Speaker 1: He's depride of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son of
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City. After forty years with the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 1: there's no one better to talk some hoops. Richard Smitty
Speaker 1: Smith is back on the Drive on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 2: Live in studio for an entire hour.
Speaker 3: Looked like he's looks like he's ready to go sailing
Speaker 3: off Nantucket with a nice collared shirt and a Columbia jacket.
Speaker 2: Richard Smith, how are you, sir? You know, you know
Speaker 2: when I show up, I always got to live up
Speaker 2: to the East coast, check its reputation. You know that
Speaker 2: I'm wearing such that's a New England, you know, button down,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Collar blue blue collar, rolls, risen from concrete, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm wearing sweats. You you literally look like you summer
Speaker 3: off Cape Cod.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Well, you know you have an image you're
Speaker 2: trying to create. Huh. I don't have an image, so
Speaker 2: I'm trying to create one. Yeah. It's not going very well,
Speaker 2: but you know you got to make the effort. I
Speaker 2: think it's going well.
Speaker 3: I think he likes but it's cold, it's April, and
Speaker 3: it feels like February.
Speaker 2: It's cold out and it's cold outside. Hey, but I'm
Speaker 2: switching to gears for one second. Have you talked anything
Speaker 2: about your guy Porter, who's doing his best nineteen eighties
Speaker 2: Bono imitation here with.
Speaker 3: The hair or with the hair? No, No, with the
Speaker 3: So what he does shoulder length? Yeah, we've worked together
Speaker 3: for a four years now. What he does is he
Speaker 3: lets it grow out, then he shaves it. Is that
Speaker 3: his deal?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Or to speak for yourself in here about his little annual,
Speaker 4: little annual buzz. Yeah, when he got it, when he
Speaker 4: when he shaves it, it's quite jarring because he'll walk
Speaker 4: in after the ship after he shaved his head and
Speaker 4: he looks like he's fourteen years old.
Speaker 2: Wild. Yeah, it's funny to say that because Linda and
Speaker 2: I went to a documentary there was just one night
Speaker 2: only thing last night on John and Yoko uh living
Speaker 2: in New York City in nineteen seventy seventy one, okay,
Speaker 2: eighteen month thing, all during the civil rights movement and everything.
Speaker 2: And one of the last pictures I showed in documentary
Speaker 2: as they were fading out at the end of the
Speaker 2: film was, you know, kind of a picture montage of
Speaker 2: John Lennon in the seventies living in New York City
Speaker 2: leading up to his death in nineteen eighty and one
Speaker 2: of the pictures I showed, which I had never seen before,
Speaker 2: was John Lennon with a shaved head, and I'd never
Speaker 2: seen WHOA where are that picture? And it came and
Speaker 2: it went, you know, and I had never seen seen
Speaker 2: that kind of thing before. But I've heard of people
Speaker 2: who grow their hair out all winter long, like Porter,
Speaker 2: and then at some point in the spring they have
Speaker 2: a right of passage and they go out into the
Speaker 2: flower fields and they you know, they bend down and
Speaker 2: they do whatever they do, and they have herbs and
Speaker 2: stuff and smoke and then and then they shave their head.
Speaker 3: And you know, Porter, does that paint an actual picture
Speaker 3: of how you shave your head.
Speaker 4: Mine's more of like a Britney Spears moment right where
Speaker 4: you go you're going crazy because of.
Speaker 2: The hair and the wind and you're just you're over it.
Speaker 4: So you have a you have a moment you break down,
Speaker 4: you you know, attack the paparazzi and police officers inigarhead.
Speaker 3: Have you have you in all of your years, have
Speaker 3: you ever had long, long ish hair.
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, I that was that was my deal
Speaker 2: in uh in college? Oh really? Oh yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 2: like a flower child. I'll have to show you. I'll
Speaker 2: have to show you. I I was doing for for
Speaker 2: a while in college and in the seventies, I was
Speaker 2: doing my best James Taylor imitation. Oh okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: So whatever James whenever he had on the latest album cover,
Speaker 2: that's that's what I was going for.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, that's not that's not a bad blueprint to
Speaker 3: follow JT.
Speaker 2: I to get success with the ladies.
Speaker 3: But I need photo evidence of you with your long
Speaker 3: flowing well.
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, I went to my fiftieth
Speaker 2: high school year and this isn't just a great radio
Speaker 2: for our listeners out there. I go to my my
Speaker 2: fiftieth high school reunion a few years ago, and I
Speaker 2: checked into the table for the big dinner that night,
Speaker 2: and and I look like this with my short hair
Speaker 2: and whatever, and the one behind the table looks upping.
Speaker 2: Oh here's this. Oh, here's your your badge. And you
Speaker 2: know it gives me an ID that has my name
Speaker 2: and my high school yearbook picture with it. Right, So
Speaker 2: that's for everybody to recognize everybody else at the reunion
Speaker 2: and people you haven't seen in years. And I immediately
Speaker 2: took it and glanced at it and I handed it back.
Speaker 2: So I said, oh, you've mistakenly given me someone else
Speaker 2: that that's that's not me. And she goes, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, and then she starts fumbling to try and
Speaker 2: look and I go, I go, Susan, Susan, that is me.
Speaker 2: You were just give me that, and she kind of
Speaker 2: looked at the picture. She looked at me and looked
Speaker 2: at the picture, and she goes, oh, that is different.
Speaker 2: She goes, you know, what do you expect?
Speaker 3: It's fifty years later. I think I have my thirty
Speaker 3: next year. Wow, that's wild to think about. Just Donovan,
Speaker 3: I think I have my thirty year next year. But
Speaker 3: let's move on to your pointsbody now gives it. Nobody
Speaker 3: gives a rip, all right. There are a few things
Speaker 3: I want to do with you today. But since the
Speaker 3: season is now officially over for the Utah Jazz, I
Speaker 3: really don't know how how much meat is on the
Speaker 3: bone for us to kind of talk about what we
Speaker 3: just saw. I just wonder how you digested you were
Speaker 3: at most, if not all, the home games when you're
Speaker 3: in town, they lose sixty five games. They go seventeen
Speaker 3: and sixty five. It is the worst record in the
Speaker 3: history of the Utah Jazz. Yes, we all know what
Speaker 3: they're doing and why they're doing it, but how did
Speaker 3: you digest this year? Somebody that was over there for
Speaker 3: forty years and saw a lot of winning, What was
Speaker 3: it like to be in that building and see see
Speaker 3: the losing on a level that we've never seen it before.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's difficult, you know, for the franchise itself.
Speaker 2: I mean they obviously they have new ownership last several years,
Speaker 2: they have new direction in the front office, they have
Speaker 2: the new coaching staff, obviously a young new team. Everything
Speaker 2: and wiped off the board, and so they're doing everything
Speaker 2: from scratch and trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to watch any team in my opinion, and
Speaker 2: we've talked about this before, Spence, where the winning doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: and that they're at actually trying to position themselves, you know,
Speaker 2: uh into a place where it gives them a better
Speaker 2: chance at a at a lottery odds and and and
Speaker 2: uh and and getting a better player through through that process.
