 6: People talk about luck, you need luck, and yeah, you
Speaker 6: do a little bit here and there, but Sam Presty's
Speaker 6: just been smarter than everybody else. And as far as
Speaker 6: with the Pacers have done, you know, there's been a
Speaker 6: lot of talk about this small market finals and whatnot,
Speaker 6: but these two teams have proved to me that you
Speaker 6: you don't have to be in some huge market in
Speaker 6: order to make it work.
Speaker 5: The Pacers.
Speaker 6: So we talked about what Okac has done, but what
Speaker 6: the Pacers have done, not only have they gotten some talent.
Speaker 6: You talked about Halliburton, Holy casts. He shoots it like
Speaker 6: you did back in the days, in those clutch moments.
Speaker 6: I mean, he's just he's just exactly what a team needs.
Speaker 6: And so that's the second part of the two stage
Speaker 6: rocket here is you got to get the players and
Speaker 6: then you've got to implement something that works for them
Speaker 6: in their best interests. And that's what the Pacers have done.
Speaker 6: I'm sure you've broken down what they do offensively.
Speaker 8: I love it.
Speaker 6: I love people talk about that. I want to see
Speaker 6: New York. I want to see the Lakers in the finals.
Speaker 4: That going on.
Speaker 6: No, I love this matchup. I love what we're seeing
Speaker 6: the way the Pacers. I mean I compare it. I
Speaker 6: was writing to column and compare it to sort of
Speaker 6: a jiffy pop kind of offense. It's inceptual in nature,
Speaker 6: but I get the feeling that the players are free
Speaker 6: to do what they want to do. You know, they
Speaker 6: set all those screens, and they move the ball, and
Speaker 6: they get up the floor and it's just fun to watch.
Speaker 6: I don't need to have Lebron James in the finals
Speaker 6: in order to enjoy it. I mean, what these teams
Speaker 6: do that game the last night was what basketball fan
Speaker 6: wouldn't love that.
Speaker 1: Jiffy pop as in the popcorn that you put on
Speaker 1: a dovetop like forty years ago.
Speaker 7: Is that.
Speaker 6: They did not have that anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, but what I mean is.
Speaker 1: Jiffy pop?
Speaker 6: Are you kidding?
Speaker 1: Happier readers have never even heard of that, Gordon.
Speaker 6: Okay, so I probably could have found a different analogy there,
Speaker 6: But all I know is that offense explodes kind of
Speaker 6: like popcorn colonels, you know. I mean, it's it's fun
Speaker 6: to watch, and I'm not even sure the players know
Speaker 6: exactly what they're gonna do with the ball every time
Speaker 6: on the floor. They know the basics of what they
Speaker 6: like to do, and they're familiar with one another, but
Speaker 6: it's just this kind of I don't know, yeah, explosive offense.
Speaker 6: It's that that really adds to the you know, the
Speaker 6: color features of the game.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you landed on Jiffy Pop. But we
Speaker 1: can move on. The good news, Gordon, if you're a
Speaker 1: jazz fan, is there's one top three pick on both
Speaker 1: of these rosters, and it's Chet. He's the only top
Speaker 1: three pick on both these rosters. So that that's the
Speaker 1: good news the bad news if you're if you're a
Speaker 1: jazz fan is Oklahoma City and in a way Indiana.
Speaker 1: But Indiana has done this a little bit differently because
Speaker 1: they were able to get Pascal Siakam when Toronto decided
Speaker 1: to yard sale, and they you know, and they already
Speaker 1: had Halliburton on the roster. Miles Turner has been there forever.
Speaker 1: Aaron Ne Smith was a Celtic but couldn't get off
Speaker 1: the bench. So like they drafted Benedict Matherin Andrew Nemhard
Speaker 1: but they have not got about this the same way
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City has. The bad news for the Jazz is
Speaker 1: at this point the jury is still out on all
Speaker 1: of their picks, so I can say the good news
Speaker 1: is they're not. The only top three pick in the
Speaker 1: finals is chet Holmgren. But whether it's top three, top five,
Speaker 1: top ten, top fifteen, both rounds, you have to draft
Speaker 1: the right players. It sounds so reductive and simple, but
Speaker 1: you have to hit on the picks and you have
Speaker 1: to start to develop. And they did not draft Walker.
Speaker 1: He was part of the go Bear deal, but he
Speaker 1: has developed under under Will Hardy. There's some things to
Speaker 1: like about Collier, but dude, I don't think Isaiah Collier
Speaker 1: and Caante George even make Oklahoma Cities roster, and I
Speaker 1: don't think Larry starts for them. So the bad news
Speaker 1: is there just is not a lot in the cupboard,
Speaker 1: which leads us to number five. This feels like as
Speaker 1: important as a draft for the Utah Jazz in a
Speaker 1: number of years.
