Speaker 1: All right, there was some conversation about stephen wardel Curry
Speaker 1: giving it a go tonight.
Speaker 2: He will not do that.
Speaker 1: He has been cleared to participate in some encore drills.
Speaker 1: But you will miss the game tonight as the Warriors
Speaker 1: are trying to stave off elimination. So now as official,
Speaker 1: we got Nick Celtics at your early game. But let's
Speaker 1: go to Chicago where we find ourselves one of our favorites.
Speaker 1: Sarah Todd from the Deseret News, Sarah, Happy Wednesday.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing great. I'm here at the NBA Combine. So
Speaker 3: any apologies if they're buzzes and normal kind of arena
Speaker 3: sounds in the background.
Speaker 2: No, I actually kind of like it.
Speaker 1: When I hear whistles and sneakers sneaking on the floor,
Speaker 1: it makes it makes me miss basketball. So I think
Speaker 1: we'll take the background ambient noise. So, Sarah, you were
Speaker 1: in the room when it was revealed the Jazz would
Speaker 1: fall to five. Obviously, folks around here are not too thrilled.
Speaker 1: Let's just talk about your experience big picture. What was
Speaker 1: it like to kind of be there and experience everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I've been in that room multiple times.
Speaker 3: At this point, and that was certainly the most unique
Speaker 3: experiencing in there. You know, it's the opposite of how
Speaker 3: the lottery is revealed on television, right where you start
Speaker 3: with fifteen and you end at one, and when you're
Speaker 3: in the room, number one is the first four balls drawn.
Speaker 3: So it happened very very quickly, and to say that
Speaker 3: there was nobody in the room that expected it to
Speaker 3: be Dallas would be an understatement. It was shocking, and
Speaker 3: I mean the looks that went around from NBA staff
Speaker 3: and legal and all of the team representatives and all
Speaker 3: of the media. I mean there were audible gaps and
Speaker 3: people saying, oh my god. And then very very quickly,
Speaker 3: like within forty seconds after that, the second pick of
Speaker 3: the San Antonio and it was the same reaction. I've
Speaker 3: just just stunned. Everybody in the room, was Donne.
Speaker 1: You did a really good job of painting a picture
Speaker 1: for the d News And for our listeners who have
Speaker 1: not read that, I would encourage you to go to
Speaker 1: Sarah's Twitter profile and click on the links. So for
Speaker 1: our listeners that haven't read your piece, I want you
Speaker 1: to tell us when Justin Zanik realized the Jazz fate
Speaker 1: and what his reaction was that you witnessed.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm I mean I was sitting maybe five six
Speaker 3: feet away from Justin and he's sitting next to Washington
Speaker 3: Wizards general manager Will Dawkins. They both have, you know,
Speaker 3: an equal percent chance shot at the number one pick,
Speaker 3: and you know, before the pick is made or before
Speaker 3: the balls are drawn, you know, there's nervous, nervous toe
Speaker 3: tapping and uh, you know, kind of writing down on
Speaker 3: pieces of paper in front of you, just to have
Speaker 3: something to do with your hands. And Justin, I'm you know,
Speaker 3: all of the team representatives, all of the reporters, everbody
Speaker 3: in the room has a list of all of the
Speaker 3: number combinations possible and the teams that they're as fined too,
Speaker 3: so kind of before everything starts, you kind of get
Speaker 3: a sense of what you're looking for. You know, even
Speaker 3: though they're going to call it out and announce it,
Speaker 3: you want to make sure to follow along if you can.
Speaker 3: And what was obvious was number one. All of the
Speaker 3: Jazz's combinations had the number one, so a number one
Speaker 3: had to be drawn. Also, what was obvious was that
Speaker 3: the Jazz, in their number combinations, they could have handled
Speaker 3: two double digit numbers, three double digit numbers. It wouldn't
Speaker 3: have been a jazz number. So another thing to kind
Speaker 3: of keep in mind when you're watching the balls game drawn.
Speaker 3: First number comes up, it's double digits. That's fine. Second
Speaker 3: number comes up, it's a double digit number, also fine.