Speaker 2: It's for me personally, my own perspective, I uh, and
Speaker 2: I don't like the approach just because I'm not a
Speaker 2: fan of what I interpret as trying to manipulate the
Speaker 2: system or game the system, you know, by by purposely
Speaker 2: losing games and falling behind other people and giving you
Speaker 2: a better chance. To me, that that just uh goes
Speaker 2: against with the grain of professional sports is all about
Speaker 2: your You go out there, you have fans who are
Speaker 2: paying money, you have sponsors that are paying big money.
Speaker 2: You have the people who are the companies who are
Speaker 2: buying the suites, every everything that's involved from a financial standpoint,
Speaker 2: and yet you're you're purposely, you know, acting in a
Speaker 2: way that tells those people, well, we're really not trying
Speaker 2: to win. So we're not trying to make you feel
Speaker 2: good about coming to our event tonight. We're we're not
Speaker 2: really creating, you know, positive vibes in that regard. We're
Speaker 2: we're out here to try and be as bad as
Speaker 2: we can, but to try and make it look like
Speaker 2: we're trying something. So and it's all in the guys
Speaker 2: of player development. And we have young guys and we're
Speaker 2: putting them out there and which I get this part
Speaker 2: because you have to do at some point some type
Speaker 2: of mining for gold as it were, you know, like
Speaker 2: the prospectors in the old days who would go and
Speaker 2: put their pen in the water and shake it out
Speaker 2: and and and hopefully they get a gold nugget or two.
Speaker 2: And that's what they're doing, you know, with the with
Speaker 2: their players this season, they're they're putting different guys out there,
Speaker 2: different lineups, let them play, let them make mistakes, and
Speaker 2: and eventually make a determination from the club's perspective, who
Speaker 2: do we think can be a player at some point?
Speaker 2: Who do we think just doesn't have it? And we
Speaker 2: have to figure out a way to move on from them.
Speaker 2: And that's why you accumulate all these draft picks, because
Speaker 2: you're just trying to get you know, as Dennis Lindsay
Speaker 2: used to like to use the phrase, as many bites
Speaker 2: at the apple as you can. And so you're throwing
Speaker 2: guys out there. Well, that guy doesn't look like he's
Speaker 2: got it, So okay, let's put the next guy out there,
Speaker 2: and eventually you hope to find a guy or two
Speaker 2: or three if you're lucky, through that draft process, that
Speaker 2: trial and error, and then along the way, you try
Speaker 2: and get something in a trade if that comes up.
Speaker 2: You're trying to tice a nice free agent to come
Speaker 2: if you can do that. Those are all parts of
Speaker 2: this process that they've been engaged in. But it's very
Speaker 2: difficult for the fans to watch it because the fans
Speaker 2: are used to coming to a game, no matter what
Speaker 2: it is, their son's high school game or the college game,
Speaker 2: whoever it is, and trying to watch your team put
Speaker 2: best it's best foot forward to try and win the
Speaker 2: game you're playing. And the Jazz didn't do that this year. Obviously,
Speaker 2: they held out guys who were healthy. They got fined
Speaker 2: along the way by the NBA for doing that. It's
Speaker 2: just it's just not a very good look to me
Speaker 2: for any organization that puts themselves in that position. They're
Speaker 2: not the only ones who were doing it. You know,
Speaker 2: several other teams were in that same kind of race,
Speaker 2: and the Jazz happened to win it by getting the
Speaker 2: worst record. So we'll see what happens on May twelfth
Speaker 2: when the lottery lottery balls come up and and and
Speaker 2: see how that that plays out for them.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to ask you a question as it
Speaker 3: pertains to what we can learn from some of the
Speaker 3: numbers that were put up by some of the younger players.
Speaker 3: You know, Kyle Philipowski second half of the season when
Speaker 3: he got a lot of starts in a lot of minutes,
Speaker 3: had some really audacious nights with some big time stat lines.
Speaker 3: And Isaiah Collier and others. I always bring up the
Speaker 3: Shreef abdul Raheem example. Antoine Walker before Boston got good,
Speaker 3: was a guy that had twenty eight a night for
Speaker 3: teams that won, like twenty games.
Speaker 2: DeMarcus Cousins.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of players over the years that
Speaker 3: simply have been able to take advantage of the fact
Speaker 3: that they got minutes in usage to put up numbers
Speaker 3: for teams that didn't win. How do we have any
Speaker 3: idea whether or not Philipowski or Collier or hell I mean,
Speaker 3: any of them, quite frankly, when the Jazz are good again,
Speaker 3: hopefully at some point that does happen and they have
Speaker 3: veteran players.
Speaker 2: That are you know, well, or they just have really
Speaker 2: good players.
Speaker 3: And they're actually winning games and they're trying to make
Speaker 3: the playoffs. Did you see things from these young players
Speaker 3: that indicate to you that maybe they can be the
Speaker 3: same players they are for this team for teams that.
Speaker 2: Are actually good, if that makes sense. Yeah, it is
Speaker 2: difficult to judge Spence because when you're put in a
Speaker 2: position like the Jazz, the team on the floor was
Speaker 2: put in this this past season, they they actually they
Speaker 2: did not care about winning. In fact that you know,
Speaker 2: you can make the argument and you'd never hear them
Speaker 2: say this, and and rightfully so that they were trying
Speaker 2: to lose games. They're couching it all under the veil
Speaker 2: of of we're in player development. So we're trying to
Speaker 2: sift through to see who can play and who can't,
Speaker 2: because as we try and build this team, we got
Speaker 2: to find out who's a building block, who's a pretender,
Speaker 2: and who we just don't we just need to move
Speaker 2: on from because it's not gonna work that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So you put him in several different categories, right, Walker
Speaker 2: Kessler looks like he's a guy, right so that they
Speaker 2: think that he's he's one of those guys. Obviously, guys
Speaker 2: like marking In and and to some lesser extent, Sexton
Speaker 2: or are proven players who can who can help you
Speaker 2: on the floor. And so now you're trying to find
Speaker 2: other guys. Is it? Is it the Collier kid who
Speaker 2: had some moments, you know, during the year, they made
Speaker 2: a big deal about him, you know, setting the rookie
Speaker 2: assist record, you know his uhh this this season, they
Speaker 2: didn't talk about anything about his turnover rate, uh you know,
Speaker 2: and and and to affect games. But that's okay. You're
Speaker 2: trying to find out, you know, what can he do?