Speaker 6: Would you agree with, Yeah, it's one hundred and there's
Speaker 6: somebody out there. There's somebody in this draft that isn't
Speaker 6: going to be picked in the first four selections, that
Speaker 6: can really help a team in a major, major way.
Speaker 6: And this is where Austin Inge has to dial in
Speaker 6: on that guy.
Speaker 7: Who is it? Well, I mean yeah, they say, well, you.
Speaker 6: Get lucky, sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss it. Now
Speaker 6: the Jazz can't afford to miss. They've missed a couple
Speaker 6: times already in my opinion, as you articulated, and this
Speaker 6: time they cannot miss. They have to take advantage of
Speaker 6: what they have here and then once if they do
Speaker 6: hit on their draft picks, then they got to do
Speaker 6: what the Pacers and what okay see you have done
Speaker 6: in selecting a guy that they can bring in who
Speaker 6: may be less thought of than what the Jazz recognize
Speaker 6: that they can be. I mean you mentioned the trades,
Speaker 6: the Pacers getting Halliburton and okay see a CA. I
Speaker 6: mean those are just really savvy, smart moves by smart
Speaker 6: front office people. How smart are the Jazz front office guys? Danny,
Speaker 6: I don't know, his golf game's probably really good. Austin
Speaker 6: seems like he's more dialed in and maybe he's on
Speaker 6: top of these things. But I mean if they miss,
Speaker 6: if they miss, then they flounder. And think about it
Speaker 6: in the past, when the Jazz hit on draft picks,
Speaker 6: then it really helped him. I mean, we don't need
Speaker 6: to go through the Stockton on loans of situations sixteen
Speaker 6: to thirteen. I mean, look at it when they got
Speaker 6: down of Van Menchell and others. It was through smart,
Speaker 6: smart moves by the Jazz. So recognizing the kind of
Speaker 6: talent that can be utilized in the system that they
Speaker 6: want to run.
Speaker 7: Here, go get that guy. If it's not Cooper.
Speaker 6: Flagg, because you're not going to have an opportunity to
Speaker 6: get in. We'll get somebody who's going to be just
Speaker 6: as good as him that maybe other people don't don't recognize.
Speaker 6: It's I'm not saying it's easy, but it's something that
Speaker 6: has to be done in order for the Jazz to succeed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this stuff isn't easy, and you know when you're
Speaker 1: able to and you know, one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: not grabbing one overall Stings this year or are you there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: sorry about that one of the one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why not grabbing one overall Sting, Well, there are several reasons.
Speaker 1: Because Cooper's awesome. But when you have the guy like
Speaker 1: san Antonio has Women Yama, then Chris Paul will sign
Speaker 1: with you. And I know Chris Paul is you know,
Speaker 1: not who he used to be. But Daron Fox will
Speaker 1: greenlight a trade to san Antonio because you have Women Yama.
Speaker 1: If the Jazz can find their answer to that and
Speaker 1: it's not Cooper Flag maybe it's Aja Debonsa, then you've
Speaker 1: got something. Then agents will take your phone call to say, Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I want my client to come play for you because
Speaker 1: you have this great young piece and all players want
Speaker 1: to win and get paid. Right now, the Jazzes don't
Speaker 1: have that. Like no one, no agent is calling it
Speaker 1: Austin agent saying hey, my client would really love to
Speaker 1: play off of Johnny Jeuzeg like. They just don't have
Speaker 1: the piece as of now to attract other players, which
Speaker 1: is why this has to be a long game. One
Speaker 1: more Jazz thing that I do have some other things
Speaker 1: for it, then I'll set you loose. Tom Thibodeau just
Speaker 1: lost his job after going to the Eastern Conference finals
Speaker 1: and winning fifty games back to back seasons and making
Speaker 1: the playoffs four or five years. Michael Malone just lost
Speaker 1: his job after winning a championship two years ago. Taylor Jenkins,
Speaker 1: a lot of good coaches have lost their jobs. Will
Speaker 1: hardly received a five year contract extension. He's won thirty
Speaker 1: three percent of his games. The Jazz have locked in
Speaker 1: their front office with Austin Danny and Jay Z and
Speaker 1: other pieces moving forward. So the problem is, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter who you cut your coach is, It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who your front office is if you have bad basketball players.