Speaker 3: And then the third one comes up and it's another
Speaker 3: double digit number, and Justin put his pin down and
Speaker 3: just kind of knew that it was gone. It was
Speaker 3: over before even the fourth ball was drawn. And when
Speaker 3: it was announced Dallas, him and Will Dawkins looked at
Speaker 3: each other, looked back down at the papers in front
Speaker 3: of them, and looked at each other. They just they
Speaker 3: didn't know what to do other than kind of stare
Speaker 3: at each other and understand how drastically things were about
Speaker 3: to change. And you know, we're talking about five minutes
Speaker 3: before that, Justin Zannik telling me about, you know, the
Speaker 3: lucky bracelet that he has on but he's never taken off,
Speaker 3: and he's wearing his Utah jazz box. And then five
Speaker 3: minutes after you have people shaking his hand and looking
Speaker 3: at him like his dog died. And so the just
Speaker 3: the shift in the room was immense.
Speaker 1: So Sarah, of course, you know It's an annual ride
Speaker 1: of passage in the world of pro basketball. When a
Speaker 1: fan base is upset that their team didn't get the
Speaker 1: number one overall pick or the number two overall pick,
Speaker 1: to then ques uestion in this process and discuss whether
Speaker 1: or not it's legitimate, whether or not it's done with integrity,
Speaker 1: and whether or not the fix is in. No Mavericks
Speaker 1: fans are complaining about the lottery. No Spurs fans, well,
Speaker 1: no Spurs fans should ever complain about the lottery, Let's
Speaker 1: be very clear about that. But fans of the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 1: fans of the New Orleans Pelicans, fans of the well,
Speaker 1: the Pelicans don't have any beef either.
Speaker 2: But now I'm getting lost in the weeds.
Speaker 1: Washington, Charlotte, Portland, the fan bases of teams that move
Speaker 1: down with Cooper flag available at the top are all
Speaker 1: crying foul. I find it intellectually embarrassing that every time
Speaker 1: your candidate doesn't win an election you cry that it's rigged,
Speaker 1: or every time your team doesn't win a lottery, you
Speaker 1: cry that it's rigged.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of where we're at.
Speaker 1: But since you saw the process and have seen the process.
Speaker 1: I will simply ask you, is this a fair way
Speaker 1: to do this? Or is there anything that does not
Speaker 1: smell right in your opinion?
Speaker 3: Two different questions. Right is it fair? It depends on
Speaker 3: how we define fair. Right is it fair because the
Speaker 3: system and all the rules and the machinations of it
Speaker 3: are set up before you go in and you know
Speaker 3: what you're signing up for, then yeah, that's fair. Is
Speaker 3: it fair that the worst teams in the league only
Speaker 3: get a fourteen percent chance? Well that was that was
Speaker 3: the goal of the league, right, Like, this is Adam
Speaker 3: Silver's goal. And you know they they talked about this
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen, they put it into action in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: They flatten the lottery odds. And the fact of the
Speaker 3: matter is that discouraging tanking was the reason and the
Speaker 3: three teams that tanked the most egregiously did not get
Speaker 3: what they wanted this year. And so frankly, the like
Speaker 3: that has worked. And in the eyes of the people
Speaker 3: that set up that sysn't it's fair. It is the
Speaker 3: something smell bad? Is it rigged? Absolutely not. There's just
Speaker 3: like the idea that right, like the prevailing conspiracy theory.
Speaker 3: If we're talking about that would be well, the Mavericks
Speaker 3: gave the Lakers Luca at the bidding of the NBA
Speaker 3: League Office or you know, Brass and so now they're
Speaker 3: rewarding Dallas. So does that mean the NDIA League office
Speaker 3: also hurt Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis? Like did they
Speaker 3: cause those injuries too? And frankly, if the NBA League
Speaker 3: Office had the power and will to make these things happen,
Speaker 3: I don't think they care about Dallas. If they wanted
Speaker 3: Luca to go to the Lakers, and that is actually
Speaker 3: how these things happened. Why reward Dallas? If they're that powerful,
Speaker 3: they don't need to give them anything.
Speaker 2: Well played?