Speaker 2: Can he be something at some point? Obviously he's got
Speaker 2: to fix his shot, and he's gotta he's got to
Speaker 2: figure out a way how to make smart decisions when
Speaker 2: they're in front of him. But he does have a
Speaker 2: knack for moving the ball. He has a knack for
Speaker 2: pushing the ball up the floor, and he has a
Speaker 2: strong enough body that that he can get, you know,
Speaker 2: into the lane and make some things happen in transition,
Speaker 2: you know, which is a good thing. So they're looking
Speaker 2: for something like that. You got the George kid, who's
Speaker 2: played two years now. Probably the jury is still out
Speaker 2: on his ability to affect winning because he's a natural scorer,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't do much else. He doesn't make other
Speaker 2: people better when he's on the floor. In my opinion,
Speaker 2: his defense is atrocious, So that's a thing that you
Speaker 2: have to look at. But again, the way they were
Speaker 2: playing this year and and not playing necessarily to to
Speaker 2: be competitive and win, it's hard to know how these
Speaker 2: players or what their talent level and ability is relative
Speaker 2: to being in games that matter night in and night
Speaker 2: out to try and affect winning. But you know, that's
Speaker 2: the only way you find out is if they're out
Speaker 2: there doing it. And sometimes you wish you could throw
Speaker 2: a guy or two out there with a veteran corps
Speaker 2: that's competitive, that can win, you know, putting out a
Speaker 2: guy like, for example, a Shandon Anderson back in the
Speaker 2: day who was a rookie playing with a Karl Malone
Speaker 2: and a John Stockton and the Jeff Warners and giving
Speaker 2: him time with a mature a competitive group to do
Speaker 2: something and ease into it an NBA career that way.
Speaker 2: Here they have a few players, but they weren't playing
Speaker 2: them on the floor. Marketing In was out for so
Speaker 2: many games the second half of the year, just holding
Speaker 2: him out. Kessler didn't play a lot, you know, who
Speaker 2: can be an effective player, and the guys who are
Speaker 2: out there, you know, really can't affect winning that much.
Speaker 2: So that's a that's a tough deal to be able
Speaker 2: to judge that.
Speaker 3: Will Hardy and Justin Zanik addressed the media on that
Speaker 3: was was a Tuesday of Monday.
Speaker 2: I can't remember that for Breakfast Mark this week, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Monday morning.
Speaker 3: They addressed the media, and Will said the same thing
Speaker 3: about I mean, there was some variants, but Keyante Isaiah
Speaker 3: and Bryce, Bryce Senseaba Keante George Isaiah Collier. He alluded
Speaker 3: to all three of them needing to be in much
Speaker 3: better shape than they were this year.
Speaker 2: That that kind of caught me off guard.
Speaker 3: I I because I you know, Bryce entered the league
Speaker 3: with a little bit of Jabari Parker, baby fat little
Speaker 3: yeah yeah yeah. And I always kind of compared him
Speaker 3: to Dennis Scott a little bit because Dennis Scott was
Speaker 3: a guy that could really shoot it from three and
Speaker 3: never really fully got himself in a great shape. But
Speaker 3: what do you make of that all three of those
Speaker 3: young guys, their head coach basically saying like, you guys
Speaker 3: better come back here in better shape come fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well again, Uh, he's got a hammer speaking of
Speaker 2: a coach, Hardy because nobody's untouchable and and nobody's like
Speaker 2: a savior, right, and so you don't have to tiptoe
Speaker 2: around anybody in this group, starting right at the top,
Speaker 2: whether it's marketing and whether he might be a trade
Speaker 2: asset or something going forward. Now that you have him
Speaker 2: under under contract. Kessler, who's the young guy who's gonna
Speaker 2: be up for a rookie extension. We'll see how they
Speaker 2: handle that. But almost all of the roster, they're guys
Speaker 2: that if they don't do it the way you want
Speaker 2: them to do it, you just decide you're gonna move on.
Speaker 2: And that has always been Danny Angel's mantra. Also, Danny
Speaker 2: doesn't care about anybody. He kind of has a Jerry
Speaker 2: Sloan type attitude or approach to it, where he say,
Speaker 2: I don't care who's out there doing the job. I
Speaker 2: just want you to do the job. And if you
Speaker 2: don't do it, I'll put in the next guy. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter to me because that's what the job is.
Speaker 2: And so they have this open, this clean palette. If
Speaker 2: you will to try and and and tell guys, hey,
Speaker 2: you got to do this, you got to get better
Speaker 2: at this. I mean, the center ball kid to me
Speaker 2: at the moment is a one trick pony. He makes
Speaker 2: three point shots sometimes, okay, and he has stretchers where
Speaker 2: where he has trouble, you know, finding the basket. Okay.
Speaker 2: You know, he's got to get more consistent. But he's
Speaker 2: also got to show these in better shape that he
Speaker 2: can use his body to get up on guys to
Speaker 2: play defensively. The George kid, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: if he'll ever be any kind of a defender. That
Speaker 2: may be his mantra, you know, but he's young also,
Speaker 2: but he's got to be able to figure out some
Speaker 2: other parts of the game other than just creating shots
Speaker 2: for himself when he gets out there. But you know,
Speaker 2: look the way the Jazz are right now, Spence, and
Speaker 2: the way that they're they're set up. It's just like
Speaker 2: these other teams that are three of the top teams
Speaker 2: in the league right now, the teams that did this
Speaker 2: kind of thing just two and three years ago, the
Speaker 2: Cleveland Cavaliers, the Houston Rockets, and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 2: We're three of the worst teams in the league league
Speaker 2: three four years ago there now this year they had
Speaker 2: three of the four best records in the NBA. So
Speaker 2: they flipped the script and how they do it they
Speaker 2: did it with a mix of draft picks of making
Speaker 2: the time time uh uh trades that were timely for them.
Speaker 2: And in the case of Cleveland, obviously getting Donovan Mitchell
Speaker 2: from the Jazz as a big key in that they
Speaker 2: signed key free agents who maybe weren't top tier guys
Speaker 2: at the time. And I'm speaking specifically of Houston, who
Speaker 2: brought in a Fred van Vliet from Toronto, and they
Speaker 2: brought in uh, the kid from Memphis, the guard from
Speaker 2: from Canada. He's just gave me my name right now,
Speaker 2: Dylan Brooks. But they brought in him as a tough,
Speaker 2: enforcer guy. And they weren't really high profile, top tier
Speaker 2: free agents, but they were guys they wanted to bring
Speaker 2: in to fill a certain spot on their ross in
Speaker 2: terms of leadership uh in Fred van Vleet, and in
Speaker 2: terms of toughness with Dylan, And then they combined them
Speaker 2: with draft picks like Shangoon and the Thompson kid and
Speaker 2: the Jabari Smith kid, and all of a sudden, they've
Speaker 2: got one of the best records in the league and
Speaker 2: a nice mix. Right, So that's what that's what those
Speaker 2: guys are doing. Obviously. Okay, see did the same thing
Speaker 2: you know in the draft where they got Chet Holmgren
Speaker 2: and and they got the the Williams Jalen Williams kid
Speaker 2: from Santa Clara, And then they mixed that up by
Speaker 2: making the trade of a big name guy, Paul George
Speaker 2: at the time, who said, I don't want to be here,
Speaker 2: so they said, fine, moved them to La turned that
Speaker 2: into Shay Gilgis and so now they got an MVP
Speaker 2: level player who nobody knew that was who he was
Speaker 2: at the time. He was like a marketing type trade
Speaker 2: asset that that the Clippers were willing to give up.
Speaker 2: The Clippers would have never made that move if they
Speaker 2: could have looked in the crystal ball and seen three
Speaker 2: years down the road what Shay Gilders Alexander was going
Speaker 2: to be. Right. But that's the kind of stuff that
Speaker 2: the Jazz are trying to put themselves in position to
Speaker 2: be able to do if and when those opportunities present themselves.