Speaker 1: But is there a silver lining that Ryan and Ashley
Speaker 1: Smith appear to be hiring people they believe in and
Speaker 1: giving them space to do their jobs and giving them
Speaker 1: the long game to do this From a front office
Speaker 1: and coach perspective.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been to you and I have had this
Speaker 6: conversation so many times. That's the single most important element
Speaker 6: in any franchise is the owner and what the owner
Speaker 6: is willing to do. And if Austin Ains can bring
Speaker 6: to this team what is necessary, which we've thoroughly discussed here,
Speaker 6: then yeah, they're willing to pay them to be here
Speaker 6: and pay them to keep them here, and that's what
Speaker 6: has to happen. I mean, it sounds unfair in some ways,
Speaker 6: like Okay, Spencer, we say, Okay, you just got to
Speaker 6: be smarter than the other guys. That's just the way
Speaker 6: it is. That's what they gotta do. And if Ryan
Speaker 6: Smith is willing to continue to pour resources into this,
Speaker 6: then yeah, they can get it done. But like you said,
Speaker 6: that number five pick is huge for this team this
Speaker 6: year for the very reasoning you talked about.
Speaker 5: And I remember it used to.
Speaker 6: Be that people said these small market teams, players don't
Speaker 6: want to go play there. We'll talk to players on
Speaker 6: the Thunder, talk to the players on the Pacers, two
Speaker 6: supposedly small market teams, and then talk about how much
Speaker 6: they like playing what they're where they're playing. I mean,
Speaker 6: but you said it exactly right. They have they have
Speaker 6: assets involved in their franchises that draw other players in
Speaker 6: and as you so articulately said there right now, the
Speaker 6: Jazz don't have that, all.
Speaker 1: Right, switching gears here before I set you loose, you know.
Speaker 1: And this is a complicated story to talk about, but
Speaker 1: you've always excelled in things like this, and I hate
Speaker 1: to make it a football story, but Jake Rehetz laugh
Speaker 1: as the starting quarterback at Bringham Young University, and since
Speaker 1: you and I last spoke, a civil suit has been filed.
Speaker 1: No criminal charges, as I continue to remind everybody, and
Speaker 1: these are allegations and Jake deserves the process like everybody else,
Speaker 1: and so we'll kind of see how it plays out.
Speaker 1: It adds an extra layer of complication as far as
Speaker 1: where he plays and the honor code which he is
Speaker 1: forced to it here too. I don't want to say,
Speaker 1: but like he has to do it here too if
Speaker 1: he wants to be a student and an athlete at
Speaker 1: b YU. They all have to. That's just the deal.
Speaker 1: If you're playing down there, if you're going to school
Speaker 1: down there. So your thoughts on where we find ourselves
Speaker 1: and just some thoughts on how Brian Santiago and BYU
Speaker 1: kind of have to traverse this newly complicated space.
Speaker 6: Well, it's if you're going to break the law and
Speaker 6: you're going to hurt people, then you're in big trouble.
Speaker 7: It's just the way it is.
Speaker 6: I mean, anybody theoretically has to follow the law, but
Speaker 6: at BYU you can't bail out by saying things are
Speaker 6: consensual or other things that might be utilized in other
Speaker 6: cases because the our code is there. It's an extra layer,
Speaker 6: the behavioral code that is going to demand a certain
Speaker 6: kind of behavior. And so I don't know, I this
Speaker 6: is what I think is gonna happen in this case.
Speaker 6: This if this plays out in the courts, it's going.
Speaker 7: To take over a year to give it settled.
Speaker 6: Where does that leave BYU bs in situations where they
Speaker 6: I don't think they can afford to have their starting
Speaker 6: quarterback be playing under this kind of dark cloud. So
Speaker 6: what they have to do in my opinion, I'm not
Speaker 6: an attorney, but by us access to a whole lot
Speaker 6: of those they need to go out and find out
Speaker 6: what really happened and then move on it in that direction.
Speaker 6: If they can get it solved beforehand that it isn't
Speaker 6: a thing, then then they can move on but if
Speaker 6: there's that cloud, if there's any if there's that doubt,
Speaker 6: then yet you want people to have a due process,
Speaker 6: and you want to presume them innicine until proven guilty.
Speaker 6: But by is a different beast. I mean they cannot.
Speaker 6: They cannot abide that. And I there's a whole lot
Speaker 6: of colleges out there, university football programs who couldn't abide it,
Speaker 6: at least among them BYU. So I really I don't
Speaker 6: want to can him anyone before it is made as
Speaker 6: certain as possible.
Speaker 7: But doing things away by you does.