Speaker 1: And I probably should have just asked whether or not
Speaker 1: it's rigged, But I do want to lean into the
Speaker 1: answer you gave me for the first part of a
Speaker 1: clunky question and ask you whether or not you like
Speaker 1: what the league has done. Do you think it was
Speaker 1: the right thing to flatten the odds in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and therefore, uh, you know, the motivation is to dissuade
Speaker 1: tanking and Tim Bontemps from ESPN wrote a piece today
Speaker 1: quoting a number of different executives that were celebrating the
Speaker 1: fact that the Jazz and the Wizards specifically did not
Speaker 1: get the number one overall pick because people around the
Speaker 1: league don't seem to respect a team that is unserious
Speaker 1: about competing, unserious about competition. Do you think the NBA
Speaker 1: needs to look at this process though, and maybe look
Speaker 1: at what the NFL does by simply rewarding the worst
Speaker 1: teams with the best picks in the draft?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I think any system that you have
Speaker 3: where there's going to be like a percentage chance, I
Speaker 3: kind of think you're going to get the same results. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: even when it was just before it was the flat
Speaker 3: and fourteen percent, right, you were getting the number the one,
Speaker 3: the first overall worst record had a twenty five percent chance.
Speaker 3: That's a lot better. That feels a lot better than
Speaker 3: fourteen percent chance. And so I think you get a
Speaker 3: number of teams who are thinking, well, if we can
Speaker 3: be the absolute worst, then we have a really good shot.
Speaker 3: Flattening the odds just means okay, well, then there's more
Speaker 3: teams that are going to get a stab at it,
Speaker 3: and maybe you can win it if you have at
Speaker 3: one point absent chance, right, And so I think any
Speaker 3: system with a percentage is probably not going to discourage
Speaker 3: tanking enough to actually make it go away. If you
Speaker 3: went to a system where it was just like, yes,
Speaker 3: the worst overall team the worst record gets the number
Speaker 3: one pick, and it just goes in order like that.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that means that you get you know, three,
Speaker 3: four or five teams jockeying for that worst overall record
Speaker 3: every season, don't I don't know what that looks like.
Speaker 3: And so it feels like, yeah, I mean, I guess
Speaker 3: I just still go back to like it's fair in
Speaker 3: the ways the NBA wants it to be fair. It's
Speaker 3: probably impossible at this point to make it feel fair
Speaker 3: for everyone involved, like team wise and fan wise. You know,
Speaker 3: no one is going to be happy no matter how
Speaker 3: this all shakes out. And at this point, you're probably
Speaker 3: never going to discourage tanking unless you start changing player
Speaker 3: participation policy in a way, way, way, different way than
Speaker 3: the NBA currently does it.
Speaker 1: So now this brings up a really interesting discussion, Sarah,
Speaker 1: because I'm not a proponent of tanking all the time,
Speaker 1: but in certain unique situations, I am a proponent of tanking.
Speaker 1: And in the situation where the Jazz have found themselves in.
Speaker 1: For the past three years, my belief has been that
Speaker 1: they need to go all in to give themselves the
Speaker 1: best chance at some of these prospects, namely Victor webbin Ya.
Speaker 1: I'm a couple of years ago, namely Cooper Flag this year.
Speaker 1: So I cannot sit here and say, you know that
Speaker 1: I disagree with what they did last year.
Speaker 2: That would make me a hypocrite.
Speaker 1: But now that we have the data, since two thousand
Speaker 1: nine nineteen, there are six drafts where the worst team
Speaker 1: has not received the number one overall pick, And there
Speaker 1: are conversations about basketball gods and karma, and if you
Speaker 1: are not approaching this endeavor with integrity, to try to
Speaker 1: be serious about competition, maybe you don't deserve to be
Speaker 1: rewarded for such a lackadaisical approach. Have you changed your
Speaker 1: opinion on what the Jazz should continue to do moving forward.
Speaker 3: I haven't. I still think they should tank, and I
Speaker 3: did this year. I've If anything, what this lottery showed
Speaker 3: me is that karma is not real. You can trade
Speaker 3: Luka Doncic and have the most ridiculed front office in
Speaker 3: the NBA and you can still get rewarded. So basketball
Speaker 3: karma does not work the way that I ever thought
Speaker 3: that it did, And the Jazz are not getting a
Speaker 3: top tier free agent right now. Maybe they would have
Speaker 3: had a chance of something if they landed Super Flag,
Speaker 3: But you've got to get players to get players, and
Speaker 3: the way for them to start doing that is to
Speaker 3: the draft. And next year they've got a top eight
Speaker 3: protected pick that if it falls out of that they
Speaker 3: have to send it to Okay. See and why would
Speaker 3: you let that go? Why would you try to get
Speaker 3: twenty four to twenty five wins by playing lowry and
Speaker 3: a bunch of rookies and second year players just so
Speaker 3: that you can lose that pick and see another Western
Speaker 3: Conference foe get the pick that you would have had.