Speaker 2: So that's that this is just part of that process
Speaker 2: that they're trying to get through to see if they
Speaker 2: can make improvements like Cleveland did, like Houston did, like
Speaker 2: OKC did, in terms of mixing and matching those different
Speaker 2: components to try and build your team up.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you about Lowry and where we
Speaker 3: find ourselves right now. So the first year Lowry was
Speaker 3: here twenty twenty two. In twenty twenty three was his
Speaker 3: All Star year. It's when the All Star Game was
Speaker 3: here in Salt Lake. And on the roster that year,
Speaker 3: you know, Mike Conley was his starting point guard, Jordan Clarkson,
Speaker 3: Chris Dunn, Semoni Fontecio, Dalen Horton, Tucker. I was never
Speaker 3: a big fan, but a veteran player, Kelly Olynnock, you know,
Speaker 3: Colin Sexton, Jared Vanderbilt. He had grown ups around him,
Speaker 3: namely Mike, who's awesome right before or they traded before
Speaker 3: they traded Mike away. So I'll never agree with the
Speaker 3: direction that they went in. I just never will. You know,
Speaker 3: the half assed measure didn't work. I was never going to.
Speaker 3: But that year when he actually had veteran NBA players
Speaker 3: in Ota be pros. He was about twenty six points
Speaker 3: a game, nine boards, two assists, shot fifty percent from
Speaker 3: the floor, almost forty percent from three, and eighty eight
Speaker 3: percent from the line, All Star sixty six games played.
Speaker 2: All right, last year, you're.
Speaker 3: Looking at twenty three points eight boards, relatively similar splits
Speaker 3: as far as.
Speaker 2: The shooting goes.
Speaker 3: Fifty five games played this year, nineteen points six rebounds.
Speaker 3: Everything was down. Shooting, splits, rebounds, assists, everything was down
Speaker 3: for Lowry. And I give him a lot of grace
Speaker 3: in space because he's been playing with children this year.
Speaker 3: So year one All Star Lowry Market in twenty six
Speaker 3: nine almost fifty forty ninety veteran teammates. Year three, Lowry
Speaker 3: marketingbers all the way down.
Speaker 2: Who is he Smitty in the NBA? Who is Lowry Market? Well,
Speaker 2: he's an excellent player. He's a top level player to
Speaker 2: me when he has guys around him, and also Spence,
Speaker 2: you got a factor in somehow, And this is where
Speaker 2: it always gets murky in the evaluation process. But you
Speaker 2: also got to look at what is my incentive? What
Speaker 2: is my motivation for playing night in and night out?
Speaker 2: When you come to a team the first year, he's
Speaker 2: trying to prove himself. He came from a team where
Speaker 2: it was a mix and match in Cleveland where they
Speaker 2: were trying to get their footing with other young guys.
Speaker 2: Now he's with his third team in five years at
Speaker 2: that time, and he wants to show, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: I can be I can be a guy in this league.
Speaker 2: And he comes in and the Jazz are going through
Speaker 2: their transition thing, and he got a lot of opportunity
Speaker 2: and it felt like that, you know, they got out
Speaker 2: to that ten and three start and it felt like
Speaker 2: maybe we can still be competitive, you know with this
Speaker 2: group and and marketing. You know, got in that rhythm
Speaker 2: and got into that space. Now you fast forward two
Speaker 2: years later, there's a marked difference in what the team
Speaker 2: looks like, in what the direction of what they are
Speaker 2: trying to do with the group. You're sitting there as
Speaker 2: a guy. They just made a big commitment to financially
Speaker 2: in terms of a contract for a forty million a
Speaker 2: year for five years. They made a big commitment to you.
Speaker 2: And now all of a sudden, you look around the room,
Speaker 2: as you say, and there's a bunch of kids in
Speaker 2: here from high school and college that I'm playing with,
Speaker 2: and you know, so where we going, Well, you know,
Speaker 2: don't don't worry about it. We're just trying to develop guys,
Speaker 2: and you know, and and and again it's I'm positive, Spence,
Speaker 2: even though I'm not in the room that no one
Speaker 2: there has ever said we're trying not to win. Okay,
Speaker 2: but it's obvious, you know, to anybody who knows anything
Speaker 2: about the game that the year was also spent on
Speaker 2: trying to figure out who the other players are and
Speaker 2: what the player development track is going to be. So
Speaker 2: if you're marketing sitting over in the corner, you know,
Speaker 2: you're saying to yourself, well, you know, so what am
Speaker 2: I supposed to do? Like I was supposed to score
Speaker 2: thirty five a game and try and lift us up
Speaker 2: or what's going on? And so, you know, and they
Speaker 2: didn't press the issue. The Jazz, you know, the second
Speaker 2: half of the year, they sat him a lot right
Speaker 2: when he was healthy. They got fined for it because
Speaker 2: the league said, hey, you can't keep doing that, and
Speaker 2: and the Jazz looked at him kind of cross eyed
Speaker 2: like whatever, h And they're just going to do it
Speaker 2: the way that they want to do it. And so
Speaker 2: with marketing in, I think he's more like that first
Speaker 2: year jazz guy than he was this year's jazz guy.
Speaker 2: I just think he's got to have that motivation, you know,
Speaker 2: to be with a group that really is going to
Speaker 2: be competitive and where he feels comfortable that this is
Speaker 2: a group we can go out and really fight and
Speaker 2: give it our all, night in and night out. Because
Speaker 2: when you're losing spence in this league and there's no
Speaker 2: light at the end to the tunnel, it is a
Speaker 2: tough road to Oh, no matter what you say, no
Speaker 2: matter how you preach it, no matter what the fans
Speaker 2: want to scream about. You know, he's making a lot
Speaker 2: of money. He should be doing this and that and
Speaker 2: the other thing. The bottom line is they're all human
Speaker 2: and they all approach things a certain way. And for him,
Speaker 2: I think he's I think he can be a main
Speaker 2: guy for a team, but he's got to have some
Speaker 2: help and obviously, as we've seen, he needs a lot
Speaker 2: of help. Yes he does.
Speaker 3: Yes, he does one more thing that will catch a
Speaker 3: break and we won't do any more jazz because well,
Speaker 3: you know will And it's it's interesting because you reference like, they'll.
Speaker 2: Never say that we're trying to lose.
Speaker 3: And as I always say, in sports and in life,
Speaker 3: do not pay attention to what people say to you,
Speaker 3: pay attention to what they do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So it's clear that by their actions that they were
Speaker 3: throwing the season away in.
Speaker 2: The name of draft capital. We all know what time
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 3: But Sarah Todd Desre News asked, Will what type of player,
Speaker 3: what kind of players would you like to see acquired
Speaker 3: this offseason? And look, they all are going to handle
Speaker 3: things pragmatically and politically. They're going to say the right thing.
Speaker 3: And he said, you know, we just we just we
Speaker 3: have a lot of talent in the building. Do they
Speaker 3: have a lot of talent in the building.