Speaker 6: I don't think they can afford the luxury to wait
Speaker 6: that long, Gordo.
Speaker 1: It's been too long. I appreciate the time. Was that
Speaker 1: hat more than two hundred dollars? Tell me the truth?
Speaker 7: No, it was not, It was not.
Speaker 6: I I think I've moosted off someone on the street somewhere.
Speaker 7: I just kind of all of that hat.
Speaker 1: There's a Rodney Danger filled bowl of soup joke in
Speaker 1: here somewhere, Gordo. But hey, you wore it't well. Looked
Speaker 1: like you guys had a great time. I always enjoy
Speaker 1: visiting with you. Let's do it again soon, Okay.
Speaker 6: I think the line is oh no no, but it
Speaker 6: looks good on you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, be good Okay. See hip by Gordon
Speaker 1: Monts in Salt Lake Tribune. I always appreciate his time.
Speaker 1: Some good stuff there from Gordo. I love Zach Brown Bands.
Speaker 2: Man love that.
Speaker 1: We're ending the show with a little Oh wait is this?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 1: Those are quote this our guy Coulter.
Speaker 2: Right, little Zach Brown band.
Speaker 1: He says, you like Zach Brown band?
Speaker 2: I do actually like Zach Brown. It's it's one of
Speaker 2: those that kind of bridges the gap. Although he does
Speaker 2: sing about like I don't know if you've ever heard
Speaker 2: the song toes, it's just like about the beach and
Speaker 2: beers and and whatnot. I think he does so with uh,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know, a little less corniness
Speaker 2: than other.
Speaker 1: What's the one about chicken fried rise, It's just chicken.
Speaker 2: It's just choked bit of chicken fried cold beer on
Speaker 2: a Friday night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the same. The jeans that fit just right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And the radio on yep, hmm, wait is uh what's
Speaker 1: the what's the land law lyric? George Jones on the radio? Uh,
Speaker 1: my favorite, my favorite part of any Landlaw video I've
Speaker 1: seen is when he they show him, he talks about
Speaker 1: he's got a crossbow, he's getting ready to shoot a deer.
Speaker 1: And our guy does the he does the thing where
Speaker 1: he's about to shoot a deer, and you can tell
Speaker 1: that he's never shot a crossbow in his entire life.
Speaker 2: You never never pulled back on the on the bow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's uh, that's a good one. I forgot to play
Speaker 2: our Land Law though our boys. You know, we'll get
Speaker 2: over it.
Speaker 1: It's such a horrible, horrible piece of music. But just
Speaker 1: keep going, guys, keep doing.
Speaker 2: Your thing, keep getting the clicks.
Speaker 1: Why don't we start a band? If they can do it.
Speaker 1: I've got a better voice than he does.
Speaker 2: Right now, I could make some bad music, you know,
Speaker 2: if I tried really hard, I think I can make
Speaker 2: like a very mediocre song. But I don't know if
Speaker 2: I could do something well now, I could do something
Speaker 2: corny enough to get some hate views on the internet.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you could. I mean, if they can, anybody
Speaker 1: can do it, certainly, So shout out land Law on
Speaker 1: this beautiful Friday afternoon, all right before we say goodnight.
Speaker 1: I don't usually do this, but it's a big day
Speaker 1: for your boy here. So my son's in town. Shout
Speaker 1: out Connor and the only I didn't used to talk
Speaker 1: about this. If you're aware of my story at all,
Speaker 1: you might you may or may not be. But today
Speaker 1: is my twenty two year anniversary of a surgery. I
Speaker 1: had to remove a cancerous brain tumor when I was
Speaker 1: just twenty five years old, and I was not supposed
Speaker 1: to survive that surgery. It was a twelve hour surgery,
Speaker 1: and before I went in, they had me say goodbye
Speaker 1: to all my family and my friends, and I didn't
Speaker 1: fully realize the severity of the situation I was dealing with.
Speaker 1: But I was lucky to have great care by Bill
Speaker 1: Caldwell and the Huntsman Cancer Institute, and I came out
Speaker 1: with more or less a normal quality of life. Certainly,
Speaker 1: that surgery left some residual effects with balance and some
Speaker 1: physical stuff that I still battle to this day. But
Speaker 1: my son is in town, and he is about to
Speaker 1: turn twenty four years old next month, and my only
Speaker 1: desire and wish was to watch him grow. He was
Speaker 1: two years old at the time, and I've been able
Speaker 1: to do that. I didn't used to talk about this
Speaker 1: because it's a private thing. But I feel like every
Speaker 1: time I do, it's important to point out that the
Speaker 1: reason I was able to survive that is we were
Speaker 1: able to get the tumor before it became embedded into
Speaker 1: my brain. And when that happened, you can't operate, And
Speaker 1: as doctors say, it's a six pack and a fishing
Speaker 1: pole and it's best of luck. So early detection is key.