Speaker 3: I think it's the best strategy right now.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. No one around he wants to hear it.
Speaker 1: Do you think the Jazz will continue this strategy now?
Speaker 1: And Sarah, every time I've had you on since the
Speaker 1: end of the season, I've tried to kind of kick
Speaker 1: the tires on what could the offseason look like? But
Speaker 1: you were good to tell us we had to wait
Speaker 1: until Monday. Well we waited until Monday. Now they have
Speaker 1: the fifth pick. How do you think this color is
Speaker 1: the context of what this offseason will look like for
Speaker 1: the Jazz.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, before the lottery, my answer
Speaker 3: to that question was usually, you know, if they land Cooper,
Speaker 3: the only thing that would keep them from tanking in
Speaker 3: a twenty five to twenty six season would be if
Speaker 3: they were to go out and get another big time
Speaker 3: player to put on the team. I think that that
Speaker 3: is still my answer, even though they didn't Vancouver. Unless
Speaker 3: they make a big trade, unless they use the number
Speaker 3: five pick in this year's draft plus some other matching
Speaker 3: salary assets to go and get a big time player,
Speaker 3: I fully expect for them to do the same thing.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a rinse, washed and repeat of
Speaker 3: last year.
Speaker 2: Okay, so excuse me.
Speaker 1: Let's move over to the Let's see, I'll call it
Speaker 1: the slight possibility that the Jazz are involved in a
Speaker 1: trade that lands a notable piece here in the market.
Speaker 1: So as we know, it has been reported that Giannis
Speaker 1: is open to being traded from Milwaukee. There are teams
Speaker 1: like the Phoenix Suns that have hard decisions to make
Speaker 1: about really good players that are making a lot of
Speaker 1: money for a team that didn't do anything last year.
Speaker 1: If the Boston Celtics lose tonight, and quite frankly, Sarah,
Speaker 1: even if they don't, this is a new owner group that,
Speaker 1: according to Bobby Mark's calculation, is going to be faced
Speaker 1: with a luxury tax bill of north of five hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars.
Speaker 2: Okay, So on one hand.
Speaker 1: We know that there will be very good players on
Speaker 1: the open market there to be had. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: I have a hard time seeing the Jazz come up
Speaker 1: with a package that's analogous to what OKC can put together,
Speaker 1: what Houston could put together, and certainly what San Antonio
Speaker 1: could put together.
Speaker 2: Do you think there's.
Speaker 1: Any chance that the Jazz have enough and we'll get
Speaker 1: involved to land a viable piece here in the market
Speaker 1: that could really invigorate this fan base.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, if Milwaukee actually wants to start having
Speaker 3: like real conversations about potentially moving meanness, I think that
Speaker 3: the Jazz would certainly try to be involved, But as
Speaker 3: you said, I don't think the deal that they could
Speaker 3: offer would be good enough. When you consider the types
Speaker 3: of players and picks that you could get from other teams.
Speaker 3: You could get more like higher quantity assets probably from
Speaker 3: the Jazz, but you're not going to get you know,
Speaker 3: the number two pick, or you know, let's not leave
Speaker 3: Dallas out of this either, right, Like they could do
Speaker 3: a Cooper Yanni slip if they wanted to. And so
Speaker 3: there are a lot of teams that have a lot
Speaker 3: of things like if you think about the way that
Speaker 3: Milwaukee is kind of looking at their immediate future, they
Speaker 3: don't have assets, they don't have someone that's going to
Speaker 3: take the place of Dame once he actually gets healthy
Speaker 3: and is probably done with his career at that point.
Speaker 3: If they're giving up on Giannis, they need to have
Speaker 3: something really good to look to, and the Jazz don't
Speaker 3: have that thing to give them, and so it's really
Speaker 3: hard for me to imagine them being in the running.