Speaker 2: I think that jury is out and you know, the
Speaker 2: defense was uh, you know, I mean statistically is the
Speaker 2: worst of the league. And so you know, is that
Speaker 2: talent you know, because one thing you have to look at, Spencer,
Speaker 2: you have to you have to look in the mirror,
Speaker 2: and you have to be objective about it. So you
Speaker 2: either have talent that is able to do it, or
Speaker 2: you don't have talent and they're not able to do it.
Speaker 2: Or the third level is you have talent that can
Speaker 2: do it, but they're not being held accountable to do it.
Speaker 2: And so whatever category that falls in, right, and so
Speaker 2: some of that may have to be on the coaching
Speaker 2: staff if they're saying, well, we have talent in the room,
Speaker 2: and you're saying, well, the defense is just it continued
Speaker 2: to do the same thing, the same thing, the same thing,
Speaker 2: the same thing, night after night. I watched them. They
Speaker 2: never changed up the stuff they were doing. And so
Speaker 2: is that talent that you're not holding accountable? Is it
Speaker 2: lack of talent that just can't do it. They can't
Speaker 2: get over the screen, they can't get through the screen,
Speaker 2: they can't get back transition defense, they can't stop a
Speaker 2: guy out at the three point whatever, whatever, whatever. So
Speaker 2: you have to evaluate all of those things and figure
Speaker 2: out which category does it fall in, and then you
Speaker 2: try and figure out your team from there.
Speaker 3: Richard Smith live in the studio, will Switch Gears coming
Speaker 3: up on the other side. I had a really cool
Speaker 3: experience to attend a meeting today with the Miller families.
Speaker 2: Midy worked for the Millers for forty years.
Speaker 3: An announcement tomorrow that the Millers are about to take
Speaker 3: over a majority ownership of Rayel Salt Lake. What was
Speaker 3: it like to work for the Millers and what is
Speaker 3: the soccer club in for? And then we'll do a
Speaker 3: little lottery, and we'll do a little NBA playoff some
Speaker 3: one more big segment with Smitty coming up on the
Speaker 3: other side, felt Duke and myself at snacks during the break,
Speaker 3: smithy see that our station mascot, Duke is in the house,
Speaker 3: my four year old English scream.
Speaker 2: Puppy, who I love.
Speaker 3: He got treats and I smashed an uncrustable's peeb and Jay,
Speaker 3: so hence I'm working through it right now.
Speaker 2: And I like the fact that once you bring Duke
Speaker 2: here that you know, like it is at home with
Speaker 2: your family, everybody knows who runs the show. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so I got that right here, so you know what, you.
Speaker 3: Know how to get a kick out if he's been
Speaker 3: coming into work now with me for a while, and
Speaker 3: you know, at the end of every segment, I have
Speaker 3: a read to do, I have a commercial to do,
Speaker 3: and whenever I start reading the commercial, he knows that
Speaker 3: we're about to break, so he stands up and gets
Speaker 3: excited because he knows he's about to get a treat.
Speaker 2: Is that funny? When I had dogs years and years ago,
Speaker 2: I had the same kind of response. I had two
Speaker 2: dogs and a Golden Retriever in a black lab. Wherever
Speaker 2: they were in the house. As soon as I grabbed
Speaker 2: my car keys, if I was going to run an
Speaker 2: errand or something, they would hear that and they would
Speaker 2: immediately run to the back door, and I would get
Speaker 2: to the back door and I would look on them,
Speaker 2: What do you guys do? Where do you think they're
Speaker 2: gonna come? Open the door? Let's go, let's go. We
Speaker 2: know where you're going, you know.
Speaker 3: And I always because every time I leave, he gives
Speaker 3: me the puppy eyes, and then I leave the curtain open,
Speaker 3: so he looks out the window and watch watches me
Speaker 3: drive away.
Speaker 2: I have tremendous parental guilt. Ye got it, I got it.
Speaker 2: But there they are life enhancers. Man.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what if you if you're in a
Speaker 3: tough spot, I would consider a canine because they make
Speaker 3: a big difference.
Speaker 2: All right, it's middy. Had a cool experience today.
Speaker 3: Steve Starks invited invited me and some other media members,
Speaker 3: Gordon Monson from the trip, Aaron Falks and others, uh
Speaker 3: to uh to sit with the Millers and uh, you
Speaker 3: know the Miller family. It was Steve Starks, it was Gail,
Speaker 3: it was Greg and it was Steve Miller. And then
Speaker 3: they had you know, members of their board there and
Speaker 3: some attorneys and such. And tomorrow it will be announced
Speaker 3: that the Millers are taking over the soccer club. They'll
Speaker 3: be the majority owner of RAYL Salt Lake. Ryan Smith
Speaker 3: and his group will exit. They're no longer involved. Of course,
Speaker 3: basketball hockey, Downtown project a lot on their plate. The
Speaker 3: Blitzer Group Dave Blitzer, of course, is a very very powerful,
Speaker 3: well known owner across the landscape of several sports, including
Speaker 3: pro basketball with the Philadelphia seventy six Ers.
Speaker 2: They're going to maintain a stake.
Speaker 3: So the club will be part of the Blitzer umbrella.
Speaker 3: I believe they have seven soccer clubs around the club,
Speaker 3: so I think that's a good thing. But I just
Speaker 3: wanted to ask you. You know, I worked for the
Speaker 3: Millers for seven years. Had a great experience. It was
Speaker 3: a great company, a great leadership.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Gayo is one of the community gems that we
Speaker 3: have around here. She very much cares about Utah, very
Speaker 3: much cares about the community and doing right by the
Speaker 3: community members, not just her family. But I wanted to
Speaker 3: ask you what your experience was working for the Millers
Speaker 3: for forty years. A lot of people at the soccer
Speaker 3: club probably listening today wondering what it's going to be
Speaker 3: like now that they're gonna have new owners starting tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Well, if the Millers have an active role it and
Speaker 2: if they set it up as such, you know, it's
Speaker 2: gonna give a lot of stability to the organization, which
Speaker 2: you know, being an m l uh an MLS casual follower,
Speaker 2: being a real Salt Lake fan, uh someone who goes
Speaker 2: to half a dozen seven eight games during the season
Speaker 2: with some friends of ours, it's always uh uh. It's
Speaker 2: been interesting over the years to see, you know, the
Speaker 2: ebbs and flows and the changes that have that have
Speaker 2: taken place, especially on the ownership level. You know, the
Speaker 2: last few iterations, I think with the Millers coming in,
Speaker 2: my impression would be that they're gonna bring some stability.
Speaker 2: They they are the are the community sports community here.
Speaker 2: They have set the standard all their years of running
Speaker 2: the jazz of running the bees, which they still have
Speaker 2: that have now moved out to daybreak uh and they
Speaker 2: will have a calming influence on how the organization is handled,
Speaker 2: how they go about their business. They're very good about
Speaker 2: hiring people in the sports area, if you will, and
Speaker 2: letting those people do their job to the best of
Speaker 2: their ability and giving them the resources to do it
Speaker 2: and also giving them the backing to make decisions when
Speaker 2: they have to be made, and so I would expect
Speaker 2: that they would take the same approach there that they
Speaker 2: have in their other sports entities, and we just provide
Speaker 2: that overall feeling that we have people who care about
Speaker 2: our community, people have done this before, people who know
Speaker 2: how to handle these kinds of things. And the greatest
Speaker 2: part of that spence is the word stability for an organization.