Speaker 1: We are so blessed to live in a city with
Speaker 1: truly one of the best cancer care facilities in the world.
Speaker 1: When we were trying to figure out what we were
Speaker 1: going to do once my situation manifested itself, we called
Speaker 1: our family care doc in midtown Manhattan and said, okay,
Speaker 1: what do we need to do? Where do we need
Speaker 1: to be? And he said, well, one of two facilities.
Speaker 1: One is Sloan Kettering back East, and the other one
Speaker 1: is right where you're at in Salt Lake. So if
Speaker 1: you're at Huntsman Cancer you're in great care. You don't
Speaker 1: need to go anywhere. And they saved my life. And
Speaker 1: Bill Caldwell, my surgeon, saved my life. So just once
Speaker 1: a year, but like to do this on my anniversary,
Speaker 1: which kind of lands differently as you get older and
Speaker 1: you realize how blessed you've been to survive such things
Speaker 1: that you know, go in and get checked if you
Speaker 1: have any questions about anything that's going on. Doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be a brain tumor, could be anything, because early
Speaker 1: detection can save your life. So I won't blaker to point,
Speaker 1: but I like to talk about this once a year
Speaker 1: as it's a big day for me and it's nice
Speaker 1: to have my son in town to celebrate that. All right,
Speaker 1: before we say goa nights, here's the question. Before we
Speaker 1: say good night. On Monday, we'll be talking about a
Speaker 1: series that's won one or two zero Indiana.
Speaker 2: We're gonna see a one one bounce back. We're gonna
Speaker 2: see a bounce back from okay See. I'm confident that
Speaker 2: that they, you know, respond to what happened in Game one,
Speaker 2: which was I don't want to say a fluke because
Speaker 2: we've seen it what six seven times in the postseason
Speaker 2: already this year. But I have very little doubt that
Speaker 2: okay See responds. But when you lose Game one and
Speaker 2: you do it on your home floor, and you do
Speaker 2: it like that, well you have a series on your hands.
Speaker 1: No doubt, no doubt. So, as I said, yesterday. I
Speaker 1: will take Oklahoma City in five. But I certainly am
Speaker 1: cheering for a long series of great basketball and we
Speaker 1: definitely had that last night. All right, Porter, what comes
Speaker 1: our way? On a Monday edition of The Drive.
Speaker 2: On a Monday version of The Drive, Spence, we'll we'll
Speaker 2: of course recap the NBA weekend NBA Finals Game two.
Speaker 2: Tom Haberstrow stops by for the NBA Daily Assist. We'll
Speaker 2: go into Indiana. Brad Knight of the Pacers Post Up
Speaker 2: Podcast joins us. On a Monday, We'll chat with Richard
Speaker 2: Smitty Smith in studio and catch up with Ted Robinson,
Speaker 2: talk a little Roland Garros, maybe off season college football
Speaker 2: mostly as well.
Speaker 1: On a Monday, love that, love that, catch up with
Speaker 1: Uncle Ted. It's always a good time. Special thank you
Speaker 1: today to Chris Russo, Howard Beck, Zach Harper, and Gordon
Speaker 1: Monson for in the sound you may have missed from
Speaker 1: the show today. Head on over to the website. It's
Speaker 1: ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Make sure to download
Speaker 1: our mobile app and take us on the go. That's
Speaker 1: how I listen to our station. ESPN seven hundred app
Speaker 1: is available for free in the app Store. In the
Speaker 1: Google Play Store as well. And then finally for what
Speaker 1: we do in our space every afternoon for four hours.
Speaker 1: Check out our podcast page. It is called The Drive
Speaker 1: with Spence Jeckets. It's available wherever you get your shows.
Speaker 1: So go to your preferred podcast catcher, subscribe, rate, review,
Speaker 1: say nice things in the comments, and give us all
Speaker 1: the stars. You will be eternally blessed.
Speaker 2: Reporter.
Speaker 1: I'm Spence saying it. I have a great weekend. Everybody,
Speaker 1: be good to yourself and be good to each other.
Speaker 1: Talk to you on a Monday edition of the Drive.
Speaker 1: And as always, you can catch that right here on
Speaker 1: ESPN seven hundred ninety to one. FFM proud to be
Speaker 1: part of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.