Speaker 1: All right, moving over to if we operate off the
Speaker 1: premise that the Jazz stay at five, and there are
Speaker 1: a number of reports out there that the Jazz are
Speaker 1: going to try really hard to move up, and Zanak
Speaker 1: himself talked about all the possibilities. Tim McMahon, who joined
Speaker 1: us yesterday, is reporting that the ownership of the Dallas
Speaker 1: Mavericks has laid the edict down that we are keeping
Speaker 1: one and we are drafting Cooper Flag. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's a consensus that Dylan Harper's too. And then we
Speaker 1: get into the Ace Bailey, VJ Edgecomb, Jeremiah Fears, Trey Johnson,
Speaker 1: the Mallawatch kid from Duke, We get into that portion,
Speaker 1: Conk Nipple as well. Give us a few names, Sarah
Speaker 1: at five that you think will be there that the
Speaker 1: Jazz would take a look at, and maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of options that they could draft.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean all the names that you said just
Speaker 3: now are absolutely in the running, right, Trey Johnson, VJ. Edgecomb,
Speaker 3: Ace Bailey, Jeremiah, Jeremiah Fears, Conk Nipple. I would also
Speaker 3: put in Derrek Queen probably in that mix. That's probably
Speaker 3: the group of guys that you're looking at if you
Speaker 3: if they decide to keep number five. And I mean
Speaker 3: I talked to all of those players earlier today, and
Speaker 3: you know there's certain things that like if I was
Speaker 3: an NBAGM that would really scare me about Summer Home.
Speaker 3: I mean, a Staley's a guy who doesn't pass the ball,
Speaker 3: shoots a ton of mid rain shots. He's another project, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, even you know VJ. Edgecomb, who seems like
Speaker 3: kind of a complete two way player, he's got some
Speaker 3: efficiency issues and he's got some ball handling issues that
Speaker 3: would need to be worked out. Like, none of these
Speaker 3: guys are going to come in as like complete, ready
Speaker 3: to go blue chip prospects. And so I think that
Speaker 3: one of the things that needs to be thought about
Speaker 3: kind of just beyond this draft is how many more
Speaker 3: projects are the Jazz going to be willing to take on?
Speaker 3: And at some point over the next you know, between
Speaker 3: now and probably next year's draft, Like, there's going to
Speaker 3: need to be a lot of decisions made because at
Speaker 3: this point you've got Walker Tesler, Taylor Hendrix, Fiante, George,
Speaker 3: Bryce Sentaba, Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier, Kyle Philipowski, potentially four
Speaker 3: draft picks this year taking over the four non guaranteed
Speaker 3: player spots that were on the roster last year. Next
Speaker 3: year's draft, how many moreward young players are you going
Speaker 3: to bring on? You can't keep them all, and a
Speaker 3: team like that it's not going to win. So there
Speaker 3: are some big decisions about kind of who to cup
Speaker 3: bait win between now and then.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is, so, Sarah, if we move over into
Speaker 1: the space and it's really hard to have this exercise
Speaker 1: done sitting here in mid May without knowing who's going
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 2: On the roster. But if the.
Speaker 1: Jazz have done their calculation, if they decide that we
Speaker 1: are going to be serious about competing, if they decide
Speaker 1: that we are not going to invent injuries, if they
Speaker 1: decide that they are going to play their best possible
Speaker 1: lineups every single night, what's best case scenario for them
Speaker 1: next season? If there's no sitting, marketings, not shooting seven
Speaker 1: threes a night, if Collins and Sexton and Clarkson, if
Speaker 1: they go all in to maximize who this roster is,
Speaker 1: what does it look like next year?
Speaker 3: Honestly, Like, I think, obviously they win more games than
Speaker 3: they did this year, but you're probably still looking at
Speaker 3: a situation where you, like, honestly, the best case scenario
Speaker 3: from a wins perspective is you win some more games,
Speaker 3: but not enough to actually make it to play in
Speaker 3: which would be the worst case scenario because then you
Speaker 3: lose your pick. And so I just don't think that
Speaker 3: this team has enough right now, especially with how many
Speaker 3: young players you're going to have on the roster, Like
Speaker 3: there's just no depth. If you're considering considering it talent wise, right,
Speaker 3: They're too young, they're too inexperienced, They're not ready for
Speaker 3: any of that right now. And so best case scenario
Speaker 3: is that they decide to go the other way, loose
Speaker 3: and games and keep their pick.
Speaker 1: I'm with you there, all right, Sarah. Well, a rough
Speaker 1: week for jazz. Hopefully better times ahead. Enjoy Chicago and
Speaker 1: travel safe.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks a lot. Talk to Sre Todd.
Speaker 1: Covers the Utah Jazz for the des Red News. She
Speaker 1: has three really good pieces up on her experience being
Speaker 1: in the room, the reaction of Justin Zanik, and the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz contingent. All those can be found on her
Speaker 1: Twitter page at NBA Sarah is where you find her.
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