Speaker 2: We've seen it just this last week in the NBA
Speaker 2: the New Orleans Pelicans fired their their general manager, David Griffin,
Speaker 2: who is the victim of so many injuries and guys
Speaker 2: being out all year, and so you want to throw
Speaker 2: the general manager under the bus because of that, Okay.
Speaker 2: And then just today the Sacramento Kings similar thing where
Speaker 2: they have an owner who gets really involved and maybe
Speaker 2: too much. So you know, I'm not there, so I
Speaker 2: can't say for certain, but they've always had those kind
Speaker 2: of fingerprints on that organization in that regard where they
Speaker 2: hired Mike Brown, got him in the playoffs, gave him
Speaker 2: a new contract, got off to a tough start this year,
Speaker 2: they fire him the first month of the season, and
Speaker 2: now they fire the general manager in Sacramento. You have
Speaker 2: an over involved owner who thinks they have most of
Speaker 2: the answers and when something doesn't go right or you
Speaker 2: hit it. That's why Sacramento, which has a nice core
Speaker 2: at the moment right they got the playoffs last year,
Speaker 2: I had a nice little, you know, little spurt there.
Speaker 2: But they are They're an organization that's had trouble getting
Speaker 2: footing for a long time. And that's because if you
Speaker 2: look over the history, there's a lot of stop and starts,
Speaker 2: stopping starts because the ownership just can't get on board
Speaker 2: with the stability part of letting it play out. Let's
Speaker 2: see what happens and all that. The Millers have done
Speaker 2: that before. I get the impression that the Jazz and
Speaker 2: New Jazz ownership with Ryan Smith, that those guys are
Speaker 2: gonna see through, you know, their process here, whether you
Speaker 2: like it or not, whether it's yielding results or not
Speaker 2: on a timeline that that any of us like. But
Speaker 2: it looks like they're in it for the long haul
Speaker 2: to make let the basketball people make those kind of decisions.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what the Millers will bring in
Speaker 2: terms of in terms of the way the organization has
Speaker 2: run to real saw Lake.
Speaker 3: The ownership conversation in the world the professional sports has
Speaker 3: always been fascinating to me because it seems like it's
Speaker 3: very easy to identify what makes a great owner, what
Speaker 3: makes a great ownership group, But it's impossible to tell
Speaker 3: somebody who has used their money to buy a thing
Speaker 3: to run a thing a certain way when it's theirs
Speaker 3: right the golden rule. We talked about it on the
Speaker 3: show all the time. The man with the gold makes
Speaker 3: the rules. So it's you know, again, it's not that
Speaker 3: difficult when it comes to what.
Speaker 2: The dynamics look like for a good ownership group.
Speaker 3: And as you articulated, it's simply identifying talented people, hiring
Speaker 3: those people and empowering them to do their jobs, and
Speaker 3: then get the hell out of their way, provide the
Speaker 3: resources they need to do their jobs. And look, the
Speaker 3: buck has to stop somewhere, and so if you need
Speaker 3: to get involved, if somebody's not doing a good job,
Speaker 3: you do that. But it's the meddling owners. It's the
Speaker 3: owners that want to be famous. It's the owners that
Speaker 3: want to hang out with the players. It's the owners
Speaker 3: that want to give the interviews. It's the owner. It's
Speaker 3: the Jerry Jones effect. It's the owners that want to
Speaker 3: utilize and more often than not, there they are people
Speaker 3: that never made the team but want to buy their
Speaker 3: way into locker room.
Speaker 2: Right, And there's one in New York that's still that way.
Speaker 3: He is moonlighting now as the opening act for the
Speaker 3: Eagles on tour. So best of luck to Jimmy Dolan
Speaker 3: and his kazoo, and hopefully that takes up most of
Speaker 3: his time because he's been such an atrocious owner for
Speaker 3: both the hockey team and the basketball team back there.
Speaker 2: It's but again, it's it's it's a funny conversation.
Speaker 3: To have because to me, it's not hard to identify
Speaker 3: what makes great owners, but it's impossible to tell these
Speaker 3: people who have utilized their own money to buy the thing,
Speaker 3: to run the thing the way you think they should
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: If that makes sense. No, well, it's you know, I
Speaker 2: always call it the country club effect Spence. You know,
Speaker 2: you if you have enough money, you can buy ownership.
Speaker 2: You can buy you know, a membership into the club.
Speaker 2: So now you're in the club. So now when you
Speaker 2: go to the meeting, you have a you have a
Speaker 2: voice in the meeting of you know, whether we're gonna
Speaker 2: change something at the clubhouse or at the pool or
Speaker 2: the golf course or whatever it is. Uh, this isn't
Speaker 2: that much different. I was I was playing, uh, playing
Speaker 2: golf the other day with one of our former executives
Speaker 2: with the Jazz who was saying, talking about uh ownership
Speaker 2: meetings back in the day in the NBA and being
Speaker 2: there with owners and and being in a meeting with
Speaker 2: the commissioner Stern and talking about you know how you know,
Speaker 2: some guys were just there at the owners the main
Speaker 2: guys themselves for several different teams. They're you know, cajoling
Speaker 2: and joking and whatnot while they're in a business meeting
Speaker 2: trying to decide the fate of the NBA or whatever.
Speaker 2: And it was just another It was just another you know,
Speaker 2: a reason to have a couple of drinks and and
Speaker 2: get together and and and you know, joke around because
Speaker 2: we're at the club. You know, we're the guys in
Speaker 2: the club. You know, we're you and me, Spence, we
Speaker 2: were members of the club. Yeah, how about this, you
Speaker 2: know whatever. And some guys know how to handle that,
Speaker 2: and some guys don't. And some guys, you know, feel
Speaker 2: like this is just you know, look, we've said it before, Spence.
Speaker 2: Everybody who owns a professional sports franchise in this country,
Speaker 2: whether it's the NFL, whether it's the NBA, Major League Baseball,
Speaker 2: none of those owners made their money or have their
Speaker 2: primary business as the sports team that they own. They
Speaker 2: all got their money because of something else they did.
Speaker 2: Whether now, of course the big wave is it and
Speaker 2: tech and the tech world and all that, and that's
Speaker 2: where Ryan Smith, you know, comes from, Mark Cuban comes from,
Speaker 2: Larry Ellison from from Golden State, comes from Steve Bomer,
Speaker 2: from the gold Clippers, comes from. These guys come in
Speaker 2: and they have success in another entity of business, and
Speaker 2: then somehow, in some fashion they have a feeling that
Speaker 2: they know how to run a sports team. Now, some
Speaker 2: of them are smarter than others, and they know, hey,
Speaker 2: I just you know, I'm gonna be around it, but
Speaker 2: I'm gonna let the guys do what they need to do.
Speaker 2: Other guys like Mark Cuban, you know, in the book
Speaker 2: I'm I'm finishing, you know, it just came out on
Speaker 2: Luka Doncicic by Tim McMahon, who talks about you know,
Speaker 2: all the time, all the meetings, everything they had in
Speaker 2: basketball and Mark Cuban, you know, was you know, one
Speaker 2: of the louder voices in the room and always had
Speaker 2: the final say as the owner, you know, for good
Speaker 2: or for bad, right. And so he had people around
Speaker 2: him who did all the leg work. And the hard
Speaker 2: part in any organization is if you have if you
Speaker 2: have people working hard, people doing their due diligence, doing
Speaker 2: all of the leg work, all of the grunt work
Speaker 2: behind the scenes, and they do all that stuff all
Speaker 2: year long. And then if you have an owner who says,
Speaker 2: you know, at the in the bottom of the nines
Speaker 2: with two outs, I want to come in and pin
Speaker 2: and I'm going to hit a home run. And and
Speaker 2: you have an owner like that and who thinks they
Speaker 2: have the answers, you know, that's where you're run into
Speaker 2: trouble because you know they haven't done all the homework,
Speaker 2: they don't know all the stuff that's going on. You
Speaker 2: have to hire people you can rely on that that
Speaker 2: you feel have your best interest at heart in terms
Speaker 2: of running the organization the way you want it done.
Speaker 2: And then you really have to, you know, be able
Speaker 2: to get out of the way and let them do
Speaker 2: what they want to do based out all the information
Speaker 2: they have you have to rely on them. The Millers
Speaker 2: have done that, did a great job of that for
Speaker 2: over three decades. You know, with the jazz you know,
Speaker 2: whether it was you know, drafting guys, whether it was
Speaker 2: like a big trade for the jazz and the jazz
Speaker 2: world with Darren Williams at the time, you know, who
Speaker 2: is our best player? And uh and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the Miller family said, well, if that's the Kevin O'Connor,
Speaker 2: if that's what you think we need to do, you
Speaker 2: need we need to do, You'll get rid of our
Speaker 2: best player. You know, that's you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: how that looks, but okay, that's what you say. And
Speaker 2: so they, you know, they sign off on it, and
Speaker 2: they let you do what you feel like you need
Speaker 2: to do. And so, you know, the teams that have
Speaker 2: the stability and have people in place that are allowed to,
Speaker 2: they're empowered to do the things that they are good
Speaker 2: at doing and that they work at every single day
Speaker 2: are the organizations that tend to have a sustained success.
Speaker 2: Juxtaposed for me, the Larry era when he.
Speaker 3: Was because Larry was a big personality and he was
Speaker 3: front facing and you know, I've heard pretty crazy stories
Speaker 3: that you know that Frank and Larry and you know,
Speaker 3: my father and Larry over the years, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: had some disagreements and such, and you know, Larry was
Speaker 3: one who was probably a little bit more involved juxtaposed
Speaker 3: to when Gayo became the face of the Miller organization.
Speaker 2: After Larry passed.
Speaker 3: And you know, Gail certainly is very sharp, and I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that she's not, you know, a voice in
Speaker 3: the room, but was Gail one more to allow space
Speaker 3: for the Kevin O'Connors and the Dennis Lindsay's of the
Speaker 3: world to make their decisions in a way that maybe
Speaker 3: Larry was a little bit more front facing and involved.
Speaker 2: Is that fair to say? Yeah? I think that that
Speaker 2: what Gail did in the meetings that I was a
Speaker 2: part of over the years, she listened to all the
Speaker 2: stuff that we had going on as a group, the
Speaker 2: things that we had laid out that we thought were
Speaker 2: going to happen. We always used to have a end
Speaker 2: of the year slash beginning of the year meeting which
Speaker 2: always happened around the draft, and it was to set
Speaker 2: the tone for what we think is going to happen
Speaker 2: in the draft, and right after that usually a week
Speaker 2: after is when free agency would start. And then and
Speaker 2: then it would also be you know, part of the
Speaker 2: so called trade season in the summertime. So you laid
Speaker 2: out all the contingencies of what you thought might happen,
Speaker 2: what we thought we wanted to try and do, what
Speaker 2: we thought was going to take place in regards to
Speaker 2: the draft, what we thought might happen in free agency
Speaker 2: or guys that we were gonna target and free agency,
Speaker 2: and what the realities of making those kinds of things happen.
Speaker 2: All that stuff. We'd have all that stuff laid out
Speaker 2: all the time, and and then Gail would you know,
Speaker 2: look at it, and usually she would have she or
Speaker 2: Greg you know, would have a couple of questions, you know,
Speaker 2: mostly financially related about, you know, is this gonna put
Speaker 2: us in this kind of position or is this gonna
Speaker 2: you know, affect us three years from now or what
Speaker 2: and all you know, kind of long term type stuff
Speaker 2: and U and then they would, you know, they would
Speaker 2: just say, okay, you know, well, it looks like you
Speaker 2: gotta lined out and you know what you want to do,
Speaker 2: and that makes sense. And they they were there to really,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, to more or less guide the group
Speaker 2: as a whole, to just make sure that we were
Speaker 2: acting in the best interests of the or organization in
Speaker 2: the long term. And if that was if they were
Speaker 2: felt comfortable that that's what you guys are trying to
Speaker 2: do and that this makes sense, and you guys have
Speaker 2: all weighed in and have sorted it all out, then
Speaker 2: it makes sense to us. And and uh, and now
Speaker 2: we just move on. You know. Some places don't don't
Speaker 2: operate like that. Some places have an owner who who
Speaker 2: has all the answers and says, well, why don't we
Speaker 2: do this, and why don't we do that? And and
Speaker 2: and then you have to start, you know, spinning your wheels,
Speaker 2: because what happens is that if there's if you have
Speaker 2: a situation where they the ownership doesn't support you or
Speaker 2: has a question about how you're going about your side
Speaker 2: of the business and you can't get any traction that way,
Speaker 2: then they're just as likely to move on from you
Speaker 2: and bring in the next guy. And that's what we
Speaker 2: just talked about, you know, in the in the case
Speaker 2: of New Orleans and and Sacramento in the last week,
Speaker 2: you know, and for different reasons, but those things happen
Speaker 2: when you have ownership that doesn't really isn't really convinced
Speaker 2: that you have a plan that can work over time,
Speaker 2: and that's what you're always trying to present and have
Speaker 2: in place for them regarding the overall running of the business.
Speaker 3: So a couple of minutes left here, so let's move
Speaker 3: over and do a little lottery because the Jazz season
Speaker 3: is over and the NBA playoffs are about to start
Speaker 3: this weekend playing we'll finish tomorrow. So if you're a
Speaker 3: Jazz fan, the next exciting date is May the twelfth,
Speaker 3: fourteen percent chance to get the number one pick. Along
Speaker 3: with Charlotte and Washington as a result of being the
Speaker 3: worst team in pro basketball, they will get a top
Speaker 3: five pick. I want to start with a macro question.
Speaker 3: Then we'll hone in on the top and we'll do
Speaker 3: a little Cooper flag before we say goodbye all of
Speaker 3: the top five picks. So I know you're going to
Speaker 3: roll your eyes here, okay, but most of the experts,
Speaker 3: most of the people that do the mox, most of
Speaker 3: the people that do this for a living, believe this
Speaker 3: is a draft that has five really, really good players.
Speaker 3: So if you're Jazz fan, that's good news. Because you're
Speaker 3: gonna have a top five pick. There's probably a gap
Speaker 3: between Trey Johnson and five and some of the other
Speaker 3: prospects ahead of Trey. All five of these prospects are
Speaker 3: either eighteen or nineteen years old. The list of eighteen
Speaker 3: or nineteen year olds to come into the NBA year
Speaker 3: one and make a market difference, it's very very short.
Speaker 3: Lebron Right Garnett came in out of high school and
Speaker 3: he was good year one, but he didn't turn into
Speaker 3: the big ticket until later on. You could go back
Speaker 3: to Moses Malone or Sean Camp. We could have a
Speaker 3: conversation about the youngsters that actually did play well right away.
Speaker 3: But from a team building standpoint, what's the risk of
Speaker 3: putting all your eggs in the basket of somebody who
Speaker 3: is still probably confused about making a socks match in
Speaker 3: the morning because he's still a teenager.
Speaker 2: Well, regardless of what the situation is going to be,
Speaker 2: this is the position that Jazz wanted to be in
Speaker 2: a year ago. This is what This is the route
Speaker 2: they've chosen. This is the path they've gone down all
Speaker 2: this season, some of it just by the sheer makeup
Speaker 2: of their roster and not being quite good enough and
Speaker 2: competitive in a lot of games, some of it by
Speaker 2: their own design in terms of holding players out and
Speaker 2: you know, for the sake of so called player development
Speaker 2: with young guys and hoping they would lose to get
Speaker 2: in this position. So whether they got here, you know,
Speaker 2: and just by the luck of the draw, or they
Speaker 2: got here by their own, you know, way of working things,
Speaker 2: whatever it was, they put themselves in the position they
Speaker 2: wanted to be in. So now they've got a fourteen
Speaker 2: percent chance it works out. It doesn't work out, as
Speaker 2: you say, just for our listeners who don't follow this
Speaker 2: stuff all the time like we do. The Jazz by
Speaker 2: having the worst record, the NBA lottery rules dictate they
Speaker 2: they can do no worse than having the number five pick.
Speaker 2: That's what happened to Detroit last year. Detroit had the
Speaker 2: worst record by five games over the next worst team
Speaker 2: in the league record wise, and they should have had
Speaker 2: the first pick because they were the worst team a
Speaker 2: year ago, but they went because of the way the
Speaker 2: lottery ended up falling in their regard, went from one
Speaker 2: to five, so they had the fifth pick instead of
Speaker 2: the first pick. The Jazz may have the same fate,
Speaker 2: may twelfth will tell us that. But but that puts
Speaker 2: you in an uneasy position because you want to have
Speaker 2: the first pick is primarily because you want to have
Speaker 2: the choice of who do we think is the best
Speaker 2: guy for us going forward. We don't want to have
Speaker 2: to take the last guy from the leftover of the group,
Speaker 2: you know, and not have the freedom of choice if
Speaker 2: you will. We remember, and I heard you use this
Speaker 2: reference yesterday and talk about a draft in the past,
Speaker 2: in the Greg Oden draft, you know, and the Kevin
Speaker 2: Durant draft, when you're exactly right when you made the
Speaker 2: statement that every single team in the league would have
Speaker 2: taken Greg Odin at number one. That was a done deal.
Speaker 2: That's it. He was the next Tim Duncan, he was
Speaker 2: the next Shack, he was the next Hakeem whatever you
Speaker 2: want category you want to put it in. So he's
Speaker 2: the guy. And Seattle lost the lottery thing as it
Speaker 2: did it at that time, ended up picking two, and
Speaker 2: the Portland got number one. They take Odin. Seattle's left
Speaker 2: with the leftovers, which happened to be Kevin Durant. Oh,
Speaker 2: thank you very much. But it works out. So the
Speaker 2: point being, you never quite know how it's going to go.
Speaker 2: But you want to be the team that's in the
Speaker 2: position to make the choice that you want to make
Speaker 2: that you feel is the way we want to do this.
Speaker 2: We want to construct this. So is it going to
Speaker 2: be if they get the first pick? Is that going
Speaker 2: to be Cooper flag? Did they look at it and say, well,
Speaker 2: most teams that are run that are really good have
Speaker 2: a good lead guard, and so is that the Dylan
Speaker 2: Harper kid from Rutgers who's all of six five sixty
Speaker 2: six point guard, shooting guard, can run the NBA type
Speaker 2: pick and roll, can get in the lane, makes free
Speaker 2: throws hard, nos, kid, all that stuff. Do you maybe
Speaker 2: that kid? Maybe that's the guy you know to quote
Speaker 2: start a team with. It's gonna be interesting, uh, you know.
Speaker 2: And the Jazz have no play in that spends by
Speaker 2: the way, they just have to sit on the sideline
Speaker 2: and wait. And this is for our fans listening. This
Speaker 2: is literally a lottery where the ping pong balls come up.
Speaker 2: It's actually done now, computer generated with numbers, four digit
Speaker 2: numbers and blah blah blah. But it is literally, you know,
Speaker 2: a the luck of the draw as to whether you
Speaker 2: get one, two, three, four or five in the Jazz's case.
Speaker 2: So May twelfth, we find out what that is and
Speaker 2: then and then they they'll have six weeks basically to
Speaker 2: figure out what direction they want to go in that regard.
Speaker 3: All right, Smittie, Well, always great to see you. Uh,
Speaker 3: we'll see what happens next week. We'll do some more
Speaker 3: NBA playoffs because it gets wrong right now. Uh, but
Speaker 3: any exciting plans for are you?
Speaker 2: Are you in town? Do we do any here? Spence?
Speaker 2: I'm here for you as always. We're we're we're heading
Speaker 2: down a couple of weeks though to uh to uh
Speaker 2: Saint George for the LPGA tournament. That'll be nice, that'll
Speaker 2: be fun black down there. Yeah, Black des are going
Speaker 2: down there to work down there. Linda and I are
Speaker 2: gonna volunteer and and uh take part in that and
Speaker 2: see how the Black Desert UH Championship course is doing,
Speaker 2: and and uh and see our first LPGA tournament, which
Speaker 2: would be fun. That's awesome. Still looking for volunteers down there,
Speaker 2: they are, okay, Bill, looking for people who If anybody
Speaker 2: listening wants to get involved the Black Desert, you can
Speaker 2: get on their website and and look at their volunteer opportunities.
Speaker 2: I think they're we're looking for people to come down.
Speaker 2: It's a fun thing to do. And uh in the
Speaker 2: first time ever that the LPGA is holding a main
Speaker 2: event in the state of Utah, which would be be
Speaker 2: great for all of our golf fans, no doubt great
Speaker 2: to see in.
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